origamibird's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
kerrig's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
elysareadsitall's review against another edition
3.0
This novelization of the graphic novel was pleasant, but I did like the graphic novel version more. Sometimes it was obviously trying to describe things from the images. I wished Hama had moved farther from the original text to really make this its own product. The shifting perspectives were really interesting to follow the story.
shanhaddock's review against another edition
5.0
This was an excellent book.
One of the things that stood out to me the most about this story and the way it was written was how well it contrasted thingsThe heart of this story was so internal that I think prose was the perfect format for it.
The way it was written was wonderful too, though I found one viewpoint being in first and all the others in third a bit jarring. I usually detest works in present tense, but in this novel it added to the feeling of immediacy. And the descriptions were wonderful; I have a rather non-visual imagination, yet I could picture what places looked like clearly.
There also were some amusingly phrased bits. One of my favorites was: “She had to make do with screeching the same expletive at me over and over. I offered to teach her some more imaginative invective, but that just increased the volume.”
My only real complaints are about pacing. Early on too much time was spent filling the reader in on every possibly relevant bit of information about the Marvel universe, and the ending felt a bit rushed, like there weren’t enough pages to really complete the story properly.
Still though, wonderful book.
One of the things that stood out to me the most about this story and the way it was written was how well it contrasted things
Spoiler
. . . like the difference between Senator Wright and Captain America’s version of patriotism, the differences between Bucky as the Winter Soldier and Bucky as Bucky and Bucky as Captain America, and Sharon under her own control and Sharon under Doctor Faustus’ control. I’ve not read the comics/graphic novel this was based on, but I doubt they did nearly as good a job.The way it was written was wonderful too, though I found one viewpoint being in first and all the others in third a bit jarring. I usually detest works in present tense, but in this novel it added to the feeling of immediacy. And the descriptions were wonderful; I have a rather non-visual imagination, yet I could picture what places looked like clearly.
There also were some amusingly phrased bits. One of my favorites was: “She had to make do with screeching the same expletive at me over and over. I offered to teach her some more imaginative invective, but that just increased the volume.”
My only real complaints are about pacing. Early on too much time was spent filling the reader in on every possibly relevant bit of information about the Marvel universe, and the ending felt a bit rushed, like there weren’t enough pages to really complete the story properly.
Still though, wonderful book.
ericarobyn's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book a lot! Some of the dialogue was a little lame, though, in my opinion. I also had two chapters in a row that were the same text, just different chapter headers. So I'm wondering if that was an editing error or if I'm actually missing a chapter...
squidbag's review
3.0
It is a strange thing to read a prose adaptation of a number of issues of a comic book, especially when they span events you've already read about. The "Death" of Cap was remedied by plucking him out of the timestream and bringing him back to life, and that makes it easy to forget all this complex other stuff that was going on around the hyped event that removed him, for a time, from the Marvel Universe. Larry Hama is a crisp and gifted writer (80s kids will remember him from the 'Nam, G.I. Joe comics and file cards, and some Wolverine stuff) but here, he's more like a reporter; if someone formally filed a report on the events in Captain America comics during this period as though they actually occurred, it would read like this.
I'm not sure if this would make sense to non-Marvelites. There's a truckload of backstory and without having been privy to the unfolding drama that accompanied much of that, I don't know that most readers would care about the characters in this story. Indeed, they might seem un-fleshed out if you didn't already know them - this is hard for me to know. I enjoyed this quick and engaging refresher read - like condensed comics.
I'm not sure if this would make sense to non-Marvelites. There's a truckload of backstory and without having been privy to the unfolding drama that accompanied much of that, I don't know that most readers would care about the characters in this story. Indeed, they might seem un-fleshed out if you didn't already know them - this is hard for me to know. I enjoyed this quick and engaging refresher read - like condensed comics.
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