Hideyuki - Vampire Hunter D

I found a series by a Japanese author (the first seven books are available in translations), named Kikuchi Hideyuki. His novels take place on a future post-apocalyptic earth. Humans, some with super-human abilities, survive amidst the ruins of a Vampire -dominated civilization. The books feature the occasional werewolf or other monster as a secondary or supporting character. But here again, the focus is vampires. The series title is Vampire Hunter D. The lead character is a half-vampire. He has lived since well before the cataclysm, since before our time. I won't give all the backstory here, but it is interesting, complex, and well-thought out. The various novels in the series give us drama, horror, action, well-developed characters. I recommend this series for horror, action, and fantasy fans.

Nanten and Yatate - Cowboy Bebop

This week I'm reading a manga - Cowboy Bebop, by Nanten and Yatate. The artwork is good, the stories varied, most of them interesting. It is basically a continuation of the series. There is another manga, written after this one, that re-tells the series. I've glanced at it. I prefer the art from this series, but the stories in the second manga look good - except they wait several issues to bring Faye into the story. Apparently that manga's author does not like Faye, or she is a 'least favorite'. Myself, I like Faye. If she were real I would date her. Of course, she would probably rob me, but even so she would still be ahead of some of the other women I've dated over the years - ha, ha, ha .....sigh.

Coe - The Closed Circle

Last week I read Jonathan Coe's The Closed Circle. I had read his Dwarves of Death many years ago and enjoyed it, so I gave this recent (hardcover - 2004) release a try. In The Closed Circle, Coe does a solid job of combining various character's points of view, writing believably in the inner voice of both male and female characters. He experiments with technique, for example bringing back the epistolary style of writing on several occasions, even modernizing it to include e mail; also, he briefly adopts Joyce's method of writing dialogue, and so on. He is an author brave enough to grant his characters names like 'Malvina', and 'Pusey-Hamilton', which sounds like something from a Bond novel. This is a good book, but a bit soap opera-ish.

Thomas - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" by Dylan Thomas. Thomas is better known as a poet (ex. "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night") but here he uses prose, or, more accurately, prose-poetry. Thomas parodies the title and the structure, but not the content, of Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", and "Dubliners". Whereas Joyce gave us windows into his youth in Ireland of the late-19th to early 20th century, Thomas writes of Wales circa the 1920s. Most of the stories are straightforward, but one or two are highly symbolic and make no sense when taken literally; So the advice is do not do so.