Lucifer: Volume 07 (2005)

 Exodus (2005)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrators: Peter Gross / Ryan Kelly | Page Count: 168

"I served our Father faithfully, and my reward was to be chastised for not being you."

Volume 07 of 11 in the Lucifer series. The Morningstar is forced to take preventative measures to ensure the safety of his property. After the effort expelled to create and then to keep it, to leave it open to God's whim now would be folly. The duty forces him into a position with the Heavenly Host that he'd rather avoid, but sometimes circumstance force the hand of even angels.

Elsewhere, the secondary characters are given more to do, in a more thought-out and interesting storyline than last time. And while that leaves Lucifer absent a lot of the time, it really didn't matter because the parallel storylines kept my attention diverted.

There's a lot of humour in Exodus. It was unexpected but not unwelcome after the drawn-out nature of the previous book. The fugly little fallen Cherub Gaudium gets a chance to shine. He and his sister could sustain an off-shoot of their own, about the domestic problems of two incompetent siblings. I’d buy it.

Rodan (1956)

Rodan (1956)

Dir. Ishirō Honda

If you were to list the events of Rodan as a simple flowchart, it'll read just like many of the less inventive kaijū eiga from the era:

Human story

|

Creature(s) awaken(s) + atomic power is mentioned

|

Creature(s) rampage during last 30 mins + JSDF shoot weapons repeatedly to no avail

|

Quick fix

|

End.

What sets it apart is that the human story it offers up is better than most. There’s a feeling of genuine concern between the folks of the small coal mining village, while the terror they experience is shared among the workers and the usually distant decision makers.

Perfect Blue: Awaken from a Dream (2018)

Perfect Blue: Awaken from a Dream (2018)

Author: Yoshikazu Takeuchi | Translator: Nathan A. Collins | Page Count: 196

'The screen glowed in monochrome static, the snow-like pattern punctuated by pulsing flashes in the signal, each flash accompanied by an abrasive noise like a cicada's call.'

The blurb on the back cover describes it as a 'sequel' to Yoshikazu Takeuchi's Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis (2018), but it isn't that at all. And unlike CM, it's not a novel, but rather three separate short stories, similarly set in the pop-idol world.

I didn't enjoy the previous novel, but I'd foolishly bought Awaken from a Dream before reading the other, so I read it too, but with much lower expectations than I had for CM. I won't go into detail about each one because it would require giving the collection more time than I feel it warrants.

Takeuchi's basic template for a story is as follows:

Stargate SG-1: Season 07 (2003-04)

SG-1: Season 07 (2003-04)

Dirs. Various | 22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

Like the previous year, a significant personnel change had a dramatic impact on the core team.

It limits what I can say without diving into spoiler territory. To do the job properly, therefore, I'll need to drop some broad SPOILERS hereafter.

Unfortunately, even for those who stopped reading before now, the opening credits give the game away before the first episode has even begun, revealing the 'new' member of SG-1.

For a time it works well as a five-man team, but the writers chose instead to push out Jonas Quin (Corin Nemec), who spent much of the previous year finding and establishing his unique role.

Thereafter things progress steadily, with the search for new alliances and advanced technology that can be used and/or adapted to combat the diabolical Goa'uld System Lords, who remain the primary threat for the Tau'ri.