Atmosphere: Gellis, Spider-Man and Vande Velde

I was trying to work out what was wrong with Overstars Mail: Imperial Challenge by Roberta Gellis; which is a perfectly competent adventure cum mystery story set in an future interstellar empire on one level, yet totally unsatisfactory on every other level. Then I read a quote by C.S. Lewis about the importance of atmosphere in book - world building they call it now I think. Gellis's book is completely devoid of anything that would tell you what sort of society you are reading about. You could be in any age or time, if the action wasn't set on a spaceship; which has obviously been chosen to give a small group of suspects. Not really worth reading.

The Best of Spider-Man: Vol 2 disconcertingly has 3 different artists with very different artistic styles in the one volume, which somewhat ruins the atmosphere. The second artist could not bring himself to draw wrinkles, so Aunt May's supposedly elderly face looks like she has been face lifted and botoxed till her face is a skull with skin stretched over it, yuck. Apart from thinking that choosing today's emotions as your major guide to life's big decisions is bound to lead to tears and regrets, I quite enjoyed it.

Ghost of a Hanged Man by Vivian Vande Velde is a children's ghost story with an abundance of excellently done atmosphere, both as a ghost story and as a picture of a place and time. There is nothing unusual about the story, except that it is so well done it is worth reading.

Overstars Mail first published 2004, The Best of Spider-Man in 2003 (I am not sure whether it the year's best for 2002 or 2003), Ghost of Hanged man first published 1998

Stan Lee, Smith and Colfer

We'll go from best to worst here. Alexa is a comic book (or graphic novel if you are under 35), I read the first 3 episodes, and it was quite interesting till the last few pages of episode 3 where it went all obvious and ordinary. Though perhaps I should mention this is the first graphic novel I have read in 20 years or so. Alexa is a comic book artist who objects to the normal depiction of females in graphic novels by wearing skintight jeans and skivvy. This comic is drawn by males, what a surprise.

Behold, a Mystery! by Joan Smith is a Regency romance cum mystery, quite competent (usually they are abysmal) though I skipped a few boring bits. I was only mildly interested in who done it and who the heroine would marry.

The Wish List by Eoin Colfer had a strange view of goodness, in fact a perfectly pukable view of goodness. The heroine's good deeds and bad deeds are perfectly balanced when she dies (this Ancient Egyptian theology is presented as Christian, the Pope and Martin Luther are both sobbing into their soup) so she is sent back to overbalance the scale one way or the other, by helping someone else achieve their wishes. A kiss in a television studio between two elderly people who regret not kissing in their youth is described as a moment of pure goodness (getting there has needed some deception and manipulation), complete with ethereal light. On the other hand, what seemed to me truly a moment of pure goodness later in the book, where someone asks for and receives forgiveness, in the ordinary difficult way, passed without such light. I have not read a decent story ever about someone coming back after death to fix things, they are all revoltingly sentimental at the least.

Alexa (story by Stan Lee words by Steven Roman, pictures by 8 blokes and 3 women, the women did the colouring in and the lettering) first published 2005; Behold a Mystery! first published 1994, The Wish List first published 2000.