Recently Read – Normal, Saga #9, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Paper Girls #3

Normal by Warren Ellis
Published: 2016
Narrated by: John Hodgman
Series: Normal #1-4
Length: 03:24 (148 pages)

I love Warren Ellis as a comic writer, even though it’s been years since I read anything by him, but he’s been a little hit or miss as a novelist. I really disliked Crooked Little Vein but enjoyed Gun Machine. This one falls somewhere between the two.

I listened to this as a single audiobook, but I see now that it was originally released serially in four installments. Maybe it read better in small chunks like that, where each stood as essentially a fictionalized essay around digital culture, but as a full work, it’s a bit jarring how abruptly it ends. I can respect it in a way, as he said what he wanted to say (constant connectivity and the increase of digital surveillance means we’re fucked) and got out. It’s more of a thought experiment than a story, but he finished his thought right as I was starting to settle down into the narrative.

Saga, Vol. 9 by Brian K. Vaughan
Illustrated by: Fiona Staples
Publisher: Image Comics
Collects: issues #49-54
Published: 2018
Length: 160 pages

At the moment, this series feels like it could either be wrapping up soon or continuing on for another nine issues. It’s hard to say, but I think I’d be happy either way. It’s been a good run, and they’ve brought the quality back up after getting lost a bit in the middle of the series, but I’m also ready to keep reading on for the foreseeable future.

The crew are getting closer to sharing their story with the world, which may split them up forever. They try to come to terms with that fact as everyone decides what their next step will be. Big things happen in this volume, events that will change the tone of the entire series, and I’m excited to read on to see how they handle it. I read somewhere that they’re taking a year off from writing this, though, and they really did pick a hell of an issue to leave on.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Stephen Brusatte
Published: 2018
Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
Length: 10:07 (404 pages)

I wanted to be an archeologist (which, at the time, I thought involved paleontology) when I was a kid but fell off of the idea when I decided it was unlikely to be exciting, wouldn’t require much travel, and probably wouldn’t involve a whip. It felt, when I was younger, that we had most of the world figured out. The secrets of the past were already basically discovered, so there wouldn’t be much in the way of new dinosaurs or ancient tombs or relics to still be found. This book really drove home how wrong I was, as we learn that around fifty new species of dinosaurs are discovered every year and Brusatte travels the world to study them. If he wanted to, he could probably also carry a whip.

I loved this. Some reviews I’ve seen stated that they thought the chapters on dinosaurs themselves were interesting but felt there was too much information on paleontology, but I really enjoyed that this book covered both aspects. As per the title, it tells the story of the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, walking us through the span of their rule on earth and what they must have experienced in their final days. Brusatte also tells his own story, from an obsessed child to his current position of Chancellor’s Fellow in Vertebrate Paleontology at the University of Edinburgh, while explaining the timeline of the dinosaurs through fossils he and his colleges have discovered.

Brusatte also finished with the interesting point that we’re so used to saying that dinosaurs are extinct when that’s not technically the case. Over 10,000 direct descendants still exist in the world, including the humble seagull.

Paper Girls, Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan
Illustrated by: Cliff Chiang
Publisher: Image Comics
Collects: issues #11-15
Published: 2017
Length: 128 pages

The girls are thirteen thousand years in the past, finding themselves wrapped up in a prehistoric child-custody battle, when they come across the inventor of time travel. It’s also becoming clear that the rifts between time are starting to becoming worse.

This was a lot of fun, but it’s all feeling a bit disjointed. It is supposed to feel that way, being a purposefully convoluted time-travel story, and I’m sure he’ll be able to tie it together in an interesting way, but I’m beginning to wonder if he’ll be able to do it in a way that makes me care. Saga is just as all over the place, jumping from one idea to another, but I think Vaughan took the time to flesh out the characters and their relationships in a way that hasn’t really happened here. We are learning more about the characters, but it just hasn’t been as effective for me.

Still, it was an exciting read, and I’m interested to see what happens in volume four.