Black and White (A Comic? Novel?)
One of my favorite new things to do in the last 2 years at Comic Con is to visit all of the book publisher booths, like Penguin and Del Rey, and pickup full-on copies of all of their most recent sci-fi/fantasy/superhero/horror books that they’re promoting by giving away for free. Seriously, some of the best swag I’ve found in recent years have come from book publishers, and their lines are usually far easier to navigate and much more reasonable that the stagnant fan-pool that rotates around the big blockbuster movie studios every year.
One of my 2009-acquisitions is about two super-powered heroines, Iridium and Jet, who end up fighting on different sides of the law. Now, this is the ‘law’ of a post-apocalyptic scientific future run by a giant evil corporation, so make of it what you will. The novel, Black and White
by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge, is skim-worthy but not delve-worthy. The super-thin, super-smart, super-good-looking-but-broken heroines are only matched in shallowness by their painfully contrived and short, always-state-the-obvious dialog. The “good girl” hero is a shadow power who dresses like Batman and the “supervillain” chick is a “light power” who dresses all in white, for christsake! Anyone else suffocating under the originality of the juxtapositions in here?
My dalliance with these mediocre marvels began about a month ago, when I read the first two chapters at Comic Con. It had seemed a lot more promising back then. I read another third last night, and woke up in the morning at 4am and just read the last two chapters in my insomnia. In total, I think I let drop about 60% of the book, and I did not miss anything for skipping. I know some people feel very strongly about reading the end of a book, and some of my friends look at me aghast when I tell them what I do. But let’s consider here: why do people *not* read the ending of a book in advance?
I would argue that it’s because they feel that knowing the ending in advance spoils the story. Destroys the satisfaction of the ending. You don’t get the suspense of waiting to find out, or the adrenaline of hitting the climax. But for me, it’s just the opposite. Especially if I *know* I’m reading a pedantic piece of near-crap and I just want to get through it as quick as possible. Knowing the ending keeps me from fretting about whether my narrative suspicions are wrong or right, and calms me down enough to enjoy the rest of the story. It helps me to evaluate the writing better because I can take a step back and check out how the writer is building to the climax. I attribute this to years of perversion studying way too much literature, but I enjoy looking at another writer’s craftsmanship and dissecting how it was put together, even if it was mediocre writing. So, while for some knowing the ending “spoils” the story, I think that the full entirety of a novel is not just its “story,” but also its construction and planning, and reading the ending helps me better enjoy and appreciate the process that gets the story there instead of getting frustrated by the poor quality of the writing and angry at the crappy pace. And yeah, I *could* also do that by rereading the book again after I read it the first time, but if I can barely finish the book in its entirety the first time around, why the Hell would I read it again for kicks?
Now, there are *some* books that I will not skip to the end of find out. Terry Pratchett is one author I enjoy from beginning to end. Eoin Colfer is another. William Boniface and Hilari Belli two close thirds. (Although in the case of Bell, I broke that rule once for an interminable, but enjoyable, trilogy she wrote.)
So ultimately, my feelings on the Black and White book: mediocre action, cheesy dialog, and too much girl baggage. Great read for girl comic readers looking for a female-oriented perspective, terrible for anyone looking for a genuinely good comic story. (No Alan Moore, you are not, Jackie and Caitlin.) For a decent comic-book-novel-spin try Austin Grossman’s better written Soon I will be Invincible. Same dual-p.o.v. split chapters, plus some actual surprise twists that you won’t see coming in chapter 2.
Rating: C+