Green Lantern : Book 1

Rating:
Summary: Second rate script, Little Understanding
Review: Mr. Priest's script writing skills are very under-developed, and like wise his comic and prose writing never seems to get much beyound writing two dimensional charaters in one dimensional stories. This book shows that he has little understanding of Green Lantern and his take on the GL stories are about as unfocused as oil and water are. If you like Green Lantern, stay away from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but far from great
Review: Kyle Rayner, the newest person to wear the Green Lantern mantle, is trying to live his life, balancing being a superhero with maintaining his relationship with his girlfriend, Jade. And, just as things are becoming more and more confused, trouble walks into his life in the form of a local exterminator, who Jade seems to be falling in love with. But, this exterminator is more than he appears to be. Sinestro, the age old enemy of the Green Lantern Corps, left sleepers behind to facilitate the conquest of the Earth, and now it is up to Kyle Rayner to save the day, and his girlfriend.

This novel (NOT a graphic novel!) started out with some interesting action in 1992, and then returned to the present, where it promptly went to sleep. Half way through the book, the action began to pick up again and finally got hot at the end. I did not find the characters very interesting, and never became interested in them or their personal problems (which was a cornerstone of the story).

But, that said, I did enjoy the premise of the book and enjoyed seeing Green Lantern in action, saving the day with his own powers. I just hope that the next books in the series are better made. If you are a Green Lantern or Justice League of America fan, then you will enjoy this new addition to the genre. If, however, you are looking for an exciting superhero story, then I am afraid that this book will disappoint you.


Rating:
Summary: Story is OK, writing and proofreading not so much
Review: This novel sees the return of Sinestro in a strange fashion. Time travel plays a part in delivering a ring to a combat medic in WWII. The ring lies unused for years until a little boy finds it. This ring becomes the pivotal part of the story, as it turns the boy into a new Sinestro.

There is a scene that takes place in 1972 (though the book gives 1992 in the heading, which is a missed typo, and later the characters refer to 1971) with Hal Jordan, Green Arrow and Black Canary fighting Sinestro and defeating him handily. This passage really seems pointless to me, as it might have been a factor later in the book, but seemed not to be. Perhaps this will be relevant in the sequel(s). There is also an inconsitency in one part of this scene when Green Arrow gives his bow to Canary, but then still has his bow...?

Hmm, anyway, we move to the present day and get tons of Kyle Raynor agonizing over his personal life, while his girlfriend Jade keeps turning away his offer to commit for real. This really reads like high school claptrap, but it is at least somewhat well-done. This relationship issue ends up leading to the abduction of Jade by Sinestro, with whom she was kinda messing around. So GL has to follow, he gets in trouble, they have to work together to get free, somewhat typical plot development.

There are cameos by Plasticman, Hal Jordan as the Spector, Superman, and the old golden age Green Lantern, Jade's father. Only Spector really seems important to the story, though he does not do much more than change something here, influence something there. We get a lot of angst in his inner thoughts as well. Not too badly done, though.

The resolution is rather abrupt, though it did not really leave anything hanging, which I appreciated. Too many first parts of trilogies leave things obviously open, which vexes me. However, the writing style of this novel was not great to me. Nearly every paragraph relies upon simile and metaphor to explain things, and the references are so contemporary that the book may be unreadable 10-20 years from now. It really got old fast. Also, there was a fretfully large population of typos and word mixups, like "the" for "they" and "breath" for "breathe." I think that a word processing spell check was used, but that a thorough proofread was not performed.

However, the story was not terrible, though it was not a very long book to pay hardcover price for. That, combined with the poor quality control, leads me to recommend that people wait for the paperback version of this one.