Published by Sphere, 2016, 352 pages. So you thought we’d come to the end of the Harry Potter story…well, think again. JK Rowling, with some help this time, has written another instalment. This one takes place 19 years after the events of the last Potter book, and the plot revolves around Harry’s second son, Albus …
Continue reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling, John Thorne and John Tiffany
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004, 782 pages. England, early 1800s. The country is at war with France under Napolean. Magic—the practical kind, anyway—has not been seen in the land for hundreds of years. The only magicians left are theoreticians, men who had never caused a “leaf to tremble upon a tree or made one mote …
Continue reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: Susanna Clarke
Published by Vertigo, 1995, 288 pages. Written in the 1980s, this graphic novel is set in another one of Alan Moore’s dystopian alternative futures. It’s the late 1990s in Britain. A war and a near-miss nuclear conflict has led to the takeover by a fascist government, with Adam Susan at its head. The government is …
Continue reading V for Vendetta: written by Alan Moore, illustrated by David Lloyd
Published by Titan Books, 1986, 414 pages. It is 1985, and Richard Nixon is into his fifth term as president of the United States. The superheroes (the watchmen), who have been helping the country, are outlawed. They are now in hiding, retired or secretly working for the US government. One night in October, a watchman, …
Continue reading Watchmen: written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons
Published by Sceptre, 2012 This is a strange and beautifully written tale told by two young women, Mary and Morgan. Mary lives in a community on an island where the islanders trade with the “tall men” who come from the mainland. Boys on the island start to disappear, and Mary suspects the tall men. One …
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