Urasawa Naoki - Pluto, vol. 07-08 (Eng. trans.)

Wow! An Urasawa series that ends before it hits the double digits!

( Spoilers are the greatest robot on Earth! )

Overall, I still have some issues with the way Urasawa deals with the portrayal of Middle Eastern characters, as well as with the metaphor of individual and institutional prejudice against robots equaling racism. I found the original volume of Astro Boy that this is based on to be relatively uninteresting and focused on the tournament-style fighting that can be so frequently found in shounen, but Urasawa does an excellent job of looking at more of the underlying issues without ever changing the essential character of Atom. And although he doesn't up the number of female characters by much, I like his Uran so much more! But really, the main surprise for me was how much I loved Gesicht, a fairly one-off character from the original. Urasawa similarly adds depth to all the robots in the original, but Gesicht in particular walks that line between man and monster that Urasawa so likes to examine in the series of his that I've read.

The eight-volume length also allows me to keep track of the plot better, and to my surprise, Urasawa actually manages to pull together most of his loose ends. That said, while I think this may be a better-constructed and more grown up series than 20th Century Boys, I miss the latter's rush of adrenaline and idtastic ideas.

Ross, Julia - Clandestine

This is book three of Ross' Wyldshay trilogy, which I apparently read book 2 of way back when.

Sarah Callaway is searching for her missing cousin Rachel, and she believes that Guy Devoran is the only person who can help her find her cousin. Unfortunately, though Guy has his own reasons for looking for Rachel, he can't tell Sarah them, which is kind of a problem when he starts to fall in love with her.

First: yay for the heroine not having unblemished ivory/porcelain/alabaster/cream/etc skin and having lots and lots and lots of freckles!

That said, I didn't get much of the heroine's personality, and although she's interested in botany and it plays a minor role throughout the book, it felt more slapped on than an integral part of her personality. Guy I did like, despite the Big Secret, and I could actually understand why he didn't divulge Big Secret right and the start and why he kept keeping it secret. Also, amazingly, he seems to be a fairly nice guy, and when he is a jerk, he usually owns up to it and apologizes later.

There's also a nice role reversal when Guy thinks Sarah sleeping with him means she loves him and will marry him.

Other than that, I read this two days ago and have already forgotten most of it. Oh! Wait, no. I remember I was extremely annoyed by the sequelitis; Guy is bosom buddies with the heroes of the previous two books and they go around swearing they will risk their lives for each other, and although the heroine of the first book thankfully doesn't show up (she's off having a baby of course), Miracle does. Alas, much as I love female friendships, I hate the whole "I have never met you before but since you are the heroine of the next book, I am certain we will get along swimmingly and will promise you things despite having known your love interest for many more years and not having any reason beyond heroine-of-book to trust you."

Overall, the prose and the hero is above average for most romances, but I ended up feeling like this was on the blah side of okay.