We’re continuing our ten-year celebration of borg today with our favorite genre books. If you missed them, check out our Top 40 movieshere and our Top 40 TV series here.
We reviewed thousands of books and comics that we recommended to our readers since June 2011, and some even made it onto our favorites shelf. We don’t publish reviews of books that we read and don’t recommend, so this shortlist reflects only 23 of the Best of the Best books and book series reviewed from June 2011 to June 2021.
Author Greg Keyes is back again after his smartly written novels War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm with the newly released novelization of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Keyes takes what is a convoluted and overstuffed story on film and fleshes out the details of character motivations and plot points, revealing the film really had enough content to be released over two movies. Keyes’ novel is based on the screenplay by Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields, and a story by those men along with Max Borenstein. Of course a story credit goes to the many Japanese creators’ works over the past 65 years that the film’s kaiju monsters were mined from. If you can get past the family of humans that the plot of the latest film revolves around, there is a good story of monsters rising from the ashes that should appeal to any Godzilla fan.
Each chapter begins by pulling the reader into the in-universe historicity of the giant antagonists by quoting myths, historical works, hymns, native poems, and notable stories that make reference to large creatures, ancient gods, and the end of days. It’s a clever tool, citing works including Yeats’ The Second Coming, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Bacon’s Novum Organum, The Popul Vuh, Tennyson’s The Kraken, Hesiod, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and Job. It all provides some minimal justification for the constant character references to the monsters as Earth’s ancient gods, as opposed to any attempted sourcing in the scientific record with something like dinosaurs or some kind of Michael Crichton-esque twisted re-creation.
In his novelization Keyes follows the film substantially verbatim, adding some improvements along the way, like specific references to Kong at Skull Island, which merits only an end-credit montage sequence in the film. This is good preparation for the next film in the series coming next year, Godzilla vs. Kong. He also provides information that is glossed over in the movie–who are the people affected by the monsters that don’t get the spotlight, those outside Godzilla, Ghidorah, Mothra, and Rodan? We learned in the film there were at least seventeen Titans creatures guarded by gated, Monarch outposts, many via names on monitors audiences could blink and miss.
Three years ago this month we last saw the wise ape leader Caesar and his army in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Next week Caesar brings the war to mankind in the theatrical release of War for the Planet of the Apes. Titan Books has released the prequel to the film that bridges Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes, Greg Keyes’ War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations. And the title is quite appropriate as secrets are learned by both sides in the man vs. ape battle that has spanned the franchise’s 50-year history.
Author Greg Keyes, who provided us with the wonderfully detailed account of the apes and the virus that strikes in his prequel to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm, a borg.com Best of 2014 book reviewed here, returns with an equally compelling account of the characters as they have matured and begin to grow battle weary. No longer is Caesar–the great ape leader played in the films by Andy Serkis–or his followers and an opposing faction of apes struggling with communication. Now the key conflict is ape vs. ape as Caesar attempts to direct the apes toward a peaceful compromise with the humans.
We at last meet the character to be played in the new film by Woody Harrelson, Colonel McCullough, hell-bent on destroying the apes at any cost. But Keyes pulls from history to develop both a Shakespearean tale and an ancient one. In Ancient Roman history, when rule was passed upon death from father to son, frequently the empire would learn that sons of great leaders are rarely so great. Keyes creates a parallel study of the Colonel and his unseasoned soldier of a son, John, and of Caesar and Caesar’s son, proven to have been weak on the battlefield, too. Each of the son of the Colonel, and the son of Caesar, called Blue Eyes (played in the films by Nick Thurston), have impactful character arcs here. And both the Colonel and Caesar must face opposition of their own–the Colonel from what fragment of the government is left, and Caesar from the remaining loyalists to the great tragic figure of Koba, who was dropped from a cliff by Caesar at the end of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
The last day of the year is finally here, and with that the last of our reviews of the best content of 2014.
We’ve previewed comic books each month thanks to publishers like Dynamite Comics, Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing, BOOM! Studios, and Image. We sample the best of all that Marvel and DC Comics has to offer, too, and although we don’t have enough time to review everything we review those titles we think our readers might like to check out, especially those with a sci-fi, fantasy, or retro angle. And we read plenty of books–sci-fi and fantasy, pulp and spy novels, movie and TV tie-ins, even Westerns and steampunk, as well as non-fiction books about movies, TV, and other genre topics. This past month we have looked again at these titles, as we narrowed our selections to what we think are the very best. So here are our picks for Best in Print for 2014.
Best Comic Book Series — Black Widow, Marvel Comics. We were wondering early on what would take the place of Fraction and Hollingsworth’s Hawkeye series for the most satisfying superhero fix. It didn’t take long to see this other Marvel series looking at another superhero in a similarly personal–but very different–way. It was a standout in a great year of comics. Phil Noto’s art and colors were incredible and Nathan Edmondson’s story didn’t let up once. Full of action, espionage, and intrigue. A great series to catch-up on in a trade edition. See our reviews of the series here and here.
Best Comic Book Mini-Series — Afterlife with Archie, Archie Comics. Who would have guessed someone could make Archie and friends so accessible to any demographic in the 2010s? And whose brilliant idea was doing it via a horror genre story of zombies taking over Riverdale? Smart writing by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and spooky atmospheric illustrations by Francesco Francavilla made for a sumptuous series like no other. Not technically a mini-series, it feels like one because of its staggered release. See our earlier raves about the series here.
Best Comic Book Writing – Dan Abnett, Wild’s End, BOOM! Studios. Abnett’s Wild’s End really caught us by surprise. An incredible fantasy read that is truly unique from BOOM! Studios. Anthropomorphic characters with incredible archaic dialogue that’s witty and smart. A crazy mash-up of War of the Worlds, Christopher Robin’s neighborhood, and the dark edge and high stakes of Revival. We can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of this series. Check out our earlier review here.
We’ve reviewed several TV and movie franchise tie-in novels over the past several years. As a matter of course, editors that select the writers for these novels tend to choose authors with a grasp of the universe and characters and the result is usually an adventure beyond the original that will please fans. Such novels include Alien: Out of the Shadows, Grimm: The Chopping Block, and Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line. We’ve also seen plenty of stories in print that serve as prequels or bridge the film versions of franchise stories. Star Trek: Countdown and Alien: Out of the Shadows are examples of these, with Star Trek: Countdown being among the best Star Trek stories I have ever read from any incarnation of the franchise. Then there are the novelizations of movies. In the review stack are novelizations of the new Godzilla, Pacific Rim, and a new edition of the original Alien. In the Planet of the Apes franchise, historic novelizations of the classic series always served as a reminder of the adventure behind each film, and allowed readers to add a bit here and there from their own imaginations as they revisited the stories they watched on the big screen from the comforts of their home.
Coming soon to bookstores is a new novel by Greg Keyes that bridges the recent movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the coming summer release Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Known for its great, long titles, the franchise’s latest novel calls itself the official movie prequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm. More than a novelization, Firestorm is among the best movie tie-in novels you’ll find. It is much more than a quick read, and Keyes delves into social, political, and scientific issues in so many ways to provide a story steeped in the morality tales of classic science fiction, while carrying with it that wide scope of action and excitement that readers want.
