~Jmpr

I originally intended to use this space to post short little one-shots dealing with anything I thought would make for a fun little story. Yet the moment I try to write anything of late I seem to freeze. Part of it I think is that there are just so many things demanding my attention that I am unable to focus on any one thing. Another is that I keep running into great stories across a number of media that suck me in too the point that I forget I wanted to write things of my own.

Some of this stuff is so good that I’ve decided to bring attention to it so that others might enjoy.

Hunter-Killer Volume 1 Trade Paperback
[link]

This is the story of a race of super-humans who walk among us. These “Ultra-Sapiens” are walking weapons of mass destruction, secretly moving through our world. When one of them goes rogue it is left up to The Hunter-Killers to oppose them. Yet….where did these Ultra-Sapiens come from? How are they and the people who hunt them able to stay unseen in our modern world. And how far can you go to defend humanity before you lose it? These are the questions Ellis Cole faces.

Ellis is a young man thrust into a terrible situation. He slowly learns the truth of the world, and eventually has to make a decision on what to do with that knowledge.

I loved this Trade Paper back. The stories and characters were great and the situations they were placed were believable and exciting. Seeing Ellis grow during the series was a great experience, and I heartily recommend this graphic Novel.


The Sky People
In the Court of the Crimson Kings
By S.M. Stirling

[link]

These two books present us with a rather fascinating alternate reality. In this world man discovers that Venus is a lush jungle world full of prehistoric beasts living next to a fledgling human like civilization. While Mars is found to be a dying world with an ancient civilization whose technology is organic and whose civilization bears some similarity to the great dynasties of ancient china. The two books detail the adventures of a number of people directly affected by exploration of these worlds by explorers from terra.

The first book, ‘The Sky People’ is a solid tale of adventure that has a few slow spots as the writer works to set up the universe his story takes place in. Still, I found myself enjoying the book and becoming engrossed in the casts adventures. However, the second book is my favorite in this series so far. It felt more like a swashbuckling epic with a very nice and believable romance. That and the Martian society was very fascinating to me. Two really good books that brought back some fond memories of the days when our sci-fi tales still thought that there was sentient life on our closest neighbors.


Macross Frontier

Not only does this story have some really interesting characters, a great story, some really awesome actions scenes, and wonderful music. It also has the first anime love triangle in which I am honestly okay with hero ending up with either girl. Both have their pluses and minuses and both have qualities I can see Alto, our ace pilot for this outing, falling for by series end.

Now while the relationship between Alto and the people around him is interesting, the main story deals with the Frontier fleet facing an enemy whose origin my not be as alien as first thought, or who’ve been drawn down on Humanity/Zentradi for a purpose I can not yet fathom. Honestly if you enjoy good anime, I say check this series out.

Well that’s it from me for now. Tune in next time when I plan to discuss my thoughts on some up coming games Like Prince of Persia and Prototype. Coming hopefully before those games hit the market.