Does anyone know of a Netflix-like service for audiobooks?

Anne, my dad's been using Recorded Books for years. Their readers are excellent.

Thanks, Jessica!

This is mostly for Hec, but input from other Love & Rockets fans is welcome.

With Christmas nearing & my family asking what I want I'm thinking of asking for some Los Bros Hernandez, but I could use some guidance. I have three collections: Gilbert's Heartbreak Soup and The Reticent Heart, and Jaime's The Lost Women and Other Stories. There are now collections -- complete, I think -- of Jaime's (Locas) and Beto's (Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories) stories. Are these preferable to the Complete Love & Rockets volumes, most of which feature both brothers? The Complete series has a serious drawback: there are at least 20 volumes and most of them cost $20.

In addition to the L&R configuration you prefer I'd also like to hear your thoughts on the relative merits of the Bros. Jaime's growing on me, but Beto grabbed me right off the bat. If I had to choose I would not hesitate in picking Palomar over Locas. That said, I'm much less versed on the subject than you & want to hear your take.

As a thank you I'm providing this link to an interview with Jaime -- including an mp3 of the interview!

X-posted from my LJ....

On a more serious note, I have Jacqueline Carey's new novel, Banewreaker, from the library. I read the first few chapters yesterday, and while I think it's quite good and very well-written, I think I'm going to return it and wait for the paperback. Partly that's because I don't always do a good job managing my holds list, and this is one of those times when I have more books than I can read in the time allotted me. I have fourteen books out right now. It's kinda nuts. So I have to make some tough choices, which means Rifle Green in the Peninsula, Vol. 1 takes priority because it's interlibrary loan, and The Hundred Days is calling me, I swear it is. But also (drumroll, please)....I just don't like Banewreaker as much as the Kushiel series.

This is not to say it's an inferior book. On the contrary, in some ways I can tell Carey has matured as a writer since beginning Kushiel's Dart. Banewreaker is intriguing and well-constructed, very much a dialogue with the Tolkien legacy in fantasy, and I definitely mean to get back to it to see where she's going exactly. But it can wait for the paperback, because it merely intrigued me. It wasn't like when I first opened Kushiel's Dart and got pulled headfirst into the characters' world from the get-go. And really, of all the pleasures in reading, for me nothing beats being caught up in the characters' lives and swept along by their stories.

So I'll get back to Banewreaker sometime in 2005. But I'll be waiting with bated breath for Carey to finish the first book in Imriel's trilogy, so I can find out what's been happening in Terre D'Ange.

With Christmas nearing & my family asking what I want I'm thinking of asking for some Los Bros Hernandez, but I could use some guidance. I have three collections: Gilbert's Heartbreak Soup and The Reticent Heart, and Jaime's The Lost Women and Other Stories. There are now collections -- complete, I think -- of Jaime's (Locas) and Beto's (Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories) stories. Are these preferable to the Complete Love & Rockets volumes, most of which feature both brothers? The Complete series has a serious drawback: there are at least 20 volumes and most of them cost $20.

Tough call, and it would depend on what you like best about Jaime and Beto. To shorthand it, Jaime's main continuing storyline is Locas (Maggie and Hopey and the characters in Hoppers), and Gilbert's main continuing storyline would be the stories set in Palomar with a large cast. Both of them also did a number of short pieces, one-offs, and shorter continuing series.

So if you get the numbered volumes, then you're going to get all those things which are not in the main Locas or Palomar storylines. I love those other things quite a bit so I'd have a hard time giving them up. However, I just looked at the Locas book the other day and (a) it's a tremdously handsome object and (b) by having Locas told as one big graphic novel, I think you'd get a richness and continuity you don't get with them in the numbered volumes.

In addition to the L&R configuration you prefer I'd also like to hear your thoughts on the relative merits of the Bros. Jaime's growing on me, but Beto grabbed me right off the bat. If I had to choose I would not hesitate in picking Palomar over Locas. That said, I'm much less versed on the subject than you & want to hear your take.

The standard take is that Jaime is one of the most gifted draftsman of his generation and that Gilbert is one of the best comic book writers ever. (This is actually kind of a wash because there have been many more genius artists than writers in the medium.)

Gilbert's sense of character and narrative structure is much more developed than Jaime's, I think. Jaime, though, did develop an elliptical storytelling style that worked very well with his artistic talents. Early Jaime stories are very genre driven. When he gets away from that he gets a bit floppy for a while, until he figures out something that works for him. In recent years, he's done some of his best storytelling (I think) when he goes back and covers the childhood years of the Locas characters and does it in a sort of Peanuts/Dennis the Menace style.

The downside with Gilbert's comics is that his cast is so huge that it's difficult to keep track of all of his characters. (An argument in favor of reading Palomar in one volume, I guess.) Also as these stories become more involved they become much more static visually, until your brain mentally groans at all the pages of people standing around talking. It got to be kind of a chore. I'm a huge fan of Gilbert's whackaloon scabrous fantastic stories (collected in Fear of Comics) where he lets loose visually and breaks free from the realistic milieu of Palomar.

Final note: though early on I preferred Gilbert and got more out of him, when I re-read I gravitate more towards Jaime's stuff. Visually I never get tired of taking in Jaime's vision. It's as if Alex Toth did a punk rock Archies. (Punk Rock Archies being the cliche description of early Maggie & Hopey, but still true.)

Oh, Susan reminded me...

I finished Banewreaker about a week ago. I also did not like it as much as the Kushiel books, but the repetitiveness I perceived either went away or stopped annoying me after about 150 pages.

I liked some of the characers, and I felt really drawn to Lilias. I can't wait to see how her story ends. Most of the characters seemed well developed to this point in the story, and I hope we learn more about other characters in the next installment.

I especially like the way Carey has balanced her characters and isn't judging them or their actions. I can believe the characters are thinking and acting for themselves and not purely at the whim of the author, if that makes any sense.

Thanks, David.

In recent years, he's done some of his best storytelling (I think) when he goes back and covers the childhood years of the Locas characters and does it in a sort of Peanuts/Dennis the Menace style.

From the interview: "Amazing art. And a lot of people didn't get where we were coming from when we'd say, 'Nobody draws like Hank Ketcham!' They say, 'That silly Dennis the Menace comic?' We'd go 'Yeah, but you're not looking at what's really beyond that. He was a master!'"

The downside with Gilbert's comics is that his cast is so huge that it's difficult to keep track of all of his characters. (An argument in favor of reading Palomar in one volume, I guess.)

My experience with his stories has been the collections, & 95% of the stories have been in Palomar. The only trouble I had keeping the characters straight was connecting them as kids - the way I first encountered them, maybe in "Sopa de Gran Pena"? - to the way they look as adults in most of the stories in "The Reticent Heart." There's a reason my email is uncle ike: my literary imagination was hugely shaped by Faulkner, so big casts of characters, twisted story lines, and recurring story arcs don't phase me at all. Again from the Jaime interview: "I can't work that far ahead in the future. My brother, Gilbert, can. He has stories going years down the road. I can't think that far. I think more in hundred-page increments instead of 700 pages."

Yeah. One of the best-drawn comics going right now is Rose Is Rose.

And I HATE the content. Or at least the part with angels.

I love the drawing in Strangers in Paradise. When I have more disposable income I'll be buying every issue.

And I HATE the content.

You and me both. And the Chronicle just dumped "Clear Blue Water", which had pretty bad art, but I was getting attached to the content. Sadly, they retained "Pearls Before Swine", which is badly drawn, stupid, and offensive altogether.

Sigh.