PositiveNewsdayWilliams might have seen fit to question whether a society where subsistence is the highest earthly good really does morally outrank the messy, doomed glory of American civilization, but doesn’t quite. He does let a number of mysteries linger: What is the Sun Storm, exactly? Why does Sadie have premonitions? We’re not told, which is a relief ... perhaps some honest wrongdoing would have given Williams’ characters a little more depth. But the totality of When the English Fall is surprisingly moving, and Jacob a sympathetic and compelling guide to a world that feels closer every day.
Emil Ferris
RaveThe Guardian\"No one has ever made a comic like Emil Ferris’s assured, superhumanly ambitious two-part debut graphic novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters ... her remarkable draftsmanship shines through, sliding into caricature when appropriate and snapping back into realism or sketch. Where Clowes is sparing and precise, Ferris is profuse, both in her stunning renderings and in her generous depictions of a huge cast of intricately depicted characters. The big-hearted, masterly book took 15 years to produce and is only the first of two volumes, but even halfway through, it threatens not merely to exceed established standards of excellence, but to set new ones.\
China Miéville
RaveNewsdayThere’s so much absurd beauty among the fauna in this story of surrealist art come to life in Nazi-occupied France ... The book’s wonderful strangeness is heightened by Miéville’s revelation of his weirdest weirdnesses second- and third-hand ... The finale of The Last Days of New Paris is both moving and disturbingly timely.
