The premise of The Rocketeer is simple: It’s the late 1930s. Hotshot sky circus pilot Cliff Secord is down on his luck and doesn’t see much of a future. The only bright spot in his life is his girlfriend, Betty, a rising starlet in Hollywood. Unfortunately, their romance burns hot and Secord finds a way to cause drama. Things change when he finds some kind of prototype jetpack and mask. He plans to impress Betty and make money off of the costume, but public use of […]
The End and The Beginning.
What a great ending to this series. Endings are so tough. A bad ending can deflate the whole experience of a narrative. A good ending ties everything together, and nothing can beat that feeling of satisfaction you get as all the threads are tied up, secrets revealed, and connections made. Also, though, this was brutal. I’m not saying I haven’t read books that aren’t more of a bloodbath than this one is, because I have, but the body count is large, and people you love […]
The penultimate volume.
This is the one where you get all of the answers. And they are good answers! There’s nothing so satisfying as a series that poses lots of interesting mysteries, then gives you compelling origins and solutions for all of them. Also, when some of those answers manage to surprise you, and re-contextualize what you thought about the story previously. Clockworks opens with a strange flashback to the Revolutionary War, and we learn at last the origin story of the Keys. And so too do Kinsey […]
Seriously imaginative fantasy/horror.
This series is so imaginative. And the further in you get, the more stuff it throws at you. I’m actually finding it really difficult to write about it because the more detailed it gets, the weirder it gets, and the more impossible it becomes to talk about. Tyler, Kinsey and Bode have somewhat adjusted to living in Keyhouse, and to using the keys, but their mother is only falling apart harder and faster. The still mysterious Dodge is seeking the Omega Key, the key that will […]
I wonder what the inside of *my* head would look like . . .
I am really digging this series, ya’ll. The artwork is still hit or miss for me when it comes to the characters, but the story more than makes up for it. So in Vol. 1 we were introduced to the Locke family, who have just lost their patriarch due to a violent murder, and have moved to their family home, a house that is so stately it actually has a name: Keyhouse. We were also introduced to the idea that something is off at Keyhouse, […]