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The Life Eaters [Hardcover]

David Brin (Author)
3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1986, science fiction writer Brin (Startide Rising; The Kiln People) published a novella, "Thor Meets Captain America," an alternate-history story in which the Nazis win WWII by enlisting the aid of the Norse gods (except for Loki, who assists the American resistance). With an understandable title change, this graphic novel expands on that story and presents a sequel to it. There are lots of imaginative details here: battles between jet fighters and gigantic Norse birds; a submarine carrying a crew of mythological dwarfs; and some clever speculation on the way that history might have turned in the past 60 years (e.g., the "Khmer Bleu"?). But there's also a certain amount of heavy-handed preachiness: an inappropriately clunky vision of ash-induced global warming; a dreadfully sappy scene in which leaders of every religion put aside their differences to defend the planet; and a climactic scene in which a human is tempted by divine power that's straight out of a mid-1960s superhero comic. Fantasy artist Hampton is at his best when he gets to illustrate larger-than-life images (such as the gods or Yggdrasil, the World Treeor even the devastation of the Asian killing fields), if a bit less adept at the book's punch-'em-up action scenes and talking-heads sequences.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 144 pages
  • Publisher: WildStorm (November 1, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1401200982
  • ISBN-13: 978-1401200985
  • Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 7 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,849,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Brin is a scientist, public speaker and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages.

His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. David's novel Kiln People has been called a book of ideas disguised as a fast-moving and fun noir detective story, set in a future when new technology enables people to physically be in more than two places at once. A hardcover graphic novel The Life Eaters explored alternate outcomes to WWII, winning nominations and high praise.

David's science fictional Uplift Universe explores a future when humans genetically engineer higher animals like dolphins to become equal members of our civilization. These include the award-winning Startide Rising, The Uplift War, Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore and Heaven's Reach. He also recently tied up the loose ends left behind by the late Isaac Asimov: Foundation's Triumph brings to a grand finale Asimov's famed Foundation Universe.

Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction and philanthropy. His non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with secrecy in the modern world. It won the Freedom of Speech Prize from the American Library Association.

As a public speaker, Brin shares unique insights -- serious and humorous -- about ways that changing technology may affect our future lives. He appears frequently on TV, including several episodes of "The Universe" and History Channel's "Life After People." He also was a regular cast member on "The ArciTECHS."

Brin's scientific work covers an eclectic range of topics, from astronautics, astronomy, and optics to alternative dispute resolution and the role of neoteny in human evolution. His Ph.D in Physics from UCSD - the University of California at San Diego (the lab of nobelist Hannes Alfven) - followed a masters in optics and an undergraduate degree in astrophysics from Caltech. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Space Institute. His technical patents directly confront some of the faults of old-fashioned screen-based interaction, aiming to improve the way human beings converse online.

Brin lives in San Diego County with his wife and three children.

You can follow David Brin:
Website: http://www.davidbrin.com/
Blog: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DavidBrin1
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/cab801

 

Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.1 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Nice Idea, Poor Execution, November 18, 2005
This review is from: The Life Eaters (Paperback)
I'm a sucker for alternate history, especially when it involves Nazis (wow, that sounds bad...) or other aspects of World War II. I also have a minor interest in Norse and other mythology (a spillover from playing D&D back in the day). So when I came across this book about the Nazis winning WWII with the aid of the Norse pantheon, I had to read it. The story just drops you right into the mix, with a group of good-guy holdouts, aided by the one renegade Norse god (Loki, the trickster), on a kind of suicide commando mission in the 1960s. Basically, the background is that WWII was proceeding normally until D-Day, when the Norse gods pretty much wiped out the Allied invasion of Europe. The premise is that all that real-life Nazi fascination with the occult (popularly portrayed in Raiders of the Last Ark) comes to fruition and concentration camps are basically giant sacrificial abattoirs designed to maximize the number of souls offered to the deities. It's a clever concept that does a nice job of dovetailing real-life horror with fantastical elements.

However, the concept doesn't work so well in the execution. The first part of the book is pretty solid stuff, the reader is drawn in by the slowly unfolding background and premise, and there's plenty of action. This section is apparently based on Brin's 1986 short-story "Thor Meets Captain America" (which is available on his web site). The latter two-thirds of the book start to spin wildly out of control and become much less engaging. (Which is essentially the same problem I had with the final third of Birn's otherwise fun book Kiln People.) Basically, others around the world learn how to "raise" the gods through human sacrifice, and soon the world is enveloped in a kind of Battle Royale of the Gods. Before one has a chance to catch a breath, we have orgies of blood in Africa and Asia, as more and more soul-fed gods are raised. (One could make a case that the book is somewhat racist, in the sense that the only people who raise gods are Nazis, Africans, and Asians, while the forces of monotheism practice restraint. There's even a totally sappy scene in which the leaders of monotheism come together in brotherly unity to defend humanity.) This gets even more complicated when some plucky scientists reveal that someone is setting fire to oil fields all over the world. This leads into an even bigger storyline about the "cold gods" vs. the "hot gods", who are trying to use global warming to trigger a new ice age which will ensure their dominance.

Phew... and this doesn't even mention the Rebel Alliance -- I mean, the good guys' undersea base... or Loki's scheme to grow the Yggdrasil to evacuate his followers to outer space... or the crazy mechwarrior suit that the SS guy is given by the Allies. There's a lot crammed in and it just spirals out of control, until it just suddenly ends... Part of the book's problem is that each section is focused on a different protagonist, so there's no one to carry the story all the wy through. At the beginning it's an American soldier, in the middle it's an American weatherman, and then at the end it's a renegade SS man. This last person is around for the whole book, but not as the central figure. This lack of focus strips the story of any kind of figure for the reader to rally around. Brin attempts to add a little levity via some supporting characters, but it never feels organic or appropriate to the moment. For example, in part one there's a wise-ass hipster who speaks in beatniky slang -- as if that particular subculture would have evolved if WWII dragged on for 25 years! The book is also very heavy on telling the reader what's going on via lots of expository text crammed in, which never feels quite right.

Hampton's art is also pretty weak on the whole, especially when it comes to people and faces. There are a few nice panels here and there, like in part one, where Thor is shown throwing his hammer through five people in a shower of blood, but for the most part, the lines and coloring aren't compelling at all. It's not a terrible book, but it totally fails to live up to its potential. Part one is certainly solid, and there are a few nice set pieces further on (especially the jungle patrol in part two), but there are far too many missteps, and by the time we reach the dwarves and fairies at the end, one ceases to care. PS. Why is the circa 1960s Egyptian Army attacking en masse with swords?
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Great promise, not completely delivered, November 27, 2003
By 
Andrew Limsk (Kuala Lumpur, MY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Life Eaters (Hardcover)
The book has been described as "Thor meets Captain America" and is worth your time if only for the original and intriguing idea put forward by the author on the true objective behind the nazi holocaust in World War II.

In the Life Eaters, the readers are introduced to an alternate reality where the allies mounting advantages culminating in D-Day on June 6 1944 suffer a complete reversal of fortune when no less than the ancient gods of the Norse appear to side with Nazi Germany. A very interesting and novel idea that for the first chapter was told very well and had me entralled. However, the remaining parts of the book deteriorates into mediocrity and culminates in a "war of the gods" scenario that to me, greatly spoils whatever promise the idea originally had. Of course, a big part of any graphic novel is the art itself: A great cover painting, but the art within is good in parts but mostly average.

In summary, a promising and very original idea, but the story and art does not completely deliver. It really could have been much better.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but far from great, November 28, 2003
This review is from: The Life Eaters (Hardcover)
It's 1962, and the American military is putting all its might into a gamble - perhaps the last chance to win World War 2! Indeed, in 1944, just as the tide of war seemed to be pushing the war towards an inevitable conclusion, the unthinkable happened and the Norse gods intervened on the side of the Germans. But, who are these gods and what do they want? Can men make war on gods?

This is a hard book to review. Part One of the book is spectacular, with lots of action and a fascinating story. Loki is playing the trickster, keeping everyone off balance. In Part Two, the storyline shifts and men try to understand who the various gods are and what are they up to; Loki's role diminishes and becomes much more hazy. In Part Three, men learn what the gods are, and how to fight them.

As David Brin makes clear in the Afterword, this book is intended as an anti-religion polemic. However, a small problem is that in weaving the argument into his story, the author drops both. In real life, religion can lead to bad ends, but the godly intervention in this book doesn't go very far in making that point. Also, to make the argument, the author moves away from the action and adventure, which is simply wonderful in Part One, and into preaching by two-dimensional characters introduced for that purpose.

Overall, I thought that this was a good book, whereas it might have been a great polemic, or a great action-adventure graphic novel. It couldn't be both, and it isn't.

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