Customer Reviews

Sable

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been a fan of Mike Grell's comic work for years. Jon Sable, Freelance is considered by many to be his best work. His first novel, SABLE, takes the story of those first five or six issues and instead of just rewriting it into prose, creates something new. For fans of the series, it does not just rehash events depicted in the comic book. Some minor details are changed, but many of the gaps of Sable's story present in the comic series are detailed here. It also finally answers the question I have had for years: "Who IS the white-haired man?" For people discovering this character for the first time, this is an incredible action/mystery read, with a lot of humanity in the protagonist. Some of the sequences are raw, but match in tone to the environment that two-thirds of the book takes place: Africa. The detail is rich and there are many humorous moments. I recommend this book to anyone, comic and non-comic readers alike.

I always enjoyed the comic book adventures of freelance soldier of fortune and adventurer Jon Sable, so I picked up this paperback in a used book store when it caught my eye a while back. Basically it's a prose re-telling of Jon Sable's origin story from the comics.

A quick aside: If I remember correctly, the first two issues of the comic book contained single-issue stories showing Jon Sable taking on cases in New York, and issues 3 to 6 revealed how he became the adventurer, soldier of fortune, and righter of wrongs depicted in those first two issues. Then, issue number 7 onward once again told present-day stories of our hero in action. Sable the novel recounts the Africa-based origin story from issues 3-6 of the comics series, only with lots more details, as well as a lot of new material set in present day New York, mostly involving Sable's second job as a writer of children's books!

The Jon Sable series was always good fun and a little more compelling than similar characters out there because he is both ruthless and a down-to-earth, likable guy (trained killer, writer of children's books... you gotta love that). His supporting cast is also likable and quirky, not types you would expect to surround a soldier of fortune type. This dual nature, always a part of the Jon Sable comics stories, is also fully and effectively on display in the novel. The book also gives you lots of interesting discourse about the African political situation (Jon Sable made his living conducting safaris and stopping poachers before his soldier-of-fortune days), discourse only briefly touched on in the comics.

Sable creator Mike Grell probably wrote the novel to create traction for a Jon Sable movie, as evidenced by the cover blurb "soon to be a major motion picture", but that movie never materialized (though I think there was a brief TV series). That said, this unusual, offbeat novel-- like the comics, it's violent, yet often funny- is worth your time.

And if you like it, it's pretty easy to find trade paperback collections of the original "Jon Sable, Freelance" comic books, and the 2005 Jon Sable comic book mini-series, "Bloodline". The new mini-series, in fact, actually uses a lot of the new material that first appeared in this novel.

This review has probably gone on a bit too long for an out-of-print paperback, but the book is still fairly easy to obtain in used book stores and via Amazon's used book network, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to tell you about it.

I used to gobble up everything Mike Grell produced in comic format. Jon Sable Freelance was always one of my favorites. Grell's characters and story are engaging. His prose is as vivid as his drawings and reading this book I realize just how much I miss Jon Sable. Mike please give us more in novel or comic format. Either is fine by me.

It was a real honor for me to read a childhood comic book artist turned author Mike Grell.
I was extremely impressed with SABLE. You can actually feel the love Mr. Grell has for the Tarzan epics as well as some Mickey Spillane-type books and movies.
SABLE read like an awesome old-fashioned adventure movie with the gritty feel of an epic novel that should grace the bookshelves with other legends such as Burroughs and the like.
SABLE himself was written as an extremely complex character with more than one side of him revealed.
I hope that Mike Grell is writing another novel because he is way too talented to just stick to being an awesome artist. His storytelling ability was superb in SABLE.
The action/adventure areas were written so very well that you couldn't help but be drawn to this savage world and it's experiences.
Thanks Mike Grell for a spectacular read!

Mike Grell once referred to himself as a "storyteller" and he proves it here with his first novel. Though I love his art, I am also a fan of his sense of character and pacing. He gives us a realistic set of characters and events that we can believe and believe in. He also paint beautiful backdrops, from Africa to New England. Indeed, the most effective parts of this book are not the action sequences, but rather the sould searching human parts. If you want more than the typical adventure novel, this is the one. I have read that Grell hopes to do more novels and I am anxiously awaiting the next installment in the Sable series. He has also mentioned a screenplay and perhaps a return to comics. All these sound excellent, and judging from the performance here, entirely possible. Keep up the good strong work, Mr. Grell. And welcome back.

"Sable" was an excellent action adventure novel, based on one of the best and most "adult" (meaning dealing with mature subject matter, not prurient) comic book series of the 80s. It's good to see the character come back. Grell is a very talented writer, providing extremely vivid and powerful descriptions of places as diverse as the African bush, New York City, and New England. His descriptions are lush, powerful, and involving. He makes Africa itself into a character. His characters are far more human and fully realized than your typical action-adventure novel protaganists, like Cussler's Dirk Pitt (and I'm a fan of Cussler's work). Sable sweats, suffers, and bleeds for his victories, and the scars of his experiences run deep. And the action scenes - NO one I've read conveys action as powerfully as Mr. Grell here. The scenes are punchy, powerful, gripping, lightning-fast, and brutal.

"Sable" is one of the best books in this genre in a long time. The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is the presence of numerous distracting typos. Bad proofreader!

Sable is the tale of a hunter. It's one of Mike Grell's telling points. In _The LongBow Hunters_ he reinvented Green Arrow as an urban hunter. And in _John Sable, Freelance_ from First Comics, he tells a story about a man entrenched in misery, that becomes an Urban Hunter. And now this book, which retells the first part of that series in a very faithful format. This is not for the Mack Bolan or Punisher fans. It's not about revenge. It's about survival, hunting, and in the end, love. It may culminate in vengeance, but that is far from the heart of the book. Grell's prose surprised me. He's pretty good, compared to a lot of the stuff out there. This is not your regular comic book fare.