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Quixote Novel
Could Don Quixote be real? Television reporter Dominique Angel uncovers the story of a crusading street vagrant she dubs "Quixote" due to his rambling discourses on morality and righteousness. This modern-day quixotic knight believes street punks are monsters, government agents are demons in disguise and Dom's own boss is the very Devil himself. Soon he is wanted for murder and seems to be at the center of a vast shadowy conspiracy. But as Dom finds herself caught up in a world of intrigue and suspense, she realizes she's in danger of believing the truth as Quixote sees it, and that supernatural forces may be fighting for her very soul. Is Quixote merely a madman, or might he truly be an ancient mystical warrior reborn into the modern age? This 300-page novel written by Michael Avon Oeming (Marvel's Thor and Powers) and playwright Bryan J. L. Glass is heavily illustrated with spot illos and full-page splashes, blurring the lines between comic and novel.
- GenresFantasy
304 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2004
2 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Michael Avon Oeming
823 books64 followersMichael Avon Oeming is an American comic book creator, both as an artist and writer.
His 1998 comic book Bulletproof Monk was made into a film of the same name.
The previous mentioned collaborations are The Mice Templar from Image Comics, which he draws and co-authors with Bryan J.L. Glass,[1] and Powers from Icon Comics which he draws, and sometimes co-authors, with Brian Bendis. His creator-owned projects include Rapture, on which he collaborated with his wife, Taki Soma,[2] and The Victories, both for Dark Horse Comics.
As of 2010, he is employed as a staff member of Valve Corporation, working on Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2 webcomics.
His 1998 comic book Bulletproof Monk was made into a film of the same name.
The previous mentioned collaborations are The Mice Templar from Image Comics, which he draws and co-authors with Bryan J.L. Glass,[1] and Powers from Icon Comics which he draws, and sometimes co-authors, with Brian Bendis. His creator-owned projects include Rapture, on which he collaborated with his wife, Taki Soma,[2] and The Victories, both for Dark Horse Comics.
As of 2010, he is employed as a staff member of Valve Corporation, working on Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2 webcomics.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 5, 2016
This book is a little embarrassing to read. It's melodramatic, full of self-involved literary references, but a little too cartoonish to be in Literary Fiction. That might be the essential problem with this book- it's much too verbose to be a comic book script, and too shallowly written to be a novel. It has about 50 pages of plot.
This is not a coincindence - Bryan Glass usually writes comic books. Reading this goes a bit easier if you imagine it as a comic book - just skim the parts that are not dialog, and then imagine the dialog that is left over comic panels. Or, as I ended up doing, a Michael Bay movie!
"Don Quixote" was written over 10 years ago, and it hasn't aged well. There's some weird conservative racial politics thing creeping in whenever someone is described. The characters all sound like a bro wondering what all these minorities are so angry about.
The characters are all Hollywood "types" that just aren't very interesting. All are men, except for the one "hot girl" who is pretty much a trophy. Here we go: picture a Michael Bay movie... posturing men always about to get in each other's face, plodding stupidly through a story line that has nothing to discover.
"Dom" is a pretty female reporter who works for her boss, Desmond, who inexplicably looks like a wrestler. They are having an affair. Dom is abused, and the material takes this pretty lightly. She too is a Michael Bay movie regular - like "she's tough, but hot." Tacked onto her backstory: daddy issues. (Seriously Bryan!)
That brings me to the plot structure problems. A major one is, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be clear that Desmond is the Big Bad... the way he's presented would make more sense in a visual medium, but in a screenplay we'd have more of a hint he's a (potential) villain. We first see him revealed about 180 pages in. The first unambiguous villains appear 130 pages in. That's a lot of pages!
There's a conflict between Dom and Desmond about covering the news, but it's AFTER we know he's the bad guy, so the whole scene is pointless.
The duel scene at the end takes an entire sixth of the book. If this were a 2 hour movie that would be a Boss Fight that lasts 20 minutes.
(What is Desmond's deal anyway? He's somehow a news editor who has demonic powers and political connections? Why is he a news editor then?! It's like Lex Luthor being a janitor or something. This does get resolved at the very very end of the book...)
Glass has a very verbose writing style, with a peculiar fanfic-flavored tone - check out his blog for some samples. http://bryanjlglass.com/an-observatio...
This narrative is written in the same style, and it's filled with flourishes. Some of the prose reminded me of Snoopy's "Dark and stormy night" novel, which was pretty (unintentionally?) entertaining. You have to kind of wade through it. Actual examples:
"his growl smooth, cool and dry, not unlike a martini on ice."
"her cute, blue-skirted rump played teasing games with the seat of her chair -- up and down, a little shake back and forth, but never a firm commitment to actually stay in her seat."
"his cracked, scratchy voice seemed to claw its way up from out of some dark forgotten hole where the destitute had lost interest in human speech."
"The camera operator had abandoned his post, leaving Camera Three fixed on Dominique's beautiful yet dumbfounded face. She still wasn't making the visual connection with her memory, or perhaps the vagrant's new demeanor of confidence made him unrecognizable to any who may have previously known him." (What just happened?)
"The beleaguered tower no longer possessed the engineered strength, nor inanimate will, to sustain the weight of the [big spoiler thing]."
The theme that I thought was worth reading: it's about the "unreliable narrator" (as in Don Quixote), and the nature of a subjective reality. It finally pays off in Chapter 25 (260 pages in!). That is a lot of pages! A lotta lot.
With flavors of two different Terry Gilliam movies ("The Fisher King" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," Glass has the big final duel about not just swordplay, but a contest of wills between the fantasist underdog (Quixote) and the oppressive materialist (Desmond). Whoever wins will get the girl (trophy Dom) and will determine what is the "real" reality.
By extension, Glass is suggesting the Devil is in control of material reality, which I suppose makes him a Manichaean, as made popular by the Wachowskis in The Matrix.
But as I mentioned before, this takes a REALLY LONG TIME. The big final duel is 50 pages by itself.
In summary: if you are a good speed-reader and like a nice obvious story with Good Guys and Bad Guys and The Hot Girl, and stuff blowing up, then go for it. But otherwise I'd wait for the movie.
This is not a coincindence - Bryan Glass usually writes comic books. Reading this goes a bit easier if you imagine it as a comic book - just skim the parts that are not dialog, and then imagine the dialog that is left over comic panels. Or, as I ended up doing, a Michael Bay movie!
"Don Quixote" was written over 10 years ago, and it hasn't aged well. There's some weird conservative racial politics thing creeping in whenever someone is described. The characters all sound like a bro wondering what all these minorities are so angry about.
The characters are all Hollywood "types" that just aren't very interesting. All are men, except for the one "hot girl" who is pretty much a trophy. Here we go: picture a Michael Bay movie... posturing men always about to get in each other's face, plodding stupidly through a story line that has nothing to discover.
"Dom" is a pretty female reporter who works for her boss, Desmond, who inexplicably looks like a wrestler. They are having an affair. Dom is abused, and the material takes this pretty lightly. She too is a Michael Bay movie regular - like "she's tough, but hot." Tacked onto her backstory: daddy issues. (Seriously Bryan!)
That brings me to the plot structure problems. A major one is, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be clear that Desmond is the Big Bad... the way he's presented would make more sense in a visual medium, but in a screenplay we'd have more of a hint he's a (potential) villain. We first see him revealed about 180 pages in. The first unambiguous villains appear 130 pages in. That's a lot of pages!
There's a conflict between Dom and Desmond about covering the news, but it's AFTER we know he's the bad guy, so the whole scene is pointless.
The duel scene at the end takes an entire sixth of the book. If this were a 2 hour movie that would be a Boss Fight that lasts 20 minutes.
(What is Desmond's deal anyway? He's somehow a news editor who has demonic powers and political connections? Why is he a news editor then?! It's like Lex Luthor being a janitor or something. This does get resolved at the very very end of the book...)
Glass has a very verbose writing style, with a peculiar fanfic-flavored tone - check out his blog for some samples. http://bryanjlglass.com/an-observatio...
This narrative is written in the same style, and it's filled with flourishes. Some of the prose reminded me of Snoopy's "Dark and stormy night" novel, which was pretty (unintentionally?) entertaining. You have to kind of wade through it. Actual examples:
"his growl smooth, cool and dry, not unlike a martini on ice."
"her cute, blue-skirted rump played teasing games with the seat of her chair -- up and down, a little shake back and forth, but never a firm commitment to actually stay in her seat."
"his cracked, scratchy voice seemed to claw its way up from out of some dark forgotten hole where the destitute had lost interest in human speech."
"The camera operator had abandoned his post, leaving Camera Three fixed on Dominique's beautiful yet dumbfounded face. She still wasn't making the visual connection with her memory, or perhaps the vagrant's new demeanor of confidence made him unrecognizable to any who may have previously known him." (What just happened?)
"The beleaguered tower no longer possessed the engineered strength, nor inanimate will, to sustain the weight of the [big spoiler thing]."
The theme that I thought was worth reading: it's about the "unreliable narrator" (as in Don Quixote), and the nature of a subjective reality. It finally pays off in Chapter 25 (260 pages in!). That is a lot of pages! A lotta lot.
With flavors of two different Terry Gilliam movies ("The Fisher King" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," Glass has the big final duel about not just swordplay, but a contest of wills between the fantasist underdog (Quixote) and the oppressive materialist (Desmond). Whoever wins will get the girl (trophy Dom) and will determine what is the "real" reality.
By extension, Glass is suggesting the Devil is in control of material reality, which I suppose makes him a Manichaean, as made popular by the Wachowskis in The Matrix.
But as I mentioned before, this takes a REALLY LONG TIME. The big final duel is 50 pages by itself.
In summary: if you are a good speed-reader and like a nice obvious story with Good Guys and Bad Guys and The Hot Girl, and stuff blowing up, then go for it. But otherwise I'd wait for the movie.
Want to read
March 7, 2008I mean to read this real soon. I've been saying that for about three years now.
It's an update of Don Quixote in modern day America, it looks rather awesome and what I've read of it(the first chapter) has been fantastic. I look forward to this.
It's an update of Don Quixote in modern day America, it looks rather awesome and what I've read of it(the first chapter) has been fantastic. I look forward to this.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews