I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ADAM TORRES-Tiny Desk Concert #578 (November 11, 2016).

Adam Torres has a pretty singular voice.  It is gentle and delicate and slips into a beautiful falsetto with relative ease.

As it turns out his songs are a little too slow for me to fully enjoy, but I do enjoy the melodies and can certainly appreciate his voice.

“High Lonesome” has a great melody–especially on the violin (played beautifully by Aisha Burns)–it’s her melodies at the end of each verse that really makes me want to listen to this song more.  It’s also amazing to watch how effortlessly he switches to the falsetto notes (the high, in high lonesome).  I also really enjoyed the way Dailey Toliver so delicately plays the bass–I actually assumed it was a six string for how gently he is strumming it–and that he can still play some appropriate notes on the Wurlitzer at the same time.

“Outlands” is certainly my favorite of his songs.  Between the scratchy, lonesome violin, the pretty picked guitar notes and the way he instantly switched to falsetto on the second note of each verse–it’s haunting.

“I Came to Sing the Song” is a new song which is even slower than the others.  Once again, his voice is lovely and the melody is very pretty, but this one is just too slow for me to fully enjoy.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that percussion (just two congas) is provided by the wonderful Thor Harris (who might have the most Tiny Desk appearances with various bands).

[READ: February 2, 2017] LastMan 6

This book was originally written in French (and called Lastman there as well).  These editions were translated by Alexis Siegel.

I was under the impression that this was the last volume in the series.  Why?  Well, mostly because at the end of this book, the ad for the previous book calls #5 the penultimate volume.  But this story not only ends with a WHAATTT?  It also ends with a total cliffhanger last page.  According to Wikipedia, there are 8 volumes of the original French, so I can only hope that First Second plans to print the other two (and more?) volumes.

But ending aside, this volume was outstanding.

It opens with a flashback to what Richard did to his partner Duke Diamond to get him in so much trouble back when.  The crux is that Diamond was doing serious drugs and Richard didn’t like it–the friction, and Richard’s reaction, all centers around that.

Then we see what the bad guys plan to do.  The drug that they have been pushing–Sector–is the catalyst for their mutation regeneration which we’ve been seeing (that’s how Diamond seems indestructible).  They intend to turn others into similar monsters.  And their first victim is Tomie.  She was killed in the previous book but they plan to bring her back and turn her into some kind of hybrid–it will be easy because she has been doing Sector for years.

We also finally learn the story about Sector.  Sector was one of a series of drugs that the city’s chemists created.  They were all designed to cheat death in some way, with Sector taking things way too far.  It was banished by the government but quickly gained an illicit popularity.

We also learn about the Kahllos–warriors from the East who have the same face mask as Cristo Canyon.  Cristo reveals that they were once  a mighty people.  But are no longer.

And with that the good guys plan a raid on the mountain hideout.  There’s some rather amusing work done by Cristo.  But that humor is gone once the battle scenes commence.  All of the mutants with special powers come out of the woodwork.  Can Richard, H and Cristo really take on this army?  During the battle Cristo is hypnotized by a voice that calls him to a trap.  But it is in this trap that we learn so much more than we could have imagined.

There is a climactic scene which is pretty freaking awesome.

And then some of the good guys are going to head back to the Valley of Kings.  Some of the goods guys stay in the city.  Others’ fates are not as certain.

So far so good.  It’s all just going to be a welcome return to the Valley, right?  We see flashes of our heroes traveling back through all of the locations they came through–fun to see everyone again.  And then they are back to a party right?

Well, no.

Cudna has taken over and things are very dark indeed.  And their return means one thing–the capture of Richard by the Royal Guardians.  As Marianne pleads for Richard, she sees that one of the Knights is Chester (who I honestly can’t remember from the earlier books, but it seemed important).

The Guardians stop at nothing and shortly thereafter the grab young Adrian and hurl him off of the cliff into the abyss.  WHAT?  He’s innocent!  So I can say that as the book proper ends, it appears that Adrian is safe–he is hanging on to a cliff edge.  Okay. So now we can get to the bottom of what just happened–learn that some of what just happened couldn’t possibly be true.

But then you turn the page and the tag says Ten Years Later.  WHAT??

Adrian’s friend/crush Elorna is about to become a Knight of the Royal Guardians.  And after the feast, they throw some crumbs to a certain prisoner.  And as the book really ends, the last panel reveals that the prisoner has escaped.

That is not how you end a series.  So gosh I hope we get book 7 soon, because I need clarification!  I need explanations! I need justice!  And really I just need this not to end yet.

This has turned into such a good series.

Incidentally, there is also a Lastman TV series.  It’s a prequel to the books focusing on a young Richard.  You can read about it and see some clips (in French) here.