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Tuesday 25 October 2011

XIII Vol 8: Thirteen to One review



The previous volume of XIII from Cinebook, Night of August Third, rounded of that particular story arc for our now not so amnesiac (but not yet fully memoried up) agent XIII.
At the beginning of this volume things have moved on somewhat, with agent Jones off doing her own thing (again!) and XIII receiving both an invitation one really cannot refuse and an interesting job offer…
And so, as is the way with this series, intrigue and double-cross are not far behind as XIII delves deeper into his past, perhaps putting more pieces together while an old foe is on his tail.
This volume, while having some great action set pieces (XIII’s infiltration of an enemy island is a particular highlight), there do seem to be a lot of talking heads senses in here which slow the pace somewhat, especially in the first third of the book.
Having said that, Hamme’s skill at dripfeeding the reader with titbits of information at a pace that could almost be described as torture. And the art by William Vance is, as usual, all but perfect.
This volume seems to be setting us up for some highly explosive shenanigans in the future with the aforementioned old foe and the new one XIII makes during the course of this tale.
Ah yes… that final scene. It had me laughing and almost punching the air. XIII is the sort of maverick spy hero that American writers only dream of creating.


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