Bill Willingham's Fables series has already taken some of the world's best-loved characters in a new and thoroughly modern direction. Now, Jack of the Tales -- a.k.a. Jack the Giant-Killer, Jack Horner, Jack Frost, John Trick and Jack B. Nimble -- has broken with the fold (OK, he was banished) and is out on his own.

It doesn't take him long at all before he's tossed unwillingly into the Golden Boughs Retirement Community, where the dread Scissorman keeps story characters captive until they fade from the collective subconscious and lose their power.

On the bright side, the revolutionary and homicidal maniac Goldilocks is there, not at all dead as previously believed, and without her favorite Baby Bear to sate her, she's willing to have kinky sex with Jack. (There's nothing explicit, mind you, but this still isn't a book for youngsters.)

But Jack wants to escape the inescapable, and with the help of Humpty Dumpty, a handful of fairies, a large flock of birds and an elderly Sambo, he just might do it. Ah, but here there be tigers....

Anyone who enjoys the Fables series will love this. And since everyone should enjoy Fables, you might as well pick up your copy now.

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
7 April 2007