Niccolò Machiavelli’s political treatise – The Prince – suffers from a bad reputation because of it being associated in the minds of the general public with the image of a conniving politician. This is a wrongful interpretation of the great work.

The Prince, in short, is a manual for a leader to use politics to serve its people in a better way. Through analysis of reasons behind the rise and fall of historical leaders at that time, Niccolò Machiavelli provides heuristics to future leaders in how to govern their domains. He has derived this philosophy through logical rigor and backtesting his hypotheses, as mentioned previously, against historical data. This makes it more than a political sermon and lends to it an attractive and intuitive feel.

From Game of Thrones to present Venezuela Crisis, his realpolitik philosophies can still be seen in play. These philosophies or heuristics can be further extended to corporate affairs as well as to personal development. As in essence, the book is about being prudent, wise, and able to withstand the vicissitudes of the Fortune.

Highly Recommended.

This review may contain spoilers.

So I have been planning to review the stories that I have come across in different mediums for a long time. This is my first step to do that. And I’m gonna review Annihilator by Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving.

Let’s begin.

As mentioned in the great synopsis available on Goodreads, this is another addition to the subversive, reality-bending, mind wrapping and trippy works of Grant Morrison, the legendary comic book writer. The story is about a washed-up Hollywood screenwriter, Ray Spass, who has been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and has to team with his own creation (is it?) to save the universe (and himself) in next seven days.

 As most of his works, this comic has multiple layers and dimensions which are not revealed on your first read. But still unlike his more dense and sometimes undecipherable works, this is a more reader friendly and comprehensible read. And I might add quite a breezy one too. It is laced with many uber cool moments – another classic GMo signature. My favourite is when Max Nomax kills all his guards and escapes from his space prison revolving around a black hole. It certainly ranks high in my favourite list of his works.

For me, the story has three main layers. One about the writer and his yearning for lost love that he is trying to incorporate into his sci-fi screenplay and give it a happy ending. The second one is about the common thread that runs across all of his works about reality within reality based on the framework Semitic/Christian Mythology about God and the Devil. This interpretation has been fused with sci-fi horror genre giving it a new flavor. And the last one is a team up story exploring these different dimensions and the basic premise of relationship between creator and their creations. In addition to it, it has a commentary and meta take on his own writing as well as Hollywood.

All this has been greatly complemented by Frazer Irving’s art. Pushing For me another level and making it an art to marvel upon. It gives it a surreal feel to the whole story environment. The art itself can his yearning in many ways.  In the beginning, I’ve chosen the cover of issue four by Frazer Irving as this cover, according to me, is the one that best captures the true essence of this book.

Overall, I’ll highly recommend this book. My rating is 5/5.  Full Emotional Contact.

Please find below video showing how an idea from his work on All-Star Superman influenced and led to the development of this project.

Ciao.

Hope to be back soon with more reviews.