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I’m a sucker for comic-hero team-ups, which is why I’m ga ga for the five issue Magnetic North storyline currently running in Ultimate X-Men. It features both the Professor X’s band of super mutants and the Ultimates — the latter being led by the quick-to-spark Captain America. It doesn’t have the bite of Ultimate War, which featured the same heroes and ran two years ago, but it’s worth the read. The whole plot revolves around Magneto’s elaborate scheme to escape from the Ultimate’s inescapable prison for superhuman bad guys. It sounds very silly and cliche, yes, but Brian K. Vaughan, one of the smartest writers in comics right now thanks to Runaways, stirs up the action without it feeling stale.

What’s got me head scratching however is a story element that’s been running in several issues now: In an effort to feel contemporary (or perhaps to appease a growing gay, comic-reading audience), a few of the X-Men are now homosexuals. Colossus, the steely muscle of the X-Men, is the most well known (and tormented) of the bunch.

It all feels very forced to me and untrue to some of the heroes’ origins, but there you have it.

The English might not be the best cooks in the world, but they sure produce the best writers. Dickens. Tolkien. Austen. Rowling. Lewis. And now another: Philip Pullman. I’ve just finished listening to Pullman’s The Subtle Knife, Book Two of the His Dark Materials trilogy. If you’ve never heard much of Pullman, you will soon. The first book of the series, The Golden Compass, is being made into a film by New Line Cinema, those guys who gave us a little trio of obscure films entitled The Lord of the Rings. The idea, I’m hoping, is that New Line will adapt the whole Dark Materials trilogy into three seperate films.

Incidentally, it was the announcement of the films that attracted me to the books; I read about the deal in Variety, the daily trade journal for Hollywood. Pullman has already made a splash in Britain, winning a slew of awards for the trilogy, including one Carnegie Medal and the Whitbred Book of the Year Award in 2002, the first children’s book to ever win the prize.

Of course, I wouldn’t call these children’s books for the same reason I don’t call the Harry Potter books children’s books. As far as I can tell, the only distinction between young-adult fiction and adult fiction is the age of the hero. If the hero is a child, then the publishing world considers it young adult. If the hero is an adult, it’s adult fiction. Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game is sometimes wrongfully categorized as young-adult fiction for this reason. I think it silly.

But that’s neither here nor there. The point is: These books are fascinating. Pullman has an imagination as rich as Rowling’s and is a master of prose to boot. The man can write. And I mean beautifully. But not for beauty’s sake. This is knuckle-down, teeth bared action and suspense. No whimsical literary bouts of simile or metaphor for academic’s sake. This is a full-out page turner, both enchanting and gut-wrenching at the same time.

The story revolves around a young girl (twelve, I think) named Lyra Belacqua, whose world is starkly different to and yet in other ways very similar to our own. In Lyra’s world, all humans have a demon, which is a talking animal that is part of the human it belongs to, just as much as our hands are part of our bodies. Except the demon is not attached to humans. It moves and thinks independently of its master. And yet they are one. When the human dies, the demon dies. And vice versa. Children’s demons change form at will —from a bobcat to a moth to a German Shepherd — always to assist the human it belongs to. If Lyra is in danger, her demon, Pantalaimon, will become a leopard to protect her. Or a wolf hound. Or a fox. And if the demon needs to conceal itself, it will become a grasshopper and stay hidden in Lyra’s pocket.

But demons are only one of the magical creatures found in the trilogy. It’s full of a world . . . well, actually multiple worlds, so intriguing and full of fantasy that one begins to hope such places exist.

I didn’t read the first two books, rather I listened to them on my iPod, via the CDs at the library. Much like the Lord of the Rings cast recording done several years ago by the BBC, the Dark Materials trilogy features a full cast of stellar performers, who breathe life and suspense into the story, as well as a narrator, whom I was floored to find out was none other than Philip Pullman himself. He does amazingly well, giving each narration just the performance it needs, without detaching the listener from the characters and the action around them. It’s very unobtrusive. In fact, I think I recommend the recording more than the books themselves simply because there’s gut there I’m not sure I would have find in the text. Either way, you must get your hands on it. I myself can’t wait to listen to Book Three.

A word of caution: His Dark Materials isn’t for everyone. Pullman has been called the opponent of C.S. Lewis, having spoken out against the former author’s trumpeting of Christian ideals. In fact, some even call His Dark Materials a rebuttal to The Chronicles of Narnia. You see, in Pullman’s trilogy, the villain — the most dishonest, cruel, horrific organization in all the worlds that exist — is “The Church.” It’s not the most fair of labels, but it doesn’t bother me. This is fiction. Pullman is no advocate for evil, although some Christian groups may label him so. In truth, Pullman isn’t attacking Christianity, he’s attacking all religions that oppress. Some apparently don’t see the distinction. I, for one, love the series and find that my faith has not diminished as a result of reading it . . . or rather, listening to it.

I’m leery of books on writing, especially if they’re written by an author I’ve never heard of. If someone is going to give me counsel, I want it to someone who knows what they’re talking about, someone with real-world experience, someone who’s broken out and had substantial success. Getting published, after all, isn’t easy.

But even seasoned authors sometimes fall flat with books on writing. Take Stephen King, for example—a successful author, to say the least. A few years ago he wrote a book on writing, entitled, appropriately, On Writing. But half of it (the half I read before discarding it, that is) was autobiographical, how Stephen King came to be Stephen King, and not about the craft of writing at all. (I’ve since been told by others who finished the book that the last half has some wonderful tips on writing. Perhaps I’ll pick it up again someday and give Steve another try.)

The point is, it’s hard to find a good book on writing, which is why I was delighted to read Ben Bova’s The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells. Don’t let the name fool you. This is a book for fiction writers of any genre. In fact, I wish Bova had titled the book differently so as not to dissuade writers of other genres from picking up a copy. Bova, as I mentioned recently, is a master of science fiction, and sufficient emphasis is given in the book to the challenges of that trade. But what Bova says about character and plot structure and conflict and the necessary life habits of a writer apply to all fiction writers, be they authors of mysteries, romances, westerns, whatever.

I’m no writer of science fiction. I hope to be—or at least a writer of suspenseful fiction. And I found Bova’s suggestions invaluable: never solve a problem until you’ve introduced two more; write every day and don’t let hell or high water stop you; plant a “time bomb” on the first page; create antagonists, not villains, heroes of their own stories, etc.

If you’re interested in writing stories, I highly recommend this. Also check out Orson Scott Card’s Character and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. All three books are great resources on the art of successful storytelling. As is, I’m told, the latter half of On Writing. But don’t quote me on that last one.

Just finished reading The Multiple Man. Bova is one of the greats in science fiction, and he measures up to his own name in this thriller. It’s hard to believe the novel was written back in 1976; it feels incredibly contemporary. The plot revolves around the President of the United State’s press secretary, who, with the help of the Secret Service, discovers a dead body behind a building where the president is giving a speech. What’s odd, however, is that the corpse looks exactly like the president–meaning someone has made a double. And if someone can make a double, does that mean they’ve already succeeded in getting one into the White House? Is the acting president, the REAL president? This is classic Bova: wonderful characters intertwined in believable relationships, digging their way through incredible difficulties. The science-fiction element is always in the background, never crowding the story. It’s a fast read. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend it.