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Mood: Cool ]
[ Currently: Waiting to go grocery shopping ]
I managed to get my library to ILL an omnibus edition I have been wanting to read for awhile. And low, The Life and Times of Martha Washington arrived for me.
Martha was born in 1995 an alternate history America, one where the poor are locked into the slum/tenement housing provided by the government. From there she joins PAX, part peace corps, part military police, part army. She rises through the ranks and becomes a war hero, and treasonous rebel. And we see her as she passes finally dies at the age of 100.
Martha Washington is probably Frank Miller’s best work. (There I said it. And I sit back and wait for someone to tell me I am wrong.) Or at the very least his most feminist. Martha is not a sex kitten who uses her body to get what she wants, nor is she a male vision of what a strong woman is. She is a strong female character in the tradition of Elizabeth Moon’s Paksenarion and Tanya Huff’s Torin Kerr. One that I, as a woman could identify with.
This omnibus collects the series Give Me Liberty, Marth Washington Goes to War and Marth Washington Saves the World, plus some one issue stories. Because of this, it is a little disjointed, but that is due to how Miller wrote the Martha Washington series. Some chapters were written before others, while he deliberately chose not to cover certain chapters of her life. Still it is enjoyable and leaves you wanting to know more about this amazing woman.
Go get it.