Book-A-Day 2018 #339: 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man by Matt Kindt

Craig Pressgang just kept growing: he was nine feet tall in high school, and as tall as a three-story building by the time he was thirty. (Hence the title.) He's obviously a fantasy character, for those of you about to cite the inverse-square law, and his condition is almost as much a metaphor as it is a real thing.

This is Matt Kindt's 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man, one of that early burst of Kindt stories that all seemed to be about WWII and/or spycraft. (Craig's father died in the war, before he was born, and he was an odd CIA asset in the '60s.) I saw the original edition back in 2010, but this new paperback also includes some related stories from a one-shot and the inevitable concept art.

I covered the plot and themes of the main book in some depth the first time, and I still agree with those opinions. So I won't repeat myself; follow that link if you want more detail.

The additional materials here are slight -- three "Secret Files" stories of Pressgang, working as a CIA asset in Paris, Egypt and Vietnam, and then those early drawings to close out the book. The package is nicer this time around than the first edition, with a better-looking cover.

Kindt's books have gotten slightly larger-scale and more traditionally active recently, but 3 Story is from fairly early in his career -- it's a quiet, distanced story about a man who is about as distanced as a man can be. The spycraft feels unnecessary here, like something that Kindt included because there were spies in all of his previous books. (You could imagine a book all about how the most recognizable man in the world could have massive secrets, but that's not what this book is.) If you're interested in that kind of story, this is a particularly good one.