I only recently discovered John Scalzi had written some sequels to The Dispatcher, which introduced such an intriguing world that I was definitelyI only recently discovered John Scalzi had written some sequels to The Dispatcher, which introduced such an intriguing world that I was definitely game for more stories in it! And Murder by Other Means improves on its predecessor by having a much stronger narrative, as Dispatcher Tony Valdez finds himself drawn into an ever more dangerous situation simply because he went to the bank on the wrong day. As the title suggests, the book deals with ways in which baddies might still find ways to murder people in a world where it's nearly impossible to murder someone. I do like that at this point (and perhaps not even in the third book) does Scalzi seem interested in explaining why the world suddenly changed, more interested in finding ways to play with the rules of the world and guess how people would exploit them (Valdez's opening assignment being a clever idea, for instance). A Scalzi audiobook is an easy listen, given that it's very dialogue-heavy, and Zachary Quinto has a very nice voice. The last third of the book starts to become exposition dumps as Scalzi ties threads together to explain what the fuck has been going on and why, and it's all very procedural, but on a character level, I do enjoy Valdez's relationship with Langdon, which gets better drawn out here. Overall, a fun sci-fi crime story!...more
I enjoyed the first two Dispatcher novellas, but by this third one, I feel like John Scalzi isn't bringing a whole lot new to the table. Though TravelI enjoyed the first two Dispatcher novellas, but by this third one, I feel like John Scalzi isn't bringing a whole lot new to the table. Though Travel by Bullet does invoke the titular phrase at one point to refer to a clever use of Dispatching...it's one he already used in the previous novella! This Audible Original is neck deep in crypto, feuding billionaires, and Amazon product placement, and by the end, it just got too convoluted for me to really care all that much about what was going on and/or why, though I do like the main character and his friends. Overall, it's fine, but a disappointment after the last one....more
With Super Boba Café, Nidhi Chanani makes the leap into both middle-grade graphic novels and graphic novel series (well at least one with an actual stWith Super Boba Café, Nidhi Chanani makes the leap into both middle-grade graphic novels and graphic novel series (well at least one with an actual storyline...), and she's just as adept as she always is. I've always loved her endearing art style, her characters having round, expressive faces and her color choices being evocative instead of realistic. From the perspective of panel layout aesthetics and storytelling ambition, I found this book not quite as bold and creative as Pashmina and Jukebox apart from a few striking breaks from the mold, but I'm impressed with how easy she makes the flow of panels look, as her books always have me turning pages quickly.
Chinese-Indian-American girl Aria visits her grandmother, Nainai, in San Francisco and works at her boba cafe...which soon becomes a kitten cafe. But Nainai always mysteriously disappears at the same time every evening. What is she up to? Well, that's the book.
The thing about this book is that it spends the first half leading up to a reveal of the Big Secret and then the second half dealing with the Big Secret, and the first half ends up feeling a bit meander-y and the second half ends up feeling rushed. I really enjoyed some of the very silly worldbuilding in this book, as a recurring element in the first half that I thought was just there to be a cute joke was actually a major plot point, and I love that shit! But then it's a bit "Well, please accept this bombshell revelation" and Aria has to figure out what to do next. Chanani does cleverly weave together a whole lot of subplots into this main plot, and I especially liked how much the daily workings of the cafe and its customers figured into everything. There's a...coziness to this whole story, where the stakes feel really high and yet it's still very cute.
I was also impressed with how Chanani handled some pretty sensitive subject matter in the book. While there's nothing explicit, it's revealed Aria had a very bad experience at home that's caused her to be a little wary of social media and boys, and I loved how supportive Nainai is of her when she finally opens up to her about it. And how this trauma gets referenced a few times throughout the book, as it's something Aria is still processing and trying to overcome while also dealing with some very fantastical circumstances. There's also some surprisingly hardcore deaths in this book, so I'd definitely advise a parent to pre-read before giving it to their younger kids, as Chanani is definitely writing for a slightly older audience than in her previous graphic novels.
Even though this is labeled as the first in the series, I was surprised and pleased to discover that it stands alone very well, telling a full story while leaving the door open for it to continue. I think some of my narrative issues had to do with the fact that it felt like the book was largely setting up the world of the series, so I'm very curious and excited to see what else Chanani has in store. Aria and Nainai are both wonderful characters, and there's a boba kitten cafe, I mean...how could I not want more of that....more
It is a testament to just how fucking good Ghost Tamer is that I did not hold it against Meredith R. Lyons that it was not, in fact, about a lion tameIt is a testament to just how fucking good Ghost Tamer is that I did not hold it against Meredith R. Lyons that it was not, in fact, about a lion tamer but for ghosts. (Someone should write that book though.) I met Lyons when visiting Nashville for the release of Lauren Thoman's I'll Stop the World, and she seemed like a supercool person, but I had absolutely zero idea how much I would like her debut novel. Turns out, the book is also supercool! On the surface, it seems like a fairly typical paranormal novel about a stand-up comedian who discovers she has her own personal ghost companion after a near-death experience and must figure out why she can see ghosts and how to survive a malevolent spirit that's targeting her, but it's so much more than that! It is actually intentionally more than that, and the way Lyons subverted my expectations of what kind of book this is thrilled me.
The book wastes no time, either, opening with a tragedy that leaves Raely injured and devastated by the end of the first chapter. Lyons writes with panache and ferocity, and she must have worked with a really good editor too because this book fuckin' moves, the Kindle pages flying by as I yearned to know more about what was going on with her new friendly ghost, whom she naturally dubs Casper, and how ghosts worked in this world because very quickly, it becomes clear Casper is unlike any ghost I've ever encountered in fiction. I love that Lyons comes up with a fresh take on well worn tropes here, and while everything she pulls off with Casper is fantastic, I would have loved to know even more about how ghosts work in this world. There are different types! Raely doesn't actually interact with too many others though, the main other ghost being the antagonist. And although I wouldn't call this a horror novel, I love that Lyons really evokes a beautiful sense of both eerie horror and disturbing horror in her portrayal of the ghosts.
The secret to the book's success, though, is that it's actually a more character-driven story about Raely dealing with grief and unpacking some of her childhood trauma. Raely's search for answers about Casper takes her down a road she does not expect, and Lyons brought me to tears multiple times in the book because she's not afraid to get really raw with the emotional content here. I may or may not be tearing up right now thinking of a particular scene. It's natural to explore grief in a story about ghosts, of course, but a lesser writer may have really put a button on it by having Raely spend a significant amount of time with the ghost of a person she recently lost. That's too easy, though, isn't it? Because the whole point of losing someone is that they're gone, at least here in the real world. So we have to feel that loss just as hard as Raely does (and the fact that we do is notable given that we only know the character for a few pages). Lyons has some other tricks up her sleeve, though, and hoo boy, the book really levels up once Raely starts finding out some answers.
I burned through a lot of the book really fast before losing some momentum because I got busy, so I can't say for certain I wouldn't have outright LOVED the book as a whole more if I'd kept my furious reading pace going. Because for a large chunk of the book, I was surprised by how fucking good it was, just a super engaging, compelling read that was doing new and interesting things with the material, giving a great sense of place in Chicago and also evoking the stand-up comedy scene without sharing any of the terrible or brilliant comedy routines Raely was witnessing because humor is subjective and Lyons is wise enough to simply let Raely's assessment persuade of us the quality of these local comics. And I loved the relationship between Raely and Casper so, so much. While I appreciated that the climax was more of an emotional one than a skybeam one, I guess in my heart I wanted a little more skybeam in there so that I could have both the book I thought it was going to be as well as the book it really was since Lyons had done a pretty solid job melding the two. It felt rushed to me and didn't hit me as hard as I wanted it to. Even so, it's a very satisfying ending that also leaves the book open for a potential sequel since there does seem to be more to explore in this world with this character and her ghost-taming powers....more
After seeing the Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, I was interested in listening to David Grann's lauded book Killers of the Flower MooAfter seeing the Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, I was interested in listening to David Grann's lauded book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, and let me tell you, it's quite a different experience than everyone else got when they read or listened to this book before the movie came out! As I had heard, the book is structured as a whodunit, but even if you've only seen the trailer for the movie, you already know whodunit. But while that does take away that startling moment of revelation that pre-movie readers had, I still found it an interesting, fascinating, horrifying extension of the story I got from the film.
Grann structures the book in three parts, the first from the perspective of Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman whose family members are systematically murdered over several years. But it's not just her family members being murdered. While it was big news in the early twentieth century, I don't think I ever heard about the Osage until the Scorsese film, and Grann explains how they were forced off their native lands to what looked like some shitty, useless land only to strike oil and become rich as fuck...so naturally white people came in and tried to take their wealth away from them, finding all sorts of "legal" ways to control their money and then engaging in less legal ways to actually acquire it. You know, like murder. It's awful, awful shit, and Grann doesn't hold back in describing some of the finer details of how these people were exploited. I found Ann Marie Lee's narration here somewhat overwrought though, the kind of reader who tries to make every sentence sound incredibly dramatic with a lot of strong emphasis and shifting intonations, like she's reading to children.
The second part shifts the perspective to Tom White, a federal detective sent by Hoover, who would be inspired by this case that required governmental intervention because the local authorities were not handling it to his satisfaction to create the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Grann spends a lot of time on White's backstory, which was interesting since Scorsese spent zero time on it after restructuring the screenplay, and I wasn't sure I needed all of it, but Grann was clearly interested in the events that shaped the man. Through the investigation, we begin to learn that some of the most esteemed and trusted white men in the Osage Nation, ones that were publicly friends of the Osage, even, were, in fact, conspiring to murder them for their money. Grann reveals all of this in a matter-of-fact way, kind of slowly putting the puzzle pieces together and helping us see how White follows the chain of people involved, and I really enjoyed Will Patton's very casual narration style here with his rough-and-tumble timbre making it feel like we were hearing all of this in a dark corner of a bar. Just very appropriate for the vibe of this section. Things get pretty hairy in the latter half of the section as White tries to wrangle confessions and convictions out of people, as people keep flipping loyalties to save their own skin, people turn out to have been lying, or people keep dying or keep having been killed already.
In the third section, Grann switches to his own perspective as he details a further investigation that uncovers EVEN MORE CONSPIRATORIAL MURDERS, like basically a sequel/companion book to the book within this very book. Reader Danny Campbell is kind of like a male version of Ann Marie Lee but not quite as dramatic; he does have a teacherly vibe to him. I'll admit I wasn't as invested in this section as the previous two since it felt like a side quest, and I was also a bit disappointed not to be as BLOWN AWAY by this book as its reputation suggested I would be. Grann's writing isn't dry, per se, but his relatively detached voice chronicling events sometimes made it hard to follow the intricacies of what was going on because there were just so many names and connections.
Overall, the book illuminates some historical atrocities that need to be illuminated for these modern times even though it does, as I noted, make it clear that this was BIG NEWS at the time. All eyes were on the Osage Nation when this investigation was breaking everything wide open. But it was soon forgotten. The people of the Osage still live with the repercussions of the Reign of Terror though. It's an ultimately sobering tale, and even though "justice" may have been served in some way, some injustice digs too deep to ever leave the ground....more
I really liked Camp Damascus, and it turned out that it was not, in fact, Chuck Tingle's first traditionally published work, as he had this novellI really liked Camp Damascus, and it turned out that it was not, in fact, Chuck Tingle's first traditionally published work, as he had this novella, Straight, before that! And Tor was handing out codes for a free audiobook at SDCC, so it was easy enough to check out. And, well, there's honestly not much to it, as Tingle establishes a pretty neat premise—thanks to some unexplained cosmic phenomenon, there's one day a year where the cisgender straight people turn into uncontrollable rage zombies and try to kill queer folk of any kind—and then sends a few likable characters out into the mayhem. It's basically queer The Purge! As Tingle said on a panel, his number one concern when writing is Message, and, well, that's pretty apparent here, where it's pretty much all Message. It's essentially a love letter to the queer community that acknowledges the struggles of being part of it in a cis-centric heteronormative society and embraces the idea that they are #StrongerTogether. Although it's not subtle at all, I did appreciate that Tingle had the restraint to let the fact that this day is called Saturation Day and that the cis straight people are referred to as Overwhelmed stand, trusting his readers to get the cheeky satire of a world where people like me just CANNOT TAKE THE EXISTENCE OF PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT FROM ME ANYMORE and must respond with bloody violence. One day a year. If they don't get the vaccine. It takes about half the book for the bloody violence to start, but once it starts, it does not stop! Until it does because the book is over. It's really just a short and sweet tale of survival that's like, yay fellow queers, and boo straight allies who aren't real allies. I found André Santana's narration overdone, rarely liking his intonations and choices in reading because he tried to make every single sentence seem Important and Sincere instead of pulling me into the character (though there were some good emotional moments). Overall, it's perfectly serviceable for what it is, and it makes me appreciate just how good Camp Damascus is!...more
I've heard such great things about the audiobook of Trevor Noah's memoir, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, that I waited years unI've heard such great things about the audiobook of Trevor Noah's memoir, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, that I waited years until I could actually listen to it (since it was always on hold at the library, I finally just got it via an Audible trial). I wasn't as blown away as most other people seem to have been, but I definitely enjoyed hearing Trevor Noah talk about the sort of childhood I imagine is unfamiliar and unimaginable to many people listening to him. As a cohesive storytelling experience, it didn't really grab me because I couldn't discern any real sense of structure to it, as it wasn't chronological and it only occasionally grouped scenes by content (here are some stories about Trevor's pets, here are some stories about Trevor's music pirating business), so it felt like simply a collection of anecdotes as opposed to something that was building on itself.
But luckily, these anecdotes are fascinating and entertaining as they give a picture of life under and after apartheid better than anything else I've ever read or seen. It works rather well as a companion piece to Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, as Noah brings forth a similar point that the organizers of apartheid looked to other countries to figure out the best way to do racism, and like the Nazis, even they thought America's one-drop rule was just TOO RACIST, MAN. As mixed-race kid, Noah occupied a hazy space in that area, often read as white because of his light skin though he considered himself Black, and I really liked hearing about the ways he navigated that space. One of his most insightful observations was that a common language can short-circuit racism, as he found that if he was able to communicate with someone in their own language, they instantly stopped thinking of him as Other. The whole book is full of little things like that, and it's especially good to hear Noah drop these insights with a degree of measured thoughtfulness and the occasional wry humor, like he thinks it's kind of funny that humans work like that but it's also kinda fucked up.
A review of this book would likely just devolve into bringing up all the stories from his South African childhood that I enjoyed, but it's better that you hear them from him. Even though I said there was no narrative throughline, by the end it was clear that the book did have an emotional throughline by way of little Trevor's relationship with his mother, given that it's bookended by two truly outrageous tales about her. Noah's a great spinner of yarns, so overall it's a very engaging listen....more
To Travel the Stars bears an SEO-friendly subtitle that declares it to be a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, but To Travel the Stars is such an evocaTo Travel the Stars bears an SEO-friendly subtitle that declares it to be a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, but To Travel the Stars is such an evocative title on its own I wouldn't call it anything more than that, SEO be damned. Especially because it reflects one of the main things I love about Amy Sundberg's Pride and Prejudice in Spaaaaaaaaaaace, which is that her Lizzie Bennett dreams of becoming an FTL pilot. That is her heart's desire, not marriage. Ideally, she can have both, but Sundberg's twist on the classic opening line is "It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you reach a certain age, you begin to search in earnest for an interface partner." Crucially, while an interface partner may be a romantic partner, they don't have to be. They simply need to be someone you're drift-compatible enough with to do various space jobs like flying spaceships or whatever. This is not hard science fiction, and Sundberg's immersive world-building meant I didn't think too much about all the intricacies of this future and its tech because all I needed to buy into was what was necessary for the plot, and all of that comes from our narrator, Lisette "Lizzie" Bennett.
While I haven't read Pride and Prejudice in a long time, I watched Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Fire Island last year, so I had a pretty solid memory of the basic outline of the story, and refreshing my memory on the specifics via Wikipedia after finishing the book really helped me appreciate how Sundberg balanced the familiar elements with not only the sci-fi milieu but also the updates for a more progressive time. There are a couple non-binary characters (identified by Lizzie's use of pronoun for them and not much else), and Sundberg's done some judicious gender-swapping to queer up the relationships a bit, like switching Charles and Caroline Bingley so that instead of Jane and Mr. Bingley, we get Jayne and Caro Bingley, and morphing youngest sister Lydia into younger brother Florian, who becomes a target for George Wickham. (Also I am pretty sure some of the characters are POC, but as with the non-binary characters, it's in one or two mentions of their skin tone and nothing else regarding their character so it didn't stand out.) It's all seamless and casual, with no homophobia or racism entering the picture, the main form of bigotry that continues to exist in the future being, naturally, classism.
That's what drives the titular pride and titular prejudice of the original novel, of course, and Sundberg makes it work in this setting where people who live on PLANETS look down on those who live on SPACE STATIONS. While much of the action adheres to the whims and whimsies of Jane Austen, who explores various suitors and proposals, Sundberg embellishes the romantic shenanigans with interfacing successes and mishaps and Lizzie's quest to get into a prestigious school that will be the first step to her career as an FTL pilot. Which, I reiterate, is her primary goal, Will Darcy be damned! Scenes are largely dialogue-driven, and the language felt a bit inconsistent in that I couldn't tell whether I was supposed to be reading all the lines in a very proper British accent since a lot of it felt more casual and less high-falutin', but that may be because I haven't looked at the original Austen in a while. Regardless, the characters all came alive, especially the ones Sundberg makes particularly awful like Mrs. Bennett, who does something early on that I can't believe doesn't get her kicked out of the family, and Charlie Bingley, who takes on the original Caroline Bingley's haughtiness and and snideness toward Lizzie, poisoning Darcy against her.
Overall, it's an enjoyable read that delivers on its subtitle, effectively reimagining a classic story and its headstrong heroine with cleverness and creativity....more
It's wild that Stephen King has been so prolific over his career and has consistently turned out pretty strong work in all stages of his career. WhileIt's wild that Stephen King has been so prolific over his career and has consistently turned out pretty strong work in all stages of his career. While Revival may not knock it out of the park—largely because, like Later, it feels like it would have worked better as a short story but is significantly longer—it draws you in with the specifics of its characters and setting and leads you slowly but surely toward an ending that—unlike Duma Key, another long King novel with a very slow build to a harrowing conclusion—I think could have had the same impact if King's editor had been more ruthless. And it's difficult to talk about the book without talking about the ending because that is the part that will stick with you, though King does craft an effectively eerie two-hander that tracks the relationship between protagonist/narrator Jamie Morton and his "fifth business," Reverend Charles Jacobs, whom he meets when he's a child and then encounters at other points in his life, sometimes by fate and sometimes...well, perhaps it is always by fate, that's what really get him. Jamie opens the book very ominously, setting the reader up for a whole lot of calamity to come, and I'll admit the technique of teasing Very Bad Things works great on me, but here it generally underwhelmed...at least until the end, when it became clear why Jamie viewed his entire relationship with Jacobs as the worst possible thing that could have happened to him or anyone.
There's no shortage of "creepy preacher comes to town" stories, even in King's own oeuvre, but Jacobs's deal is an obsession with electricity, and specifically the "secret electricity" he believes he can harness to heal maladies. And it's that obsession that drives him throughout the novel, whether he's on the page or not. I did like his whole mad scientist vibe, which was an interesting fit on a man of God, or at least a man of God until the terrible sermon he gives after his belief is shaken. We don't learn a whole lot about Jacobs, and the mystery surrounding him works. We learn a lot more about Jamie, and I don't think I really needed to know about him losing his virginity to his high school sweetheart, his detailed knowledge of rock and roll as he became a rhythm guitarist for various bands, or his heroin addiction that was definitely King working out some shit. Well, the heroin addiction does become plot-relevant, but in any case, although other characters do exist in the book, it's mostly just Jamie, and David Morse's narration is...fine, I guess, fairly staid, so he wasn't a character I fell in love with or anything. I was mostly in it for the spooky shit, and King, as always, excels in describing dire, unnerving shit that rocks a relatively grounded world. It's a book that improves as it goes on and is always best when Jacobs is involved, either on or off the page, which is why I felt like so much of the stuff in between could have been cut down. But in providing a richly textured world, King does give himself the opportunity to bring a lot of that material back later on, which makes Jamie's story feel that much more believable.
It does take a very long time to get to the punchline, as it were, but it really packs a wallop, recontextualizing so much of what we've seen Jamie experience as well as what Jacobs has done. In general, the book asks the question, "What is the deal with the 'secret electricity' and what is it doing to people?" And the book does not necessarily provide an answer to that question, instead providing an answer to a question you may not have thought to ask, an answer that opens up a whole slew of other unsettling questions. Things get really fucked. Really, really fucked. In a way that appealed to me! Naturally, it's a novel that wrestles with faith, and it takes a...different perspective than you might think.
Overall, even though the book occasionally tried my patience when it was dealing with mundane shit, it always managed to tickle my supernatural spleen enough to keep me interested until it dropped a supernatural nuke on my supernatural spleen. It's a shame Mike Flanagan's film adaptation didn't pan out because I think he would have rocked it....more
Rob Saucedo has been hawking his new graphic novel, Where Wolf, at screenings of werewolf films at the Alamo Drafthouse, and it's a great marketing taRob Saucedo has been hawking his new graphic novel, Where Wolf, at screenings of werewolf films at the Alamo Drafthouse, and it's a great marketing tactic, to be sure. Especially when your book has a delightful hook like "Journalist goes undercover at a furry convention in Texas to catch a werewolf." I thought it sounded fun enough to take a thirty-dollar chance on a special variant cover edition after watching The Howling, especially when the cover specifically included an endorsement from Joe Dante! And the back included endorsements from Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay! And the average Goodreads rating was a whopping 4.92!!
Look, I'm a generous reviewer, and I find it hard to believe that any of those people loved this book THAT MUCH. This feels like one of those situations where a movie has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 92% but a Metacritic score of 52. Is this book bad? Certainly not. It's perfectly enjoyable and competently done. But it's overall so mediocre and underwhelming compared to what I thought I was going to get from this book that I can't pretend you should go out of your way to check out this random graphic novel you've never heard of.
Larry Chaney (GET IT GET IT) is a shitty boyfriend and a slacker reporter in College Station who gets a chance to prove himself to his put-upon girlfriend, Gwen, when he looks into some mysterious deaths that just happen to coincide with a furry convention. He enlists the help of a witness, Sophia, who becomes his girl Friday, as it were, and they try to suss out who the werewolf might be.
Saucedo's horror-comedy is far more comedy than horror, and how much you enjoy the book will depend on your tolerance for main characters like Larry, who is not The Worst, exactly, but also not exactly the most endearing of doofs. Thankfully, Sophia's clearly the best character in the book, and her outrageousness gives the book some fun attitude, and Saucedo gives Gwen a bit more agency and dimension than is often afforded the girlfriend characters of characters like Larry. Saucedo gives them all some solid backstory that deepens their characters and relationships. From a horror perspective, Saucedo does actually have a compelling take on werewolves, but unfortunately, it's all dropped in one chapter near the end of the book with little time to explore (but I guess that's what the sequel is for).
While there's good stuff in here, it's a frustrating read because so little really happens for most of it. Most of it is spent trying to convince people there's a werewolf, and there's very little werewolf action, and there is exactly one (1) scene of a werewolf being mistaken for a furry! That's it! Isn't that the whole joke of this premise?? (Another point in this book's favor, by the way, is that it treats furries respectfully rather than making them the butt of the joke for the whole book.) So it's mostly just Larry and Sophia running around and occasionally a werewolf appears. It's...cute and fun, I suppose?
I would probably rate this book higher if I liked Debora Lancianese's art at all, but I don't. I could tell when I flipped through that it was not appealing to me, this very simple sketch-y black-and-white that feels like the rough drafts of panels. Like literally they remind me of the sketches I see of panels before they're properly drawn and inked and colored. Again, I wouldn't say it's bad, per se, just...baseline competent, with the occasional striking composition.
Anyway, the punny title makes no sense but it's cute, and that's basically indicative of the book itself. It's cute. It exists. It's not going to set the world on fire, but I sure wish it delivered a hell of a lot more from its premise.
I picked up Kang the Conqueror: Only Myself Left to Conquer at SDCC because I wanted to buy something nice and self-contained for Jackson Lanzing and I picked up Kang the Conqueror: Only Myself Left to Conquer at SDCC because I wanted to buy something nice and self-contained for Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly to sign, and...holy fucking shit, I need to go back in time like Kang and tell them how great I think this book is. All I know about Kang I learned from the MCU and I guess Iron Lad's appearance in Young Avengers, but Lanzing and Kelly made him a truly fascinating and compelling character in this five-issue miniseries that follows a young Nathaniel Richards as he strives to not become the Kang the Conqueror who went back in time to tell him how to be a better Kang the Conqueror with two key words of advice: "Never love." (So of course Ravonna Renslayer plays a central role here, which makes me very curious about Loki S2.) While it may be cliché to reframe a supervillain as sympathetic because of his love of a woman, Lanzing and Kelly brilliantly play with established canon to tell a gorgeous, lyrical tale of a man who accumulates incredible power and uses it for both good and evil across centuries and millennia.
God, the writing here is so pointed and clever in crafting a character study that puts Kang at the center of the Marvel Universe but features cameos from so many other key figures that put him and his power in context. Lanzing and Kelly know how to use the rhythm of narration to punch beats and make you feel the emotion of every part of a thought and then knocking you out when you turn the page. They know how to use the repetition of phrases like "Never love" or "In the space between the stars" in ways that recontextualize them as Nathaniel/Kang uses or remembers them throughout his journey. And incredibly, while I initially loved Nathaniel Richards as a kind of Kid Loki, a younger version of a supervillain who's perhaps a little more on the good side, and found the way he referred to Kang, his much older self, as essentially a separate person interesting, we know that canonically he must become that person, and Lanzing and Kelly make this evolution gradual and believable. I have no idea how much of this story is their own invention, but I'm in awe of how they pulled it off.
But also, my God, the art! Artist Carlos Magno, colorist Espen Grundetjern, and letterer Joe Caramagna had me wanting to savor every page, every panel. Stylistically, it is perhaps just "good superhero art," but these fuckin' LAYOUTS, Christ. There are a couple double-splash pages that actually read left to right and then right to left and then left to right again as the narration carries you through various panels while a key image overlaps other. There are quite a few instances of the latter, where Kang or Ravonna cross the gutter onto other panels. It's just a visual feast.
This is one of those books that uses the comics medium to its fullest advantage, that thrilled me from panel to panel, page to page with a moving story of identity told with an epic immortal scope that's nonetheless written by mortals who've infused every word with a very human thoughtfulness....more
According to Tom King himself, when he and Mitch Gerads did Strange Adventures, they were basically told to do Mister Miracle again. And I really According to Tom King himself, when he and Mitch Gerads did Strange Adventures, they were basically told to do Mister Miracle again. And I really liked Mister Miracle! So I was excited for this book, but while I did like it, it's easily my least favorite King book. King definitely has a Thing he's become famous and infamous for, and he does that thing here for the character of Adam Strange, whom I knew nothing about but whose deal the first issue explains well enough. He's a man of two worlds, zapping back and forth via a zeta beam between Earth and Rann, where he met and fell in love with a princess, Alanna, and had a daughter, Aleea. It's all very John Carter of Mars, but whereas Adam Strange was traditionally considered a cool pulpy hero, Tom King is here to say FUCK YOU IF YOU LIKE THIS SHIT.
King has a compelling narrative structure in introducing Adam Strange through a book about his exploits saving Rann from the Pykkt invasion—visualized by Evan "Doc" Shaner, whose more defined 2D style contrasts with Gerads's more photorealistic stylized softness when depicting the real world—and a solid hook in kicking the plot off with a murder mystery where Adam Strange is the prime suspect being investigated by Mr. Terrific. But, man, I barely ever understood what the fuck was happening in the Rann stories. They seem to be told in a random-ass order, and I got that there was a war or whatever, and there were different aliens or whatever, but I had very little grounding in that world, so it was all just...vibes for me, really. King loves his repetitious devices, and I enjoyed the variations on the "Five, four, three, two, one" countdown that initially signals the appearance of the zeta beam but takes on various meanings throughout the book.
I really liked the contrasting art styles and the use of three wide panels on most pages, and in many places King, Gerads, and Shaner work together to draw parallels between the two worlds, switching between them on a single page. From the get-go, the tone of the Rann stuff calls its veracity into question since it's written more like an old serial than the contemporary superhero drama of the present action, and that question hangs over much of the book as some people wonder whether Adam Strange may have crossed some moral and/or ethical lines in order to win the war against the Pykkts. Adam denies it, as does his wife, Alanna, who emerges as the real star of this book. It's clear based on their strong relationship that King loves writing loving, supportive couples (see also Vision and Virgina, Scott Free and Big Barda), and I'm here for that too, but unlike in those other instances...I did not really care for or about Adam Strange. Increasingly less as the book went on! Like I said, his whole reputation is built on his Rann adventures, and because I had little context for them, I couldn't really get into him as a character. Now this is all by design as a deconstruction of the character, but I just felt so disoriented that it didn't have the impact it should have. Luckily, I also liked Mr. Terrific and his trivia bot, and I liked how his relationship with Alanna evolves.
I think this book could have been a couple issues shorter and still get its point across. It goes to some dark places for sure, and it touches on a common theme in King's work and one near and dear to my heart, which is that our lives are stories we tell ourselves and others, so I did wish I had been more into the book overall for some of those revelations and themes to hit. It's a bold direction to take this character, but I think it's one taken with thoughtfulness and a desire to grapple with some very hard truths about the nature of war. The book does pack a punch....more
I discovered Tom King via The Vision, one of the greatest comics I've ever read, so I've been curious to check out more and more of his work. And I discovered Tom King via The Vision, one of the greatest comics I've ever read, so I've been curious to check out more and more of his work. And if I'm being perfectly honest about my feelings on his highly acclaimed Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, I wasn't 100% in love with it as I was reading, but as I fell more into its rhythms and what it was doing, I couldn't deny that it certainly felt like I was reading eight perfect issues of a perfect comic, and the climax that tied the entire story together did unlock something inside of me to get me teary. My familiarity with Supergirl comes from the TV show, and that is apparently a very different conception of Supergirl than is in the comics, but also so is this one. Here, King reimagines True Grit as a space opera, as an alien girl named Ruthye narrates the story of the time she enlisted the aid of Supergirl in tracking down the brigand who killed her father so she could enact her vengeance. So, funny thing: the most popular Goodreads review of this book is a two-star review that begins thusly:
Might have been a better story without the hillbilly alien girl narrating the entire thing.
Um, no. Sorry it didn't work for you, and it did take some getting used to for me, but I fucking loved the way King chose to tell this story intended be a character-defining run by showing Supergirl through someone else's eyes. Yes, Ruthye's old-timey, circumlocutory dialogue and narration won't be for everyone, but it's a stylistic choice that kind of wrapped me up in a lyrical blanket. We never get inside Supergirl's head the entire book, and Ruthye is clearly the main character, which made some Supergirl fans very unhappy, but as someone with no attachment to the comics version of the character, it didn't bother me. I found it a fascinating way to be introduced to her, and it meant I didn't have the issue I had with Mister Miracle where my lack of familiarity with the comics kept me from following the story at times. Here, Supergirl-adjacent characters like Krypto and Comet appear, but it's not necessary to know much about them, and the main points of her character and backstory are spelled out many times. And what King focuses very heavily on is the fact that unlike Superman, Supergirl actually experienced the death of Krypton firsthand, and she carries that trauma with her always. As a result, she's much sassier and angrier than Clark, and she curses up a storm! And yet she's also immensely compassionate and helpful, and King's strength is in making a person like that a cohesive character. A person who has every reason to be a cynical, destructive rage monster and chooses to be kind.
Structurally, I felt that King took inspiration from Absolute All-Star Superman, each issue being a stand-alone adventure used to illuminate an aspect of Supergirl's character. Ruthye and Supergirl go from planet to planet tracking Krem, the brigand who killed Ruthye's father, and he's not an easy person to catch. But on the way, they uncover one planet's horrible secret, survive a day under a red sun, and have meaningful conversations about the pursuit of vengeance. Every issue feels like a tasty morsel, and the miniseries feels like satisfying meal.
King's beautiful, evocative words are more than matched by Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes's gorgeous, stunning art. I am terrible at describing art so I can't say what makes Evely's line work so distinctive, but it feels...pencil-y, if that makes any sense, like it's been casually sketched in front of you with a pencil yet with an intense attention to detail. It's stylized but not abstract, eschewing that "typical superhero art" I just appreciated in Kang the Conqueror: Only Myself Left to Conquer for something less clear and defined. And Lopes colors with reckless abandon, with soft combinations you might not expect meant to be more vibe-y than reality, which make this space opera feel somewhat fantastical, the misty watercolored memories of an old woman reflecting on a defining childhood moment.
King builds to a strong climax and a complex ending that I had very mixed feelings on until I discovered I had misread the final page. And I looked back at the first page. What a journey I had been on with these two characters. What a collection of journeys I had been on with these two characters. As I flipped through the book while writing the review, I found myself wanting to get lost in each individual page and appreciate the depth of artistry on display in both words and art. And if that's not a sign of a great fucking comic, what is?...more
Chuck Tingle, author of such heralded works of art as "Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt" and "Space Raptor Butt Invasion," has published a horror noChuck Tingle, author of such heralded works of art as "Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt" and "Space Raptor Butt Invasion," has published a horror novel...and it is Good Actually! I'm honestly astonished at how well written Camp Damascus is compared to his quickly generated comedy erotica, but he's clearly been holding out on us. I went in knowing nothing at all about it and was good and well hooked by the end of the first chapter, which introduces us to Rose, a teen girl raised by very conservative Christian parents who begins having visions of a very spooky lady in a uniform from the titular gay conversion camp...coincidentally when she has a bit of a Moment with her friend, Martina. This is only the beginning of the horrors to come, though.
Tingle expertly places us in the head of a girl who's been raised to believe in doctrine, and he trusts the reader to stick with her even though she regurgitates a lot of harmful dogma. We get enough of a personality from her beyond that to see her as a person and not a brainwashed robot, and that makes it all the more rewarding to watch that personality come to the fore over the course of the novel. Because she knows something is happening to her, even though her parents and therapist claim otherwise. Given the presence of a gay conversion camp, it's no spoiler to say that Rose discovers she is a candidate for such a place, but it would be a spoiler to describe how she comes to this conclusion and what role the camp plays in the story. Tingle kept surprising me through a lot of the first half of the book with just how fucked up and devastating he was prepared to get very early, and I kept turning pages to find out what Rose would find out next.
Tingle has a creative take on demons that takes aim at the culture of control that permeates the conservative thinking that seeks to suffocate and quash queerness in the name of a sacred text. Though he does bring the creepiness, he writes his demons as distinct creatures as opposed to James Wan-style all-powerful supernatural beings, which means they obey certain rules, so watching Rose discover what those rules are is a lot of fun because it recontextualizes earlier appearances, as well as other supernatural occurrences she's been experiencing. The pieces really begin to fall into place in the second half, which I may have found somewhat weaker since I read it over a longer period of time but may also have legitimate criticism of because the pacing feels very rushed. Throughout her investigation, Rose does eventually find an ally or two, and they come so late in the book that I didn't feel like we got enough time to know them. I thought the book—which is only 247 pages—could have used another fifty or hundred pages to sit with these new character dynamics and really build up to the climax, which throws in some additional revelations that could have also used some more time to breathe. I was honestly ready to be annoyed that what I thought was a standalone novel was really the first in a series because I didn't think he could wrap everything up in what little was left, but then...he did.
Despite some of my issues with the plotting, this book more than makes up for it in terms of character, worldbuilding, and big Love Is Real energy. Oh, and did I mention Rose is autistic, and Tingle, being an autistic buckaroo himself, writes her with empathy and authenticity? I'm so intrigued to see what comes of Tingle's literary career....more
After loving Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I was curious to check out more of Gabrielle Zevin's work, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry gAfter loving Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I was curious to check out more of Gabrielle Zevin's work, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry gave me a lot of what I loved about that book in a smaller package. It doesn't have quite as much complexity and depth in its human relationships and it feels somewhat more like a fable—not unexpected given the title—but the characters do still feel real and emotionally resonant.
On Alice Island there is one bookstore, Island Books, and it is owned by the titular A.J. Fikry, who is apparently half-Indian but could be made not half-Indian by removing, I don't know, five or six words from the whole book (not counting the number of references to "chicken vindaloo" in an early chapter that only made him sound more white to me). Fikry's also close to forty, which I did not realize for about half the book because his whole cantankerous vibe and grief over his wife's death reminded me so much of A Man Called Ove I assumed he was much older. In any case, his life is soon rocked by the disappearance of a prized possession and the subsequent appearance of...a two-year-old girl named Maya, left for him to take care of by her mother, who wants her to grow up in a bookstore. (Like I said, this book feels like a fable! Or, as one reviewer points out, Silas Marner!) Maya is Black but could be made not Black by removing, I don't know, a paragraph from the whole book; Zevin does make an insightful, sad comment about her mother's race but it's otherwise incidental to the story. Zevin did a much better job writing non-white characters in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, while here it feels like she painted some white characters a different color and then didn't think about how every aspect of their lives might be different, especially in what appears to be a very white, isolated community.
Anyway, A.J. Fikry raises Maya as his own, and naturally, this cantankerous man begins to soften! It's one of those books. He also finds the gumption to romance the Knightley Press sales rep, Amelia Loman, as they bond over one of her favorite books. And books, oh boy! Just like TATAT was an ode to gaming and gamers, this book is an ode to books and book lovers, not to mention bookstores. So it's no surprise it's popular among book lovers who go to bookstores! Zevin tracks the effects Island Books has on the community and how people are affected by not just the books themselves but in A.J.'s particular aid in book matchmaking. Specifically Nicholas Lambaise, who low-key becomes the best character in the book after being introduced as a simple but compassionate police officer who maybe reads the occasional crime fiction. Is it copaganda to write a cop this adorable? Maybe, but, hey, fable.
Zevin opens each chapter with A.J.'s review of a short story for Maya, which is a lovely structural device for many reasons, some of which don't become clear until the end. The story often does get referenced within the chapter itself, and since Zevin writes in third-person omniscient, these introductions give us a more personal and vulnerable view of A.J. than Zevin gives us, even though, as an omniscient narrator, she has the power to! Zevin is happy to follow A.J. and Maya through years of their life, checking in at milestone moments, but in the second half, she does show an almost Dickensian—or perhaps Eliot-esque—authorial hand by molding her slice-of-life narrative into something more cohesively satisfying.
It's possible this book is too full of itself, sincerely gushing over how great books are in a way that could be cloying, a ploy to appeal to readers who would eat this shit up. But the characters and story aren't powered solely on that engine, however, and Zevin does hit on some really lovely moments and explorations of human truths. As I listened to Scott Brick's reliably solid narration and realized I was listening to the final scene of the book, I audibly reacted, "You motherfucker," and had a brief swell of "Did I just read a perfect book?" No, no, it's definitely not perfect, but it feels very close because Zevin has such a knack for drawing you into her world and illuminating the beauty of human connection....more
In The Recall Paradox, Julian R. Vaca builds on the strengths of The Memory Index and delivers a much more exciting and interesting sequel that gaIn The Recall Paradox, Julian R. Vaca builds on the strengths of The Memory Index and delivers a much more exciting and interesting sequel that gave me a lot more of the COOL SCI-FI SHIT I was really enjoying at the end of the last book. Freya, Fletcher, Chase, and Ollie basically don't even go to school anymore in this book, as they spend all their time knifing memories and investigating shit!
There's a lot to like here, as the very Inception-y concept of knifing lends itself to some creative and intense action, including a daring helicopter chase that's just begging to be in a movie. I also dug that other characters besides Freya had special abilities that could be used in action scenes in the real world, like a daring climactic heist. Yes, everything these kids do is daring. Vaca also finds some beautiful and thoughtful moments to muse on the power of memory to both connect people and distance them, as Freya discovers her memory of her father is not entirely accurate and spends much of the book revisiting her own memories to reorient herself to the truth of her family situation. There are a lot of fascinating revelations scattered throughout the book regarding Memory Frontier, the company that has a monopoly on artificial recall, and the Memory Ghosts, the ostensible "terrorist" group that Our Heroes were initially drafted to help fight against.
It's so much, in fact, that this second half of a duology feels like the second two books in a trilogy smashed into one, so it doesn't feel like plot twists or emotionally cathartic moments get a chance to land because there's not enough build-up and then we're already hurtling on to the next thing. I felt like Chase and Ollie got short shrift this book, really falling into the background compared to Freya and Fletcher, especially since we get a whole host of new characters in the Memory Ghosts. As I got into the last hundred pages, I was almost positive this "conclusion" was really just setting up another book to continue the story, thinking there was no way Vaca could wrap up all the loose threads in so little time. And yet, he did! In a way that's supposed to be SHOCKING but is actually pretty much what you'd expect if you weren't a character living in this world. A lot of the worldbuilding here, despite some original twists that do distinguish it, does fall back on predictable narrative tropes for how these stories go. Don't get me wrong, it's a classic for a reason, and I still ate it up, but I think a little more development of the characters and some more examination of the fallout of the revelation would have made it have more impact for me.
Overall, it's another page-turning read, and honestly, I was turning the pages so fast I can't say the lack of impact wasn't due to my not savoring every single sentence. Vaca takes the reader on a swift adventure with some interesting sci-fi concepts and memory musings that may feel familiar to me but will likely thrill the target audience....more
When I attended Lauren Thoman's release party for I'll Stop the World, I wanted to support the authors who were supporting her, and Julian R. VacaWhen I attended Lauren Thoman's release party for I'll Stop the World, I wanted to support the authors who were supporting her, and Julian R. Vaca's The Memory Index sounded like my jam! But ugh, it was the first book in a duology and—HOLY CRAP I WON THE SEQUEL IN THE RAFFLE so here we are. And I'm definitely looking forward to reading the sequel/conclusion because this first book sets up a lot of really fascinating ideas but ends up feeling like one of those Netflix shows where the first season feels like a really long pilot.
In his debut novel, Vaca introduces an alternate 1987 plagued by a mysterious disease known as Memory Killer, which ravages humanity's brains and, well, kills memories at random, which means people must use artificial recall to preserve their memories to avoid losing them permanently. It's a terrifying idea, and Vaca complicates things by separating the populations into recollectors, who only need artificial recall once a day, and degens, who need to use it multiple times a day. Being a degen comes with a clear stigma, so naturally our main character, Freya Izquierdo—I love that her last name is basically "left," as in..."not right"—is one. Well, one of our two main characters, but Freya is our first-person present marginalized female POV, whereas Fletcher Cohen is our third-person past privileged male POV. I don't quite know why Vaca didn't do them the same, but it does have the effect of making us feel closer to Freya, since her narration speaks to us and explains how this world works in a way that's surprisingly. I also don't quite know why Vaca chose to set the book in 1987 rather than a terrifying alternate present, but it does get around the presence of cell phones and the Internet and there's also a clear nostalgia value here in how Vaca gets to have his teenagers drop pop culture references that adult writers would want their current teenagers to often unrealistically make because in this book, the references are contemporary! And by references, I mean that the book clunkily identifies every single song that plays by artist and song title ("'Don't You (Forget About Me)' by Simple Minds started to play through the loudspeakers, and this was met with scattered cheers"). There have to be more elegant ways to get your playlist into your book!
Both Freya and Fletcher end up at Foxtail Academy, where they're supposed to participate in a trial for a new Memory Frontier technology that will revolutionize artificial recall, but...something smells fishy! Oh yeah, gimme all your young adult dystopia tropes, baby. Sneak around that school. Make friends with your roommates. Mistrust authority. Especially when, uh, students start disappearing.
Vaca assembles a likable and diverse group of characters, adding Ollie and Chase into the mix. Chase acts exactly like you'd expect a character named Chase to act, and Ollie is the Enid to Freya's Wednesday. Will there be romance? You bet there will be romance. But also sneaking around! Most of the book is kinda low-key investigative work, but Vaca also spends a lot of time allowing the characters to open up in vulnerable ways about what's troubling them, from Freya's half-memory dreams and her dead dad to Fletcher's misgivings about his living dad.
Characters are cool and all, but you know what I want? COOL SCI-FI SHIT, and that's where the book really shines for me, as I loved learning about the world Vaca had created and wondered about the same mysteries the characters did, like...what WOULD happen if Memory Killer struck in the middle of artificial recall? The fact that no one seems to actually know anything about Memory Killer and the method of artificial recall is created by one specific tech company seems PRETTY SKETCHY if you ask me. So I liked all the questions Vaca brought up about this world and what it might mean for people's memories. Could they even trust their own memories if part of their recall was artificial? Were they sure that no one was able to access their memories? How much of our identity is comprised of our memories, and if we can't remember something anymore, does it still play a part in who we are, to ourselves and others? There's a nice ominous paranoia running throughout the book, and then in the last quarter, it gets Inception-y and VERY FUCKING COOL. That's the kind of mindbending shit I'm here for!
The book kinda has a climax but because the real action of the book starts so late, it doesn't feel like the culmination of a whole novel, just a high point in a specific episode. There are some other character moments that offer some payoff here, but this is definitely only half the story, and I'm very curious to see how it all pays off in The Recall Paradox!...more
And so Sex Criminals comes (oh ho) to a climax (oh HO) and finishes (OH ho). Is it, in its own way, anticlimactic? I guess, given that this series wasAnd so Sex Criminals comes (oh ho) to a climax (oh HO) and finishes (OH ho). Is it, in its own way, anticlimactic? I guess, given that this series was all over the place and never really found a perfect balance of character and plot so that the final(ish) issue has the real emotional impact I wish it had. I do love how pink it is, and I like that Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky have consistently reminded us that this is Suzie's book first and foremost—I've always loved the special relationship she has with us, the reader—but I don't think I really...understand it all. I'm also glad they gave us a proper villain in Badal, but I also don't really...get him. Fraction and Zdarsky brought this story to a...conclusion, of sorts, satisfying in parts but unsatisfying in others, honest and mature about the messiness of relationships to the end. But even though this comic didn't turn out to be what I wanted it to be, I'll hold Suzie and Jon close to my heart for a while....more
I don't really know what to say about these books anymore! They are still fun and entertaining, I suppose, but this volume finds our characters a bit I don't really know what to say about these books anymore! They are still fun and entertaining, I suppose, but this volume finds our characters a bit unmoored in their new status quo relationships, trying to figure out who they are and what they want, and there is some raucous sex stuff like Suzie's mom's new hobbies and Jon's visit to some kind of sex club, but also maybe there appears to be a an overarching plot finally coalescing with a Big Bad who is not, actually, Kegelface—Myrtle Spurge—who has somehow had a redemption arc? She's been an interesting character in this series, and I should have seen this coming given how she was depicted early on as an actual person with a family and not a supervillain. I'm curious to see what the grand finale holds....more
All right, now we're into the second half of the series that I never read and just kept buying trades for even though I had no idea what was going on,All right, now we're into the second half of the series that I never read and just kept buying trades for even though I had no idea what was going on, and what was going on was...more sex talk, less criminal talk, except for a delightful Criminal parody issue. I'm having a little trouble keeping track of all the characters and their relationships now, and this is kind of a bad-times issue for the most part as those relationships turn sour, so it's not very...enjoyable, but it is very real. I don't even know where this series is going now. But it does have some fun stuff for sure, and I fucking love this one moment where Suzie addresses the reader like a confidante. That's my shit....more
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