This was actually a re-read, but I've never ranked this book on GR before. Anyway, this is a comfort read for me, one of those books I dip into onceThis was actually a re-read, but I've never ranked this book on GR before. Anyway, this is a comfort read for me, one of those books I dip into once in a while because it's pleasant. I wasn't quite sure who Abram's intended audience was here; the book isn't really for beginners, and any carpenter of experience will know most of the things in here. The book is partly memoir, part remembrance of Abram's father, part "stories from the jobsite"...and then it hit me. If you've ever been a small-town hardware store--not Home Depot or Lowe's, but the joint on the corner in the town center with the wood floors that creak as you walk on them and the tight aisles, the place where you can hear music playing on the single-speaker radio that's behind the counter but you can't really listen to the music because there are three or four people talking hardware and tools and stories about what they're working on at home with the man or woman running the place, THAT is the tone here. Sometimes these folks are telling each other something new, sometimes they're learning, but lots of times they're just telling each other stories that they already know because they've all been around forever and they've all had the same things happen to them on jobs.
It's a good book and nice to read, if working with tools is any part of your life. (It is mine.) If you need help with the atmosphere, imagine the scent of sawdust and metal and machine oil in the air as you read it....more
I've been a fan of Randall Munroe's xkcd forever, and I adored THING EXPLAINER. I haven't read WHAT IF yet, but I loved this one, in which Munroe usesI've been a fan of Randall Munroe's xkcd forever, and I adored THING EXPLAINER. I haven't read WHAT IF yet, but I loved this one, in which Munroe uses absurd ways to do mundane tasks as a stealthy way to examine real scientific problems and principles. The book entertained me wildly, and I loved his careful explanations of why some ideas are very, very bad ideas indeed (putting a molten lava moat around your house is a good one).
There is quite a bit of above-my-pay-grade mathematics in this book which I admit to skimming over. But then, I'm highly unlikely to try attaching jet engines to my house in an attempt to relocate it and all my stuff en masse, so I think I'm OK skipping the math....more
What a time it was, back in the late 70s when all you had for fresh STAR WARS content during the three year wait between movies was a new issue eachWhat a time it was, back in the late 70s when all you had for fresh STAR WARS content during the three year wait between movies was a new issue each month of Marvel's STAR WARS comic! I actually didn't read a lot of these until after RETURN OF THE JEDI came out, and I read them the old-fashioned way at the time: by tracking down the single issues, one by one, in comics stores. Still, what a grand time it was to read a lot of this stuff. This book contains roughly the first thirty or so issues of Marvel's old STAR WARS comic, which take the reader through first the movie itself via an adaptation that took up the first six issues, and then into original stories that followed the post-Yavin adventures of our Rebel heroes.
Some of this stuff sounds strange when described--a Han-and-Chewie adventure ripped from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, or our heroes getting caught up in a local war on an ocean planet, or intrigue on a galactic casino--but these stories are told with some pretty wild abandon in a time when the STAR WARS universe was a barely-developed thing at all. The writers and creators of these comics had more freedom than any STAR WARS storyteller not named "Lucas", and it shows in the sheer exuberance of their stories. But they are still pretty solid stories in themselves, and I had a great time revisiting them in this book. (I'm slowly working my way through the entire Marvel STAR WARS run.)
The art is often fantastic, although I'll admit that Carmine Infantino's human figures do take a bit of getting used to, and in a lot of cases if you're looking for similarity to the actors, you're not going to find it, which is why in a lot of cases the characters are still rocking the exact same costumes they wore in the original film, right down to Leia's white gown and famous cinnamon-roll hairdo.
For a trip into what STAR WARS used to feel like, the old Marvel run is an absolute blast that I can't recommend highly enough, and I'd be lying if I didn't note how many times I've 'borrowed' story ideas from these very comics in my own fiction attempts!...more
This emotional novel follows Sophie, an art student in college, as she transitions from the life of a student to whatever comes after...and as sheThis emotional novel follows Sophie, an art student in college, as she transitions from the life of a student to whatever comes after...and as she experiences the traumas of sexual assault and the death of her fiance. There is a lot of heavy material in LAKE EFFECT, and some readers may find parts of it triggering (especially the chapters related to self-harm). But if you can handle it, LAKE EFFECT is a highly engaging and effective read, an exploration of one person's partial descent and how that descent affects that person's life and relationships. Author Tone does not tidily wrap things up at the end, either; she leaves a number of threads unresolved as our time spent in Sophie's life comes to an end.
The book is also notable for its very concrete use of locations. Tone's Buffalo rings true, and I have to assume that the parts of the book set in the Pacific Northwest (in a small island town near Seattle) ring true as well. Tone is excellent not just at establishing character, but also in establishing location and most importantly, how location itself influences character.
LAKE EFFECT is a quietly emotional read that lingers in the mind quite a while after finishing. Highly recommended....more
I actually finished this a week and a half ago and forgot to update it on here...anyway, this is a highly engaging and readable history of the spaceI actually finished this a week and a half ago and forgot to update it on here...anyway, this is a highly engaging and readable history of the space race in the 20th century. There are a lot of such books, so what makes this one stand out for me is the way the book puts the space race in larger context of the ongoing fights for women's rights and for civil rights for black Americans. I never knew, for example, about Ed Dwight, a black Air Force test pilot who was in the early astronautics program and almost certainly should have been one of our nation's first astronauts. Instead, black Americans would have to wait until the 1980s to see one of their own go to space. This seems to me a giant failure of moral courage.
CHASING THE MOON also focuses strongly on the politics behind the space race and the way it was often used as a way of tempering the increasing dissatisfaction Americans felt with the war in Vietnam and other issues of the day. So if you're looking for a "Look at what the USA did!" hegemonic narrative of the Apollo missions, this isn't it. But it is a valuable account of what is, for all its wrinkles and questionable political motivations, one of our country's very greatest achievements....more
My real rating would probably be 3.5 or so, but I felt like rounding up. In honesty I didn't even realize when I checked this out of the library thatMy real rating would probably be 3.5 or so, but I felt like rounding up. In honesty I didn't even realize when I checked this out of the library that it's a retelling of Cinderella! I just saw the title, glanced at the plot description, and checked it out. It's a pretty quick read, but it's a kick seeing the tropes of the Cinderella story transposed to the modern day and to the world of geeky fandom. Parts of the book are a bit hard to get through, mainly owing to the necessity of the cruel step-mother and step-sister characters (I don't really enjoy seeing characters whose only reason for existence in a story is to be malevolent, even if there is almost certainly some kind of comeuppance in the end), but Poston has real skill for giving her characters real voices, and the way she makes some of the Cinderella tropes recognizable in their modern-day counterparts is a kick.
(And now I've learned that this is a series, and Poston has written more of her geek-fandom fairy tale retellings! Wow. I would never have thought to even try this!)...more
This book is just terrific. I love randomly checking books out of the library and having them be wonderful reads, and this was one. Fantastic art andThis book is just terrific. I love randomly checking books out of the library and having them be wonderful reads, and this was one. Fantastic art and a beautiful story about self-acceptance, gender roles, and clothesmaking? Sign me up! I'm so happy I read this....more
This is an important book, albeit a deeply depressing one. It's a guided tour of a number of specific ecosystems on Earth and the degree to whichThis is an important book, albeit a deeply depressing one. It's a guided tour of a number of specific ecosystems on Earth and the degree to which human-driven climate change is destroying them. THE END OF ICE is a very pessimistic book, but as that seems to be where we're are inexorably headed as a species, I suppose it's important that we know the nature of the bed we've made for ourselves....more
My actual rating would be closer to, oh, 3.75. A longer review will appear on The Geekiverse once I read it; for now I'll note that this book is goodMy actual rating would be closer to, oh, 3.75. A longer review will appear on The Geekiverse once I read it; for now I'll note that this book is good and I definitely enjoyed it...but it IS too long and full of very long passages where not much happens other than characters interacting with each other in the "dangerous court politics" kind of way. I tend to be a fan of that sort of thing, so I was fine with it, but some parts of the book are really a lot more wordy than they need to be. This is quite good, but with some stronger editing could have been VERY good indeed....more
Actual rating: 3.5 stars. THis is an enjoyable and quick read that follows the burgeoning romance between two interesting and idiosyncraticActual rating: 3.5 stars. THis is an enjoyable and quick read that follows the burgeoning romance between two interesting and idiosyncratic characters, focusing on our heroine, Birdie, who is a mystery-novel obsessed home-schooled teenager who also suffers from narcolepsy. She forms a strong attraction to our hero, another teen named Daniel, who has his own quirks and mysteries all his own. Their relationship does not progress along standard lines; there are complications galore, many of which are pleasantly character'driven. As Birdie is a huge fan of mystery stories, a mystery ends up making the main part of the book's major plotline. It's not the most surprising mystery in the world, but it does unfold somewhat naturally and it, too, is ultimately character-driven. There are times when you can feel the clanking of the plot machining away toward its conclusion, but author Bennett's real strength is in creating sympathetic characters who are easily identifiable and who face realistic challenges and issues. This is a good teen romance, and if it's not especially shocking, it is still engaging and the characters do linger in the mind when the book is done....more
(Finished a few weeks ago, but I forgot to make it 'read' on GR until today.)
I wanted to like this more than I did. The book doesn't quite deliver on(Finished a few weeks ago, but I forgot to make it 'read' on GR until today.)
I wanted to like this more than I did. The book doesn't quite deliver on what it seems to indicate in its title, and instead meanders between the history of Shakespeare-related book collecting and the various factions that exist today as to who actually produced the work that has been attributed to this "William Shakespeare" who somehow left almost no tangible evidence of his existence five hundred years ago. It's an interesting read, but I found it a little frustrating as author Kells digresses and jumps around a lot and doesn't really seem to follow a single through-line in his argument....more
**spoiler alert** Just one spoiler: I almost DNF'd this book because author Harrow leads us to believe, at one point, that the dog has been cruelly**spoiler alert** Just one spoiler: I almost DNF'd this book because author Harrow leads us to believe, at one point, that the dog has been cruelly murdered by the bad guys. The dog survives. If you get to that point, keep going.
That said, I'll have a longer review of this book on The Geekiverse in a week or two, so I'll just note here that this is a strangely affecting book about the power of words to reach across generations and worlds. January is the name of our heroine, and she discovers that there are "doors" to other worlds, and a book about these doors comes into her possession...and it turns out the the book, the doors, her guardian Mr. Locke, and even she herself is not what she or they seem.
Harrow's prose is wonderful and sad and lyrical. This is a terrific book and I highly recommend it. (It took me a while to read because of real-life busy stuff, not because of any difficulty in the text.)...more
Actual rating: 3.5 stars. I'll be writing a longer review of this for THE GEEKIVERSE, so just a couple of bullet points:
--I like the character of MaxActual rating: 3.5 stars. I'll be writing a longer review of this for THE GEEKIVERSE, so just a couple of bullet points:
--I like the character of Max on STRANGER THINGS, so I liked this book. --The book basically tells Season Two's story from Max's POV, with a lot of her background filled in. --Good first person character work here. Max seems like a real person. --I'm not sure the book works as a standalone, or if you haven't seen Season Two of the show.
If you're a ST fan, this is an entertaining and quick read. It doesn't so much add to the larger ST story as it deepens it a bit by taking us into the life of one character who did NOT grow up in Hawkins, IN....more
I blasted through this in a single evening, and I was only going to give it three stars for being pretty good. But...I haven't been able to stopI blasted through this in a single evening, and I was only going to give it three stars for being pretty good. But...I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, so obviously it's better than my original thinking.
Memoirs that center on grief are always a hard read for me, and I'm not sure what drew me to this one. It was a random selection from the New Books at the library, where there are almost always a new memoir available about someone's grief. I don't read these often, but there was something about this one. It's partly a collection of messages and emails between author Carr and her father, journalist David Carr, who died very suddenly at the too-young age of 58. The Carrs had a difficult family history involving mental health issues, addiction, alcoholism, and perhaps even some abuse. The book's most painful passages occur as Carr starts to see herself exhibiting patterns similar to those of her father, and her struggles to recognize and overcome them.
I didn't find the book all that memorable at first...but then, I did. Haunting. ...more
This ended up being more of a slog than I anticipated. The Johnsons were a couple who lived in the early half of the 20th century, having grown up inThis ended up being more of a slog than I anticipated. The Johnsons were a couple who lived in the early half of the 20th century, having grown up in Kansas but then left to see the world and photograph and document the great beasts of the largely unexplored natural world. This often makes for fascinating and riveting reading, but unfortunately the book is LOADED with the prevailing racial attitudes of the day. Johnson's prose is full of White Savior condescension as she laughs at the "boys" (read: black men) who lead them into the wilderness and who live lives of "savagery". At times I MARRIED ADVENTURE is a very difficult book to read, even for readers who are well-schooled in the practice of accommodating for out-dated views on such matters.
I'm not sure I recommend this book, except as a time-capsule for a way of looking at the world that I can only hope is long past its prime. It's a shame, too, because I really wanted to like this book. I don't quite DISlike it, but...yeah, this one's tough. Reader caution is recommended....more
I loved this book, with its music references (I'm sure I missed more than a few), its wonderful humor, its terrific characters, its action right outI loved this book, with its music references (I'm sure I missed more than a few), its wonderful humor, its terrific characters, its action right out of a good AD&D campaign, and its monsters and its...well, its everything. Just a terrific adventure....more
I don't feel I can give a fully honest review of this novella, since the author is a good personal friend of mine. I'll just say that I greatlyI don't feel I can give a fully honest review of this novella, since the author is a good personal friend of mine. I'll just say that I greatly enjoyed this good-natured adventure story about angry dragons and shipwrecked young sailors, and I'll leave it at that....more
Pretty much the same reaction to the Hancock book I read and reviewed a couple of weeks ago. I love his writing and he has the kinds of notions thatPretty much the same reaction to the Hancock book I read and reviewed a couple of weeks ago. I love his writing and he has the kinds of notions that part of me really wishes were true; we're in "I Want To Believe" country here, folks. But as ever, I cannot endorse Hancock's hypotheses as engagingly as he writes them, because there's just not enough evidence to support his conclusions. His logic ultimately boils down to "Well, it COULD be this way" and "Can it really be a COINCIDENCE that....", which is just not convincing. But as noted, Hancock is a fantastic writer who has created a bunch of speculative nonfiction page-turners, and I admit to borrowing quite a few of his notions and expanding them for the backstory of my own novels.
Read Hancock, but PLEASE have a large grain of salt handy when you do....more
Actual rating 3.5 stars. Entertaining volume that gives an overall view of the Steampunk subgenre, with a history, some recommended works (books,Actual rating 3.5 stars. Entertaining volume that gives an overall view of the Steampunk subgenre, with a history, some recommended works (books, movies, even TV shows), advice on steampunk cosplay, and more. It's a beautiful book loaded with full-color illustrations. If you're in any way interested in Steampunk, I recommend this. (I doubt there's much here that will be new to experienced Steampunkers, but even so, I recommend it.)...more
A good, short appraisal of the current state of cosmology and how we've arrived at our current understanding of things. There are books of this typeA good, short appraisal of the current state of cosmology and how we've arrived at our current understanding of things. There are books of this type that go deeper into various issues, and there are more rigorous volumes about the science thereof, but if a one-volume briefing on how science sees the universe is something you desire, you can do a lot worse than this one. Honorable mention to Dunkley's focus on making sure that a lot of female contributors to the scientific progress of the last couple centuries actually get recognized. If you're looking for a book for your teen about the current state of the affairs in astronomy and cosmology, I'd recommend this book for that fact alone....more
[EDIT: The GR entry for this book is kind of strange. I did NOT read the webcomic from which this book originally appeared; I readThis was WONDERFUL.
[EDIT: The GR entry for this book is kind of strange. I did NOT read the webcomic from which this book originally appeared; I read the trade paperback edition that came out in 2018. Carry on.]
I'll be writing a longer review for THE GEEKIVERSE, so just a few bullet points:
--Rather like SAGA in its approach to space opera. Space is a very weird place with strange unexplained creatures, and giant crumbling ruins in the sky, and ships that look like birds. Just go with it. --The book interweaves stories from two different timelines. One of these is a delicately beautiful story of two teen girls who fall in love. --Amazing art that takes on a dreamlike quality. I did find it occasionally difficult to tell which character was which. --Another mention of the amazing art.
Read this!
(Oh, looking at the dates: It didn't actually take me six weeks to read this. I started it, read the first two chapters, marked it as "Currently reading" here, and then I had to set it aside while I finished up some other projects. When I came back to it I got through it in about three days and I could have done in one, but I wanted to let it linger and forced myself to stop a few times.)...more
My actual rating would likely be 4.5 stars. I discovered Lepore via her SECRET HISTORY OF WONDER WOMAN book, and when I looked up more of her work, IMy actual rating would likely be 4.5 stars. I discovered Lepore via her SECRET HISTORY OF WONDER WOMAN book, and when I looked up more of her work, I saw that she had recently published this one-volume history of the United States, and I bought it the very next day. I was not disappointed. Lepore writes with insight and sweep, and she puts a great deal of focus as she passes through history on specific figures from that history, giving her narrative a distinctly human focus.
THESE TRUTHS focuses more on the political history of the United States than on the roster of dates and events, although Lepore does hit the very important ones along the way. Reading this book underscores the deep historical background that underlies much of the polarization of our own time period, and gives fresh credence to the fact that historical forces are rarely overcome within single generations. The race struggles of today reach back to the racial struggles of the 1960s, which reach back to the racial struggles of the 1930s, which reach back to the Civil War and Reconstruction, which reach back to slavery. Ditto the onward march of women's rights in America. Lepore also demonstrates that every bit of progress in our history is matched by an almost equal backlash. Lepore's history is one in which the pendulum constantly swings, and she is frank in her assessment that our era today is one in which conservatism seems mostly ascendant. She attributes this not merely to deficiencies of ideology or history's constant thesis-antithesis Hegelian nature, but also to the work of people of whom she writes with grudging respect. (In all honesty, I find Phyllis Schlafly to be one of the most odious individuals in American public life of the last 50-60 years, but Lepore does not write of her in a condemning light.)
Lepore's history is descriptive, rather than prescriptive; in the end she does not write hopefully of America's future in light of its current problems and its current epistemic struggles. She does not write pessimistically, either, though, and her book is a worthy read to see one compelling interpretation of how we got here, even if she declines to prognosticate as to where we might be going.
My one reservation with THESE TRUTHS is that Lepore occasionally is straight-up wrong in matters of fact. Most times this is relatively benign, but it is a bit disconcerting to see in such a well-written and well-considered history text. I am not sure that the pre-Columbian societies had pigs and chickens, for example. William Henry Harrison was not in his 70s when he ran for President. Barack Obama did not lose the Senate to the Republicans concurrently with his reelection in 2012. Lepore quotes Dan Rather on the structure of Presidential debates in the television era; while I have no idea of the provenance of this quote, whatever that may be, it did not come in the first Bush-Dukakis debate in 1988 (those two debates were moderated by Jim Lehrer and Bernard Shaw, and Rather did not participate in either). Big deals? No, I suppose...but errors of fact are distracting even in a work of history that is more interpretive than intended to present a sequence of facts.
Nonetheless, I'm glad to have read this book, and Jill Lepore remains an author whose work I intend to explore in the future....more
I loved this! Just loved it. This is a wonderful "collaborative art" project book that has no through-line, so you can dip in wherever you want (orI loved this! Just loved it. This is a wonderful "collaborative art" project book that has no through-line, so you can dip in wherever you want (or read it straight through, as I did). I suppose how much one enjoys this will be dependent on how much one likes NYC in general and Manhattan in particular. (I love both.) The creativity expressed in the Manhattan maps that random people marked up and sent to the book's creator is amazing, at times funny and at times sad and a few times heartbreaking. I'd cheerfully thumb through a companion volume three times the size....more
Guy Gavriel Kay continues to be my favorite living author, and this book, even by his standards, is unusually captivating. After a slow pace for theGuy Gavriel Kay continues to be my favorite living author, and this book, even by his standards, is unusually captivating. After a slow pace for the first five days I was reading it, the narrative of A BRIGHTNESS LONG AGO took hold of me and swept me away, so much so that I ended up completing the book this weekend, flying through nearly 300 pages as if they weren't even there.
Kay's approach is almost comfortable by this point in his career: he generates a tale in one of his fantasy worlds that are close enough to the real world for real events to find mirrors in his books, and then rather than create a plot-driven story, he instead populates his world and his historical settings with very real people and sees how they respond to the events of the world around them. Some of them are pushed into situations for which they cannot possibly be prepared; some make choices that are terribly incomplete in the degree to which they can be thought through at all; some live long and some die young without deserving either.
A BRIGHTNESS LONG AGO unfolds in Batiara, a fictional analog to Renaissance Italy, and in the same larger world as THE LIONS OF AL-RASSAN, THE SARANTINE MOSAIC, THE LAST LIGHT OF THE SUN, and CHILDREN OF EARTH AND SKY. It's interesting to note that as Kay writes more and more novels set in that world, he is providing a de facto history of that world, and therefore a de facto meditation on our own history, plaid out writ large across six novels and counting. (His other novels take place in other worlds but are no less thoughtful.) As such he can now do things like offer allusions to his other books, things that a reader entering Kay's world here would not recognize but which those of us who have been there all along do. (Which is not to say that one cannot enter Kay's oeuvre here, because one certainly can. One can almost enter Kay's world anywhere, which is a partial benefit of his mainly writing standalone novels.)
Kay's large cast of characters does make BRIGHTNESS a bit hard to penetrate in the early going, but once the cast is set and the story begins to flow and the events take over, the story settles in. BRIGHTNESS features a first for Kay in that one character's viewpoint is conveyed in first person, giving an even more intimate view of that character's outlook and his thoughts on the historical times in which he lives.
For those who like their fantasy with large amounts of magic, Kay may be judged a disappointment. Magic is a muted thing, a hinted-at quality of a world that is not understood. There are no wizards or spell-casters here, but there are powers that no one completely understands. Magic is a thing that never snaps into focus in Kay's books, and for me that's a feature, not a bug.
Now begins the usual three-year-wait for Kay's next book! I can't help wondering in what way his usual extensive and wide reading into history will coalesce into a story again.......more
I give this four stars because Hancock is a really engaging writer who always takes me on quite a journey in his books. I do NOT endorse hisI give this four stars because Hancock is a really engaging writer who always takes me on quite a journey in his books. I do NOT endorse his hypotheses (that Earth was once home, MANY thousands of years ago before any Ice Ages, to a technologically advanced human civilization which has left threads and memes behind to be decoded in places like Stonehenge, the Pyramids at Giza, the Mayan cities, great earthworks of the Americas, and so on), because...well, Hancock connects the dots in a lot of ways that are *almost* convincing, but ultimately fall too short of actual evidence and too squarely in the realm of assuming that every coincidence must be de facto evidence.
I started reading Hancock in the 1990s during my "conspiracy theory" phase (itself brought about by popular culture artifacts like THE X-FILES), and many of his notions have in fact found their way into my own fiction (anyone reading my FORGOTTEN STARS books will see a LOT of Graham Hancock's influence on that story's background). Hancock writes wonderfully and I'm always willing to go along with him, but I must admit that I never get totally on board with him.
Recommended, but don't forget your grain of salt....more
This book is a bit different from what you might expect from a STAR WARS book, but don't let that stop you! It's really, really good, and it brings toThis book is a bit different from what you might expect from a STAR WARS book, but don't let that stop you! It's really, really good, and it brings to the STAR WARS literary universe a pleasantly different style and approach to storytelling. This is not an action-packed tale with space battles (although there is one, briefly) and lightsaber duels and blaster-fire. This one is a much more focused personal story, focusing on Padme as she takes on the role of Senator from Naboo and begins making her way through the labyrinthine and baffling world of Galactic Senate politics. It's almost like "STAR WARS meets THE WEST WING," and it does those things superbly.
Johnston walks several lines here, in this novel that takes place between THE PHANTOM MENACE and ATTACK OF THE CLONES. She offers a bit of fanservice here and there, but she doesn't draw attention to it, which is a very welcome approach. She also has to walk a line of hinting at what we know is to come (that forces are at work in this timeframe trying to bring about the fall of the Republic) and still tell a compelling story, and this she does quite well.
I don't read very many STAR WARS books, so I try to be choosy about the ones I do read, and I'm quite glad I tried this one....more
Surprisingly good graphic novel whose conceit is quite simple: What if Adolf Hitler had sired a child during World War I, a child who might have beenSurprisingly good graphic novel whose conceit is quite simple: What if Adolf Hitler had sired a child during World War I, a child who might have been able to get close enough to Hitler to assassinate him?
The story told here is full of twists that delighted me as a onetime reader of a lot of espionage fiction (I need to rediscover that genre!), which I will not spoil here. Suffice it to say that the story does not end up where I expected, in any way. But it is engagingly told, paced very well (using time jumps and flashbacks to great effect), and the art is terrific and moody. The feel is of a black-and-white spy thriller.
Terrific book. I'm glad I randomly picked it up at the library....more
[Review is of the complete trade edition, not the first issue.]
Fun collection of horror tales that all revolve around food and eating, but the stories[Review is of the complete trade edition, not the first issue.]
Fun collection of horror tales that all revolve around food and eating, but the stories are too short. (I read the entire collection in about an hour.) I think that this would work a LOT better if each tale were given, say, twice the space to really grow and breathe. But the art is terrific, and there's a elegiac note in wondering if this might have blossomed into something bigger had Anthony Bourdain not chosen to end his life.
The addition of recipes at the end is a nifty touch....more
I'll be writing a longer review of this book for The Geekiverse, but for now, this is a really engaging deep dive into the history of the origins ofI'll be writing a longer review of this book for The Geekiverse, but for now, this is a really engaging deep dive into the history of the origins of the WONDER WOMAN character, focusing not just on WW's creator, William Moulton Marston, but also on WW's emergence from the climate of early-20th century feminism (in whose circles Marston traveled). Marston was a pretty strange dude, it turns out, and there's a degree to which his main ability in life seems to have been to glom onto the coat-tails of intelligent and creative women, whose work he didn't quite "steal" but...well, it's hard to characterize, actually. It's almost as if WW was created by an unplanned and unrealized committee, whose work was synthesized by Marston. He was by all accounts a very intelligent man but who found it difficult to hold a job; he was a huckster and maybe even a bit of a fraud (his invention of the lie detector, a machine that everybody knows is pretty much bogus, is his other major claim to fame); it's hard to decide if he was a believer in "free love" or a straight-up polygamist. But this book's best deed is putting WW into the context not just of the rise of comics in the middle of the 20th century, but also into the context of the early days of American feminism. HIghly recommended for anyone interested in feminism, comics, WW, or any combination of those....more
DISCLOSURE: I know Mr. Pawlak personally; he is a colleague of mine in writing and producing content for The Geekiverse.
That said, I truly enjoyed hisDISCLOSURE: I know Mr. Pawlak personally; he is a colleague of mine in writing and producing content for The Geekiverse.
That said, I truly enjoyed his novel. It's a straight-up epic fantasy with a map of the big kingdom, and ancient prophecies about ancient magic, and dark powers at work, and hidden artifacts that our heroes must find if they are to defeat the rising powers of evil, and non-human races who are both good and evil, and magical beasts, and determined princesses, and young warriors, and crusty mentor figures, and all the rest. ECHOES OF LIGHT is an engaging adventure story, and Mr. Pawlak is an engaging storyteller. I am looking forward to the second volume!...more
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