Ryan

This was a lot of fun to read. A traditional haunted house type story, with the added layer of a sardonic commentary on modern consumerism, the relationship people have with their careers, and big-box retailing. I like shopping at Ikea but this sendup of it was delightful as well.

Bonus points for the layout, as well, with the chapter headings and cover designed to look like a product catalogue.

The good: The characterization of the new Thor is great. She's clearly and unambiguously heroic, and manages to avoid a lot of the “grim and gritty” qualities that too many superhero comics fall prey too.

The bad: A mystery isn't really a mystery if the answer is literally the first thing you think of when you hear the concept. Also, I'm confused by Aaron's conception of “worthiness”. The Odinson became unworthy because he gained knowledge about himself, I gather? Which is weird. I've always interpretted the worthiness of Mjolnir to be based on actions, rather than knowledge.

I can appreciate what Darbyshire was going for here - satire that looks at the absurdity of capitalism, and capitalism's attempts to turn any criticism of it into a purchasable product - but nothing about the book ever really clicked for me.

Fun in a wacky, meta sort of way. PG plays an excellent straight-woman, and Harley was fun too, even if she's so desperate for the approval of her peers that it comes off as pathetic. The plot was a send-up of a lot of the issues surrounding sexism in sci-fi, and entertained as such.

The “last in a line of protectors against dark mystical forces” trope is a little cliche, I know, but it's also always been a favourite of mine. Tie that together with a superhuman character with an interesting take on his powers (bonded to a loa, Shadowman's powers only work at night-time), and you've got a fun character.

Valiant continues to pair people well with their characters - Jordan's got a very good sense of how to tell horror stories, and that's fundamentally what this is - a story of a superhero who's in a horror movie.

The idea of the USA invading Canada for control over our fresh water is a little too plausible for it to work as an allegory, but this was fun in a summer-action-movie sort of way.

The Fenian raids are a fascinating and formative part of Canadian history, and I'm always amazed that I haven't read more about them. Unfortunately, this book is a very dry and academic take on the subject material, and bias toward the subject matter I had times staying interested in it at times.

Punk rock and professional wrestling have more in common than fans of either tend to like to admit (CM Punk aside, of course). Both are considered low-brow forms of entertainment, both originated as American cultural idioms, and both have somewhat cryptic, jargonistic cultures that can be hostile to outsiders. And both, of course, have fanbases that are extremely passionate about them.

In Death Match, Jason Ridler weaves his way deftly through both worlds, as his protagonist, Spar Battersea, watches his best friend die in the ring and has to find out how and why that happened. It's a fast-paced, energetic story full of interesting, idiosyncratic personalities, as well as some good doses of dark humour and action. If you're a fan of either punk rock or pro wrestling, this one's a lock - if not, it might take you a bit to pick up some of the terms and cultural touchstones that are involved, but it's still an entertaining read.

Green Lantern works best when it's trying to be a cop story rather than a superhero story. And the best cop stories, as anyone knows, are buddy cop stories. So logically, Green Lantern as buddy cop story pretty much has to be great.

Beyond that simple formula, the characters involved are actually what make this thing great. Simon Baz has every reason to hate authority, and seeing him have to manage his bitterness while also representing authority is fascinating. His partner, Jessica Cruz, is agoraphobic and struggles with anxiety - and she's expected to police the galaxy with a magic ring fueled by willpower. Both are arguably the last people you would expect to be Green Lantern - and seeing them struggle with that, and fight consistently against those aspects of themselves makes for a fascinating story.

If there were any disappointments here, it's that the villian of the book doesn't live up to these great characters, so the main story feels a bit of a squash. And, to go from the buddy cop dynamic, both characters are basically Riggs - there's no Murtaugh to provide balance against the impulsive rookies. These are minor complaints, though.

This book shouldn't work as well as it does. There's so much randomly thrown together in this volume - Area 51, dinosaurs, time-displaced Algonquin warriors, the Bermuda Triangle, Grey aliens, Ambrose Bierce, satire of US militarism ... and on top of that, our heroes, the gregarious, immortal party guy Armstrong and his partner Archer, the deadly assassin raised by Christian fundamentalists and whom may eventually become the world's greatest spiritual leader.

As I said, there's a lot going on - so much that it's hard to describe it with a straight face. It's to Van Lente's credit that not only does it all make sense together, it all fits together seamlessly and with such a madcap sense of fun.

Another fun entry into the Torin Kerr series (I know Goodreads is calling it “Peacekeeper #2”, but it's really the seventh book in the overall series). The action scenes in this one were a little more sedate than in the previous books, but the major themes were presented interestingly. The idea peace as something that has to be actively defended is an important one, as is the look at how we treat (or ought to treat) soldiers after the war has ended.

This was a fun travelogue and fish out of water story. Not that Bidini hadn't traveled before the book, but you get the feeling it was only within the niche of a semi-famous Canadian rock band going through North America. Seeing him dealing with not only being a solo act, but also with going out to areas of the world where his music was unknown provided interesting reading material.

The story's narration is a mixed bag at times. Bidini's obviously very passionate about music, and that shines through, but he also has a huge amount of punk rock snark about music. In small doses that's fine, but there's a reason most punk songs are so slow - stretching that snark out over hundreds of pages starts to tire a bit.

If you're a fan of the Rheos you'll love this; if not, it's a really interesting but not great read.

This is a prequel to Taylor's Black Jack Justice podcast series - and like most prequels, it's a bad starting point for the characters involved, but a fantastic study of the core nature of the characters if you're already invested in them. If you're one of those “already invested” people (and I am), then this is just gangbusters - all of the hardboiled drama and comedic banter of the series, an interesting enough mystery at the core, and two fun narrators in the characters of Jack and Trixie.

This was a fun, experimental story with some great pulp influences. The collaborative story, while fun, at times felt disjointed.

This was a fairly enjoyable read, but I thought the background (ecoterrorists attempt to slow global warming, but accidentally create a new ice age in doing so) was more interesting than the actual main plot of Gabe scavenging through the frozen wasteland of North America. Not a poorly told story, but not the story I was expecting (or wanting) to read.

Reading this, it's obvious why it's such a classic. Poirot is the very archetype of the detective, the setting is unique and fanciful, and the titular murder is accomplished under mysterious and seemingly impossible circumstances. Throughout the story, Poirot deftly uncovers the most subtle of clues to arrive at a fascinating conclusion. If there's any drawback to the story, it's that for a modern audience some of the clues might be too subtle, as they rely on outdated cultural references that most modern readers wouldn't be familiar with. On the whole, that doesn't detract from an enjoyable story, however.

A cute little meditation on friendship.

This was a fantastic, short little vampire tale! While reading it, you can definitely see a lot of the tropes common to more recent vampire stories, but seeing tropes being first established is something I always find interest. The narration of the story seems much more fresh and contemporary than most Victorian literature, and it was interesting to see such explicit lesbian content from an era that mostly frowned upon it.

A book that tries to answer the question that has been on the mind of many a Canadian over the past 18 months.

The short answer, obviously, is “Of course it could, and we need to remain vigilant that it doesn't”. Adams goes deeper than that, though, looking at why such right-wing populism is less likely to happen in Canada, looking at our history, demography, and stated values as reasons why it is less likely to happen here. It's an interesting, short read for people interested in Canadian culture and politics.

City by Night is a wonderful novella that looks at the complexities of the relationships between people and the media they consume, the psychology of fandom, and sexy vampires. Frey begins the story with a fannish professional, Mary, who gets what many a young nerd would consider a dream job - PA on her favourite TV series. Even better, she ends up being transported into the world of the show, meeting the characters and becoming an integral part of their world. This story might sound familiar, especially to anyone that's read any amount of fanfiction, and that's intentional. Frey reveals in the intro that she wrote this story with the intention of analyzing the tropes of fanfiction and fan culture, and she accomplishes that fully.

For readers that don't interact with those elements of culture, this is still a worthwhile read. Frey's interweaves also works well as a parable about the perils of getting what you want in life, and how underwhelming that can be. Mary's coming to terms with her fandom and the limitations of fictional worlds are something that all readers should be able to connect to.

This was a nice, short collection of retold myths about various legendary women. Anthony displays a clear love and respect of the original stories, and infuses them with a modern sensibility that gives the protagonists more agency and power than they had in many of the original versions of the stories.

If you're a fan of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, or steampunk in general, you'll no doubt like this. Some of the biggest names in the genre contribute, and for the most part they manage to capture the spirit of the original series rather well. If you haven't read the series, though, I wouldn't recommend starting here.

I'm glad to see this is becoming an annual event - as with last year's version, this is a short collection of stories centred around different elements from Celtic folklore and mythology. The stories based on Macha and An Dagda stood out as especially enjoyable, but the whole collection does a great job of blending both the traditional myths and more modern Irish culture.

Mata Hari is a fascinating historical figure, and her story is one that is both exciting and a testament to the injustices that women face in patriarchal societies. She deserves books that explain the sensational and extraordinary life that she led.

This, unfortunately, is not that book. Coehlo chooses to frame his story through a series of letters written at the end of Mata Hari's life, and in doing so makes the story more focused on her death than on her life. In doing so, he deflates a lot of the dramatic tension from her life.

The voice in the storytelling is awkward, as well. Mata Hari's letters are written in the first person, but she writes as someone aware of the infamy and iconography she will achieve after her death, which makes the voice sound more like the Coehlo's rather than the character's. This creates an awkward tension in the narration that detracts from the protagonist's telling of her story.

I've started this tradition of reading Hiaasen novels in the middle of winter. He tends to write so evocatively about Florida that it serves as a nice little mini-break from the weather, and the zany hijinks his criminals engage in can lighten the mood in even the dreariest of seasons.

From that perspective, I was a little disappointed in this one. The narrative's perfectly serviceable, and the satire of celebrity culture works a little too well - Cherry's so vapid and her personality so ephemeral that we never really care what happens to her, and Bang's so well-written as a sleazeball that we never empathize with him. It was a fun enough way to pass the time, but definitely not as entertaining as most of his work that I've read.