Kavinay
So much about this book is wonderful, from finding useful ways to engage the OT characters to Clone Wars era call outs. Threepio's moment in the sun as a theater actor especially is such a witty scene that distinguishes Gillen from much of the retread tropes of most Star Wars fiction.
But the art. Argh. It just creeps me the hell out, and that's even with me appreciating the Imperial Navy commander resembling Neil Tennant.
Everyone can accept that class struggle on behalf of the unwashed masses manifests as strikes and revolutions. But what about the other way? That's the void that Harvey's consistently addresses: the elites fight a class struggle too and their tool is neoliberalism. From Reagan and Thatcher to current globalization tactics, Harvey's point is that the rich fight the poor all the time. However, instead of doing it in the streets, they do it via public policy that regardless of political bent will ultimately favour continued advantage for the ruling class.
I wonder if this would be a better book if it simply ditched the first third of the story. Darth Vader and Thrawn doing a buddy-cop routine in a bar doesn't exactly hit the same notes as The Last Command.
Still, the book picks up from there. Thrawn is less annoying when he's really unaware of how hard he can push Vader. Meanwhile, Vader is most intriguing when he's actually struggling with the identity of “The Jedi.”
You get the sense that Zahn has the essence of a great story and dynamic between the two (three?) principle characters in the book. However it just seems like a lot of the plot that moves us from one scene to another is largely interchangeable. That's okay, but given the chance to fill holes in canon, I'd hoped Zahn would address Cortosis-like details more frequently and deeply.
Simple, but brilliant. Miyazawa's art and Pak's script are so clean and full of glee that the book is over in a flash.
The casebook is every bit as intriguing as the novella. Abnett has this knack for eschewing the typical 40k emo/bolter-porn passages for lots of dialogue that vitalizes the supporting cast.
I was pleasantly surprised. How do you tell stories when the new post RotJ canon is still in flux? Liu pulls a clever trick and couches all of Luke's tales in narratives that range from unreliable to over-awed. It makes for a fun and wide ranging group of short stories. Not a lot of lore, but enough bits of interest to tide you over until The Last Jedi.
The story is okay, with the last issue being exceptional. That being said, the art... I just don't like it. The colours especially just lend an “uncanny valley” effect to the characters and creates exceptionally creepy skin tones. I sincerely wish the in-book art was similar to the issue covers and didn't get in the way by jarring you with each awkwardly photo-realistic scene.
Ghost writer Andrew Holmes does a spectacular job at capturing Adrian Newey's cheekiness in both life and on the drawing board.
Honestly, I only wanted the nerdy behind the scenes technical details of Newey's career. That's here with extravagant detail and explanations that give context for the last three decades of F1 car design. Yet what surprised me was how engaging the personal details of Newey's story were. It's interesting that Newey never shies away from admitting workaholic commitment to his profession and yet from youth to present day, so much of this book conveys a witty and competitive spirit animating his entire life.
A great book for F1 fans and especially for anyone interested in the evolution of design process and thinking in pursuit of lap time.
Absolutely outstanding.
I don't really enjoy Trek comics. They're always a bit flat. But not so in the Mirror Universe! Woodward's art and character designs are phenomenal. It's not often that a comic makes you wish you had arms big enough to cosplay as J-L Pipes.
I worried through the first chapters of this book, but Oluo does the hard and ultimately rewarding work towards the end. This book is probably a good primer on most of the topics that make talking about race and racism hard. Oluo really gets into the weeds in a good way in regards to the school to prison pipeline and the wonderfully titled “But What if I Hate Al Sharpton?” chapter.
I wonder if the intro and first chapters that bothered me were probably not intended for me. If you've already done a lot of reading on the subject you might think So You Want to Talk About Race was a very entry level book on the subject. It's not but you have to wait until Oluo can get further on the details to really enjoy it.
I didn't have any intention of reading this given my preconception of Bloodshot as another Punisher/Wolverine clone. I was wrong, the story isn't by the numbers and the exposition on what's really going on is more cinematic than plodding.
My only complaint is the colours. I just have such a poor reaction to a style that eschews inking for gradient skin tones. It just looks... off. I can't quite put my finger to it, but there's something to be said for old-school inks and colours conveying more dynamism than the uncanny valley of heavily saturated panels.
Disclaimer: I liked Lost Stars. I don't mind YA titles, nor the idea of a romantic one. This book though is profoundly frustrating. About halfway through, I gave up hoping to enjoy it and kept going in case any new bits of the canon were fleshed out. They weren't. There's really no good reason to read this book.
Why is it so frustrating? The novel goes out of its way to both point out Leia's privilege and her awareness of it, but it's just so dull to observe Leia learning what we already know about the nascent Rebellion. It's a fatal flaw, as this tack just makes her come across as young Picard in “Rascals” rather than someone we can empathize with.
It's the beginnings of a good book. However, you spend most the novel waiting for the story to actually start and it never really does. Told well though, with a viewpoint via First Order interrogation that's perhaps more intriguing than Phasma's origin story.
The funny stories are not just the best, but also profound: The Sith of Datawork, Born in the Storm, The Trigger, Of MSE-6 and Men and The Angle are all excellent and worth the read alone.
This book has already not aged well. On the bright side, Nagle does survey a wide swath of Alt-Right origin stories. But there are two principle problems with the book:
1. It's more prose than research. There isn't really a lot of depth here. If you're already familiar with Cernovich, Jones et al, there's not much more here than what you already know. Moreover, most of Nagle's points about each sub-group contributing to the Alt-Right really doesn't go much further than noting a trend in being transgressive and provocative in same vein as earlier left-wing counterculture. It's a good point and you can see the commonality but there's a void in analysis here that becomes even more problematic later.
2. Nagle's focus on transgressive rhetoric misses much of what's the single most notable characteristic about the Alt-Right, they like to punch down. There's actually a fairly bizarre conclusion to the book where she seems to conclude that Tumblr identity politics has led to a left that's fundamentally unprepared for Alt-Right tactics and argument. It makes no sense. It's like comparing the irritation of a pedant to the gun carrier who just used happily took advantage of the “stand your ground” law. It's actually a really troubling aspect of Nagle's narrative when you consider in defining the Alt-Right as using the Left's old punk skills for attention, she's actually lost the plot in terms of where the power is. A safe spacer, SJW caricature is still not the one advocating for [misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc.] as their cassus belli for actual harm. While she points out the double standard in the Alt-Right generally amounting to whining about how their station in life should be greater, Nagle really doesn't spend any time on how these tactics are not just difficult for the Left but have actually moved the needle on institutional responses to their causes.
To put it plainly, the Alt-Right's mainstreaming is not something this book provides any research or commentary about beyond comparing it to the flaccid rhetoric of the Left.
First book from Aaron that I thoroughly enjoyed. It's an anthology of the sort that I wish the entire series was composed of. It's the sort of book that lets you enjoy Star Wars as a place, not just a saga.
A better text on the philosophy of science than anything I read in university. Paley's watchmaker isn't dismissed or treated with derision but rather an essential ingredient for understanding any theoretical breakthrough: context (with jokes!).
