Valerie

Gronk is cute.

Katie Cook is wonderful.

Uno ruins friendships.

Gronk vol. 4 includes lots of adorableness plus the Free Comic Book Day comic if you missed out. If you like monsters and nerd jokes, you really ought to be following this series. Gronk <3

What a gripping book this is. Atmospheric, mysterious, suspenseful, the very definition of a page-turner. I stayed up way too late last night to finish it (and I have a 5 month old so sleep is a deeply precious resource right now). It's a weird book and may not be for people who like every last detail explained, but I loved just about every aspect of this one.

I mean what is there to say about Lauren Groff. I've loved every novel of hers, and this short story collection did not disappoint. “Eyewall” is a stand out, but there's a masterclass in craft on every page. Check trigger warnings, especially if you are a parent, but even the hardest to read stories are incredible pieces.

I think I would have really liked this book had I read it around the age of twelve. In fact, I think if you changed the MC's age from 17 to 12, this would be a pretty fabulous middle grade novel. Even as is, I'd be pretty happy to hand this off to one of my fifth graders. I can't even see much benefit to making the main characters 17 other than that they can drive, which in a world that already involves fairy ring transport, seems like kind of a small detail. So yeah, it's a fun story and pretty great to see indigenous mythology prominently featured in modern fantasy, but the plot is pretty Scooby-Doo, the characters act extremely young, and the prose is middle-grade level. Not a bad book by any means, but really not for me.

Kim Stanley Robinson is an author who has been on my to-read list for ages, but I've always been a little too intimidated by his reputation to pick up a book on my own. I was pleased that my book club finally chose one of his, and the stand-alone Aurora definitely proved my fears baseless. I'd thought the science would be too overwhelming for me (and it is), but the characters and the very human story shaped by that overwhelming science more than compensates for occasional jargon overload. What's especially fun is that, while I'm used to lengthy explanations of technical and physics babble, this book focuses on the biology angle.

The book deals with a generation ship carrying multiple biomes through space for hundreds of years to populate a new system. During their journey, they experience island syndrome as genetic diversity is hard to come by. There are bacteria that they brought with them (intentionally and unintentionally) that don't act as they should. There are bad harvests and sick animals and tons of crises that happen all the time when you involve living organisms, crises that can be coped with here on Earth for which the organisms were designed, but far more difficult when you remove them.

It also deals with Artificial Intelligence in a unique way The ship is run by a quantum computer which most of its residents fully admit to not totally understanding. Their best theory is that people were so excited about the fact that the ship worked, they volunteered to be sent off to space without really caring why it worked. Over the course of the novel, the computer thinks more and more independently, acts independently. It has the best interests of its residents in mind (it thinks) but is also aware enough to know it might not know the best interests of its residents. I've never read AI fiction quite like this, and I definitely enjoyed it.

Also, powerful, smart, resourceful women in space. Always a plus for me.

I'll admit to being a little disappointed in the ending. It seemed a little bit over the top on the metaphor scale, but I think it was also a decent way to leave these characters I'd spent a generation with. If you like space odysseys where everything that can go wrong does go wrong, this is defnitely a book for you.

I was not in love with book 2 of this series, but book 3 won me back. Helps that I read it in a log house in the Smoky Mountains too, but also it has more interesting and less incestuous storylines. It's maybe the most violent, brutal, and fae episode yet. It features the return of Bronwyn in an important if not lead role, an exploration of what it's like to be Mandalay, and a really vicious female villain with a morally complex British manservant. Every character, really is incredibly complicated and fascinating. Don't read this without having read the other two, but do read this series if the words Appalachian fairies sound interesting.

Blindsight is at once a science fiction foray, a psychological exploration, and a pants-wetting horror story all rolled up into one. It has both strong characters and vampires. I know! We culturally forgot books could have both of those things in the last few years.

Let's start with the science. It would be very arrogant of me to say that I understood much of what was going on beyond the most basic elements. I had to constantly reread because I'd miss important things with the psychology, biology, or technical talk went on for too long. I was always better for those re-readings though because the book deals with some really interesting theories. It ranges from the plausibility of vampires (I enjoy the Crucifix glitch, although using the V word still through me off) to what it means to be sentient. I went back and forth on my own opinions of the scramblers and the rightness/wrongness of the crew's mission. Watts brings in a lot of phenomena that I have passing familiarity with, mostly during the hallucinations, and treats it all in a very unique way. He manages to pull off a scientifically plausible ghost story, and that deserves applause.

He wouldn't have managed if he didn't also have a firm grip on character. Siri, our intrepid sociopathic narrator is pretty amazing to watch. His disconnect, his analysis, his rationalizing the world around him makes him a 1st person narrator that I don't find cloying. Most of the time, I really dislike 1st person p.o.v. because we get so bogged down in that one person's emotional overload and I end up hating them because I get sick of their whining. That doesn't happen with Siri. We get to watch him process humanity, and eventually, painfully, discover it for himself. While I didn't like Chelsea or the concept of “tweaking” at all, her death scene where Siri is just searching helplessly for the appropriate words was heartbreaking.

The other characters resonate the more strongly for being filtered through Siri's Chinese room. I love Amanda Bates, especially after getting her backstory. I also love that she is never referenced as a “female general,” just a general because we don't need to make a big deal out of that. The Gang of Four is a pretty incredible concept and another idea that sets Blindsight apart from other science fiction. Szpindel provided some much needed humor while Sarasti kept everything on edge, even during the peaceful sequences.

Then there were the not-so peaceful sequences. Holy crap I was scared when they were on board the Rorschach. Actually, I was scared from the moment the ship called Susan by name. I knew what Watts was doing. I knew he was pointing out the inconsistencies in human thinking and our own ability to convince ourselves what is true, what is our will. I was still terrified during the “haunting.” It's one of those books I pray is never adapted to a film because this sequence would never be as scary and the whole point would evaporate.

Blindsight may err a little bit on the heavy side, being as it took me a whole week to get through a mere 300 pages, but all of those pages made me think, made me question my own ability to make decisions. I've heard the book criticized for not being “hard” science fiction, but I think that everything he describes has plausibility at the very least. He spends the last forty pages citing his sources, and even Sarasti gets a reasonable if not likely explanation. I'd recommend this book if you like a solid horror story and exploring the limits of the human mind, as long as you don't mind a vampire wandering onstage now and again.

I definitely didn't agree with every person in this collection, but all of the topics mentioned are worth discussing. If you're a recovering English major with a bad Gaiman habit who longs for the days of over-analyzing in the quad, this collection is pretty ideal.

This book was fine, but it had enough of my pet peeves to mean that I didn't end up enjoying it. The writing style is pretty simplistic, there's a few too many elements I need to seriously suspend my disbelief for, and Clines just feels it way too necessary to keep pointing out that his protagonist looks like young Severus Snape. Once is too much. As turn your brain off action sci-fi, it has some fun bits and would probably work well as an episodic series, but as a novel it just wasn't for me.

Huh...

So, I picked this up on Free Comic Book Day because it has Neil Gaiman's name on it and I didn't own it. I am only peripherally familiar with Alice Cooper, mostly from his stint as Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar. He is my favorite Herod, though, and I hear the actual Alice is a neat person under the eyeliner. This book was made to accompany his concept album, and don't I wish I could just call up Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli to write and draw me into a spooky comic.

The story is a twist on the coming of age story where Steven, a boy edging into adulthood, meets the serpent, personified as Alice's “Showman” and is tempted to run away and join the show forever. Alice's demonesque creature is a terror well suited to Zulli's style. Nobody draws creepy undead like Michael Zulli. Nobody. His art is excruciatingly crafted to terrify in its detail. You have to stare at it, even when your brain is telling you no good dreams will come of this.

The story is simple, but Neil Gaiman simple so still quite beautiful. It's a rock song, and a classic story, and a collaboration of three greats in their respective fields. If you're a fan of any of these gentlemen, you'd do well to pick this one up.

There are only a couple of other webcomics that could rival Nimona for my all time favorites, and that top spot is honestly mood-dependent, so let's just say Nimona is one of the finest gifts the internet has every given me. It has pretty much everything I could want in a series: snarky, chaotic evil lady in the lead, brooding UST between the heroic villain and villainous hero, shark jokes. Everything I love all in one beautifully bound volume to I don't have to wear my eyes out reading the screen.

Noelle Stevenson one of my favorite comic artists out there. This story and Lumberjanes showcase her many talents and unique sense of humor along with her distinct art style. That style has a way of being deceptively simple. I look at it and think, “I could draw that.” Then I try and realize that maybe I could draw it, but I could never wield it to convey the amount of emotion and depth of character. They are my favorite noodle-limbed characters. Suck it, Adventure time.

She also does a brilliant job of producing diverse, complex characters without making it feel like a statement piece. The story of Nimona, a shape-shifting henchling to the seemingly villainous Ballister Blackheart, stands on its own, dealing with heavy themes of humanity, loyalty, and the ambiguity of “evil.” The characters are multiple colors, species, and sexual orientations, aspects which serve and deepen them without taking over the story. It's a trick I admire every time I see it done well.

You should read Nimona. It's all online for free. Once you've read it and loved it, you should add this edition to to your shelf to save your eyes and appreciate the glossy, full-color glory.

This was my homework book, and I more or less agree with everything it had to say. That said, it's message for application is basically: analyze, reflect, analyze, reflect and keep repeating until you are good at being culturally responsive. There isn't much in the way of specific strategies, but there's a lot of really good brain research to back up making changes in your classroom. The information in here is all fairly obvious when you're reading the book, but less obvious in the heat of the moment in a hectic school with deadlines and testing, so I think it's important to read books like it to remind ourselves as educators what the actual best practices are.

I was pretty surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Alastair Reynolds name is one I've heard come up before, but never investigated, so I'm glad my book club keyed me into this one. The story is a sort of noir space opera, and the writing is sharp and even funny at times. It maybe has a few too many super-competent female characters who for one reason or another have serious dependencies on Dreyfus, but they are also characters enough in their own right to not make that tendency too glaring. Also, space pigs. If you like a good mystery and a good space romp, give this one a try.

I wanted to read this book because I've just finished an epic tome and I've got a couple more epic tomes coming up on the To Read list and I just wanted something simple and light and pretty.

Peter S. Beagle is always good for pretty, and this book is no exception. He's usually not particularly simple or light, but this foray into children's literature is an exception. It's portal fantasy and not particularly gripping, but 13 year old me would have loved it. It's not my favorite Beagle work by any stretch of the imagination, and admittedly I was hoping for a bit more Last Unicorn stylistically. These are different unicorns in a different and more idealized world.

That said, I commend Peter for introducing a young Hispanic female hero in a fantasy novel. For my students looking to find themselves in literature, I have very few options and even fewer for those looking into genre fiction. That alone makes this book worth putting on the classroom shelf.

Peter S. Beagle is someone I turn to time and again when I just need comfort. This collection of short stories (set in the world of the Innkeeper's Song but with only 1 story involving its characters) is no exception. It's a showcase for the voice that made Beagle the legend that he is. The stories feel older than they are probably because they are mostly framed as stories being told to you by some character who has need of passing the information on. Much of the collection is about aging, and it's a stories that I think is more valuable to me now than ten years ago and will be more valuable still ten, twenty years in my future. My one issue with this collection is the same as my issue with IS, and that is some weirdly phrased elements around race that just make it very obvious that this is written by a white male. Not necessarily offensive (at least not to this very white girl), but definitely doesn't feel contemporary. Here though, it only crops up in Lal and Soukyan's story. If you like Innkeeper's Song, you should read this to get a little more into the adventures of Lal and Soukyan, and if you didn't read IS, you can definitely enjoy this collection with no problem.

The book wasn't quite what I was expecting. Most of the authors are better known for their activism and non-fiction writing, and their stories are just not the same quality as I was really looking for. I think I was hoping much more for works in the worlds Butler created rather than just short snippets of stories with her themes. I thought the nonfiction essays at the end were the strongest and most interesting, but most of the fiction felt a little forced or too much like an excerpt rather than a complete work for me.

Peter S. Beagle has a way with prose that makes my heart hurt. His descriptions have a vividness to them that makes you feel, and that's why even though this isn't my favorite of his stories, I still feel better for reading it. Saying this isn't my favorite Peter S. Beagle story is kind of like saying chocolate isn't my favorite donut. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy it to pieces anyway.

“The Folk of the Air” deals a lot with time and a lot with transience. From the LARPers at their tourneys, getting swept up in their own personal RennFaires to Ben's inability to talk about Egil in the past tense, all of time is a bit wonky in this book, an aspect I found refreshing. Farrell himself is an odd character, and I related to his, “Yup... I'm a grown up ... living in my 80th place with no discernible idea of what I'm doing with the rest of my life.” Still, I thought he lacked a lot of agency in the story. He's our protagonist because he attracts crazies, and is thus the only one willing to remember the bizarre events for what they really are. So, he's not the most interesting or active character which made for a slow start until the other characters started moving.

The antagonists in this story are fantastic. Never ever give a fifteen year old Mean Girl supernatural powers because this is exactly what would happen. Aiffe is cruel in the way only the truly self-absorbed can be and Nicholas Bonner is a subtly threatening puppeteer who always made me nervous despite moving very little himself. They are probably my favorite aspect of the whole story.

It doesn't beat “Last Unicorn” or “A Fine and Private Place” for me, but it's still a wonderful read for anyone who loves elegant style and LARPing gone wild.

I really loved parts of this book and I really disliked other parts. I should preface this by saying that neither Cyberpunk nor Crime Fiction are my favorite genres and “Daemon” is really a hodgepodge of both of these. However, I did enjoy the resulting lovechild which is much more supernatural thriller than either of its component part. Not having the technical expertise necessary to understand 90% of Sobol's plans, I was left pretty much trusting that the events in the story were entirely magical in nature.

The technical babble rarely bogged me down and faded more to the blur of a Star Trek explanation. At first, I really enjoyed seeing what new twists the daemon would pull next, and I thought the integration of the gaming worlds was incredibly fun. Towards the end, my suspension of disbelief started to fray, and I kept thinking “There really must be an easier way.” Sobol is the type of person I genuinely despise, which I suppose makes him a great antagonist, but most of the time I was just as irritated and flustered as the protagonist.

The ending really left me on a limb. I'm not sure whether or not I'll go ahead with the second book. On one hand, I'd like some closure on the story , but on the other it doesn't seem like there can possibly be any positive closure in the future.

I can count the number of writers who can write cats on one hand: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Hugh Howey, and Peter S. Beagle. Nothing supernatural occurs for the entire 1st quarter of this book, but I'm still engrossed because of Jenny's relationship with her cat and how absolutely awful it is to go through quarantine. My poor cat had to deal with me sniffling into his fur and apologizing for all the times I've left him, and he's really too cool for that sort of thing.

Anyway, Tamsin. In the afterword, Peter (I've fangirled over him in person three times, so that makes us best friends on a first name basis, right?) states that this story was originally conceived as an animated film for Disney. The pacing and the action feel about right for this medium, perhaps animated in a Rankin/Bass or even Studio Ghibli style. For lovers of English folklore, the book is a treasure trove. The novel collects legends as it rolls along, but each one is given a proper space, even when it is not directly linked to the story. For that alone, this book is worth a read.

It's also worth it for the relationship between Jenny and Tamsin. I am notorious for hating teenage perspectives, especially first person ones. At times, Jenny is an irritating protagonist even if she does look back and admit all the times she was making stupid teenage decisions. She can't really help it and the hindsight helps make it a little less annoying. She makes up for it with her reactions to Tamsin and the way that meeting her is her mirror into both past and future. Their relationship is unusual, and it almost seems to stand for those first forays of youth outside our comfortable circle of friends. Tamsin is a secret, perhaps a dangerous one, perhaps even a romantic one, and Jenny tests her own boundaries with their friendship. Tamsin herself is an interesting take on a familiar ghost story. Peter describes her as little more than memory and sometimes not even that. His vivid prose makes her as real for the readers as for Jenny.

It's a bit of a slow start (and if you're a cat lover you might need to take some breaks early on because the first quarter hurts), but it's worth the journey. I do hope someone talented someday does pick this up for an animated film. These characters are begging to drawn.

It's very hard to categorize this book. There are some fantastical elements, but it reads like historical fiction. It's a mystery with a love story at its core, more than one, maybe. The story is set in 1930s Barcelona, a time and place of unrest that is generally just glossed over in American history books right before the WWII chapter. Learning about the time period and how the characters existed in it was interesting in its own right. Then, you meet the characters, each hiding a myriad of secrets that unfold slowly as the pages turn. There's Fermin, the homeless man of a thousand faces and pieces of wisdom. There's the brutal inspector who has changed his coat so many times no one knows whose side he is on. Everyone is complex and interesting, down to the neighbors who only appear for a few sentences a chapter.

It's also a story about books, about how books give people life and bind people together. About how stories teach us about our own lives as we search for ourselves within the pages. I think that's the theme that resonated most with me. The protagonist, Daniel, begins the story by finding a book and then watches as his search for the author slowly turns into a mirror of the author's life, characters weaving in and out between both reader and writer's stories.

I really think most people could find something to enjoy in this book, especially if you already love books themselves. That's the final recommendation, I suppose. If you like books, you'll probably like this book.

Peter S. Beagle is one of my favorite authors of all time. His prose is just a warm blanket that makes me feel good, which is something I've desperately needed over this transition to the new year. I know he has cited this novel in particular as his favorite, and it has an epicness to it that makes it worthy of that claim. That said, I wonder if he would write it differently today as attitudes towards gender and expression have shifted so dramatically since 1993. There's a lot of playing with gender in this book, and I think I kept waiting for it to be more of an exploration of a theme rather than the sort of Shakespearean deception it ends up as. The actual plot of the band of heroes who meet in an inn, but then just stay there, however, is really great, and as always Beagle's writing comforts me in my heart of hearts.

This book was surprisingly delightful. There are tons of Max Brooks wannabes out in the world shelling out theories and rehashing old jokes, but this book is different. Also Max Brooks wrote the forward, and if he approves it, it passes any zombie-related test. Did I mention Max Brooks once called me “sweetheart” at a convention and I got a bit of the vapors? Because that happened.

Anyway, this book. Mogk looks at zombies through the lenses of neuroscience, biology, disaster preparedness, and pop culture. You have a little fun with zombie hypotheticals while learning interesting facts about neuroscience, biology, disaster preparedness, and pop culture. That's the real reason this book is enjoyable instead of 300 pages of parody. It is well researched, using zombies as a focus for a wide range of discussions.

The only part that was eye-rolling was when he discussed “suspected zombie outbreaks” of the past and mentioned Roanoke (a mystery for which circumstantial evidence is pretty high that it is not mystery) and the Anasazi cliff dwellers. It's all fun and games until you start putting actual historical events in the context of zombies.

Otherwise though, this book is a fun way to absorb facts and theorize about my personal favorite monster, although it does make me reevaluate my chances of actually surviving the apocalypse.

This book was an impulsive buy at a used book store. I loved Bujold's Chalion series and was interested in exploring her other fantasy titles before tackling something like Vorkosigan. Written in 1992, it feels a lot like the sort of books I read in my tween years: a plucky young heroine and an unlikely but handsome suitor avenge their loved ones, storm the castle and conquer evil. Pretty standard for its time.

Bujold, however, always adds an element to overlay the standard. She has a way of writing about religion that recognizes its flaws without demonizing it. The Church of her stories is heroic and ultimately good, even if it is not always effective. Chalion takes this idea to form, but I can see the precursors in this novel.

She has other twists such as Master Beneforte not being anything like a traditional doting father, a sense of diversity that I don't remember from my 90s heroine fiction at all, and an intriguing magic system that all speaks to the talent of this author. While somewhat forgettable when compared against her other works, it's still a fun read, particularly if you're a fan of the McCaffrey, Lee, Pierce, Lackey style of hero.

I had a lot of trouble getting through this book, especially given how short it is. I've never read Andre Norton before, though I knew a little about her life going into this book and think she was an amazing person who did so very much for the genre. Still, I think I might have been better off starting with her fantasy. A dated feel to sci-fi can really ruin it, and the actions of the characters are often nonsensical from a modern perspective. I never really bonded with any of the characters, and that made it a real struggle. I did enjoy the inclusion of a P.O.V. Native American character who was actually really well rounded and not at all stereotypical (again, Andre Norton did a LOT for the genre), but it just wasn't enough to hook me. I see how this set standards for time travel fiction, and its influence is obviously very wide, but it just didn't connect with me.

This is a lovely collection from some of my favorite web-comic writers and artists, including the team behind “Namesake.” The art is beautiful and the stories are retellings and twists on more obscure fairy tales (including Snow White and Rose Red, a childhood favorite of mine). All of the stories are told from a female-centric viewpoint and many of them have strong LGBTQ themes at a G rating, something that's often difficult to find. There's also a huge spread of cultures represented both in the origin of the fairy tales and the cast of characters. Every child is bound to find a princess that matches her outside and inside.

As with any collection, some stories are better than others, some art is better than others, but most of the time the only issue I had with a story is it seemed far too short and I could tell there was a much longer piece waiting just outside the page count. Aside from these unfinished-feeling tales, I'd highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good fairy tale twist and especially kiddos who need a diverse hero in their lives.