Ryan

I found this one to be a bit of a mixed bag, but overall it was a fun read. Meddy felt a weak as a protagonist, but the supporting cast was strong and interesting enough that they made up for it. I loved the dark humour and the contrast of the glitz and glamour of the wedding with the murder and its coverup.

I found the ending disappointing - everything felt wrapped up way too easily and quickly, and the lesbian romance reveal felt unearned.

This was a very ambitious novella. It tries to explore UBI and the arguments around it, while also trying to support multiple narratives and create an interesting four-act structure. I'm not sure it succeeds in any of its goals. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been either a full-length novel (to better explore all the perspectives contained within), or if it focused on the stronger narratives (Hannah and Janelle's, specifically).

This was a very interesting book for me to read, both because of my lack of experience with Korean literature in general, as well as my lack of knowledge about this period in Korean history (the time immediately following the Communist revolution in North Korea). It was an extremely interesting novel, because it focuses on a very singular act - murder in a small town - but at the same time, it's completely without a protagonist. I don't mean this just in the “it features an ensemble cast” sort of way, but I literally mean that there is no one character that the novel focuses on as a main character. It's the complete opposite of everything I've ever been told about how a good novel should be written, or structured, and yet it works in terms of both entertainment and artistic expression. An eye-opening experience, to be sure.

The last book written by Gary Troup, focusing on the Widmore family and published shortly after he disappeared on Oceanic Flight 815 when it vanished over the Pacific Ocean.

If that sentence piques your interest, it's most likely because you are/were a fan of the television program Lost; Bad Twin is a metafictional tie-in to the program, supposedly written by a minor character from the show. Which, as a fan of the show, fascinates me, especially since it promised to shed some light on the Hanso Foundation and the Widmore family.

Unfortunately, the info on the Widmore clan is almost laughably wrong, and the mystery case that takes up the bulk of the novel's plot is ham-fisted and cliched.

Bad Twin is, ultimately, a great marketing idea wrapped around a sub-par story. There's a lot of wasted potential here.

When I think back to the “grim and gritty” comics of my youth, I can't help but think that Astro City is what they grew up to become. There is a certain degree of cynicism to them, but they are still courageously hopeful stories that focus on the better angels of our being, and how truly awe-inspiring the vastness of the universe can be.

Wright does a great job here of linking together some of the metaphyics of Buddhism (or, at least, Buddhism as it is practiced in the West) with non-Buddhist thought. At times he seems a little too focused in on his personal favourites within both of those categories (mindfulness meditation and evolutionary psychology, specifically), but as long as you view this more of a personal narrative than a textbook, it's a quite enjoyable look at those topics.

This was an absolutely fantastic read. Dark, edgy, and sensual in the way that all good vampire stories should be, while at the same time engaged in fascinating world-building that combines a lot of the existing folklore about vampires from around the world and combines it with street-level urban fantasy.

After the high level of excitement in the last Potter novel, this one seemed like a bit of a let-down. I'll admit that the ending is rather emotionally draining, but there isn't a lot of build-up towards that. Instead we get a lot of exposition about Voldemort and his relationship to Harry; it's obvious that this is mostly just set-up material for the last book in the series, although it is definitely necessary expository information. It would have been nice, however, if that information had been spread out a bit more evenly over the series, rather than being placed in the penultimate book through the ultimate plot device, the Pensieve. At the very least, however, it does a very good job of creating anticipation for the last novel in the series.

This was a lot of fun to read in a big, loud summer action movie sort of way. The Ministry of Peculiar Occurences is a Victorian equivalent of the X-Files, but the agents that we're introduced to here, Books and Braun, are more of a cross between Riggs and Murtaugh and the Peel/Steed Avengers. Add a steampunk patina (mechanical men! Analytical engines! Bulletproof corsets!) And you've got a pretty fun read.

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, it was a fun zombie horror story that was fairly self-aware and tongue-in-cheek, in the style of something like the Scream films, and that is something I often enjoy.

At the same time, there was a lot that I didn't like here, although I think that might be because I'm too close to the subject material to be objective– I've loved both zombies and Star Trek for most of my life by this point, and “What would happen if zombies attacked at a con?” conversation is one I've had with friends, and as always, the version of the story that exists can never be as perfect as the version of the story that's in your head. Also, I found the characters to be somewhat caricatures – or, at least, they didn't represent the Star Trek fans, and con goers, that I know, in any way.
So, three stars. Can be a fun distraction as long as you try not to think about it too hard.

I feel a little odd reviewing this, as “Century” is being released in three parts, and this is just the first.

The League enters a new century and the reign of a new monarch in this volume. Fittingly, then, we meet both a new generation of characters (Nemo's daughter plays a prominent role) and a new league, filled with characters a little more obscure than the previous generation. I had to google half the cast to find out who they were, which takes away from part of the charm of the series, which was familiar characters from Victorian literature being placed in a superheroic milieu.

Still, on the other hand, it's Moore and O'Neill, so it's still a good read, even if it's not quite at the level of the previous two volumes.

At first glance, Irona 700 appears to be a fairly straightforward and familiar tale of a young hero born into obscurity, only to be given an opportunity for greatness due to an unlikely turn of events. However, the characterization of the protagonist and the interesting world-building manage to create a story that is interesting and thought-provoking.

(More at https://northerntomorrows.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/irona-700-by-david-duncan/

(Note: the publisher of this novel graciously provided an ARC of it for review purposes via Netgalley).

I love the idea of surrealist objets d'art becoming living, breathing things that exist in the world, and of the recasting of Freud's life and death instincts as instincts between surrealism and fascism.

But for a novel that's about surrealism, having literal, actual Nazis teaming up with literal, actual demons seems a little too on the nose.

Music is magic.

On a certain level, I think anyone who's ever played an instrument understands that, as does anyone who's ever poured their heart into a mixtape. Silvia Moreno-Garcia definitely understands it as well; Signal to Noise is a fantastic look at the power of music, and how the right song has the potential to change our lives.

Spanning across decades in Mexico City, Signal to Noise takes that connection between music and magic on a more literal level than that of metaphor - the three teenaged characters at the centre of the drama learn how to use their record collections to exert influence on the world around them, while their adult selves deal with some of the emotional fallout of those exertions. The two halves of the story are balanced well, and Moreno-Garcia creates characters that are easily identifiable without feeling like they're archetypal or cliche. The interesting nature of the characters, mixed with a soundtrack that's both mysterious and familiar, makes this a really engaging read.

The cover boasts that Signal to Noise would be of interest to fans of Stranger Things, and I get why the publisher would say that, but I think a better elevator pitch would be High Fidelity crossed with The Craft. If you were a fan of those films you'd probably dig this.

Poker and poker stories bring me joy. Which made this a bad fit for me - Whitehead is incapable of feeling joy, and as such his writing about poker is as interesting as reading a page of tournament results, with the added bonus of the kind of hipster detachment that tries to make you feel like less because you had the audacity to feel something.

This book was an interesting read in a lot of ways, but it's 15 books into a 19 book long series, so if you haven't been following it, the rest of this might not make a lot of sense to you. First was that in it we see further development of the “Jeedai heresy” amongst the Yuuhzang Vong, and learn a bit more about their cultural values. On top of that we see the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic start to work together, and we see the appearance of one of my favourite science fiction ideas: the sentient planet that moves throughout the galaxy under its own willpower. I loved the idea when it was Mogo from GLC, and when it was Ego the Living Planet from Thor and Silver Surfer comics, and I love the idea here, where it's the planet Zonama Sekot.

What really surprised me about this novel, though, is that it's another Star Wars novel where the EU characters really come into their own. While most of the movie characters do appear here, the meatiest roles of the book go to Jedi Knight Tahiri, Jagged Fel, and Gilad Pellaeon. It's amazing that a series based on a film would get to that point, where the main characters of the film have become secondary, but that's how the Star Wars universe has evolved, and I think it's just great. I especially loved Pellaeon in this book; he's very clearly an Imperial character, but one that you want to root for anyways.

This was an incredibly frustrating book to read. On one hand, there's a lot of great stuff here - the setting is fascinating, as is the idea of Rai, which lets David Micheline explore those themes of fatherhood, legacy, and the nature of heroism that he does so well. The art is lovely, as well - Valiant had this house style at the time that was crisp, and clean, and really lent itself to visual storytelling.

What was frustrating, though, was how much this book was constrained by the time it was published. Shooter's attitudes about serial storytelling can definitely be felt as an influence, and I couldn't help but wish that it was allowed to develop its story in the slower, deliberate way that a book like Saga gets to operate. Add to that a completely horrible ending - Rai getting jobbed out to a super villain as part of a mega crossover - that you could argue is “ironic”, but only in the sense of someone coming and stealing half of your meal while you're eating dinner.