Ryan

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.

One book to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.

Note: I received a free copy of this book via Goodreads' “First Reads” program.

The memoirs of Kris Courtney, an American artist born with several physical limitations that set him apart as an outsider growing up in middle-of-the-century rural America.

It's not the most complimentary of memoirs - Courtney spares no details in outlining how both his physical differences and family difficulties led him into a descending spiral of depression and substance abuse.

It's clear from reading it that Courtney's an inexperienced author; the prose seems clunky at some times, and he seems at times to be trying to make amends with his past as much as he is telling a compelling story. He bares his soul to the world with it, though, which is a courageous thing to do.

I'm so torn by this book, as I am with the Temeraire series on the whole. On one hand, there's so much that I like about it – in this book, for example, we continue to find out more about how different cultures deal with dragons being around in their society. I found the Russian experience of dragons to be very interesting, and neatly paralleled to the interactions between Russian aristocracy and its peasantry (which eventually came to a head with the Russian revolution). The big action set pieces, which relate to Napoleon's attempts to invade Russia in 1812, were all really fun to read as well. If someone is a student of history, though, it's intriguing to see how little of an impact dragons ended up having on the entire course of the war.

At the same time, I found the amnesia storyline to be fairly uninteresting. It seemed like an unnecessary attempt to inject an artificial level of drama into the character interactions. With everything that Temeraire, Laurence, and the other characters have been through, there's plenty of other material to mine for drama without adding this. The other main conflict in the book is Temeraire and Laurence's romantic lover subtext coming oddly close to plaintext. It's an odd plot, and I don't particularly care for it, so reading through their lovers' spats was a bit boring.

Overall, if you've read this far into the series, Blood of Tyrants is definitely a worthwhile read. Rumour has it that the next book in the series is going to be the last, which I think is something of a blessing. It's an enjoyable series at many points, but it feels like it's reaching a natural ending point (not just due to the fact that the Napoleonic wars eventually ended, either).

Wonderfully whimsical in the way Gaiman's fiction for youth always is. Beyond that: this is the type of father I aspire to be, so it gets bonus points for that.

I'd always kind of looked at Kirby as comics' version of, say, Bill Haley - an important player in the development of the artform, but not much else. His Thor, for example, I found atrocious. Reading New Gods, though, was a complete turn-around for me in regards to the man and his legacy.

The basic plot: Ragnarok has already happened, and the “old gods” have all died out. In their wake, however, the New Gods have formed on the twin planets of Apokolips and New Genesis. (Bonus points if you can guess which one is the ‘good' planet and which one is the ‘evil' one). The two planets are at war, and Earth has just become their latest battleground.

The series mainly focuses on Orion and Darkseid's battle for Earth, but throughout that, Kirby manages to throw out insane, cosmic ideas while still being able to muse on things like the nature/nurture debate and the impact that war has on a man's soul. Reading stuff like this makes me want to write big, goofy space opera stories; I suppose that providing inspiration like that is a bit of a testament to the strength of Kirby's work here, as well.

I'm really not sure who the intended audience for this book was - the style of it would be impenetrable for someone who's never read Tolkien before, and if you're already a fan, you most likely already know this story through its earlier appearances in the Unfinished Tales or the Silmarillion.

So, here we have the complete, tragic tale of Turin Turambor and his sister Nienor. Told in a style that mixes Grecian myth, biblical tale, and Shakespearean pomp. A good enough story, although there are times when you can tell it was unfinished prior to Tolkien's death.

This isn't the first time that Moore's tapped into the idea that hippies were the real superheroes of the 1960s, guarding the astral plane with their far-out sexmagic and stimulant choices, and I always enjoy when he goes to that well. This part of Century is sexy, it's fun, and it ends on an ominous cliffhanger that makes me excited to see where the story ends up.

Tommy Taylor learns about archetypes.

This one underwhelmed me; didn't feel as interesting or as expansive as the other books in the series.

Still, it got me interested in reading Moby Dick, something that no other pop culture reference to Moby Dick has ever managed. So there's that.

This was a bit of a mess. It was set in Victorian England, like so many a steampunk story is, but it didn't feel like Victorian England- the characters' mannerisms, attitudes, and values made them seem like modern characters that were sort of play-acting instead of being from the actual time period.
The plot was a bit of a mess, too. Finley Jayne, the main character, is a maid who has superpowers for some reason, and she's hired to be a companion/bodyguard for this aristocratic adolescent who someone is trying to kill. If you've ever read any science fiction or adventure stories before, it quickly becomes obvious who is trying to kill her, and why; Finley stops him from killing her and then leaves the employment of the aristocratic family. She doesn't learn anything, or change in any way along the way, and then the story just kind of ends. Very unsatisfying.

This was an incredibly fun read. Trail of Lightning is a hard-edged mashup of Supernatural and Mad Max told through the lens of the culture of the Navajo nation. If you're a fan of dystopian lit, or of “gods walking the Earth again” stories, this is well worth your time.

A fun little novella in which Jack Palms and Jane Gannon investigate an underground fighting ring in San Fransisco. Harwood continues to thoughtfully use the format and media that he writes in - as a novel the story would have disappointed, but it's a good story for the length that he's writing. It's a fun, light read for those that have been enjoying the series already.

This is a real ‘coming-of-age' type novel - the kind of book that could be a wonderful revelation if you read it when you're fifteen, but beyond that, it loses a lot of its emotional punch.[return]In some ways, as well, this novel is driven by a desire to coope with the events of the last book - the eponymous Order has to deal with Voldemort's return, and Harry has to deal with the emotional trauma of having a friend die in his arms, as well as all of the issues normally associated with being 15. I've talked to a lot of people who have sad they didn't like this novel, because in it, they claimed, Harry becomes somewhat insufferable. I think, though, that you can't understand Harry's attitude in the book without keeping cognizant the fact that he is only a teenager, and that he lacks the psychoemotional maturity to deal with a lot of what's happened to him. Additionally, the book also has a nice, strong ‘stick-it-to-the-man' sort of attitude to it, which is a refreshing change from the other books, and which helps to firmly place Harry into the realm of adulthood and adult responsibilities. Arguably the best Potter book in the series.

This was a fascinating collection of short stories taking place in Dublin in the 1920s. James has a really interesting style of writing, despite his insistence on not using quotation marks, which bothered me a little.

One of the reasons I loved the writing style in this, though, is that I can hear the voices of my Irish relatives in Joyce's writing - I feel like I've heard many of these characters telling stories before, and it really helped me connect to the stories that Joyce was telling. I know that's not the kind of thing that's going to intice anyone to read it or anything, but for me it was a nice treat.

This was an interesting companion piece to Martin's abandoned Song of Ice and Fire series*. It's written from an in-universe perspective, chronicling the history of the earliest Targaryen rulers of Westeros. Written as a history book, it initially feels dry and lifeless, but as you get more engaged with it (and as Martin gets to the more interesting parts of Westerosi history), it becomes sometimes fascinating. On the whole, the Targaryens are a great argument against hereditary monarchy, and it's interesting to see the Westerosi narrator struggle to attempt to justify their failings and present them as beneficial parts of the development of his society.

Due to the scope of the material that Martin's going over, he unfortunately doesn't have space to include all the parts of the history that fans are most interested in - there's no Aegon the Unlikely or Rhaegar Targaryen here, which is a bit of a shame. On the other hand, he does include a comprehensive look at the Dance of Dragons that is epic in scale and rivals anything he's written in this world.

They got superheroes in my Vertigo book!

Thematically, I can understand why the creative team would want to do an arc on superheroes; I can even grant that it's a metatextual statement about Vertigo's role in DC comics in 2012. The execution, though, fell extremely flat, especially the bit at the end, which was so anti-climactic that I wouldn't dare call it a climax.

I really get the feeling I wouldn't have even picked this up if a friend of mine hadn't lent it to me, which is kind of sad, because I used to get really excited about the prospects of a new Walking Dead volume coming out.

This volume seems to start out okay - our cast tries to regain their collective composure after what they've been put through in the past story arc, and also tries to shore up their resources for the inevitable confrontation with the Woodbury residents. There is still a lot of blood, gore, and death throughout the series, but you do get a bit of a sense that there is some hope in the future for the cast.

The whole thing, however, falls apart when we get to the cliffhanger ending, which shows The Governor to be alive and leading an invasion force against the prison. The fact that he would be able to survive his previous injuries, and maintain his hold of power, stretches the credulity of the story, and turns Walking Dead into a very different kind of comic than it has been in the first 6 volumes.

The Empire State is at war, and has been for a long time. So long that most people, including private eye Rad Bradley, can't remember a time when it wasn't Wartime. Certainly as long as the city's science hero, The Skyguard, has been protecting it. This isn't really a novel about the Skyguard, though. It's a novel about a murder, one that Rad is hired to solve and which itself might threaten the very existence of the Empire State.

This was an incredibly fun novel. I'm as much a sucker for noirish detective stories as I am for parallel words and superheroes, so this was right up my alley to begin with. Beyond that, though, Adam Christopher does an incredible job of setting the mood of Empire State, a place where nothing quite feels right but you can't put your finger on why. Add in an apocalyptic-scale threat, steampunk superheroes, and gangsters, and you've got a great story.

Aliens in science fiction are a tricky business; they're often little more than metaphors for specific aspects of human society, like the Klingons in Star Trek, or they're a faceless menace with no goal other than destruction and domination, like Wells' Martians or Card's insect horde. Rarely are extraterrestrials given a full, rounded culture and a motivation equal to that of the human characters.

With Triptych, JM Frey has created a work that fully acknowledges the culture of science fiction that came before it, but steps outside of that tradition to create a species of alien refugees with a unique culture and physiology, and a protagonist who represents that culture, but is still able to stand as a fully-formed, three dimensional figure.

Kalp, the alien protagonist in question, really is the heart and soul of the novel - we spend a lot of time with his human partners, Gwen and Basil, but Kalp is the heart and soul of the novel. I'd describe him further, but I think Kalp is the sort of character that needs to be experienced firsthand, so all I will say is that “Of all the souls I've encountered in my travels, his was the most ... human.”

Science fiction is often called “the literature of ideas”, and in some ways Triptych could be used as an example of that, with its representation of polyamory, and its look at how accepting the alien refugees not only changes them, but also the human society that welcomes them - but it feels like expressing those concerns were secondary to Frey, and that she just wanted to tell a heartwarming, humanistic tale of love and loss. Which is, I think, how it should be.

This was a lot of fun to read. A lot of the self-help/advice parts will be familiar to anyone who's done any reading about productivity and self-improvement, but Hardwick's background in comedy and his tendency to explain things in gaming and sci-fi terms make it more enjoyable than many other books in the field.

Six Wakes is a sci-fi/mystery that takes the familiar idea of the locked-room mystery and moves it to a spaceship. Six clones wake up aboard a ship, their last memory being just before they boarded it twenty-five years earlier. Around them is evidence that all six had recently met with foul play. The novel follows these six characters as they try to unravel the mystery of their missing time, and find out which one of them was the murderer in their previous life.

What makes this story so fresh and dynamic is how Lafferty is able to blend the the two pillars of the story together (the mystery elements and the sci-fi ones), creating a story that felt both familiar and completely unique throughout the entire time I was reading it. She slowly unveils this fascinating, complex world that's been impacted by its technological developments, and provides us just enough clues to keep us engaged in the novel's central mystery while withholding enough that it remains compelling and thrilling. Along with the worldbuilding, the interesting characters, and the engaging mystery, Lafferty weaves themes of rebirth, hopefulness in the face of tragedy, and how technology affects our sense of morality. This was a fascinating book and I loved the experience of reading it.

This series is really interesting, as it allows writer Simon Furman (who, for the uninitiated, is like the Proust of giant robot comics) to build Transformers up from the ground with relatively little outside influence. This volume features both Megatron and Optimus Prime coming to Earth to lead up their relevant factions after the events of the last TF volume. One of the great things about this comic was in how it treated the relative leaders - there was a great sense of danger and fear created in the characters when they learned that Megatron was coming to Earth, and likewise a sense of calm from Prime's involvement. Furman does a really great job of giving the characters individual personalities as well, which is something that's never really been done well with Transformers before.

This was a fairly enjoyable ghost story, but like a lot of stuff from King's middle period, it just feels bloated. You could probably have cut 200 pages worth of story out of this and still had a complete, enjoyable novel.