Read Report – Page 2 – Words Deferred

Exhalation — Read Report

Buy audio book at Libro.fm (affiliate link)

(As I mentioned in my May Read Report, I’m going to try breaking out these posts per-book instead of the monthly summary that I have been writing. That’ll mean more of these posts, but each one shorter and more focused.)

Chiang first appeared on my radar via the 2016 movie Arrival, which is based on his short story “Story of Your Life.” The film made an impression on me by the many things it was able to juggle simultaneously. It is a great first contact sci-fi story and an emotionally fraught personal story that are intimately connected. It’s a great example of Chuck Wendig’s principle from Damn Fine Story—the inner emotional story drives the external action. On top of that, it is told in a cleverly non-linear way that not only enhances the tension, but fits with the key themes of the plot. It remains one of my favorite sci-fi movies.

Exhalation is a collection of nine stories. Two of the longest, The Lifecycle of Software Objects and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom account for about half of the total length, and the other seven are much shorter in comparison.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects begins with the invention of a rudimentary AI system that is designed to learn and grow. The main character is a former zookeeper turned software developer who is brought in to train and develop these AI companions for the company that hopes to sell them as an advanced Tomagatchi.

The AI companions are a success at first, enough that robot bodies are even produced to allow them to movie around in the real world, albeit a bit clumsily. However, the fad soon loses its momentum as consumers begin to realize that raising these AI is just as much work as raising a human child. They learn slowly, ask difficult questions, and show none of the super-human capabilities that sci-fi has long imagined from AI. The company goes under, but the protagonist and a dwindling group of die-hard believers in the project continue to raise their AI children with the understanding that it will be just as difficult as parenting a human child.

There are no shortage of stories out there about superintelligent AI taking over the world, but far fewer that suggest non-human lifeforms might need just as much raising and growing up as their human counterparts.

In Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom, a device called a “prism” can create a quantum event at the moment of initialization, with two possible outcomes. The result is two parallel realities that diverge at that exact moment, a clunky briefcase laptop linking them with text chat and video calls to its parallel-universe counterpart. Each briefcase has a limited amount of memory it can use to communicate between the two worlds before it is used up, making older or less-used machines more valuable and rare.

The story explores various ways people are affected by this tech. Some obsessively compare their own lives to those of their alternate-universe selves or use alternate realities to justify their decisions. Some use it as an opportunity to “work together” with their alternate selves, or talk with alternates of people who have died in their own world.

While the prism device is the conceit on which the story hinges, it’s really about the choices we make. Alternate realities may make some question the value of a given choice, when the exact opposite is chosen in other worlds. But each choice still has consequences in this one, and an associated moral weight. Is a person defined by the accumulation of their choices across one life, or across infinite parallel lives?

There is little “hard” sci-fi or far-future technology in Chiang’s stories. Stories like The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny, and Exhalation dip their toes in steampunk sensibilities, while The Lifecycle of Software Objects, What’s Expected of Us, and Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom posit worlds that could essentially be the one we live in today, but for one or two technological additions.

It’s also apparent from these stories that there are a few themes that Chiang keeps returning to, the bigger planets in his solar system, whose gravity is obvious across his work. Time travel and alternate universes are a recurring theme, but this may be because he is so intent on explorations of choice, free will, and whether our decisions have meaning.

As with any sci-fi, technology is at the heart of these stories, but they are not cold and robotic as sci-fi can sometimes be. Writers like Asimov are often critiqued for clockwork plots with flat characters who are merely parts in the machine. That’s certainly not a problem for Chiang. Most of his stories are character-forward, and are about human behavior and belief in the face of the changes wrought by technology. It’s easy to relate to these characters, because they face decidedly human problems in worlds much like ours, where technology drives change and sometimes creates new joys and new pains.

I often want to roll my eyes when speculative fiction authors escape the genre fiction ghetto and get themselves shelved under that haughty label of “literature.” It seems like a flimsy excuse by the gatekeepers to allow themselves to enjoy what they would otherwise be required to look down upon, due to the presence of spaceships or elves. For Chiang, I’ll make an exception. I think he deserves to be widely read, and I’d rather not see people put off by the time machines and intelligent robots.

The Read Report — May 2025

Another month has passed, and I’m here to talk about books.

There are a lot of them. Really, a shocking number of books. They keep coming out!

Despite my best efforts, I haven’t read them all. But I promise, I’m working on it. Let’s talk about the ones I finished in May.

Where possible, I include Bookshop and Libro affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a small commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of luxury ice for billionaires’ cocktails.

Annihilation (Southern Reach – Book 1)

By Jeff VanderMeer

(Audiobook on Libro.fm)

As I mentioned last time, I’ve been getting into audio books as a way to read more. The three-books-in-one Area X collection was my second audio book purchase, and it was a fantastic choice. I’ve loved Jeff VanderMeer’s work for years, but between the Borne books and the Southern Reach series, he might just be my favorite author.

Annihilation begins with a simple premise: there is a place somewhere in the coastal US where something supernatural or alien has taken root. (The exact location never entirely clear, but it’s in the South, and VanderMeer himself lives near Tallahassee.) This place, dubbed Area X, is surrounded by an invisible barrier that vanishes any living creature that crosses it. The only entrance or exit is a gate of scintillating light.

The government has surrounded Area X with a military blockade, created a cover story of “ecological catastrophe,” and created a clandestine organization called The Southern Reach to study it, because that’s the sort of thing governments do.

We enter into this situation with The Biologist, one of four members of the 12th expedition sent into Area X. Her fellows are The Anthropologist, The Surveyor, and The Psychologist, who also serves as the expedition’s leader. They are discouraged from knowing anything about each other, even their real names.

Within Area X they encounter mysteries and monsters, and The Biologist soon has reason to believe that the Southern Reach knows more about Area X than it has told the members of the expedition.

Annihilation was shorter than I was expecting, only six hours as an audio book, but it’s packed full. Each chapter provides new revelations about the situation or unfurls new backstory about the characters in a way that kept me constantly revising my understanding of what was going on. And even so, the central mystery of “what is Area X” kept the story moving forward.

It’s interesting to see themes from VanderMeer’s other books present here. His stories are off the map. Deep in the unknown. Places that feel alien, and characters that often feel alien despite being human.

The man is obsessed with fungus as a vector for our fear of parasites, a foreign body that brings death—or transformation. Mushrooms and mushroom-people figured heavily in the Ambergris stories. He also clearly has a deep love for ecology and nature, especially coasts and tidal pools. The Biologist, with her aquatic obsessions, mirrors the protagonists of Dead Astronauts, another book by VanderMeer.

This feels like cosmic horror, but subtle. It says the world is unknown, and unknowable. Inscrutable. It reminded me of House of Leaves. You can’t trust the laws of physics, the constancy of space and time. There is a feeling of Area X holding forbidden knowledge that will destroy anyone who comes across it.

Authority (Southern Reach – Book 2)

By Jeff VanderMeer

(Audiobook on Libro.fm)

As soon as I finished Annihilation, I jumped into Authority. I was hooked.

It starts with a twist that immediately grabbed me. One of the characters in the first book wasn’t who they pretended to be. Everything I knew from the 12th expedition was turned on its head.

This time, we follow the brand new director of the Southern Reach, a man who insists on being called Control— though it quickly becomes apparent that very little is actually in his control.

He has been brought in to replace the old director and “fix” the Southern Reach. Central, a shady government agency that may or may not be the CIA, is concerned that the organization is rotten—somehow infected or sympathetic toward Area X despite the directive to contain and control. They have become too close to the problem.

Control arrives just in time for the debriefing of the survivors of the 12th expedition, despite at least some of them appearing to be dead at the end of the first book. One of these survivors is The Biologist.

Beyond the weirdness of Area X and secret government organizations vying for power, Control has to contend with all the difficulties of being the outsider brought into a dysfunctional organization he doesn’t understand, to be in charge of people who don’t trust him and quietly resist any significant change.

As is often the case with clandestine organizations, Control soon realizes that he really doesn’t know everything going on at the Southern Reach or at Central. He is being manipulated from all sides while becoming more and more obsessed with the mysteries of Area X.

Even worse, the past has been purposely muddied. There have been far more than twelve expeditions, but the numbers are reused, the members lied to. The facts are hidden from all but the highest-ranking officials. The previous director’s notes indicate that Area X is expanding, though there seems to be no outward sign of it.

Control cannot even trust himself. The Southern Reach uses hypnosis to condition and control the members of the expeditions, and it seems increasingly likely that Central uses the same conditioning on its own people. Can he be sure of what he knows? Can he be sure of who he is?

The first book ended in personal catastrophe: death and failure for the 12th expedition. The second book ends in what appears to be a global catastrophe as Area X suddenly and rapidly expands, not only extending its border, but surpassing it, spreading its seeds out into the wider world. Control flees, but like everyone who spends time at the Southern Reach, he can’t really get away, and he finds himself returning to Area X.

If Authority has a hypothesis, it’s that nobody is truly in control. You can take a name or a title, you can construct borders to protect yourself, you can perform as much rigorous, scientific categorization and classification as you’d like. It won’t stand up in the face of the unknown.

Acceptance (Southern Reach – Book 3)

By Jeff VanderMeer

(Audiobook on Libro.fm)

Annihilation and Authority mostly follow linear narratives, even if information about the past is revealed in bits and pieces throughout. Acceptance is decidedly non-linear. It intermingles three stories.

The time before the border fell over the Forgotten Coast is told by Saul Evans, lighthouse keeper and former preacher. He encounters the Séance and Science (S&S) Brigade, a weird collection of locals who investigate strange phenomena from scientific and paranormal angles, and somehow seem to be intimately involved in the eventual advent of Area X.

The time after Area X appeared is told by the director of the Southern Reach who preceded Control. She reveals the origin of the organization, some of its ties to Central, and what really happened across the many expeditions and years of investigation.

The present, then, is told by Control and The Biologist—or at least something that looks like The Biologist, but calls herself Ghost Bird. Control is drawn to Area X, repulsed by it, obsessed with it and terrified of it. Ghost Bird has a connection to Area X that she does not completely understand. They both suspect she is the only one who can stop it.

In the aftermath of the border’s expansion, the pair trek through the pristine wilderness of Area X, to the island off the coast. They meet an old friend and formulate a desperate plan to return to the buried tower that forms the heart of Area X, to stop the threat it poses to all of humanity.

The trilogy is built as something of a mystery box, with the ultimate question for readers being the cause and purpose of Area X. Is it supernatural? Alien?

I’d argue that VanderMeer is better than most at constructing this kind of mysterious narrative while still giving up big, exciting revelations along the way, but there are plenty of questions left to answer going into book three. To his credit, most of the questions are answered by the last page.

There are revelations about the origin and purpose of Area X, but they are oblique. Some readers will be satisfied with that, either constructing their own head-canon from the pieces, or accepting that there will always be a little uncertainty. On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of folks online still looking for more clarity.

Personally, I came well-prepared, having read another VanderMeer series first — the not-quite trilogy of Borne, The Strange Bird, and Dead Astronauts. Those books are delightful explorations of language in a post-apocalyptic future, but they’re challenging and they leave a lot of questions unresolved. In comparison, the Southern Reach trilogy is practically overflowing with answers.

And luckily, there may be more. After ten years away, VanderMeer recently released a fourth Southern Reach book: Absolution. (Of course it has to start with A.)

What I’m Reading in June

When do you know you’re reading too many books at the same time? Right now, I’m halfway through an audio book that I listen to in the car. I’m also halfway through an e-book that I can read in spare minutes on my phone. And I’m halfway through a physical book that I keep next to my bed.

Next month, expect to hear about some sci-fi short stories, one of the most award-winning fantasy authors of recent times, and yet more from Jeff VanderMeer.

I’m also considering a change in format. I originally started these Read Reports as a way to combine my thoughts on a few books into a single post, but now I’m finding that it ends up being an awfully long post when I write about a month’s-worth of books.

So let me know in the comments — do you like these consolidated Read Reports, or would you rather have bite-sized posts on one book at a time?

The Read Report — April

It’s Spring. Here in Minnesota it may be 40 or 80 degrees on any given day. The animals have that springtime energy. The kids can sense that summer is almost in spitting distance. But there are also those notorious April showers, and some cooler days, and plenty of reasons to curl up inside with a good book. Let’s talk about some of them.

Where possible, I include Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a tiny commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of scalp polish for Jeff Bezos.

Audio Books and Libro.fm

I recently decided to try audio books as a way to “read” more while I’m driving, folding laundry, or performing other mundane tasks. I was excited to discover Libro.fm, an audio book alternative to Amazon’s Audible, much like Bookshop.org has become my default option for buying paper books.

While Bookshop is a B Corp and Libro is a Social Purpose Corporation, both share profits with local bookstores and seem to have a moral framework beyond simple money-making. While the moral aspects of my purchases have become increasingly important to me, I’ll also note that both of these websites (and in Libro’s case, their mobile app) are well-constructed and easy to use, and the buying experience is very good. So I don’t feel like I’m missing out or working harder for the same product.

The first audio book I purchased through Libro was Jade City, by Fonda Lee.

Jade City

By Fonda Lee

I could tell immediately that Jade City fits my fantasy sensibilities perfectly. There are no elves or dragons to be seen, no medieval castles. Yes, the story takes place in a secondary world, and yes, there is magic in that world, but it feels grounded and real. High fantasy this is not.

The story takes place in the small, Asian-inspired island nation of Kekon, and almost entirely in the capital city of Janloon. The country is in a transitional period in the decades following the Many Nations War, a world war which distracted colonial overlords long enough for native, magic-imbued freedom fighters to drive them out.

As is often the case, without a shared enemy to fight the guerrilla army fractures into feuding clans. While there is an official, somewhat clan-neutral government over Kekon, these clans have an effective monopoly on magic and exercise significant power. They operate like mafia houses with spiritual, commercial, and governmental components, controlling and battling over territory. The fight to free the country from outsiders is still within living memory, but that memory is fading.

Although the world of Jade City is in the early stages of industrial revolution, with cars being commonplace and guns only slightly less so, the magic is decidedly wuxia, focusing on close-range martial arts fighting with knives and swords. Even then, the magic serves to move the plot as a political and social element, and only occasionally comes to the fore in tense life-or-death battles.

Magic is derived from bio-reactive jade, and this jade is only to be found in Kekon. Moreover, not everyone can use jade. It requires a genetic component, luck, and training.

However, there is a loophole. A drug has recently been invented—SN1 or “shine”—that allows those without aptitude and genetics to use jade. It threatens both the political order of Kekon and the Kekonese control of jade. Larger powers out in the world are eager to get their hands on both jade and the means to use it, and most of them are indifferent towards Kekon.

Within this complex historical and geopolitical backdrop, the story follows a single family: the Kauls, leaders of the No Peak clan. They are one of the largest clans, second only to the Mountain clan. But the longstanding equilibrium is broken as the Mountain makes moves to consolidate power inside and outside the island, no longer following the codes of honor that have long bound the actions of jaded “greenbones.”

Jade City is a family drama, as well as a political and crime drama. It’s Wuxia Godfather. It’s a fantastic first entry for a fantasy trilogy, and I’ll definitely pick up the sequels.

Hellblazer Vol. 12 – How to Play With Fire

By Paul Jenkins, Warren Pleece, Garth Ennis, John Higgins

There are questions you ask at the start of any Constantine story arc. Which old enemy is going to show up? Which estranged friends? What terrible thing is going to happen to this girlfriend? Does the big bad evil plan to wreck up the entire planet, or only London?

This trade paperback collects three story arcs, four issues each. In the first, Constantine is in New York to meet the latest girlfriend’s family. And for some reason, he’s up against that classic villain, Satan. But the devil isn’t raining down fire and brimstone, he’s unleashing some kind of overly-vague psychic malaise on New York, the girlfriend’s family included. Of course, John manages to save the day with the help of the girlfriend’s grandpa and a psychic he happens to know. Or at least he clears off the bad mojo from her family. Everyone else is on their own.

This arc really felt like filler to me. The actual danger is described in such vague terms, and the solution is just as unclear. I don’t need every story to conclude with a beatdown of the villain, but I do need to actually understand what’s going on, and as far as I can tell the plot of these issues seems to be that America is psychically sick, and the only cure is to share memories with boomers who know what it means to really live.

The second storyline is classic Hellblazer, with old friends turned to enemies and demonic forces desperate to get even with Constantine. As usual, everything in John’s life begins to fall apart. His buddies are estranged and his girlfriend leaves him. But all it takes to fix it is making a deal with the devil.

The final arc is the best of the bunch. John’s friend Chas gets accidentally mixed up in some gangster business and hopes that Constantine can get him out of it. Unfortunately, John has history with these gangsters too—he once did them a dangerous favor that ended in a little bit of demonic possession. This one does end in a proper showdown with a big nasty demon. So maybe that is something I need in a Hellblazer story to really enjoy it.

American Gods

By Neil Gaiman

I last read American Gods about two decades ago. It holds up pretty well, all things considered.

It is a love letter to America and especially the Midwest, a novel whose story runs across rural highways and through chintzy roadside attractions. It looks on America kindly, but also observes our weaknesses and foibles as only an outsider can.

In American Gods, there is a spiritual void in modern America, and the gods are dying. They are being forgotten, their worshipers dwindling. In their place, new concepts ascend: media, the internet, and mysterious three-letter government organizations. And yet, for some, the transition can’t happen soon enough. Among the new gods, there are those who aren’t content to let the old gods fade. They want blood.

Meanwhile, Shadow is getting out of prison. He’s served his time and he’s going home to his wife. He has a job lined up. Then, right before release, he finds out that his wife is dead, and everything falls apart. That’s when he meets an old man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and Shadow is pulled into the war among the gods.

The end hinges on several surprise twists, which are nicely telegraphed, but not obvious. The final chapters are satisfying without being glib or wrapping things up too cleanly.

Acknowledging Monsters

I would be remiss to write up this book without acknowledging the recent accusations against Gaiman. His stories never shied away from dark topics like sexual assault—which once seemed like a clear-eyed view of an often terrible world. Now, it comes across as something more personal and disturbing.

I won’t argue for or against the death of the author. I can understand appreciating a piece of work, even while disagreeing with or hating the author. I’ve certainly enjoyed stories by authors like Card or Heinlein while vehemently disagreeing with their politics and social views. I also can’t blame anyone who can’t (or doesn’t want to) separate the author and the story.

There are things I love in many of Gaiman’s works. I would have called myself a fan of his not so long ago. It’s unfortunate that those stories will now be tainted. They will always have that dark coda attached.

What I’m Reading in April

Hey, it turns out audiobooks are pretty cool. I can turn a lot more of my mundane task time into listening time. And what I’m listening to next is the Area X trilogy by one of my favorite literary SFF authors: Jeff VanderMeer. I’ve also got short fiction by Ted Chiang, and maybe a couple other things from the TBR pile. See you next month.

The Read Report — March

March was my recovery month. I quit slacking off and got my writing mojo back, and I also read a few books. Some are oldies from the bookshelf, and one is a new library find.

As usual, I include Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a tiny commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of massive political spending by billionaires.

Hyperbole and a Half

By Allie Brosh

Hyperbole and a Half lives in an interesting space between web-comic and autobiographical blog. It began on Blogger at a time when blogs and web-comics were approaching their zenith of popularity, and was rocketed to fame by panels that became widespread memes, like this:

Brosh’s MSPaint-style art depicts every person and animal as wide-eyed and crazed, with mouths that span their faces. Every expression is extreme. It is as hyperbolic as the name suggests.

She mines her childhood, relationships, pets, and a wide variety of unusual life experiences for material, crafting stories in the vein of comedians like Mike Birbiglia or David Sedaris, but with a chronically online millennial perspective.

Several stories follow her family’s adventures living with a “simple” dog, and the adoption of a “helper” dog who turns out to be just as problematic. She describes her childhood determination to steal a birthday cake that belongs to someone else. And she recounts the experience of being attacked by an angry, wild goose in her own house.

Brosh also uses the same comic-story lens to examine her experiences with depression and becoming suicidal. These heavy topics are treated with vulnerable honesty while still managing to find the humor lurking in these dark corners (or under the fridge, in this case).

Solutions and Other Problems

By Allie Brosh

Solutions and Other Problems is the long-awaited sequel to Hyperbole and a Half. Seven years have passed between books. Brosh has gone through medical issues, mental health challenges, divorce and remarrying. The book still contains plenty of her trademark goofiness, but there is a notable shift in tone and perspective.

Brosh has also clearly leveled-up her art. It somehow manages to convey the same level of absurdity and retains the lo-fi MSPaint aesthetic while being far more detailed and varied.

Where many of the stories in the first book originally appeared on the Hyperbole and a Half blog, almost all of the content of this second book is new. Which probably explains the dearth of content on the blog in recent years.

If you enjoyed the blog and the first book, the second book provides more of the same, and does almost all of it even better.

The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable

By Terry Pratchett, Illustrated by Paul Kidby

This was an unexpected library find for me. The Last Hero is a lushly illustrated novella, written for the same adult audience as Pratchett’s other Discworld books. It occupies that sparse space between comics, children’s books, and novels. In fact, the only other illustrated story like this that I can think of is The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains. It’s too bad that experimentation in format like this is so rare.

Drawing from the usual massive cast of Discworld characters, this story stars Rincewind (the original inept wizard from Pratchett’s earliest books), the brilliant Da Vinci-esque inventor Leonard of Quirm, Cohen the Barbarian, and a supporting cast of wizards and barbarian heroes.

The barbarians are growing old, and they want to go out with a bang. They want to return fire to the gods. A whole lot of it. Unfortunately, exploding the magical mountain where the gods live will very likely destroy the entire Discworld, so the wizards and Leonard set out to stop them.

The storyline following Cohen and the barbarians parodies the classic D&D “murder-hobo” style of heroism, and the storyline of Leonard building a craft to fly to the highest mountain on the Disc parodies classic space-dramas and the Apollo program.

The illustrations are incredibly beautiful and detailed, in the mold of the best classic fantasy covers, so the absurdity of Discworld details (like “Wizzard” stitched onto Rincewind’s pointy hat) stand out all the more.

What I’m Reading in April

I’ve come to the realization that I often talk about reading books in this section, only for them to not appear in next month’s report.

I’m not messing with you. I promise. I just have a bad habit of reading too many things at once. And now I’ve found an exciting new way to increase my number of half-finished books, through the power of audio books!

That’s right, I’m currently listening to Fonda Lee’s Jade City on Libro.fm. And I’m still in the midst of American Gods and Ted Chiang’s short stories. And some day I’ll get beyond the first chapter of the final Witcher book. If we’re really being honest, I’ll probably pick up something else before the month is out.

What will I actually finish? Tune in next month to find out.

The Read Report — January and February 2025

Alright, February was a train wreck for me, so I never managed to get January’s post out. But that’s fine. We’re all here now. We’ll do it live!

Moving Pictures

By Terry Pratchett

I’m still working through the Discworld series with my kids. Thankfully, Pritchett was a prolific author, and if I stretch them out I can continue reading his books for several more years before I’ve read them all. It’s nice to think that a favorite author can live on in this way, through his books.

Moving Pictures is an experiment in how many movie-related references and metaphors Pratchett can cram into a fantasy world. Alchemists have invented movies, their cameras powered by the dangerous combination of little imps and highly flammable cellulose film. Within weeks, the seaside shanty-town of Holy Wood springs up on an otherwise deserted stretch of beach, and people are drawn toward it by the chance for fame, and perhaps a more nefarious force.

One of the newly minted actors who found his big break at Holy Wood happens to be a student wizard from Anhk-Morpork’s Unseen University. He starts to see signs that there’s more than movie magic going on: in fact, there may be other realities (like our own) leaking into the Discworld from the void between universes. Where there are weak places in the fabric of the universe, there are Cthulhu-esque “Things” looking for a way in.

Much of the silliness of the book comes from twisted versions of familiar movie tropes: the Orangutan-transformed University Librarian picked up by a 50-foot woman climbing a tower in an inversion of King Kong; or the bald, golden, statuesque ancient protector against cosmic evil who just happens to look like everyone’s uncle Oscar.

Like the Simpsons, Discworld has a massive cast of characters that can be pulled into service for any given plotline. Detritus the troll and perpetual scammer “Cut-me-own-Throat” Dibbler get higher billing than usual, with the wizards of the University making a strong appearance toward the end.

Pratchett’s super-power, however, is the ability to write a silly story in a silly setting, packed with quips and jokes, and still build a real plot and characters with actual motivations that make you root for them.

Katusha: Girl Soldier of the Great Patriotic War

By Wayne Vansant

Like many of the more unusual comics I pick up, this was a Half Price Books impulse buy. There is now a whole sub-genre of historical fiction and biography within indie comics (see Maus, Palestine, and Persepolis in my previous months’ reading), and while I don’t generally gravitate toward it, I’m glad I picked up Katusha.

Firstly, this thing is a tome, clocking in at almost 600 pages. Unlike many trade paperback comics, this has a strong binding that has held up well so far, despite that size.

When I started reading, I wasn’t especially excited by the art, which has a sketchy look that sometimes skimps on detail. However, it grew on me over time, and I came to understand that Vansant was picking and choosing important panels to fully flesh out. I could call the art “workmanlike,” but that is not an insult. It is straightforward, and there is never any confusion about what is happening. It is impactful at all the right moments, and really fits the documentarian feel of the story. I can hardly blame Vansant for lack of detail here or there. The fact that one person was able to write and illustrate this entire book is a small miracle.

The story follows the titular girl soldier from the early war, before the German expansion east into Russia, all the way through the messy German retreat to Berlin.

The first few chapters provide a day in the life before the war, introducing Katusha’s mother and father, her adopted sister, her best friend, and her mysterious troublemaker of an uncle.

Katusha and her family are Ukrainian, and their life under Soviet rule is already sometimes fraught. When the Germans invade, making promises to civilians of a better life under their rule, rural Ukranians have to wonder whether the occupation might improve their lives.

Unfortunately, those promises soon prove hollow, as the family witnesses brutal suppression and an immediate round-up of Ukrainian Jews and others the Germans consider undesirable. Katusha and her family are forced to flee their home town to stay with relatives, and then flee again and again. The family is separated, and Katusha and her sister become partisans under the leadership of their uncle, creating a rebel base in a well-hidden cave.

After a winter of successful operations against the Germans, the sisters are briefly reunited with their father, a tank factory supervisor, who helps them enroll in the Soviet tank school. They spend the remainder of the war manning, and eventually commanding their own tanks.

For a book that is concerned with brutal war, there is no excessive gore. When there is violence, it isn’t skimmed over, and it feels honest. Over the course of the war, Katusha loses many family members and friends. It is a sad coming-of-age story that must mirror what millions of teenagers went through in many countries over the course of the war.

Vansent is careful to show the complexity of wartime politics, with multiple factions of Ukrainian partisans. Some fight with the Soviets, while others fight with the Germans, and some fight against both in a bid for independence. Even after the Germans retreat, the fighting continues in what eventually proves to be a vain hope for Ukrainian independence. It is a particularly timely reminder that the Ukrainian people have spent so much of their history fighting for the right to choose their own destinies.

Katusha ultimately survives beyond the end of the war, but like any good war story it is a melancholy victory. She marries a fellow soldier who nearly died of his injuries. Most of her family is gone. And despite the best efforts of the partisans, Ukraine returns to the grip of the USSR. It’s a long and bittersweet journey.

Severance: The Lexington Letter

(Unattributed)

Like the rest of America, I’ve been watching Severance. The Lexington Letter is a little in-universe book (exclusive to Apple Books, of course) that includes a series of emails and a pamphlet titled “The Macrodata Refiner’s Handbook.”

The emails chronicle the brief story of a severed worker who finds clues that her “innie”—the separated personality that only activates at work—has found evidence of bad things happening at her employer, Lumon. After trying in various ways to sneak information out of the company, the woman quits and contacts a reporter at the Topeka Star with her information. The story, however, is ultimately suppressed. The editor killing the story has a name that will lead observant fans to realize he is likely in the company’s pocket, and the woman turns up dead soon thereafter.

The handbook in the second part features a cartoonized severance brain chip as a mascot that guides new workers through the mysterious job featured in the show: macrodata refinement. It is full of the tone-deaf and slightly sinister corporate propaganda-speak that the show is known for, and filled with a plethora of little details that seem like they might be clues, but probably don’t mean anything. In short, perfect fodder for the mega-fan conspiracy theorists.

*Typical r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus Redditor*

The entire book can be easily read in a sitting or two, and serves to add a little more content to the Severance universe, without really revealing anything new or exciting. It is definitely focused on existing fans, and newcomers to the series will likely not find much for them here. However, if you’re a hardcore fan of the show and desperately counting down the days until the next episode release, this might just tide you over for an evening.

I’ll also note that I hate it when big media tie-ins do this thing where they don’t credit the author(s) of the tie-in material. Yes, the book is effectively a stealth advertisement for the show, but there was clearly some effort put into the writing and illustration. Those people deserve credit.

What I’m Reading in March

I’m currently working my way through American Gods, a book that I loved when I first read it, years ago. It’s by Neil Gaiman, award-winning author and person recently outed as being somewhere on the spectrum between avid sex pest and serial abuser. Never have heroes, kids. You’ll be disappointed.

I’m also working through some excellent Ted Chiang stories, something I’ve wanted to do ever since I fell in love with the movie Arrival, based on his Story of Your Life. See you next month!

The Read Report — December 2024

The final month of 2024 has come and gone. As usual, I’m reading too many books at once. As a result, I have only one to discuss for December. Luckily I have a lot to say.

The Amber Spyglass

By Philip Pullman

I finally finished reading the “His Dark Materials” trilogy with my kids. Unfortunately, the cracks in the story that were apparent in the second book caused the whole thing to fall apart in the third.

Trilogies and longer series are interesting. They are weightier than a single, self-contained book. Each book in a series needs to function at least partly on its own, while a larger arc plays out across all of them. However, readers are also willing to give the author some grace in a series; just because something is unresolved or unclear in one book doesn’t mean it won’t resolve by the end of the series. I continued reading to give Pullman a chance to make it all work.

Unfortunately, when the mysteries, confusing bits, and strange motivations don’t resolve by the end, you run into the “LOST” phenomenon (or Game of Thrones, if you prefer a more recent reference). Rabid fans can instantly sour on it due to an unsatisfying ending. All of that willingness to forgive goes away when the series ends and the problems remain. And that’s how I feel about His Dark Materials.

I usually try to avoid talking negatively about stories, books, and other media. After all, I haven’t published a successful trilogy, right? There are certainly things to criticize in my own work. That said, I think this trilogy is a showcase for a number of things that every author should try to avoid. So I will be a bit harsh on His Dark Materials, in order to better understand why it doesn’t work for me.

The Hook

Critically, I think the first book, The Golden Compass, is pretty good. In fact, I would recommend it as a book to read on its own. For what it’s worth, my kids also thought that the first book was good, while the second and third were “confusing.”

The Golden Compass introduces a main character, Lyra; the antagonist, Mrs. Coulter; the mysterious Lord Asriel (Villain? Ally?), and quite a few interesting, but less rounded characters that help Lyra on her way. Lyra has a clear quest—to rescue her friend from Mrs. Coulter—and understandable motivations. She has clear character traits, being clever and almost reflexively anti-authority, and happily willing to lie when it serves her or just seems like a good time. The setting is an alternate history Britain with a dash of steampunk sensibility, where everyone has their own soul-bound animal companion. It manages to feel both fresh and familiar.

Lyra sets out on her quest, collects allies, learns about the world, and makes a number of choices (both good and bad) in her efforts to rescue her friend. It’s a well-worn story arc, but that’s because it works.

The book is not without its weaknesses, as Lyra overcomes most challenges a little too easily and practically every secondary character she encounters quickly vows to help her even at the cost of life and limb.

The story ultimately ends in tragedy, as Lyra goes to the ends of the earth only to fail at the last moment. This also resolves that open question of whether Asriel is villain or good guy. The result is a satisfying resolution to this book—the end of Lyra’s quest—while providing an open question that leads us into the next two books: just what is Asriel up to?

Book Two Problems

The second book, The Subtle Knife, immediately steps away from the setting of the first book, and introduces a new main character: Will Parry. Lyra soon follows, but her agency in this book is so diminished that she’s practically a secondary character. It’s jarring. Even more problematic is that neither Will nor Lyra have very clear motivations or goals.

The children certainly both have problems, but neither of them have plans to try and resolve them. They go from place to place, exploring a brand new world and facing its dangers, but this meandering doesn’t have the sense of going anywhere purposeful. They acquire the namesake of the book, the Subtle Knife, completely by accident.

Mrs. Coulter is back as the villain. New characters are introduced, both allies and enemies, but this also seems haphazard. Characters from the first book reappear, but they feel as though they are pushed into their necessary positions by deus ex machina, strictly to perform actions and say words that advance the plot.

This book ups the stakes by killing off two characters, but the emotional sting is blunted by how absurd these deaths are. One character dies at the hands of someone barely seen, for a silly reason mentioned once in passing. The other dies nobly, to protect Lyra, but only because he completely forgot that he had a “get out of jail free” card that was inconvenient to the plot.

The book ends in what ought to be a cliffhanger. Lyra has been captured by villainous forces, and separated from this book’s protagonist, Will. Will has just lost the father he wasn’t even sure was alive, and decides (like most everyone else in the series) that he must help and protect Lyra.

Then, suddenly, some angels appear.

A Limp Ending

This is how we arrive at the third book, The Amber Spyglass. It’s nearly as long as the first two books combined, and it has a lot of explaining to do.

This book contains most of the anti-religious sentiment and outright blasphemy that has made Pullman so hated by Christian groups, and it’s unfortunate that his vitriol ends up channeled into decidedly bland villains with no redeeming characteristics and no desires beyond total power. Heaven is ruled by a powerful angel with a lust for control, and he sends the armies of angels and human believers across many different worlds to do his bidding, which mostly involves killing everyone who doesn’t fall in line.

This leaves us with three villains. The book implies a change of heart for Mrs. Coulter and Azriel, but they’ve done nothing to earn it. In the most perplexing twist of them all, these three supposedly mismatched villains end up in a brawl and fall into an abyss together. It’s not even the climax of the story—the book continues for more than a hundred pages afterward. The supposed protagonists, Will and Lyra, aren’t present for the fight, and have nothing to do with it.

Since the story can’t wrap up with a final battle between good and evil, or the characters overcoming some major challenge, it instead ends with heartbreak. It turns out our protagonists are in love, but they can’t be together. Pullman does a pretty good job dropping hints about Will and Lyra’s feelings for one another, even if it’s not very subtle. But the reasons why they can’t be together feel flimsy, at best. Pullman must have thought so too, because he spends a significant number of pages on the characters coming up with all the reasons why they have to end up apart.

Maybe I’m a jaded old guy, but this conclusion of love lost didn’t tug very hard at my heartstrings. How tragic can it really be for someone to not end up with their middle-school sweetheart? It’s implied that they’ll pine away for the rest of their lives…but…why? How many of us end up with our first crush?

Lessons Learned

Know your protagonist, and set your readers’ expectations accordingly. This series sets up Lyra as the protagonist, but by the end she’s little more than a bystander. Will takes over the mantle, but even he fails to have much influence on the events of the story. Readers expect the main characters to make a difference. The arc of the story is their arc.

Plot with purpose. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an outliner or an exploratory writer, either can work. But every scene and chapter should be there for a reason. Each character should have motivations and goals. Ideally these all work together to bring the story toward a conclusion that feels inevitable without feeling forced.

Stay focused. Novels are huge projects, and trilogies are even bigger. It’s easy to go down cul-de-sacs by exploring interesting ideas or building characters that aren’t really necessary. The fantastic idea that doesn’t fit in the book is just as important to cut as a bad idea. As they say, kill your darlings (or at least save them for another story, where they belong).

What I’m Reading in January

I’m working through the massive historical epic comic, Katusha; the final Witcher book; and some sci-fi short stories. See you next month!

The Read Report — November 2024

Where did November go? I got distracted for a minute, and the whole month was over.

Despite my best intentions, the month was light on both writing and reading. Still, I managed to sneak a few things in. I’m still working on the final volume of the main Witcher series, and still working through the last of the Dark Materials books with my kids. With some vacation time on the horizon, I have high hopes that those will be in the December report.

But, back to November…

Where possible, I’ve included Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a small commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of cocktails of longevity drugs for billionaires.

The Umbrella Academy — Vol. 1, 2, and 3

By Gerard Way, Illustrated by Gabriel Bá

My first experience of the Umbrella Academy was being in the room while my wife watched the Netflix show. While I have arguably “seen” most of that series, my attention was not necessarily focused.

The impression I got from the show was that it was a near miss for me: lots of individual elements that I loved, but it somehow didn’t quite gel together to make something that really excited me.

So, either in spite of, or because of that, I had fairly high hopes for the comics. After all, most comic adaptations either crash and burn (cough, cough…League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, cough) or have trouble capturing the magic of their source material. However, as a power-nerd, I tend to come to those adaptations already familiar with the comics. In this case, I was starting with the show and going backward. As much as I try to remain unbiased, there’s a common tendency to appreciate the format where you first discovered the story.

My first impressions, in volume one, is that this is a setting that’s a bit whacky, without leaning especially hard into comedy. I mean, it practically starts with a cybernetic Gustav Eiffel attempting to launch the Eiffel Tower as a rocket into space.

This is very much a superhero comics world. Superhero comics are the background radiation, even if it’s not obsessed with muscle-bound men and women in incredibly resilient spandex. It’s a world where insane happenings are just a normal part of life.

These books follow the titular Umbrella Academy, seven super-powered children adopted by a cold and uncaring father and trained to save the world. Much like Disney channel actors, this thoroughly messes them up. Unlike Disney channel actors, only one in seven becomes a drug addict.

Volume one felt like a rushed introduction. Not only does it need to establish this world, but the seven super-powered children, their adoptive father, their robot mother, the chimp butler, and a handful of other miscellaneous characters. It’s a lot for six issues.

There’s a story here about the one estranged sibling turning villain against the others, but it’s so lost in the tumult. I never felt like the story had time to understand why she was angry, or so quick to “go bad.” Each character is touched on, but there’s not enough time to dig into any of them in depth. Ironically, the TV series gave me extra context that helped me understand the books. I suspect I would have had a tougher time without that.

Volume two feels like the real, proper beginning. The characters have been introduced, and we’re at least familiar with the surface-level. While this second series focuses on one particular member of the squad, we get more interaction and more background on pretty much all of the characters. We also get two completely deranged villains. I have to appreciate this, since absolute crazy people with incomprehensible motives are difficult characters to make work, and they work pretty well in this particular setting. And there are time travel shenanigans, which always makes me happy.

I think the second volume is the strongest story arc of the three. There’s a clear instigation, as the time-travel police come after a member of the Umbrella Academy, there’s a clear resolution by the end, and the story is neatly structured to build up the characters along the way.

The third volume is the longest of the three, boasting seven issues instead of six. It’s also the most ambitious in expanding the world and characters of the Umbrella Academy universe. Unfortunately, I can’t help but feel that it’s an interstitial story, setting up a Volume Four that has yet to release five years later. (Supposedly it’s in development.)

I have pretty mixed feelings about the series overall. It’s definitely unique among the series I’ve read, and I like to think I’ve covered a decent breadth of indie comics. But it has that same “not quite hitting it” feeling that I got from the TV show. Still, if Volume Four ever comes out, I’ll definitely buy it, so that says something.

Interestingly, and somewhat surprisingly in the era of Marvel ascendent, the Netflix show excised almost all of the superhero background radiation, and still made it work pretty well. For a show where the leader of the time-travel police is a robot body with a goldfish bowl for a head, it’s surprisingly grounded. If nothing else, it’s a great case study in making a comics-based show appeal to a non-comics audience. As much as such a thing even exists these days.

EVE Online “Chronicles”

I’m not generally interested in tie-in fiction. I’ve been burned too many times before.

When I was young, I read some of the early Star Wars tie-ins. I remember the novelizations of the original trilogy being pretty good. And then there was the Heir to the Empire trilogy, which was so successful as to spawn the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe. Of course, it was written by Timothy Zahn, who turned out to be decent apart from Star Wars. (I really enjoyed his Conqueror’s trilogy as a teen. Having not read it since, I assume it must still hold up…)

The Myst games were among the first games I played that felt like they had a real story (as little as you could glean from them) and I devoured the trilogy of books that expanded that universe. For my money, the first two Myst games and those three books are still probably the best example of games and books that tell a great story together.

My first real disappointment with tie-in fiction came several years later. I had discovered the relatively young and expanding world of ARGs, and found an archive of a Halo ARG now commonly known as ilovebees. It was a strange and seemingly futuristic way to deliver a story, and came in the form of a sort of radio-play pieced together from 30-second clips by a group of people discovering it as it went along.

I decided to delve into the Halo books, and quickly discovered that they were pretty much unreadable, even for a teen with possibly questionable taste.

Since then, I have steered clear of tie-in fiction. I may have dabbled here and there with some D&D-adjacent stories, but I’ve mostly turned up my nose at those shelves in the bookstore packed with D&D, Star Wars, Star Trek and myriad examples of trying to make a novel out of a hundred lines of in-game dialogue.

And now we come to the present day, where I am an old man having just turned forty, and I have begun dabbling in EVE Online.

How could this have happened? Well, there honestly aren’t that many games with spaceships. I’ve bounced off this one twice before, and for some reason, this time it stuck. I just couldn’t escape the gravity of a game that seems to be populated mostly by middle-aged dads with a high propensity for programming.

EVE is one of those incredibly rare MMOs that isn’t World of Warcraft, and yet keeps puttering along, staying alive for over twenty years. Throughout all that time, they’ve been releasing fiction in this world.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t read any of their books yet. There are a few of them, but I’m not that far gone. Instead, I’ve been perusing the “Chronicles,” which encompass a bunch of dry descriptive reads about particular factions or technologies, and a slightly shocking number of short stories.

It’s now been a couple of years since I’ve participated in a long-running TTRPG group, and I find that this really scratches that itch. It’s the same satisfying combination of playing in a world, and then really digging into the setting. The only difference is that this one is online. (Well, okay, I guess my last D&D group met online too, thanks to the pandemic.)

What I’m Reading in December

Yes, I’m still reading the last Witcher book. Yes, I’m a little worried that the whole story is going to fall apart in the final volume. I’ll also be trying to wrap up the Dark Materials series, and I’ve still got a few more comics trade paperbacks waiting in the wings.

See you next month!

The Read Report — Sept and October 2024

We’re doubling up two months again! Why? Because I didn’t read much in September, and by golly, I’m all about providing maximum quality to my readership.

Dune, the Graphic Novel — Vol. 1, 2, 3

Adapted by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Illustrated by Raul Allen and Patricia Martin

Dune is one of those perpetually evergreen sci-fi books that has somehow managed to maintain relevancy for more than half a century. This graphic novel adaptation of the book comes on the heels of the big budget Denis Villeneuve movies (despite the fact that those movies also have graphic novel adaptations).

I’ll admit that I had uncertain expectations for these books. Dune is fairly dense, as evidenced by its longevity and the very different adaptations that have been made over the years. These three volumes cover the plot of the original book, but there was no way to make it work in comic form without significant trimming. Even beyond that, Dune is a book that is often dialogue-sparse and heavy on characters’ internal thoughts, and this is a challenge that any visual adaptation needs to overcome.

The framing in the first book mostly stays out of the way. It’s nice and clear, but avoids any interesting or dangerous choices. There are a few multi-panel zooms and pans; a variety of big and small, wide and narrow panels; but almost no verticality in a medium where pages are taller than they are wide, and not a single curved line. It’s all rectangles, all the time.

However, the second and third books expand into a much wider variety of framing techniques. There are several pages with interesting nested circular frames, and a little bit of blending with nebulous or absent frames. It’s not quite the insane level of frame shenanigans you’ll see in something like Sandman: Overture, but it’s still praise-worthy.

The art is a little inconsistent, but never bad. There are a few faces and figures that come across as stilted or flat. It improves steadily in the second and third volumes. If I was disappointed, it was only because the whole package didn’t quite live up to the potential shown in some of the best, gorgeous full-page spreads. Hoo-boy, that full page sandworm reveal shot is fantastic. Color is used to great effect, with the characters and elements of House Atreides shaded blue, in contrast to the reds and pinks of House Harkonnen and the planet of Arrakis.

It tells the story competently, but I would have really loved to see more of that classic sci-fi strangeness. For all of the aspects of Dune that feel tropey in modern sci-fi (cough-cough-desert-planet-cough), it is a book where the people, places and cultures feel genuinely foreign and weird. The best aspect of the much-lampooned 1984 David Lynch movie adaptation was that it leaned into that weirdness. Even the Hollywood-friendly Villeneuve movies capture some of that magic with the Sardaukar throat-singing, insectoid spaceships, and psychopathic man-baby Harkonnen aesthetic. Here, the clothes, the technology, the landscapes all look a little too normal.

The story did, as I expected, suffer in some ways due to the inherent trimming that had to happen to fit into the graphic novel form factor. There is no room for expanded dialogue or exposition. The writers do take advantage of the ability to make characters thoughts visible to the reader. Ultimately, this is a slightly abridged version of the story, but there are only a couple of places where the development feels rushed as a result. The story isn’t broken, but it’s occasionally bent and loses some nuance.

My daughter (who didn’t really pay attention when I was reading the original book with my son) decided to read these books as soon as I was done with them. While I thought they might serve as a lighter, easier introduction to Dune, especially for a younger reader, her opinion was that it was still pretty confusing.

The Subtle Knife

By Philip Pullman

This is the second book in the Dark Materials trilogy, which I’m working through for bedtime reading with my children.

The Subtle Knife is a very different book from The Golden Compass. The first book takes place entirely in a secondary world, and feels like a traditional fantasy novel. It follows Lyra Belacqua, who is the classic precocious child/chosen one archetype. This second book takes Lyra into our world and another fantasy world, and introduces a second viewpoint character named Will Parry.

Will’s story is darker and hits a little closer to home, since he hails from the “real” world, and his problems, while extreme, are more relatable. I was curious to see how his story connects to Lyra’s. It’s clear that there are parallels between the two worlds, so I assumed the two characters are entangled in ways they don’t understand.

Pullman doesn’t lock us into a strict POV—the book jumps between Will and Lyra—but it does feel like Will is heavily favored, and certainly seems to make more meaningful choices. Lyra often seems to be pulled along as a sidekick, and this is a significant demotion of her character after the first book. I wonder if this pairing would have felt more natural if Pullman had included parts of Will’s story in the first book, even if Will and Lyra didn’t cross paths until the second.

The book ends with a strange series of events. An important character dies for a reason that was only lightly hinted at once. Another major character dies because he forgot that he had a “get out of jail free” card until it was too late. The villains, after being completely stymied for the entire book, are suddenly pretty effective. And it looks like book three is going to be even moreso Will’s story, at least to begin with.

The feeling I had when reading The Golden Compass was that this is a serious kids’ fantasy series that doesn’t quite succeed at achieving the plot, deep characterization, and world-building that other YA fantasy has achieved in the last couple decades. That feeling is not going away here.

I do still believe that Pullman has some genuine weirdness in his setting and plot that deviates unusually far from the classic Tolkien fantasy formulas, and I really hope that it will blow up in book three.

The New Age of Apocalypse

By Larry Hama, Akira Yoshida, Tony Bedard

As I mentioned in my August recap, I discovered a lost box of superhero comics when I moved to my new house. This month, I re-read the “new” Age of Apocalypse.

The original Age of Apocalypse was a big cross-book event that ran for four or five months across all of the X-Men books in the mid ’90s. It’s my favorite thing in superhero comics, although that is probably a function of my age when it hit, the state of Marvel at that time, and a good dose of classic nostalgia. I also don’t really read superhero comics anymore, so there’s really no opportunity for anything to usurp it.

The New Age of Apocalypse is the trade paperback collection of a limited-run series that released for the 10-year anniversary of the original event and picks up the story in the same alternate universe where the originals left off.

The book is drawn in the same heavy-lined, anime-inspired style of the Ultimate X-Men books I reviewed in the August read report. This style is clean and easy to read, and the artists are certainly skilled and make it work, but something about it just rubs me the wrong way. It’s a little too cartoony.

The story follow’s Magnetos X-Men as they try to pick up the pieces in the wake of Apocalypse’s collapsed North American empire. There is a mystery element, with Mr. Sinister playing the villain, but the resolution of that mystery ends up being…kind of dumb. There is a soap opera quality of over-the-top character motivations and emotions, and some of the characters change their minds seemingly at the drop of a hat. If I’m being charitable, I’d say that the writers tried to cram too much plot into relatively few issues, and this explains the abruptness of the action and mood swings of the characters.

Much like Ultimate X-Men, the New AoA feels like a classic comic book story with classic comic book failings. It’s a little more disappointing to me, but that’s only because I have such a fondness for the original AoA.

On that note, my box of old comics does include almost the entire run of the original Age of Apocalypse. I’m a little afraid to read those issues again, lest I discover that it’s not quite as good as my faded and nostalgic memory would claim. But I might do it anyway.

The Witcher: The Tower of Swallows

By Andrzej Sapkowski

Dear God, I did it! After several months of promising that I would get back to it, I finally finished this book.

The Tower of Swallows is the penultimate volume in the main five-book Witcher series, and it suffers a bit of the classic long fantasy series syndrome. All of the characters are wandering across the land, spending a long time trying to get somewhere for something to happen.

Our three main characters, Ciri, Geralt, and Yennefer, are all split up for this entire book, and I suspect this is a lot of what slows it down. They each have their own cast of secondary characters in orbit, and while a lot is happening, it still ends up feeling like all the pieces are being lined up just right for everything exciting to happen in the final volume.

That said, it’s still a good book in a great series. The setting, heavily inspired by Polish mythology, continues to shine. The world feels alive with complexity and depth, and even the characters with supernatural powers are often at the mercy of bigger cultural and political forces.

I’m beginning to feel that Sapkowski’s literary calling card is his ability to build a narrative through a dozen little frame stories. The book is a mix of flashbacks and retellings of events from different perspectives: a bard’s memoirs, a late night story next to the hearth, or the testimony of a soldier on trial for treason. It’s to the author’s credit that all of these blend together into a cohesive quilt of smaller stories.

With any luck, I’ll finish the final volume before the end of the year. I’ve really enjoyed my time with the Witcher and his cohorts, and I’m hopeful that Sapkowski will answer the remaining questions, finish off the biggest villains, and bring it all to a satisfying conclusion.

The Read Report — August 2024

It’s August! Or at least it was when I read these books! Summer isn’t quite gone yet, but it’s fading fast. School is back in session, the first leaves are beginning to fall, and the most deranged of the yard decorators are already getting their Halloween decorations out.

It was a relatively light reading month for me, but that’s fine. Soon enough we’ll be huddled inside for a long Minnesota winter. I’ve got to enjoy the outdoors while I can.

Where possible, I’ve included Bookshop and Thriftbooks affiliate links instead of Amazon. If any of these books pique your interest, please use those links. I’ll get a small commission, and you’ll support real book stores instead of a fifth vacation house for a billionaire.

Ultimate X-Men Vol. 1 – 3

By Mark Millar and Chuck Austen

In the process of moving to the new house, I came across a box of old superhero comics that I had completely forgotten about. These Ultimate X-Men books harken back to a time when I wasn’t quite so jaded about reboots (and superhero comics in general).

My first thought was that these are some ugly covers—heavily photoshopped Wolverine, looking like a 20-year-old nu-metal singer. I don’t know what style they were shooting for, but it ended up somewhere between CGI and anime.

Thankfully, the covers don’t tell the whole story. The art within the books is solid, but not life-changing. There is talent on display, and a ton of detail and creative layouts. There are interesting angles, some non-obvious choices (like flashbacks and TV broadcasts done in sketchy pencils), and proper backgrounds. As much as I love indie comics, they’re often missing a lot of this complexity. That Marvel money does buy a certain base level of quality that I appreciate.

The Ultimate series were a collection of reboots, probably more notable these days as the origin of Miles Morales in Ultimate Spiderman, although I believe Ultimate X-Men was popular when it first came out. The characters are all redesigned (although there are some nods to older costumes) with the entire team remade as teenagers this time around. The first book really wants to call attention to this, repeatedly bringing up how young everyone is in a way that felt forced at times.

The point of a reboot is often to retell the classic stories, and these issues feel like a speedrun of X-Men classics, starting with the formation of the core team and quickly burning through arcs about the Sentinel program, Magneto, and Weapon X.

While the original Weapon X program was run by those dastardly Canadians, this version of the X-verse collects most of the nasty government programs under the good ol’ U.S. of A. There are some interesting undercurrents of mid-2000s distrust in government that feel very post-Iraq-invasion to me, which is interesting considering the series actually kicked off a good half year before 9/11.

I don’t think revisiting these books will inspire me to go subscribing to all the modern X-books or anything like that, but it was a fun trip down memory lane.

The Golden Compass

By Philip Pullman

Time for a new bedtime trilogy with the kiddos!

I acquired very cheap copies of the Dark Materials books years ago, and they’ve sat on the shelf, waiting to be read. I knew almost nothing about them going in, except that there was a big-budget movie of the first book that must have done badly, because they never bothered to finish the series.

It turns out that Phillip Pullman has built the kind of world I like. It’s fantasy, but it’s not just aping Tolkien. It’s a strange alternate history with a mildly steampunky anachronistic mix of technologies, and one where every single person has a slightly magical animal familiar called a daemon.

Lyra Belacqua (with her daemon, Pantalaimon) is the plucky child protagonist, growing up as a semi-orphan at an alternate Oxford, where she is loosely taken care of by the scholars. Thanks to their lack of parenting skills and her rebellious disposition, she spends most of her time running across the rooftops, sneaking through the catacombs, and picking fights with other urchins, rather than learning.

The plot kicks in when one of her friends goes missing during a rash of local kidnappings. Word on the street is that the “Gobblers” have taken these children for some unknown, nefarious purpose, and Lyra sets out to get them back. Along the way, she discovers the truth about her parents, who both turn out to be terrible people in their own special way. She gets the titular golden compass, a device that is essentially a very accurate (but difficult to read) oujia board. And she makes friends with an intelligent polar bear warrior king, a hot-air-balloon-flying Texan, and a witch.

In my opinion, the world-building is really the star of these books. The alternate world that Pullman has created is just different enough from ours to be incredibly mysterious. Each new discovery changes the rules, just a little bit. Oh, everyone has an animal companion who is bound to them? Oh, there are polar bears that can talk? Oh, there are witches that can fly? Some actual, visible spirits that everyone just accepts as a somewhat normal thing? Certain kinds of science-esque alchemy that the all-powerful-Church controls?

Lyra is defined mainly by her general defiance of authority, her ability to accomplish pretty much anything, and her high levels of sass. She is, of course, the chosen one that the prophecies foretold. Some fantasy tropes are apparently inescapable. Still, as a book geared toward children, I won’t complain too much. The protagonist is meant to be a reader-insert and a fantasy fulfiller.

Overall, the story does a good job constantly throwing obstacles in Lyra’s way, although there were a couple times where my suspension of disbelief was strained or some difficulties were elided without a satisfactory explanation.

What I’m Reading in September

Looking to September, I’m already reading the second book with my daughter, and it introduces a completely new protagonist from an entirely different world. I’m curious to see where this leads, and I suspect there are plenty of big secrets about what’s actually going on that are yet to be revealed.

I also have the next Witcher book 80% complete, and by golly, I’m going to finish it or die trying.

And of course, I’ll probably have at least have some graphic novels or comics thrown in the mix as well. What’s the difference, you ask? Only how pretentious you’re feeling while you read them.

See you at the end of September!

The Read Report — July 2024

Since I took a month away from blogging in June (and I was so busy that I only read one book), this will include my June reading as well.

Going Postal

By Terry Pratchett

This is my favorite Discworld book, and Pratchett is at the top of his game. There are a couple of additional books that came after this, but sadly he was likely fighting dementia at that point, and I think later books like Unseen Academicals suffered for it.

Moist von Lipwig is a confidence man who starts the book by getting hanged. He’s given a reprieve by Vetinari, ruler of the city, and given the job of postmaster. The Ankh-Morpork post office is a dilapidated disaster, but he’s aided by Mr. Pump, a golem bodyguard/probation officer, the elderly “junior” postman Groat (who attributes his health to horrifying homemade herbal remedies), and the young postman apprentice Stanley, a boy who isn’t quite all there and has an abiding obsession with collecting pins.

Moist spends the first half of the story looking for ways out of his forced government service. However, he’s a showman at heart, and he soon discovers that his brand of hype and hyperbole is well-suited to getting people excited about sending mail. Unfortunately, the post has largely been replaced by Clacks—a network of semaphore towers that act as a fantasy telegraph system.

The Clacks were built by high-minded engineers, but the original owners have all been ousted or murdered by clever corporate raiders, who are doing their best to extract as much value as possible while running the whole company into the ground. By delivering the mail once again, Moist finds himself in their crosshairs, and it doesn’t help that he’s falling in love with Adora Bell Dearheart, the disaffected, chain-smoking daughter of the Clacks’ dead founder.

Pratchett is a fantastic comedy writer, but he doesn’t get praised enough for his intricate plots or his characters that make you care, even if they’re all rather silly. This book is filled to the brim with all of that. If you’re only going to read one Discworld book, it should be Going Postal.

Poison for Breakfast

By Lemony Snicket

This was a re-read with my children. It is still one of my favorite books, and you can read my review from a couple years ago.

Ender’s Game

By Orson Scott Card

Another re-read with my kids. This was a formative sci-fi book for me when I was young, and it holds up fairly well.

This is one of those books with some content that some adults probably wouldn’t want their kids reading, like children murdering other children. And yet, my children really enjoyed it, and didn’t seem especially traumatized. I guess we’ll see how they turn out.

I appreciate that Ender’s Game is populated by many characters who do terrible things, but the narrative is not judgmental. As a reader, you’re free to form your own opinions about whether each character’s actions are justified or reasonable, without feeling like the book is trying to steer you to a particular conclusion.

It’s a book about growing up, and war, and the terrible things people do to one another, often for reasons that seem justifiable or even absolutely necessary at the time. It is also about the way that history often judges those actions in its own context, ignoring those justifications.

Go: A Complete Introduction to the Game

By Cho Chikun

As I was getting back into Go, I re-read this excellent beginner’s guide in the SmartGo app. Cho Chikun is one of the most famous professional players in modern times, and the Japanese player with the most titles.

This book deftly introduces all the important aspects of Go rules and basic strategy, while alternating chapters about the history and cultural significance of Go. It’s a perfect introduction to the game (or re-introduction, in my case).

Double Digit Kyu Games

By Neil Moffatt

Another book from my SmartGo library.

In amateur Go, players start at a rank of 30 kyu. As they improve, their rank decreases down to 1 kyu, then to 1 dan, and up to 7 dan. As you might expect, players with double digit kyu ranks are beginners and casual players.

While most books about Go are written by pro players for obvious reasons, Moffatt wrote this as a moderately high (1 kyu-ish) amateur. He’s close enough to still remember and understand why the players of these games make the mistakes they do.

Moffatt also goes into more detail than usual in explaining the merits and disadvantages of each move, often exploring various alternatives. They result is a set of thorough game deconstructions that are very useful aids for an amateur player to recognize their own shortcomings.

Lore Olympus, Vol. 1

By Rachel Smythe

I bought this on a whim while on vacation, mostly on the authority of a positive blurb by Kieran Gillian (of Die and other comics), and a brief skimming of the art. Unfortunately, this book was not for me.

I don’t read a lot of romance, but I’m not strictly opposed to the genre. This, however, was just too much irritating teenage angst and not enough mythology for my tastes. When the romance hinges on everybody being afraid to voice how they feel, and the conflict stems from people hating each other for basically no reason, I get bored.

As far as the art goes, the character work is nice, but these characters live in a world composed of colored smears. This lack of any background detail is something that seems to be more and more common in indie comics, and while I understand it, I do miss the crispness that you see more in high budget superhero comics.

Hellblazer: The Red Right Hand

By Denise Mina and Mike Carey

Illustrated by Leonardo Manco, Cristiano Cucina, John Paul Leon

I do love me some John Constantine, but this collection wasn’t my favorite. There are two story arcs here: one where Constantine enters into a trap, and one where he gets out of it.

The typical Constantine story usually has a mystery twist, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, the twist didn’t shock me, it just made me shrug. Maybe if I were reading the series in sequence I would be better prepped as a reader.

It’s also not uncommon for Constantine to have some plan that only gets revealed when everything seems hopeless. Here, he doesn’t have much of a plan at all.

A collection of Constantine’s friends show up midway through, and it feels like deus ex machina, but even they don’t actually do very much. They muddle through, and the eventual resolution to the situation hardly feels like any of the characters had agency.

The last issue in this volume is a stand-alone one-off story, and it’s a classic, solid Hellblazer story. It made me a little sad that the rest of the book didn’t hold up as well.