A Descent into Dullness

Gotham Academy #8: Writers Becky Cloonan & Brenden Fletcher, art Karl Kerschl, colors Serge Laponte & Michele Assarasakorn & letters Streve Wands.  Less Olive this time around and more brooding ex-Kyle and brooding man-bat Tristan.  Can't have a proper love tirangle without your brooding.

Saga #30: Art by Fionna Staples, written by Brian K. Vaughan & letters by Fonografiks: Bittersweet reunions.  And missed reunions.
Shutter #13: Writer Joe Keatinge, artist Leila Del Duca, colorist Owen Gieni & letterer John Workman.  Best friend Alain, best skeleon butler Harrington and best ex-girlfriend Huckleberry get together to find and help Kate.  Who is still memory wiped and dodging red robed assassins in Venice.

Really procrastinating on these now. *sigh*  Anyways, lets start with the free-range short fiction.  Seanan McGuire's IM is part of her "InCyrptid" series.  Sadly it feels more like a pro or post-logue than a full story. Her latest "Velveteen" story, Velveteen vs.Santa Claus, is a much stronger piece.  Even if it makes you want to punch Santa in the junk.  Ken Scholes' Jay Lake & the Temple of the Monkey King is an ok bit of pulp-parody which is likely very moving if you were one of the late Jay Lake's friends.  Ian Daffern & Ho Chi Anderson's Charcoal is a high school based tale of supernatural vengeance.  Chapter 6 by Stephen Graham Jones takes a look at the zombie apocalypse from the viewpoint of a pair of anthropologists.  Gene O'Neill's Skitterbugging is an old Traveller rpg tie-in story I came across in a back issue of Dragon.  And finally Little Knife by Leigh Bardugo is a folk tale about beauty, obsession and poor decisions in magical complusion...

A trio of short fiction anthologies for June as well. Salsa Nocturna Stories is a collection of fiction by Daniel Jose Older, a strong selection of fantasy, horror and near future.  Older has quickly become someone whose name attached to a project can make me take notice.  Like the collection Subversion, edited by Bart R. Leib.  The stories in the anthology are all on the theme of rebellion, both large and small.  The last collection, the Good Fight, edited by Scott Bachman, is by various supers e-book writers.  Some of the writers involved I was already familiar with, while the only one or two of the new to me ones seemed worth looking into.  Still free book...

Actually that should be four collections.  Almost forgot By Chance or Providence a collection of Becky Cloonan written and drawn fantasy stories.  Wonderful stuff and a pleasant surprise when it arrived in the mail as I'd long since forgotten I'd pre-ordered it...

Andy Weir's the Martian is probably one of the best hard scifi books I've read in a while.  The story of an astronaut accidently left behind on the first manned Mars mission and his struggle to survive was funny, poignant, informative and uplifting...

I've had Karen Healy's When We Wake sitting on my Kindle for a bit now.  Sort of Sleeping Beauty story using cryonics and a hard weather Australian setting.  Clever and touching and I'll have to pick up that sequel soon-ish...

Aces Wild is the latest "Capes High" book by R.J. Ross.  The books are still pretty fluffy, but are steadily moving beyond the well-treaded high school romance concepts.  Or at least expanding to be more than just that plus super powers.  Fellow supers writer Drew Hayes' NPCs steps away from the cape-set for a parody of D&D style fiction with a story where a group of village NPCs have to step into the role of quest-taking adventurers...

Doughnut by Tom Holt, explores concepts in quantum many worlds theory and how that can be best exploited for fame and profit.  I liked the Disney character/Planet of the Apes style world best...

Hilldiggers is another "Polity Space" book from Neal Asher, though this story of two warring human-descended worlds is a bit of a bridge between his regular Polity line and the Spatterjay sub-line.  Unlike Polity Agent, which is fimly in the main story-arc, with the Polity A.I.'s, their special agent Cormac and his allies continuing to work against the threat of the Jain super-nano technology...

MIchael Poore's Up Jumps the Devil and Michael Boatman's Last God Standing are both subversions of accepted Christian mythology.  The former has much of American history and expansion being guided in part by the Devil.  Less thru maliciousness, then poor impulse control, heart ache and a mischievous curiosity.  Really he's more Coyote than Lucifer.  Boatman's setting has the various divinities mostly living lives as simple mortals.  Partly because of the strong-arming of the Christian God, who wants a chance to pursue his stand-up career and maybe propose to his girlfriend.  I found myself more interested in the side-lives of the various gods mentioned in passing than the actual story though...

Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small serves as comfort reading.  Like Bujold's lighter books or Pratchett, Keladry's story of obstinate heroism and clever animals serve to balance out some of the darker or less optimistic works...

Like Weston Ochse's Grunt Life where much of humanity has already fallen to an alien invasion of telepathic insectoids.  And only an army made up survivor guilt soldiers might have the key to our survival.  Or the even grimmer and more depressing Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis.  Where Nazi psychic super-soldiers created thru torturous experiments are opposed by British Chthulu-mythos style sorcerers.  It is all pretty crazy bleak.  And apparently the next two books get progressively worse.  I honestly don't have the reserves to find out for myself...

Happily Martin Millar's latest "Werewolf Girl" book, the Anxiety of Kallix the Werewolf is a much happier book.  Which is a testimony to Millar's ability to balance humor and drama, not just how friggen' dark those previously mentioned books were...

Then back into the darkness.  Well, dark-ish, with a pair of black powder fantasies.  Brian McCellan's second "Powder Mage" book the Crimson Campaign, with a new push from the evil empire backed by their possibly mad divine patron.  And Django Wexler's the Thousand Names which follows a sort-of Foreign Legion/Africa Corps company under a new charismatic officer who could be leading them to their doom or salvation...

Total Books: 20

Mouse Guard: the Black Axe returns with its 5th issue, opening with the explanation behind Em's death and then having a return boat trip to the Mouse lands...

Marceline and the Scream Queens has the band touring with Princess Bubblegum as their band manager. And I get to see what Guy the Keyboardist is since he couldn't be human. And a back up story by Faith Erin Hicks...

The Massive manages to escape from the pirates and heads to one of the few safe ports they know of...

I'm much pleased to see Becky Cloonan back on art for Conan the Barbarian, as Conan and Belit visit his homeland to deal with a matter of honor...

And finally a Daredevil annual written and penciled by Alan Davis with appearances by members of Davis' Clan Destine characters...

Lot of comics this week, even with my shop missing the new issues of Mouse Guard: the Black Axe and Adventure Time. Well, they had some AT, but only with the collectible covers. And while they were indeed sweet, I don't pay no 30 bucks for a single comic...

I did get the finale for Villains for Hire that I missed from last week. With a last act reveal of the plans of Misty and Puppet Master...

Picked up a couple new books. Brian K. Vaughn's scifi/fantasy mash-up Saga is definitely interesting enough to see where it will be going. And his artist, Fiona Staples, has some serious chops. Paul Cornell's Saucer Country on the other hand has a good high concept in its mix of politics and alien abduction. But it was more than a little difficult to follow...

The Joe Keatinge/Ross Campbell Glory relaunch is still crazy sweet. Very much looking to be shaping into something big and epic and awesome...

Lobster Johnson: the Burning Hand has the newly arrived spooky black fire/skull head bad guy running amok in the tenements to draw out Lobster Johnson...

Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan's adaptation of "Queen of the Black Coast" in Conan the Barbarian is still pretty damn perfect. This issue has a ship to ship archery fight. And then Conan lets loose on some pirates...

The Shade's current arc is still Spain and heroic vampires. Plus another local hero, Montpellier. Also a one panel bit of a fight between Sangre and the Inquisitor, bull-back during the running festival which is just a perfect piece of world-building...

Resurrection Man moves from Gotham to Metropolis, with Mitch pretty much stumbling into a police raid on one of his neighbors. Who is using some kind of hi-tech energy shield with possible links to Shelley's past...

Then the Unwritten finishes up the "War of Words" and the current big story. With secrets revealed and lives lost and plenty of questions and puzzles still remaining...

And finally a new Knights of the Dinner Table. The major focus here is on the PeeWee gaming group and Pete's plans to bring more people into the gaming fold. Though there is still more story movement with the UT+2 in Bag World and a brief look at Bob and Sheila at home...

Brain Camp written by Susan Kim & Laurence Klavan, art by Faith Erin Hicks, colors by Hilary Sycamore

I must admit I ordered this comic because I thought it was both drawn and written by Faith Erin Hicks. But despite that Kim & Klavan turn out an excellent story of a Stepford teen camp. Brainwashed teens, strange bird-things and some truly bad parenting. Pretty good, plus all drawn by the talented Faith Erin Hicks...






Demo vol. 2 written by Brian Wood, illustrated by Becky Cloonan, lettered by Jared K. Fletcher

A second volume to Wood and Cloonan's first mini-series. With six new short tales that take the concept of super-powers and twist and mold them into something different. Wood and Cloonan, as always, make for a near-perfect storytelling team...