Venneh

DIvInIty 4: (yes that's totally how they should've typed it out, I am genius) Somehow along the way this Russian Elseworlds story also became a story about the power of stories on children, and how they shape us, and let me tell you, that was not a thing I was expecting when I went in here. Kindt and Harsine get to throw in vague enough references to sci fi classics in a montage that they can escape potentially being called out for copyright, but are clearly having fun with the riffing. And apprently there's going to be another mini spinning out of this this winter, so let's see how that goes. And technically all those Stalinverse heroines still exist in the main universe, so yes, there is some real opportunity to pick up on that. Ninjak 25: Kindt's clearly having fun here, let's see how this goes. (Also how does the man do all this he's writing at least half the Valiant Universe last I checked, plus two ongoings over at Dark Horse, and a mini over at Boom.) Not too remarkable. Single Issues: 124Trades/Graphic Novels: 24Omnibuses: 1

The Secret Loves of Geek Girls, edited by Hope Nicholson: An anthology about dating, romance, sexuality, and love by a bunch of geek women. The range is spectacular; old and young, straight, bi, lesbian, trans, ace, you name it, it's probably covered. It's also in various forms; prose, comics, illustrated stories. Lots of people you'll know, and some people you might not know just yet, but will want to after you read their pieces. Worth a read. The Beautiful Bureaucrat, Helen Phillips: One of the blurbs on the back describes this as Borges meets Brooklyn, and it's entirely accurate. Just over 150 pages, read in an evening, and an eerie blend of banal and bizarre. Found this remaindered, definitely worth the cheaper price. The Interior Landscape: Classical Tamil Love Poems, AK Ramanujan: A short collection of a sequence of classical Tamil love poems. There's a section at the end that explains a lot of the imagery in here that likely would've been way more useful at the beginning of the volume. Regardless, some absolutely gorgeous imagery, and a neatly unfolding arc throughout the poems and the people talking in them. Also, very quick read; finished this in one leg of my commute. Books read: 25

A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki: Seemingly a tale about a sixteen year old in Japan and the Japanese American woman off the coast of Canada who finds her diary, but also about Zen Buddhism, quantum physics, Proust, and a hundred thousand things in between. Gets a little more sci-fi than I was expecting towards the end, but it still ends well. Wonderful read. Books read: 22

Berni Wrightson: Master of the Macabre 1-2: Some of the .50-cent comics we picked up last month. Berni does various horror adaptations (Lovecraft, Poe) and original short stories, all while drawing and coloring himself. The man was fucking insanely talented. Frankenstein Alive, Alive! 1-3: Niles and Wrightson get to do beautiful, insanely detailed Frankenstein fanfiction. The level on some of these single panels are absolutely wonderful to page over, and if you purchased the IDW Humble Bundle, you can zoom in as far as you want and curse every time you uncover some new level of detail. Fuck brain cancer. Single Issues: 122Trades/Graphic Novels: 24Omnibuses: 1

Goddamnit

Beauty and the Beast 2017: There's a reason they credit the original animated film's screen writer in this. Except for a few twists and some new footage and a few changes/extra characters, this is pretty much a scene for scene remake of the original. It's fucking gorgeous (except for the weird faces on the animate objects), though. One major issue - with the exception of Josh Gad, none of the mains, and even some of the cast, can't sing. And when two thirds of your film is a musical, welp. (Group songs are slowed down significantly and have random pauses inserted (possibly for breathing?), which trips up the flow of the musical bits.) Put it this way - I'm really glad that my mom paid for me and my sister to see this in 3D, and that it wasn't my own money. (And yes, Gad is flamboyant and dances with a dude for two entire seconds. Le gasp.)

Batwoman 1: A damn sight better than the Rebirth at least. Feels like Marguerite got to take more of the reins here, even though Tynion, so that's nice. Batwoman goes international, and her past shows back up. Cox and Epting seem to be doing better than the Rebirth, especially on the flashback scenes. For $3, let's see where this goes. Bloodshot Reborn 0: A solid wrap up of the Bloodshot USA arc and lays the plot for the new series nicely. Single Issues: 117Trades/Graphic Novels: 24Omnibuses: 1

Casanova: Acedia 8: Flashback issue. Do I have any idea what's happening here? Fuck no. Is the art absolutely gorgeous, especially the color palette for this issue? Oh fuck yes. Ether 5: This IS going to be an ongoing, which makes me very happy (and wonder how in the shit Matt Kindt has any work/life balance/sanity). Rubin and Kindt do neat things with structure here, and it's as gorgeous as ever. Single Issues: 115Trades/Graphic Novels: 24Omnibuses: 1

Congrats to the both of you!

How was the Hannah Blumenreich backup?

WE HAVE FINALLY FINISHED FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS. HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH. (We chose to end it after finishing up the Lonesome Road DLC because we finished all the quests that we could that weren't bugging out, and Jim didn't like any of our options for the ending - if there had been something where we sided with the Followers of the Apocalypse, though, we probably would've gone for the ending proper.) We had the Ultimate edition with all DLC, on the PS3. This game was super frustrating for me, even though I was basically riding shotgun for this. When you can count on a game bugging out/hard crashing enough to make you pause for dinner, and then stop for the night, and an average afternoon/evening session results in three bug outs and minimum two hard crashes, it's real hard to get invested. (By the end we were seeing how much we could get through of Barryman's The Dream Songs between loading screens and reboots.) And there's moments where the story comes so fucking close to hitting home (most recently: the Sierra Madre DLC), but pulls up short (unless you interact in one specific way with one character in the first interaction, he dies no matter what you do, and the could bother to build in a post DLC achievement for talking to Veronica about Elijah, but couldn't bother to program a single option about "yo your girlfriend is alive and it's safe to go see her" for Christine??). Falling off Overwatch now that there isn't events to grind for (ie, I'm leveling up once every night and going on when friends are on for group sessions, but not going for 3 levels a night anymore). It's still fun to do, but it's not, say, the all consuming leveling up that you go for during an event or while being unemployed. I'm also at level 430something, so at this point the loot boxes are mostly duplicates except for the occasional spray or voice line. Persona 5 comes in a month, and I'm probably getting Nier Automata on Friday.

Once Broken Faith, Seanan McGuire: The most recent of the Toby Daye books, and book 10 in the series overall (until book 11 comes out... soonish I want to say?). Seanan attempts to mix politics with the locked room mystery, and while it doesn't always get pulled off well (there's a lot of monologuing in this book by necessity), it's a neat escalation of things. Seanan is starting to show her hand as to where the next of the books is going, and it involves more Ludiaeg, which I'm a fan of. Also includes a hundred page novella set in the aftermath of this, and also contains major revelations about a few of the side characters, which I like. Also, a map of the world, finally! Fun read, can't wait to see where the series goes next. Lagoon, Nnedi Okorafor: Well this book... happened? Alien invasion of Lagos, with several third and first person povs (including some POVs that are only around for one chapter), riots, Christians, native Nigerian spirits/gods, aliens, and just all kind of craziness. It eventually comes together in some sort of way? Like, I like having read this, but it's just kind of a glorious mess? There's also a lot of places where you can tell the authors opinion is butting in. Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh: A short, quick novel that's just over 200 pages; I started it earlier this afternoon and literally just finished it. It's a story of a week that changed a girl's life, told by her older self. She draws us in with the details of her life and herself, how she relates to her body, and as things slowly unfold, you're drawn in and invested in what happens to this person, and wonder what exactly happens to her to become the person who's narrating to us. Nominated for the Man Booker prize, and you can see why. Books read: 21

Escape from Gulag 396: This went in way harder than I expected from an A+A comic, let's leave it that way. Hits hard, and is a pretty neat one shot. Harbinger v4: It's probably cheating if I quote Jim, but yeah - a few awesome moments, mostly me rolling my eyes and groaning. Single Issues: 113Trades/Graphic Novels: 24Omnibuses: 1

Universal Harvester, John Darnielle: Not sure how to parse this just yet. Gorgeous writing, as expected, but this never seems to quite come together, or at least not in the sense I was expecting it to. Suspecting that this is a story that's supposed to be defined more by the absences and grief and dread in these peoples' lives than it is about any grander mystery, which is what a lot of what I've heard so far framed it as. Will probably need a reread down the line. Either way, quick read, just over 200 pages and read in the space of about three nights. Books read: 18

Grass Kings 1: Kindt and Jenkins do Southern crime - a mysterious girl turns up in a fiefdom of a trailer park run by three brothers. Gorgeous Kindt cover, oversized. Worth a look. (Kinda weirdly racist opening though.) WicDiv 27: The entire issue feels like it's coiling up like a snake, and the way that Gillen and McKelvie play with format in this only helps this. Wilson continues to do gorgeous color work. Single Issues: 109Trades/Graphic Novels: 21Omnibuses: 1

Oh yeah, we got to that a few months ago. We worked backwards with the second humble bundle.

Borne, Jeff VanderMeer: Technically an ARC, so I'm not sure how much I can say about this. But holy god, this is wonderful and just utterly creepy in some places in the best kind of way. Mainlined this in about nine hours tops. There's one paragraph where I just went NOPE in a very visceral way. Comes out at the end of April, get this. Also - amazing spot gloss on that cover. books read: 17

Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior v1 (Risen): This is real, real good. I'm pretty sure @Dread wrote about this for a long minute last year, so mea culpa, dude. EDIT: THIS IS JAMES ON HANNAH'S ACCOUNT ON JAMES' COMPUTER (Hannah on her account on James computer taking the computer back from him: yeah this happens occasionally okay back to account inception also what he said hot damn this is amazing) Single Issues: 107Trades/Graphic Novels: 21Omnibuses: 1

Conan: Queen of the Black Coast: Becky Cloonan, then James Harren do some rip roarin' fantasy violence. Also, titties. A good fun read. Batman 1: Pretty solid first issue (this is the start of the King run); not anything particularly amazing to me, but it has my interest. I'd pick more up for $1 each. Single Issues: 107Trades/Graphic Novels: 20Omnibuses: 1

Scarlet Witch 5: Except for a few pages of dialogue at the beginning and end, Robinson trusts Pulido to carry the story wordlessly, and it's a damn good choice. Black Monday Murders 4: Continues to be a good, pretty, dense as fuck read. Especially love the stuff we got uncovered here re: one of the character's past. Wonder Woman Year One (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14): This was apparently the price for Rucka coming back to DC. Nicola has several shiver up the spine moments, and Rucka weaves several small lovely touches in. Also neat to see Everly on the fill in issue (8), as she's due to take Nicola's place on the alternate issues. Single Issues: 106Trades/Graphic Novels: 19Omnibuses: 1

I would also keep in mind that Rivera has only written a YA novel that's focused around a queer Latina prior to this (which I think counts for a lot of the telegraphing going on.) A lot of this I'm willing to put down to being the initial transition between the forms. (Side note; Wil Moss is the commissioning editor on this, and man, between this, Ta-Nehisi, Leth, and Roxane Gay, he is really going for minority prose writers.)

The Last Days of New Paris, China Mieville: Agreed with Jim on the unnecessary (and slightly masturbatory) afterword. It took me a bit to get into it (right about when Sam showed up is when it took off for me), but it's a lovely quick read, and, as expected about a novella with surrealism come to life fighting Nazis, pretty damn off the wall and fun. We got the subterranean press hardcover, which is lovely, except for the random Vincent Chong illustrations and cover. books read: 16

America 1: I was gonna be responsible and wait on this. But between just about everyone I know in the comics industry and the people who really blossomed her (Gillen and McKelvie) recommending it, and after a long week, I gave in. Couldn't be happier, especially at that final panel. You've got me, Rivera and Quinones. Single Issues: 97 Trades/Graphic Novels: 19 Omnibuses: 1

I'll reduce that assessment of Kill or Be Killed 1 to one resounding word: mehhhhhhhhh. I was starting to drift while he was reading through Rumble, I'll give it a shot another time. Single Issues: 96Trades/Graphic Novels: 19Omnibuses: 1

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein: read this now. Especially now. Depressing as shit, and it will take you a while to get through, because you will have to take several day pauses after finishing a chapter. However, the explanation to the shock doctrine, the University of Chicago's economics school's world view, and how it played out on the international and domestic stage over the span of about fifty years in several countries is massive and honestly explains a lot of how things have played out in the world. Especially in light of the orange one trying to implement policy similar to this, and us still being in the window that he can try for it. You're going to learn a lot about the Latin American coups, and what happened after communism ended in certain countries, and how that all plays into Iraq and post Katrina. Would love to see a follow up on this, especially as we come up on its tenth anniversary this year. And it ends on a bit of hope at least! Books read: 15