Quick one. Bit of backstory for Storm and Wolverine. Weird pairing that.

Decent, but like I said. Quick.

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A mutant on a far away island, being hunted as fuel for a 24x7 reality show.

Bit on the name with that title’s reference, no?

Anyways, of course the X-Men have to come to the rescue… even if they’ve been explicitly told not to.

A decent volume. Onward!

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gasp

We actually get to cycle back to a previous main character?! And not one, but two of them!

In a nutshell, Laurel and Marigold are getting married! Yay for them!

Most of the story deals with the stress that comes with planning and dealing with an upcoming wedding–totally get that–along with a mysterious and magical saboteur–that was a fun twist.

They’re my favorites of this series’ characters and I’m glad to see some closure for them. I really feel books 1, 2, and 5 could have been made into a single novel, with an emphasis on the cozy on account of no ‘huge’ big bads throughout the series.

Still, an enjoyable read.

On to something bigger!

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TLDR: Well that’s unexpected. Originally (8 years ago), I wasn’t thrilled. Enough to DNF the series (although not the book). On a reread (+relisten?), I loved it and am looking forward to more!

8 years ago, I first read Temeraire. I thought the idea was fascinating. An alternate history set around the time of Napoleon, tied fairly closely to our own world. Only: Dragons! Cool, no? And turns out… it is pretty cool!

And yet somehow, I managed to find myself annoyed by the mechanics of dragons, their intelligence, and–for some reason–the idea that there was a ‘chosen one’ trope going on? I feel like I must have mellowed out somewhat in age. Or decided that I like almost everything now. Or read enough really good Naomi Novik that I wanted to give it another try.

I’m so glad I did.

I think that one big difference this time was listening to the audiobook. Some books just work better that way–something about the book picking you up and carrying you along, where it’s easier to just keep listening rather than having to work at it. This is definitely one of them.

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Well that’s quite the cast. Hammerhead is apparently not dead and trying to elbow in on Fisk’s territory. Enemy of my enemy … is actually still a pretty bad dude?

And of course Moon Knight, Iron Fist, Elektra, and Black Cat get involved. Oh that’s a busy few days in New York.

A fun story.

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Another book, another point of view. This time a bit more distant in Jasmina (and Larch), witches who’ve managed to escape a cult-like witchy family (one a long time ago and the other just now, being the main point of the story).

It’s nice to see a bit more of the world that Buchanan is building and the idea of Divination applying to technology / computer searches is pretty fun. But like all of the books here, it’s far too short to actually get into anything. I want to see more of the family they escaped from. I want to see more of the fae (introduced and problem solved in literally a paragraph this time).

Perhaps such a short form is not for me after all. 😄

Still a decent book and it was interesting to see it tie into the Laurel’s world–and how different the two are–eventually. Onward to the lastward.

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Time travel! That never goes well.

Zombies! Also not great.

Lovecraftian chest busters! Now you’re just making things up.

A lot to put in one volume one again, but perhaps my favorite Fantastic Four thus far. Onward!

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Jebi was torn between saying ‘You are embarrassing me’ and ‘I am going to take up my brush and make a painting of you that they will talk about for the next 10,000 years’. They said neither.

A world chock full of the history of China/Japan/China of a hundred years and change ago. Racism, colonialism, occupation, etc.

A major take on artists during war. Both from the main character Gyen Jebi, an artist who fails to pass the examination for the Ministry of Art–and ends up the perhaps much more interesting Ministry of Armor, making magical automata for the government. It’s fascinating seeing a relatively common job turned extraordinary.

And of course, the mechanical dragon on the cover. Arazi. Who is also a philosopher and pacifist, because of course they are. . There’s always something fun about relatively non-human characters like that. Probably the coolest part of the book.

And of course of course, there’s love. The relationship between Jebi and their captors, Vei especially. It’s interesting seeing the people who are perhaps all the more aware of the situation at hand and their relationships with the at times amusingly clueless Jebi.

Overall, an interesting book. I like the magic of the setting and the characters. The ending felt a little weird and weak, but it did wrap up well enough I suppose.

The studio also featured a large wall calendar with cryptic abbreviations, presumably reminders. Also doodles of gears, sprockets, and malformed genitalia, because artists were artists.

Harry’s back!

Ooh that’s going to be trouble.

They’re finally taking some time to process Gwen. And being 15, it’s not going well. So much angst.

Now I’m curious what Fury and SHIELD can actually do?!

Onward!

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After the mess of the last volume, it’s time to… turn up the wacky even more?

Time travel, parallel universes, super zombies, and Atlantis.

That is so much to fit into a single volume. No idea what will stick, but any one of those could carry a dozen volumes if not a series of their own… and they just keep doing it. Issue after issue.

Slow down!

Oy.

The zombie plague was pretty neat, not going to lie. I wonder if we’ll see more of that.

Onward!

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