I actually picked up this book the day I voted in the election. A three hour line at the local library where you’ve run out of podcasts will do that to you. 😄 Mostly, the cover looked neat, so I figured I’d give it a chance. Which makes this only the second physical (non-children’s) book I’ve read in probably a decade.

For better or (and) for worse, the book is billed as ‘if Shirley Jackson wrote The Shining’, which… this is not. It does have a family moved out deep into the wilderness, away from the city they’ve always loved, thrown into land where somehow you can get … feet of unexpected snow? And a tree that may or may not be talking to you?

Mostly, I think it feels not quite finished. There are some decently creepy scenes in the book, but it never quite ramped up for me. The hallucinations the family goes through are certainly disconcerting but, barring one, they don’t really seem to be all that dangerous. I did like that it was never entirely clear what was hallucination and what was real though, that was a nice touch. Then, by the time things really start falling apart, we have sudden violence/death that doesn’t really land and an ending that wrapped up all too suddenly.

I will say that I did enjoy the descriptions of the mountain wilderness and their new home. I would have liked to explore that more. It felt wild, which I appreciated.

Anyways, being only the second physical book I’ve read in a long while and a hardcover at that, it really did have a nice tactile feel to it and I was enjoying the book enough to read it all the way through, so I’ve certainly come across worse.

Onward!

Rivers of London got the introduction out of the way, so now it’s time for Moon Over Soho to really build out the world.

I really love seeing Grant exploring the magic of the world. He’s doing science to magic. I do enjoy books that do that. (Plus, it’s funny!)

I had jokingly developed my own scale for vestigia based on the amount of noise Toby made when he interacted with any residual magic. I called it a yap, one yap being enough vestigia to be apparent even when I wasn’t looking for it.

The yap would be an SI unit, of course, and thus the standard background ambience of a Central London pub was 0.2 of a yap (0.2Y) or 200 milliyaps (200mY).

Also, more worldbuilding about what the ‘Rivers’ are (fae? or at least fae adjacent). More talk about vampires. And of course… What’s the deal with Nightingale?

“What’s the biggest thing you’ve zapped with a fireball?’ I asked.
‘That would be a tiger,‘said Nightingale.
‘Well don’t tell Greenpeace,’ I said. ‘They’re an endagered species.’
‘Not that sort of tiger,’ said Nightingale. ‘A Panzer-kampfwagen sechs Ausf E.’
I stared at him. ‘You knocked out a Tiger tank with a fireball?’
‘Actually I knocked out two,’ said Nightingale. ‘I have to admit that the first one took three shots, one to disable the tracks, one through the driver’s eye slot and one down the commander’s hatch - brewed up rather nicely.”

Plus, we get piles more London, this time around digging into the musical/jazz scenes. I managed to go through the first book entirely expecting Grant’s parents to be out of the picture (that’s just the way urban fantasy always seems to go), so it’s fascinating to see them on page and actually playing interesting roles in the story!

My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you’re born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train’s pulled into Piccadilly Circus they’ve become a Londoner.

Weirdest change of this series: Grant falls quickly and deeply in ~love~ lust with someone (from a case!) and there are a number of decently explicit on screen sex scenes. I didn’t necessary see that one coming.

Also plotwise, I was … surprised by the ending. Not in who the big bad ended up being, more more what happened after that. It felt sudden and perhaps unearned, like we’d reached the end of the book and had to warp things up. I’m curious if we’ll get any fallout of that in future books, but I don’t really expect to.

I did really like the scenes with Leslie though (from the first book), especially–and counter to my first point–her ending. That… now that has some interesting potential for the series.

Okay, after Sitting in a Tree, back to our regularly scheduled Spider-Gwen!

lol.

And then of course, as these things do everything escalated. Harry/Lizard. Venom. Mr. Murderhands.

All the chaos!

The main Spider-Gwen storyline was getting a bit weak there, but I’m glad to see this as a return to form. I’m really curious what happens next here.

Onward!

read more...

The ongoing developments of Spider-Gwen and this universe’s Matt Murdoch.

I’m intrigued!

And then we get an annual made of a bunch of random stories. Cute enough. But… I want the main storyline.

The All New Wolverine body swap was a lot of fun though.

Onward!

read more...

Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.

Okay, I really thought that Perdido Street Station was one of a kind. A dark, twisted magical world, full of strange creatures, stranger magic, and some truly weird and terrible things lurking just under the surface.

Well, The Scar manged to do quite the job proving me wrong.

First off, we have the setting. In Perdido Street Station, the city of New Crobuzon itself was as much as a character in the stories as any of the, well, characters. So imagine my surprise where the city is only barely mentioned this time around: instead, we have Armada, a mighty floating city built on the back of untold years of captured (and otherwise) ships lashed all together.

Vessels knocked together for hour upon hour, like bones, like someone infinitely stupid and patient at the door of an empty house.

And deep under this city? Mile long chains, designed to harness… something to the city.

So many truths have been kept from me. This violent, pointless voyage has been sopping with blood. I feel thick and sick with it. And that is all: contingent and brutal without meaning. There is nothing to be learnt here. No ecstatic forgetting. There is no redemption in the sea.

So cool.

And that’s not even getting into dead languages, weapsons and fighting styles that harness Possibility itself, a race of deadly mosquito people, and all the other terrors one might find on (and under) the ocean.

And then the characters. Bellis Coldwine, a linguist of all things (I love linguistics). An acquaintances of Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin’s (I love that name) on the run after the whole Slakemoth thing. Stuck on Armada, just looking for a way home.

Silas Fennec. A traveler and so much more from New Crobuzon, with his fingers (and tongue (you’ll see)) in just about everything going on one way or another.

Tanner Sack. A Remade, fully adapted to life on–and in–the sea around Armada.

Uther Doul. A mysterious figure with truly weird sword.

The Lovers. Rulers of Armada. Referred to in text as ‘The Lover’ and ‘The Lover’.

I just love how strange and different Miéville manages to write characters.

In the deepest places, where physical norms collapse under the crushing water, bodies still fall softly through the dark, days after their vessels have capsized. They decay on their long journey down. Nothing will hit the black sand at the bottom of the world but algae-covered bones.

Overall, if anything I like The Scar even more than I did Perdido Street Station. I can’t wait to see what’s next!

And… after Spider-Women, we’re back!

Two (ish) volumes in and we already have the crisis of faith/lost powers one. Whee!

With Kraven no less. Such an odd villain.

Time running out for Gwen, Castle on her tail—and on the edge it seems—and Captain Stacy has a solution. Luckily, Gwen made friends with… Reed Richards?

Intense. Curious how long this lasts.

read more...

read more...

When worlds collide…

In this universe, Peter Parker wanted to be a hero and got killed for it. So… why is the Lizard apparently still running around?

Also, the Green Goblin!

So much in this world built around a the severe ‘not what it looks like’ of Peter’s death. Strains incredulity… but that’s comics. And it (so far) is working for me.

The introduction of this world’s Captain America was fun. I appreciate the quick backstory.

Likewise Harry Osborne. Dungeons and Dragons nerds unite!

I’m enjoying this series.

Onward!

read more...

It’s been a minute. Let’s read some Spider-Gwen. A Reddit post has a reading order. Man comics are complicated.

So here we have Spider-Gwen. An alternate Spider Gwen Stacy! Her dad’s a cop (hunting her) and life is complicated.

We have a small pile of villains—mostly a Vulture, but also Kingpin, Frank Castle, and Matt Murdoch. Ambiguous at both. I’m curious where it goes from here!

A bit of a chaotic start, but I’m looking forward to it!

read more...