Did you know they made Magic School bus chapter books? (And did you know my son randomly chose #14 to start at?)

They’re basically those vibrant kids’ science books, writ large. Still with plenty of illustrations, scientific asides, and more child endangerment than you can shake a lightning bolt at.

This time around (as one might expect 😄), the Friz and class end up getting swept up into a lightning storm, shrink down to the size of electrons, and become lightning.

How cool.

It’s a quick read, a fun adventure, and I have no problems with the science presented. I’m going to have to find a few more of these to read with my son!

Onward!

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

This year book bingo has a ‘Underground’ category–and I’ve been meaning to actually go back and read more Verne. Seemed like a great chance to check out Journey to the Center of the Earth!

In a nutshell, it’s a quintessential Jules Verne adventure. A student and professor find an old manuscript purporting to describe a path to the very center of the Earth… and off they go to Snæfellsjökull (Icelandic is such a lovely language) and down into the Earth.

From that, it’s one adventure after another. Down caves, running out of food and water, nearly dying–and all manner of completely scientifically improbable findings along the way.

Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

I think the biggest difficulty in this book is probably entirely tied up with the fact that it’s 160 years old. It’s just written in a very different style. People just … don’t talk like that. But it does make it feel amusingly old-timey, which I actually like. (I wonder how much of that is the translation?)

Worth a read. Going to have to read a few more of these!

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Eugenics man? Lamarckism Guy?

Or Mutagen I suppose.

Bent on eradicating genetic diseases… somewhat directly. With the power to adapt quickly to any threat. Interesting enough villain!

Plus we get an issue or two each with SIEGE (Iron Man as a cop?) and Thanatos (certainly seems to believe himself to be anyways).

There’s a lot of chaos in this volume, but it’s enjoyable. I’m not a huge fan of the older style… and this has decades over the very beginning of comics. We’ll see where we go next. But for now, more Spider-Man!

Side note:

Convenient that.

One of the first things he’d noticed about Mercy was that she understood people. She really knew how to get under their skin. Under his skin.

It’s time for my every year or two re-read of the Mercy Thompson books, especially with a new one out! That’s getting longer and longer each year, and I’m here for it. I think these two series (including Alpha & Omega) are now my favorite Urban Fantasy series, beating out even the Dresden Files (although it is close).

Now, specifically for this book…

Man, we’ve come some ways. The last few books have gone thoroughly into ‘woo woo’ territory (as Mercy increasingly calls it), with Mercy learning and gaining all sorts of new and interesting powers over the dead (Storm Cursed), learning more than she’d likely ever wanted about Wulfe (Smoke Bitten), and even more powers and Fae artifacts (Soul Taken).

With Mercy, everything that can be worse is. Always.

Things have gotten so big, so it’s nice to have what actually turns out to be a relatively self contained book in Winter Lost. For the most part, we have almost a closed house murder mystery. Just Mercy, Adam, and a handful of other wild and strange folk stuck at a lodge in a winter storm.

She was staring at him.

“I could not live with losing you,” he told her, his throat tight. “There are times when I have had to let you go out into danger without me. More times when I haven’t known about threats to your life until they were long past. But this time… this time I have the privilege of being backup while you head out to see if we can rescue your brother.”

I love the focus this brings the book. And it really does give the two a chance, I hope, to love and trust each other. Adam has got some severe baggage from those witches a few books back (plus all his other baggage I suppose) and Mercy has some serious wounds to deal with. This gives them that time. With a wild story that at once feels huge and world ending–and at the same time snug.

I love it.

We do also get a few fun peeks into what else is going on on the Mercyverse, primarily through flashbacks and asides told from a bunch of other points of view, which makes this structurally more interesting than any of the other books thus far.

I’m really looking forward to what comes next! (Although I’m personally hoping for an Alpha & Omega book next! What the cliffhanger).

Onward!

Maybe you’re right about the past. But the stories we choose to tell—those matter. It’s important that the Anevrai told a story about harmony, that they went to the effort of writing it on finely made tablets with gold at their heart. Sacred tablets. That says it was an ideal. And even when we fall short of ideals, that doesn’t mean we should give up striving for them.

And so, an extra book! We’ve finished the main series that follows the eponymous Lady Trent, so now we get a book from the point of view of her granddaughter. On top of that, we’re going full on epistolary format–it’s told through diary entries, letters, and the text of in universe books.

It’s an interesting style and I think it gives a lot to the book. It’s also non-linear, but not egregiously so.

Overall, I think it’s weaker than the first five Lady Trent books, but there’s a bit more depth to the Draconean history we didn’t quite get to in those books, which I appreciated. If that’s something you were left wanting more of, go for it!

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18th Century Cairo. Street living, mixed with all manner of quasi magical cons (palm readings, faking healings). And then … one accidental summoning later and you’re off swept into the magical world of childhood stories.

The world building is really interesting. You get a touch of the Arabic world mixed with a straight up Arabic inspired fantasy world full of djinn in all manner of shapes and sizes… even at the end of the story, I’m not actually 100% sure what all the differences are.

Characterwise, I’m not sure I ever quite got around to liking Nahri. I was rooting for her before she took off, but I’m not thrilled where she ended up.

“You’re some kind of thief, then?"
“That a very narrow-minded way of looking at it. I prefer to think of myself as a merchant of delicate tasks.”

Ali and Dara though, I quite like the both of them–surprisingly for roughly the same reasons. They are trying to do the ‘right thing’, just with rather opposing ways of going about that.

“To keep walking a path between loyalty to your family and loyalty to what you know is right. One of these days, you’re going to have to make a choice.”

Overall, I’m looking forward to the second book. Onward!

Spider-Man!

In a somewhat less far future than when this super was first written… 30 years ago.

A future with no super heroes. Only the memory of those like Thor…

As a sort of religion? It’s an interesting bit of world building. I fully expect Spiderlings before the end of this volume… (so close!)

And an origin story. A new Spider-Man—Miguel O’Hara. Created in a lab “accident” after trying to quit a twisted bio engineering project.

He said the line!

Baddies? We have a forgettable cyborg. And one… somewhat less forgettable. A samurai, possibly from … Stark-Fujikawa? A mysterious shadowy—very large—boss in the shadows. The Vulture. Downtown Freakers. Hints at even more.

It’s quite an origin story. I’m enjoying jumping into another new world so far!

Onward!

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Another children’s graphic novel in the vein of Mighty Jack and Little Robot. Just like those, it’s a delight to read and I truly think a great way to get children into reading more!

Storywise, it’s all about those basements that are used for storage, chock full of who knows what–which is exactly the point. Anything could be down there. A missing sock. A rat leading you on adventures. Spooky creatures and giant slimes.

Who knows?!

😄

Man it’s a fun book and beautifully drawn.

Worth a read.

And so it ends. With a bang and with a whimper.

On one hand, the stakes (heh (yes, I know I just did that joke)) couldn’t be higher. The Heir is coming. All the threads and mysteries of 15 books (that haven’t otherwise been killed already) are coming back to rear their ugly heads.

On the other hand, it doesn’t quite land? You have literal angels and demons, but they’re in far less of the book than would have made an impact. You have the big bad evil skinwalkers hinted at from the very beginning, but no real direct interactions with them. And you have vampire politics… but the Heir was never as interesting as the Sons of Judas.

On the other other hand (I know), as a final book in the series, it does work. You get a decent bit of closure for most the main characters (that have survived thus far). The world has changed, almost certainly for the better–and if not, certainly the more interesting. And Jane finally seems happy.

Was the series worth the read? Absolutely.

Would I have preferred that the series went a different direction about when the whole ‘Dark Queen’ idea was introduced? Probably.

Was the whole deal with time fascinating… and then ultimately less used than it could have been. Yup.

Overall, worth the read but I’m also ready to move on to other things.

Onward!