In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column. Today,
Calling (2022), the final installment in Molly Harper‘s SORCERY AND SOCIETY trilogy, brings Sarah Smith’s journey to a close. You’ll want to read Changeling and Fledgling first (expect spoilers for those installments in this review).
This story continues with Sarah, Alicia, and Ivy hiding out in the English countryside with the changeling children they’ve rescued. They’re trying to protect them from the looming threat of Miss Morton’s zombie army.
The Reefs of Space by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
The experience of collaborating on a trilogy must have been a pleasant one for future sci-fi Grand Masters Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, as just five years later, the pair would embark together on another series of books. THE UNDERSEA TRILOGY – Undersea Quest (1954), Undersea Fleet (1956) and Undersea City (1958) – had been targeted at a younger audience,
This American Medical Association site is a good resource for information on avian flu. Currently at least three reports scheduled for publication by the CDC are being stalled by the administration, and the Centers’ most recent weekly report had avian flu data removed from it.
Tongayi Charisa (Crispin) and Alyssa Jirells (Moira) talk about their characters in Mayfair Witches, Season Two, on AMC. Variety has some images from the new season.
Reactor offered a nice column on why we need fantasy forests.
Sanctum of the Soul by Kel Kade
I’ve been up and down on Kel Kade’s SHROUD OF PROPHECY series, with book one, Fate of the Fallen, striking me as enjoyable though with a number of issues. The sequel, Destiny of the Dead, took a small turn downward for me, though it had its strengths. Unfortunately, my experience with book three, Sanctum of the Soul, was closer to Destiny than Fate,
Daughters of Chaos by Jen Fawkes
Daughters of Chaos, by Jen Fawkes, came out in 2024. This literary feminist novel plays with layers, offers interesting characters and exquisite descriptions. The germ of the story is a fascinating real-life situation during the American Civil War. The city of Nashville, Tennessee, was occupied by Union troops. The military governor of the occupation grew concerned for the strength of his army and the security of the occupied city when Union soldiers began to get sick from syphilis.
The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves & China Miéville
You, he thought as it drew back its right left fist, its agglomerated fistmass, on a farrago of an arm, on a stitchwork welter of a shoulder.
2024’s collaboration between acting icon Keanu Reeves and prose icon China Miéville delivers lots of thrills. The Book of Elsewhere, which follows the adventures of a nearly-unkillable warrior, is based on a character created by Reeves in his comic book, BRZRKR.
Undersea City by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
What red-blooded youth – or adult, for that matter – could possibly read Books 1 & 2 of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s UNDERSEA TRILOGY and not want to immediately proceed on to Book #3? Not I, that’s for sure! In Book #1, Undersea Quest (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, a cadet at the U.S. Sub-Sea Academy, had gotten into major-league trouble with a gaggle of crooks and goons in the suboceanic domed city of Thetis,
Here are some downloadable datasets from NOAA.
File770 has an article about new Marvel variant covers which features the brand’s heroes in traditional Japanese clothing. I don’t know what I think about all of them, but Venom in a kimono is eye-catching.
Locus’s always-useful Recommended Reading list is out.
I’m getting ready to read Opacity by Sofia Samatar, so this article in Reactor about reading writing about writing was timely and interesting.
More fallout from the sexual abuse allegations against Neil Gaiman,
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital (2023) will, for some people, barely qualify (if that) as a novel, leaving them crying “Where’s the plot? Nothing happens!” And you know, I can’t argue with them. If you define a novel as a series of plot steps from a to b to c such that change occurs, then yes, Orbital probably won’t squeeze in under that definition. Its focus is less on “what is happening” and more on “what am I feeling about what is happening?” or “What am I thinking about while things are happening?” And if you’re looking for conflict or fleshed out and distinctive characters who are different at the end than when we first meet them,
Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune
2024’s Somewhere Beyond the Sea continues the adventures of Arthur Parnassus and Linus Baker and their six magical children, in a second world similar to ours, with a government kind of like Britain’s. The Amazon blurb for this book says, “This is Arthur’s story.” While I enjoyed the book and found it a much-needed escape from real life current events, this tale left many of Arthur’s issues unaddressed in its rush to show us fun, bantering scenes with the children, and let Arthur and Linus match wits with another government inspector and a government minister,
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott
I loved GennaRose Nethercott’s novel Thistlefoot, one of the best books I’d read in a long time, so I followed it up with 2024’s story collection, Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories. This collection displays the beautiful, the eerie, the surreal, and the terrible, written in Nethercott’s precise, poetic prose that reminds me of the writing of Kelly Link.
The books contains fourteen stories.
Undersea Fleet by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
At the tail end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson’s Undersea Quest (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, has been reinstated into the U.S.S.A. (U.S. Sub-Sea Academy), after having been forced to resign under mysteriously trumped-up charges. The authors’ fans would have to wait a few years to find out what, if anything, might happen next, but ultimately they were rewarded with a follow-up volume that was, if anything,
I will read two short fiction works on The Story Hour tonight, at 7 PM Pacific Time. The readings are store on the Facebook page, if you want to catch up later.
The Centers for Disease Control have downloadable data available to the public. Check their site here.
In Reactor’s List of Five column, James Driscoll shares five books about gods causing trouble for humans.
Award Season! Speculative fiction is well represented on the ALA’s Alex award list this year.
2024’s Bringer of Dust, J.M. Miro’s second book in the trilogy of THE TALENTS, finds our survivors from Book One, Ordinary Monsters, scattered across Europe. Maybe “scattered” isn’t the right word, because their locations are purposeful, as they seek to find an orsine they can open, to return to the world of the dead and rescue Marlowe, the Shining Boy.
A quick review of the magic: Clanks can manipulate their own flesh,
Tegan and Sara: Junior High by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin (writers) and Tillie Walden (artist)
In this column, I feature comic book reviews written by my students at Oxford College of Emory University. Oxford College is a small liberal arts school just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I challenge students to read and interpret comics because I believe sequential art and visual literacy are essential parts of education at any level (see my Manifesto!). I post the best of my students’ reviews in this column.
Elfhome (2012) is the third book in Wen Spencer’s ELFHOME series, and it’s definitely not where you want to start if you’re new to the series. You’ll need to have read Tinker and Wolf Who Rules first to fully grasp what’s going on and why the stakes are so high.
The story kicks off with Tinker recovering from a broken arm and being cornered by a persistent reporter who,
Undersea Quest by Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson
In 1947, Robert A. Heinlein, after almost a decade of producing high-quality science fictional short stories and novellas for adults, came out with his first novel, Rocket Ship Galileo. The book was geared to younger readers, and would prove to be just the beginning of a landmark series of 12 “Heinlein juveniles,” all published by the U.S. firm Scribner’s. Heinlein – who, in 1974, would be proclaimed the first Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America – would come out with at least one such book for younger readers every year until 1958.
Reactormag shares a couple of forthcoming 2025 releases, among them the latest by Charlie Jane Anders and a dragon book by Cherie Radke.
They also shared an excerpt from T.J Klune’s latest, The Bones Beneath my Skin.
Best Of Lists, Recommended Reading lists, nomination suggestions… it’s that time of year. Nerds of a Feather starts with their recommended list of fiction and visual work categories.
John Scalzi announced completion of The Shattering Peace,
Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro
…And the way a child looked at him in the harbor at Alexandria as he climbed down the gangway and into the haze. All this, all this and more, would vanish from the world with his ceasing, all this ineradicable beauty that now lived only inside him would be lost, moments as fragile as coins of light on water, and this more than any other part of it made him feel alone and sorrowful and frail…
2022’s Ordinary Monsters, Book One of THE TALENTS,
thanks for the review-- liked your distinction between how younger and older readers might respond, what they might react differently…
I hope you get this email is [email protected] you get this
you are doing well. keep in up.
All you need to know about bird flu is that there is no human to human transmission case and never…
No problem Sandy. I will confess to feeling a tad flattered to be taken for Marion! Glad you enjoyed the…