Previous SFF Author: Suzanne Collins
Ghosted (Vol. 2): Books of the Dead by Joshua Williamson (writer), Goran Sudzuka (artist), and Miroslav Mrva (colorist)
In Joshua Williamson’s Ghosted (vol. 2): Books of the Dead, Jackson T. Winters is given yet another offer he can’t refuse, and again it’s got him dealing in ghosts and the possessed (And if you haven’t read volume 1 yet, start there and read my review of Ghosted (vol. 1): Haunted House). When we last saw Jackson, he was on his island in a little paradise all his own.
March 30th, 2019. Brad Hawley´s rating: 3.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Lost Adventures by Aaron Ehasz (Author), Josh Hamilton (Author), Tim Hedrick (Author), Dave Roman (Author), J. Torres (Author), Joaquim Dos Santos (Illustrator)
As far as ideas for comic book tie-ins go, a series of “lost adventures” that take place over the course of any given series isn’t a bad one.
Collected here are the somewhat inconsequential escapades that happened to the protagonists of Avatar: The Last Airbender across all three seasons, from Aang attracting a swam of scorpion-bees, to Sokka impersonating the Avatar to impress a girl,
March 25th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Comics, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Demon: Volume 4 by Jason Shiga
So we come to it at last: the fourth and final instalment in Jason Shiga‘s Demon, detailing the misadventures (and catastrophic body-count) of Jimmy Yee, a one-time accountant who discovers he possesses the body of the person standing closest to him whenever he commits suicide.
As befits a final volume, Demon: Volume 4 is absolute, wall-to-wall insanity. There’s death, war, guns, massacres, catapults, baseball bats, kamakaze stunts — in fact,
March 22nd, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Demon: Volume 3 by Jason Shiga
This is the third book in Jason Shiga‘s Demon quartet; the story of Jimmy Yee, an otherwise ordinary accountant who realizes he’s a demon. This means that whenever he takes his own life, he ends up possessing the body of the person closest to him.
It’s a free pass to wealth and power, though ever since Jimmy found his daughter Sweetpea (also a demon) and evaded capture from the secret-ops agent who’s determined to exploit his abilities,
March 21st, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Demon: Volume 2 by Jason Shiga
In the second volume of Jason Shiga‘s Demon, we find Jimmy Yee pondering his options.
As he found out in the previous book, he’s a demon who possesses the body of the closest physical person to him every time he takes his own life.
Across the course of that story he experimented with the limits of his power and is now close to mastering the logistics of his macabre gift.
March 19th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Demon: Volume 1 by Jason Shiga
If you have a strong constitution and fifteen minutes to kill, you could do a lot worse than picking up Demon (2016), Jason Shiga’s graphic novel about a nihilistic suicidal actuary who finds a reason to go on living when he realizes he possesses the body of the person closest to him each time he kills himself.
His wife and daughter having died in a car accident, Jimmy Yee decides to end it all — only to find that his suicide attempts are thwarted each time by powers beyond his control.
March 18th, 2019. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Gareth Hinds makes a lot of good decisions in his graphic version of Homer’s The Iliad (2019), both in terms of art and narration, resulting in a book that’s easy to recommend both to young adults and also educators/parents who want to slip a little classical knowledge into their kid’s comic book.
Two of those good decisions involve cleverly incorporating each major hero’s initial into their helm or breastplate and ignoring the historical reality, and portraying the two sides in uniform garb so as to more easily distinguish one from the other.
March 12th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Comics, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime by Toshio Ban & Tezuka Productions & translated into English by Frederik L. Schodt
“They say if you try making anime for 3 days, you’ll never be able to quit and that in 3 days you’ll also be broke. But even if I were to go broke, I still don’t think I’d be able to quit.” These words from Tezuka, upon receiving an award late in life, express his passion for his work in anime, but he had an equal passion for manga.
March 9th, 2019. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
SCHOOL BUS OF HORRORS by Michael Dahl, with illustrations by Euan Cook
If you know a young reader who likes scary stories but who isn’t quite up to tackling something the length of, say, a GOOSEBUMPS book, give Michael Dahl and Euan Cook’s SCHOOL BUS OF HORRORS series a shot. Four new titles are being released at once: Night Shift, Auto Body Parts, Ooze Control, and Shocks! (2019). The series is recommended for readers in the 9-to-13-year-old-range, though I would guess that’s more due to the thematic content than complexity of language;
March 6th, 2019. Jana Nyman´s rating: 3.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Ghosted (Vol. 1): Haunted Heist by Joshua Williamson, Miroslav Mrva, Goran Sudzuka
In Ghosted (vol. 1): Haunted Heist by Joshua Williamson, we meet Jackson T. Winters, currently in prison after an armed robbery gone wrong. It turns out that his death wish is not simply because he hates living inside a prison; rather, it’s because of a supernaturally disturbing vision he had the day of the robbery — it turns out the casino they were robbing was built on an ancient and sacred burial ground. Also, in the course of the robbery,
March 2nd, 2019. Brad Hawley´s rating: 4 | Comics, Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Suzanne Collins
I might say "formulaic" actually.
Your review made me curious, so I looked this book up. Sure enough: Tor. Tor seems to specialize in these…
It's a tightrope act for sure.
[…] Stuart (2 December 2015). “Roadside Picnic: Russian SF classic with parallels to Vandermeer’s Area X | Fantasy Lit…. fantasyliterature.com. Retrieved 8 […]
yes, I mean, there are certainly lots of good sci-fi/fantasy novellas out there, so they aren't impossible to do, but…