A Man With An Agenda

Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I just noticed that LibraryThing.com, once $10 a year or $25 for life, has removed all membership fees.

Though it is partially owned by the Evil Empire, it was worth compromising my principles for it because of its continued commitment to no ads, lack of toxicity (no one can comment on reviews and there's no notifications for likes, etc), AND the data is easily backed-up.

No other website survives that offers that without some string attached to Amazon (RiffleBooks comes closest, but the database is a nightmare). 

Paint it Black Square: The cover is black except for the embroidery shears.

Trigger Warning: Cutting, or self-harm, drives the whole plot.

Iseult lives with her father in London and has been in mourning her entire life. Her father keeps her dressed in black to remember her mother. The mother Iseult shouldn't know because Iseult's mother died as Iseult was being born.

But Iseult does know her mother. Her mother is inside of her, a constant, suffocating presence. Iseult can't help talking to her, or trying to make others understand, so she has never had close friends or anybody to talk to except her father's housekeeper.

Iseult knows of only one way to silence her mother, however temporarily, and that is to wound herself, either in her scarred shoulder (from a broken collarbone at birth) or any other convenient place.

The book is fairly disgusting on that point. The reader understands that Iseult has no other recourse, but the amount of blood and the description of her injuries turns this book into body horror as opposed to the gothic ghost story with a twist that's advertised. This is supposed to be some kind of commentary on Our Current Cultural Moment, but I didn't see it. Maybe you will.

I got to the end because I felt obligated to, under normal circumstances I would have stopped when Iseult starts plunging scissors into her shoulder and snipping.

I've said it before and then went and splurged on volumes anyway, but 'Volume 8' is notoriously high-priced. Some mixture of the notoriety of its stories and the scarcity of its edition makes it sell for three or four times the cover price. I'll be circling eBay for awhile before one comes up at a price I can live with. I mean, if I spend all that money on one book I can't buy other books!

Not that I'm reading much these days. It has been a struggle since this crisis began.

First of all, this volume had the best introduction so far: Tom Peyer treats these issues with irreverence and good humor while praising the strides the series makes. 'TEEN BEAT IS COMING!' indeed. It also felt that these issues, published mostly in 1967, were beginning to reflect in earnest the restlessness of youth and the political turmoil that was beginning to boil over. On the surface these issues and villains are as silly as they ever were, foiled at the last minute by a clever plan or a deus-x-machina. The issues are beginning to say something, however. It feels like there's something at stake and the characters are taking on real personalities.

I have a couple collections from the 80s I could look into, but I hate to abandon continuity at this point. Oh, who am I kidding. I'm gonna cave before May!

Legion of Super-Heroes

Next: 'Vol. 8'

Previous: 'Vol. 6'

It is difficult to cry foul over spoilers for a 50 year old comic book, but the back cover of this Archives collection features two covers that show the death of a Legion member in no uncertain terms. This was a big deal, as before no Legionnaire has stayed dead before. This character, I believe remains dead to this day in most continuities. He's the Legion of Super-Heroes' Uncle Ben. Some characters need to stay down to inspire the rest.

Anyway, spoiler or not, I enjoyed these issues. Set 1,000 years in the future these teen heroes have crazy gadgets at their disposal, embrace their wealthy benefactor - and even give him special attention, and give only the glimmer of acknowledgement that the girls can have part in story-lines other than fawning over boyz. It's only a glimmer, but it's a start. These issues would mostly have been published in 1966 after all.

My highlight was the issue where Superman is called to the future and visits the grown-up Legion, many members have retired, but we pay them a visit. It's a cavalcade of male pattern baldness and housewives. This had to be another fan-mail inspired issue, but it was pretty funny. Saturn Girl was the only one to refuse to give up her day job just because she got married.

A new team of super-villains, the Fatal Five, are introduced and they offer a lot more possibilities than the Legion of Super-Villains (though they will be back). Interestingly, three major events in Legion history are reversed - not ret-conned, but "fixed" by events in the story for no reason other than the authors and illustrators got tired of reading angry fan mail. The result is three members are returned to the Legion and someone gets their flesh arm back. Fun.

Legion of Super-Heroes

Next: 'Vol. 7'

Previous: 'Vol. 5'

Spark is a teddy bear sworn to protect her owner, or ursa, from the monsters that would seek to harm her. A fellow teddy instructed her in the lore surrounding the monsters that have been held at bay for decades, but has trained her hard to prepare for any monster that may show up.

Now a monster has started showing up, sniffing around the edges of the room, looking for a weakness. Spark overhears a neighborhood child has gone missing - a sure sign of a monster.With her mentor, a sock monkey and select toys of her ursa's friends, Spark must save the day.

For me this was an unfortunate misfire. The internal logic of the story kept coming apart at the edges and actual child predators appeared to be tied in to the lore by the end of the book. Not something I'd recommend.

Someday, I'll get this on a Friday. Still reading 'Petals of Blood', but may have to give it a rest. I'm not absorbing any of it lately.

Whoops, I thought I had a copy of the board saved already, that'll have to wait until I get home. Also, take a look at the recent tags link - it's flooded with spam. Urgh. Guess they're all working from home!

1. Author is a Woman

 - 3/31: Read 'Kindred' by Octavia E. Butler

Rolled 2 Dice: 5

6. Title has a color word in it

- 3/31: Currently Reading 'Petals of Blood' by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

A character in the book criticizes one of his students for referring to a flower's petals as being colored blood, but I'm gonna go for it!

A feeling of nausea, a dizzy spell, and Dana opens her eyes not in her house, but on a muddy riverbank in time to save a boy from drowning. She finds herself back home, but covered in mud. This begins a terrifying ordeal where Dana doesn't know when she'll be taken again back, only that there is a connection between her and a sullen red-haired boy named Rufus in the early 19th century.

This was not the book I was expecting - I must have had my wires crossed with one of her other books - but 'Kindred' is phenomenal. We follow Dana as she is, sometimes for months at a time, trapped on Maryland plantation: a black woman with no traveling papers. Dana is a modern woman and as this is a first-person novel, we experience her thoughts as she attempts to rationalize her actions and those of the people around her. There is brutality, kindness, slow capitulation and sharp reminders of the era. There are decisions that Dana makes that defy comprehension, but I have no idea how I would react in a similar situation, so I find it hard to judge her. What made the bond between Dana and Rufus so strong? It goes well beyond self-interest.

All I know is that this book kept me reading late into the night, I couldn't put it down until I found out how Butler reached the ending hinted at in the beginning. 

One of the very last Eberron novels published and in many ways the only true standalone novel, 'Lady Ruin' runs only 250 pages and does not make the best use of its brief time. 25 additional pages are given to the 'Abyssal Plague' prelude cross-over event, but as there's no sign of it having anything to do with Eberron I'm skipping it. Waggoner's 'Blade of the Flame' trilogy is strong writing, but I can't say the same here unfortunately. 

A Karrnathi warlord sponsors a secret weapons-development scheme involving bonding soldiers with symbionts to create a powerful army. The problem is that symbionts are creations leftover from the Daelkyr War nine thousand years ago. Products of chaos, the symbionts are dangerous to their hosts and nearly-impossible to control.

Captain Lirra is second in command of the effort, working under her father and supervising her artificer uncle in his experiments to master these weapons. An experiment goes wrong...and Lirra is the only one strong enough to do what must be done to prevent A Daelkyr from crossing over into Eberron and remaking the world in its twisted vision.

Lirra is our primary viewpoint character with only the occasional visit to other officers in the Outland Guard and the baddies scheming to unleash chaos. The story make little attempt to follow a "party" structure, Lirra is mostly on her own, and Waggoner can't seem to carry the story without it. There was little time for development of character relations, so when we reach climactic fight scenes I didn't feel any attachment to the characters. The book's saving grace is the examination of how symbionts behave with hosts and several scenes of horror as people and monsters are molded like play-doh to suit the needs of the villain.

Well known in Canada, Metis writer Cherie Dimaline is set for big U.S. debut with this novel in July, but since it has been published in Canada to acclaim, I'm posting now.

'Empire of Wild' begins with the story of the movement and isolation of the Metis from their original lands to unwanted territory outside of Western settlements. The town of Arcand is stubborn and poor, but some cling to old traditions. Joan of Arcand has been searching for her missing husband for over a year. It was struggle to get him, an outsider, to be accepted by her family, but after a minor fight, he vanished.

Joan is without hope until she finds him in a Wal-Mart parking lot preaching in a Revival tent. The problem is, he claims to not recognize her and has a different name. Is this abandonment? Or is there something more sinister going on?

Dimaline uses the legend of the Rougarou to tell a story of love and family, but also to highlight the continued exploitation of indigenous people. Reading this sparked memories of a few stories of the "loup-garou" I remembered hearing in childhood from my father. My family has a drop or two of first nations blood, but I had thought assimilation and time had done its work and nothing had been passed down to us. I like the idea that something survived.

The comics are easing into this business of long-range story-telling, but boy, is it difficult for the writer's sometimes. They want to just wave a hand and have Kal-El or Invisible Kid give a panel's worth of exposition on what could have been an interesting story in itself. Of course, dealing with their vast cast of characters was an obstacle. Many heroes are on perpetual missions off-planet.

Highlights of this volume were Braniac 5's invention of the giant Computo and his large robot friends that involved a lot of death. The moral question of Star Boy's self-defense, and the female heroes having to deal with being accused of being too in love with Superboy to have a clear head to vote on leadership. They do have a few moments of glory however, particularly Phantom Girl in response to a traitor in the Legion and Saturn Girl in a prison camp.

I'm kind of in love with these comics and might keep going and pay collector's prices for future volumes (#8 and 11-13 are particularly pricey), once the whole economic instability thing goes away.

Legion of Super-Heroes

Next: 'Volume 6'

Previous: 'Volume 4'

It's a solo show at the bookstore, minding phones and e-mail, but I have fuzzy company:

Bella, the store cat, is a big softy.

Lady Ruin by TIm Waggoner is a late Eberron novel, and so far, so good.

Mostly though, I've been digging in the DVD drawer and rewatching old favorites

A side project from the creator of 'Questionable Content', 'Alice Grove' is a complete science fiction story set in the future thousands of years after a technological "blink" leaves the Earth without A.i. or any other advanced technology. Alice is a person with a certain skill set and her capabilities are revealed to the reader slowly after two young members of a human space colony are stranded on Earth and become her problem.

This was great and can be read in a single sitting. I'd invest in a physical copy if one were available, but instead I'll indulge in some of the physical volumes of his other comic he has available.

I've been heavily indulging in nostalgia lately, well...maybe for a few years. It's a way for me to balance the demands of the first-run arcs I read for work and the constant perusal of catalogs featuring thousands of new titles every season. Will that change in our new time of uncertainty? No idea, really, but it will be difficult ride for many small imprints and publishers for the next few years, even if everybody gets better tomorrow (and they won't).

Anyway, 'Megatokyo' was staple reading for me and my friends at the computer lab between classes. I was never fully immersed in gamer or anime culture as some in my circle, but the lols were real nonetheless. Piro and Largo end up kicked out of a gamers convention and, on a whim, take a flight to Japan. In Tokyo they promptly spend all of their money and are stuck in the country until they can save enough money to fly home.

Meanwhile, Kimiko is auditioning for a major voice-acting role for a new game with the encouragement of her tough friend Erika who works at a manga shop. Throw in Ping, the sentient PS2 accessory, high-tech hijinks, 133+ sp34k (I know I got that wrong), Sega hitmen, battling consciences, and the occasional unsanctioned Godzilla-attack and you have are story.

I forgot Miho, a "darkly cute" personification of evil, or a misunderstood school girl.

The comic is still going, but I've completely lost track of where the story is these days. Once I've finished the second omnibus, I'll dig into the website.

What I like about this comic after all of these years is the commitment to true character development and the long-game story arcs. There are some really dated jokes and uninteresting interludes that were fun filler at the time, but could probably have been entirely excluded.

Another enjoyable couple years for the Peanuts gang. Charlie Brown gets "Eraserphagia" and "Little Leaguers Elbow", Lucy discovers Rachel Carson, Linus gets stage fright at the Christmas pageant, and Snoopy has bird problems. Many plot points for the soon-to-be-produced "Charlie Brown Christmas" special were pulled from these years as well.

The only really odd, unique thing about this volume was the introduction of '5' and his sisters '3' and '4'. They were renamed by their father because of the country's new mania for zip codes. 5's full name is 555 95472. It makes sense that the gang are Californians.

The rest of the strips are engaging and funny, of course, Schultz didn't need to reinvent the wheel to get laughs. My favorite strips were when Lucy and Frieda are commenting on the baseball game and how they might even win, and they ask each other if they even like baseball, and then Charlie Brown's finally one-upping Violet by pointing out that his father doesn't have to be the best bowler, because his dad loves him and that's enough. D'awww.

These are still a great investment, beautifully packaged and the end-papers keep getting better.

And, because Linus is on the cover - here's my Hungerford Vinyl Linus doll from ~1961, he's missing his blanket, but he's great and I'll keep my eyes out for the rest of the set: there's a Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy, baby Schroeder (with detached piano) and Sally and Pigpen.

The Complete Peanuts

Next: 'Volume Eight: 1965-1966'

Previous: 'Volume Six: 1961-1962'

A short and brutal graphic novel about a teenage girl going through a world of turmoil. This has serious echoes of 'Carrie', but with a queer slant and a more conscious ending.

There's apparently a Netflix show based on it, but as much as this was an excellent digest of teen angst and consequences I don't need to see this trauma played out on screen.