Rat Queens Free Preview by Kurtis J. Wiebe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The free preview… I read this after Volume one, because it was so much fun…
N‘rygoth‘s ballsack! Little lady feet! Vomit! Blind dates! ROFL!
Month: February 2019
To the slaughter!
Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“… a violent monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack!“
Fun! A elven mage, a dwarven fighter, a human cleric and a smidgen thief come into a bar… A Sword and Sorcery Comic! There is booze, fighting, quests, orcs, trolls, thieving and lots of smiting. Oh, and profanity galore, drugs, sexual misadventures, diversity… Good artwork, fun plot, likable characters, humour… quite a romp.
I might not continue this series right away, but I might at some point, when I need a laugh…
Not the Disney version
Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I liked Into the Drowning Deep, so it was a given that I had to read this eventually.
Popcorn horror. The cast of characters is not too stupid, the gore is nicely gory. The plotting is a bit unbalanced. It takes forever to get to the blood letting and then it is over in the blink of an eye. Still, the 128 pages flew by quickly. Nicely done.
Magickal
Black Magick, Vol. 2: Awakening II by Greg Rucka
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Fabulous artwork, great story, excellent continuation of the first volume.
The sketching continues to be very, very good and the colour highlights were well placed.
The look at Rowan‘s youth was a very nice addition that added depth to the story.
It got really tense there at the height of the plot. I will definitely pick up Volume 3 when it becomes available.
Collects issues 6-11.
Questionable morals and bad engineering
The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A pilot finds a stowaway on his shuttle, with deadly consequences…
Tragic story. I even cried a little. But I also confess to some skimming, because the writing did not really grab me and I wasn’t all that invested in the conversation that happened.
Also the initial premise is pretty flawed. The morality of the whole set-up is questionable. It begs the question, why and if one life is more valuable than another. And what the parameters might be. And why they couldn’t simply add a decent door lock to their little ship and maybe design it better.
Anyway, this story is mostly a mind game, I guess, and not an attempt at hard sci-fi.
The brief scene about working out an equation by computer was quaint. How little they knew in 1954!
Can be read for free here: http://www.spacewesterns.com/articles…
Magical
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Here are the stories of this anthology that I have read so far. I might get back to this again at a later date.
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The Paper Menagerie, ~ 11 p., ★★★★★
“A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.“
Lovely, truly lovely. And terribly bittersweet and sad.
Can be read for free here: https://io9.gizmodo.com/read-ken-lius…
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The Litigation Master and The Monkey King, ~18 p., ★★★½
The tiny cottage at the edge of Sanli Village—away from the villagers’ noisy houses and busy clan shrines and next to the cool pond filled with lily pads, pink lotus flowers, and playful carp—would have made an ideal romantic summer hideaway for some dissolute poet and his silk-robed mistress from nearby bustling Yangzhou.
I liked it, it did not move me much though. I am not sure why it was a Nebula Award Nominee in 2013. However, I did like the context given in the author‘s note at the end.
Can be read for free here: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic…
————
Read in a different anthology, The Final Frontier:
MONO NO AWARE , ~18 p., ★★★★★½
“The world is shaped like the kanji for “umbrella,” only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion.“
“At the end of the cable hangs the heart of the Hopeful, the habitat module, a five-hundred-meter-tall cylinder into which all the 1,021 inhabitants of the world are packed.“
It‘s the end of the world as we know it and the survivors are on a generation ship. This story is about how they got there and what happens next.
Wow, beautiful story. I cried. The story is very much about the needs of the many, the few and the one. Fascinating, Mr. Spock! What makes a hero? A great look at the differing views of East and West, a holistic understanding of the world and the many, juxtaposed to that one hero.
Story can be read for free here: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic…
————
P.S.: Funnily enough, I did not finish The Grace of Kings in 2016. It moved too slowly for me, I found it too dry and it lacked any meaningful female characters.
Monstrous
Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood by Marjorie M. Liu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hm. Not sure. I might have to let this settle for a while and then re-read it in a few months. The story was complex, but did not really do much for me. The pacing felt uneven.
I was confused with all those jumps, inside and outside of memory, back in time, into dreams (I think?), etc.
Ok, the pirates were cool. I really like the more outlandish looking Arcanics in this volume. And the scenes on the island were beautifully drawn.
The monster that lives inside our heroine also grew on me a lot in this volume. Plus, just for comic relief, it reminds me of Cousin Itt.
The winner is definitely the gorgeous artwork.
Characters ★★★★☆
Artwork ★★★★★
Story ★★½
Shark week! Sharks won!
MEG: Primal Waters by Steve Alten
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Monster pulp fiction had a love child with a National Geographic documentary. Shark Week! It‘s like a really horrible train wreck—I haven‘t been able to look away for the third book in a row now.
Immature characters. Stupid, stupid people. Not passing the Bechdel test. If you are sensitive to that, don‘t touch this book. Oh, and add some fat shaming as well.
Anyway… If you can get past that without ripping the book into teeny, weeny pieces in frustration and exasperation, it‘s pretty fun to read about the ways stupid humans can get eaten by sharks. If I counted right, Megalodon won 17 to nil.
The only character that feels a little like a real person is Jonas Taylor. It probably helps that every time he shows up on page, my hind brain goes „Jason Staham! Yay!“
Prologue and first chapter are mostly recap of the previous two books, with minimal set-up, plus some repetitive and not very exciting info dumps. In the beginning less telling, more showing would have been good. The Daredevil sequences are not all bad. Then there is a good scene in between with David and Mac stuck in the lagoon on a sinking ship. As the action ramps up towards the end of the book, it is indeed fun to read this.
Still, lots of issues with the characters. I can‘t in good conscience give this more than 2 stars… well, maybe ★★½…
Will I read the fourth book? Goodness, it‘s a possibility. But not for a good, long while… There have to be shark/underwater horror books that are written better than this? I am open for suggestions!
The needs of the many
The Final Frontier by Neil Clarke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I will be reading one story per week. If all goes as planned, there will be updates every Sunday until July…
————
MONO NO AWARE, KEN LIU , ~18 p., ★★★★★½
“The world is shaped like the kanji for “umbrella,” only written so poorly, like my handwriting, that all the parts are out of proportion.“
“At the end of the cable hangs the heart of the Hopeful, the habitat module, a five-hundred-meter-tall cylinder into which all the 1,021 inhabitants of the world are packed.“
It‘s the end of the world as we know it and the survivors are on a generation ship. This story is about how they got there and what happens next.
Wow, beautiful story. I cried. The story is very much about the needs of the many, the few and the one. Fascinating, Mr. Spock! What makes a hero? A great look at the differing views of East and West, a holistic understanding of the world and the many, juxtaposed to that one hero.
– 2013 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, winner
– 2013 FantLab’s Book of the Year Award for best Translated Novella or Short Story, winner
– 2013 Locus Award for Best Short Story, finalist
– 2013 Theodore Sturgeon Award, finalist
Story can be read for free here: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic…
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A JAR OF GOODWILL, TOBIAS S. BUCKELL, ~ 24 p., ★★★★☆
“You keep a low profile when you’re in oxygen debt.“
A world where aliens have patented pretty much everything. Think Monsanto in space. Great imagery. I would like to find out more about this world and its inhabitants. A short story with potential for more. I am intrigued by the Compact and the concept of Friends. I wouldn‘t mind to read more stories set in this world or by the author.
The story can be read for free on Clarkesworld where it was published originally: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/bucke…
I just found this info online:
“As of September 2011, Buckell is working on a stand-alone novel titled Infringement, adapted from his short story “A Jar of Goodwill,” which was originally published in Clarkesworld. The novel will be published by Tor, sometime after the independent release of Apocalypse Ocean.“
The info comes from this interview: https://web.archive.org/web/201204280…
I looked around and could not find a book by this name, so I guess he hasn‘t written it yet.
That which lies beneath us…
Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Re-reading this, before finally reading volume two.
Do the Cumaean pristesses remind anybody else of the Bene Gesserit? There are also some scenes that remind me of LOTR.
I forgot massive amounts of plot. I am actually stunned at how much happened in these six issues that I did not recollect. I liked the plot a lot more than I did previously, especially the ending. That might be due to me reading a lot more comics since the first time I read this.
I decided not to update the single issue reviews.
Now I would like to very much find out the identity of the baroness. I hope Lord Corvin will show up again. Onwards to volume two…
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Original review from August 2016:
A dark and grim story about survival, war, racial conflict, hate and the monsters inside of us (paraphrased from Marjorie Liu’s epilogue).
I love the artwork and the colouring. Together with the story it captivated me from the first page.
According to the blurb the setting is an alternate Asia. There are hints–dress, hair styles, a two-tailed cat, but it mostly struck me as fantasy.
A war has been fought between the Human Federation and Arcanics. In this scenario the humans seem to be the bad guys and the Arcanics the monstrous/demonic underdogs.
Great comic, wonderful artwork. The plot could be a bit more speedy, it dragged a little in places. But all in all a great read, highly recommended for fans of dark fantasy.
4.5 stars
From here on I review the single issues, there be spoilers…
Issue 1: Maika Halfwolf lets herself be sold as a slave, to infiltrate the city of her enemies, in the search of a woman… Why she searches is not quite clear in the beginning, but there is bloodshed on the way. Present time alternates with an earlier timeline, telling Maika’s backstory. Parts of the story are gruesome, this is not for the faint of heart.
Issue 2: The aftermath of Maika’s escape. This part if fairly short and I am not completely sure what goes on or where Maika is headed.
Issue 3: Do we get to see Maika’s true self? We make a detour into her inner self, which seems to be located in ancient Egypt…
Great artwork again in this issue and some brutal fights.
Issue 4: We finally get to know Maika’s inner monster. I like it. It’s wicked. It might have a sense of humour. Evil, evil monster… And we find out, what the Arcanics are.
Kippa and the cat are great for comic relief in this grim tale.
And the last, full-page panel is awesome!
Is it possible that Marjorie Liu is a fan of epic fantasy? I can’t shake this Dune-vibe. And now it had a love child with Robert Jordan.
Issue 5: We meet a mysterious stranger. I want to say the plot thickens, but there is not really a lot of plot, or rather it’s starting to drag a bit. The end of this issue indicates that something major might happen soon. Let’s hope so!
Issue 6: Volume 1 comes to a conclusion. Sadly, not a very satisfying one. There is hope. And there are many questions. And my need to buy the next issues, I guess.
*~*~*~* (hide spoiler)]
Review of issue 1: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
Review of issue 2: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
Review of issue 3: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
Review of issue 4: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
Review of issue 5: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
Review of issue 6: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 