Ms. Marvel, Vol. 5: Super Famous

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 5: Super Famous by G. Willow Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kamala Khan is busy. She has the normal teenager stuff like school, homework, and family obligations to deal with,

but then she's also the superhero Ms. Marvel. Did I mention she's an Avenger now too?

Ms. Marvel is facing off against an evil entity that is using her likeness to turn people against her while they take over Jersey City.

So Kamala and Bruno come up with a great plan to make clones of Kamala. I mean what could go wrong?


I like Ms. Marvel. I want to say that before anyone gets the wrong idea. My issue is I'm 1.) a guy, 2.) Over 30, and 3.) Not a Muslim. I say that because much of what makes Kamala special is lost on me because I don't relate. She's a fun character and her powers are interesting. She's massively powerful and even though she mostly just grows and shrinks, she can actually do far more. In Super Famous Kamala is just plain run down dog tired. School and family all day with superheroing all night will burn anyone out. Kamala is hanging in there, but it's not going that well. To top it all off Bruno has moved on and started dating just as Kamala was accepting his feelings for her. Sometimes it's no fun being a hero, but Kamala wouldn't trade it for anything.

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HARD RAIN FALLING BY DON CARPENTER

Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”He was legally a fugitive from the orphanage, and in that sense he was ‘wanted’. He did not feel ‘wanted’---he felt very unwanted. He had desires, and nobody was going to drop out of the sky to satisfy them. He tried to milk a little self-pity out of this thought, but it did not work: he had to recognize that he preferred his singularity, his freedom. All right. He knew what he wanted. He wanted money. He wanted a piece of ass. He wanted a big dinner, with all the trimmings. He wanted a bottle of whiskey. He wanted a car, in which he could drive a hundred miles an hour. He wanted some new clothes and thirty-dollar shoes. He wanted a .45 automatic. He wanted a record player in the big hotel room he wanted, so he could lie in bed with the whiskey and the piece of ass and listen to….That was what he wanted. So it was up to him to get those things.”

Those are not big dreams, right? I mean a guy should expect to have a slutty girlfriend, a gun (it is America after all; there are more guns than people), decent clothes, good music, a fast car, a big meal once in awhile, and be able to spin the cap off a fresh bottle of whiskey when he needs to forget how shitty his life is, even when he is walking around in his thirty dollar shoes. For Jack Levitt, who has never had anything, those dreams are so big they seem like millionaire dreams.

His parents came to violent ends at very young ages. Jack was not cute; in fact, even when he was little, he was kind of tough looking. It is hard to find adoptive parents when you look like a future felon at eight. He is in the system so long he becomes part of the system.

Jack meets a pool shark by the name of Billy Lancing, and though they only intersect for a few hours, before Jack is hauled back to juvie, that meeting will prove fateful. They don’t meet again for decades. Jack might be white, and Billy might be black, but there is no color barrier for poverty, desperation, and the feeling that there has to be more than this. ”But I don’t want to be a negro; I don’t want to be a white man; I don’t want to be a married man; I don’t want to be a businessman; I don’t want to be lonely. Life seemed to be a figure eight. It terrified him, sitting on the bus, as if time had opened black jaws and swallowed him.”

Jack has a similar epiphany about his life. He meets up with an old friend, Denny. ”Lived in half a hundred arid furnished rooms, pretended the vacuum was freedom, wakened almost daily to the fear that time was a dry wind brushing away his youth and his strength, and slept through as many nightmares as there were nights to dream. He just sat and smiled at Denny and saw what time had done to him and wondered, now comfortably, why he was so bothered by time. It happens to everybody this way, he thought, we sit here and get older and die and nothing happens.”

Anybody who has ever been to a high school reunion knows about the ravages of time. I’ve never been to one, but someone always sends me pictures from the latest reunion as enticements, I’m sure, to come to the next one. I’m getting old enough now where people have warped, melted, and expanded to such an extent that they are becoming unrecognizable. Little Tommy has become BIG Tommy, and there is barely a glimmer left of the beauty that made the prom queen the lead actress in a series of pornographic dreams.

I find myself having to agree with Jack and Billy...this is it? This is where we strive to arrive? I’ve had a much better start, middle, and hopefully, finish to my life than what Jack and Billy experienced. Regardless, life is a heartless, cold blooded witch, and no one gets through life unscathed. The scale is constantly tilting back and forth between bitter experiences and sweet experiences. I try to focus on the good memories and blur the bad memories, but the older we get, the battle scars start to show.

We become unrecognizable at high school reunions.

Billy and Jack end up incarcerated in the same prison and, in fact, the same cell. They have both failed at almost everything in life. Jack spent some time boxing but discovered he is too thin skinned and bleeds too easily, but he can take care of himself physically. Billy made it briefly into the middle class, but he felt trapped by the responsibility that proved too heavy, and all he could think about was running away from... the weight. He is smaller and gets the wrong kind of attention in prison. (Never die protecting a virgin asshole.) They forge an alliance that becomes built on more than friendship.

This book is hardboiled with a capital H. Once institutionalized, it is hard for people to ever not be institutionalized. They don’t teach you how to survive outside the system. Is it any wonder that too many orphans of the state end up being wards of the state in prison or halfway houses? They have no blueprint to achieve their dreams. They struggle, and when they fail, there is always some judge willing to put them back into the system. They understand life inside. They don’t understand the real world. After all, isn’t it just as hopeless with more responsibility on the outside? Well written, clipped, hard prose with philosophical musings that will have you nodding your head as you realize that the difference between us and Jack and Billy is the fickleness of fate.

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Medieval House-keeping

The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like books four and five in the GoT series, much of this book feels like housekeeping. Perhaps I should say, hallkeeping or castlecleaning.

I thought maybe in The Empty Throne our half-Dane, half-Saxon hero Uhtred of Bebbanburg might finally regain his lands and castle, but instead the story veers away from what it seemed to be leading up to and turned its focus on the bigger picture. That's annoying, but perhaps it's for the best. The get-my-castle-back storyline was getting stale. Besides, if he got the castle back, that would be the end. In the very least, it would take a lot of wind of out this series' sails.

Like any and all Bernard Cornwell novels, there's fighting and at least some skirmishes, but this one was low-key compared to others in the series. There's a lot of discussion. Hell, there's essentially what adds up to a court room drama at one point. The fighting that does take place feels inconsequential to the bigger picture.

The book starts with a narration by Uhtred's son, which is done to keep up the suspense created at the end of the last book. However, I think Cornwell might've had a two-fold reason. I believe he wanted to give the son a try-out in the lead role. After all, Uhtred's no spring chicken. If Cornwell wants to keep this series rolling, sooner or later he's going to need a replacement for his hero. I know I'm ready for a change.

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PsyCop Briefs: Volume 1

Jordan Castillo Price
JCP Books, LLC
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Victor Bayne sees dead people for a living…and he sees them off the clock, too. After all, ghosts don’t confine their appearances to a psychic medium’s work hours.

From the macabre to the mundane, from titillating to tender, these PsyCop shorts feature stolen moments between the novels. Get a glimpse of Vic’s life with Jacob between cases, from both men’s viewpoints. Gain new insight on their psychic talents by accompanying them on odd jobs, shopping runs and family visits, or simply enjoy some downtime in the cannery.

The twenty short works range in length from flash fiction to novelettes, woven together to create a novel-length narrative of Vic and Jacob’s relationship from a fresh perspective. The stories are gleaned from various sources: anthologies, newsletters, and web, with four all-new pieces to tie the collection together and delve deeper into your favorite PsyCops' domestic life.

My Review

If you love Vic and Jacob in the PsyCop series, this is the perfect collection of stories to get your hands on!

While some of the stories stand well alone, others are better appreciated if you are acquainted with the characters from the series. I have not read all the books in the series yet, so it was a surprise to encounter characters I didn’t know, get a glimpse of the future, and see psychic abilities further developed. A few of the stories were familiar, but it was more fun to read them a second time as part of a collection.

Coffee O’Clock – Early on in their relationship, Jacob has spent nearly a week at Vic’s apartment, and while Jacob seems perfectly comfortable there, Vic is experiencing some anxiety. It’s fun to see Vic get all flustered when Jacob replaces his powdered creamer with half-and-half. I like being in Vic’s head, privy to all his neurotic insecurities and conversations with dead people. A little sad, but funny too.

Thaw - This sweet, humorous, short story shows a brief glimpse into the lives of Vic and Jacob, when they are not busy fighting crime. Who knew ice-skating could be so fun and sexy?

Mind Reader – Even though Crash is Jacob’s ex, he is still very much a presence in their lives. His friendship with Vic starts awkwardly, but I love their banter while they’re on a museum trip discussing mummies and ghosts. Crash is slutty and unpredictable, and fortunately for Vic, his empathic abilities are not nearly as honed as Vic’s abilities to communicate with the dead, allowing Vic to stuff his feelings under his belt.

Stroke of Midnight – This is one of few stories where the reader gets Jacob’s perspective on events. It’s Vic and Jacob’s first New Year together, and they are planning to attend a party hosted by Jacob’s ex, Keith, but work calls and Jacob goes alone. It was nice getting into Jacob's head and knowing how strong his feelings for Vic are. I never knew Vic had a cleft chin.

No Sale – The flirtatious salesman and his fancy knives don’t have a chance with Jacob, not while Vic is seeing ghosts. I love Vic’s self-confidence in this one.

Most Likely To… – A nice little glimpse into 80’s hairstyles and Vic’s past.

Jock Straps on Sale – Vic needs some Florida water and Crash needs a ride. I love how Crash unsettles Vic and never fails to make me laugh.

Piece of Cake – Another short featuring Crash, this time while Vic is trying to bake Jacob a cake.

In the Dark – Vic is far more comfortable stuffing himself with meat pastries than making small talk with Jacob’s friends. An encounter with a ghost and a chat with Jacob’s ex, Keith, leads to mutual understanding.

Let the Chips Fall – Before I met my husband, my home was a mishmash of eclectic pieces I picked up at flea markets, yard sales, and from friends. I feel Vic’s pain. Why agonize over paint colors when white goes with everything?

Memento – Old t-shirts, yard work, and sweet lovin’. Told from Jacob’s point of view, his tenderness and desire shines through their relationship. Vic is so lucky!

Impact – I haven’t read the stories beyond Camp Hell, so seeing Vic help Jacob explore his own abilities was a nice surprise.

Everyone’s Afraid of Clowns – A creepy, unsettling story that is just perfect for Halloween. Vic and Jacob are out buying painted pumpkins for another party that Vic is not thrilled about attending. Jacob becomes curious when Vic recalls his first experience seeing a ghost clown in an old movie theatre. Instead of going to the party, they are off to hunt ghosts. Clowns are not the only scary things!

Waiting Game – Loved this short told from Vic’s partner Lisa’s point of view. She uses her precognitive talent to read between the lines, causing Vic and Jacob to blush.

On the Road – Vic and Jacob are planning to head out to visit Jacob’s parents. Jacob is very focused on his trip preparations and attention to details, while Vic is worrying about getting there too early. Hilarious little story that shows even Mr. Perfect can make mistakes.

Wood – Vic and Jacob are helping Jacob’s Uncle Leon put together some bookshelves. I love the stories that focus on lighter moments between the two men. This was fun, humorous, and sexy.

Off the Cuff – As much as I love clothes that fit well, I don’t envy Vic’s experience with the tailor. Still, it was a thoughtful gesture on Jacob’s part and Vic really needs some new clothes.

Locked and Loaded – This started out a little tense, with both guys on high alert. Jacob didn’t have his sidearm, but proved that a strong voice and confident stance goes a long way.

Inside Out – This is a fun little prequel to the PsyCop series and one of a few stories told from Jacob’s perspective. He and his partner, Carolyn, are going to his first PsyCop meeting. While he’s excited about it, Carolyn is more interested in fixing Jacob up with a new man. As Carolyn is a telepath, Jacob has to be very careful what he says to her. As much as I enjoyed this story, I think it would be better appreciated by gaining some familiarity with the characters and their world. Vic’s misadventure with a jelly donut is hilarious!

Witness – This story packs a punch! What starts as a dull training exercise that Vic has absolutely no interest in, turns into a satisfying mystery and further solidifies the bond between Vic and Jacob.

Death of X

Death of X by Charles Soule
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cyclops and his X-Men get a distress signal from Muir Island and they head there to investigate.

What they find terrifies them.

The terrigen mist clouds that were released into the atmosphere can kill mutants. Cyclops and Emma Frost warn the world.

Then they formulate a plan to destroy it.

Death of X suffered from it's year long build up. I expected something excellent after such a lengthy wait, but it was mediocre. The series simply fills in some minor details to information that seemed more than obvious after a year of Inhuman and X-Men comics talking about it. All that being said I have to agree with the mutants on this issue. I can't imagine respecting someone's holy cloud if it would kill me. It was a matter of destroy or be destroyed so the actions Cyclops X-Men took were easily warranted.

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Extraordinary X-Men Vol. 2: Apocalypse Wars

Extraordinary X-Men Vol. 2: Apocalypse Wars by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The future of mutantkind is in danger. No new mutants are being born due to the terrigen mists, but then suddenly hundreds appeared in the same location. The X-Men investigate only to find Sugarman from Age of Apocalypse with 600 mutant embryos.

As they attempt to rescue the embryos, Colossus and some of the young X-Men are teleported to the future.

A future where Apocalypse has taken over and mutants are extinct.


Have you ever made a colossal mess? I mean like breaking a shelf full of glasses that sends shards all over the place. So far in fact that you know regardless of what you do, some won't get cleaned up or found until someone steps on it. That is the Extraordinary X-Men's Apocalypse Wars.

First off Sugarman shows up, no it seriously was Sugarman, with mutant embryos...um what was that. Yeah mutant embryos because you know that's totally a thing now. For some reason he wants to smuggle them to the future to play nurse to 600 mutant babies I guess. He must not have seen Jack Jack Attack in the Incredibles because that's a terrible idea.

Anyway so if that's not random enough when they reach the future Apocalypse is alive and running things. It was just bad, bad all over.

Extraordinary X-Men: Apocalypse Wars was a disappointing and confusing mess.

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FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND BY BRIAN W. ALDISS

Frankenstein Unbound by Brian W. Aldiss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

”The monster at my feet said, ‘This I will tell you, and through you, all men, if you are deemed fit to rejoin your kind: that my death will weigh more heavily upon you than my life. No fury I might possess could be a match for yours. Moreover, though you seek to bury me, yet will you continuously resurrect me! Once I am unbound. I am unbounded!’”


Original cover art from the first edition in 1973. I like it.

Joe Bodenland is living in the midst of a dying Earth in 2020. A nuclear war in space has torn the fabric of the universe, and now everyone is experiencing timeslips. The future and the past are now blending. He might go to bed in 2020 and wake up in 1984 or 1432. The timeslips are unreliable. He might be in 1776 for an hour or twenty hours before he is snapped back into the present in 2020.

”By seeking to control too much, we have lost control of ourselves.”

When Bodenland finds himself in 1816 Switzerland, he can’t help but explore. He drives his 21st century nuclear powered car out from his temporarily relocated house to take a look around. Before he can return, the timeslip...slips again... and he is stuck in the 19th century. He is not that unhappy about it; in fact, he is rather giddy at the thought of meeting the Romantic poets who just happen to be vacationing in Switzerland at this very moment in time. Byron, Shelley, and his soon to be wife, Mary, are welcoming, but after meeting Victor Frankenstein over a stein of beer, Bodenland realizes that there is a mashup of the real and imaginary happening as well.

He sees the creature, the fiend, the Frankenstein’s monster, and feels that something must be done before this beast, already a murderer, kills again. He goes to Mary Wollstonecraft, hoping that she can give him insight into a book she hasn’t even written yet. She is not yet eighteen, a young mother, but at the height of her beauty, and at an intriguing stage of her developing intellect. Bodenland is starstruck. ”Seen in the soft green light of the window, speaking with her serious calm air, Mary Shelley was beautiful to behold. There might be a melancholy here, but there was none of Shelley’s madness, none of Byron’s moodiness. She seemed like a being apart, a very sane but extraordinary young woman, and a slumbering thing in my breast woke and opened to her.”

Bodenland knows more about Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley than she knows about herself at this point in her life. He is enamored with the woman she is going to be, as much or more as he is of the young girl she is at this moment. ”Let your sunlight and my moonlight mingle!” She says, which means exactly what you think it does!


Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Doesn’t a woman look sexy writing a novel?

I can think of a number of literary crushes I have on writers: Marguerite Duras, Clarice Lispector, or Daphne du Maurier to name a few. I may have to add Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to the list.

Bodenland becomes obsessed with stopping Frankenstein before he creates another creature. Frankenstein feels compelled to comply with the Monster’s request, due to his own guilt and the very real fear that, if he doesn’t supply the Monster with a woman, he will be torn to shreds. Bodenland finds himself desperately chasing these creatures, taking the role that Frankenstein fulfilled in the original book. ”Nothing could refresh my soul; I was a Jonas Chuzzlewit, a Raskolnikov. I had lied, cheated, committed adultery, looted, thieved, and ultimately murdered; henceforth my only fit company was the two brutes who journeyed somewhere ahead of me, my only fit surroundings the frigid hinterlands of hell which I now entered.”

He has become worse than those he feels must be destroyed.

Will he himself be unhinged, unbound, unfit?

Brian W. Aldiss is a huge fan of the novel Frankenstein. He ”has argued that it should be considered the first true science fiction story because, in contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character ‘makes a deliberate decision’ and ’turns to modern experiments in the laboratory’ to achieve fantastic results.” He certainly felt respect, maybe mingled with a bit of lust, for Mary Wollstonecraft, which I find to be charming and only slightly pervy that he fulfilled a sexual fantasy in fiction through a surrogate character. I wish that Aldiss had developed the interactions with Shelley and Byron more thoroughly. They are such dynamic, fascinating characters that I felt shorted by the drive-by moments that they appeared in the novel. It reminded me of how much I enjoyed Tim Power’s book The Stress of Her Regard

Interesting concept, so interesting in fact that I wanted more. I felt the idea of the book was sold short and could have been a terrific book if Aldiss had drilled down deeper into the thoughts and feelings this situation inspired. Recommended for fans of Frankenstein and his monster.

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One Strange and Magical Year

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I know I'm Johnny-come-lately on the Bill Bryson bandwagon, but I am fast becoming a full-fledged fanclub member!

Honestly, I'd read just about anything that dude wrote. In fact, if I can convince him to write my obituary, I'm going to throw myself in front of a bus the first chance I get just so I can read it!

The title of One Summer: America, 1927 explains pretty clearly what's between the covers. And oh boy, what a whole heck of a lot happened that year! Here's some of the highlights >>>

Charles Lindbergh's historic flight across the Atlantic


The Great Mississippi Flood

The worst national disaster in U.S. history at the time, affected well over half a million people.

The advent of television


First real talkie, The Jazz Singer

Brings about the sudden death of silent films.

President Calvin Coolidge

Least hard working US President of all time.

Babe Ruth broke the current home run record


Lindbergh's story and that of flight in general takes up a large portion of this book. Babe Ruth and the Yankees also feature prominently. The tragic trial of Sacco and Vanzetti is discussed at length. But it's not just a book about the historic events of '27 or a relating of the principle players and their doings, but rather an all-era-encompassing work that takes in the broad epic of America's strange, exciting, dangerous, and in the very least, interesting happenings.

Bryson is a great storyteller. Here he does an excellent job in putting the reader into the time and place, giving you a feel for the general undercurrent of the people, the importance of an occurrence and its aftermath.

But it's not all about 1927. What led up to the big happenings that year are just as important to the greater understanding of the thing, and Bryson sets the table admirably. He also placates the curious by giving us the epilogue of the major players and events of this time, so the reader gets that comforting closure.

All in all, One Summer is a very satisfying way to endure a history lesson!


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Everything's Out to Kill Bryson

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love Bill Bryson. Yep, it's a full-blown, one-sided bromance. Bryson could write a book about the history of the individual rooms within the typical house and I would love it (he did and I did)! So, when I discovered he'd written about his experiences while traveling Australia, I knew I'd found my next good read!

In a Sunburned Country takes in the Land Down-Under, from today traveling all the way back to its earliest historical findings. You expect and get a look at modern Australia, its UK-convict days, Sydney and other cities, the bush, the outback, and the plight, trials and importance of the aborigines.

All of the above also comes with a healthy dose of Bryson humor. It's self-deprecating, it's consciously delusional for comedy's sake, it's honest and it gives me the chuckles. I appreciate that he puts himself in awkward situations and really enjoy his description of scenes in which he is a participating victim. Australia has countless ways to kill a person, what with all its deadly animals, so there's plenty of opportunity for hair-raising hilarity, especially considering Bryson's the sort of guy who could get himself savaged by a hedgehog.

Fun is fun and all, but in the end this book is about the learning, so if you have an interest in learning more about Australia I couldn't recommend another book more highly. The author has a love for learning, as well as the subject at hand, so the reader is treated to a veritable love-fest spewed all over the pages of In a Sunburned Country!

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Doctor Strange, Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment

Doctor Strange, Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment by Roger Stern
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Every Midsummer's Eve, Doctor Doom tries to rescue his mother's soul from hell and every year he fails. This time, he has Doctor Strange in tow. Will the two of them be successful? Let's find out!

Back in the day, I read a Fantastic Four annual in which Doctor Doom tried to use Franklin Richards against Mephisto to free the soul of his mother. When I found out about the existence of this graphic novel, I became intrigued... then forgot about it until a couple weeks ago.

The story starts out promisingly. Doctor Strange is summoned to the Temple of the Three where he battles other sorcerers for the title of Sorcerer Supreme and winds up forced to give Doctor Doom a boon. Strange instructs Doom in the magic arts for a few weeks and they head down to hell.

I'm happy to say that this graphic novel by Roger Stern and Mike Mignola does a great job standing the test of time. Stern's writing is way ahead of the curve for the time period and Mignola was heading down the artistic trail that would lead him to creating Hellboy years later. Mignola's hellish vistas resemble Steve Ditko's without being an outright copy and his depiction of Mephisto in his true form knocks the ball out of the park.

Triumph and Torment also had enough twists to keep it interesting, far from the two guys punching each other it could have easily devolved into.

Also contained in this volume were two stories containing seeds for this tale. One was from an issue of Astonishing Tales that depicted one of Doom's failed attempts to rescue his mother. The other was a Doctor Strange tale where Doctor Doom considered filling the vacancy left by Clea and becoming Strange's disciple. Neither were essential but gave the plot of the main story a little more depth. As opposed to the two Namor tales in the collection that had little to do with the story other than being drawn by Mignola.

Since I suspect a lot of people will be giving Doctor Strange a shot based on the upcoming Cumberbatch-fest, this would be a good tale to read to see Strange in his element. Four out of five stars.

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