Review: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm fairly disappointed in "Understanding Comics." In the best lit course I ever took, we read the second chapter, "The Vocabulary of Comics," and it was a mind-blowing read that has shaped the way I read comics since. Unfortunately, it's easily the best chapter in the book and only two or three other chapters are anywhere near as fascinating. The meat of the book is in a few central chapters, and the rest is insubstantial fluff about how amazing comics are - or could be, if the medium were taken seriously. It's also clearly dated. While comics are still looked down upon and not generally treated as equal to written literature, the genre has gained a significant amount of prestige in the past twenty years, so McCloud's frequent protestations against how maligned comics are and his insistence that comics are worth respect are now unnecessary.

Several chapters are certainly worth reading. The aforementioned "Vocabulary of Comics" introduces the basic elements of comics writing and the idea of symbols, signs, and icons. McCloud goes into serious depth about how variation in style can be used to deliberately evoke either distance or empathy with characters, to 'other' or include the reader. The section on panels and the spaces between them is another highlight. Essentially, any time he digs into the structure of comics, how that structure can be used, and how that structure is different from literature and useful in ways that written literature can't match, I'm sold on comics as a medium all over again. When he's waxing eloquent about how amazing comics are, he loses me, because I don't need to be told: I want to be shown. The book starts out strong in this regard while the last several chapters are a bear to get through.

I like his frequent references to important comic artists, stories and styles (and his reproductions), because as someone with little knowledge of the history of comics, those moments do a great job of illustrating his point while simultaneously broadening my knowledge. He disclaims at the beginning that this isn't a history of comics, but I could have used a bit more history nonetheless. Still, he cites some great sources that I immediately read and were great resources in themselves for understanding comics, art, and history.

I also love his efforts to tie comics back to visual sequential art throughout history; it's one of those things you don't think about until it's pointed out to you, and then it makes a world of sense. The book is full of such things and I don't ever tire of them.

Overall, I recommend at least the first half of the book. If you have a bit more patience or indulgence for dated ideology than I do, then the whole thing might be a home run for you.

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Review: Find Me

Find Me by Laura van den Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Find Me" is an ethereal, eerie character piece about displacement. Its post-apocalyptic backdrop that feels almost inconsequential to the story, which focuses on a young woman named Joy and her hazy wandering existence, both in this new world and in the past. It's very much a 'literary' novel doing what a lot of 'literary' novels are doing lately - snatching bits and pieces of the sci-fi genre and weaving them into more mainstream (or prestigious) genres. I like this trend - the more SF the better! - but I'm also a little wary, as authors sometimes try to deny the SF-ness of their writing to keep themselves out of the genre ghetto. Either way, the SF premise drew me in, and while it didn't turn out to be hugely necessary to the story I wasn't disappointed at all (well, at least in terms of genre).

Joy is in a hospital. At first, it's unclear what kind of hospital she's in, or why. Outsiders gather outside, trying to get into the hospital, and no one in the hospital seems ill. Slowly, we discover that all the patients in this hospital are thought to be immune to a plague sweeping America, one that causes amnesia and then death. Joy suspects she's immune because she's already lost the memories that are important to her. She has recently received her first photo of her mother, and there is a curious year of her life in foster care she doesn't remember at all.

Joy eventually leaves this strange hospital and the people she has met there. She runs into the only foster-brother she's ever cared about while wandering the east coast on a series of sketchy long-distance buses. She's searching for her mother, who she believes she identified from TV as a lost-ship-chaser who lives off the shore of Florida.

Nothing in this book is in the foreground. Joy's memory problems and the inconsistency of memory throughout the story constantly displace both event and emotion. Though the story is roughly chronological, life-changing moments happen off-screen and are not referenced until Joy has digested them enough to temper their emotional impact. Thus the tone perpetuates a constant, unchanging level of emotional valence. Often, this deliberate disaffection creates a clashing contrast with the actual events Joy remembers, and the slow, steady grind of emotion becomes a relentless crashing wave of white noise drowning out all the things Joy should be concerned about but ignores with her single-minded goal.

It's an impressive build, but the question for me is: what does it build to, and how does it land? And, unfortunately, the answers are a disappointing 'not much,' and 'no.' I shouldn't have been surprised (and I wasn't, as the novel neared its end and with only pages left Joy was supposedly only moments away from her mother) that a novel that is primarily about lack and uses lack as a literary device displaces the ending beyond the final page of the book. Perhaps this means for the reader that we must understand Joy's journey is not about the destination, but about the getting there, but for Joy herself this isn't even the case. She has undergone a lot and her life has drastically changed, but her primary concern is still finding her mother and she refuses to foreground any of her more immediate problems.

Still, up until the last page, it was engrossing read. I could have used some closure and I feel the story would've benefited from it, but the author clearly disagrees, and I respect that.

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Review: The Liminal People

The Liminal People by Ayize Jama-Everett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Liminal People" was a slim, quick read in the vein of Octavia Butler's Patternmaster series with a slight gritty-superhero vibe.

Taggert's power is healing, but as he says, the best healers are the ones who know how to hurt. In his youth, he dated a woman with powers like his (though she controlled fire), but in the years since he's traveled across Africa healing all those he found, then joined up with a crime lord who also has superpowers. As in Butler's books, the story is largely concerned with power; all of the liminal people have powers that put them above normal humans, but there are superpowers behind the scenes who outrank even Taggert's boss. We see characters form similar relationships - the strong taking others under their wing to 'protect' them but also to use them, people fleeing from that control to form familial bonds with equals, other people squirming at the idea that maybe they must serve one power or another.

At this point, it's been a little over a month since I read the book, and while I felt pretty good about it immediately after reading, it hasn't aged well. Taggert wasn't very compelling. One of the surprise reveals wasn't at all surprising (though I don't know if it was supposed to be surprising for the reader - perhaps just for Taggert). I'm fascinated with bits and pieces of the story, like the drastic change of events after Taggert has dinner with his ex-lover, and the true identity of the power running London. But the story doesn't have much pull beyond those odds and ends. I still may pick up the sequels because the resonance with Butler's work lends this a certain fondness, but I don't love it, and I'm amending my review from 4 to 3 stars.

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Review: Planetes Omnibus, Volume 1

Planetes Omnibus, Volume 1 by Makoto Yukimura
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received a free e-galley copy of this book from Edelweiss.

I'd heard about "Planetes" when I received my e-galley copy, but I hadn't heard much. I had no idea what this book was about, no expectations, and I was honestly pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed everything about it. From the opening scenes the characters, the world, and the style pulled me in. All of the SF anime and manga I've consumed has either been near-future, Earth-based, and often dystopian or cyberpunk (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Akira), or set in the far future when humanity is already living comfortably in space (Knights of Sidonia) - but above all, thematically concerned with human and other, instantiated as humans and the super-human (either superpowered humans or something more alien and more powerful). "Planetes" is unique (to me) in that it's a near-ish future concerned with expansion into space and humans living their lives. There are no giant aliens, no cyborgs, no superhumans, just humanity.

This focus on human life is clear from the opening scenes: a man and his wife are flying in a low-orbit ship across the planet. The wife is nervous, as she always is. The husband moves to the back of the ship to get some coffee, and the entire front end of the ship is destroyed. A few years later, he is part of the three-person crew that are the core characters of the story. Their ship is a garbage collector; they spend their days literally cleaning up after humanity, collecting space debris. This is an important job, though, because the thoughtless, random detritus of human expansion can be deadly, from the largest chunk of space station to the smallest screw. There's Yuri, who is looking for his late wife's compass, Hachimaki, who wants nothing more than to be chosen for the longest space trip ever, a trip to Jupiter, and Fee, who wants nothing more than a good place for a smoke.

Most of the story arcs can stand alone, and many are slice-of-life pieces, but together they build a story that spans several years and chronicles the lives of a crew that grow together and come to depend on each other. I love the character dynamics, especially as the series continues and minor characters blossom. I also very much enjoy the world Yukimura has built (as a side note, I'm impressed that he's both the writer and illustrator for the whole thing). It's a world with moving parts and importance, and a message that comes through pervasively but not overwhelmingly. The art was a slow burn. I didn't love it at first, because I do have a strong preference for color over black and white, but there are some absolutely gorgeous scenes where the blackness of space feels as vast and drowning as it is in reality.

Overall, strongly recommend this collection, and I'll be on the lookout for the second one soon!

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Review: A Guide to Being Born: Stories

A Guide to Being Born: Stories by Ramona Ausubel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am getting way too far behind on my reviews, so I'm going a bit out of order on these. On the blog, you'll notice I've started tagging reviews with months - those are the month the book/story was read, to better keep track. I read "A Guide to Being Born: Stories" immediately after reading "Find Me," by Laura Van Den Berg (review forthcoming), and the two share a lot of immediately striking similarities. (I'm hoping this review will make the other one easier; I have a lot of feelings and no proper words to explain them for "Find Me.")

This was an impulse read, something I found on the library shelf when I was ostensibly there just to pick up some long-planned reads that came in from on hold. This happens a lot to me. It's like going shopping on an empty stomach, only I'm always hungry for more books. It was a quick read, too; I finished it in one sitting.

As the title indicates, it's a book of short stories, many following the theme of birth, life, and death. It shares with "Find Me" a kind of deliberately disaffected, dark curiosity about birth and motherhood that suggests someone trying desperately not to reveal their obsession. In one story, a pregnant woman's husband wakes to find he has empty drawers in his chest. He fills them with significant odds and ends to feel like he contains something important, too. In another, a young woman who finds herself accidentally pregnant can't believe she's actually having a human baby, and instead imagines her child will be any of a variety of animals. The stories oscillate between pointedly oblique - directing your thoughts exactly to one specific place without ever saying it outright - and commandingly, heartwrenchingly plain, laying out exactly the meaning as they grasp your heart by the collar and shove it up against a wall. That is to say, the collection attempts that dichotomy, but often falls short of the emotional strength needed.

The thematic concern with life is emphasized by stories about death and not living life well. One of the stories most vivid in my memory takes place on a boat. Everyone on the boat is a grandmother, and none of them know how they got there. There are many kinds of grandmothers, but all of them are on this boat, and some, in desperation, choose to jump off. Another is about a young girl who plays catch with the ghost of a Civil War soldier. The young girl lives alone in the woods with her mother and grandmother. She thinks she knows a lot about how she was born, but much of it is a lie.

These stories are sweet pastries, easy to consume quickly but perhaps better to chew on slowly, doled out one by one. There's no plot to be found in any of these stories. As with much stereotypical high-literature short fiction, they are mundane slices of life (in this case, mundane turned fantastical). If that's not your thing, this isn't for you, but the collection certainly made for a pleasant evening.

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Review: All the Birds in the Sky

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This week I discovered a curious, and maybe wonderful, thing my local library does. Newly-acquired books with a large number of advance holds go on a "lucky day" special - on their first day in the library, they are put on a special shelf and anyone can check them out, regardless of their hold status. They can keep the book for the typical three weeks, no renewals. I'm not sure how I feel about this, because I'm fanatical about putting holds on upcoming books I want to read many weeks in advance, so I can read them right when they're released, and this feels a bit unfair. On the other hand, it let me skip the line for "All the Birds in the Sky" and gobble it up in a single day, so maybe things even out. (Plus, it lets people who aren't as plugged-in to book publishing get a chance at the new stuff, and gives people a chance for that wondrous thrill that comes when you find a cool new book at the library.)

I've been burned recently by buzzy new SF releases (I'm lookin at you, Barsk). Charlie Jane Anders is the editor in chief at io9, and writes lovely writing-advice articles, this was published by Tor (one of my favorite publishers) - but then, I'd thought some similar things about Barsk. "All the Birds in the Sky" sounded like it would be either amazing or horrible; a cross between fantasy and sci-fi where the main characters are a witch and a super scientist? It's all of my childhood dreams come true - and if childhood me had written down those dreams I'd probably cringe at the result.

But this was fantastic. Anders wove together magic and sci-fi beautifully, constructed world where somehow a woman with vine-y, whimsical, powerful nature magic can co-exist with a nerd wearing a two-second time machine and trying to build a sentient supercomputer in his closet. The relationship between the magic and the science is like two sets of complex, elaborate scaffolding originally intended to build two different skyscrapers but re-purposed to build each other, instead. It works, unbelievably well.

The story begins with our main characters, Patricia and Laurence, as young nerds who don't fit in at their respective schools (and eventually, at the same school). Patricia has spoken to birds and left her body to fly, but her classmates think she's a Satanic emo cutter. Laurence is the youngest person ever to build a two-second time machine, but he uses it mainly to avoid food (and punches) thrown at his face. The two form an adorable bond when Laurence asks Patricia to lie to his parents and pretend she and Laurence do outdoorsy things together all the time. But middle school isn't easy, and Anders doesn't shy away from how imperfect and selfish people can be; when the whole school is mocking Patricia, Laurence pulls back from her, too. They both make an effort to repair their friendship, but end up going their separate ways. Anders writes the children well, capturing the magic of childhood without writing a dull children's story with a moral at the end.

Many years later, when Patricia has finished magic school and Laurence is a respected scientist, they reconnect. The world is slowly going sideways, with increasingly alarming natural disasters coming out of the background and into the foreground of the novel. Their respective high-powered groups of friends are both working on plans in case of the end of the world, but they are somehow at cross-purposes. Laurence's scientists want to help humanity leave the Earth and settle elsewhere while Patricia wants to save the Earth and all the life on it. And Laurence and Patricia, even after their bittersweet, tender, precarious childhood friendship, are clearly headed to a more intimate and potentially more painful relationship.

There is no single element driving Anders' success here. The story is well-crafted, briskly paced and with dramatic (but believable) stakes. The world is mercurial but consistent, fanciful but serious. The cast is full of vibrant, strange, intriguing supporting characters, and I've rarely enjoyed watching two characters fall in love as much as I enjoyed Patricia and Laurence. Anders knows how to write flawed, vulnerable people who are motivated as much by their faults as by their virtues (and vice versa - these people aren't driven by their flaws alone, either), and it's a joy to read.

There are a few missteps. A few scene changes throw you farther into the future than you expect. Patricia has a tragic backstory from her magic school years that doesn't feel as tragic as it should, because the characters involved and the event itself are not given enough weight or time, and because it's referenced far too often before being explained. There are a few (I counted three) instances of dialogue being introduced by 'like,' as in: 'Laurence was like, "Yeah...".' I don't mind this in theory, in appropriate situations, but 'like' is quotative. Using 'like' like that is a marker of introducing an approximation of something someone else said, and doesn't really work unless your narrator is supposed to be a character directly telling the story (and that's not the case). I'm curious as to how these slipped through; they seem to be a deliberate choice, but I would've thought that Anders (who is very keen in her language choice and knows quite a bit about formal versus informal writing) would understand that distinction.

Overall, though, this is a magnificent story. I have to stop myself from gushing about my favorite parts, because I'll spoil far too much, but I'll give some tidbits: there's a magical character who has to live in a sterile environment because he supercharges all natural life and, left unchecked, will instantly grow fungus all over and around him; there are super-tablets in the future that are creepily all-knowing but unlike in The Circle they aren't a harbinger of evil corporate global takeover, but benignly helpful; and the middle school guidance counselor, as every middle schooler knows in their bones, is actually evil. There's room in this world sequels, prequels, spinoffs, and more, but luckily story itself wraps up nicely - not neatly or perfectly, just satisfyingly right for everyone involved, reader and characters alike.

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Review: Rat Queens - Deluxe - Volume One

Rat Queens - Deluxe - Volume One by Kurtis J. Wiebe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received a free e-galley copy of this book from Image Comics.

Why did I wait so long to read Rat Queens?? This ARC has been on my computer for at least a month, probably more. I'd heard about the series last fall, and the local comic store clerk recommended it to me after finding out I liked Image and played D&D. Seriously, though: it's a hilarious, well-drawn, action-packed AND character-driven story about an all-female adventuring party (with some queer action thrown in)! It's everything I've ever dreamed of!

The story opens with the town of Palisade deciding what to do about the rowdy parties of adventurers that, while ostensibly protecting the town, tend to cause a lot of commotion (and property damage). Enter the Rat Queens (through the wall of the building): a beardless dwarf named Violet, a drug-and-women-loving smidgen named Betty, a necromancing elf named Hannah, and a human(?) paladin named Dee who no longer follows her god. The Rat Queens and the rest of the adventurers are sentenced to some boring, run-of-the-mill quests to get them out of jail (and keep out of future trouble), but the missions are quickly revealed to be traps intended to kill them all.

From this fairly standard RPG beginning, it's easy to assume that the story would be cookie-cutter the rest of the way, too - lots of fighting, straightforward quests, lots of dungeons and/or dragons, and not much in terms of character development or world building. Thankfully, this story upends that expectation right away. There's a large, self-contained story in this volume and while the action is certainly thrilling and frequent, it serves mainly as part of a larger story about the relationships between these characters and this town. We get mid-battle flashbacks (due to magical effects) for some origin stories, we get complicated sexual and romantic relationships, we get a sense that this team loves each other deeply and *that* drives the action and the story.

The art is pretty fantastic - a perfect choice for this kind of story. Bold, strong lines, bright colors, and the right kind of detail that reflects and adds to the personality of each character. The artists changed a bit of the way through the series, but I wasn't looking for it, and couldn't tell.

The one drawback to the series is that several times, either due to scene changes or maybe just being slightly dense, I couldn't figure out what the dialogue was referring to. Sometimes flipping back helped, sometimes I was left puzzling and moved on. (For others who have read it, here's one of the points I could still use some clarification on: When Betty tells Hannah she's scared of her black eyes, what is she referring to? I flipped back to the previous scene but I didn't see any obvious eye changes.)

This edition was also lovely, with some extras in the back that riff on the characters and show us some cute extra artwork.

Would highly recommend to anyone who likes D&D, epic fantasy, great stories, and a fun, compelling read!

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