Category: Reviews of Books
People say when you want to change your life, you need to think big: swap job, move house, change partner. But they’re wrong. World-renowned habits expert James I read this for a book club that I’m participating in through my local PMI chapter, unfortunately there were only two of us that participated in the meeting, but we had a great conversation about the book. I had my concerns about how dry I was expecting the book to be, but author James Clear really made an excellent collection of narratives and stories to go along with the basic principals for iterative...
New costume? Check. Superhero mentor? Check. Government conspiracy to cover up the End of the World? Uh… check? Luke Gillis is barely dragging himself through college. Of course, if he wrote term papers the way he thrashed bank robbers, he’d probably be a doctor by now. His mentor is the Miracle Worker. Yes, that Miracle Worker. Some say he’s more outlaw than hero, but beggars can’t be choosers. Still, Luke must be doing something right. The U.S. Army has invited his alter ego–the dashing speedster Spitball–on a top-secret mission. With the country’s premier superhero team missing-in-action, this could be his...
The USS Khai Tam Technical Orientation Manual is your complete guide to the galaxy’s first jointly designed Federation-Klingon starship. True story this is the “home ship” of the local Star Trek fan club that I belong to, not that they make it easy to find them, they don’t actually mention my home town on their website or facebook group and don’t even mention that they’re a Trek fan group. The international association at the head of the entire organization uses a starship based naming scheme with every group having their own Home Ship, the USS Khai Tam being the name...
Myth by Name. Villain by Nature. Hero by Choice. A fight between a second-generation superhero named Red Bolt and a villain-for-hire named Icarus goes terribly wrong, resulting in the drowning deaths of three innocent civilians and orphaning a six-year-old boy. Racked with guilt, Red Bolt visits Cameron Wilson at the hospital every night and won’t leave the boy’s side until he falls asleep. Befriended by a night-shift nurse, the man in costume begins to disclose what really happened after the fight—and why he feels the deaths of Cameron’s parents and sister fall on his actions. A superhero didn’t survive that...
Who are the 3 Valkyries? Wearing ancient Viking masks that confer upon them the powers of different Norse gods, they are teenaged metahumans pledged to take up challenges lesser mortals dare not face. In their first exciting adventure, Thora the Thunderer, Ravenwing and Bifrost brave the dangers of Yellowstone National Park to hunt a three-eyed monster called the Trinoculus—but how can they defeat a creature whose very nearness sucks the life out of any who approach it? From the author of Doc Savage, and the creator of Squirrel Girl! Either this book was targeted to young readers and it was...
While we live, the enemy shall fear us. Since she was born, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the majoda their victory over humanity. They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to Nursery to bear sons until...
IF YOU’VE SEEN WHAT’S OUT THERE… IT’S ALREADY TOO LATE Malorie raises the children the only way she can: indoors, with the doors locked, the curtains closed, and mattresses nailed over the windows. The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall, but soon she will have to wake them and blindfold them. Today they will risk everything. Today they will leave the house. Josh Malerman’s New York Times bestselling Bird Box is a terrifying psychological thriller that will haunt you long after reading. Bird Box is a quick read, it only took me a couple nights of reading before...
When the Hale-Bopp soared across the sky in 1997, Amy Rose thought it was the start of an amazing new future. Instead, it brought news of a horrible tragedy at the Heaven’s Gate compound just down the road. Amy had always known there was something off about the community she grew up in. I bought this under the assumption that the marketing material that mentioned this young girl lived with a cult that fully believed the happenings of Star Trek had actually happened in some way meant that Trek was going to be more than just a one panel side...
In the tradition of the greatest cyberpunk novels, Blood Music explores the imminent destruction of mankind and the fear of mass destruction by technological ad The author of this passed back in November of 2022 and at the time I think I had read one or two of his books previously, but there were a whole truck load of people saying that this was one of his best works, which I’m not sure I entirely agree with. The concept is absolutely bonkers and super interesting, but the implementation of it feels like an undercooked pizza that would have been delicious...
Jonathan DeVane must assemble a rag-tag team of misfits in an attempt to stop a devastating attack on Earth by malevolent alien raiders called “Astrals“. Can DeVane and his pack of underdogs find salvation in each other, and overcome the demons of their sordid pasts long enough to save the world? I picked this up at a recent comic book convention based on a some of the promo art that was at the author’s table. I was able to get the book and a art card signed by him and his producer, which the card is going to live in...
A thrilling untold adventure based on the acclaimed Star Trek: Picard TV series!Following the explosive events seen in season one of Star Trek: Picard, Raffi Musiker finds herself torn between returning to her old life as a Starfleet Intelligence officer or something a little more tame—teaching Following in the foot steps of most of the other “Star Trek: Picard” novels, this story doesn’t follow Picard at all, he’s more of a book end character and one of the supporting characters from the show are the main stars in the books. In this case it’s Raffi who gets the spotlight and...
Amethyst, one of the most renowned and mysterious costumed heroes of Super City, is found dead on a rooftop. Detectives Milewski and Alvarado of the Super City Police Department are assigned to the… After I was done with the “Wearing The Cape” series I was hungry for more superhero stories and there was a Story Bundle of super hero stories and I recognized several of the authors, it even included the first Wearing The Cape book, so I knew it was at least an OK bundle. This one is by Keith R.A. DeCandido, an author that’s actually met at a...
A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon — and America itself — in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.George I was able to read this in just a single 2 or 3 hour sitting, though I have plans to go back through it and letting the art work soak in. While it wasn’t a difficult book to read, it was still a difficult story to hear. We had done this a few time prior to the internment of...
Captain Michael Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery are finding that each day is a critical adjustment to their new lives and new missions in an Alpha Quadrant more than nine hundred years in the future. It’s here that Discovery is reconnecting with various worlds where the cataclysmic event known as “the Burn” has decimated Starfleet and, with it, the United Federation of Planets. There’s been precious little time for the crew to truly come to terms with their present reality, as their devotion to duty hides the emotional stress that could impact their effectiveness, and even threaten...
Armed with Buffy’s broken scythe, Willow has entered another dimension and begun a quest to somehow, someway, against all odds, bring magic back to Earth. She m It’s been a very long while since I checked back in on the Buffy verse, this mini series was a $1 bin steal a couple weeks ago. It’s set during the story continuation that they did after the show was canceled and well before they rebooted absolutely everything a couple years ago. I don’t know if I ever wrote about that, but the entire thing felt off and I didn’t really dig it....
Clark Kent struggles with a book he’s writing while Superman takes on a garbage problem from Lex Luthor. I pulled this from the $1 bin at my local comic shop and it’s worth at least that much to read just once, there’s some great art and a story that’s pretty different from the Superman stuff we’re getting lately. He’s a more grounded character, with a more grounded supporting cast and the story is far slower than a modern book at well, with some space left for the story to properly develop. The Lex Luthor portion of the story is pretty...
Repercussions ended with victory, at a cost. A Sentinel is dead, Megaton lies grievously injured, and Astra is no longer a member of the Sentinels, America’s premier cape-team. Beyond the personal consequences, both the US and Europe must recover from crippling attacks. Now Astra and her Joyeuse Guard must find their footing in the world after the Chicago and Brussels Attacks. Mal deals with an unexpected complication to his recovery. A journalist is invited to ride along with the new team. Ozma and the rest pursue their campaign to liberate Oz. Santa Claus comes to all the towns. Shell and...
Celebrate the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the STAR TREK franchise with this all-new adventure! At the edge of explored space, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise come face to face with a new Klingon threat… with the fate of the galaxy at stake! Also includes the Klingon Language version of issue #1! Having an entire issue of the series in Klingon is a neat gimmick, but even as deep as I am into Trek, I still don’t know how to read a single word in the language. “Manifest Destiny” is a Kelvinverse story with a focus on...
The heroes are on vacation. Really. The wedding of Dane and Annabeth (Danabeth) is over, the team has caught their villain-of-the-month, and Hope thinks everyone deserves a break from the cycle of training and public-relations appearances. So except for Ozma and Grendel (who’ve decided to return to adventures in Oz) they’re all enjoying the sand and the sun in Littleton, the safest secret community in the world.But then Shell vanishes—her quantum-neural link with Hope and Shelly severed—and Ozma and Grendel return with ominous warnings that something is happening back in Chicago. As the Young Sentinels race to return home, the...
In the 11th millennium of the rule of the Eternal Empress a squad of planet-smashing super soldiers find their routine mission to be anything but. These are the Set in a universe that reminds me GREATLY of the Warhammer 40k universe with a Eternal Empress on the throne and “Forged” soldiers based off her DNA that has abilities and mech suits out fighting the filth of the galaxy. Don’t get me wrong though, this is a GOOD series that I highly suggest to anyone that wants to read some large format comics that really kick into high gear in the...
Written and created by Howard Chaykin. A crime fighter is genetically engineered to be a super-hero – but when the test goes awry and he doesn’t have the super-hero qualities needed, he has to be teamed up with a former CIA agent who is the brains behind the duo. One gets all the glory while one has all the power. I picked up this mini series from the dollar bin at a local shop because I’m interested in super hero stories from defunct companies and universes. The Malibu publisher’s mark interested me, but I should have paid more attention to...
A bold new chapter for STAR TREK begins here, in an all-new series that shows you what life is like for cadets at the galaxy’s greatest school! Witness the student days of the iconic cast before they joined the Enterprise! Plus, meet an all-new group of students as they embark on bold new adventures of their own! The first new characters in the STAR TREK movie universe make their mark here. A beautifully drawn cross generational story of a mysterious signal that is at first discounted by the powers that be, then investigated by a new class at the academy....
The Man of Steel must find a way to free planet Earth from the clutches of aliens from outer space. This story is pure 80’s cheese, as only John Byrne could do at the time, with a group of space men on the moon witnessing aliens steal the “earth moon system” to feed it into a remote world eating furnace to fuel an alien civilization that’s just barely holding on. Of course Superman being so super was able to save all of humanity by using his wits, strength, and the power of friendship. After everyone got back home they agreed...
Written by STAN LEE Pencils and Cover by JOHN ROMITA JR. Legendary writer and Fantastic Four co-creator Stan Lee unites with artist John Romita Jr. to tell his final story of the team that started the Marvel age! A perfectly enjoyable FF story that feels like a classic Stan Lee adventure with the gorgeous and appropriate art by John Romita Jr. The story itself revolves around a seemingly unstoppable force that’s arrived at Earth to inform humanity that it’s time is up, like a much more decided alien from “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. There’s a classic Stan Lee...
Ever since their world-shattering war ended, the slumbering mecha called ‘Giga’ have been both gods and habitats for the surviving humans. Then disgraced engineer Evan Calhoun discovers a murdered Giga, and the very fabric of society stars unraveling around him. This was a monthly series until issue #5, which took 8 months to come out and as the final issue it was good enough that I can recommend the story as it is right now. I had completely forgotten that I was even getting the series though and I didn’t know that the fifth issue was even out, so I...
It’s been just weeks since the state funeral for the Sentinels, Atlas, Ajax, and Nimbus, lost in the Whittier Base Attack. Astra, Hope, is recovered from her own injuries. At least physically. Mentally . . . not so much, but she feels ready to actively wear the cape again. Which is good since, between the revelation of her short-lived relationship with Atlas (nine years her senior) and her virally pungent public comments on the current political debate over breakthrough registration (the National Public Safety Act), she needs to raise her profile. But she’s better now, steady, ready for anything.Or is...
FROM THE CREATOR OF TV’S THE GOLDBERGS! Marvel’s Unsung Heroes finally get sung! After the mega-powered battles and Hulk-level catastrophes, Damage Control is always there to clean up the mess and get things back to normal. But Damage Control is much more than just a glorified cleanup crew, and this new series will pull back the curtain and reveal the secret inner workings that were previously only available to people with Clearance Level Eight. And we’ll witness it all through the eyes of Gus: a fresh-faced, eager newcomer to the company who has no idea how chaotic his life is...
Astra was done traveling, or so she thought. Benched for physical rehab and retraining, she’s in LA dating movie stars (not as fun as you might think) when the Department of Superhuman Affairs asks for help catching a superhuman serial killer. When what should be a simple job develops…complications, she finds herself catapulted into another reality—one with its own history and superheroes! As her teammates scramble to find out where she’s gone and what’s become of her, Astra embarks on a cross-world journey in search of a way home. It’s going to be a long trip.Team-Ups and Crossovers follows Astra...
PLAYING A DESPERATE GAME.Astra has returned to Chicago and the everyday life of a cape: getting kittens out of trees, training, aiding the city’s emergency first-responders, training, doing public relations events, training, and the occasional superhero v. supervillain fight that threatens to level neighborhoods or at least set them on fire.Then Astra takes a hard hit during a fight and very briefly finds herself somewhere else, somewhere she’s only been before in dreams and in the company of Kitsune, a shapeshifting trickster fox. Astra’s friends learn she is under the increasing influence of an otherworldy realm they know absolutely nothing...
Astra has become one of the most popular Sentinels in Chicago, past scandals notwithstanding, and is now the team leader of the Young Sentinels. But on their first big solo outing, the new junior Sentinels fall into a new scandal—one which could cost them the team. And Astra has a dream visit from Kitsune, the odd shapeshifter-thief who precipitated the battle between the Sentinels and Villains Inc. the year before. The dream warns of a fresh disaster, in a town Astra has never seen before and that may not actually exist.Astra’s efforts to find the town from her dream leads...
“Batman in Barcelona: Dragon’s Knight”: When a string of bizarre murders hits Spain’s beautiful coastal city of Barcelona, Batman makes solving this crime his top priority. Batman in Barcelona: Dragon’s Knight is a one-shot with a cover date of May, 2009. It was published on March 27, 2009. When… Batman goes to Barthalona to find killer croc. Spoilers: he finds him and beats him senseless. Buy On Amazon!
TALES OF THE EWOKS! On the moon of Endor occupied by the species called Ewoks, a group of these stout creatures has gathered around the fire to recount tales of triumph, defeat…and horror! In the art-forward manner of storytelling, watch an eclectic group of artists interpret the stories from the unique minds of Ewoks in a manner only they can envision! This can’t-miss issue for Star Wars fans of mirth, merriment and artistry is the book you’ve been craving! A one shot comic with no dialogue at all, but that cover spoke to me: an ewok with the flames of...
The reward for a job well done is another job. After the Sentinels’ takedown of the second incarnation of Villains Inc., things are relatively quiet in the great metropolis of Chicago. Astra, aka Hope Corrigan, is able to breathe a little, to hang out with her friends, and even to attend classes (where her professors are starting to think she is a myth). But Blackstone is loading more training and responsibilities on her, and converging events threaten the compromises she has made to balance her superhero career and student life and to protect her family and friends. Worse, a new...
It was supposed to be a working vacation… For Jacky Bouchard (aka, Artemis: vampire, former night-stalking dark avenger, and reluctant superhero), a trip to the Big Easy was a chance to solidify her new Bouchard identity, meet the grandmother she didn’t know she had, and do a favor for the New Orleans Police Department by helping them keep an eye on their local vampires. Watching a bunch of fashion-obsessed goths with fangs should have been easy, but now she’s dressing in black and sleeping in a coffin even though living the whole Fiend of The Night stereotype makes her want...
FIGHTING THE FUTURE. Astra has finished her training and is now a full-fledged Sentinel, but things are not going well. She suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the public revelation of her relationship with Atlas has caused her popularity to nose-dive.To complicate things, the Teatime Anarchist’s intervention has changed the course of events–leaving her with lots of knowledge about the way the future was before the Big One, a complete future-history that is now out of date. And just when she thinks she’s getting a handle on things, unfolding events (a bank-robbery and a horrific murder) show that one of...
WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO? Hope did, but she grew out of it. Which made her superhuman breakthrough in the Ashland Bombing, just before starting her freshman year at the University of Chicago, more than a little ironic. And now she has some decisions to make. Given the code-name “Astra” and invited to join the Sentinels, Chicago’s premier super-team, will she take up the cape and mask and become a career superhero? Or will she get a handle on her new powers (super-strength has some serious drawbacks) and then get on with her life-plan?In a world where superheroes join...
All his life, Hank Cho wanted to join the ranks of the Habsec – the rulers of the orbital habitat his people call home. But when he finds a powerful, forbidden weapon from the deep past, a single moment of violence sets his life – and the brutal society of the habitat – into upheaval. Hunted by the cannibalistic Habsec and sheltered by former enemies, Cho finds himself caught within a civil war that threatens to destroy his world. A fun journey with lots of back story to soak in, I’ve love to see more of this universe to find...
The Enterprise-D Crew embarks on a new five-part adventure in this fantastic hardback book brought to you by the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection!Published one year after IDW’s STAR TREK: TNG: The Space Between, the creators of Klingons: Blood Will Tell deliver brand new TNG missions.Follo I didn’t enjoy this story as much as I had hoped I would, the four separate storylines that all culminated in a transdimensional rift alien confrontation just felt weird when I looked at the details too closely. From the Tardis holodeck to the seemingly unrelated assassinations, how did these all end up being planned by a Romulan that knew he might need...
Delve deeper into the world of Star Trek with special one-shot stories focusing on the memorable alien species! At no point in any of the solicitations for this book did they mention it was a reprint of three books: Star Trek: Klingons Star Trek: Trill Star Trek: Ferengi All three of these are great stories that I haven’t read before, but I think I would have preferred reading them in floppy form instead of a omnibus collection. None of the stories are related to each other in any way, with different writers, story styles, art styles, or even story purpose....
An all-new novel based on the landmark TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from the acclaimed author of A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe! Jadzia Dax has been a friend to Etom Prit, the Trill Trade Commissioner, over two lifetimes. A well done look into some pretty zany Trill backstories, all of which seem to involve the Dax symbiote in some way or another. This is a follow up to a couple plot lines introduced in the television show, one about how more Trill were eligible for implantation and one about a hidden and murderous past...
When an experimental shuttlecraft fails, Captain Christopher Pike suspects a mechanical malfunction—only to discover the very principles on which Starfleet bases its technology have simply stopped functioning. He and his crewmates are forced to abandon ship in a dangerous maneuver that scatters thei This is is one of the best Trek books that I’ve read in a while, with no offense intended towards the other ones that have come and gone. I’m somewhat surprised that I had such a great experience with it, as I recently read “Rogue Elements” and hated nearly everything about it, and both of them were...
The USS Enterprise has been granted the simple but unavoidable honor of ferrying key guests to Betazed for a cultural ceremony. En route, sudden tragedy strikes a Federation science station on the isolated planet Kota, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard has no qualms sending William Riker, Data, and Chief If you were to tell me that this was based on an unaired script for a few episodes, I’d believe it. There’s three distinct stories going on, one on Batazed, one on a potential colony planet during a survey, and one tracking down some stolen goods. All three are decent stories, but the one...
More than two centuries after World War III poisoned the planet, the final bastion of humanity lives on massive airships circling the globe in search of a habitable area to call home. Aging and outdated, most of the ships plummeted back to earth long ago. The only thing keeping the two surviving lifeboats in the sky are Hell Divers–men and women who risk their lives by skydiving to the surface to scavenge for parts the ships desperately need. When one of the remaining airships is damaged in an electrical storm, a Hell Diver team is deployed to a hostile zone...
In a desperate attempt to prevent the artificial intelligence known as Control from seizing crucial information that could destroy all sentient life, Commander Michael Burnham donned the “Red Angel” time-travel suit and guided the USS Discovery into the future and out of harm’s way. Starts off slow and in a manner that’s exceptionally similar to something that actually happened on the TV show, I think I need to rewatch season 4 in order to properly contextualize the meetings that Burnham has. I say it starts slow, but it definitely doesn’t stay that way, as this is more like a series...
Salvage vessel Cortes tracks the Lonely Orphan, a planet with no star system to call its own. Somewhere on this hostile rock is a payload fit for a king. To attain it, though, the crew of the Cortes must brave razor rock, poisonous vapors, treacherous footing, and… the most mind-numbing horrors imaginable. Struggling to stay alive, they are beset at every turn by horrors from their own nightmares. Now, they have discovered that they are not alone on the planet, and the other inhabitants welcome them… as sacrifices to an elder god. Stranded on a vicious, murderous, seemingly intelligent planet,...
A decade ago, 300,000 citizens of Philadelphia were suddenly lost in Oblivion. The government made every attempt to recover them, but after many years, they gav I stopped buying single comics that didn’t have “Star Trek” in their title right as this series was wrapping up and I just finally got the time to read through the final couple issues, and boy howdy do I wish I had stuck with the series when it was being published, just so I could have taken part in the discussions that were happening at the time about the resolution of the story. It...
From the pages of the AHOY interactive sensation STEEL CAGE! Penultiman, The Next-To-Last-Stage In Human Evolution, is the greatest, best-looking, and most admired super-hero in the world! So how can he stop hating himself? His android understudy, Antepenultiman, thinks he knows the answer! Created by Tom Peyer (THE WRONG EARTH) and Alan Robinson (PLANET OF THE NERDS). As with most books that nether overwhelm, nor underwhelm, I don’t have a ton to say about this series about a super hero that’s been kicked back to our more primitive time period from a far future where he was created by mistake...
Ten years after they landed. All over the world. And they did nothing, standing on the surface of the Earth like trees, exerting their silent pressure on the world, as if there were no-one here and nothing under foot. Ten years since we learned that there is intelligent life in the universe, but that they did not recognize us as intelligent or alive. Being a comic book fan sometimes means that you don’t get the full story that the creators intended, and I guess as much as the world loves Warren Ellis, that same world didn’t care for his “aliens...
Told through the eyes of Starship Trooper Johnny Rico, Robert A. Heinlein’s classic story of war and warriors is set 5000 years in the future. Not sure why I felt like I needed to reach this again, other than it popped up to the top of my Kindle list for some reason. It’s still one of the best military science fiction stories with nearly a third of the book taking place in boot camp and really only having a single real combat story element, but it’s tightly written and the world is so well made that I didn’t even notice...
Nadia, an assistant EMT for a privately-owned business known as Trauma Team International, is the sole survivor of a failed rescue mission turned shootout. Afte After watching the anime from Netflix, I’m somewhat more interested in this universe. The Trauma Team plays heavy in both the show and this book, and it’s a unique concept to me: a military extraction team that can stabilize a patient and put plenty of lead down range. Of course it’s framed as a failure of the capitalist society that Cyberpunk 2077 exists in, but it’s still a novel idea that has legs. Buy On...
