Reading a good book — nobody will be surprised to hear I think this — is one of the most purest pleasures in this life, and Alexandra Natapoff’s Punishment without Crime is so so so good that I kept having to reschedule things in order to keep reading it. Natapoff is looking at the misdemeanor offenses that make up a massive percentage of the US criminal system. She examines the many ways the misdemeanor system violates the dignity and rights of those caught up in its net, and proposes solutions to ensure that all citizens receive justice. I can’t say…
1 CommentCategory: 5 Stars
Some of you may recall Heidi Heilig from her previous duology, TIME TRAVELING PIRATES (also known as The Girl from Everywhere and The Ship Beyond Time), and she has returned with a whole new series that won my heart before I ever began it by including music and script pages and letters as well as the straightforward narrative. For a Muse of Fire is about a girl called Jetta whose family is the most renowned troupe of shadow players in Chakrana. She and her parents hope to use their art to gain passage on a boat to Aquitan, where it…
Leave a CommentFriends, I am very, very choosy about my “Beauty and the Beast” retellings. To the best of my recollection, the only one that I have ever loved is Robin McKinley’s Beauty.1 I liked Uprooted, but I loved it best when it was doing things other than retelling “Beauty and the Beast.” I hear good things about W. R. Gingell’s Masque, but I am not pinning my hopes on it. So when I tell you that I was blown away by Aliette de Bodard’s novella In the Vanishers’ Palace, a queer retelling of “Beauty and the Beast,” I want you to…
Leave a CommentDo you miss Eva Ibbotson? Do you weep softly into your handkerchief that she has died and we will never have another one of her books? Do you want to love Eva Ibbotson but she hates fat people too much? BOY DO I HAVE A BOOK REC FOR YOU. (Castle Hangnail is so cute (but not saccharine!) that I’m going to write the summary in short declarative sentences. If I try to make you read longer sentences about Castle Hangnail‘s plot, the adorability will be too much for you and you will die in the middle.) Castle Hangnail and its…
1 CommentI typically don’t review any of the academic nonfiction that I read here on the old blog, for a couple reasons: Sometimes I am reading it for writing research, and I feel weird talking on here about my creative writing. For whatever reason. Probably deep feelings of inadequacy. Let’s not dwell. Often it is very boring to people who are not me. I don’t want y’all to know how many books I read about the aftermaths of historical atrocities. A lot of academic nonfiction is inaccessible unless you have credentials with a university library; so a lot of folks wouldn’t…
Leave a CommentMy project of reading 15% comics this year proceeds apace, and I have taken the opportunity to catch up on The Wicked + the Divine. One of the issues (ha ha ISSUES geddit it’s a COMICS PUN oh we have fun, my friends) with following a longterm comic is that you never feel resolved. There are always ongoing story lines, and you are waiting for years and years to see how any of the plots turn out. So I am happy to bring you, the discerning comics reader, a good jumping-off point for The Wicked + the Divine. Stand by.
The premise of The Wicked + the Divine is a little strange, so bear with me. Once every ninety years, twelve gods become manifest on earth, taking over the bodies of twelve humans. They have a variety of supernatural powers; they are loved and famous; and within two years, they all will die. Our protagonist is teenager Laura Wilson, who wants nothing more than to be around the Pantheon at any cost. Also, someone is murdering gods.
If you are interested in The Wicked + the Divine based on what I’ve just said, but nervous about the comics problem I mentioned in the first paragraph, I can wholeheartedly recommend the first four volumes of this title. The fourth volume, Rising Action, wraps up the major storylines that we’ve been following since the first issue, and then you can be on break until the next arc wraps up. (You probably won’t want to, though, because this comic is really fucking good.)
Writer Kieron Gillen and author Jamie McElvie have worked together on a number of projects before, including a run on Young Avengers, and they’re a well-oiled machine. The third volume of WicDiv has guest artists (presumably to cut McElvie a break because good God drawing a monthly comic seems like a lot of work), and they are all talented people, but there’s just a really great marriage of writing and art when these two dudes are working together. The character design is great, and each volume opens with cameo pictures of the major players (which I always appreciate because I’m a goldfish for faces) so you won’t forget who’s who.
(Has anyone here read Phonogram? Would I like it?)
If you do decide to continue past the fourth trade paperback, there’s a special issue mocked up like a magazine that is just a delight. Gillen and McElvie got a series of real journalists to conduct interviews with Gillen in character as various WicDic characters, then write up profiles with those characters. So Laurie Penny interviews Woden, Ezekiel Kweku interviews Amaterasu, and so on. One of the things I love about the comics format is that creators have room to do special issues like this where they take a break from the main story and just play around with characters or worldbuilding.
tl;dr, it’s been a minute since I checked in with The Wicked + the Divine, and I am thrilled to report that it’s still one of the weirdest, best-plotted comics out there. Much recommended.
A spoiler here follows under the cut.
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