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Abbott by Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä, and Jason Wordie

Impressions

Not quite reviews, I talk about books I read and enjoyed.

Abbott by Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä, and Jason Wordie

Abbott is about a black woman reporter in 1972 Detroit, who investigates a series of murders of an otherworldly nature.

It is excellent.

The tone is both true to its time (from what I’ve heard, as I’m neither from Detroit nor Black nor old enough to have been alive in 1972.)

Abbott doesn’t take any crap from anyone, and at the same time she has her weaknesses and flaws. Her supporting cast and her enemies are not as deeply fleshed-our as the main character, but considering that this book represents only five comics, that’s not a significant concern.

The story is excellent, the art is dynamic and detailed, and the combination makes for a compelling experience. As with all comics, the end of the comic is not the resolution of the main source of conflict, but that’s good, because it may signal more to comic. I hope that Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä, and Jason Wordie return to this world to give us another glimpse.

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Day 337: conflicting feelings on ore

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 337:

I’m using the best of the ore – the granite, andesite, and diorite – to make the walls and ceilings of my chambers. Normally there’s no way I’d use such good stuff, but the exploding giraffe-corgis blow right through almost everything else I put out there.

So it feels really weird to be going back to my base, where I’m storing all this extremely valuable stone, to go build a wall.

On the other hand, this stuff isn’t valuable at home because it’s saving lives, it’s valuable because a bunch of rich idiots want marble space stations. So maybe I’m actually giving the stone back a bit of its dignity?

Can stone have dignity?

Exploding giraffe-corgis certainly don’t have any.

My diamond-like helmet broke so I’m getting by with leather right now, wondering if it’s worth digging deep into the area I’m in right now to see if I can find more diamond. I miss having access to better equipment. Then again, I miss not needing a damned helmet to protect myself from archer skeletons.

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The Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide Volume 5 edited by Corie Weaver and Sean Weaver

Impressions

Not quite reviews, I talk about books I read and enjoyed.

Disclaimer: as y’all know, I’m one of the 24 authors. So let me tell you a little about the other 23 stories, because damn this is a good book.

First of all, many science fiction subgenres are represented here. There’s steampunk (and wild west steampunk), battles, space ships, hard sci-fi (Main Character against their environment mostly), soft sci-fi (learning to learn, learning to trust, etc.), space dragons, LOTS of robots, and terraforming, just to name a few.

There’s a story based on Oliver Twist in here, people. Middle-grades sci-fi Oliver Twist.

Lest you think it’s all light fun and games, know that while these stories are written for middle-grade readers and up, the collection tackles some universal topics. There are stories that will make you think about long-term effects of racism or ableism. There are stories that will make you think about loneliness, about death of a family member, about working together in the depth of tragedy.

And there’s also a story of a mechanical monkey stealing a valise, so it’s also not a book I’d call gloomy or too heavy.

In fact, one of the things I love about this book is that pretty much every story ends on an up note. There are plenty of things to think about, yes, but our heroes and heroines succeed. (Well maybe not Pluto.) (It’s not a spoiler when the planet was demoted in 2006!)

As always I am honored to be included around such wonderful stories, but believe you me I’d be reading this thing even if I wasn’t published in it. The Young Explorers Adventure Guides are so good a friend’s non-sci-fi kid devours them every year. I took a copy into work and it disappeared off the swap shelf immediately. This is a good book.


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Day 336: Tree trimming

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 336:

Finally a sunny day, except if you’re under this giant mess of trees. I’ve cut down two huge trees so far, being shot at by skeletons pretty much the whole time.

I don’t really enjoy that part.

I have to admit it’s nice to be out in the sun. I’m definitely the kind of person who can be perfectly happy in a cave for days on end, but there’s something to be said for sunlight and warmth and vitamin D.

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Reviews / Impressions of stuff I’ve read in 2018

Impressions•Meta

Not quite reviews, I talk about books I read and enjoyed.

A quick note – I’m moving some of my reviews from Goodreads / Amazon of the things I’ve read this year over to this site, so while the actual site will thread these into the right date order because I’m adjusting the dates to match, y’all may be seeing more than the usual volume of tweets / facebook updates. Happy vacation!