Microreview [book]: Repo Virtual by Corey J White

Corey J White’s Repo Virtual brings a fresh, inclusive and modern spin on Cyberpunk, with the story of a near future heist in South Korea that is far more than it appears

The future city of Neo Songdo in South Korea is a decaying icon in the mid 21st century. Built as being a beacon of the future, a testament to the power of the Zero corporation and as a highlight of 21st century power and strength, it is a city that has strong class divisions, weakened by being a corporate playground that has perhaps seen its better days. Tech is everywhere, and the street finds its own uses for technology, including the Massively Multiplayer Online game of Voidwar. And when a young man who spends his time using the in game currency of the game to get by is recruited into a heist to steal a virus, but it is something far more than he, or others, imagine. Something that could change the world. An Artificial Intelligence.

This is the story of Corey J White’s Repo Virtual. 

Repo Virtual hits all of the marks of a Cyberpunk novel, but with a 21st century sensibility. That includes the casting. Among the main characters in the narrative we have a non-binary person, a middle aged corporate troubleshooter, queer protagonists, and people of color. It's a spectrum of representation that early Cyberpunk novels often missed the mark on, and the cast shows the 21st century paint on the Cyberpunk chassis. The mid 21st Century South Korea setting in a corporate town that the characters inhabit feels resonant with prior Cyberpunk locations but definitely feels like a more likely setting, given trends.

Other elements hit the timeless power chords of Cyberpunk square on. The power and reach of corporations - corporations with the power of a government, but with concerns of profit and loss rather than providing basic services - is a theme of 20th century Cyberpunk, and it feels even more resonant now in 2020. A corporate controlled city of endless Minority Report-like ads, where expatriates from the city have set up a community on its edge, trying to escape and build a new life? Robot police dogs? Hacking technology, and technology turned to ends that its creators cannot imagine? Stolen technology that is more than even what it’s creators imagine it is-- not a virus at all, but a nascent artificial intelligence.

So let’s talk about the characters. JD is our entry into the novel, the titular “Repo” who winds up in the center of the heist to steal the “Virus” (which turns out to be the AI). He is a prototypical cyberpunk protagonist in many ways, down and out, looking for the perfect chance to get his knee fixed and maybe some money for his Mom. He is really distinguished by his connections to the other characters-- to Soo-hyun, who recruits him into the plot, to Troy, his lover, and to the AI as well. Soo-hyun’s idealism, which goes through the ringer, makes them an interesting pole, especially as the plot progresses and what seems like a straightforward heist most certainly is not. And then there is Enda. Enda is a middle aged queer woman who corporations like Zero hire to fix problems--such as the theft of a “virus”.. She has a past, a past held over her head like a sword of damocles. She has her technological toys, and skills and a sense of personal loyalty and straight dealing that, if you cross, God help you. In the course of events, she searches for our heist participants, the face of the “opposition”. There are also secondary non-point of view characters, all of them strikingly drawn, especially Kali, whose cult-like leadership of the expatriate community outside Neo Songdo is expressed in interestingly complex terms.

Readers of White’s Voidwitch series (starting with Killing Gravity) know that White hits the action beats and rings those changes well, and he takes those skills and puts them into his mid 21st century story with conflicts and set pieces both small and large. From a tense gun standoff, to a pulse pounding chase across the city, when the author turns on the action, the words just flow off of the page. As you might guess from above, Enda is the heart of these action beats and I have a real affection for her and her ability to use violence in a leveraged and effective way. The novel doesn’t shirk or glamorize the violence, its portrayed excitingly, but not without consequences.

For all of the action, and interesting characters, what really sets this novel apart from most Cyberpunk is its strongly philosophical bent. It sounds more than a little strange to talk about ontology and philosophy in the context of an often pulse pounding SF novel, but White’s novel and its thesis, for lack of a better word, is encapsulated in the sections when the AI starts to swim toward the surface of consciousness, and the debate, and the issues of a new sentient intelligence, and what that means. It is a far less toxic meditation on artificial intelligence, their rights and nature, than in say, the movie Ex Machina, which I kept thinking of as the AI moves from being a pure MacGuffin to being an entity in their own right, with slowly developing hopes and goals of their own. What rights does an AI have? What is the social contract, here? I was not expecting this level of deep thought, as JD and Troy and the AI come to slow understanding, JD and Troy from without, and the AI from within.

And then there is the Epilogue to the novel, once the dust settles. That epilogue, which I will not spoil in any way, since a lot of the power of it is not in the sheer wistful poetry of the worlds, but how it provides the framing for the entire story, is at once very un-Cyberpunk and yet has a perspective that feels so right. It's a testament to the craft and skill of the author.

Does Cyberpunk still have something to say and to present itself as a viable subgenre for the early 21st century for writers and readers? Repo Virtual by Corey J White proves that the answer is, that eye of the needle can be threaded. It’s difficult to write near-future SF, but White not only manages it but succeeds excellently at it.

Find out more about Corey J White and Repo Virtual in Andrea Johnson’s interview with him.

---
The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10.

Bonuses: +1 for a diverse group of protagonists and points of view, on various axes
+1 for excellent heist framing and general action beats.
+1 for strong philosophical questions raised, and discussed

Penalties: -1 The  fates of some of the characters feels a little dissonant.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 well worth your time and attention


POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Reference: White, Corey J. Repo Virtual  [Tor.com Publishing, 2020]

Microreview [Book]: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Cemetery Boys tells an otherworldly story with a skill that feels equally out of this world.

Aiden Thomas’ Cemetery Boys has a slew of elements hiding in plain sight to the characters. A deep undercurrent of love flows between the main characters, as they consciously evade what should be obvious to each other during a significant chunk of the novel, until the romantic epiphany hits them with the subtlety of a truck. Ghosts are invisible to those not part of the brujx lineage (magic-possessing people who can commune and interact with the dead). And the main character Yadriel, a trans man, is dismissed by his family as being unable to deal with the brujx responsibilities because of prejudiced assumptions of his gender identity. Cemetery Boys shows that in all cases, with a little more perspicuity and focus, you can broaden your worldview, and see how you were blinded under a shroud of dazed ignorance.

Cemetery Boys follows Yadriel, a brujx trans man who isn’t persecuted violently by his father, but is persecuted non-violently and dismissed as a lost cause, because they believe only those who subscribe to a gender essentialist ideology can possess magical traits. Often by his side is his best friend, Maritza, a brujx who doesn’t often use magic because she’s a vegan, and magic is typically done with animal blood. Things quickly take a turn, when Yadriel senses the death of his cousin Miguel. On his search to find the body, he summons the spirit of a rowdy schoolmate named Julian who doesn’t know how he died. An investigation ensues to find out who’s responsible for the recent deaths. And the most electrifying romance I’ve read in some time blooms along the way.

That romance is expertly paced in the way it grows believably and is interwoven with the investigation. Sometimes novels have a dissonance between propelling the grander plot forward and developing a romance that turns your heart into swooning mush. But Aiden Thomas always has the grand events and themes bounce off the romance and vice versa. This is additionally extraordinary considering Cemetery Boys also covers Yadriel’s family saga with a family tree that is essentially big enough to envelop an entire city. There are only a couple instances when the novel stumbles in a morass of inaction, and that’s when events in the middle happen multiple times with slight alterations. The slightness of those changes is so minute that reading them feels like you’re eating the same meal thrice in the same day--a good meal, though with diminishing returns.

The novel tackles trans identity, acknowledging that transphobic prejudice still exists--but the book's optimistic of how many minds are capable of change and compassion. It’s unflinching realism with a dash of hope. Apart from a few ignoramuses, most of the prejudice is in the margins, away from the characters and their colorful adventure. There’s a heartwarming amount of love. Yadriel’s love interest has all the qualities of an archetypal transphobe: he’s initially painted as a classic bad boy—but there’s more to him than that. And that’s the sort of perceptual realignment that some characters in the novel have to make about Yadriel, unscrewing their ingrained transphobia. The ghosts aren’t the only characters in the novel who aren’t often seen properly.

The story is steeped in Latinx culture, and Aiden Thomas describes its mythology in an exciting and readable fashion. In fact, the entirety of the novel is written in a way that straddles the line between overwritten and choppy. There are lush descriptions that never descend into purple prose, nor are elements rushed. In terms of debut novels, the writing is otherworldly—a skill of such high quality that it's hard to grasp, like a wisp or ghost.

Cemetery Boys is infused with authenticity, thrills, and insight, until the feverish climax with a reveal that’s wispily hiding in plain sight. By the time the reader gets there, they might be unsurprised, not because the reveal is overly telegraphed, but because the novel expertly trains its readers to not take things at face value and to dig a little deeper. Something that felt like a gust wind shouldn’t be unequivocally assumed as a gust of wind—it might be a ghost. Someone who puts up a wall of unsociability might have their guard up because they’re scared that they will feel more than anybody else. The book is a rallying to know a person more personally than with a superficial glance. But one thing was eminently clear to me by just reading Cemetery Boy’s first page: this book is really good. And in that case, my assumption held up.

 The Math

Baseline Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 For having the romance of the year.

+1 For having an incredibly well-developed supporting cast.

Negatives: -1 There are a couple pacing issues in the middle section of the book.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, stand-up comedian, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!

Reference: Thomas, Aiden. Cemetery Boys [Swoon Reads, 2020]

6 Books with Nicholas Bowling

Nicholas Bowling is an author, stand-up comic, musician and Latin teacher from South London. He graduated from Oxford University in 2007 with a BA in Classics and English, and again in 2010 with a Masters in Greek and Latin Language and Literature, before moving to his first teaching job at Trinity School, Croydon.

Today he tells us about his Six Books:

1. What book are you currently reading?

Carter Beats The Devil by Glen David Gold. It’s a fictional biography of the stage magician Charles Carter that weaves his story in amongst the real vaudeville characters of the early 20th century. Houdini & co. It’s unbelievably fun. Somehow it manages to be a hilarious, page-turning romp whilst also feeling quiet and reflective and humane. It also gets quite dreamlike and surreal in places, but it’s done so seamlessly you don’t really question it. Like a magic trick! Right? I just thought of that. I’m particularly enjoying it because I’ve recently aborted my SECOND attempt at reading Dune. At the risk of alienating your entire readership, I just can’t get along with it. Is it just me, or is it (and the pun is absolutely intended here) just very dry?

2. What upcoming book you are really excited about? 

I don’t really have my finger on the pulse of what books are coming out when, and I seem to spend my life doggedly trying to catch up on the billion-or-so books that have already passed me by. I’m forever excited about the third Kingkiller book from Pat Rothfuss. I write and read children’s books, too, and I’m looking forward to Lucy Strange’s Ghost of Gosswater. Isn’t Katherine Rundell writing a book for grown-ups? I read that somewhere, and it set me all aquiver. The book I’m really itching to read is Charles Portis’ Gringos, but that came out about 30 years ago. I can’t begin to explain how much I love Charles Portis. Gringos is the only one of his I haven’t read, and it’s out of print, so tracking down a copy has become, appropriately, the kind of frustrating, futile quest that you’d expect to find in a Charles Portis novel.

3. Is there a book you're currently itching to re-read?

More reasons for people to think I’m a complete jerk – I really want to re-read Infinite Jest. I know it’s unfashionable, and I know it’s become (undeservedly, I think) a touchstone for pretention and hipsterdom and clever-white-male-ness, but I got completely obsessed with it. It’s one of maybe three books I’ve ever read that has completely and permanently re-wired my brain. So funny and so sad. So good at articulating consciousness and self-consciousness. It really stayed with me, and I know I barely scratched its surface on the first read-through. I also want to have another go at Station Eleven, but I’m slightly afraid to – my memory of it is like some intoxicating fever-dream, and I’m afraid that will all evaporate if I read it again.

4. How about a book you've changed your mind about over time--either positively or negatively?

I started re-reading His Dark Materials recently and for some reason found the voice and the style really off-putting. That made me quite depressed. I devoured it when I was younger, and now I feel like I’ve got this grown-up critical eye that’s way too “thinky” and has effectively closed off the story to me. (Which I suppose is also quite appropriate, given the themes of the book.)






5. What's one book, which you read as a child or young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions showed me how you can be silly and serious at exactly the same time. That you can write movingly and insightfully about depression on one page, and then do a doodle of a bumhole on the next (if you’ve not read it, that is a genuine thing in the book). The stuff I write for grown-ups almost always has this tragicomic, absurd vein in it. And Vonnegut loved sci-fi, too. I like how fast and loose he plays with genre.





6. And speaking of that, what's *your* latest book, and why is it awesome? 

It’s called Alpha Omega. It’s about a school in the near-ish future where the kids start getting horribly ill, due to various entanglements with virtual reality, Big Pharma, a cursed Druid burial site, and a man with no face who definitely isn’t Mark Zuckerberg. Or perhaps due to none of that. It’s scary and sad and funny (I think?), and hopefully captures some of the absurdity of the world as it is at the moment. It wasn’t meant to be a cheesey “Covid tie-in” novel, but if you’re already nostalgic for the days of enforced quarantine, then this is the book for you.




---
Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Microreview [Book]: The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg

The Birdverse's first standalone novella is a gentle, thoughtful treat

I am a big fan of everything I've read from R.B. Lemberg's Birdverse series, particularly their Nebula-nominated story "Grandmother nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds". So naturally, on learning that there was going to be a new standalone novella continuing that series, I was already sold, particularly as it focuses on the living grandparent of that story. The Four Profound Weaves stands well alone, but "Grandmother nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds" is a story that's very much worth reading. If you want to experience that story fresh, I'd suggest going to check it out before proceeding with this review, as the following will contain mild spoilers.

The Four Profound Weaves opens in the Snake-Surun' encampment, almost directly after the events of "Cloth of Winds". Having been physically changed into a masculine body that reflects his gender identity, Aviya's grandfather has fulfilled one long-held wish, but things are still far from easy. His people, the Khana, have a strict social segregation and separation of roles between the genders, and while he had been playing the role of a "rebel woman", engaging in work like the creation of artefacts which was supposed to be restricted to men, our protagonist has little frame of reference for being a Khana man. He fears that a return to his people would be impossible in his current form, and has missed even the cultural events which would enable him to take on a true new name. Surrounded by a culture whose social acceptance of "changer" (trans) identities leaves little room for empathy as to why nen sasaïr (the interim identifier he chooses to go by) can't just embrace his transition and "go sit with the men", his search brings him back into the orbit of Uiziya, a Surun' woman he met during his journey forty years ago and who has been contemplating challenges of her own. Uiziya's aunt is Benesret: once a great weaver of the Surun', now an ancient exile who has spent decades weaving magical cloaks for the Birdverse's assassin cult, trying to master the ability to weave from bones. Uiziya and nen sasaïr both seek out Benesret for their own reasons, and are both left disappointed but with a joint mission: to retrieve another lost magic weave, this one crafted from song, from the fascist ruler of the city where nen sasaïr grew up.

At the centre of The Four Profound Weaves are, unsurprisingly, four profound weaves: magical artefacts created from fantastic substances, with divine resonance and enormous skill required to master them. The more common magic in use is that of "deepnames", gained and used by characters in specific configurations for various effects. The deepname magic system feels at once inscrutably mysterious and straightforwardly practical, and characters have different strengths and abilities depending on their configuration in a way that supports their characterisation and struggles. In nen sasaïr's culture, deepnames are also gendered, and his configuration is one which prioritises power and therefore reads "feminine" in a society where men are kept protected to maintain connection to sacred song. While we only meet the Surun', the Khana, and the Iyar - the culture which runs the city in which the Khana live as a minority - the care put into developing each culture makes them feel like part of a much larger, more diverse whole.

Once nen sasaïr and Uiziya get underway, the plot of The Four Profound Weaves is relatively simple: the two attempt a deal with Benesret, return to Iyar, and (despite complications) figure out how to overcome the Collector's plotting and leave with what they need. What makes the story so good are the different but interlinked emotional journeys each goes on along the way. For Uiziya, whose meeting with her aunt turns into another betrayal, there is a need to move on from her past and re-establish her faith in her own abilities, while also untangling more of the Collector's motivations. Uiziya is drawn into his attempts to get his hands on a weave of bone, and the awful lengths to which he has gone to assemble the materials for one; the balancing of the loss and death she witnesses with the pull to deepen her craft is compassionately and compellingly told.

Nen sasaïr's journey is even more interesting, particularly as this may be the first book I've read which deals with a man exploring freedoms and desires as they relate to his gender identity, and forging a path that remains true to both. Like Uiziya, his journey involves questioning events from his own past, particularly his own spouse Bashri nai-Leylit, who he loved but who constantly entreated him to keep his identity secret and limit his queerness to the "rebelliousness" acceptable on the margins of Khana society. Nen sasaïr's return to the Khana quarter of Iyar is heartbreaking, but less straightforwardly so than he expects - because, of course, nen sasaïr is not the only trans man the Khana have ever seen, even if their society doesn't accommodate "changers". As his relationship with Uiziya, and unfinished business of his own with the Collector, links the pair's conclusions together, The Four Profound Weaves sets up a satisfying end that doesn't provide all the answers or right all past wrongs, but offers a convincing way forward for both of them which stays true to the queer narrative.

If you've not experienced Lemberg's prose before, you're in for a treat with this, as the style brings the meditative story of nen sasaïr and Uiziya to life in a way that's readable and yet really makes the most of the rich fable-like qualities of the story being told. I can wholeheartedly recommend this novella and this series as one that's well worth spending time in, packing fascinating, complex worldbuilding and a thoughtful engagement with queer identities into a deceptively short package. I look forward to further adventures in the Birdverse soon!

The Math

Baseline Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 A thoughtful combination of worldbuilding and narrative that makes room for exploring queer identities

Penalties: None - The Four Profound Weaves does what it sets out to do in a way that I can't fault on any axis.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10

POSTED BY: Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy.

Reference: Lemberg, R.B. The Four Profound Weaves [Tachyon Publications, 2020]

Microreview [Book]: The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard Daughter brings a twisting story of a crumbling Empire run on a magic slowly destroying its citizens, with the Emperor’s daughter, an island governor’s child, and a smuggler trying to find their way through an increasingly dangerous world.

Lin has a problem. She is the daughter of the Emperor, an Emperor who has increasingly isolated himself from others and even the rule of his empire. Instead of making decisions, he has devolved much of his decisions to the animated intelligent constructs he has created. For, you see, these constructs can be as simple or small as a rat-like spy, or with the seeming intelligence of a person. But Lin is the Emperor’s Heir, and both she and her brother Bayan are striving against each other, the decay of the empire, and to learn their father’s magic before all is lost.

Phalue has a problem. As the daughter of a governor of an island in the Empire, she has responsibility, duty and like Lin, is trying to keep it all together. Her father is not popular on Nephilanu island but she is. And then there is Ranami, the woman she loves. When she is kidnapped, Phalue might do anything and everything to save her. That might well include learning to oppose her father and his rule and upend the society on her island.

Jovis also has a problem. She’s a smuggler and a good enough one to be on the Empire’s radar as a threat. She really has no bounds, no ties to anyone or anything, except chasing rumors of a ship with blue sails that might have the woman she loves aboard. Other than that, she has no ties whatsoever in a positive way, but perhaps the underworld organization chasing her. But when the injustice of the Empire keeps forcing her to act, Jovis is very reluctantly forced into a new path.

The stories of Lin, Phalue and Jovis, and come together in the epic fantasy The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart. The trio of characters above mostly do not have any connections until later in the book, but their stories, personalities and relationships drive the action in the book. The novel’s focus on character-driven plotting is a real strength of the novel and Stewart takes pains to provide a set of sympathetic characters with real problems and issues for the reader to invest in.

Take Lin. Lin is in a continual race with her brother for knowledge and the ability to keep on top of what her father expects of her, even as the untenability of her father’s Empire and what that means for her and her position. That’s a perfect recipe for drama and putting the screws for Lin to have to act. Lin is indicative of the other characters' plots in that the author knows how to force the characters into changing their circumstances, and in so doing reveal Lin as someone who is strong enough and determined enough to defy her father and strive for herself. Her narrative is the primary one in the book, and Lin feels right, as a character and a driver of the narrative. Too, her story has the most secrets to reveal, about herself, and her world. And the author keeps drawing the reader forward with those twisting secrets as well.

Take Phalue and Ranami. Phalue’s romance with Ranami is a classic template of using a relationship to have a character awaken to the world around them, to see the problems and issues that are undermining her home and existence. What starts off as a simple theft of caro nuts to help local farmers grows by degrees into a larger rebellion against all what Phalue’s father is and stands for. But how do you keep a relationship together under such circumstances? Phalue and Ranami’s story very interestingly explores a relationship under fire.

And then there is Jovis. A smuggler wanted by the Empire, having formerly been a navigator in the Imperial forces? A smuggler who has gangsters after her for non payment? A smuggler who gets a nonhuman companion, Mephi, and learns that she really does have a heart of gold at the bottom of her soul? For me, I kept thinking of Han Solo in the Star Wars verse, but Jovis is not a straight up expy by any means. She has a suite of skills and abilities that are different, underneath that core of resistance to getting involved or tied to anyone or anything. Getting tied to saving children from the Bone Shard required Tithing Festival--she doesn’t want to do it. It’s not her deal at all, and yet she finds herself and again and again getting a chance to make the right choice. And like Lin and Phaule and Ranami's stories, the author does well in twisting the screws when needed. A real strength of the writing is to make you care about these characters deeply, and then plunge them into hard bargains and hard choices.

There are lots of interesting worldbuilding and story beats at work here, too. Lin’s story felt for me a bit like parts of Gideon the Ninth. Lin strives hard to find out the mystery of how to make and construct the bone shard magic of the constructs, complete with mysterious locked rooms, guardians, and conflicts, particularly with my brother. I thought back to the squabbling necromancers in Muir’s book and I can see resonances in style and theme, especially given the cost of the bone shards themselves. With Jovis, we get to see the Empire at large and find some of the intriguing and weird nature of the world--such as the fact that the islands of the Empire apparently move and migrate on their own. We don’t get an explanation as to how or why, really, but the fact that islands move relative to each other ties nicely to plot and circumstance in the novel. And in addition, even more than Lin’s story, we see the costs of the Empire’s bone shard magic on the citizenry. Compare this to Phalue and Ranami, the story of two lovers from very different circumstances, brought together in a plot of rebellion against Phalue’s father. We get intense emotional relationship building between them, and get to see the mechanics of just how the common people feel about the Empire in general and what might be done about its tyranny. The price of colonialism and its costs are excellently explored in their narrative.

One excellent plotting bit is another, infrequent point of view--a mysterious character, “Sand”, on a distant desert island, with a distinct lack of memories about life before picking mangoes. Who is she, really and why is she on this desert island picking fruit? The shortest of the four point of view, the revelation of who she really is and why she is there slowly unfolds throughout the novel There are plenty of other secrets in the novel, and not all of them answered, either. It’s a complex and complicated world, and some bits seem deliberately messy and not tied off with a bow. Given the ending, which doesn’t quite close things off but clearly points to future novels set in this verse, it is clear that Stewart is ramping up conflicts and problems for those future novels.

While there is a bit of roughness in the character beats in a few cases that felt a little discordant, there is a lot to love in The Bone Shard Daughter. I want to know more about the world and how it all works, especially the stuff only hinted at, and to see where her core set of characters, including “Sand”, go from here. More, please!

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10.

Bonuses: +1 for intriguing worldbuilding, from the magic system to migrating islands
+1 for an overall strong sense of character driven story arcs.

Penalties: -1 Some noticeable roughness with a couple of the character beats.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 Well worth your time and attention

Reference: Stewart, Andrea. The Bone Shard Daughter [Orbit, 2020]

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Thursday Morning Superhero

 The summer is winding down, the kids are going back to remote learning next week, and it was a pretty eventful August in comic book terms.  In addition to the return of Locke and Key, more on that in a minute, we are inching closer to the next gem from Derf Backderf and Keanu Reeves made his comic book Kickstarter debut!

Locke and Key:

Locke and Key: Pale Battalions  #1 dropped last week and it feels so good to be back within the halls of Keyhouse. The story is set in 1915 and centers around John Locke's desire to use the keys to positively impact the war.  His father, Chamberlin, wants to protect the keys but a momentary lapse from John's mother allows for an opportunity to secure the more powerful keys.  It struck me as odd that the adults were aware of the magic of the keys and it makes me wonder if we will finally learn why the magic wears off when you become an adult.  Joe Hill has mentioned how excited he is for this story to develop and Gabriel Rodriguez, who is only getting stronger as a comic book artist, said that the next issue is one of the best Locke and Key books to date.  Throw in the Sandman crossover that is happening later this year and it is clear that everything is coming up Milhouse.

Kent State:

Derf Backderf, who I was introduced to via My Friend Dahmer, is back with another graphic novel that takes on a complicated social issue.  Releasing later this week, Kent State focuses on a shooting that took place in 1970 when the Ohio National Guard responded to a situation on the campus of Kent State. Given our current political climate this book is releasing with almost prescient timing and I cannot wait to read this book.  Backderf is extremely effective in tackling difficult topics with a grace and ease that doesn't seem fair. 

Keanu:

When I first learned that Keanu Reeves was hitting Kickstarter for a new comic book project, I was skeptical.  This is coming from someone who is a big Reeves fan and is often the subject of teasing due from his wife due to his love of Keanu. When I navigated over to the BRZRKR Kickstarter page I was immediately impressed with the talent he was partnering with. Matt Kindt is one of my all-time favorite creators and Boom! Studios knows a thing or two about comics.  BRZRKR focuses on a half-mortal, half-God character who is seeking peace after roaming the world for hundreds of years.  The plan is to work for the government in exchange for information that can help him finally find peace.  Boom! is upfront that this is a preorder, but the Keanu buzz is strong and the campaign has already raised over $400,000 at the time of this writing.  I am looking forward to checking this out.

POSTED BY MIKE N. aka Victor Domashev -- comic guy, proudly raising nerdy kids, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.

6 Books with Dan Moren

Dan Moren is a novelist, freelance writer, and prolific podcaster. A former senior editor at Macworld, his work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Macworld, Popular Science, Yahoo Tech, and many others. He co-hosts tech podcasts Clockwise and The Rebound, writes and hosts nerdy quiz show Inconceivable!, and appears on the award-winning The Incomparable. Dan lives with his wife in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he is never far from a set of polyhedral dice.

Today he tells us about his Six Books:

1. What book are you currently reading? 

I just finished up Ben Aaronovitch’s Tales from the Folly short story collection—I absolutely love his Rivers of London series, and it’s always fun to spend more time in it. I’m still on a bit of a comfort reading kick, so I just dove into The Empire of Gold, the final book in S.A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad trilogy. The first two really wove this magnificent world based in Middle Eastern mythology, which is something I studied back in college, and combined it with a compelling story of love, magic, and politics—all those great epic fantasy elements. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the series finishes out, and there’s nothing quite like wrapping yourself in the warm embrace of a many hundred page saga.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

Several years ago, I read Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, and it was just this lovely, unexpected story, so I was excited to see that Addison’s come out with a new book after all these years! The Angel of  the Crows had already piqued my interest even before I’d read the description. But then I saw it was a Sherlock Holmes-inspired mystery with fallen angels and Jack the Ripper and, well, it’s hard not to get psyched. I’ve got a vacation by a lake coming up, and I requested this from my local library so that I can sit out on the dock and sink into the pleasures of a print book.

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to read again? 

I tend not to reread books very often—life’s short and there are so many new ones to read! I do have authors I regularly turn to, like Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler; they’re of that school where they’re so prolific that I can always find something I haven’t read before, but it still feels like slipping on a pair of comfortable shoes. But I am tempted to go back and reread Mike Carey’s Felix Castor series, which is another of my longtime favorites—the first book is The Devil You Know. It’s a British series about a freelance exorcist and it’s this perfect mix of funny and chilling.

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about – either positively or negatively?

You know, I’ve racked my brain, and I think that in most cases when I change my mind about a book towards the negative, it’s usually a result of something unpleasant I’ve learned about the author that makes me see their work in a different light. But I like to focus on the positive, so I’ll pull out one of my favorite books of all time, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Memory. Every time I go back to it, I find myself discovering another dimension in the story, especially in relation to my age: I first read it when I was younger than the protagonist, Miles, and it was just this fun adventure. Now that I’m older than Miles, I have a very different viewpoint: it’s a much more bittersweet tale about when our lives hit these significant inflection points, after which they’re never the same. That’s the mark of a great book: one where your impression changes along with your life.

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising is one of my all time favorites. I can still remember the boxset that my aunt gave me—for years I was terrified of the cover image, with the Rider on the rearing horse outside of Will Stanton’s house. But once I finally got up the courage to start reading, I was transported into this amazingly atmospheric world, scenes and characters of which stick with me to this day. It’s just this master class in telling a young adult fantasy story that, like the best of them, has these dark and sinister elements. It’s one of the few books that I’d love to do a screenplay adaptation of (as long as we can all agree that the execrable 2007 movie never happened).

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome? 

My latest book is The Aleph Extraction, officially the second in the Galactic Cold War series. It’s a sci-fi spy story that follows a team of covert operatives as they chase after a mysterious artifact that could shift the balance of the war. Think Mission: Impossible meets Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In space. It’s a light-hearted romp with a lot of action and some humor, perfect for those who want to take a little diversion from the real world. We could all use a bit of that right now, couldn’t we?

---

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.