2024 read #55: Lumberjanes To the Max Volume 2.

Lumberjanes To the Max Edition Volume 2

Created by Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, Noelle Stevenson & Brooke Allen

255 pages

Comics originally published 2016

Read from May 11 to May 12

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Every bit as endearing and vibrant as Volume 1, Volume 2 suffers somewhat from its lack of a cohesive throughline. It seems clear that the runaway success of the first Lumberjanes storyline prompted a quick continuation to keep selling fresh issues. These story arcs, while delightful on their own, lack any overarching plot; they feel like a string of filler episodes after the brilliantly constructed miniseries of the first book.

Most of the characters get lost in group scenes, without the character moments and attention to detail that made the first collection so delightful. Some characters do get important moments, but the voices of the broader cast feel muted. (Or maybe I found it that way because I’m fog-headed from being sick for the first time in about five years.)

The storyline set in the dimension of lost things — which features spectacles-stealing dinosaurs — was of course a personal favorite. The bonus story, “Mixing It Up,” was another highlight, sweet and charming.

2024 read #54: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1981 issue.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1981 issue (61:3)

Edited by Edward L. Ferman

Published 1981

162 pages

Read from May 8 to May 11

Rating: 2 out of 5

I had big plans for this month. After the hectic and exhausting move back in April, I had May penciled in for a lotta hiking (maybe I’ll crack 30 miles for the first time since 2020!), a lotta reading (maybe I’ll reach 20 books for the first time ever!), maybe even some writing! Instead (which should not have come as a surprise, given how my last move went), May has shaped itself into a recuperation month. I’m drained, not sleeping well, barely able to focus on anything. Plus I’m sick for the very first time since I began masking in public, four years ago. It sucks.

My attention span is a problem, especially when I’m not at 100%. Maybe short stories will help? (Spoiler: Not really.)

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“Mythago Wood” by Robert Holdstock. I first read this tale in The Secret History of Fantasy anthology. It’s a rambling, atmospheric postwar piece about the ancient wildwood and the folklore we place at its heart. It takes a while to get rolling, laying out each piece of information with almost 1920s-ish deliberation: here’s the narrator’s father, his parental neglect, and his obsession with the oakwood; here’s the narrator’s reluctant return home after the war, his brother’s descent into something like their father’s madness, and so on, long before we get to the mythopoeic meat of the story. Would I have been so charmed by “Mythago” if I had read it for the first time today, and didn’t have fond associations with it already? I’m not sure; I might have been put off by how thoroughly Oedipal the sons-vs-the-father conflict turns out to be. As it is, I was already fond of “Mythago,” so it was like revisiting a comfortable old friend. At the very least, it’s a superb example of early 1980s contemporary fantasy (which had an unfortunate tendency toward the Oedipal). I feel motivated to track down a copy of the novel Holdstock built up from this story. B

“The Gifts of Conhoon” by John Morressy. After “Mythago,” there are only two items on the table of contents I’m looking forward to, and this is not one of them. I’m amused that, in my review of the first Conhoon story I read, in the February 2000 F&SF, I observed the “early 1980s flavor” of the piece. Turns out I was more perceptive than usual! Twenty-some years is a long time to milk the “fantasy tropes, but silly!” gag. This one adds the punchline (if you can call it that) of “Women are great until they talk too much.” It doesn’t do anything for me. D?

“Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!” by John Kessel. I spent most of my childhood in a car, driven aimlessly around the American West by my delusional father. So this piece about a child born on an infinite westbound highway hit me on a weirdly personal wavelength. I always wanted to write a story literalizing that period of my life, but never have. Only partly related to that, I also want to play around in the subgenres of flivverpunk and car fantasy. This story, obviously, is not the one I would have written, but it’s unexpectedly creative, filled with clever details of a universe of car dads speeding forever westward. Midcentury gender norms make for unpleasant reading, but “Not Responsible” was published in 1981, and written with an eye toward the summer road trips of Boomer childhood, so it’s about what you’d expect. C+

“One Way Ticket to Elsewhere” by Michael Ward. This is a snarky technocrat story, in the midcentury “ex-NASA buzzcuts run the facility with clipboards under their arms” style. But here, thematically echoing “Mythago Wood,” the research is on a weird-horror “Elsewhere” accessed through the human brain. I don’t like this genre of procedural action story, though the weird-fiction angle helps it out a bit. There’s some imagery worthy of 1970s sword & sorcery: a “junkyard” of body parts; ravenous tubes that erupt from the ground at the scent of blood. But the weirder bits struggle to elevate the flat prose, undeveloped characters, and boilerplate plotting. Maybe C-

“There the Lovelies Bleeding” by Barry N. Malzberg. A thoroughly Malzbergian trifle about a couple discussing flowers and the hope of progressive reform of the wholesale slaughter around them. Here in the Biden years, it’s hard not to interpret this as a satire of liberal “reforms” that only soften the optics of violent dystopian fascism instead of addressing its systemic evils. Maybe C

“Indigestion” by Thomas Wylde. This had a mildly amusing premise: our narrator is the bathroom attendant on an interstellar cruise liner, and makes a little extra on the side hawking the excretions of one species as the drugs of another. But alas. This issue had managed (mostly) to avoid the full-bore 1980s-white-male-writers level of misogyny until now, lulling me into a false sense of security, so naturally it all comes pouring out here. Flush it down. F

“Dinosaurs on Broadway” by Tony Sarowitz. A decade ahead of the trend, this story is a precocious entry in the “dinosaurs as metaphor for modern disaffection” subgenre. Yuppie couple Sylvia and Richard have moved to Manhattan for Richard’s job. Richard now communicates exclusively in corporate buzzwords, while Sylvia, dislocated from Eugene, Oregon, struggles to adapt to the stresses and expectations of the city, losing herself in fantasies of Mesozoic megafauna. Naturally, I had hoped for more from this story, but it works fine for what it is. C

“The Corridors of the Sea” by Jane Yolen. Speaking of high hopes: undersea sci-fi from Jane Yolen! Alas, it’s an instantly forgettable technocrat piece. Gabe Whitcomb, no-nonsense press liaison, is concerned at the changes occurring in his friend, Dr. Eddystone, after the latter gets implanted with gills. A considerable portion of the page count is devoted to a press conference. A disappointing yawn. The most interesting aspect of the story is the barely-there hint that Gabe and Eddystone might be more than friends (which, I admit, I could be inventing to suit my contemporary tastes). D+

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All in all, a remarkably tolerable issue of F&SF from the 1980s. Contrast this one with, say, the December 1982 issue. This one is almost commendable in comparison.

2024 read #53: The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed.

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

159 pages

Published 2024

Read from May 7 to May 8

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

This mesmerizing dark fairy tale lures you deeper through the wood right from the first page. Mohamed's prose is sinuous with grief, strange beauty, and buried, desperate rage. It's imagery pulses with blood and sharpened horns.

The North Wood swallows all villagers who set foot into it. The only people who have ever returned alive from the Wood are Veris Thorn, and the child who, once upon a time, she had ventured into the forest to save. The child came back alive, but irrevocably changed.

Veris is summoned by the Tyrant to rescue his two children, his heirs, who have wandered into the Wood. But the human Tyrant is every bit as monstrous as any hungry creature she might meet in the forest — or perhaps more so. Veris is told that, if she fails this impossible task, her surviving family will be killed, her village massacred and burned. Predators of all sorts, it seems, savor the pain of their prey.

2024 read #52: Negalyod: The God Network by Vincent Perriot.

Negalyod: The God Network by Vincent Perriot

Translated by Montana Kane

208 pages

Published 2018 (English translation 2022)

Read May 7

Rating: 4 out of 5

Another bit of dinosaur fiction I learned about thanks to the Prehistoric Pulp blog. This one is a graphic novel, originally written in French. It’s got a post-apocalyptic cowboy named Jarri, who herds chasmosaurs when he isn’t being horny on dating apps. It’s got water pipelines and deserts littered with steampunk wreckage from past rebellions. The rich live in sky-cities which suck the world dry. There’s also a computer god called the Great Network.

The back cover blurb calls it “Dinotopia meets Mad Max,” which, sure. But also, it is the purest distillation of 1970s science-fantasy I’ve seen from a contemporary author. And there’s more than a trace of Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä and Castle in the Sky in its world.

Perriot’s art, together with Florence Breton’s superlative color work, elevates Negalyod’s dour tale of dystopia and vengeance. Clever feats of dinosaur wrangling and breathtaking full-page spreads make almost every panel something to savor. And while Perriot’s story doesn’t quite nail its big twist regarding the Great Network and its purpose, it’s a fun ride to get there.

2024 read #51: A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger.

A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

374 pages

Published 2021

Read from April 25 to May 7

Rating: 3 out of 5

A charming middle-grade novel, one weighted with the tragedies of colonialism, ecological collapse, global warming, and the loss of stories, both animal and human.

In the near future, young Nina grows up in a warming world, hoping to preserve the stories of her Lipan ancestors even as languages wither and her homeland suffers under hurricanes and drought. In the spirit world, a young cottonmouth-person named Oli must leave home and navigate life on his own. Nina is not the only one who suspects that the human and spirit worlds, severed long ago, still maintain some secret connection; not everyone investigating the possible link has the same motives as her.

I can’t complain that a middle-grade novel reads like a middle-grade novel. It is pitched toward its intended readers, as it should be. Though I imagine even twelve year olds might feel patronized when “Let’s make a viral video!” becomes a major plot point. I get it: social media is the contemporary fashion for storytelling, which is one of the book’s central motifs (a point recently underlined in our own world, when the dried up capitalist ghouls in Congress leapt across party lines to help ban TikTok). Nonetheless, I felt that plotline had serious “How do you do, fellow kids?” energy.

Snake was worth a read all the same. Climate grief and colonialism are pressing topics, and Little Badger does excellent work presenting them to her audience in a way that respects their intelligence and emotional investment. The concept of earthly extinction reaching into the spirit world is particularly haunting. And the book closes on a big (though age appropriate) middle finger to the money-hoarding class, which is a fantastic message for readers of all ages.

2024 read #50: Lego Space: 1978-1992 by Tim Johnson.

Lego Space: 1978-1992 by Tim Johnson

200 pages

Published 2023

Read from April 23 to April 24

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Lego sets — Lego Space sets in particular — were central to my childhood. I grew up poor, but whenever my Grandma would take me on a bus ride to the mall or to the Elder-Beerman store downtown, I would usually manage to whine or wheedle or wail a small set out of her. I hardly ever got anything larger than what would be considered a poly-bag impulse purchase set today, but I nickel-and-dimed a moonbase's worth of space guys between 1987 and the last dregs of my childhood in 1995.

Along the lines of Art & Arcana — a coffee table chronicle of the artwork behind Dungeons & Dragons — Lego Space is lovely nostalgia-bait, full of gorgeous artwork from the heyday of Lego’s Space line, with self-congratulatory corporate text masquerading as history.

Hired author Tim Johnson takes the unusual step of bulking up the profile of each set with a paragraph of fan-fiction, a miniature in-universe narrative of exploration, refueling, space rescues, and so on. Perhaps a handful of these interludes would have been charming, but they get included for each and every set, all 150-ish of them. Clearly this book was never meant for a consecutive read.

Still, the pictures are awesome, and there's an interesting section on how the box art and catalog spreads were photographed, which is pretty cool (though too brief).

2024 read #49: The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson.

The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale by Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan

Introduction and notes by Kathryn Kirkpatrick

290 pages

Published 1806

Read from April 22 to April 24

Rating: 1 out of 5

I read this for the sole purpose of scrounging up another title for my list of 1800s reads. (Eighteen-oughts, that is — not eighteen hundreds.) That’s a form of historical interest all on its own, naturally, but it isn’t the most satisfying reason to read a book. It certainly didn’t help me stay engaged with the tedious, allusive, grandiloquent style of the era, or help me through the book’s desultory, epistolary structure (I can’t call it plot).

As a document of historical attitudes and advocacy, The Wild Irish Girl is interesting, availing itself of the unsophisticated political philosophy of its day to lay out a nationalist mythology opposed to English colonialism (hence the subtitle). Owenson responds to the 1800 dissolution of the Irish parliament by taking the broad, otherizing stereotypes the English consigned to the Irish people, and turning them into positive attributes. The usual English propaganda of uncouth, uncivilized barbarians across the Irish Sea is recast into a Rousseauean state of “wild,” “natural” grace, suffused with “primeval simplicity and primeval virtue.”

Many pages are spent enumerating fanciful mythologies meant to link the Irish to Phoenician exiles, the sort of nationalistic bridge between the Classical Mediterranean and Atlantic Europe so beloved by early Moderns, Victorian diffusionists, Thor Heyerdahl, and Twitter’s white nationalists. At one point, even the way women fold their scarves is underlined as a cultural link to Egypt. If you’re researching the history of how folklore gets spun to foment nationalism, this is a book for you.

The story itself isn’t worth a read. Horatio, our viewpoint letter-writer, is a woeful and apathetic wastrel, banished by his aristocrat father to western Ireland to rethink his ways. He’s prejudiced against the Irish people, buying into every negative English stereotype against them. Bored after just a few days, Horatio prowls around his father’s estate, where he learns the tragic history of an Inismore prince whose ancestor was killed and dispossessed by Horatio's own ancestor. Horatio, feeling the first pangs of conscience an Englishman ever felt over the depravity of conquest, decides to attend church and gawk at the prince and his family. Once there, he promptly obsesses over Lady Glorvina, the prince's daughter. He breaks his arm while stalking her, wakes up in her care, assumes a false identity to stay with her, pretends to be an art tutor to get near her, etc. Then he has the gall to get upset that she might be deceiving him. I couldn’t be done with Horatio fast enough.

Here in Turtle Island, we often forget that England’s second colonial venture was perpetrated in Éire. (Their first colonial venture, as even fewer people recall, was against their own lower classes.) It’s a depressing reminder of how vile colonialism has always been that the English literate classes needed to be informed by a half-English author that the Irish were human. The Wild Irish Girl takes that thesis and stretches a book out of it. Horatio lists out an English prejudice on one page, only to be shocked by the kindness and generosity of the Irish on the next. Again and again. For some 250 pages of modern typesetting. And such is the way of colonialist empire that this was considered too radical to publish by several presses at the time.