Sunday, July 1, 2018

Bad Girls by Jane Yolen, Heidi EY Semple, Rebecca Guay


Rating: WARTY!

This is a short book padded by large font, spaced text and some okay illustrations by Rebecca Guay. It purports to tell us about bad girls in history - bad for one reason or another, such as spying, betrayal thievery, murder, and so on. I am not sure who it's aimed at; it seems a bit mature for middle grade and a bit simplistic for young adult or older. It's also highly biased towards bad girls in the USA: fifteen out of the twenty-six women reported on. The US is only five percent of the world's population, yet 60% of these stories are US women! Does the US really sport more bad girls than the other seven billion population put together?! I doubt it.

There's also a huge lack of ethnic/racial diversity. Here's the list of suspects:

  • Delilah
  • Jezebel
  • Cleopatra
  • Salome
  • Anne Boleyn
  • Bloody Mary
  • Elizabeth Báthory
  • Moll Cutpurse
  • Tituba
  • Anne Bonney and Mary Read
  • Peggy Shippen Arnold
  • Catherine the Great
  • Rose O'Neal Greenhow
  • Belle Starr
  • Calamity Jane
  • Lizzie Borden
  • Madame Alexe Popova
  • Pearl Hart
  • Typhoid Mary
  • Mata Hari
  • Ma Barker
  • Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner
  • Bonnie Parker
  • Virginia Hill

Each two- or three-page potted bio is followed by a single comic book page depicting Yolen and her daughter discussing the merits of whether she was a bad girl or just misunderstood or whatever. Those pages contributed nothing save to show what an easy life these two authors truly have if the comic pages are representative of any of their days: trying on shoes, going to a day spa, sitting around drinking a beverage and relaxing. The mini bios tell very little, and since a lot of the "research' comes directly from Wikipedia, you may as well read the Wikipedia page and get more out of it. I was surprised, given all the time these two evidently have on their hands, that they couldn't have put more effort into this.

The only reason I read it was that I thought it might be fun and maybe give me an idea or two for a novel, but I already wrote the Cleopatra one (my middle-grade targeted Cleoprankster) and there really wasn't much meat in the text here to give me something to bite. I can't recommend this/.


The Shelter Cycle by Peter Rock


Rating: WARTY!

I don't know if Peter Rock is the author's real name or not. If it is, his parents evidently didn't know that Peter and Rock mean the same thing. It would be like naming him Rocky Rock! Or more a propos, naming me Woody Wood. And yes, I know where you're going with that, but I'm not going there with you!

I did not like this audiobook. Amy Rubinate's reading was flat and uninspiring, and the story itself was boring and so far out there on the edge as to be lost in the haze. The story is of Francine, who used to be friends with Colville fifteen years before, when they were children and a part of a religious cult (full disclosure: to me all religions are cults!), but they haven't seen each other since the religious prophecies predictably failed, as they always do, and the cult broke apart under its own unsustainable weight as all religions do in one way or another.

Now Francine is married to Wells and they're expecting a child. Perhaps at this point, you see why I opened this by talking about the author's name. I couldn't help but wonder if he had been somehow marked for life by his name, and this is why his characters (male ones at least) have such unusual names like Colville and Wells. But Anyway, Colville shows up out of the blue having tracked Francine down. He claims he is there to help find this young girl who has disappeared from the village, but he really doesn't help in the search and seems much more interested in reconnecting with Francine than in anything else, and perhaps connecting with her as yet unborn child from what I've read in reviews of others. I wisely DNF'd it.

Colville is so creepy as to be stomach-turning, yet neither Wells nor Francine really view him that way, although Wells is predictably more inclined to do so than is his wife ever is. She voluntarily meets with her childhood friend in his motel room at one point because he asked her to. It was at this point that I quit listening because the story was a drag. It was taking forever, going nowhere, and everyone seemed so passive that I imagined the author manipulating them like clay animation figures when he wrote this: people who had to be meticulously positioned over lengthy periods of time before the next vignette in the series could be snapped. Yawn. They felt to me to be the very antithesis of dynamic, and it when I realized that it was never actually going to be animated, that I quit listening.

The author should have dedicated this: For Mica, it was so thin. I cannot recommend a pile of schist like this. I would have preferred a stony silence. I have no desire to read anything else by this author.


World of Wakanda by Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alitha E Martinez, Roberto Poggi


Rating: WORTHY!

Is it just me, or did anyone else find it rather amusing that a writer named Gay tells a story here of a lesbian couple? Okay, just me then! Sorry! But Roxane Gay is bisexual for clarification and she was the lead writer here with Coates. This was a graphic novel and I was quite taken by it. The art (Martinez, Poggi) was glorious and the story was engaging and inspiring. It tells of earlier days of Dora Milaje than those depicted in the monumentally successful movie - days when Ayo is newly arrived in the guard and undergoing training. She and her trainer, Aneka, fall for each other and have to fight their confusion as well as each other when training.

Full disclosure: I was in love with Ayo before Aneka was! Not that it will do me any good, but after I saw that scene in Captain America: Civil War in which she says - to Black Widow of all people! - "Move or you will be moved" I was solid gone and wanted to see more of her. She had little to do in Black Panther unfortunately and less to do in Avengers: Infinity Wars, but at least I get to see her in this comic!

This story tells of the two's transition from Dora Milaje to their current comic persona as vigilantes known as Midnight Angels. Gay and Yona Harvey, who wrote a short story depicted in the back of this volume, are the first two black women to write a series for Marvel. Sadly the series was cancelled, so as far as I know, this is all there is. It's well worth a look.


Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane


Rating: WARTY!

This was an audiobook I did not like. I liked Shutter Island and the graphic novel based on it, and even the movie. I don't recall disliking Mystic River, although I read that before I started blogging reviews, so I can't go back and check on exactly what I thought about it. This one, however, was a disaster and a DNF and left me with a bad taste in my mouth and no immediate desire to read any more Lehane. Julia Whelan's reading (or performance as it's pretentiously described on the cover) wasn't very good either, so that didn't help.

It started out perfectly fine, but about a tenth of the way through it started getting bogged down in asides that seemed irrelevant to the original thrust of the story, which was this woman's search for her father. From what I read of other negative reviews, it doesn't even stop doing a one eighty there, either, but instead of a normal geometry one-eighty bringing it back around, it goes off into some parallel universe. In view of that, I'm so relieved I quit it when I did, and simultaneously quit wasting my life on this drivel.

The story is about Rachel, an up and coming journalist, whose mother dies unexpectedly, leaving her completely in the dark about who her father was. She has very few clues and a PI suggests she not pursue it because it would be a waste of her money. When she finds a better lead, he takes the case and they finally narrow it down to a guy who turns out to be the one she was looking for, but in a twist, it also turns out he's not her biological father and the secrecy over keeping Rachel in the dark is what caused him to leave her mother. Now he's happily married with children of his own, but is still a father figure to Rachel.

With his help she tracks down the most likely candidate for fatherhood, but he's dead! From that point on we jump many years to where she's an important TV news anchor and the story becomes obsessed with Haiti for an inordinately long time. Yes, it was a awful tragedy of the kind that should never have happened in the first place, much less be repeated, but which will, you know, be repeated, humans being what they are, but it was nothing to do with her father and from what I've read in other reviews, nothing to do with what happens in the rest of the book which also has nothing to do with her father.

More than one reviewer suggested that the author had bits and pieces of several stories lying around with no idea where to take them, and so he decided to fit them all into one! When you're Lennon and McCartney, mashing two different songs into one actually works, such as with A Day in the Life for example, but Lehane doesn't seem to be blessed with that skill. So based on what I read, and regardless of others' reviews, I can't recommend this, but remember that I listened to only ten percent before I skipped out on it. So, a confused and boring mess is what this sounded like to me and I can't recommend it based on what I listened to.


Chimera Book One: The Righteous & The Lost by Tyler Ellis


Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I have no idea what this graphic novel was about, even having read it! It made no sense and was so choppy and disjointed, jumping back and forth between sometimes seemingly unrelated events that even when they turned out to be related offered no clue as to what they were actually all about.

The art work was fine enough, but there was no coherent story there so all we had was a coffee table art book. The blurb claims that "...a crew of thieves is hired for a covert mission in the midst of a galaxy being ripped apart by an interstellar holy war." but I don't recall ever a crew being assembled. There was a rag tag group of four creatures who might be the crew referred to, but not a one of them was appealing as a character.

I did see relentless images of an artist's attempt to invent bizarre and threatening alien creatures, none of which had any inventiveness about them, and some made zero sense, which is what happens when an artist with no idea of biology, or evolution tries to invent alien organisms. I cannot recommend this at all.


Oothar the Blue by Brandon Reese


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This story was so tongue in cheek that that I had to go see an orthodontist after I read it. Oothar isn't literally blue, notwithstanding the book's cover. In fact, Oothar is not withstanding anything. He ignores bedraggled dragons. He can't be bothered with railing, wailing wraiths. And he certainly isn't interested in gouging rouge rogue ogres. Nothing seems to bring him pleasure until he finds, after a fit of constructive rage, that a career change is in order, and suddenly, everything is coming up roses!

I'm not sure exactly who this forty-some page graphic novel book is aimed at, but I think it would entertain anyone, especially barbarians with its Aryan barbs. It did me, anyway. I recommend it.


Wanda's Better Way by Laura Pederson, Penny Weber


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

In trying to decide what she wants to do with her life, young Wanda discovers that she's actually a scientist and an inventor. She doesn't just complain when she sees a problem, she also sees a solution and then goes and puts it in place by herself. Seeing a crowded, untidy changing room at dance class, she finds a fix. Seeing squirrels stealing bird seed, she finds a way to prevent it. Seeing dad separating egg yolks for a cake, she finds a better way to separate them!

I liked the go-getter character, and the fact that she fixed things herself, but there was much more than this. There was the analysis of the problem, which is explained at the end of the book, and the desire to do something - to be active, not passive. Wanda was also the child of a mixed-race family, which was a joy to see. There are so few books about diversity and it's as rare to see mixed-race parents in a children's book as it is to see same sex parents.

The illustrations were beautifully done by Penny Weber and the text by Laura Pederson was straight forward and evocative. The book had a great overall feel to it. I liked it very much and I recommend it.


Mystery Society by Steve Niles, Fiona Staples


Rating: WARTY!

This was a graphic novel and it really fell short of the mark. This review is also full of spoilers, so beware. At some points during the reading, I was persuaded to consider it a worthy read, but at other points it made zero sense or was so flat and simplistic that it completely failed to entertain. Add to that the fact that there was no effort to craft a coherent story here and to my overall my feeling that I'm not remotely interested in reading any more in this series, and I'm forced to rate it negatively on balance. This is sad, because the basic idea had potential, and a couple of the characters were interesting. Unfortunately the main characters were a no from the start, and the plot was just silly, period.

The premise is that this young, wealthy, and unhealthily thin couple with the last name of Mystery, are interested in investigating the supernatural and are looking to recruit people to be a part of their investigation team (the Mystery Society). None of this had any background, and no part of the story involved in investigating the supernatural, even though one of their team turned out to be a perfect study subject. When she (a ghoul) joined the team, they showed not the slightest interest in her supernatural aspects! Worse, the couple was diabetes-inducingly sugary, "Darling" each other on every page that it was nauseating.

The story starts with Nick Mystery being taken to jail, yet despite the fact (as we learn later) that he was set up by the government in a huge cover-up and smear campaign, they let him stand there at the prison, and tell his whole story to the press. In what universe would that ever happen? That would be like allowing one of the inmates of Guantanamo to have a TV special to state his case! Read my whips: It's. Not. Going. To. Happen.

So the story he tells is of breaking into area 51 (yawn) to rescue twins who have been kept in suspended animation for decades. He does this single-handedly and without any expenditure of effort whatsoever. Meanwhile back home, metaphorically barefoot and in the kitchen, his wife is interviewing the ghoul with a view to hiring her for their team. So the guy gets all the adventure and the girl is a stay at home not-mom? Why did a female artist even agree to illustrate a story like this? Plus: if Nick is so damned good by himself, why do they even need a team?

Meanwhile, out of the blue, a robot containing the brain of Jules Verne turns up completely out of left field and everyone accepts this story at face value. I am so tired of comics bringing characters from the past into their stories. I guess I should at least credit this one with being someone who was not an American, but still! This happens usually in time-travel stories where the character from the past is always an American of note such as Betty Ross, or George Washington, Jesse James, or Francis Scott Key. It is so tedious to read that crap. So naturally, Jules robot Verne and the ghoul are sent looking for Edgar Allen Poe's skull which has gone missing. Who-the-fuck-cares? Really?

So does the rest of the team then pursue their stated goal of investigating the supernatural? Nope! They're all about breaking back into area 51 to steal the original security vids to clear Nick's name. Which they do again with minimal effort. That's pretty much it. The only interesting characters were the ghoul and the atomic twins. If the story had been only about them, and the other main characters had been omitted completely, this would have made an engaging story, unless of course the twins were rather sexualized as they were in some illustrations. But that failed to materialize and consequently this was a fail for me.


Sloppy Takes the Plunge by Sean Julian


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Sloppy is a tree dragon, and as anyone who knows anything can tell you: tree dragons love being mucky and do not mix well with water. Unless it's well water...well, maybe. But. Dewdrop is a fairy and as anyone who knows anything will also tell you, fairies do not hug mucky tree dragons. So maybe Sloppy will take a bath? But what about sharks and crocodiles? But what about baby ducklings who are afraid of the water? Maybe sloppy can help?

This was a fun book designed to lure kids into the bathtub, and anything that can do that is worth a read! I liked the book. it was fun and boisterous, and colorful and playful. I also liked the characters, and I consider this a very worthy read.


Luke and Lottie. It's Halloween! by Ruth Wielockx


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a little out of season, it not even being July 4th as I post this, but October isn't that far away. My look forward in October is not to Halloween, but to the next season of Doctor Who, which features a female doctor for the first time, but this book is on my to-do list for today, so here goes!

I had a couple of issues with this one - the girl being scared of the spider, but the boy not, and mom being the stay-at-home while dad ventures out with the kids, but later the kids meet up with their aunts who are out trick or treating, so it evened up a bit. The story really doesn't offer anything new, but to me what won for this book was was the really amazing color scheme. It was replete with beautiful illustrations in rich, deep colors, and with lots of detail, so it was a very impressive work of art, and I recommend it!


Riley Knows He Can by Davina Hamilton, Elena Reinoso


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a great children's story by Davina Hamilton told in poetry, and remarkably illustrated by Elena Reinoso in an almost 3D effect. It was really nice to see a good mix of children - not all white folks - for a change. Riley is acting in the school play. He plays a benevolent king, but the real life Riley has nerves. Fortunately, his supportive family are there, and his big sister tells him that whenever he has doubts he should remind himself that he can do it. He takes her advice, and it works!

This was a nice, breezy, upbeat and supportive story that moved fast, made its mark, and was a pleasure to read. I recommend it.


Don't Dangle Your Participle by Vanita Oelschlager, Mike DeSantis


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Vanita Oelschlager taught school for two decades and now teaches children via books! I've favorably reviewed at least two of hers before: A Tale of Two Daddies and A Tale of Two Mommies. This one is precisely one of those teaching books - aimed at something that's really quite important for any writer who doesn't want to look like a complete goofball! Or perhaps more accurately, an incomplete goofball?! I've noticed errors of the type demonstrated here in published books which I've reviewed, so no one is free of this pitfall.

I can never think of 'dangling participle' without thinking of Tim Curry in the Sylvester Stallone comedy movie Oscar. He plays a speech therapist, Doctor Pool...oh wait! I need to re-arrange that sentence! Curry plays a speech therapist, Doctor pool, who is being employed by Stallone's gangster character, "Snaps" Provolone, who is trying to go legit. At one point, Connie, Snaps's henchman, says, "Congratulations Doc! Will there be a honeymoon following?" and Dr Pool replies, "Watch it there Connie, you've got a dangling participle!" which Connie completely misinterprets of course.

That movie didn't do so well, although I love it, but there's nothing naughty or risqué in this book. Using examples of everyday children's activities: going to the zoo, eating ice cream (hopefully not an everyday activity!), skateboarding and so on, we get to see the error and then the correction, supported by some amusing and colorful illustrations by Mike DeSantis and there's even a page at the end showing how to draw and color a lion! I liked this book and think it well worth sharing with your children.


Lily Pond by Shelley Daniels Lekven


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book has to be seen to be believed, although you can look at some illustrations on the author's book website: http://lilypondbook.com. Make sure you type only a total of two Ls in Lily! Otherwise the entire Internet will break down, weeping and not knowing where to go or what to do!

I don't know how someone can find the patience to do something like this, with this level of inventiveness, let along find the time - and the skill in the first place - but she did it, and it's awesome to behold. This is why she's known for her art work on movies like Toy Story, James and the Giant Peach, and The Nightmare Before Christmas (she's on IMDB!).

The story is of the cutely-named Lily Pond (no relation to Amy Pond as far as I know), on the cusp of her eight birthday, imagining with great imagination all the things she can do or be, and the adventures she will have as she matures. She has a bunch of choices as does any young girl who wants to follow her own dream and is willing to go after it fiercely enough. This story is inspirational, informative, and beautifully illustrated with the photographs of the painstaking clay sculptures the author created. Amazing! I recommend this highly.


Comic Book History of Comics by Fred van Lente, Ryan Dunlavey, Adam Guzowski


Rating: WORTHY!

As someone who reads and reviews graphic novels from time to time (especially lately!), I could hardly overlook this, and having read it I can say I recommend it. It's pretty basic stuff with regard the artwork (drawn by Dunlavey, colored by Guzowski, and the text (by van Lente) is quite dense at times, so it makes for a long and detailed read, but overall it was truly informative and on occasion eye-opening.

It also features female contributors from history quite prominently, but on the downside, it does not seem to do the same thing for people of color. Whether this is because there were (historically speaking) none in the business, or because what they contributed was relatively little (which i doubt!), or if they were simply overlooked I don't know, but the fact that they're not given a look-in is disturbing. In a similar vein, it features only US comic book creators. It covers nothing of comic book activity outside the USA.

With those limitations in mind, it does seem otherwise quite comprehensive, and it goes into a lot of history, and quirks and fights, and how some aspects of the industry came to fruition, but it doesn't really go into the minutiae of any particular character's creation. This is more focused on the business itself and the key players historically, and some technical aspects of comic production, but it's not so much focused on the actual content the people and business created. For me, I enjoyed it and learned a few things, but I didn't feel it was an outstanding read. It was worthwhile reading though if you're interested in a behind the scenes kind of story, so this is how I rate it.


The Wormworld Saga Vol 1 The Journey Begins by Daniel Lieske


Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I wasn't impressed with this story and it reconfirmed my rule of thumb never to read any story with the word 'saga' (or 'cycle' or 'chronicles' in the title). I didn't apply that rule to comic books and now I think I shall have to!

Of course it wasn't aimed at me and maybe the middle-graders it is aimed at will go for it, but for me it was too abrupt of an ending - it never really offered any sort of resolution because it was so determined to leave you on a cliff-hanger to draw you into the next one in the series. This is the problem with series, and why I am not very much a fan of them. I appreciate an author more who leaves you wanting to read on because he or she has done such as good job of investing you in the story rather than one who forces you into a choice by breaking the story in the middle of something.

The art work was colorful but a bit plastic in my view, so it left something wanting, although some individual images were really rather fetching. But the story really wasn't anything new: a kid finds a magical portal into some other world where they magical find themselves a special being. It's been done so many times that if you want to do it again, you really need to bring your 'A' game and I felt none of that here. Indeed, I felt like there was more story told in the blurb than ever we had in the actual story which I think is a first for me.

So all in all I cannot recommend this, although I wish the author all the best in his pursuit of this tale.


Once a King by Erin Summerill

Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

There was nothing in the Net Galley page for this book to indicate it was part of a series. If I had known it was I would not have requested to review it. It does not stand alone well. I am not a fan of Sarah J Maas who recommends this. I should have taken her recommendation as a bad omen and steered clear. My bad!

I think books in a series, especially in a trilogy, and especially if it's a YA trilogy should carry a warning sign like on cigarettes. In general terms, and while there are exceptions, series are not known for being inventive. The whole existence is predicated upon derivation and cloning and that's what this felt like, even not having read the first two volumes. The earth, fire, water, and wind motif is overdone in books, and the way it’s depicted here is far too reminiscent of Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series for it to be truly original.

I was really disappointed in this because it offered so little that was new. It's like the author read a dozen popular YA love stories and appropriated the most clichéd parts of each of them. I was still waiting for the king - the male interest - to be revealed to have gold flecks in his eyes when I DNF'd this out of disgust at twenty percent in. Out of sheer devilment I did a search to see if 'gold flecks' or 'gold flecked' appeared in the book, but it doesn't; however, in conducting this search I discovered that the king's other golden traits: hair, skin, eyelashes, are trotted out a sickening number of times, so in my book that counts just as badly as the gold-flecked eyes!

So this is your standard tired story of a man and a woman who hate each other and then fall in love, so there's nothing new there at all. I can't even give any credit for the author making him a king rather than a prince because really? If it had been the other way around and she was the queen and he the 'maiden-in-distress' character that would have made at least a bit of a difference, but as it was, I saw nothing here that I haven't read two dozen times too many in female-penned YA novels.

Why so many female authors pen themselves up this way is a mystery to me, but then I like to read something new when I pick up a new book - not the same tired old thing I've read a score of times before. Far too many YA authors seem not to care about that in their desperation to sell their trilogy, and neither do publishers, evidently. I think it's because, for too many writers, it's not about the writing, it's all about the Benjamins isn't it? They seem like they want play it safe by cloning trilogies of other writers, and recovering old ground endlessly, rather than take the road less traveled and bring us something truly sterling, and it's a crying shame. Rest assured I will never go down that path. It's too boring.

Funnily enough, that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that once again the author of a YA story goes for the first person voice and then doubles-down on her error by making it dual first person. I read the first chapter (in the female's voice) and then went on into the second chapter not realizing it had changed to the king's voice. For a screen or two the story made less and less sense than it already had until I realized the author was using worst person times two. That's enough to turn me off a story even if the story is interesting, which I honestly can’t say about this one. Maybe if I’d read the first two volumes it might have made a difference - at least in that I would not have had to read this one?

The main female character, whose name I already forgot, is not an actor, she is a thing which is acted upon: just a girl who can't say "No!" The blurb even tells us that "...when he asks for help to discover the truth behind the rumors, she can’t say no" and maybe it’s a bit cruel to quote that, especially since authors have nothing to do with their blurbs unless they self-publish, but this is actually an accurate portrayal of her weakness. She is controlled and buffeted like an insect in a bathtub drain, and if she'd shown some sign that she was rebelling against this and taking arms against this drain of troubles instead of being the tool of men (take that how you will), I would have at least had the temptation to continue, but she offered me nothing. I wish the author all the best in her career, but I cannot recommend this novel based on the thoroughly unoriginal and uninventive part I could stand to read.


How to Speak Science by Bruce Benamran


Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Translated from the original French by Stephanie Delozier Strobel, this is a chatty, loose look at science and its history and the people who made that history, and it’s often light on the science and heavy on the chat. This might have something to do with the author having a French language You Tube channel (e-penser) on this same topic. The author has an easy, breezy tone, which can make for a nice read, but can also be annoying, and sometimes I think he assumes too much, such as when he says, "The other school of thought was led by Democritus - and of course Leucippus before that."

I found myself asking, why 'of course'? I'm not a scientist nor an expert on science, but I am very well-read for a lay-person and I try to keep up on science and technology as time permits, yet I'd never heard of Leucippus and I'd guess that most people have not, perhaps even including most scientists, so I didn't get why the author writes like everyone knows this already! No, we don't! Or maybe I'm just cantankerous today!

There was some looseness about grammar in the book, too, such as when I read, "...seemed to made it his life's goal...,' which should have been 'make it' (of course!). Not long after this I read, "Such as, running electricity through water (electrolysis) to break down two volumes of water...yields two volumes of hydrogen gas (H2) and one volume of oxygen gas (O2)." I didn't understand the 'two volumes of water' bit! To me it would have made more sense to talk about a volume of water.

Perhaps this sentence, in a section talking about the transmutation of one substance to another and the work of Lavoisier and Dalton, was transmuted itself, but the transmutation didn't complete properly, leaving two half sentences mismatched together instead of one intelligible one? It was issues like this that made me feel this book could use another read-through before publishing. Since this is a translation, it’s hard to say if these problems reside with the translation or with the original authorship, be advised. And since this was a ARC, perhaps these issues have been corrected since this version was made available for review.

There was unintentional humor, too! In a section talking about Giordano Bruno, there was a numeric reference to a footnote which revealed the source of the quote. It's after the colon in the following sentence "Bruno also believed that God was both the mystical minimum and maximum: the monad, source of all numbers" The numeric reference was 6, but it was repeated - a regularly-sized six, followed closely by a smaller, superscript six. I believe this was a duplication of the reference number. It's a pity it wasn't a triplication which would have given us an amusing 666! Although there are some who believe the number of the beast was not 666 but 616, which is several doors down the street. But again, another read-through would benefit the text and catch minor issues like this.

The overall readability though, is good, although there are some oddities and annoyances. The author refers to draft dodger Muhammad Ali when he compares a heavyweight hitter to a problem, but Ali wasn't the greatest by any measure. He comes in third after Wladimir Klitschko and Joe Louis in cumulative title wins, most opponents beaten, and most wins in heavyweight title bouts, and seventh after those two in Longest individual heavyweight championship reigns. There isn't any category where he comes out on top. Except motor mouth, maybe! He was an amusing and sweet guy so I understand but not the self-described greatest.

This is a matter of preference and a minor issue really, but to me it was suggestive of the author going for easy rather than realistic, which is odd choice for a science volume. I could see that sort of thing in a creation "science" book, but in a real work of science? I think the same problem evidences when he tries endearments such as overusing the term "dear readers" and his repeated "joke" when he uses the word 'people' and consistently follows it with "the species, not the magazine" even when 'people' isn't capitalized. The first time might have been amusing, but repeating it endlessly? Not funny. In fact, I found both of these things truly annoying and distracting from the import of the book itself.

On big problem is that this book was written as a print book with academic inclinations, which means it has very wide, tree-killing margins. In an ebook, it matters less because no trees were harmed in its production, but this still doesn't get it off the hook. More voluminous books usurp more energy when stored, retrieved, and transmitted, so a shorter book is always wiser if it can be achieved without seriously compromising readability and quality. Narrower margins would have made this book shorter and less abusive of trees. In a world where trees are really the only entity fighting greenhouse gasses with any determination and application, I can’t favor a book which advocates killing more of them.

There were other issues caused by this being designed from the ground up as a print book and then sent to lowly amateur reviewers like me as an ebook. The organization of the printed page, if it’s anything other than straight-forward text, doesn't translate to screens on a smart phone! The print version has what the author calls 'focus panels' - which I assume are small, hived-off sections, perhaps outlined by a border, which briefly digress into a topic mention in the main text. This might well have worked admirably in the print version, but in the ebook, there is no demarcation between these focus panels and the main text other than a change in font.

Aside from that, one section runs right into another so that, for example, in the chapter on light, in a section talking about Arab scientist Abu Ali al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, known more commonly as Alhazen (the author tells us) one screen ends with “...mainly by Ibn“ and the next screen starts with a section on reflection and refraction, which occupies almost the entire screen. Confined tightly to the bottom of that screen is the rest of the sentence that was begun on the previous screen. It’s really disruptive to reading. Evidently no thought whatsoever was given to producing an e-version of the book wherein the focus panels are turned into links which can be tapped to read the content and then tapped again to return to the text. That’s annoying at best.

The section on al-Haytham was regrettable in another way. The author introduces this amazing scientist with the admittedly awkwardly long name, especially for we westerners, and then diminishes the man by saying, "I'm going to shorten that to 'Ali', no offense intended by using the nickname." I did find that offensive. The name Ali is not actually an insulting name in Arabic. It means something along the lines of 'esteemed', or 'worthy', but in western hands it has come to be a term that's at best dismissive and at worst abusive of someone of Arabic descent. I don't understand this patronizing usage. Why not simply use his "last" name (al-Haytham) as he would any other scientist? Why not use the already established 'nickname' of Alhazen? Going the way he went is the equivalent of saying of Einstein, I'm going to shorten that to 'Fritz', no offense intended by using the nickname! Or of saying of Richard Dawkins, I'm going to shorten that to 'Dork', no offense intended by using the nickname. It is offensive, period.

I made it about a quarter of the way though this book. I could read no more of it after I read this in a discussion of the antiquity of telescopes: "[Telescopes] were primarily used on ships for looking at things that were far away...and sometimes, I'm sure, for watching the hottie next door through the window without being seen." I know this guy is French and maybe they think they have a disreputation to keep up, but seriously? It's inappropriate. He couldn’t have said "for spying on the person next door'? Or even 'for spying on the woman next door'? It had to be 'hottie'? That was less than fifteen percent into this book of some 330 pages, so I felt like I ought to have read more than this , but I flatly refuse to continue after a comment like that in a science book. It's supposed to be aimed at the lay reader, not at readers who can only think of getting laid.

In a world where myth, rumor, wild-ass blind conviction, religious fervor, and gossip are all-too-rapidly taking the place of established facts, people need a solid grounding in science and critical-thinking more than ever, and good science books can help. I didn't feel that this one does help, so while I wish the author all the best tackling subjects outside his field of expertise, I cannot recommend this particular effort as a worthy read.


The Long-Lost Secret Diary of the World's Worst Dinosaur Hunter by Tim Collins


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a highly amusing book aimed at middle-grade readers. It's also quite short. I can't speak for middle-graders, but it amused the heck out of me! It seemed a bit far-fetched at first, all the bad luck this young girl was having trying to find dinosaur bones in the USA. Her first set turned into a crumbled mess in storage. She found more at a different location, only to be held-up at gunpoint by masked bandits and the bones were taken, and so it went.

Despite the far-fetched nature of the tale, I was willing to let this slide because it was a children's book, but then this girl figures out her expedition is being sabotaged, which I thought was a pretty good twist. The story is amusing, and the girl is plucky and smart: just my kind of female main character. She's also very patient with her opportunistic and rather avaricious father. The book is educational. Periodically there's a section which talks about the bones she finds and what kind of dinosaur it was and so on, and so I really liked this. I mean, what's not to like, especially since it's very loosely based on a real female dino-hunter?

It seemed to me to be the perfect story for any middle-grader interested in dinosaurs or in science in general. I'd have liked it slightly better if the girl had shown that she knew that you don't just find random dino bones. You have to look in certain rock strata where the bones would have been fossilized, so that information would have been nice. The assumption here is that the fossil hunter who prepared her maps would have marked the right location to search, but a small clarification about rock strata would have been a nice addition. I liked that she consulted books, journals and maps to plan her forays. That was a good touch. Overall, I enjoyed this very much and I recommend it as a worthy read.


Ready to Ride by Sébastien Pelon


Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a young children's book which seems to convey the message that it's just fine for a young kid to go out by himself, meet a stranger, wander off with the stranger without saying a word to mommy, spend hours gone, and then come back and offer no explanation. I felt it was entirely inappropriate and the wrong message to send to kids.

The child in question wants to go out and play on his bike, and the poster parent for bad parenting, who is the kid's mom, lets him out on the street with no supervision and no safety gear such as a helmet or elbow/knee pads. He sees some weird giant creature which is riding a bike and so he follows this creature, which then teaches the kid to ride without his safety wheels.

He does give the kid a helmet, but this is an afterthought and indicates that it's okay to accept gifts from complete strangers. I'm sorry but there are far better ways of achieving the end here than teaching a kid that it's fine to do the things depicted here with someone you don't know and to wander off with a stranger without a word to mom or dad. There are far better ways to have written this, and I cannot approve of this book at all.


Lady Mechanika the Clockwork Assassin by Joe Benitez, MM Chen, Martin Monteil, Beth Sotello


Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've read several Lady Mechanika stories now, both as ARCs and as print books, and this will be my last. While I'm quite willing to put up with the improbability of steampunk stories if I can get a good story, these particular ones simply don't engage me. I don't feel any investment in them. The art is well done, but not to my personal taste: the characters are too tall and skinny which means the women have inane figures - literally hourglass with pencil waists and pneumatic breasts.

Even if we let slide the question of exactly how a clockwork assassin could even work, the story itself was quite simply confusing. A lot of the time I could not follow it at all, but even so it was pretty obvious who the villain was given that this was the only inventor we'd met in the entire story and was superficially the least likely suspect to boot!

I think the big problem with the Lady Mechanika series is that it isn't very well defined who she actually is, so she ends up hanging precariously between genres. Is she a detective à la Sherlock Holmes? Is she a super hero à la Batman? Is she a vampire with those red eyes?! I think the creators want her to be both detective and super hero, but in the end she's neither, and this is the problem. Worse than this, she doesn't invite investment in her as a character, at least not from me. I feel no warmth in her so I feel no warmth for her, and so for me, there was nothing at stake here. I can't recommend this one.


Mae Vol 1 by Gene Ha


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Some of us amateur reviewers don't get to pick the cherry off the top. Once in a while we get lucky, but often, we're reduced to going after the Read Now offers on Net Galley, and this was one of those. It's always a bit 'potluck' in the Read Now bleachers, but every once in a while a gem comes along and this is what I found here. Although it seemed to borrow a bit (there were elements of CS Lewis (the portal to another world), Doctor Who (the many headed robot and the arachnid girl) and even Star Wars (some of the creatures were rather reminiscent of the appalling Ewoks), but that aside it was a fun and original story with a kick-ass female times two, and I typically enjoy that kind of story.

As the blurb has it, Mae is missing her older sister who disappeared several years ago and all Abbie has is memories. Now Abbie's back, from inner space, she's just standing there with that ferocious look upon her face! She is telling fairy tales, and she is making poor Mae wail, but it turns out that Abbie isn't lying as Mae learns, up close and personal, when some of these creatures come over from the parallel work and start going after Mae.

Inevitably the sisters travel back to the other side where everything Abbie told her sister is confirmed, and Mae in turn confirms that she's just as awesome as her sister when it comes to being a strong, decisive, inventive, and imaginative young woman despite the odds. The artwork was really intriguing to me because it had elements of computer-generation and hand painting, so I am not sure how it was done, but I really liked it. I also like the script which was snappy and kept the story moving, but wasn't overly wise-ass or juvenile, and the female characters were portrayed as real females, not as pneumatic adolescent male fantasies, which was a big plus for me. This is a great fantasy, I enjoyed it very much and I look forward to the next volume.


Foam Crafts for Kids by Suzanne McNeil


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Subtitled: Over 100 Colorful Craft Foam Projects to Make with Your Kids, this book was a fun read. I have to say up front that i personally am not a fan of foam crafts, nor have iI ever indulged in any, but I read this book through and I looked up the details of making these things (everything you need to know is in this book!), and I have no doubt that if you follow the author's instructions, you will make these items successfully, and take a joy in doing them, especially if you're a young kid.

Some of the items have a practical use, others are decorative (which is also practical when you think about it!). There were some really fun items. I particularly found the finger puppets amusing. I'm in process of putting out a series of amateur children's books called The Little Rattuses, which is mainly done with drawings and photographs, but I can see myself putting out one of these books featuring images made purely from foam-crafted rats after reading this. I'm not kidding!

I can see kids having a ton of fun with these items (finger puppets I'm looking at you!), and with the satisfaction of knowing you can make your own toys! Working with one's hands has the advantage of somewhat rewiring one's brain and allowing you to see things differently. That's never a bad thing, and it prepares children for other challenges later in life.

I think the book is well done. It's a blaze of color, with examples and templates for cutting out shapes (not sure how those work in the ebook version, quite honestly!), as well as many tips and hints for success. This author is serious about this craft and it shows in her advice, safety tips, and hints and examples. I recommend this for anyone interested in crafting and in teaching kids a craft.



Skin & Earth HC by Lights


Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I have to say I was not impressed by this new-age-y comic from a singer who is evidently well-established, but of whom I'd never heard before. The story supposedly is supported by a dedicated soundtrack (a 14-track corresponding album) and there were 3D bar codes in the comic in various place which you were supposed to be able to scan with your phone and then go listen to (as I understood it), but every one that I scanned went to the same place, which was some sort of news page which offered no prospect of music that I could see - and I was not about to read through all the material in search of a song or two that ought to have been up front and center.

After the third time of going to the same web page from a different bar code, I gave up on this, forced to conclude that it was some sort of a bait and switch to get you reading somebody's web site! I got this review copy in electronic form, but there's no clickable link for the e-version! That seemed a bit antique to me. For that matter they could have included the songs right there in the e-version! But comic books are all about the print version, make no mistake, I guess comic book writers really don't like trees very much!

The comic itself wasn't any better. The artwork was fine enough, but the story was non-existent. As far as I could tell, it was supposed to be about a journey of self-discovery - a girl looking for hope in a hopeless world we're told, but if that's really the way you think, then you're already doomed.

Besides, the journey was far too boring and I gave up on it about halfway through. I think some writers view their own lives as way more interesting than they actually are, and can't wait to lay their personal story on as many others as they can. You could argue that this is what writers (prose, poetry or songs) do as their stock in trade, but I'd disagree.

If that is what you're going to do though, you'd better make the journey interesting. It can't just be a pictorial diary of your random thoughts which is what this felt like. I just read this one a short while ago and I literally cannot remember a single thing about it now. Obviously, it made no impression on me whatsoever! I wish the author all the best in her career, but I can't recommend this aspect of it.


Joy by Corrinne Averiss, Isabelle Folath


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Gorgeously colored and sweetly painted by artist Isabelle Folath, this story by Corrinne Averiss follows young Fern in her seemingly forlorn attempt to find joy for her grandmother who appears to be missing hers. Just when Fern thinks her quest has failed, she discovers that her very recounting of her adventure brings joy to her Nanna.

I thought the art was awesome and the story beautifully told. I have some reservations about the wealth of 'unhealth' in the food on the picnic blanket in a book for young children! It's never a bad idea to promote healthy-eating especially in a biook for young children, but I was willing to let that slide since the rest of it was so well done. I recommend this.


Valiant High by Daniel Kibblesmith


Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a lightweight and fluffy story of some of Valiant's superheroes as they were in high-school, but it's not Superboy - far from it. It was fun and light, and active, and well-drawn and scripted, so I had a good time with it. It was really nice to see Faith in her element and to see her respected and treated as a human being, not as a weight problem, which I've never seen her as anyway. The other characters I confess I was not familiar with - or if I ever was, I've forgotten them.

The nice thing about this is that it's a PG-13 kind of a story so anyone can read it. There's some high-school jinks, some kissing, some action, and cartoonish violence, the occasional oddball fantasy creature, but there's nothing I wouldn't let my kids see. Not that they're very much into comic books! The main protagonists are Amanda "Livewire" McKee and her best friend, Faith "Zephyr" Herbert, and Faith never looked more present than she does here bringing hope and charity wherever she goes. Amanda is pretty cool too, but I'm a Faith fanboy what can I say?! I recommend this if you're into the Valiant hero world at all.