Best Lesbian Romance 2011 Various Authors

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a collection of assorted very short stories which are all focused on lesbian relationships. A tiny few were very good which is why I am recommending this. Some of them were awful. I refuse to believe that these stories constitute the best lesbian romance for a whole year! Either that or the editor (who wrote the last story) doesn't have the first clue as to the difference between romance and adolescent lust. With very, very few exceptions, this book seemingly set out to prove that lesbianism is nothing more than cheap and shallow lust. I can't imagine why it's referred to as romance since there's so little romance in evidence here.

If this kind of thing had been written with one of the protagonists being a guy, it would be considered a superficial overdose of juvenile hormones. I don't think lesbians should get a free pass. Is it not possible to write a romantic short stories? I know that part of romance is great physical attraction, but that's not all it is by any means. I thought a lesbian perspective would appreciate the mental as being superior to the physical, but I evidently thought wrong! Either that or I'm reading the wrong authors.

The thing about the best lesbian romances is that there really wasn't any sex either, which is the other reason for which something like this might have been written - as soft-core porn. All of the stories were pretty much about some woman who was not up for a relationship, or who hadn't had one in a while, or who was sour on them, meeting someone brand new and pretty much launching herself at her new acquaintance's lips, or her new acquaintance launching herself at her lips.

It was pretty much all about new relationships, almost instant kissing (just add warm lips) and lustful thoughts about bodies. Only one story was about an existing relationship, and that was just plain odd. Fortunately, only one or two stories actually depicted sex, though. The saddest thing is that very nearly all of these tales were essentially the same trite story with only the character's names and ages, and the setting being changed. It was romance by numbers, where the template was pre-drawn and all you had to do as an author was color between the lines. Boring.

For some reason I had the idea that lesbian romances would not be as cheap, shallow, juvenile, and tawdry as hetero romances. I thought there might be a different perspective on it with some deeper insights. I'm sorry to say that I was so wrong! Anyway, here we go with a few or fewer) words about each one.

Hearts and Flowers by Theda Hudson
There's a somewhat dysfunctional relationship between Gina and Jen. To me it didn't feel realistic. That is to say it began feeling like it was real, but it grew increasingly fake to me. I found it hard to see that a girl who likes to be on the receiving end of (some mild) BDSM ends up rather cruelly punishing the woman who likes to give it, and without a really good reason.

The best way to pursue a relationship in which both parties are evidently seriously invested is to be open about I - not to walk out in a huff, offer neither solace nor information, and hope your partner figures it all out before it's too late. On the good side, this was technically well-written and had some nice moments, but it had a fake feeling - like I was reading fiction, which is exactly what it was, but it shouldn't feel like that to a reader.

Mother Knows Best by Rachel Kramer Bussel
This is a Very short story about how Stacy met Tanya, the love of her life. Stacy is 38 and her Mother is trying to match-make her not with a guy but with a girl. Stacy likes a girl whose ass she can smack?! This is too stories in a row where one partner likes to inflict pain (even if only mildly) on the other. This was not a great introduction to a series purportedly about love in my opinion!

There was also a lot of objectifying, which is curious form female authors, yet here it is! That said, this story did have a certain sweetness to it, and Tanya definitely came out of this looking as hot as she was purported to be when Stacy's mom told her about this new girl she wanted her daughter to meet.

Twelfth Night by Catherine Lundhoff
The unfortunately named BJ is in lust with Tasha, a fellow player in their production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night which turns out to be more like As You Dyke It turning into The Comedy of Eros or Amid Sappho's Night Dream. Nadine has the hots for BJ, who has the hots for Tasha. Sara, BJ's supposed best friend is pissy. At the last minute BJ decides to relinquish her role as Viola and take the Duke Orsino's role instead so that the more suitable Tasha can take the starring role in order to impress the critic who will be at opening night.

It's pretty obvious from the start how this is going to play out. It's one of those YA stories where the guy (or less frequently the girl) doesn't realize that the best friend is actually also the ideal partner. You'd have to be pretty stupid not to realize this, and you'd have to be a moron to go that long without sharing your feelings or without them becoming obvious from numerous hints and circumstances along the way, so I wasn't impressed with this one.

Boiled Peas by Clifford Henderson

This one is about Penny and Lil a couple in their mid-twenties, who aren't even a couple when the story begins but you know for a fact they will be one when it ends. For me it felt just a wee bit too convenient and fairy-tale-like, but maybe twee was what the author was aiming for in translating this into another language, so to speak. It is very convenient Lil happens to come over on the very night when Penny, feeling annoyingly sorry for herself on her birthday, is about to eat boiled peas with her champagne. Lil is the apartment's new maintenance person, and Penny is about to celebrate her birthday and remind herself that her mother was right when she compared her daughter to the princess who was obsessed with the pea.

It's also a bit too convenient that Penny, as a self-diagnosed ice queen, suddenly thaws after knowing this girl for all of a hour. I could only buy this one as a fairy tale.

I think I will Love You by Rebecca S Buck
"She was beautiful in a striking sense"! In what way, I found myself wondering, is something beautiful yet not in a striking sense? This story - the story of how wounded Carolyn, and dominant, shameless Karmen pair up, marked three out of four stories so far here where physical appearance is held up as a positive trait! It also, disturbingly, marked two out of four stories wherein the prospective partners leapt into depth (if not bed) on the first date (in one case literally, and in the other, for all practical purposes). Is this what we want to represent lesbians as being - half the time they're committed in one way or another, the other half they ought to be committed for being as loose as the gravel on Carolyn's driveway?

Camellias by Anna Meadows
This is yet another example of a rush to sex

The Panacea by Colette Moody
Simone and no, not Nina, but Hope - a crashing personification - meet in a coffee bar, except that Hope is serving the brews and Simone comes in feeling bruised after being laid off. All Hope has in mind is getting laid on Simone.

Lost and Found by Andrea Dale
We couldn't get two screens into this one before lust raised its ugly head. Lara, in Hawaii for god knows what reason since she isn't attending the sessions at the conference, wants to drag Evie into bed the moment she lays eyes on her. So here am I, half way through this romance book and there's been zero romance, not so much as a spell of magic, no hint of subtle seduction, in fact, nothing but lust raising its ugly head. Do lesbians really need this rap laid at their door?

If this one had been written about a guy picking up a woman, it would rightly be pilloried. Do lesbians get a bye where guys don't when it comes to objectifying women? I think not. We're supposed to be treating genders equally are we not? Does romance, when it comes to lesbian relationships mean nothing but the shallow and superficial? I hope not.

A Witchy Woman Called My Name by Merina Canyon
I don't know if Merina Canyon is really this author's name, but it's a pretty cool name regardless. This was a good story with an ending I totally expected, so no surprises except at how clueless the main protagonist was. Still a decent read and more romantic than most stories here.

Rebound by Charlotte Dare
Is a story of a mature woman who falls for an even more mature one, and while in some ways it's charming and has an element of realism to it, it still focuses purely on lust and physical attraction (and is a bit more graphic than most stories here). Despite a happy ending - marriage, it has disturbing overtones of stalking in it.

Things I Missed by Kathleen Warnock
This was one of the most enjoyable stories, if tinged with sadness. It's about regrets and brushing off regrets, and it's about cruel injustice and faded friendships. It's very different on tone form many of the others. There's no room here for the shallow and superficial, for the lust and hormonal rampages of so many other stories in this collection. It's a mature and serious story and was very much appreciated.

Dirty Laundry by Cheyenne Blue
Another author with a cool name! Set in Eire, this truly appropriately-titled story is about the appalling cruelties organized religion is capable of perpetrating, in this case upon "wayward girls" in an evil convent where "Love thy neighbor" never did get any air-play evidently. Maura is the new girl dumped in the convent, torn from her baby and is fortunate that Eileen chooses to befriend her without thought for anything she would get out of it. Eileen's sin was to be unwillingly molested by a priest. What she does get out of it is a lifelong friendship and the love she was starved of for nineteen years before she met Maura. This was a brilliant, sweetly-written, though hard-to-read-at-times story and made this collection worth enjoying, all by itself.

The Game by Elaine Burns
This one was also one of the best. Short and to the point, perfectly titled, beautifully written. What looks like a first encounter over a pool table has much more going on than you'd imagine! Who's going to break first?!

The Gift by Sacchi Green
I was starting to wonder at this point whether giving your daughter a cool name means she will grow up to be an author of lesbian romance stories! This one was excellent if rather fantastical. Unlike the other stories, this one had an element of the magical to it - and I don't mean purely the magic of romance! The question of this Christmas night was: how are Lou - stuck on an unexpected tour of duty in Afghanistan, and Meg - urged by Lou to go enjoy their planned vacation in Switzerland anyway - going to get through this family night without each other, their own family, to hold hands and hug? Maybe the odd gift box Lou was handed by an Afghani woman she helped can help Lou in turn? Or is that just too ridiculous?

Rock Palace by Miel Rose
This story is about Taylor and Lilly (not Lilly Taylor) - a late twenties early thirties couple. Taylor grew up on a farm and feels a need to get back to her roots, but she's never had a girl she could take back to those roots with her. Finally Lilly came along and Now Taylor thinks that there's a possibility that she can have the best of both worlds. The story was gorgeous - just gorgeous.

The last story, by the editor, I'm not even going to talk about because it was so awful. So most of them turned my stomach, but a precious few, a happy few, a band of sisters; for she to-day that shares her story with me
shall be my sister; be she ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle her condition. I recommend this for those few.

Architecture and Construction

Rating: WORTHY!

I recommend this one for Scholastic which aims to teach the beauty and joy of architecture. As other books in this series, it is full of attractive and illustrative images, and it really highlights how entrancing really good architecture can be. It begins with a quick overview of construction from something as ostensibly simple as an igloo, to the huge buildings in modern cities, but it also focuses not just on the buildings, but how and with what they are built. It talks of the materials - including the glass and iron of the Victorian Crystal Palace, now better known as a soccer team than an expo building as it happens! I recommend this.

Our Changing Planet

Rating: WORTHY!

I recommend this educational book about how geological and other events change Earth. It's colorfully illustrated and has lots of fold-outs and fun things on every page to engage young minds and keep interest.

It has images such as one which shows how it would look were the Pacific ocean drained away and you could see the topography way down on the bottom. It has in-depth views of volcanic activity, something which has changed history on our planet as well as preserved magnificent treasures such as the footprints at Laetoli, and it has fascinating images, such as the large fold-out comparison of a modern view of Earth's continents side-by-side with one which shows how people thought the world looked before it was properly charted. I recommend this book for engaging young minds.

The Pedestriennes: America's Forgotten Superstars by Harry Hall

Rating: WORTHY!

Errata:
"May Marshall could now lay claim to the world's to pedestrienne." (p81) I don't know what was meant here.
"In June, in she quit in the middle...leaving her manager in arreareages." (p82) The first part of the sentence makes no sense, and the last word should be arrearage or better, simply 'arrears'
"Von HIllern" (p85) Inappropriate capitalization in 'Von' (should be 'von') and with the 'I' in Hillern.
"When the man persited" (p93) should be 'persisted'
"...game leg..." (p154) should be "gammy leg"
"Madame Vestras" should be Madame Vestris - Lucia Elizabeth Vestris.
Laura Keene's name is misspelled as "Keane" at one point.
"...letting loose with a torrid of cursing..." should be "torrent"
"Fueding" should be "feuding" (p190)
"Seheduled" should be "Scheduled" (p227)

The description of "Madame" Ada Anderson's feat in Mozart Garden New York covers several chapters and not a bit of it is boring. It's really quite emotional and made me feel I was very nearly there. Her achievement was incredible. It was even more incredible that within a few months of her achievement, her record would be exceeded by May Marshall, and pretty much in tandem with it, Exilda LaChappelle would exceed Marshall's new record.

If there is one thing I do love it's quirky - as long as it's not endlessly, excessively, or mindlessly so. I especially like quirky when it comes to women and things they get up to that we may, rightly or wrongly, never have imagined them doing. One thing I freely confess never did cross my transom was "...a handful of late 19th century female athletes who dazzled America with their remarkable performances in endurance walking."

The blurb continues: "Frequently performing in front of large raucous crowds, pedestriennes walked on makeshift tracks set up in reconfigured theatres and opera houses. Top pedestriennes often earned more money in one week than the average American took home in a year." Female superstars in Victorian times? Quirky that's also pedestrian? How can a body not want to read that? So off we go!

These names will be unknown to you more than likely. They were to me, but back then, they were household names making newspapers headlines. Now at least they have a web site!:

• Ada Anderson
• Alice Donley
• Sadie Donley
• Fannie Edwards
• Helene Freeman
• Lillie Hoffman
• Amy Howard
• Exilda la Chappelle
• Bertie LeFranc
• Tryphena Lipsey (aka May Marshall)
• Kate Lorence
• Carrie Ross
• Emma Sharp
• May Bell Sherman
• Bertha von Berg (aka Maggie von Gross)
• Bertha von Hillern

These women were from a variety of backgrounds and an assortment of ages from their mid fifties to as young as seventeen years old in the case of Lillie Hoffman, yet whereas Captain Barclay walking 1000 miles in 1000 hours for 1000 guineas in 1809, and falling asleep literally on his feet gets a page in Wikipedia, virtually none of the women do. Some of these endurance walkers met or exceeded his feat, such as for example, Emma Sharp. Perhaps these women faded too quickly into obscurity. perhaps genderism played a part. And not all of the men merit a page either, it would seem. William Gale, who achieved several pedestrian feats (which were not at all pedestrian!) of his own, gets no mention either, and he was instrumental in aiding and abetting female endurance walking.

A man named O'Leary kick-started the women's pedestrian competitive sport by staging a six-day marathon between two willing competitors: Bertha von Hillern and May Marshall. From then on it was a roller-caster bi-coastal ride coasting to a standstill in the 1880's and thereafter fading into complete forgetfulness until this author raised heir profile tow here it should be.

This book isn't quite ready for prime time: I found numerous spelling errors, which a good spell-checker would have cured (apart from a couple of misspelled names, that is). I know this was an advance review copy, but spelling errors should never get through even to that stage in this day and age. That aside, the book was well written, exhaustively researched, and pleasantly enlightening. It comes with extensive end notes, a bibliography, and an index. It's a fast read despite being close to three hundred pages. I recommend it.

The Roll-Away Pumpkin by Junia Wonders

Rating: WORTHY!

Is a Pumpkin considered kin folk of a pump? Is there some significance in the initial letters of this story's title spelling "trap"? Neither of these idiotic questions will be answered in this book, but that's no reason at all not to love it. I enjoyed and positively reviews Junia Wonders's Boy and the Very Lonely Pony back at the end of June 2015, and this story was equally charming.

The artwork here is by a different artist, Daniela Volpari, but it's equal to anything on the other book. Indeed, it has its own charm, and is very elegantly executed. The story is simple and perfect for the young age group this book is aimed at, and highly suitable for the fall, which is not as far away as you might think.

A young girl loses control of a pumpkin - and I'm tempted to say if I had a dime for every time that's happened to me..., but that's all pie in the sky, and it doesn't help to be prideful about it because summer comes before a fall, as we all know.

In a chase rather reminiscent of the ending to an old Benny Hill show, not only the girl goes running pell-mell after her errant pumpkin; pretty much everyone she passes during her frantic chase joins in with her, until a veritable parade of people is in pursuit which is perfect since today was actually supposed to be the local vegetable parade, and what better way to end all the exertion than to sit down with a nice bowl of fresh pumpkin soup? Orange you glad it all ended without anyone becoming browned off?

I recommend this delightful story.

The King's Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

Rating: WORTHY!

After Edward the eighth abdicated so he could marry American double-divorcee Wallace Simpson, his younger brother Albert, who had never expected to ascend to the throne, found himself King. He took the name George (the sixth as it happened) in order to offer some continuity to the nation after what was at that time, an appallingly scandalous event. Lionel Logue was hired to help King Al overcome his stammering, as it turned out, so he could get through the coronation, and later make a rallying speech to the nation at the advent of World War 2.0, although none of this was known when the two first met. Logue succeeded admirably.

The audio book is read by Simon Vance, who does an excellent job despite being an actor. He gives a hint of voice characterization for various people who appear in the story, such a King George, Lionel Logue, Winston Churchill, and so on, without over-doing it. It was refreshing to hear and an object lesson for other would-be readers. The audio begins with the actual speech George 6.0 made after it became clear that a second major war with Germany was unavoidable. The story takes off after that with the author detailing how he came to be interested in all of this.

He is closely-related to Lionel Logue, but while he had grown-up knowing of this relative, he had very little interest in him or what he did, until he became older and realized what an important role Lionel had played in the nation's history. At this point he went on a quest to find out more and to uncover diaries and letters, some of which were written to Lionel by the king himself over the course of a relationship that went on beyond their speech therapy relationship, right up to the point where the king died of lung cancer.

This was a great book, and it's also a great movie even though the two are really very different. I recommend both.

Nickel Mountain by John Gardner

Rating: WARTY!

I simply could not get into this. It was a story - perhaps a form of authorial wish fulfillment - about a 42 year old guy who marries a 17 year old girl who has become pregnant from her no-account boyfriend. I didn't get that far actually because I gave up on it around chapter seven. The story was immensely tedious and chronically boring and did nothing to draw me in, or to make me like a single one of the characters who were introduced. I very quickly lost interest in the characters, the setting, and whatever it was that the future held for these tedious people. I can't recommend it.

Plain Jane by Sally Huss

Rating: WORTHY!

Erratum:
"...not one colored foks could be seen in the fray."? Maybe "none of the colored folks could be seen in the fray."?

I reviewed two previous books by Sally Huss, one of which I liked, the other I didn't. This third one I liked.

This is a wonderfully affirming and self -possessed book about a plan ordinary person - just like the rest of us - in this case a girl whose name is Jane and she's real plain. This book is a real blues beater, told in odd poetic meter, we learn that she had to leave her previous town because it was simply getting her down. Now she's moved to a new location just in time for a big celebration.

This town is populated by colored folks - I make no insult, I make no jokes - they rainbow-colored as if it matters, and more than that they've covered in patterns. Jane feels even more like she can't fit in when she sees the bright colors on everyone's skin.

But the town likes Jane and now she's in place, they have a great plan to color her face! But as the crowd begins to jam her she calls a halt to their fuss and clamor, asking, "Why color myself to look like you when I can be unique with my very own hue?"

Now Jane learned a lesson: even plain has resplendence! Why emulate others when she can have her independence? So as the bombs burst overhead and the rockets glared red, she was happy you see in the land of the free!

I recommend this one for it exuberance, and even for its uberance before it became an ex.

The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler

Rating: WORTHY!

This story is based on a Grimm fairy tale about twelve dancing princesses, but this has been augmented and otherwise beefed-up to make a longer and more engrossing story. It’s really done quite well, and although I had some minor issues with it, the way the author has taken a short fairy tale and made a whole story out of is as commendable as it is enjoyable.

Zita comes at the end of a long line of princesses: Aurelia, Alanna, Ariadne, Althea, Adena, Asenka, Amina, Alima, Akila, Allegra, Asmita, Anisa. Zita was quite literally the red-headed child of the family, and the king disowned her, cluelessly blaming her for her mother's death as she gave birth to Zita. Let's face it: the truth is that any young girl who has eight children by the time she's twenty five is probably not going to survive long - not back in those days, anyway.

This diversity of daughters (isn't that the collective noun?!) includes two sets of twins: Alanna and Ariadne, and Amina and Alima. Anisa was named after the kitchen maid’s cat (but by a very round-about way, it must be said). Zita was sent to be raised and eventually to work in the kitchen so the king would never have to look upon the visage of the child who, he believes, killed his wife.

This author is yet another one who doesn't know the difference between 'stanch' and 'staunch' as she writes, "...trying to staunch the blood...". No, a doctor might staunchly try to stanch the blood flow, but I am seeing this mistake so often now that it’s really becoming a part of the language. How sad.

Her sisters have not abandoned Zita, they are just so afraid of their father's wrath - or upset - if they hang out with her, but family will out, and slowly the sisters draw close together again and find secret ways to enjoy each other's company. That's when Zita discovers an increasing problem with her twelve sisters that seems to be killing them.

I loved this story which was well-written and told beautifully. It was inventive and engaging, and told at a good pace. I recommend it.

Webster's Email by Hannah Whaley

This is a thoroughly delightful piece of silliness which has a serious message underneath - and aren't they the best kind? The author's illustrations show Webster, the spider whose adventures and mishaps (evidently!) are dutifully detailed for us. This one, curiously enough for a spider, takes place on the world wide web!

Webster has a kid sister who's bizarre expressions is captured by Webster with a camera, and it's just too good to be kept to himself, so he emails his father and includes the pic. From that point on, it gets out of hand. None of this is Webster's fault (he only shared it with family, after all), but he feels bad about it as the image starts circulating all over the place.

And isn't it the easiest thing in the world to do that these days? When you had to take your film to the store and get it printed up, and then had to take the negative back to get copies made if you wanted them, no one ever thought of sending out a letter to a score of people enclosing a picture! Now it's the norm. So educational and a worthy read.

Goo and Spot in the Great Zoo Escape by Elsa Takaoka

I negatively reviewed a children's book from Elsa Takaoka back in April 2015, so it's nice this time to positively review one. This is a fun story and a sneaky way of teaching the days of the week to young kids.

This isn't the first time that the snake has tried to escape, but it's always failed. This time it undertakes some long-term planning, calling on the aid of many other animals in the zoo as each day passes by, laying down a plan carefully, until finally it manages to get free, stowing away in the child Goo's back-pack.

I have to say that Goo might have shown a bit more honesty, because he effectively steals a snake from the zoo. Also a word about respect for how deadly some snakes can be would be in order, but in this case, the story was good enough and fun enough that I felt I could let that slide this once.

Besides, it all works out in the end when the snake becomes homesick! Once again Catherine Toennisson is the illustrator and does a fine job with the scenery and the animals. All in all a colorful, fun, and educational read for young kids. I recommend this one.

Trashed by Derf Backderf

Rating: WORTHY!

18 months of trash generated by Americans would form a line of full garbage trucks that would stretch to the Moon. A quarter billion tons a year - three pounds of trash per person per day - even after recycling. Half a century ago we generated less when there was no recycling (granted the population was less, though)!

That's the vein in which Derf Backderf launches his graphic novel, and he apparently knows what he's talking about, having worked as a garbage-man at one point in his life. This is both a reality-based fictional romp through the garbage and an instruction manual on what's wrong with our 'waste lots care not' society vis-à-vis our generation and disposal (or not) of our trash.

We learn a lot about the dubious joys of this line of work from the disgustingly liquid and stinking garbage of the summer to the frozen to the curb garbage of winter, as well as other issues such as the weight of the garbage, the dangers of driving a truck on icy roads, and the exhaust fumes coming out at face height on a truck supposedly designed to allow guys to ride on the outside - right behind that exhaust! The authors tells us that garbage collection has the sixth highest mortality rate, behind only logging, commercial fishing, piloting aircraft, roofing, and iron working. Yep, they beat out even policing and fire fighting!

So what's in our trash? According to the author, using an EPA survey, a third of our trash is food and yard waste, which effectively recycles itself as compost. Another third is recyclable materials such as wood, metal, plastic and glass. Less than ten percent of the plastic is recycled. And the EPA figures used here may not even be telling the whole truth.

The distressing thing is that this graphic novel itself wastes paper by having way too much white space and empty pages! In the e-version which I read, this doesn't matter of course, but it would if it went to a significant print run. In addition to assorted blank pages throughout the course of this book, and the occasional page with only one small illustration, there is a rather staggering twelve blank pages at the end of the book. That's an even number, meaning this book could have been significantly smaller and thereby used proportionately less paper in a print version. It's worth thinking about - but then so is the content of this book.

The novel is illustrated crisply and competently in black and white line drawings. The author doesn't know how to spell temperamental (tempermental? No!) or asbestos (asbestoes is not a disease you want, trust me on this!). After a while it occurred to me that this had been done deliberately, but I wasn't sure. Other than that, this is good, interesting, fun, and best of all, informative enough to make a reader think. For example, although we now have less than a quarter of the active landfills we used to have, the size of the landfills has increased. The example this author gives is of Salton, which expanded from eight acres, 45 feet deep in 2008 to 287 acres 250 feet deep in 2012. Some can dip down to four hundred feet. Some can cover more than two thousand acres, or over three square miles, such as the one outside Las Vegas. The author gets all these things across without any long and boring lectures.

On the up side, landfills can produce methane which can be captured and used as energy for up to half a century after the landfill becomes land full. On the down side, even a ten acre landfill can leak 3,000 gallons of toxic fluids into ground water every year, and the decomposition of the waste takes almost forever. Even a steel can might take half a century to disintegrate; a plastic bottle almost half a millennium, and both of them should have been recycled. Don't even get started on the yellow torpedoes - the plastic drink bottles full of urine that are tossed out by truckers who don't want to stop for a rest break. Utah, so we're told, found 30,000 of these one year!

There are over 4,000 landfills in Texas alone, both functional and defunct. This reminded me of the John Lennon contribution to the Beatles song, A Day in the life: "I read the news today, oh boy! 4,000 landfills, Texas, USA, and so the stink was rather large, and we could smell it all. Now we know how just how much stench it takes to fill the Astrodome! I have to re-cy-cuhl-uh-uhl-uh-uhl...."

I highly recommend this book as a very informative and worthy, if rather depressing, read, but get the e-version!

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Rating: WARTY!

This was such a pathetically dull story, and read by such an awful reader that I made it through only two disks on the audio book and could stand to listen not a phoneme further. There was one part where it got really interesting, which kept me going briefly, but that was soon blown to shreds by the deadening text which followed quickly afterwards. And where in hell the author dragged that title from has to be one of the great mysteries of the 21st century. A novel about ice and snow, and cold and an Ice Queen is titled Breadcrumbs? Definitely a Whisky Tango Foxtrot call-sign on this one.

The basic story is about Hazel - an adoptee from India who prefers to hang out with her best friend Jack (yuk - yet another unimaginatively mundane male character named Jack. Barf, etc.) than to do "girly stuff". Hazel is evidently overweight, and the subject of bullying - from the very boys with whom Jack hangs out at school. There's an entire story there which was lost because this author evidently couldn't see it. As for Jack(-ass), he couldn't see anything wrong with his friends hazing Hazel, and basically tells her to get over it. What a jerk. The true tragedy here is that Hazel evidently has no life without Jack in it. As for the story, it had no life at all. It was pedantic and tedious, and the narrator Kirby Heythorne's reading voice was god-awfully dull.

The problem with Hazel is that she is one of the most boring characters ever, with no motivation and an obsession with Jack which is pathetic if not scary. She's not likable and she doesn't change - not in the part to which I listened anyway. She has nothing to offer to win our hearts or minds.

The interesting part for me was where Hazel met an old childhood friend whom she had not seen in four years - a lifetime for an eleven-year-old child. When Hazel arrived at her home, her friend was in the kitchen doing homework whilst her slacker uncle (supposedly a screenwriter LOL) was baking cookies. The girl's uncle told Hazel that he was encouraging his niece to invent a story which he could steal and turn into a screenplay which would make him rich.

They began to elaborate on the original idea, and the story became quite engrossing, brief and sketchy as it was. Unfortunately it was over all-too-quickly, and we went right back to the brain-deadening tedium of our regular programming, which is where I said, "Check please, I'm outta here!". I wanted to switch to the other story and pursue that instead, but of course that option wasn't available so I couldn't avail myself of it!

This is based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, and things turn towards the fantastical as this novel progresses (according to the blurb), but that was nowhere near enough of an attraction to lure me any further notwithstanding that I had liked the "screenplay" they'd discussed on earlier. I cannot recommend this story based on what I suffered through, and especially not in the mind-numbing audio version.

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Rating: WORTHY!

Read lamely by Cassandra Morris

I started listening to this on an audio book which I accidentally happened upon at the library (try accidentally happening upon an ebook at the library or in a book store! Doesn't work, does it?!). I liked the story (although not the reader's voice) so much that when I saw it on sale at Amazon, I snapped it up and finished reading it in the ebook version.

Tiger Lily is an alternative interpretation of the J M Barrie book about Peter Pan. I guess the all-encompassing and highly-protected copyright of the Peter Pan story is over now, otherwise this book could never have been written, which would have been a real shame.

This story is told by Tinkerbell, but from the Indian "princess" Tiger Lily's point of view instead of Wendy's and Peter's. Indeed, Wendy in particular, but also Peter are quite minor characters, except that Tiger lily falls in love with Peter and feels betrayed when he meets Wendy towards the end of the story, and he effectively cold-shoulders Tiger Lily.

As I said, I started listening to the audio book, but the narrator's childish voice was really hard to stomach, so when I saw the novel on sale at Amazon, I bought the ebook, returned the library audio book, and finished reading it on my phone! It was seriously good. The way the author captures and interprets the mentalities and motivations of the various players, including Tinkerbell, Tiger Lily, Hook, Smee, Peter, and the mermaids is remarkable. The story really drew me in despite the awful reading.

I never read the Peter Pan book, which was actually titled "Peter and Wendy" and was taken from a portion of an earlier story book and transformed into a play and then a novel, and finally a sequel. I only know the story from the Disney movie which I watched once with my kids, but it would seem that the movie followed the book quite closely. Now I confess I'm tempted to read the 'original' book.

Tiger lily was supposedly a princess, although how that works within a native American setting is a mystery. There is a precedent though: Pocahontas was referred to as a princess since she was the daughter of a chief. There was no chief worth the name in the Peter Pan story that I recall, but in this book, Tiger Lily was an orphan who had been adopted by a cross-dressing shaman known as Tik-Tok.

In the original, the only interaction Tiger Lily had with Peter was when he rescued her from the pirates after she was kidnapped. There never was any other relationship between them. In this book, she negotiates with the pirates and is willingly used as bait to trap Peter and Wendy on a rock as the tide rises, so the pirates can drown them (neither Peter nor Wendy can swim). Tiger Lily feels betrayed and rejected by his favoring Wendy over herself, although she's hardly blameless.

It's a pretty good read, which surprised me a bit. I didn't expect it to be so good. There were one or two really oddball sentences, such as this one, which made no sense at all: "I’ll meet you at the bridge, midday, not tomorrow night but the next" They’re going to meet at midday at night? Weird! Those were mere hiccups though, and overall, this was a very worthy read.

The Valley of Fear by Arthur Doyle

Rating: WARTY!

The Valley of Fear was the last Sherlock Holmes novel to be written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and was published as a serial in Strand Magazine running from September 1914 through May 1915. I have to say I was disappointed in it and quit it half-way through. I'm not sure what Doyle thought he was doing here, but he told the entire story in the first half, and Holmes of course solved the mystery, which wasn't much of a mystery. The second half of the book explains why the main character did what he did, and this wasn't at all interesting to me.

Holmes has been receiving messages from a man who is known by the pseudonym "Fred Porlock" who evidently works for Moriarty. The most recent message is a book code which doesn't so much reveal as gives an extremely vague hint, that something bad will happen at Birlstone manor. Unfortunately, the hint is too late - or Holmes is far too laggardly in solving it, because the next thing Holmes learns is from inspector MacDonald, and it's that John Douglas of that same address was found murdered the previous night. Holmes and Watson accompany MacDonald to investigate.

Douglas was shot when making his nightly security rounds of his home. His face is blown away and in this era of no DNA testing, it's assumed that the body is Douglas by everyone except Holmes. Meanwhile, Baker, a friend of Douglas's and Douglas's wife both appear to be intimate and sharing secrets which they do not reveal to the police or to Holmes.

The clues seem to indicate that the murderer arrived on a bike, but abandoned it in his escape, leaving a bloody shoe print on the window ledge, fording the shallow moat which surrounds the property and making good his escape on foot. There appears to have been a card left at the scene with the initials VV and a number, and the body has a tattoo branded on his arm - just as Douglass did, which looks like two-thirds of the Deathly Hallows symbol! All that's missing is the wand.

I have to say that this story dragged on and on, with Holmes being completely insufferable, not revealing a single thing to the police, which in this day and age would have had him charged with obstructing an investigation at best, and as an accessory after the fact to murder at worst. It was this, and the poor mystery and stupid clues, together with the unnecessary length of this novel which made me dislike it. I cannot recommend it.

Rat Queens Vol 1 Sass and Sorcery by Kurtis Weibe

Rating: WORTHY!
Art work by Roc Upchurch

I loved volume two of this series and determined as soon as I'd finished it to get my hands on volume one, and I was not disappointed. Someone in the town wants to get rid of the mercenaries, and each of several teams of them is sent on a mission which is nothing more than a trap. Only two groups survive to return, the Rat Queens being one of them. The others are pretty much entirely destroyed. The Rat Queens seek revenge!

We get to see Betty the smidgeon reconcile with her girlfriend, and Violet the dwarf get a boyfriend and reconsider growing her beard. Dee the witch reconciles with her mom, and Hannah the elf, well Hannah is magic as usual.

I loved the script for this one as much as I did for the second one, and the art work was just as fine, so in all, this was a great volume and I recommend it.

Candy Darling by Candy Darling

Rating: WARTY!

This is an extremely short book composed pretty much of a handful of letters written by Candy Darling. It hardly presents her in the best light. There was a foreword, and an introduction, and a "Candy Remembered", and an editor's note before we got to the meat of this one. All the introductory material was very nearly as much as Candy's own words, so naturally I skipped all of that as I usually do. If it ain't good enough to be in chapter one, it ain't worth my time. Anything less is self-serving claptrap all-too-often in books of this nature written by people in whom I have no interest.

So this isn't, contrary to what the title tries to tell you, a memoir in any meaningful sense. It isn't a book written by Candy Darling as such, I'm sorry to report. It's merely a very short series of her letters and what look like quotes from her. It's a complete mess which, along with some interesting observations, includes boring and bitchy whining, recipes for food, as well as make-up and clothing comments, and odd lists of Hollywood actors.

Parts of it are interesting (we do get some perspective on her life and how she felt about it), but most of it is tedious, and highlights Candy Darling, rightly or wrongly, as someone who is superficial and shallow, bitchy and hypocritical, who is obsessed with looks and getting a boyfriend. I think she deserved a better testimonial than this.

Some parts are amusing, such as when she lists the names she's known as in her neighborhood: "Marlene D-Train to Queens, Mamie Van Doorway or Diana Doorways, Tawdry Heartburn, Tana Lerner". One part I loved, being a fan of parody myself, was where Candy re-wrote the words to a song which makes me think of The Platters' Twilight Time, but it isn't that, nor is it Hoagy Carmichael's Star Dust or Frank Sinatra's Stardust. The song seems really familiar, but I can't place it! Candy's version ran like this (I've included only one verse): When the spotlight slowly dims and you’re regretting all your sins when memories that you hold so dear are all that's left of your career, that’s stardusk. Love it!

She's very hypocritical. On the one hand she talks about being real and true and then turns right around and exclaims " I think I see a place where I could use a silicone injection above the upper lip and near the nose". Seriously? In another part, after spending so much time wanting to be a woman, she remarks, "I don't think I want to be a woman anymore, I can't be. I'm too strong" which struck me as really inappropriate.

The "memoir" ends with what looks like a suicide note, but Candy, who was actually born James Lawrence Slattery, died very much as Candy Darling in 1974 at the age of twenty nine, from lymphoma. I can't recommend this unless you're a really addicted fan. You'll get more out of reading the Wikipedia entry for her. She deserved a lot better.

Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina Bates

Rating: WORTHY!

This novel is a classic example (and we've seen one or two on my blog!), of how much crap an author can feed me and still get me to like her novel - and this doesn't even get started on how ridiculously long the title is! Lady of Devices: a Steam-Punk Adventure Novel (Magnificent Devices Book 1) by Shelley Adina (Bates). In it, Claire Elizabeth Trevelyan is the daughter of Viscount St. Ives, and even at 17, she is still attending St Cecilia's Academy for Young Ladies. We meet her in a "Chemistry of the Home" class, wherein she makes something explode and is ordered to clean it up.

I found this to be completely preposterous in every measure. Even in a steam-punk novel, to pretend that a woman so highly born would be in school is stretching things beyond breaking point. We're told that nothing more of her is expected than that she will pour an elegant cup of tea (no, the daughters of viscounts do not pour their own tea, for goodness sakes!), sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband, yet she's in school studying chemistry? To suggest, even if she were in school, that she would be learning chemistry, even 'chemistry of the home' is another ridiculous stretch, and to suggest that she would be required to clean up the mess is completely absurd!

Yes in any real world, people do these things, but in 1889, the daughter of one of the highest ranked members of the nobility doesn't do those things, so credibility was pretty much out the window from the off, even as I found myself drawn into this story. It didn't help that the Honorable Claire Trevelyan had every cliché heaped upon her from the start: spoiled noble woman who longs to get down and dirty with technology, accident-prone rule-breaker who blows things up, with a snotty bullying triplet of school-mates arrayed against her - and an eye-glass wearing female chum who supports her unconditionally? Check, check, check, and check. I was hoping for better.

Allow me to inject a brief note of clarification here. Despite having been born in Britain, I have neither respect nor time for the nobility, the peerage, or royalty. My point here is that if you're going to set your novel in Victorian England (or indeed in any other historical period or locale), you need to give at least a nod and a wink to the social and societal mores of the day (regardless of whether you agree with them) otherwise you risk undermining the credibility of your entire enterprise. Otherwise you're writing fantasy!

Claire's bullying fellow students have trope names: Lady Julia Wellesley, Lady Catherine Montrose, Miss Gloria Meriwether-Astor. Lady Julia is expecting a proposal from Lord Robert Mount-Batting? Mount-Batting? Seriously? Another irritation was the author's insistence upon adding a 'k' to the end of words ending with a 'c', so that we got 'electrick', 'kinetick, 'statick' and so on. Weird. Just weird.

The novel is set in London in 1889 when Victoria is Queen, but unaccountably, Charles Darwin's son Leonard is Prime Minister. In actual fact, the prime minister in 1889 was the Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil. But here, steam-power is king and anything goes, evidently.

There are some odd sentences in this novel such as "Julia, Catherine, and Claire herself were to be presented to Her Majesty during the same Drawing Room" During the same drawing room? During the same audience, you mean? Who knows? Maybe it's a phrase but it sounded weird. In another oddity, we're told that Claire's talents lie in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up, so in what way, precisely, do her talents lie there? Is she to become an anarchist bomb-maker? Maybe. None of this made sense, although I confess that the people who write the absurd blurbs are not necessarily they who write the body of the novel.

Of course, Claire isn't going to be in this position for very long, because, as the blurb has it, her father gambles his estate on the combustion engine and loses. The coward shoots himself and off we go! Even if this were the case, however, why would Claire be out on the street? She has no relatives? I can see how "friends" would reject her and turn a cold shoulder on her plight if they had invested in the Viscount's failed petroleum scandal, but not family. Jane Austen made a career out of delivering her heroines to the less-than-tender mercies of distant relatives, so I don't know what went wrong here.

All of that said, I found myself, as I mentioned before, drawn into this and by the end of it, I was completely on board. After the very prickly start, the novel settled down and really got me interested. The events became, if somewhat improbably, more realistic, although where Claire's remarkable spine grew from, we were offered no firm guidance.

So, overall, I recommend this, believe it or not, despite the unfortunate series of annoyances, problems, and irritations. See? You can get me to continue reading - but you have to give me a story along with the headaches you inflict!

Frankie Dupont and the Lemon Festival Fiasco by Julie Anne Grasso

Rating: WARTY!

I reviewed the first of these positively, and I really liked it, but this one fell far short of the glory of its predecessor, I'm afraid to say.

The stakes are a lot lower, too. In the original, Frankie's cousin Kat had disappeared, so it was imperative he find her. In this one, maybe the teacher was poisoned, maybe not. Maybe he was the intended victim, maybe not. Frankie doesn't seem very interested in finding out the real details. Instead he prefers to go haring off on improbable wild goose chases.

There was a lot more whimsy and crazy in the first one, which for me added to its appeal. All of that seems to have vanished from this one, and Frankie seems far less capable here than he did previously. He doesn't even secure the pie as evidence, which is sad.

On top of that, he's not a very likable person here, especially since there's a small thread of misogyny going on, which is some ways is understandable given that we have a juvenile boy as the main character, but this is written by a woman, and I had to wonder why she made him so antagonistic towards girls. He barely tolerates his own cousin who he actually likes. I didn't appreciate that and I think it's a foolish way to write a character. it's never to early to teach respect for women (and men!) and it's always too early to teach the opposite as though it's acceptable.

Frankie's new teacher is supposedly poisoned by a lemon pie, and Frankie takes it upon himself to try to figure out who was behind it. He jumps on everyone, starting with the teacher who bought the pie, and when he learns she was not at fault, he tries to trace the pie back to see who might have had access to it, and who also wanted to bring harm to someone. Despite Frankie's rather aggressive and accusatory demeanor, everyone unaccountably gives him the time of day and evidently tells him the truth, so there really isn't a lot he has to do, nor are there any red herrings or real mysteries other than the main one - even assuming it is a mystery. I didn't finish the book so I don't know.

Maybe middle-graders - the intended age range - will get sufficient out of this to make it a worthy read, but I don't see my two boys being interested in this story at all, and I certainly can't recommend it. I couldn't even bring myself to finish it because it simply was downright boring.

Scents and Sensibility by Spencer Quinn

Rating: WARTY!

I was drawn to this because of the amusing title and the somewhat unusual premise, but mainly by the blurb announcing that the story was about illegal cactus smuggling, which struck me as an hilarious idea for a novel, so I jumped right on board and felt instead rather like I was jumping overboard into ice cold water, because the execution of the idea left me less than thrilled.

This is the eighth in a series. I haven't read any of the previous volumes, being unaware that this series existed, and not being a series fan - with a few prized exceptions. Perhaps this is the kind of series you have to build up to from the start. On the other hand this appears to be an episodic series, so it's not one which you have to have read all the prior volumes before reading this one in order to follow the story in this particular volume.

I have to say that Chet the Eighth did not grab me from the off. Quite the contrary - it was a bit annoying. It's told from the dog's PoV in first person, which is the most irritating voice for a novel, and it doesn't help in this case that the narrator is a dog. There was just something about it which turned me off.

I made it to page sixty, the end of chapter seven, which is about one quarter the way through this, and I couldn't bring myself to read any further. I don't know what it really was, but this novel simply didn't do it for me. I didn't find it interesting or engaging, and I felt neither empathy with, nor liking for any of the characters. The bottom line is that I was simply not interested in these people, much less who the perp was or what their motives were. I can't recommend this based on what I read, and life is way too short to keep on doggedly reading when the story isn't doing it, and there are so many other volumes waiting to captivate and entrance you.

King #1 by Joshua Hail Fialkov

Rating: WARTY!
Art: Bernard Chang
Colors: Marcelo Maiolo

This is a dystopian romp featuring the supposed last human on Earth. Despite this, he actually works for a living – his job being to try and head-off alien incursions onto Earth, which is absurd, because Earth is not entirely populated by aliens or mutants, or mythological beasts and gods.

The story (if it can be called a story at all) was very short, which was a blessing, because it really wasn’t very interesting. It was really nothing more than a testosterone-infused blend of conflict and fighting, smarth-mouthing, and bitching about stuff throughout. It didn’t make for an appealing story at all.

The monsters he took on were uninspired and not entertaining. Karate robot bear? Seriously? I couldn’t find anything to like here and I can’t recommend it.

Zatanna the Mistress of Magic by Paul Dini

Rating: WORTHY!

Colors by John Kalisz and Lovern Kindzierski

July Smack-Down Day Four brings us Heart Seed Snow Circuit going up against Zatanna The Mistress of Magic and I can tell you now that these are both winners, so I think I'll end this smack-down routine on that note!!

Zatanna is the daughter of a magician who continues in her father's footsteps, but her magic is real. As such, she hides in plain sight pretending to be a magician and illusionist for a paying public while she fights super villains in her spare time. There are two distinct stories here, each about fifty percent of the entire novel. As the first one opens, a detective picks her up to get her take on a slaughter which was perpetrated in a nearby restaurant, where half-a-dozen criminal kingpins were ceremoniously dispatched.

Zatanna realizes that this was the work of a super villain who appears to be muscling in on the human world of crime. She pays him a visit. He decides he's going to need some help and recruits an impish villain from another realm. Thus the battle lines are drawn up. Eldon Peck, mass murderer, aka Brother Night, seeks to own all crime in San Francisco. Why I don't know. What it will get him that he doesn't already have, I don't know! But he has to take down Zatanna to achieve his goal and in this, he fails of course. Even employing this little imp named Fuseli in service of this aim backfires on him.

I liked Zatanna. She's cool and confident, competent and self-possessed. She's no one's fool and no one's lackey. She doesn't play the lady in distress or pine for male company. She is objectified up the Wahoo (and elsewhere), but that's par for the course for this kind of graphic novel, unfortunately.

The hilarious thing about this (if anything about objectifying women can ever be found hilarious), is that the detective, who sports the absurd name of Dale Colton, actually speaks this line to a colleague: "You need to form more realistic images of women! Honestly? In a graphic novel where women are routinely pneumatically inflated, a character says that? Where's Ironyman when you need him? Never mind, this is a DC comic. He's not available.

I thought the idea of criminals showing up to a venue wherein might lie a trap or an ambush for them, based on nothing more than an invitation from someone they don't even know, was stretching credibility too far, but then the super hero does magic, so everything is a stretch here! And about that magic? Zatanna's spells are all spoken in plain English, but the words (not the sentences) are spoken backwards! Cute.

The second story is set in Las Vegas (pronounced Loss Vegas) and we meet Zatanna fighting a Frank Sinatra look-alike while flying around on cards which behave as magic carpets. She beats her foe and discovers her wayward cousin Zach is not only in town, he's holding a party in her room. Having got rid of those noise-makers, she's about to retire for the night only to discover that three fire demons are interested in taking her on. It never flames but it roars....

Heart Seed Snow Circuit by Lucy Knisley

Rating: WORTHY!

July Smack-Down Day Four brings us Heart Seed Snow Circuit by independent Lucy Knisley (Nize-lee) going up against DC Comics' Zatanna The Mistress of Magic and I can tell you now that these are both winners, so I think I'll end this smack-down routine on that note and try something different tomorrow.

Heart Seed Snow Circuit is an oddity of a comic, which looks like it was self-produced, but which is nonetheless a good professional effort. It just goes to show that you don’t need Big Publishing&Trade; to get where you want to go. This was done when the author/illustrator was between colleges, and offers a look at a day in the life of a young female protagonist who looks, frankly, a lot like the author, who BTW has several other comics out.

On a trip to the local farmer’s market, she is accosted by an apple who appears to be heavily inspired by the Internet’s annoying orange. After threatening her that it has cyanide in its pips, the apple starts haranguing her about her life, and then demands that she eat it. That bites! Shades of Eve anyone?

As she continues on her way home, she espies a sorry-looking snowman which she decides needs a facial, but as soon as she gives it some eyes, it begins hitting on her in a PG-13, but nonetheless objectifying manner, and starts to follow her home. More than anything it says, she appears more concerned about the location of its carrot nose which, although it’s never illustrated, appears to be way out of place. Fortunately the snowman loses what little integrity it had before she gets to her house. Her weird day isn’t over though.

At home, after a thoroughly non-productive few hours spent trying to get something creative down on paper, her fridge takes up the cudgel, but at least it offers her a pudding, which is all she really wanted anyway. I liked this comic. It was completely off the wall and you have to wonder how a person would even begin to get an idea like this, much less bring it to such a sweet fruition.

I can’t speak to the symbolism here because it’s the author’s, not mine, but it did occur to me that the apple is very symbolic of course, of a mythological fall from grace, even though in the myth, the fruit isn’t actually specified and more likely would have been a fig than an apple anyway. The refrigerator is highly suggestive of the insane pressure put on women to diet, diet, diet, and one more time, diet.

I have no idea what the heck snowman was supposed to represent unless it was the absurd myth that if a woman doesn’t immediately want to jump into bed with any given guy, she’s obviously frigid. Nonetheless, I liked this. It was perky, fun, weird, and short so that none of the weirdness out-stayed its welcome. I recommend this and look forward to reading more by this author/artist.

Wonder Woman Who is Wonder Woman? By Allan Heinberg

Rating: WARTY!

Colors: Alex Sinclair

It's day three of the July Smack-Down, and we have Girl Genius up against Wonder Woman. I have to tell you that I'd take a girl genius over a buxom wench any day of the week, including weekends, but I shall try to remain neutral if not neutered here! Wonder Woman: Who is Wonder Woman? is a graphic novel about Donna Troy, the new Wonder Woman - or is she?! It's part of a series of which I have read none but this, so my grasp of the arc is limited, and Wonder Woman's history is such a rat's nest of re-invention, rebooting, and reduplication that I defy anyone to make a coherent narrative of it all anyway, so that's not going to stop me tackling this one!

Troy arrives at a hostage scene where the hostage-takers are demanding to speak to Wonder Woman - the real one, who was, of course, Diana Prince (not to be confused with Princess Diana, although this is how the original Wonder Woman is referenced in a flashback). Sarge Steel (seriously?), the director of the Department of Metahuman affairs explains this to Troy while he lights a cigar. Seriously? How pathetically clichéd do you want to get? Well, it turns out that this story was destined to apprise us of that in all manner of ways. And what's with that expression on the cover?!

Donna Troy is purportedly Diana's sister (kinda sorta maybe?), although there's no explanation as to her choice of name. Is it her real name? Is it an alias as Diana Prince was for Princess Diana of Themyscira? Wonder Woman has had a score of origin stories over the years, but originally, she was made from clay and went to the US to return Steve Trevor to his homeland. She came by her name by way of the real Diana Prince, who was an army nurse who was prevented from following her fiancé to South America because of a shortage of funds (and of course by the fact that the army didn't post her there - what was she planning on doing? Going AWOL?). Wonder Woman gave her the money to go in exchange for her credentials and name, and since the two looked alike, she took over the real Prince's name and job, and was able to take care of Steve in the hospital. I want to read the real Diana Prince's story.

The hostage-taker is Barbara Minerva, but she isn't working alone. She's in league with the hilariously named Doctor Psycho, and the bigger-than-life Giganta - who evidently can change her size at will since there's no other explanation for how she came to be in a place for which the entrances are too small to accommodate her. Dr Psycho is evidently into cross-dressing and transgenderism, because he shows up disguised as the original Wonder Woman. It's all very confusing, especially since none of these three is really the mastermind.

It gets worse when we learn that Cassie Sandsmark - who is Wonder Girl - is hallucinating that she sees Superboy, We know she's hallucinating, we're told, because Superboy is dead. Then how come Superman is alive? I guess that's "explained" somewhere back down the line but it makes zero sense.

From there this comic devolves into a mishmash of set pieces, and more and ever more heroes are brought in for one panel appearances, including Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hercules, Nemesis, Robin, Superman, Zatanna, and a host of others who are unnamed but probably recognizable by fans of this world. Circe shows up and she's actually the only one who I'm rooting for, because she's the only one who has a real take on what's going on and what the root problem is with all these super-so-called-heroes.

In the end Circe turns out to be the good guy and Nemesis the bad guy. The end. I can't recommend this mess at all, especially not since it's told and drawn by a largely male team who seem to be obsessed with how improbably curvaceous they can make their heroes. In medical parlance, DC means discontinue (or even deceased) and this seems to be good advice with this graphic novel series! I can't recommend a novel which smacks itself down.

Girl Genius Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank by Phil and Kaja Foglio

Rating: WARTY!

It's day three of the July Smack-Down, and we have Girl Genius up against Wonder Woman. I have to tell you that I'd take a girl genius over a buxom wench any day of the week, including weekends, but I shall try to remain neutral if not neutered here! Girl Genius is a rather strange steam-punk graphic novel which left me feeling unsure about how to rate it, quite frankly, but having sat back and considered the various aspects of how this was put together, I have to rate it negatively overall. I liked the idea of it, but the execution was poor. Events were rather confusing, and the stereotyped pseudo-German characters of indefinable genealogy, but laughable speech patterns were a major turn-off.

I loved the basic idea of the main character, but it took too long for her to start showing her real self, and once she began, the comic ended, which was annoying in the extreme. Agatha "Clay", whose real name is quite obviously Agatha Heterodyne is your stereotypical trope character - raised with her true nature (as a "spark" some sort of wizard engineer, presumably, although it's never really explained) kept hidden from her, and even when danger looms, no one has the smarts to clue her in as to what's going on. This was clichéd and pathetic, frankly. It's tired, it's been done a gibbonillion times, please find something new to share with us!

It was hard to place Agatha. She started out as some sort of student or apprentice, but she didn't look or behave like one. Was she supposed to be a teen? Is this YA? If it is, the authors seriously missed their mark, because she doesn't remotely look like a teen. I note that other reviewers have said she looks more like a barmaid or something, and I have to agree. To me she looked like the loose-morals, rambunctious, buxom, adventurous, unfaithful wife of some straight-laced guy who, when her hubby is away, indulges liberally in rampant affairs with the milkman, the window cleaner, the mail carrier, or whoever, in some British straight-to-video sex romp movie.

I appreciate this if it was an honest attempt to break that stupid dumb blonde cliché, but that aside, her appearance was completely wrong, and I wonder if this was opportunity was squandered because they wanted Agatha to look like the female half of the writing duo? That was a mistake. Not because there's anything wrong with the female (or the male) half of the writing duo, and certainly not that the female half looks like she might be the character I described above, but because this particular character demanded a certain kind of look, and for me, she was robbed. She doesn't work as depicted.

The villain was interesting in that he really didn't seem very much like a villain - just a very anal guy who wasn't so bad really, although I suspect we haven't seen the worst side of him. One of my big problems with this story though, was that it really didn't flow. I'm sure the authors knew where the story was going and how it all fit together, but it moved with such a lack of grace, and with such staccato twitches and stutters that it was reminiscent of a badly-designed steam-driven robot, and it was really an uncomfortable read for me. It took a long time to start to feel like I had any good idea of what was really going on in this world, and by then the story was pretty much over. It's very short which on this occasion was a blessing.

For me, the art work was clean and well done, brown and white line drawings and some shading which was definitely a saving grace if perhaps a bit simplistic, but I liked it. That said, and without a coherent and enjoyable story, it's all just pretty pictures, and for this reason I can't honestly rate this as a worthy read. It might have been better as a regular novel, but then it wouldn't have the cachet of being a graphic novel, would it? It's a pity that too many people sell-out to graphics when they'd be better off buying into some heavier writing with fewer pictures, pretty or otherwise. This one smacked itself down.

Muirwood The Lost Abbey Vol 1 by Jeff Wheeler, Matt Sturges, Dave Justus, and Alex Sheikman

Rating: WARTY!

The July smack-down continues with Goshena and Lady Marciana Soliven up for consideration. Just like with the Marvels (Captain and Ms) yesterday, both of them smacked themselves down. No winners today!

Comoros is the home of Lady Marciana Soliven, daughter of King Brannon. She's known as Maia, and she lives perforce with Lady Shilton, the current Queen's mom. This is a land where both magic and reading are forbidden to women. Maia can read and she has a connection to the magic, but she has been stripped of her title and imprisoned in her "home". We meet her the day she has visitors, and has to clean herself up for them after having barfed profusely.

It turns out that her father, who banished his daughter the same day he banished his first wife, has need of her now. She has the power and the medallion. She's the only one who can go to the abbey and repeal the malaise which has gripped Comoros since her father threw out the magicians. Now she must go, escorted by an assassin who is supposed to protect her, and find the cure for her homeland.

The map of Comoros look very much like a map of western Europe, with a portion of Scandinavia, and Great Britain and Eire tossed in for good measure, but with the rest of Europe and Asia cropped off. The art work was interesting but not particularly special. For me this story has little to offer that's original or interesting. It's your standard wizard fantasy.

I can't recommend this based on what I've read in this one volume, but Net Galley, which supplied this from the publisher, has a new scheme going on here by which subsequent editions of the series are made available to reviewers as they are released, and I signed up for that, so I'll review the next one when it's available and see if things improve.

Goshena: Queen of the Big In-Betweena by Chuck Bright

Rating: WARTY!

The July smack-down continues with Goshena and Lady Marciana Soliven up for consideration. Just like with the Marvels (Captain and Ms) yesterday, both of them smacked themselves down. No winners today! The art work was black and white line drawings by by Maureen Burdock - was functional but not really appealing to me. Story was tedious. I mean really tedious.

Goshena is supposed to be some sort of handmaiden of the afterlife, whose job it is to collect bodies from the grave and walk them over to the other side. She's objectified to the max even though she's drawn be a female artist. With her latest acquisition, Goshena seems to have a problem in that maybe this guy was murdered by his significant other. Why this is a problem from her perspective isn't at all clear.

The story, told in several "chapters" was barely acceptable right up to the point where Goshena picks the guy up, but immediately after that we got a series of chapters where there was a confused mess of things going on. Some disembodied voice from the fog was talking to the guy who was smart-mouthing while listening to his mom and dad at the graveside, bemoaning his fate.

The story went completely into the toilet at that point. There was far too much text, average to poor illustrations, and nonsensical writing. The text was a problem because on the iPad in Bluefire Reader, it was all but illegible because it was far too small. I wouldn't recommend reading this in ebook form. It was passable in Adobe Digital Editions, but only on a reasonably large monitor. I can't speak for the print version.

The story did nothing to engage me or to draw me in. I quit reading it about one third the way through because it simply wasn't interesting to me, nor was it amusing or entertaining. I honestly can't recommend this one.

Ms Marvel Generation Why by G Willow Wilson

Rating: WARTY!

Art work: Jacob Wyatt and Adrian Alphona
Colors: Ian Herring

Today is the first of July. It marks the end of my year of living dangerously, wherein I published two reviews per day, 365 consecutive days, didn't miss a day! I am so glad that's over! It was a great discipline, though, which hopefully gave me a better work ethic for creative writing.

The advent of July also marks a change in that I'm through with posting book cover images with my reviews. This blog is about writing, and unless you self-publish, the cover has nothing to do with the author and typically nothing to do with the story either, so why indulge Big Publishing™? Yeah, kids books and graphic novels are perhaps exceptions, but I don't do that many of those compared with regular chapter books I review. Besides, covers change too, so as soon as you post your image, it's likely obsolete. Enough already! I'm writing about the writing from now on. If you want pretty pictures try Pinterest or DeviantArt.

So for fun, I'm starting out this month with a Smack-Down! Yeah! I was in the library a few days ago and they had a display of literature about women or written by women, and part of the display was a set of graphic novels about female super heroes or other characters, and they happened to have Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel sitting side-by-side, so I immediately thought, let's put 'em in the cage together and see who rings whose bell.

The Ms Marvel graphic novel is very much written - and indeed illustrated - for juvenile readers. The first thing to happen after the appallingly boxy-looking Wolverine (really, he looked like a rectangle with arms and legs tacked on) shows up is that the kid hero gets a pet sidekick. Yawn. This dog is a pit bull variety of the Bulldog kind, which has a weird antenna sticking out of its head which looks like it's some sort of homage to Meowth, and no one remarks upon it - at least not initially. The dog can teleport which is conveniently just what Ms Marvel needs right then.

The kid that Wolverine and Ms Marvel rescue is in a coma. This kid was actually on her way to the Jean Grey institute when she was abducted, yet no one thinks that Prof X ought to see if he can get into her mind and discover what happened....

Lettering had randomly bolded words. Yuk! I have no time for letterers. On the plus side, this was a Muslim super hero: Kamala Khan is originally from Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan. the problem was that she was insultingly stereotyped as was her religion. Her mentor was called Abdullah, because you know that all Muslims are named Abdul or Abdullah, right?

I did like the magazine name: Pedantic Monthly. That was inspired, but it was about the only amusing thing in this book. The weird bird-man hybrid who plays a lackluster villain is concerned about global warming, and so, in a plot ripped straight from The Matrix, abducts children to use their bio-electricity and body heat as batteries for his devices - not one of which seems to be doing anything about global warming.

In short, this story was brain-dead and beneath Wilson's skills, and the art work godawful. Plus some of the cutesy layout was seriously confusing. On one occasion there was a full page spread where Ms and Wolvie were climbing up through a sewer, but it was hard to tell if it should be read up or down. I ran into problems both ways. I finally decided that up from the bottom was the intended direction, but it still made less than sufficient sense! I can't recommend this at all. It smacked itself down!

Captain Marvel Down Vol 2 by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Christopher Sebela

Rating: WARTY!

Art work: Dexter Soy and Filipe Andrade
Colors: Dexter Soy, and Veronica Gandini Jordie Bellaire

Erratum:
"Whether the tunned collapsed...." should be "Whether the tunnel collapsed...." (no page numbers of course)

Today is the first of July. It marks the end of my year of living dangerously, wherein I published two reviews per day, 365 consecutive days, didn't miss a day! I am so glad that's over! It was a great discipline, though, which hopefully gave me a better work ethic for creative writing.

The advent of July also marks a change in that I'm through with posting book cover images with my reviews. This blog is about writing, and unless you self-publish, the cover has nothing to do with the author and typically nothing to do with the story either, so why indulge Big Publishing&Trade;? Yeah, kids books and graphic novels are perhaps exceptions, but I don't do that many of those compared with regular chapter books I review. Besides, covers change too, so as soon as you post your image, it's likely obsolete. Enough already! I'm writing about the writing from now on. If you want pretty pictures try Pinterest or DeviantArt.

So for fun, I'm starting out this month with a Smack-Down! Yeah! I was in the library a few days ago and they had a display of literature about women or written by women, and part of the display was a set of graphic novels about female super heroes or other characters, and they happened to have Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel sitting side-by-side, so I immediately thought, let's put 'em in the cage together and see who rings whose bell.

Here's Captain Marvel in précis: fight giant robot. Next day take cat to vet, and on the way, fight giant dinosaurs along-side Spider-Woman. Later, rescue subway train. Be spied upon by hawk-like humanoids who later attack and drop you thirty-three stories while your energy is low from earlier activity. Earth's mightiest super hero? Doubtful! Take home wandering child with whom you have a discussion about whether or not Captain Marvel could beat the Hulk. Get bawled out for living in apartment block and since you have no secret identity, by your presence endanger everyone who lives in that block with you. Get a visit from Captain America on a flying motorbike. Have brain growth diagnosed which could wipe your memory if it does what the doc fears it might do.

Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, is with her friend Monica Rambeaux, another super hero type, investigating some sort of Bermuda triangle event but not in the so-called Bermuda Triangle. There is all manner of sunken ships and downed, drowned airplanes in this one area. Cap'n Marvel has no cape, thank goodness. Marvel super heroes tend not to sport them, but Monica wears a long overcoat for no apparent reason, so it that might as well be a cape.

Sounds boring, huh? Well that's exactly how I felt with this completely lackluster story supported not at all by hopelessly indifferent art work. This was volume two, and I hadn't read volume one, but I don't get the impression that it mattered at all. That's what happens, though, when there's absolutely nothing whatsoever on the cover to indicate that this isn't a standalone, or that this isn't number one in a series.

For me, this comic smacked itself down and I can't recommend it.

Just For Boys by Matt Crossick

Title: Just For Boys: A Book About Growing Up
Author: Matt Crossick (no website found)
Publisher: Parragon
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Rob Davis

This I felt is a great book to start boys out on the trip through puberty. It's not sufficient by itself. You need a parent or guardian (or at the very least a trusted family friend or competent teacher if all else fails!) to follow up and be there, of course, but this is far better than nothing. I assume there is a similar volume aimed at girls, although I haven't read any such thing, and cannot comment on it.

It takes boys step-by-step through everything they might be experiencing or feeling as they travel along this inevitable pathway to adulthood, covering everything from internal feelings, to erections, body hair, body odor, body changes, awareness of females, and so on. Nothing is left out!

Nothing can substitute for understanding and educated guidance from a parental-type figure, of course, but if that's not forthcoming or if it's lacking or difficult for whatever reasons, this will at least start the education, and that's why I rate it a worthy read.

Boy and the Very Lonely Pony by Junia Wonders

Title: Boy and the Very Lonely Pony
Author: Junia Wonders
Publisher: Gmür Verlag (no website found)
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Divin Meir (no website found)

This is an odd and quirky story about a lonely boy, but nonetheless enjoyable for that. By the way, before I get started, the text in particular, but also the illustrations are a wee bit small to appreciate on a smart phone (although it is do-able), so I'd recommend the print version or reading this on a pad or tablet.

The boy is largely confined to the house, and therefore enjoys gazing out of the window for the beauty of the world outside and for anything else of interest which he sees out there. This is how he first encounters the pony, which to him looks quite sad.

When the boy is getting ready for bed, he notices that the pony is looking back at him, and each seems to recognize that something is missing in the other. Seeing the white pony glowing in the stark Moonlight, the boy feels compelled to go visit.

At least the boy can go outside. The pony can't go anywhere. Not until the boy rides it and they escape the confining boredom of the pasture and take a night-time tour of the local district. As the sun comes up they return home as friends and fellow travelers.

I liked this book for its simplicity and the gorgeously colored images. I recommend it.