The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book upended the way I’d thought about the Star Wars movies and stories for the past 20 years. First of all, given George Lucas’ original intention of having an endless James Bond-like serialized series of movies removes any arguments I had about what Disney has been doing with what has frankly been a mostly neglected franchise (film-wise) since the first movie came out in 1977. Second, the book explains why Lucas changed his mind - a combination of his divorce draining him of money and the movies draining him of life. Third, and the biggest reason Kaminski wrote this book, it dismantles the legend of episodes 4-6 (as we now know them) having been the middle of a story that Lucas always had in his head. The truth is both better and worse; especially as we see other ways the story could have gone if he hadn’t been drained by the experience.

Sex & Violence by Jimmy Palmiotti

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A recent Humble Bundle featured a sampler for Jimmy Palmiotti’s Paperfilms indie publisher. I was intrigued and went to the site where one can buy DRM-free versions of the books. Pulp is a lot of fun and it has a long history with comics so I figured I’d check it out.

Indeed, this is some grade-A pulp. Two stories are contained within and both contain sex and violence. The first is a Taken-esqu romp through the seedy part of Portland The second is an homage to Rear Window.

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Over on the Cosmere subreddit (one of the good ones in which most people are very nice and just getting together to geek out on something), when I finished The Final Empire they warned me that The Well of Ascension was kind of stationary - not as action-packed or information-heavy as the first book. I wasn’t surprised to hear this. As I’ve remarked countless times, most trilogies have a first entry that kind of stands alone and the second one ties strongly into the third one. (EG The Matrix, The Hunger Games)

Chester 5000 XYV: Isabelle & George by Jess Fink

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought the first book was a great example of how erotic fiction could also be a work of art. Jess Fink did so much with so little. Despite a lack of dialog, a great story was told and titillation was had.

This one builds on the last and goes in a slightly different direction. The first book is an artful story of love. This book attempts to do more and so while it loses the beauty in simplicity of the first book, it gains in demonstrating how a complex story can be told without words. (and also be erotic)

Chester 5000 XYV by Jess Fink

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The old cliche is that no one watches porn for the story. But books and comics have always had the ability to be more cutting edge; perhaps because the budget is so much smaller, making the stakes lower.

Somehow, Jess Fink elevates things in Chester 5000 XYV. It starts off with the unusual setting of steampunk Victorian times. While I’m sure tons of erotic fiction has been written to take place in Victorian times, it’s still a fascinating period considering the attitudes of gender roles and sex at the time. But what I think really makes this book special is it’s lack of dialog. There’s something special about a silent comic that requires extra emotion to be expressed with half of what makes up a comic missing.

Amberville by Tim Davys

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is one of the top five weirdest books I have ever read. It takes place in a world of stuffed animals, but that has both almost no bearing on the story and is key to the main plot. What I mean is that it’s never revealed that actually they’re toys in a toystore or a messed up version of the 100 Acre Woods. The fact that they are stuffed animals is not part of some plot twist. (The thought that it might be a twist kept distracting me the entire time trying to find out the clue) But at the same time, the entire plot of the book, which in a way I don’t wish to spoil, revolves around life and death depends entirely upon the fact that, as stuffed animals, they can’t be killed in the ways that we can.

Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, that was nothing at all like I expected. I’m not entire sure what I expected, having never read anything by Agatha Christie. Mostly I expected it to be stuffy and I expected it to suck. It was written so long ago, I was sure all the tropes would be stale. But I actually enjoyed myself quite a bit with thie book I’d gotten for free during a Barnes and Noble free book Friday many years ago.

The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book without knowing anything about it other than the fact that it takes place on the same planet as Elantris, Part 1 of 3. I didn’t have the book description as I got it from the Sanderson Humble Bundle and often their ebooks are missing metadata. I’m glad I didn’t know anything about it, because that made the plot, as it unfurled, even more amazing. I was expecting the book to revolve around the magic of the Dor or something related to Elantris, but it was completely separate outside of mentioning a couple cities/regions from Elantris (the book, not the place). In fact, the most recent reading order from the Cosmere subreddit has this book taking place before Elantris. If you want to have as much fun as I did, stop reading this review now and go read the novella.

The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories by A.C. Wise

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this book in Storybundle’s LGBT+ Bundle and the title and description of this book are what got me to pick up the entire bundle. I didn’t even realize I already knew A.C. Wise’s work from its appearance in Clarkesworld Magazine. As I mentioned during a couple of the status updates, Wise seems to be a thematic protege of Philip K Dick. A lot of her short stories involve unreliable narrators who often aren’t sure if they’re dreaming or remembering things correctly or even being honest with themselves. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve come across unreliable narrators, but with how intimately Ms. Wise writes her characters it’s even more jarring not to know how much of the story is “real” and how much is not even real to the narrator. It really does put the reader into the position of TRULY being in someone’s head, with all its messiness; a strong contrast to other books that are written from a 1st Person POV but are very clear-headed.

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, that felt like reading a JRPG - in fact there are some (very, very loose) alignments with the plot of Final Fantasy VI. But what I really mean by that is the fact that Sanderson’s Allomancy ends up reading like the mana draws one has to undertake in those games. Although the different metals vice just one mana source can also draw parallels to the magic system in The Witcher (game, not books - I haven’t read the books). There are three things that made me love this book and push it into 5-star territory: tight plotting, a comprehensive magic system, and a great heist plot with memorable characters.