CBLDF Presents: She Changed Comics by Betsy Gomez

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I backed the Kickstarter on this book

I’d like to start off with my one big criticism of this book - not enough images! I understand why they had to do it. When you’re printing a book, each page is expensive, especially when you’re printing in color. But when you’re covering an industry based on images and we only have 1-2 images per creator, it’s hard to get a good feel for the creator’s body of work. I think it would have been nice to have a supplementary PDF with a few more examples per artist. (Yeah, I know I could Google them, but for a curated product, it’d be nice to do a little less work)

Working for Bigfoot by Jim Butcher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Maybe,” he said in a slow, rural drawl, “you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy.”
“Well,” I said, “if you’re going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn’t it.”

I’ve heard of the Dresden Files before, but I’d never checked it out. I thought it was about World War 2 and I constantly confused it with Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five for some reason. But in a great example of the value of book bundles (like Humble Bundle or Story Bundle), I ended up with this book via a book bundle and when I looking for a new book to read recently, the description stood out. I also recognized Butcher’s name, having spent the last few years listening to Sword and Laser and getting a feel for a bunch of SFF authors I hadn’t been familiar with.

The Razor’s Edge by Joss Llewelyn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A book that passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. All the important characters are women and the guy who would be a love interest in any other telling of this story only appears sporadically and only gets a couple kisses near the end. Maybe it’s just the circles I run in, but it seems if you want good genre fiction led by women characters, look no further than steampunk. Although, this book is like steampunk’s weird cousin.

Piranha Frenzy by Colin F. Campbell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book that either anticipates or was written in reaction to gamer-gate. I think wherever you fall on that is probably the biggest predictor of whether you are capable of liking this book. I’m not saying if you were on the side of the journalist that you will automatically think this was a good book, but if you weren’t I find it hard to believe you’d like this book at all. A quick primer if you pay no attention to video games journalism or think pieces about the harassment of women online. A woman, Zoe Quinn was (still is?) working on a video game. Her ex wrote a blog post saying she slept with some guys for positive coverage for her game. Then, out of proportion to the fact that whether or not she did this, it’s just video games (for CTHULHU’S SAKE) people started harassing her and sending her death threats and all kinds of stuff. Google it if you care.

Lovecraft’s Monsters by Ellen Datlow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As usual for an anthology I will post my status updates per story. Before I get to that, I wanted to note that this is the first time I’ve read anything Lovecraftian. (There were Eldritch horrors in the first couple Discworld books, but I had no idea what that was at the time) I think these authors did a great job creating stories based on or inspired by his creatures. If, like me, you’re a Lovecraft neophyte, be sure to read the introduction as it helps explain some of the concepts. And now the stories:

The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like a beautiful fractal, this book is doing the same thing on the individual story level and on the series level: joining together all the threads. This book starts off with Quentin trying to get money on by participating in a magical mission impossible after having been kicked out of Fillory in book 2. It then pivots to Janet, Eliott, Josh, and Poppy in Fillory where things are going a bit screwy. By the end of the book the two plots have not only joined, but have revealed themselves to be workings towards the same goal from different ends. In the same way, this book ties together all the plot threads from books 1 and 2 and has characters and plot points from all of those joining together. I’ll get back to this below in the spoiler section. Before I get to the spoilers, I do want to say that Grossman also does a great job with the fact that our characters have grown over the seven years we’ve known them.