ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact September 1971

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, September 1971

The ninth issue in my Analog Deep Dive. One Year is now in sight -- I didn't think I would keep it up this long! For anyone finding these reviews, my purpose is two-fold: enjoying some "classic" sci-fi, and looking for stories that I think could be adapted for TV broadcast since so much of what shows up on anthology shows is rough to awful. Additional Note: I do NOT work in television. I just watch it.

Overall, a good issue, with some good stories.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "Ecological Notes", by John. W. Campbell. John talks about Instant Experts with Immediate and Simple Answers that MUST be put into place Right Now despite the problems that the solutions might cause. Some things never change. Ralph Nader gets called out.

Among the issues mentioned were air bags that were installed before the technology was ready, which caused damage to the drive shafts; phospates in laundry detergent that were said to cause algae bloom even though no study was done (and the replacement additive caused cancer); and lead in gasoline (and the replacement additive caused cancer); and nuclear power.

Reading the stuff about lead was interesting. I remember when leaded and unleaded gas was an issue many years ago. The lead could lead to lead poisoning, which is treatable (as opposed to cancer, which is less treatable). Cars have improved a bit in 50 years, but the cancer is still there. As for the nuclear power, I found the comparision of coal piles as filled with TNT and granite mountains as giant Uranium bombs quite amusing.

Novelette: "Wheels Within Wheels" by F. Paul Wilosn, with an illustration by John Schoenherr, showing a man sitting with something in his hand and a bunch of rocks on the ground. The background in white but pans over to reveal the side view of a front porch and a person standing there. It could be raining or just dark. The caption reads, A man doesn't have to have a title, or even be widely known, to be the absolute ruler of a planet. But it makes him very hard to find and stop when he isn't labeled! (Note: this is also the cover story, with that illustration showing a blue alien holding a cracked bowl in one hand and pulling a dagger from beneath a cloak with the other. There is a shorter, balding man in the background.)

I didn't take note of F. Paul Wilson's name when I first started reading, except to think that I'd seen it before recently. Once there was talking about a Federation, I thought about the "Rat Man" story from last month, and then mention of the "Restructurists" told me that this was set in that universe. And then there was a mention of a guy with a space rat on his shoulder. Nice callback. (How did they get stories published in consecutive months like that?)

Peter J. Paxton, aka Old Pete, was one of the founders of Intersellar Business Advisers (IBA). He visits the new office to speak with Josephine Finch, granddaughter of Joe, Old Pete's partner. He's worried about Restructurists and someone named Elson deBloise, who's more of a crafty plotter than a starry-eyed dreamer. He's secretly paying a physicist named Denver Haas for some reason. Pete thinks they need to look into the matter privately first before approaching the Fed or else all the evidence will just disappear. And it likely ties into the death of Jo's father, Joe Finch, Jr., who wanted to take time off to do something for himself before taking over his father's business.

Jo brings in a detective Larry Easly to go to the planet Jebinose to look into the matter and ask questions. He speaks to some of the locals there, including some of the Vanek, an alien species who call people "bendreth" and like to say "wheels within wheels" as an answer to everything. He finds that Finch was a great friend to the Vanek, as told in a lengthy flashback. Also, the Vanek killed him. They were blamed for his death and they don't deny it. But there's more to the story.

Late in the story, a character of Cando Proska is introduced, a person who can scare daBloise. He's a psi. Introducing a pis late in the game seems a little bit of a cheat, but roll with it. Easly gets attacked while making a video call to Jo, who goes immediately to Jebinose. Then the killer is caught.

This could make an interesting story for TV, filling up an hour time slot. The alien world could be set in British Columbia easily enough. It has a handful of speaking parts with a diverse cast and an interesting alien. And the resolution works is satisfactory.

Science Fact: "Strong Poison 1" by Carl A. Larson. Image shows a bottle of poison. "Dr. Larson is a specialist in Medical Genetics -- and it is the work of geneticists that has demonstrated not only the truth but the underlying cause of the long-observed phenomenon that "One man's meat is another's poison!" When we go to other planets, that wild variable is apt to be critically important -- and useful."

A lot of talk about what could be slowly poisonous to humans (as quick poisons would be readily discovered) and tons of speculative talk about Martian mushrooms. It's fifty years out of date, as we are now getting real data about Mars. THat's not to say that some of the issues raised won't be concerns should humans ever reach out into the stars. My eyes glazed over after a while and I skimmed the last few pages.

Serial: "The Lion Game" by James H. Schmitz, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing two women through an open, unshuttered winodw, walking about what looks like the inside of a labyrinth, with an open doorway behind them. In the foregorun is another woman with a lionine face (I thought snake at first, but it's The Lion Game) holding a space pistol and wearing a large dagger on her belt. The caption reads, Conclusion. THere are times when not even a telepath can be sure who she could trust -- and Telzey was trapped in a maze of high-power professional double-dealers. Fourtunately, Telzey was a first class liar herself. . .

This is my problem with serials: I don't remember what is going on when I get back to them. And in this case, the Synopsis was OVER TWO PAGES LONG, and it didn't help all that much. One of the characters that showed up told the end of Part 1 gets dispatched early in Part 2, which signals to me that this wasn't written to be broken up in this manner. Que sera.

I wouldn't say that I didn't like this Telzey story, but its the first one I didn't enjoy. It just went on for too long. Granted, she had a way out, but she also had a mission that she had to complete, so she stayed. After a while, it seemed like an old dungeon crawl, and I couldn't picture all these rooms the portals were taking her to. There's a big battle in the end, which allows Telzey to gain a hold she needs to make an exit.

There's too much going on for a summary. Maybe if I read a compilation book sometime. I recently learned that one exists.

This wouldn't make a good TV anthology episode. This plays out like an entire season of shows. It would need to budget of multiple episodes for all the sets in the maze and well as the lion-like aliens, who are also giants.

Short Story: "The Fine Print" by John T. Phillifient, with an illustration by Vincent Di Fate, showing two figures on a catwalk or gangplank. One is a woman in a bikini, wearing a collar with a length of chain attached to it. It appears to have pbroken from a chain attached to a rail. The other figure appears to be a humanoid alien, observing the broken chain. In the foreground is the barrel of some kind of rifle. The caption reads "Some things any man can understand at a glance. And some things are perfectly obvious -- as obvious as the pool of water on the road ahead on a summer day..."

Rear Adrmiral Braid is the C-in-C of the Interstellar Trade Base on Mars. He's getting old (60), but retiring and going back to Earth would be Hell. He has a cat named Ming that is apparently intelligent, but the story isn't that far into the future (the current one). Lt. Sutton brings him for an inspection parade and mentions that there's a new ship, a privately-owned Haddag ship. Braid realizes at this point that no one seems to be aware of the regulations that prevent face-to-face interactions with anyone aboard Haddag ships. He has Sutton here there.

Once there, they discover a woman chained to a rail on the gangway. Several men from a nearby ship move in, and Braid tries to head them off. To these men, this woman needs to be saved. To the Admiral, there is more than meets the eye. The woman lets out a scream, manages to snap the chain and attacks. Braid pulls a gun and fires, killing her.

Unfortunately, this incident was recorded, so keeping it quiet seems to be a problem. There's going to be an inquiry, and Braid has no problem being the fall guy. Judge Advocate Hudson, however, is more than determined to see that doesn't happen without jeopardizing Haddag trade, which includes a lot of medicines.

At the heart of the matter is that the Haddag, who are saurian genetically, do not keep Earth humans as pets. However, there are wild "animals" on their planet known as akkan. They are very similar to humans, but they are not. They can be much stronger and the genders generally do not associate except during mating cycles. Otherwise, a female could react violently, as shown earlier. Braid knows this because he was shot down on the Haddag homeworld many years ago and attacked by a group of them. After he recovered, he was part of the treaty process that came of it. How knew how it would look to others, and he knew how any interaction might turn out. This is why face-to-face meetings are prohibited. The problem occured because this was a private ship, not a trade vessel, and it landed for emergency supplies. The owner was just as ignorant of restrictions as most of the people on the base who weren't aware of that particular subsection.

This could make a good story, even without the "nekkid ladies". (They don't have to be naked. People, and aliens, can dress their pets.) There's a good fundamental question underlying the story. It could even take a little bit of updating without going full-overboard-whackadoo (except that too many current writers are fully-bloomed whackadoos). There's a fair sized cast and the locations can be kept to a minumum. And it ends with a court scene, which make for a lot of popular television.

Short Story: "To Make a New Neanderthal" by W. MacFarlane. No image, except for a column of text set an angle, which was difficult to read on a kindle. The caption reads, "Or this proposition I can only say that recent studies have shown that pasture grass grows best when there's adequate sulfur dioxide in the air. So ..."

Guert Maury is the kind of guy who puts "BAN CARS" bumper stickers on random cars. He finds David Langley, a brilliant young man who wants to have a normal life along with a young woman named Lunetta Drogen, who'd turned away from a life in a fourteen-room home with a domed swimming pool. Maury tells them about pollution and "The People" and something called "phlogiston". Pollution is deliberate and The People who are the pollutors are doing it deliberately to force evolution. Human brain capacity has grown from 400 to 1500 cc, unparalleled by any species. Out of nowhere, Maury's car takes off, and takes the pair to a faraway plaent, not catalogued by astronomers, with plenty of fresh air and no phlogiston. There are others like this pair on the planet, and they should go seek them out and make a better world.

I had to keep in mind that in 1971, pollution was definitely a Big Deal. A quick check shows it was after the Clean Air Act but before the Clean Water Act. Also, I'm guessing that this is an Atlas Shrugged type story. Does this make Guert Maury into John Galt? Never read that, but I saw two movies (the third part of which wasn't produced, to my knowledge). This reminds me of something that could appear on that Dust series. Short and a little weird. That said, it's definitely filmable. You only need two men, a woman, a beach, a ship, a field to deposit them in, and some stock footage.

Short Story: "Knight Arrant" by Jack Wodhams, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a bearded man in a horned helmet, chainmail, leather pants and boots binding the wrists of a scantily-clad woman on the ground. In the background is the enlarged face of some kind of barbarian or pirate, wearing an eyepagtch.The caption reads, "One of the fundamental facts of realty is one people ardently wish to deny -- the Universe is always full of risk!"

I recognize the name. I should double check what else he's done because I don't remember offhand.

I was a little lost with this one at first, and then I thought, it seems like the set-up for a Star Trek episode before the Enterprise shows up. There's a colony called New Eden with three cities on it. They live in peace and have no army. So when Mongoll shows up, who appears to be a stereotypical Mongol, there isn't much they can do to fight back. Mongoll is looking for something called the Tricourt Link, which he believes is hidden there somewhere. The residents have no knowledge of it and believe that it doesn't exist, and that it is only a legend. What is it? I have no idea, other than a MacGuffin.

Mongoll works the people, tearing apart the city and then looting it, while making them sleep in the parks and not giving them anything to eat. Then he decides that the only thing of value is the women because new colonies always need women. This drags on for several pages until there is a sign that the SOC (whatever that stands for) is responding. Mongoll and his horde retreat with whatever they have. The New Edenites can't be sure that it's truly over.

A Commander from the SOC meets with the Chancellor of New Eden, who is unhappy at the response. The SOC is limited and space is vast. Breaking up a squad wouldn't be practical, and one or two ships would be overwhelmed anyway. They suggest that New Eden form their own security forces, and are willing to provide equipment and literature. This isn't the New Eden way, but maybe it is time to make it their way.

Spoiler: this is all a ruse, and Mongoll is part of making this happen. And the women will be rescued. I'd have to go back and double check that no one was actually killed, just beaten and threatened with worse.

As mentioned, this fits into the Planet of Hats trope of Star Trek, so it could fit into an anthology series where nothing else has to matter after the episode ends.

Extra: "On the Nature of Angles" There is no author listed, and there is no entry in the Table of Contents, even though the word "I" is used in the text. Science humor. I had to Google what the International Theophysical Year was, but it was a thing.

Angels, devils, and human souls behave as electromagnetic radiations in four-dimesional space. And with appropriate boundary conditions, their properties obey the Schroedinger Wave Equation, ih0 = H0. Each solution represents a different kind of spirit, characterized by a unique eignevalue correlating to the corresponding wave function with Biblical data:

7.3206 = Archangels; 3.7684 = Seraphim; 1.0097 = Cherubim; -0.1121 = Demons; -2.9175 = Gremlins; -6.4302 = Poltergeists; which "good" or "free" spirits being positive and "evil" or "bound" spirits being negative. Those are eternal spirits. Human souls with finite lifetimes have complex eigenvalues, a+ib, where each "a" is constant but the "b" is continuously variable for each human, reflecting the state of grace because b = sin(t).

The story opens with an introduction to a strange planet called Paradox. It's massive (subjovian) and should've been a gas giant but a lot of the H atoms were blown off so it never ignited. It didn't generate a lot of interest so scientists and explorers left, and they left whatever they didn't want to drag home.

The reference to the Soviet Journal of Physics for May 1917 was amusing.

It concludes with an unrelated image from the Department of Diverse Data: the Vrill or "Fire Spider" from Gamma Andromeda. A parasite of pure energy feeding on the electrial potential of brains and nervous systems. That has the name D. Pattee attached to it.

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller.
Introduction discusses Soviet anthologies and authors. Reivews include The Prince in Waiting by John CHristopher; Crime Prevention in the 30th Century edited by Hans Stefan Santesson; Beastchild by Dean R. Koontz; and Mechasm by John T. Sladek.

Brass Tacks: There's a letter about an editorial about immature students on college campuses acting like young children. Campbell responds by wondering how they will raise their children. Fifty years later, we have some idea. There's a note about "authentic" Shepherd golf balls from the Moon for future collectors. A lengthy response/correction to the Alpha-wave Conditioning article from June (2 pages, ugh). And a complement to Gordon Dickson for The Tactics of Mistake.

On to June, and whatever else is in the TBR stacks in Kindle, iBooks, and the physical nightstand.

Don't Burn This Book (Rubin)

Don't Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason, by Dave Rubin (2020)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Walking from the anime shelf at the library toward the science fiction books, I was passing by the 300 section when I spied the words DON'T BURN THIS out of the corner of my eye. Stickers were covered the word "BOOK" on the spine. I stopped and pulled it from the shelf. I saw the title with the unlit wooden match on it. A striking cover (so to speak) that caught my attention. The subtitle "Thinking for Yourself" goes against the grain of all social media (and a lot of mainstream media) unless what you think for yourself agrees with without everyone else thinks.

The oddest part was that I didn't know who Dave Rubin was. I recognized the name, probably heard it online. The funny thing, I thought, was that if he was the person I was thinking of, he was a liberal. A title like this I'd expect from someone more right-leaning. (The jokes write themselves -- my first thought was to type Mark Levin here, but he wouldn't have a title that was so imflammatory. He's more on the nose with a title, I believe.)

So I checked it out, and as I suspected, Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report is, in fact, a liberal, but one of the Ed Koch mold. Ed used to bill himself as a "liberal with sanity" and who believed if you agreed with him more than 90% of the time, you should get your head examined.

Rubin states his opinions right off the top, what he believes and why he believes it. Some of these positions could have him dismissed as an "alt-right loonie" from the people he's not in line with. The rest are classical liberal positions. And by classical liberal, he's going back a few years.

It was an interesting read, particularly when illness nearly sidelined him and the "Rubin Report" and how a side comment to a guest led to a year-long tour on the lecture-circuit as the opening act to a self-help guru. It changed his life.

There wasn't anything in the book that was life-changing for me, but plenty of it was life-affirming, such as knowing that there are other people who would rather discuss and debate then name-call and cancel.

Vampire Addiction: The Vampires of Athens (Pohler)

Vampire Addiction: The Vampires of Athens, by Eva Pohler (2014)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This popped up as a free ebook in a mailing list along with The Crime Beat. Yes, this was going to be a teenage paranormal romance. I downloaded it anyway. It was pretty much what I expected and not much more.

Book 1 of a series, this one takes place in Athens, Greece and ties vampires into Greek mythology, dating them back to Dionysus, who first created them. Killing a vampire means destroying all the vampires they've created (unless they're still young enough to be healthy living adults). If you kill one of the first generation of vampires, that would be really bad.

Gertie is sent there from her mansion in NYC to spend a year aboard at a school in Athens. She believes her parents don't love her, or just don't know how to be parents. She ends up with a big family in two-bedroom apartment. She thinks she's going to hate it, but of course she finds the family she never had.

Gertie meets a boy named Jeno on the bus there who sees her interest in vampires from the books she's reading. Of course, he's a vampire. In fact, he's a very old vampire even if he looks like a teen.

The family (Baba, Mama, Nikita, Klaus and Phoebe) tries to shield Gertie the presence of vampires in Athens, except that they're all over the place, so it would seem impossible to hide, particularly at night. Oh, Phoebe doesn't actually talk, every since the fire that killed the youngest boy Damien.

Hector is a friend of the family and drives everyone to school. He also has a bit of a background. Nikita likes Hector, but Hector likes Gertie. Gertie "likes" Hector but really likes Jeno. This part was just too typical for me.

Gertie sees Jeno as a person more than a vampire. Yet despite all her promises to Mama, she allows Jeno to bite her a bunch of times. Each bite gives the victim the powers of a vampire for several hours while the virus is in their system. Powers include flight, invisibility (but not your clothes), illusion (so you can make clothes appear), x-ray vision, mind-reading (and message sending), persuasion and stupefying. But, of course, it is addiciting.

Gertie is somewhat naive when it comes to using these powers, and if Jeno was actually interested in Gertie herself (and not feeding on her blood), he would explain why her hare-brained schemes wouldn't work. On the other hand, he could be manipulating her the entire time. Or someone could have been manipulating Jeno the entire time (or most of it).

Actually, this brings up a little confusing point. Gertie is kidnapped by two vampires and dropped into the labyrinth in Crete (where she's found by the Minotaur). She's supposed to be a hostage to exchange for Jeno's father, but she gets away and returns to Athens just in time to be an important pawn that needs to be manipulated for their plans to be achieved. So why dump her so far away when it isn't obvious that she'd make it back?

As far as the series goes, nothing is resolved in book 1. All the story lines brought up toward the latter half of the book are left open for the next book (or beyond?). The vamps are going to take over Athens and send humans to live in caves, or something like that. Quick reading, but I'm not planning on reading any more of these, even if they're free.

Shadow of the Batgirl

Shadow of the Batgirl, by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux (2012/2015)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

The cover art told me that this would be a Young Adult take on the character, and probably similar to the Supergirl comic I just read. It also told me that Batgirl wasn't going to be a redhead. This would be someone new. The comic reads like a book, which is great, because I'm tired of random and incomplete collections of stories reprinted from comics.

It opens with Cassandra Cain (note that it wasn't "Kane") who is a teenaged assassin, trained by her father to kill but not to speak. When she here's one of victims use the word "daughter" in a way unlike how she's always heard the word, something changes within her. She runs away. She ends up in a library when she comes across a wheelchair-bound Barbara Gordon and hears stories about Batgirl. Cassandra becomes friends with Barbara but doesn't want any questions asked.

Cassandra learns what it means to be a hero and wants to seek revenge against her father. This, of course, points the way that she is going to become the new Batgirl.

Side note: While Commissioner Gordon does get a mention, neither Batman nor the Joker do. There is nothing to suggest why Barbara chose a Batgirl to be when she decided to be something. The quick montage of Batgirl in action is drawn to suggest she was a teenager before her accident put her in a wheelchair. Barbara is more interested in computer projects including an app she calls "Oracle", which in the "mainstream" universe was her alter ego after the crippling injuries from the Joker.

However, leaving these things out for the sake of a complete comic is completely understandable. Less understandable was the preview for an Oracle comic in the final pages which had a much darker tone. Also, they contradicted this comic a little in when she started hacking. She was definitely young when she ended up in a wheelchair.

This will probably be it for graphic novels for a while, other than a few more manga I have on reserve. I'll save the DC and Marvel for next summer, most likely, unless something different catches my eye.

An old Year-end Review for 2006

While cleaning up my hard drive, I found files where I kept track of the books I read for a given year. Someone had given me the idea (back in the 90s, I believe) to open a text file, and add the name of the book I'd read. What follows below looks like an "end of the year" post made to a bulletin board somewhere. It's past my time on Usenet. Many of these may have appeared elsewhere in this blog, if not the entire post itself. I'll post these files one per month.

It looks like 2006 wasn't a big year, but I did get a lot of graphic novels out of the library.

2006: The Year in Review

Asimov's Galaxy, Isaac Asimov

The Earth Lords, Gordon Dickson

i sing the body electric!, Ray Bradbury

The Transparent Life: 30 Proven Ways to Live Your Best, Naomi Judd

The Funhouse, Dean Koontz

The Joy of Pi, David Blatner

A is for Alibi, Sue Grafton

B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton

The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton

The End, Lemony Snicket

I started at least two other anthologies that I put down and will eventually get back to.

I had to return C is for Corpse before I'd finished it.

And there was another Math book, but I forgot to enter it, and I can't find the title.

I ended the year reading the introduction The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides.

Summer reading included a host of graphic novels the library got in:

"Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty"

"Batman: As the Crow Flies"

"JSA: The Liberty Files"

"Trinity" (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman)

"Outsiders: Looking for Trouble"

"Batman: War Games"

"The New Teen Titans: Judas Contract"

B is for Burglar was a reread. The End was the lackluster end of that series. The Outsiders was assigned for grad school, and I don't remember much about it -- maybe I should watch the movie (which I haven't seen). I'm curious what the anthologies were because I have many that I've started and never picked up again but I keep meaning to. Summer's coming, and they would make great pool books.

The Crime Beat (Fuller)

The Crime Beat, Episode 1: New York, by A. C. Fuller (2019)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This popped up as a free ebook in a mailing list where most of the free ones look like some sort of paranormal or magic teen/young adult romance. Nothing wrong with that, but I've read a few of those and I have so many other things to read before I download another. Crime Beat at least sounded like it'd be different.

It was. First impressions, these were guesses based on the title and the blurb. The words "Episode 1" make it sound like it's a pilot for a TV show, and at times reads like that. In fact, I could see this as an episode of a network TV show (not basic cable or streaming). Second, the part that says "New York", as if later books will take place in other cities. Considering that one of the two parties involved -- note that the top of the page in the ebook says "A Cole-Warren Mystery" -- is a NYPD cop who's been sidelined, with pay, because of an investigation into striking a suspect. (He slammed the suspect's face into the metal grate that separates the front of the cop car from the back.) Obviously, if the action is going to move to other cities, he's not going to be reinstated any time soon, if at all.

At 192 pages, it was a short read, and it was also a quick read. This was literally 2 or 2 1/2 days for me, while I was also reading other stuff on the side. It's not that it was riveting and I couldn't put it down, but I sped through it and it kept my attention until I dropped the iPad when I was falling asleep.

The story is straight-forward for a police procedural or an investigative reporter, and this has both of those, except that the cop has to sneak around because he can't be connected to anything without possibly tainting the case. Not a lot of twists and turns. Just enough info is given about the characters to make them interesting, and that info is used later on in other ways.

The story opens with an old guy, old enough that Roger Marris autographed a baseball bat for him in 1961, while the story takes place in 2018, is a professional hit man. He kills a billionaire in front of the Met in NYC. Jane Cole, reporter for the New York Sun investigates. Cops don't like her because she's the reporter who ran the story about the brutal cop. Said cop meets Cole at the crime scene. They wind up involved in this together to find the guy that did it. Again, straightforward after that, but it's par of a bigger story.

This next paragraph is a SPOILER: so I knew in advance, just from the setup that the cop was going to get bounced over the allegation, even if a retraction was printed in the paper. He was going to be sacrificed to placate the mob calling for justice. This much made sense, but then there was the twist: the brass would likely say, "See, look, there are brutal black cops as well as white cops." NOPE! I don't buy that. First off, I wouldn't think that the brass would ever concede to brutal cops, even if there are a few bad apples, but the race thing screws it all up. The "mobs" in NYC would probably be more outraged that a black officer is thrown off the force while white officers remain. Moreover, and maybe I'm being cynical, but I believe that the groundswell against the cops would be lessened by the fact that it was a black cop using force against (I'm inferring, if this wasn't outright stated) a white criminal.

Checking online I see that it will be nine stories (novellas) altogether, each telling a piece of the story. The nine part was failry obvious from the mention of 9 weapons a number of times in the story. Honestly, I was surprised one of the two didn't jump to that conclusion earlier, even if they were primarily concerned with this murder.

Will I read more? I wouldn't say no. Will I buy any? Probably not. I'll check the library at some point. I have a lot of stuff to read. (A quick check of two libraries shows no results. Oh, well.)

Ultraman Volume 2

Ultraman Vol 2, by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguch (2012/2015)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I found the second volume. A very quick read. A lot of great artwork. The younger hero is accepting the job as Ultraman and making appearances "saving the day". He fights one new alien who eats people because he finds them delicious. This battle covers the latter half of the book. The alien analyses the new hero a bit. But then gets beat.

Yeah, I'll look for more of these. And if I get a few at a time, I'll make a single entry for them.

The Only Good Indians (Jones)

The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones (2020)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was the book group's pick for September, and I read it already. It was a bit of a quick read, and a strange one as well. I'm not that much into horror, so this was a little out there. (That said, the historical romance a few months ago wasn't what I generally read, either, but that wasn't so bad.)

It starts with a Blackfoot Indian named Ricky, who has left his reservation, leaving a bar to pee outside because there's too long of a line inside. Out in the lot, an elk starts jumping on and damaging trucks. When angry bargoers head outside, all they see is an Indian, so they want to get the Indian. Ricky tries to flee the angry mob and almost makes it, except he runs into a herd of elk. That's the last we hear of Ricky. Next thing we hear, he's been killed by the mob.

Next we get to Lewis who's been off the reservation for a decade and trying to live a normal life. He's a postal worker and his girlfriend Peta directs planes at the airports with those two big lit cones. Lewis is trying to fix a light and while looking through a fan, he sees the image of an elk on the floor. He falls off the ladder but Peta saves him. Life suddenly starts getting weird as Lewis is obsessed with the elk. Enter Shaney, a Crow woman working at the Post Office. She can see the elk in the floor and even helps lay down tape to outline it.

Lewis confesses to Shaney about the night nearly a decade ago that he and three friends, Ricky (now deceased), Cassidy and Gabe, illegally shot up a bunch of elk on a part of the reservation where they weren't supposed to be. One that Lewis shot was pregnant and kept jumping back up to protect her calf. I can't relate to the scene so I can't really relate it here. However, Lewise thinks he's being haunted by that mother elk. He swore that every piece of her would be used, and now he's wondering if all these years later, some elder found a piece of that elk wrapped in the back of their freezer and gave it to the dogs.

Speaking of dogs, Lewis's dog gets killed and it was stomped, like by an elk, but an elk couldn't get in the garage. He discovers that his own boots were used to do the deed, and concludes that it was either Peta or Shaney that had done it. It takes a turn for the weirder when [SPOILERS] he kills both of them as runs off with a elk calf that he cut out of Peta (with whom he had unprotected sex just a couple of nights ago.)

He's shot down by militia who are out looking for him along with the state police. The calf isn't collected and runs away.

The story then shifts again to the reservation where Cassidy and Gabe live. Cass has a Crow girlfriend, Jo, who's turned his life around, and Gabe is enstranged from his daughter, Denorah, who lives with her mother and her new dad. The elk calf has grown into a girl and then a woman (who looks like Shaney and calls herself that). The elk woman plots revenge to kill everyone, including their cubs.

Much death ensues. It drags out a little toward the end, trying to get to a lake and ending up in the same ditch where the story started all those years ago, coming full circle.

It seemed a little disjointed to me, jumping all over the point from one POV to another. Also the elk woman parts were written in Second Person, just to add the the confusion. I can see the draw for horror fans, but this wasn't my cup of tea.

My Monster Secret, Vol. 1 (Eiji Masuda)

My Monster Secret, by Eiji Masuda (2013)

I read the English version, naturally

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

When I dropped off the Supergirl comic, I found the next Ultraman and a couple other things. One of them was "My Monster Secret" which had a girl with bat wings hushing someone on the cover. It was voulme 1, so I gave it a shot.

Basically, it's a high school story with a boy who can't keep a secret, mostly because his face gives everything away. He's known as the "Holey Sieve" (even though sieves are supposed to have holes?). He likes this one girl but is afraid to approach her. He was shot down by another girl before he even had a chance to tell her how he felt. His friends convince him to talk to this girl, who always arrives early and stays late. He finds her in a classroom and she has bat wings. The girl is a vampire.

The boy, Asahi Kuromine, finds this kind of cool. The girl, Youko Shiragami, is glad he isn't freaked out but tells him that she'll have to leave school now because her parents told her that if anyone learned her secret, she couldn't go to a human school any more. Asahi promises to keep her secret harder than any other secret he ever tried to keep. He also asks her to be his friend -- he can't get himself to ask her to be his girlfriend, and even reasons that asking her now would be akin to blackmail. So he's in the friend zone.

The pair are pursued by Mikan Akemi, the editor of the school paper, who only cares about gossip jounalism, ambushing people for stories, disovering secrets, and humiliating people to make herself feel better. The character is supposed to be annoying but is too annoying.

The last character of any importance is the class rep, Nagisa Aizawa, who has her own secret. She's an alien. In fact, she's a tiny alien inside a human looking body. There was a bit early in the comic where this was sort of revealed, but I dismissed it as some sort of manga artistic license thing and didn't take it literally. It wasn't until she was plugging herself in to recharge later that I realized. She turned down Asahi because she has a mission and she can't be distracted. She told him to find another goal. Now that he has, she's a little jealous. Asahi learns her secret, so she wants to use a memroy-erasing hammer to remove the memory of her secret plus that of Shiragami. Shiragami prevents this and causes Aizawa to reconsider.

Interesting story as Asahi now has three secrets: the two about the girls and the one about his feelings (although others see this one as obvious). Reading is a little difficult as there is a lot of fine print when they're talking under their breath, which they do a lot, or when they get excited and talk in a thick outline bubble font where the letters run together. However, people in the demographic this comic is made for probably don't experience these problems.

Maybe I'll read more. On the one hand, it shouldn't be a lot of prolonged battle scenes. On the other, it's a teen romance with a guy in the friend zone and a bunch of secrets. It'll probably get weirder as more quirky characters show up, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Supergirl: Being Super (Tamaki/Jones)

Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki and Joelle Jones (2018)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Back at the library, looking for the next Ultraman, when I spotted a Supergirl book. Unlike other graphic novels, this one looked like it was made to be a trade paperback. Maybe it was, and maybe it was not. I just now, while searching for the image, saw images of the individual comic. The cover of this book is modified from issue #1, but this looks better.

However, unlike the recent Superman book I read, this is all one story, not parts of stories here and there. But I have to say that the fact that this was an actual comic first just makes it even more confusing. Not that I liked it less.

Supergirl is one of those charcters that has gone through many changes over the years. I remember when she was Linda Lee Danvers before she was Kara Danvers. My following her in the comics pretty much ends with Crisis in the mid 80s. And then there's the current TV show, which is completing its run. She's been a teenager, an adult, back to a teen and then allowed to age again. On TV, she has a job and a life.

This version starts off strangely. She apparently landed on Earh in her pod when she was about 8 years old with no memory of her past, even though she was 8. But she does have dreams. And she's found by Mr. & Mrs. Danvers, in a variation that I've never seen before, who take her in and raise her. And there's no mention of You Know Who until very late in the book. In every other incarnation, either Kara was sent off with Clark (and was either older or younger at the time), or she was on Argo City, which survived the destruction of Kryton for while before it, too, was doomed.

She has two Best Friends, and in what seems like boxes checked off, the minority friend, within the first couple of pages, makes it known she's a lesbian, which is a detail that while mentioned again, won't actually come into play for the remainder of the book, until a couple of pages at the end, which seemed tacked on to the story. Her other best friend dies and she can't save her because her powers are going wonky. It could be puberty hitting at 16, or maybe it's something more nefarious.

I enjoyed the book and it's a good YA title, but I wished that there had been more closure at the end, particularly with the new Kryptonian added, who apparently has been on Earth for 40 years and had no idea that Krypton is gone.

If I see another issue in this series, I might check it out. It was well-done even if it wasn't a Supergirl I know.

Ultraman Volume 1

Ultraman Vol 1, by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguch (2012/2015)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Back at the library, walking among the manga and graphic novels. I saw Ultraman 1 was there (while My Hero Academia 1 was not), so I gave it a go.

A little online research says that its a sequel to the TV series, not a sequel to a different manga. I was curious because of the "Beginning of a New Era" on the cover.

The legendary "Giant of Light" now a memory, as it is believed he returned home after fighting the many giant aliens that invaded the Earth. Shin Hayata's son Shinjiro seems to possess a strange ability, and it is this ability, along with his father's revelation that he was Ultraman, that leads Shinjiro to battle the new aliens invading the Earth as the new Ultraman. The story is set up and then there's the prolonged battle sequence with the new Ultraman's first new enemy who states that his power does not belong on this planet.

Like most manga of this type, it's visually stunning but sometimes I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at.

Still, I'm likely to read more in the future. I could probably knock one of these off during a daily commute. At the moment, there are only 16 volumes, the last of which isn't available in English yet.