Luminous Beings (Arnold)

Luminous Beings, by David Arnold, illustrated by José Pimienta (2024)

(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 another graphic novel that I picked up at random at the library based on the cover. At this point, I'm looking for interesting panels that I can incorporate into a class slide presentation or worksheet or just something that I could recommend to the students.

This book isn't one of those things. I could use it as an example of poor dialogue placement, but I already have several of those. What I mean by this is that the tails of some word balloons go behind other word balloons to the point that you aren't sure who is speaking.

Other than that, I have no complaints about the layout, which seems to be standard with many graphic novels.

The book is about a "faux-pocalypse". They don't call it that. I just did. It looked like it was going to be about more than it actually was.

The story takes place over the course on one night. There are pink streaks coming out of the sky. Everyone is wearing hazmat suits, or "hazzies". The hoods have face masks that can be opened to use an inhaler (one character has for no stated reason, and it never comes into play) or to take a drink or just about any reason outside. Also, one guy (not shown) urinated behind a dumpster outside a club.

The only thing that this apocalypse seemed to do was turn all the squirrel into zombies with glowing red eyes that attack humans -- except that none are ever struck. The squirrels are always batted down and crushed behind someone's heel.

Of the four main characters, two are budding filmmakers, making a documentary about the squirrels, the end of the world, and a missing friend who went to live off the grid (and claim a reward for finding him). One of them has a secret -- she's decided to move away to go to Brooklyn College to study film-making. (Side note: I am a BC alumni, and I know that BC has one of the two best Film Departments in the city. The other is at NYU, which is about 10-20 times more expensive. One had Robert Redford as an advisor; the other had Paul Newman.)

The other two boys are friends and one of them secretly has a promise ring that he has to work up the nerve to give. As far as B stories go, it's pretty pedestrian. There are no complications, tension, drama in this.

The four follow a few clues and find the guy, who already knew the world wasn't actually ending but wanted to disassociate from the world anyway, and they make it back home by morning.

The artwork is pretty cool, primarily with pinks and purples for the night sky.

One scene that stands out was when two of them are in the club -- the boy who's 18 and the girl who's underage because the club lets in underage girls. The other two boys are outside (by the aforementioned dumpster). The couples are mixed, so everyone is free to spill what's on their mind. And here's were it goes wrong. The writer tries to do a movie trick of intercutting the two scenes and mixing the dialogue. This sometimes works in movies, because the jump cuts are obvious. It's less obvious here with the dark, near empty backgrounds with the "camera" close-up on whichever teen is speaking. It jumps from inside to outside back inside again to give the impression that the outside teen is responding to the inside teen's dialgoue. It doesn't work.

Luminous Beings was an okay read, and not something that I'll recommend. I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it -- maybe it'll mean more to them.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

In Utero (Gooch)

In Utero
Written by Chris Gooch (2024)

(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 past fall, I started looking for more standalone graphic novels at the library, both to read and to find examples of artwork that I could show in my Graphic Novel class.

Looking at covers and looking for anything different, I saw the cover of In Utero. Looked interesting. For a moment, I thought the book was going to be in 3-D and that I would need special glasses for it, but a quick flip of the pages informed me otherwise.

In Utero is an Australian YA graphic novel. It purportedly blends coming-of-age, sci-fi, and horror.

There's a bizarre setup where a young girl, Hailey, is dropped off at a day care program which is situated inside a deserted, run-down mall. Years earlier, there had been an "incident" in Australia, and the mall has been closed for a long time. Hailey wanders off when she meets an older teen, Jen, who isn't what she seems to be. They explored the mall, down to a flooded parking level where there is a giant egg. Jen is actually the egg, or rather, a projection of what is growing inside the egg.

At the same time, other kids have explored and found some odd kind of life forms that react to the them, much like a toy or a puppy might. When these things are discovered, Hazmat teams arrive to check all the children and staff, and to gather up the specimens. They make two mistakes: first, putting all the creatures together, and second, thinking that the canisters will contain whatever happens when there's a critical mass of these creatures.

A giant monster forms and starts looking for Jen, while authorities are looking for Hailey as well. It's up to Haily to save Jen and everyone else.

The book was mildly horrific, since it's YA. It had an interesting color palette, being mostly shades of blue, except for when it was primarily red.

It wasn't the greatest thing, or even overly enjoyable, but I was happy to read it. It was definitely something else. And I think I took a few photos of pages that I might be able to use next year if they give me the same class again.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Crazy Food Truck #1 (Ogaki)

Crazy Food Truck #1
Rokurou Ogaki (2024)

(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 a graphic novel (manga) that I found in a Little Free Library. I'll bring it back to another one.

I look for graphic novels to bring into my classroom for my high school students to read in a Graphic Novel class (because few, if any, bring in their own). However, withing three pages, there was a naked lady (a young woman, age unknown, actually) in an open sleeping bag. Everything was obscured by fog and whatnot, but I could imagine the reaction. That, in itself, was borderline. However, within a few pages, she was buck naked and fully visible. It's not too much for my students, but it's too much for me as the adult in the room to bring it into the class.

Okay, then...

In some fanciful post-apocalyptic wasteland, Gordon runs a food truck. He sets up shop and starts cooking depsite there not being any people around. While he's driving, he sees a sleeping bag in middle of the road. He goes to yell at the owner when he discovers Arisa who is sleeping naked in the bag. When she wakes up, she eats everything in the truck with her ridiculous appetite.

We later find that the military is looking for Arisa and that she's escaped from some government institution or whatever. We also later learn that Gordon is former military who now just wants to drive his truck.

There isn't much to this. Looking online, I see that the entire run of comics was collected into three volumes, so I could read it but only if one of my libraries picks it up. It's not something I'm going to go looking for -- and definitely not something I'd pay for another volume of. But if volume 2 shows up in a LFL, I'll grab it.

This one is definitely going back somewhere. I'm not leaving it in my classroom or my basement.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Eden: It's an Endless World! Volume 1 (Endo)

Eden: It's an Endless World! Volume 1
Hiroki Endo (1997/2005)

(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 a book that I picked up at Readercon in Boston, MA back in July. It was on the freebies table, and I only took it because it was volume one.

From Good Reads:

Eden Volume One is both a brilliant love song to the post-apocalyptic survival genre and the beginning of a deep exploration on man's role in the natural order. In the near future, a large portion of humanity is wiped out by a brutal, new virus that hardens the skin while dissolving internal organs. Those who aren't immune are either severely crippled or allowed to live with cybernetically enhanced bodies. Taking advantage of a world in chaos, a paramilitary force known as the Propater topples the United Nations and seeks world domination. Elijah, a young survivor searching for his mother, travels towards the Andes Mountains with an artificially intelligent combat robot. When he encounters a group of anti-Propater freedom fighters, a maelstrom of unique characters unfolds. Graphic, cyberpunk, and philosophical, Eden is a place where endearing heroes face a constant struggle for survival and violent surprises wait around every corner!

It was an interesting story and a quick read. It's not available from any of the local libraries. The series was popular when it came out in English, or so I've read.

The story follows two immune teens and a scientist who is succumbing to the disease and who also had a hand it its spread. There are a lot of flashbacks to a time when the virus started and pockets of humanity are protected within governmental walls.

It then jumps ahead a generation where the child of the two teens is traveling with a robot.

No, I'm not describing it well. Also, I'm curious what happened to his parents.

Two Short Books

Big Bullet Monster Bomb: lost little things: a short story for mature readers
by Adam Archer (2020)

The Race
by John Russo (2021)

(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 don't remember where I found these stories. I don't think it was reddit. It could've been on Facebook or Twitter.

Nothing about the Bullet Bomb book was particularly geared toward mature readers, other than the cover showing a woman wearing rags that barely cover what they need to. It seems like a story set in a larger world that I haven't read but I have no idea of this is the case. It's post-apocalyptic and the last of the human race is slowly morphing into cratures. This much is interesting.

The main character is pulling a sled of her belongings (including guns) and looking for some place to hide so she can sleep. Her sleep cycle is screwed up so she's up for a long time and then needs a prolonged sleep.

When she encountered some creatures attacking an overturned RV, she decides to go into action. It's at this point and after that it fell apart for me. It was a bit of a mess after that. But I read it until the end. I didn't bail on it. Interesting, but not great.

The first notes I wrote after reading it were: too many parenthetical expressions. Eloise and Marhsa. Good setup, no follow through. Fell apart with the first battle.

By contrast, The Race is just a mess. It takes place in a dystopian future. Amazon makes deliveries by drone. One brother decides that they can get rich by shooting down the drones and taking the packages for themselves. The packages would be insured, so no one loses. The other brother thinks it's a stupid idea.

Brother 1 shoots down a down with a shotgun (it might've been a rifle, I forget), and the drone goes down. Brother 2 says that Brother 1 has to get the package and return it. Brother 1 says he's going to keep it.

And now the race is on over hill and dale not to mention through woods, quicksand and swamp, to get to this package. It seems like they are surprised by the terrain that is right next to their own farmland. It also seems like Brother 1 must be an incredible marksman to shoot down a drone so far away with a store-bought rifle without a laser scope. You would think that the drone would crash within a couple hundred yards from where he fired.

If that wasn't bad enough, they get to a point where they haul the huge package, a large TV, of the bayou (again, suprise -- there's a bayou!) in a boat. The boat gets flipped, depositing the brothers in the water, and sending the large box flying into the air, up the enbankments, and into the trees. The physics of it are basically "somehow".

The item finally retrieved and they head home after spending most of the day following the path a disabled drone. There's a twist at the end that is 100% the twist you would expect to see even before you knew that there would be a twist at the end because the story needed an ending.

My notes when I read it were: Johnny and Robert. Shooting packages from Amazon drones. how far away was this thing? Race from the farm into the swamp, and they came to a bayou that they seemed surprised to see. They rescue the package and it manages to magically fly up a hill and clear some trees. They spend the majority of the day looking for something that was taken down with a shotgun. And the final twist, SPOILER, telegraphed really, was that the lost package was ordered by the wife.

The Book of Koli (Carey)

The Book of Koli, M. R. Carey (2020)

Book One of the Rampart Trilogy

(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 a Book Club selection. It's a post-apocalyptic story set somewhere in England (toward the end we find out it's 200 miles north of London). It is written as a narrative of a young man with little education from a village of people with limited education. The text is difficult to read at first, but you get used to it and ignore it, except for the times that you don't.

The biggest "offender" is the use of "of" in place of "'ve" in contractions. Every. Single. Time.

There are also times when you need to sound something out loud to figure out what he's refering to, and other times, I just didn't bother if I could figure it out from context.

It's also very conversational in how he recounts a bunch of stuff you need to know before he can tell you the story he wants to. It drags on a bit. Once again, had this not been a book club book, I might've bailed out after 30 or 60 pages. The pace picked up later on, but not nearly enough.

Koli and his family live in the village of Mythen Rood, which supposedly means something, or it could just be a corruption of "road". ("Rood" means Crucifix. It's also "door" backward but that doesn't mean anything.)

You never get a good idea how big, how populated, this village is. Is it dozens, hundreds, a thousand?There don't seem to be a lot of people mentioned and there are only three "Ramparts" protecting everyone. Ramparts are people who can wake up the ancient tech, except that there's only three pieces of working tech, and all the people who passed the test to wake the devices are come from a single family.

Like in Armored Saint, everyone's last name is their occupation. When they become an adult, if they don't become a Rampart, they choose the name they will be known as. Koli wants to be a Rampart but he ends up being woodworker. His best friend becomes a Rampart (and he's a member of that same family) and asks their mutual female friend to marry him. Koli is sad but doesn't stand in the way (nor does he stand up for him.) Koli finds out from Ursula, a medic who travels from village to village accompanied by a "drudge" that is apparently the size of a mini-van, that there are ways to activate tech and ways to authorize users. Koli comes up with a plan to acquire tech.

Koli's father was a traveling locksmith. He installed the lock on the door in the basement in Rampart Hold ("the Count and Seal") and another lock in the woodshed of Koli's mother. He installed the same lock with the same key. Koli uses the key, sneaks in the Hold and makes off with a bunch of devices, which turn out to be same kind of tech. (He also forgot to bring a bag to carry them, so he could only take what he could hold.) Of all of these, he gets a single item to charge up with sunlight: a Sony Dreamsleeve music and entertainment player, with a young woman AI interface named Monono Aware (A-war-ee). We find out more about her later on.

Koli keeps hoping that there's a weapon in the device, but there isn't. He also wants to be sure that he is authorized and that no one else is. He manages to make a verbal passcode for anyone other than him. Monono tells him that she can still access a site were the upgrade with the personal alarm is stored but it'll take a while to get it. Koli says okay, and the device goes silent for a long time. Koli thinks he broke it or chased the girl away. She returns at his friend's wedding (I forget his name already, but he married Spinner, but they won't be in the story much longer). He declares himself to be Koli Rampart.

The Ramparts disagree and imprison him. Half of them want to kill him and the rest want to make him Faceless and banish him. The Faceless men in the woods are mostly cannibals. So he sets out, without the Dreamsleeve, and tries to make his way to Ludden (which turns out not to be London, as I figured, but it was only 4 miles away, so it didn't make sense that it would be London.). The problem is that the trees can kill you either with vines or by boring seeds or whatever into you. But they are usually only active on sunny days. Overcast days are okay.

He makes it through the trees to the gate of Ludden. He finds out when he gets there that Ludden is dead. Everyone died off. (They weren't making enough babies, and not enough of those lived.) While he's there, he's ambushed by one of Rampart Cutter who followed him because he wants to know how to make the dreamsleeve work. Koli refuses to tell him and dares him to kill him already. There's a fight, and first the Rampart is cut with his own tech. The Rampart threatens to destroy the Dreamsleeve, but Koli uses a large rock to destroy the cutter, which blows up, taking the Ramparts arm with it. He dies.

Koli climbs a tower to spend the night (instead of finding a bed in any of the houses that remain). While up there, he hears voices. There are three people out looking for someone. They capture Koli and carry him back to a religous cult that is in an underground railway station. (They followed the tracks for quite a while.) When he gets there, the leader is ready to make him his altar boy, who will lead the land that was (shades of Hale-Bopp Comet folks). He's tossed in a cell, and there's Ursula, who is described as missing an eye, but it's actually just messed up a bit.

They eventually escape by creating a diversion, spilling gasoline onto the train and setting it on fire, and making a run down the tunnel. Many of the cultists leapt into the flames, thinking it would take them to the promised land. It did not. They make it outside, but Sky and some men capture them and are going to bring them back. Then the drudge strikes. They are free to make their next move.

At this point, the youngest cult member who helped catch Koli, Cup, catches up with him and is ready to kill him. Koli prevents the drudge from killing Cup. Cup is then revealed to actually be a boy who ran away from his village when they were going to marry him off to an old woman, which makes no sense if marriages are supposed to produce children from the villages to survive. This revelation wasn't foreshadowed and doesn't add anything to the story. If it was cut out, the story wouldn't be affected at all. If you skip a half dozen paragraphs, you'd have no idea.

At this point, they're ready to head to London. We don't have any closure on any of the earlier story elements, but since it's stated up front that it's a trilogy (and not some open-ended series), that is less of a problem. The only problem is that I don't think I'm going to look for book two, because reading book one was a bit of a drudge. (I didn't plan that, but it fits.)

Last note: apparently the apocalypse was caused by climate change, and a time very soon to now, but far enough away from all this wonderful tech to be developed. How climate change created those killer trees is not explained or readily apparent.