Marth Muffins

Dnfed at about 1/3rd mark

Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex - 5/5

Please don't look at the date started/date finished stats thank you!!!

I fear I must also start with a very vague discussion about my relationship to sex work. It's not all that interesting, mainly comprising half a year to a year of selling semi-nude/nude pics and videos of myself the old fashioned, pre-Only Fans way whilst living with a nice roommate who had a little more contact with their clients. I can't say I enjoyed it too much, but I am now on oestrogen thanks in part to the bits of money saved from it so I can't say I resent it too much either.

I mention this all because a lot of the pieces here resonated with me on at least some level. I didn't have any direct contact with clients outside of web chats, didn't see them at all tbh, but the sense of monotony, the feeling that the “despicable” sex work I was doing was less degrading than the retail job where people would physically assault me for daring to work there, and the weird ways it made me think about my body (and how much I hated and wanted to change it) all rang true.

But this is a really excellent and varied anthology with contributions from people in all parts of the industry (strippers, phone sex, whoring, internet sex, etc) and backgrounds (racialised, queer, and indigenous specifically) which provided many new PoVs on sex work too. We got interviews, autobiography, essays, polemics, art, poetry, multi-media and more throughout the book too, allowing each contributor to express themselves in some way. The only drawbacks here are location, most of the stories are either American or Canadian but I understand that there's a limit on what could be brought together, and I do wish there were one or two masc PoVs (although if there were and I've forgotten I am so sorry, please refer to started/finished stats that I told you to ignore). Not to pull a “what about men”, but it would've been interesting to her a trans or cis male sex worker's PoV on sex work, although I understand if finding someone to include might have been harder.

However, I don't want those issues to overshadow the fact that this collection was incredibly good and well worth reading. Topics range from decriminalisation, the racist structures which permeate every level of the sex work industry (from the clubs and clients, sex workers themselves, and the organisations set up to fight for sex worker's rights), the sex work to social work two-way pipeline, monotony, respectability politics and more. This is well worth a read for anyone and definitely gets a recommendation from me!

Doctor Who: Revenge of the Judoon - 2.5/5

Fun little read, minus some good old British nostalgia for Empire. For a story advertised as focusing on the Judoon they're definitely far more of a secondary issue but it's cool to see them in the Edwardian period all the same, and Dicks has a lot of fun fleshing out the Edwardian setting despite the limited page count. It also uses the fact that it's a book a lot more than the other Quick Reads have, jumping across the globe and between locations far more than the generally single setting, UNIT Era-like stories I Am A Dalek and Made of Steel. I don't think it's as good as I Am A Dalek, but it's a fun read nevertheless. If Terrance Dicks has proved anything with his record number of Who stories, it's that he can spin out a decent adventure.

These Demented Lands - 2/5

So, this is a sequel to one of my favourite books of all time and a piece of media (both the original book and especially the film) that I would consider foundational to who I am as a person, Morvern Callar. This semi-sequel is not nearly as good. It's definitely got the same voice, the bits written ostensibly by Morvern have the same idiosyncratic way of writing (for example, people like The Aircrash Investigator become “The One Who Walked the Skylines of Dusk with Debris Held Aloft Above His Head” in her words) and attitude, and those chunks of surreal wandering through the demented land of the Island are by far the best part of the book.

However, over half the page count is given over to The Aircrash Investigator, a boring and dour man who's perspective didn't really add much beyond obnoxious male gaze. If it had remained 200 pages of disjointed wandering through purgatory then it would've worked a lot better for me, but as it is the whole middle of the book drags the entire novel down and it loses the surreal nature that was working so early on whilst never capturing the grounded moments of the first. It feels like Warner had enough material for a novella or a longer short story but ended up padding it out in the middle.

Overall then, I still really recommend Morvern Callar, and I definitely don't recommend These Demented Lands.

Hogfather - 5/5

Really in the upper tier of Discworld and a perfect Christmas/New Year read, and that's saying a lot. Pratchett gets the mix of comedy, character, world, and themes down flawlessly and I loved every page, from the parts focused on the main characters to the little side digressions. The plot is a little scattered, Pratchett's plotting has never been the tightest, and one or two jokes fell flat, but these are pretty minor complaints for an otherwise incredibly good book.

Weird, I'm about halfway through the main Discworld series now, what a journey.

Deliver Me - 4/5

Deliver Me is good, and it feels very unique in the pregnancy horror subgenre in that it's not specifically about body horror fears surrounding how your body changes, about having something growing inside you that moves your insides around, causes you pain, and so on, but about not having that and wanting it so much because all your worth has been assigned to being able to squeeze out a wean. You see, it's deliver me both in a giving birth sense and deliver me in a religious sense.

The whole novel is very grim, everyone here, even our protagonist, is a big shit and as we're trapped in a self-loathing closeted bi woman's head for 280 pages. It's also doing all the classic extreme horror tropes: animal slaughterhouse, bugs, unsafe medical procedures, manky flats/apartments, animals getting real bad stuff done to them, a scene with a tampon that I don't think would be advisable irl etc. It doesn't reach the extent which media like this can, it's honestly fairly restrained in comparison to other books in this space, but still makes it's presence known.

Additionally, like a lot of these sort of works, it's not that subtle. Thankfully subtilty deserves to be dead, although the book still does the thing I dislike were a character will monologue about a very specific current day thing, be that a headline topic or a way people express a set of ideas (manosphere dogshit in this book's case), which will definitely date the book faster than would've otherwise been hte case, although it's not nearly as egregious as some books I've read recently.

Overall though the book worked for me and I'd definitely recommend giving it a read if it sounds interesting!

Metal from Heaven - 4.5/5

I had to take a little while to think on this one. Of all the fantasy books I've read this year Metal from Heaven was one of those most interesting and engaging, even if it still frustrated me at times. There are aspects I think won't work for a lot of people but really did for me, but I'll summarise my thoughts with these points:

Anarchism

The main character, Marney, is a part of an anarchist revolution against a very late 19th/early 20th century style society (hence the opening quotation from Joe Hill). It handles this well; it doesn't make the anarchists revolutionary saints fighting a pure fight against the nefarious forces of Industry, they do fucked things in the name of the Hereafter. But they also commit righteous murder, destroy and appropriate the habits of property, and scheme the downfall of industry and hierarchy in the name of that very same Hereafter. This doesn't mean it's forcing you through a lecture on collective decision-making or the unity of means and ends but it felt like something which was genuinely interested and vocal about engaging with what could be.

Queerness

Many lesbians. Very cool. Featuring a lot of a classic of lesbian existence, yearning. I do think the yearning itself gets a too much at times, the central emotional core of the novel is built around it and there are multiple instances of yearning on the side which complement it. This is an angsty gays book at heart though so it's to be expected and welcomed, it just can become all-encompassing (which is accurate to the feeling itself I suppose). But yes, I do love the book's gay.

Religion

This element is one I think will be more polarising, especially regarding the ending. Religion is a very integral part of the book. Even when it's not centred it's present, informing the main character's actions and beliefs as she moves through the narrative. I love this, and I found how faith was handled frankly refreshing from the very dour way a lot of novels, especially in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror space, view and discuss faith.

It's not that there isn't questioning of it, and there's still a definite critique of religious institutions in line with both the anarchist ideas and the main character's queerness, but faith is a key part of both Marney's life and the entire functioning of the anarchist society she's a part of. Even those who aren't as religious as the main character have some form of faith which informs on their lives and actions. It also feeds into the ending in a way that I've seen people take issue with. The religious aspect of the ending works for me, and I find the way religious belief is discussed refreshing, but I can see that pushing people away somewhat.

Style

This is another element that might put some folk off. The main style the book is written in really evoked the vibe of the sort of queer transgressive horror novel which has become popular in the last 10 years but has been building over the last 20 to 30. I think it works well, the main character Marney has a strong internal voice which the text captures and uses effectively to really get across her internal angst and pain in a well written way.

However, the style itself can make it hard to get a grip on the world, exposition is hard to pull off when the writing is both so stylised and so insular to the main character that when we do get blocks of text that outline the world, religion, or politics it can be hard to parse through. This is more pronounced in a secondary world where you can't rely on a reader just knowing what a United States or a Ghana is or a car or a dog etc are. It did work for me, and rereading expository text a second time let me get a handle on it, but that aspect of the style did suffer somewhat.

Sex scenes too could at times be somewhat dodgy in terms of writing, very flowery and lots of the instances of the word “lapping”. I can see issue being taken with the contents of those too, they can be violent and have dubious consent at times, but it worked for the story and was handled well. Sex scenes are hard to write though, and these are nowhere near the worst I've read and did still work 80% of the time.

Cast

There are too many characters and it's hard to tell them apart. I'm happy that 99% of the cast is made up of hot lesbians, but with an internal perspective being so centred on Marney means that they can often blend together for me when they often times have only one or two distinguishing characteristics unique to themselves. This also isn't helped when halfway through the book we get an almost entirely new cast of characters who are also hot lesbians but rich. Part of this is down to needing cast to kill off so the themes of revolution, martyrdom, and struggle come across, but I don't ever care enough about most of the side cast for it to affect me whenever someone is killed. Cutting the cast back significantly would have helped a lot with this without losing much.

Ending

I do have some issues with the ending, namely that it zooms way out in the last two chapters, and we lose a lot of that intimacy with the main character as she goes very End of Evangelion. Thematically it works with the anarchist and religious ideas in play so that it fulfils those aspects of the novel, but it leaves Marney and her relationships too out of focus, harming the central character dynamic. The final lines bring that back, and it's still threaded throughout those last two chapters, but generally it loses sight of that character focus the rest of the novel was built around.

Overall

However, even with the issues I had the book kept me engaged and interested throughout. I can see this as a polarising read for many, but I really enjoyed reading this one and will definitely be looking out for more adult books from August Clark in the future.

Sidenote: More authors should include further reading, both fic and non-fic, in their acknowledgements.

Essential Judge Dredd: America - 4/5

Collects the main “spine” of the democracy storyline which featured in 2000AD's Judge Dredd strip from the mid-80s to the early 90s, where efforts are made to bring democracy back to the fascist-run streets of Mega-City One. Got 6 stories here, almost all fairly good:

Letter From A Democrat - 6/5. 2000AD Prog #460, Written by John Wagner, Art by John Higgins

A classic, one episode story that manages to ground the world of the strip and realise that whilst Dredd might be fighting deranged Mega-City inhabitants, science experiments gone wrong, and Dark Judges bent on wiping out all life he's still a fascist who imprisons countless people for minor infractions and belongs to a system which is thoroughly corrupt and rancid. I definitely feel the response it was meant to be against those idolising Dredd or the Judges, and it works so well in a way only one-off stories can often do.

Revolution - 5/5. 2000AD Progs #531-533, Written by John Wagner & Alan Grant, Art by John Higgins

You can hear Grant's voice here as Dredd and the Judges get up to their nefarious scheme to disrupt the pro-Democracy march. Really shows the highly satirical and pointed side of Dredd in his hands, being a caricature more than anything. It works really well here, and I love how explicit it is in the well-worn tactics they use to get their way against protesters.

Politics - 5/5. 2000AD Prog #656, Written by Alan Grant, Art by Jeff Anderson

Alan Grant's Dredd unrestrained from John Wagner's more character-focused beats. A really strong and very dark one episode comedy about the lengths the Justice Department will go to suppress the growing democracy movement. Grim in the way the best Dredd satires can be. Makes me wonder what Dredd would've looked like if Grant had become the primary Dredd writer over our own, John Wagner led, timeline.

America - 3.5/5. Judge Dredd Megazine #01-07, Written by John Wagner, Art by Colin MacNeil

The main event. Dredd always works well as a looming background threat, one which truly reveals the inhuman and horrible nature of the Judges in regards to the average citizen. I love the noir feel a lot, and especially seeing flashes of the main characters life as various events in Mega-City history unfold, but the culmination of this first arc of the democracy storyline is really good. It's not subtle, and I know the fact that one of the characters is called America and that name is used to hammer home the point the story is making really irritates some readers, but it works really well for me. We don't deserve subtilty.

My main issue is the treatment of the character of America. She's a symbol, she exists as a kind of exoticised image in the main character's head, both in a political and in a sexual sense. She's not a character but an idea. At no point does she get to breathe on her own but is an object pursued by both the main character and Dredd, her body is more important than her personhood. Things happen to her, and at times she's reduced to biological functions like her ability to have kids and it all feels very eh. In the end she has less of an individual character than the one-off person introduced in Letter From A Democrat. It's an issue not unique to this story, or even how comparable people are framed in real life, but it being so central here really got at me, and it's why I reduced my rating.

However, if you can get passed that then there is a really solid story worth reading here and I highly recommend it.

“The Devil You Know...” - 3.5/5. 2000AD Progs 750-753, Written by John Wagner, Art by Jeff Anderson

Gearing up for the Referendum on democracy. Here there are issues just in terms of what is and what isn't included. The story itself is fine, if a little convoluted for what it's trying to tell, and it gets at the heart of Judge corruption which constantly raises its head. The issue is that in this collection we don't see the change in Dredd, why he's shifted from his hardline anti-Democracy stance (which he was so committed he'd break the law itself to stop it) and towards being the main Judge supporting a referendum on democracy.

Now most of that is a gradual shift between America and this story, with most the change happening in the huge Dredd epic Necropolis which has a whole Essential Collection to itself, but it does feel jarring here nevertheless, especially if this is where new readers are jumping in with the Essential Collection releases. Even a short continuity note detailing that shift in Dredd would be good.

As it is though this is still a decent story and continues the themes on well.

Twilight's Last Gleaming - 2/5. 2000AD Progs 754-756, Written by Garth Ennis, Art by John M. Burns

This is the story I'm most mixed on. I don't hate the resolution to the referendum itself, voter apathy, ignorance, fear, and willingness to settle for "the devil you know" makes sense. My issue comes with the reaction of Blondel Dupre. It's not so much that she's resigned to the Judges power, that makes a lot of sense and is a good, pessimistic way to end her story which has stretched over this whole collection, but it's that she so readily accepts Dredd's reasoning for why the Judges are needed in the end.It's a reversal which ends up reinforcing the fascist ideals of the Judges rather than refuting them in the way the other stories here do. It ends up stating that "no, the Judges are necessary actually so just suck it up and live with what you have". Again, my issue isn't that the referendum doesn't pass, that angle works well for me, or that Dupre gives up and is resigned to Judges control, it's that the story goes out of it's way to have a final monologue about how the Judges really are just what Mega-City One needs after all in a way which doesn't feel ironic, satirical, or pointed in any way. It'd be easy to excise too, with just a few panels difference on the second-to-last page needing changed.

Those issues really hurt this final story, and without them it would be a far stronger ending, both of this story and of the primary democracy storyline in the Dredd timeline.

Overall - 4/5

A really strong collection let down at the end by a wet fart of a final episode. Still, it remains highly recommended for the rest of the stories here!

Feet of Clay - 4/5

Another really solid entry in the Discworld series from Terry Pratchett, and the 3rd book in the City Watch sub-series. This one's more of a murder mystery police procedural, investigating some bloody murders throughout Ankh-Morpork and the mysterious poisoning of one Vetinari. The investigation here is solid, leading to a lot of fun gags and interesting diversions through Ankh-Morpork's streets for the Watch. We also get a lot of solid character moments for all of our major Watch Officers, especially for Angua, Vimes, Carrot, and new character Cheery Littlebottom (with Nobby, Fred, and Detritus getting a fair amount too).

Thematically, Pratchett's going for a lot of commentary on both discrimination and a classic anti-authoritarian thing about power. It's all fairly solid, although does end up clashing with the fact that the main characters are all police officers (something which is lightly touched on in the book itself) and a number of the jokes end up deriving from “haha, police abusing their power” or some variation which, whilst never meanspirited, hasn't exactly aged too gracefully.

Howeverm, those issues aside I still really had fun with this Discworld adventure. excited to get to Hogfather this Christmas time.

Harrow County Vol. 8: Done Come Back - 4/5

And Emmy's story reaches an end.

Climatic resolutions all round, with really solid endings to Emmy, Bernice, Hester, and Harrow's stories whilst leaving room open for the semi-sequel series.

Overall, Harrow County has been a really fun series carried by some really excellent art by Tyler Crook and some solid writing by Cullen Bunn. Folk's looking for a folk horror fix should really give it a go.

Harrow County Vol. 7: Dark Times A'Coming - 4/5

We are truly entering the endgame now. Old enemies return, Harrow County and it's people are ripped apart and remade, and Emmy finds herself a'changing too. The Dragon of the series returns, inserting herself into the newly reconciled Emmy and Bernice's friendship, and pushes the final pieces into place for the climaxtic showdown of the series. An approriately harrowing prelude to the return of a greater evil.

Harrow County, Vol. 6: Hedge Magic - 4/5

Stepping back from the backstory exposition of Vol. 5: Abandoned we reach the boiling point of the tension between Emmy, Bernice, and their respective magicks and mysteries. Stepping back from the last two volumes' focus on backstory and exposition is a big positive step and whilst a few elements here did rub me the wrong way, like how it felt as if an important issue (or at least a few pages) was missing between #23 and #24, overall I really enjoyed the return to a much character focused arc.

We're definitely entering the endgame of the comic now, with most everything coming to a head for the final 8 issues, and all the elements that the series has been building up have me excited to see what happens next!

The Strike of the Glasgow Weavers 1787 - 4/5

Read in Calton Book's new edition with trade unionist Harry McShane's initial article for the Glasgow Distirct's Trade Union Council in 1931 which was one of the first to do a written and researched piece on the Calton Weavers and the 1787 strike.

An easy to read and informative piece on one of the first recorded instances of worker's industrial action in Scotland, and the wider United Kingdom. Obviously limited by the lack of suriviving sources there's still a compelling and well researched narrative history here covering not just the 1787 strike but also the general history of the weaving trade in various areas around what is now all Glasgow, from the Calton to Govan, but with particular focus on the Calton. The legacy of these weavers, and their strike, deserves to be much more prominently remembered in Scotland, along with the later Radical War of 1820. The city's industrial legacy might be being ripped away but the radical history can remain a powerful call from the past to remake the future.


Alasdair Gray's portrait of Harry McShane in front of the Calton Weaver's Memorial.

Books of Blood Vol. 2 - 3.5/5

Another solid collection from Barker which, whilst a little weaker than the first, really held up for me here.

Dread - 3.5/5: This is essentially Saw before Saw (and set in the UK during the 80s which makes me think the villain probably didn't need to build a series of traps to create an overwhelming sense of dread in his victims). This is definitely the most “standard” horror story of the collection but still very solid, although I'm not a fan of how Barker treats the main female character here.

Hell's Event - 2/5: The weakest. It's a fairly dull and not that interesting sports horror story about a hell race and I think the political commentary is very vague and toothless, especially in regards to the British establishment. If that aspect was tightened up into something beyond a generalised “British democracy versus hell manipulation” tale it could've been pretty decent, resembling a Hellblazer story from early in Jaime Delano's initial run which released a few years after this story. There were some cool creature designs though.

Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament - 4/5: My favourite. Depressed, bored, dysmorphic, and unloved housewife Jacqueline Ess discovers she can mould bodies to her will and control the desire of people around her. Some very weird stuff happens and it deals with Barker's desire/repulsion thing pretty well.

The Skins of the Fathers - 4/5: Another very Barker story which reminded me a lot of Nightbreed/Cabal and contained some great creature designs and a Barker favourite, monster sex. Definitely feels like it could've been longer, and I think that's what Cabal set out to achieve, but really solid nonetheless.

New Murders in the Rue Morgue - 2.5/5: This one probably would've been stronger if I'd read The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe first but as it is it's fine, not much there to really comment on other than I think how Barker handles women here is not ideal either.

Overall, some solid stories and some meh ones, as most anthologies tend to go. Still I'm enjoying working my way gradually back through these Books of Blood though, and will probably continue with Vol. 3 later this month.

Cannery Row - 4.5/5

A beautifully written hangout book featuring those living at the fringes of inter-war Depression Era California as they make their home in the bastard countryside, the edgelands, of Monterey's beachfront near the old cannery. The book's famous, it's vibes are immaculate, and the picture it paints varies from beautiful, funny, sad, sentimental, and romantic throughout. In between the main “plot” chapters Steinbeck writes these little bits of microfiction about the lives of Cannery Row's other residents and these were some of my favourite parts, being able to see such a small snapshot of a life in 2 to 4 pages and learning so much about them and the place that is the Row.

Some parts have aged, whilst for 1945 Lee Chong is a very well rounded character there's still some aspects of him which haven't aged gracefully and there are a lot of “my wife!” bits here that made me roll my eyes a little, but overall Cannery Row still stands up in 2024.

So yes, an understandable classic. Definitely recommended.

Pumpkinhead - 1.5/5

A few interesting disparate elements such as bringing in the demons for the other deadly sins and a bit on Americas militia movement don't save this for me at all. Those elements never really come together, with the other sins only really being here so Pumpkinhead can have some badly staged and drawn Kaiju fights with them rather than doing anything to explore their own mythology, and the militia stuff is only here to give the interchangeable hillbilly clans some firepower to use against the demons.

Bunn's writing does this series no favours but it's the art for me that really drags it down to 1 star. Everything looks just really ugly, and not in a fun kind of gross horror movie way but in a just badly drawn way. It also has the issue that the world itself feels empty: everyone's home is so clean and has no clutter or anything to tell you anything about the people or the place we're seeing. Contrasting this with the carefully considered clutter of both Ed Harley's house, the little hamlet, and Haggis' shack in the movie and it feels all off from that original film. It's an issue I've seen with a lot of modern art in comics, probably down to the extreme crunch and the workload required of many workhorse comic artists to make money, but sometimes characters here just exist in a void with no discernible features at all.

Never mind the art for the demons themselves. Pumpkinhead looks awful, just a big grey blob of nothing, and the new demons have passably interesting designs that having nothing done with them. Each of them just wrestles with Pumpkinhead for a bit and that's it, there's not really any unique aspect to them that is used narratively (beyond perhaps Gluttony vomiting and Lust being vaguely sexual towards Pumpkinhead). It's a big waste of the concept and not engaging at all.

The plot itself is essentially a rehash of the first film but this time the victims of Pumpkinhead fight back with more demons. It's not well developed and what interesting ideas there are (the militias, getting the police involved etc) are just not used very well, and no one is developed enough to care. Now, the victims in the movie weren't well developed either but Ed Harley was a very well rounded character for the creature feature he was in, and there's no one near that in this comic series.

The backup story gets a half star just for trying to develop an interesting narrative around the witches, Haggis, and the other demons, but it's too short to really land and whilst the art is better it's still not great.

Overall, a really weak entry from Bunn and another weak Pumpkinhead story. You'd think backwoods vengeance demon would be pretty easy concept to write a franchise around but here we are, with only one good movie to the Pumpkinhead name and little else to recommend. The only other piece of Pumpkinhead media I could call good is the 1993 Dark Horse miniseries, and that remains unfinished after it was cancelled two issues into it's 4 issue run.

A Stitch in Time - 5/5

The insidiousness of fascism, and of capitalism, is how it becomes every part of you, how it co-opts your mind and your actions until all you are, all you can ever be, is encapsulated by its tenets: a never-ending sacrifice to rotting corruption that sees you as little more than a replaceable part in an ever-grinding machine. It ties you to it with ideals that are antithetical to its own existence, be they family or duty or purity, that the biggest cogs in the machinery refuse to meet themselves but who will gladly discard those that do not fit perfectly without a care, turning the land to desert as the faceless machine burns away all it can to make way for greater accumulations of wealth and power.

Throughout his time on the show Deep Space Nine Garak has constantly struggled with his relationship to the machinery of fascism. He was, once, an integral component of the machine, an anti-viral agent who ensured the machine's components were never infected by the ideals of the Federation, or by those homegrown heresies that lurk at the fringes of Cardassian society to corrupt wayward citizens of the Union. But by the time of the show he was isolated, apart from his species and abandoned on Deep Space Nine to live under Federation law. This book explores both why that is the case but, more importantly, how throughout his life Garak has struggled with Cardassian society, how he flowed from the diseased heart of Cardassia out to it's fringes through the clogging arteries and veins that feed it's power.

That journey, that never-ending sacrifice which makes up his life, is central to the book. 3 narrative strands make up the book, one detailing Garak's life leading up to season 1 of DS9, the second focusing on Garak a few weeks before his return to Cardassia in the show's 7th season, and the last on Garak picking through the ravages of Cardassia post-war. Throughout we see his struggles with the ideals of Cardassia, his rise in the ranks of the secret service, the anger at Federation smugness and arrogance at their own perceived righteousness and moral surety, and how he deals with it all crumbling away in the book's 3rd plot thread.

There's also, at least in my reading, a very strong undercurrent that acknowledges Garak's queerness. Whilst all the explicit romances and sexual attraction involving Garak here are with women there are many points when he is interacting with men that read, to me, like repressed attraction, as if he is struggling with his romantic or sexual feelings for these men and does not know how to express them, or does not have the tools to in the society he finds himself in. I am aware that Andrew Robinson played Garak as attracted to Doctor Julian Bashir in the show, and that later books in this Star Trek Lit-Verse continuity make Garak's bisexuality explicit, so I feel fairly confident that it may well have at least been on Robinson's mind when writing this book.

Another recurring thread is Garak's joy of gardening, inherited from the man he thought was his father, and the growing of the temperamental Edosian orchid. It's one of many sustained bits of metaphor and symbolism that's maintained throughout the book and serves as a beautiful representation of Garak's escape from the hold that Cardassia's fascism has over him, that he must nurture and maintain it at all times, a constant vigil so it can grow big and strong beyond the confines of Cardassian society. As much as it may seem impossible, that the systems around us are here forever and are unalterable, another world is possible with one's own never-ending sacrifice.

Bitter Apples - 4.5/5

A really solid short collection of horror stories centred around schools, education, and teaching.

You can definitely see each author's experience with the American education system reflected here in every story and whilst, as with any anthology, I enjoyed some stories more than others I don't think there was really any duds here. That's partly down to it being 7 stories instead of 10 to 15 or so but I was still happy that it maintained that level of quality throughout and it stopped the concept/topic from getting repetitive, which was an issue I found in Cursed Morsels otherwise excellent sports and fitness horror anthology Shredded.

Cursed Morsel's is consistently doing an excellent job with these anthology releases, to an almost horrifying degree, so I'm always happy to pick up another book from them.

Shade The Changing Man Vol. 6: Hotel Shade - 3/5 (Issues #33-39)

Using the order Keith McCleary lays out for hypothetical trade paperback collections to review specific arcs of the comic that are still sadly stuck solely in single issue form.

This is a step down from the previous arc just by virtue of the fact that it's relies a lot more on shorter, 2-to-3 issue stories over a longer running arc and they don't do a lot to really focus on our changing man's new body or mind, instead on lots of murder and rape. The general dyanmic between the characters has changed too, with Shade now being loosely kept in check by Kathy and Lenny at the behest of the mysterious Angels and whilst Kathy definitely still holds feelings for him she's, for the moment, happier with Lenny.

The 3 storylines here largely revolve around 2 fairly standard horror plots, a serial killer and a macguffin that makes people lose their inhibitions, and a wanky (even for Milligan) self-insert story where he gets to be humiliated by the character he really wants to have sex with. They're okay, and I think the serial killer story specifically has an interesting twist and some pretty gory scenes, but not the most engaging beyond some rather half-hearted and vague madness bits.

Overall, not my favourite volume to be honest, and probably the weakest of the series since it's earliest issues.

Doctor Who: Borrowed Time - 4/5

This is really fun! I like how it is essentially just a very thinly veiled (and that's putting in generously) fuck you to banks and to the ultimate villain of our lives, compound interest. Lots of very fun sci-fi concepts too, from the loan sharks to the way that the form of time travel present here is handled, which really enjoyable to read. I'd love to see some of these ideas followed up on, especially the Time Market and the alien storage facility under the Millenium Dome, but as is the nature of Who media I sadly doubt those will ever turn back up.

It also captures the era fairly well, it definitely felt like it would fit snuggly in to the late series 5 to early series 6 era of the Revivial with Eleven, Amy, and Rory. Not my favourite era, but I appreciate that it felt so at home there.

Overall, definitely worth a read if you're looking for a fun Who adventure!

The Monarch of the Glen - 2.5/5

Gaiman ain't the most popular bloke right now but I wanted to read through the one thing of his I own that he was sole author of just to get it out of the way, that being the novellette The Monarch of the Glen.

It's a sequel to American Gods set in the Far North of Scotland, or Far South of Norseland, and if you've read that book it essentially reads as one of the tangents from that that novel where the main character, Shadow, goes on a side quest for 50-60 pages. It was fine, pretty much a very standard Gaiman story with all the stock characters he uses: Shadow is still really boring protagonist, there's a strange mysterious old man with an ominous name, a slightly psychopathic and ammoral lackey is running around as comic relief, and a woman who's all mysteriously magical, pretty, and who inexplicably wants to have sex with Shadow, the most boring man in the world.

Again, it's fine, I like getting the mythology gags this time round and the way he describes the landscape is pretty if not exactly fresh, but it's not really worth seeking out unless you LOVED American Gods. It does set up a short arc which I think is continued in a further novella, Black Dog, and there's a prospective 3rd novella in the works to wrap up Shadow's UK vacation somewhere on the horizon, leading into the eventual release of American Gods 2.

So overall, it's an okay read. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Cipher - 4/5

Seeping wounds, metamorphosis, cosmic dread, and a lot of bodily fluids mixed with alcohol, what else could The Cipher have that you would possibly want from a novel? I's gross and grotty with lots of somewhat up it's own arse writing that is both simultaneously very aware and very ignorant of the fact that it is up it's own arse and that works in it's favour really well, with lots of long run-on sentences discoursing on the nature of reality and the Funhole and life as we know it in the abstract sense of the word, and how we as humans interact with it and each other in an endless, repetitive cycle of rote actions again and again whilst we search for some new or interesting or weird experience to distract from the boiling emptiness within. Or something like that.

Could it have probably worked better as a novella, packed more of a punch with a shorter page count? Probably, and after a while the repetitive nature of the chapters (Nicholas arguing with someone, usually Nakota, about the Funhole/life, depressed musings, argue with Nakota again, more depressed musings, grotty shit happens, go to Funhole and have some really weird shit happen, repeat) does grow stale, even if it does somewhat reinforce The Point of the novel. However, I still really enjoyed the book, and definitely found it an interesting, engaging, and fairly horrific read. Recommend.

Star Trek: Other Realities - 3/5

A collection of 3 Star Trek stories focusing on different eras of the Trekverse, ranging from The Original Series, Deep Space Nine, and the book original series New Frontier.

All Of Me, written by Tony Isabella and Bob Ingersoll, art by Aaron Lopresti.

A decent comic with a very TOS premise. You've got a mix of mad scientists, a cosmic entity, fist fights, and cowboy diplomacy which all comes together in a fun, if a little forgettable, TOS adventure that I think really captures that show in comic form. The art is also decent, with the crew and the scenery all looking pretty good, and the artist does put in a fair amount of cheesecake art, most of which centres on the female characters but Kirk does get some scenes too, so if that's your thing then all the better. Overall, a fun, if not the most engaging, story.

N-Vector, written by K.W. Jeter and art by Toby Cypress

Whilst this is both the longest and the weakest part of the comic I still found this to be an enjoyable read. Set just after the end of the show, it's fun to see Kira in the very early days of her command of the station (I believe it is very loosely tied into the early DS9 Relaunch books from this era) and I do think it's an interesting enough one-off story to focus on for the DS9 crew, even if it's not the most earth-shattering story ever written. It does get a bit muddled in the latter two issues, resolving fairly unsatisfactorily in the end, but I did still enjoy my time reading it. A lot of people don't seem to like the art and whilst the characters don't really look like the cast and sometimes the backgrounds can leave a bit to be desired I thought the general style was quite good and that it did a decent enough job illustrating the story. Overall, a bit weak but still a decent enough read if you decide to seek it out.

Double Time, written by Peter David and art by Michael Collins

The best story of the collection, this comic story captures the whole feel of the New Frontier book series, which makes sense given Peter David was the lead creative force behind everything in this line of stories. This is the one which is the most engaging on a plot, character, and thematic level, vaguely dealing with the ideas of historical interference and it's merits and drawbacks. It also continues the character conflicts that were going on in the books around this time (which were admittedly already growing a bit stale by now) and neatly solves the issue of why the Excalibur and crew weren't involved heavily with the Dominion War. The art is probably at it's best here too, and it's nice to see all the characters visually realised outside of the book covers. Overall a very satisfying comic for New Frontier fans that manages to feel like a key part of the story rather than some last minute addition.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Gorn Crisis - 2/5

A Trek comic that definitely feels more like a Star Wars comic, which makes sense given both author's bibliography, but kind of leaves the whole tone feeling off for me, with lots of surprisingly gory action and violence accompanied by some nods towards Trek's greater penchant for sitting around conference tables and talking sprinkled in. It's all quite surface level, resorting to KJA's usual tactic of retreading a previous story to tell this one similiarly to a number of his more rote Star Wars novels. Here for example we get a rehash of the Kirk and Gorn fight from Arena to paritially save the day and I generally really dislike that approach to tie-in media.

Also, the comic never really delves into the context and world of the Gorn or the Enterprise's situation during the Dominion War. It is admittedly fun to see some of what the Enterprise E was up to during that Dominion War period, I just wish there was far more put into what the crew think about it all. I also don't think the dialogue really captures the voice of any of the characters, all feeling fairly generic beyond the few easily insertable quirks from the show that the writers can throw in. The Gorn get a little more with their clans and isolationism post-TOS's ‘Arena' being explored a little, and I enjoy this version of the Gorn more than the Xenomorph knockoffs they've kind of become in Strange New Worlds, but it's still fairly minimal, and largely carried by the designs of the artist.

The art itself is pretty decent when it focuses on the Gorn, the landscapes, and the ship designs, and at times can be fairly pretty, but when it focuses on the Klingon characters and especially the TNG cast it's pretty rough, with no one really ending up looking like their TV counterparts beyond vague similarities.

Overall, this is a fairly eh comic. It's a fun enough diversion and I like seeing a bit more of the pre-Strange New Worlds Gorn and what the Enterprise crew was doing during the Dominion War, but it doesn't really utilise those aspects in that interesting a way, restorting to lots of action and references to make up the page count instead.

The Dollmakers - 2.5/5

So, The Dollmakers. I thought it was... fine? It was very readable, even without chapters (a decision I don't entirely understand), and the prose flowed quite well for me which meant once I got started it went by quickly, but it didn't entirely grab me tbh. I like a lot of the concepts, like the Dolls, but I don't think the book really explores the implications or ideas surrounding them. The only time it felt like it was going even a little deeper was during the huge info dump at the end which was desperately trying to tie up some of the lingering questions about the connection between Doll and Shod, who knows what, and what they're doing about it. But the book doesn't seem interested in how alive the Dolls actually are, outside of vague moments like Silver's actions or Ikiisa being given flowers, and instead wants to focus on a lot of, quite frankly, boring stuff about the Shod, a concept I found pretty meh all round.As for the characters, I found I liked reading Ikiisa's PoVs the most, finding her characterisation to be the strongest and the one that lent itself the best towards discussions around the dolls and their place in One. I found her panic attacks and intense anxiety pretty effective, although let down by the fact that we don't really get enough of her to get a grasp on where they're coming from until the 2/3rds mark, and that she doesn't really get a resolution at the end, instead just fading into the distance as Shean leaves Web. Ah, Shean. I found her being so unaware and overconfident pretty interesting and it's bold to make your main PoV so shitty for most of the book, although even with her generally shittiness I still kind of liked her, even if I didn't entirely buy her change by the end. It largely works, but just required a little more of us seeing the "good" side of Shean leading up to her and Ikiisa finally talking. Her overall conflict was less engaging than Ikiisa's, but generally I still liked it.As for Roque. I don't really care for the style of worldbuilding this book is going for, namely laying out the world through exposition, and that's all Roque seemed to be around for (other than to have a very perfunctory """""romance"""""" with Shean). I also dislike how possessive both Shean and Ikiisa are of him? It feels a little icky, and Shean especially kind of exoticises him in a very iffy way that I found mildly uncomfortable. I simply do not care about his quest as the ancient immortal lore spewer to break the marks and this time could've been better spent developing Shean or especially Ikiisa, or focusing more on the dolls themselves. I did like some of the world. Web is cool, I love spider-towns, the giant elk was nice, and again the general idea of the dolls is really cool and interesting, I just found that much of it was delivered with relatively flat exposition, either from Roque or someone else, and that just does not appeal to me as a reader.

Overall though, this was a decent enough read but it didn't particularly connect with me, nor do I think it'll really stick with me for long. I don't regret reading it or anything, it was definitely engaging and I enjoyed following Shean, and later Ikiisa, but it doesn't really stand out to me as anything other than a solid fine in terms of my general thoughts after finishing it.