Comics Review – ON A SUNBEAM is brilliant and beautiful
Welcome to the latest installment of my comics review column here at Skiffy & Fanty! Every month, I use this space to shine a spotlight on SF&F comics (print comics, graphic novels, and webcomics) that I believe deserve more attention from SF&F readers. This month, I’m going to explore one of this year’s Best Graphic Story Hugo nominees, a work (and a creator) that, to my embarrassment, I was previously unfamiliar with. What work might that be? The remarkable On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden. Warning: this review contains spoilers! I knew nothing else about On A Sunbeam, but after it landed a Hugo nomination, I knew I was going to need to read it. I figured I’d give it a shorter review as part of an overview of the nominees (like this one from last year). Roughly three minutes after picking up and beginning to read a copy at this year’s Toronto Comics Arts Festival, I knew that approach was not going to fly. This is an important work by a remarkable talent, and it merits more than a capsule review. It is deep and heartfelt, and it is a major work of science fiction that deserves every accolade that it’s received.
Book Review: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
In a secondary fantasy world inspired by early 20th Century China, a young woman’s determination and drive to succeed and excel at any cost runs into the horrors of war, conflict and ancient, suppressed forces in R. F. Kuang’s excellent debut novel, The Poppy War.
Book Review: Valhalla by Ari Bach
Valhalla, written by Ari Bach, is dark, gritty, dangerous, and subtly representative. Bach unpacks his new world, layering loud violence, subtle queer identities, and a disturbing dystopian premise that promises an interesting alternative. Valhalla pushes the boundaries of science fiction to make you question the lines drawn between dystopian governments, outside companies, and the people who make up the world those entities control, and sets up the foundation for a strong trilogy that centers around a queer female protagonist. Violet MacRae is our wonderfully violent narrator, living in the year 2230, when war is obsolete and most everyone knows their place. With her propensity for violence and her less than spectacular intelligence, Violet doesn’t fit in, and doesn’t want to. Faced with uncertainty about her immediate future, and ostracized from the only place in polite society that she had even a slight chance of fitting into, Violet returns to an empty home and is subsequently snatched up by Valhalla. That is a secret military-esque organization that keeps the outer world in line with their unique methods, and there, Violet finds a real home. But Valhalla and her new friends are in danger, and Violet finds her new skills are stretched to the limit as she defends her safe haven from genetically enhanced criminals.
Book Review: Wilders, by Brenda Cooper
Author Brenda Cooper describes herself as a futurist and as being passionate about the environment, and you’d better believe she’s dead serious about it. Which is to say that, unlike most of the books I’ve gotten to review for Skiffy and Fanty this month, Wilders is many things, but fun isn’t one of them. Like so much ecological science fiction (or ecopunk, if that’s a thing? I’m pretty sure it’s a thing), Wilders is written in deadly earnest. Look elsewhere for lighthearted escapism. Refreshingly, though, unlike a lot of books I’ve stumbled across in this genre, Wilders manages not to get too preachy. Herein, Cooper works under the assumption that her readers are proficient singers in the choir, and proceeds to focus on telling us a story rather than trying to persuade us that wilderness matters, that the environment matters, that extinction hurts us, etc., etc.
Book Review: The Mountain of Kept Memory by Rachel Neumeier
A Princess seeking to escape the circumscribed nature of her life and the path set out for her. A Prince who strives to protect his land against an invasion and threat his small country has no capacity to stop. A tyrannical King whose plots and plans overwhelm them all. And a mysterious mountain of knowledge and power that is the key to all of them. It sounds on the face to be a standard fantasy setup with characters out of stock central fantasy casting that could be listed in Diana Wynne Jones’ THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND. You can probably even predict how this sort of set up will go, on the old straight track. Prince saves the day, Princess is plucky, Father dies heroically and repents and recants on his deathbed, paving way for Prince to be the better successor. Simple and straightforward character beats and maybe if one is lucky, some character growth for Prince and Princess too. However, The Mountain of Kept Memory by Rachel Neumeier avoids those well trod paths that might go with that sort of fantasy setup, and has a focus, tone and through line that is rather different and rather special.
The Word for World is Rainforest: Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer
Unar has always been sure that she will one day be the Goddess Audblayin’s bodyguard. In a world where the thirteen Gods and Goddesses of the rainforest whose treetops she lives in die and are reincarnated in the manner of Tibetan Lamas, Unar is certain in her heart that she was meant not just to be a slave, as her parents intended. She wasn’t even meant just to be a gardener for the Goddess of growth and fertility, as she has managed to become. Unar has striven so hard to get to the garden and her current position; she is convinced that she is meant for much more. With the death of Audblayin, the Goddess’ reincarnation is certain, although the child of course must be found, brought to the Garden and raised properly. Given the nature of deities, though, Audblayin could be reincarnated as a man. As a man, the deity will need a female bodyguard. That’s the rule. Audblayin has to reincarnate as a Man, and the bodyguard he will need has to be Unar. Unar is convinced of this, and it has been her guiding passion for her entire life. But in the uncertain environment of the Garden without its Goddess, Unar is forced out of the garden she has lived years in, and even beyond the barrier that separates the Canopy from the world below it. Unar’s journey is full of dreams of finding the reincarnated Goddess and returning to the Garden in triumph and restored station. However, her trip down into the understory of the rainforest dredges up her past, her future, and reveals a force that might upset the order of the entire rainforest. Crossroads of Canopy is the debut novel from Australian Fantasy author Thoraiya Dyer.
