Geeky Recommendations, 8/14/19 (One Day Late)

Books

Marque of Caine (Caine Riordan, Book 5), Charles E. Gannon

I'm always down for a book by Chuck Gannon (see also: my reviews of the first and second book of this particular series). The man - to whom, full disclosure, I've spoken often enough that I earned myself a brief cameo in, I believe, the third book - is frighteningly intelligent and erudite, and it's reflected in everything he writes. He doesn't just hand-wave his FTL travel, battle tactics, or cultural anthropology; he thinks all of that through.

(Not that handwavium's necessarily bad; I just marvel when an author manages to avoid it.)

So what did I like about this particular installment (in which Caine and the reader are treated to an up-close, fascinating look at the Dornaani Collective and its dysfunctions)? What did I dog-ear like a God-damned barbarian? Well, here's a little taste:

His eyes opened. "Human, it is your species that possesses the truly decisive power: the inner drive that pushes you outward, the uncritical confidence in your own immanence and will to create."

Caine heard a last-second caesura. "But?"

"But that confidence can also make a race dangerous. A race capable of limitless creation is also capable of the hubris that comes with it. We traded away that vigor and risk for a serene and longer life. Only later did we discover that without vigor and risk, we were no longer living; we were merely surviving. We became accustomed to food without taste, excitement without vulnerability, accomplishment without sacrifice."

Intrigued yet? You should be. This is a book about trade-offs -- specifically about what is lost when safety and comfort are chosen over danger and challenge. It's a fine meditation that holds up well next to Chuck's previous work.

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Comics

The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 1 (1968), Various

Yes, I've finally finished the entire first run of Iron Man and can now offer up an official recommendation. While there are aspects to these comics that are jarring to modern sensibilities, I ultimately connected to this early version of Tony Stark on a deep emotional level. One caveat, though: stop at issue #318. DO NOT READ ALL THE WAY TO #332 FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I did because I'm an inveterate completist, and NOW I WANT TO ERASE MY MEMORY OF THAT ABSOLUTE TRASH.

Ahem. Sorry about that. Anyway, check back here tomorrow if you want to read more details (and screaming, probably) about volume 1, as that will be the subject of this week's "Iron Man Blogging" episode.

(By the way, the link above is to the Marvel Masterworks collection that contains the first issue. You can continue from there.)

Iron Man: Fatal Frontier, Al Ewing, Kieron Gillen, Lan Medina, Neil Edwards, et. al.

Yes, I jumped ahead quite a bit to read this one; it's a stand-alone mini-series, and I have enough working knowledge of recent canon that I was able to follow the references. At any rate: this features Tony policing a boom-town on the moon and becoming increasingly megalomaniacal because he's being poisoned by a magical MacGuffin. It sounds stupid, but I promise you, it's not. It actually features some amazing reflection, on Tony's part, on the true source of Iron Man's power -- and on his status as a "necessary monster." And it involves Tony going dark-side for actual reasons, which is more than I can say for A Certain Plot I Refuse to Acknowledge as Canon.

Operation Galactic Storm, Bob Harras, Roy Thomas, et. al.

I picked this one up when I hit the Iron Man tie-ins in volume 1 and realized I really did need to read the whole story to grok it. In this event, all of the Avengers get thrown into the middle of a war between the Kree and the Shi'ar, and much intrigue - and action, of course - ensues. I won't spoil it, but the ending is legitimately shocking. And - well - if you click the cut, you'll see another thing that, for me, made the whole book worth it:



This conversation. THIS. CONVERSATION. (You'll probably need to click to embiggen.)

Two men disagreeing fiercely about something -- and yet deciding they still desperately want to be friends. This right here is one reason why older comics are better. It's not that they are strictly "apolitical"; it's that, when politics does seep into the plot, the good guys are allowed to have conflicting viewpoints without the universe imploding. It's almost like the characters - and the writers - are, dare I say it, adults about such things instead of bratty, know-it-all arrested adolescents. A+.