Books
Monster Hunter Guardian, Larry Correia & Sarah A. Hoyt
The Monster Hunter series is an absolute blast (see reviews I've written of other installments here and here), and this book is no exception. Do you like naughty acronyms for government agencies? Do you like fantasy creatures re-imagined for the modern world? Do you like well-written action sequences -- or sly commentary on the idiocy of thinking that the undead are anything but dangerous? This book has all of that -- plus a pissed off mother who will do anything to save her kid. Julie Shackleford kicks some serious ass here -- and Mr. Trash Bags, Julie's pet shoggoth, is still weirdly adorable.
A Star-Wheeled Sky, Brad R. Torgersen
All the rumors you've heard about Brad are absolute bunk, and this space opera - presumably the first of a series - is proof. Many of the features of this story are traditional for the genre; unsurprisingly, there are battling star-states, ancient alien artifacts, and a mysterious threat to the known universe. But strikingly, the bulk of the action is dominated by the decisions of female characters. Women head up both competing fleets -- and yet another woman is a source of knowledge that will have a critical impact on the story going forward. If Brad is trying to "keep women out of science fiction," he's doing a piss-poor job of it.
(By the way, this one's up for the Dragon Award this year, so if you haven't read it already, pick it up before the August 31 deadline!)
Comics
The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 3, Various
The link is to the omnibus containing the Busiek/Chen issues. The first forty issues, are, I think, the best - after that, the art gets really inconsistent - but writing-wise, there are good concepts to be found throughout the 89-issue run, including: Tony getting attacked by evil sentient armor (which sounds dumb but is actually legitimately terrifying); a former friend torturing Tony via virtual reality; Tony reaching out to Carol Danvers when she starts hitting the bottle; Tony serving temporarily as the Secretary of Defense; and yet another stellar arc in which Tony is hassled by the legacy of the Mandarin. Hell, even the stuff that didn't impress me all that much didn't make me want to rage-quit in disgust, which is more than I can say for volume 2 or the unspeakably bad final issues of volume 1 mentioned last week.
This week's "Iron Man Blogging" installment is going to be fun.
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