Books
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters, Mark Dunn
The main characters in this epistolary novel live in a fictional island nation that has organized its religion around the composer of the sentence "The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", which - as you know, I'm sure - contains all 26 letters of the alphabet. When letters start dropping off the nation's monument to this sentence, the governing council, in its infinite lack of wisdom, decides that the island's revered icon is commanding everyone from beyond the grave to stop using the missing letters. As time goes on and more essential letters are lost, life on the island becomes increasingly repressive -- and communication becomes virtually impossible.
Dunn handles the conceit of his premise in an able and engaging way. Eventually, he does have to cheat and use homophones once too many letters have been lost for him to proceed with his plot, but no matter: the theme here is remarkably timely.
Today I Am Carey, Martin L. Shoemaker
This novel is an expansion of Shoemaker's award-winning short story "Today I Am Paul", in which an android is tasked with caring for a patient with dementia. Here, Shoemaker follows the android over several decades as he/she integrates into a family and becomes progressively self-aware.
To quote my review on Amazon: "This is a quiet, beautiful SF novel that gets the essence of love exactly right. While it may frustrate the reader who is more action-oriented, I was hooked from the start by the title character and the well-drawn family who welcome him/her into their home and their lives. If you're looking for slice-of-life sci fi written with competence and, even more importantly, humanity, this is the book for you!"
(By the way, I see now that another reviewer has compared this novel to "Flowers for Algernon." I believe this comparison is apt.)
Comics
Saga (Vol. 1), Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
From the blurb: "SAGA is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe."
My impression: I doubt the creators of this series share my views on art or politics, but it doesn't - and shouldn't - matter. The story, at least so far, is very well told. I particularly like the balance between Marko's pacifism and Alana's more belligerent, defensive stance -- but even the other characters (including the narrator, their child) have voices that are distinct and interesting to read.
One caveat, though: Don't give this trade to your kids. The language, violence, and sexual content is quite explicit.
Fighting American & Fighting American: The Ties That Bind,
Gorden Rennie, Duke Mighten, & Andie Tong
These two trades take an old Jack Kirby hero from the 1950's and transport him to the modern day -- quite literally, through time travel. They are also a veritable workshop on how to do humor correctly. The story takes the piss out of Fighting American's earnestness (and the superhero genre in general), but it also makes fun of conspiracy theories, the news media, the alt-right, and - delightfully - communists. In every way, the satire is balanced, fun, and written with love rather than mean-spiritedness.
Weeb Stuff
My Love Story!! (Vol. 1), Kazune Kawahara & Aruko
I didn't think I'd like this shōjo romance (the two exclamation points in the title were a huge red flag), but gosh darn it, it charmed me anyway. First, I love that the big, awkward main character gets the girl by being heroic and properly masculine. Second, their budding love is so damned pure. At one point, the girl is ashamed because she wants to hold hands, for goodness' sake! Such a thing would never fly in our own over-sexualized, cynical culture -- which is why it's so refreshing.
From Far Away (Vol. 1), Kyoko Hikawa
This older portal fantasy is also deeply counter-cultural -- and therefore fresh. When Noriko is transported suddenly into a bizarre parallel world, she isn't instantly competent. Instead, she's fearful and struggles to make sense of her new surroundings. But we can see even in this early stage that she has the intelligence to be a heroine when she eventually calms down and starts learning the locals' language. I can't wait to see where the story goes from here!
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