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The Manhattan Projects
I recently discovered the Book Bundle from Humble Bundle; what magic and madness is this?? Pay what you want for access to DRM-free online files from featured publishers?! I have recently entered the world of comics and graphic novels, supported largely in part by the range of material I get when I purchase a Humble Bundle. The most recent bundle I bought was from Image Comics, and I’ve found some amazing new comics to follow. Among those I read were The Manhattan Projects…
Title: The Manhattan Projects: Volume 1
Author: Jonathan Hickman
Illustrator: Nick Pitarra
Year: 2014
Genre: Comic
Setting: Los Alamos, New Mexico
Characters: Robert Oppenheimer (gifted physicist), Joseph Oppenheimer (soul-eating schizophrenic twin), General Leslie Groves (Commander at Los Alamos), Richard Feyman (young physicist), Albert Einstein (German physicist), FDR (AI ex-President), Dr. Werner (ex-Nazi with robo-arm), Dr. Helmutt (ex-Nazi rocket scientist)
Plot: Oppenheimer is contacted by General Groves and asked to join The Manhattan Project as a physicist. Upon arriving at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer sees that the Manhattan Project is just a cover for a range of exploratory science missions the government is running. He passes by Einstein. who is locked away in a room pondering what will become the gateway to other worlds and dimensions. While the U.S. develops its projects, the Soviets are in Star City, on similar paths of exploration. After engaging with aliens from another galaxy, the U.S. and Russians join forces to fight the invaders who are entering through the galactic gateway….
(I think that’s the plot, anyway. I could be way off.)
Verdict: The comic has its own brand of whimsy–that’s for sure. If I were to channel my dead grandfather, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, and if I were then to tell him there’s a comic being written about Oppenheimer as a schizophrenic soul-eating serial killer, I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t even deign to give me a response. It’s a crazy take on imperialism and crackpot conspiracy theories, and for that, I enjoyed it. It only earned half of my likingness because it just wasn’t really my bag; my rating is based more on my preferences rather than the quality of the material. The art is beautiful, the plot inventive, and the characters unexpected. I wouldn’t recommend it to people who are just entering the world of comics; it’s not a great entry point for the general population. I would be more inclined to direct newer readers to East of West, Jonathan Hickman’s dystopian western, featuring the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. I’ve read Volumes I and II of that, and who am I to resist Death foiling fate by falling in love? 5/10.
Sweetland
This is the final title from the Book Riot monthly subscription service; I am sad to see the service go, but I loved the books they chose and the surprise of monthly book mail while it lasted.
Title: Sweetland
Author: Michael Crummey
Year: 2014
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Sweetland, an island off of Newfoundland
Characters: Moses Sweetland (last islander to sign the resettlement package), Jesse (Moses’ great nephew, a teen with autism), Loveless (second-to-last to sign, owner of Mr. Fox), Mr. Fox (Loveless’ dog)
Plot: The government is offering generous resettlement packages to all of the islanders who live on Sweetland, a sparsely populated island off of Newfoundland. The island once thrived on fishing, but as the fish and the jobs left, so did many of the younger generations. Everyone chooses to sign the deal except for Loveless and Sweetland, two of the oldest islanders; however, all have to sign for the offer to go through. Loveless ends up signing, and finally, Sweetland signs, too. But when one of the islanders loses his life, Sweetland reconsiders his choice and instead fakes his death to stay on the island when the others leave. The rest of the novel follows Moses as he survives a winter on the vacated island, wondering if he’ll recognize when he’s lost his mind.
Verdict: Experiencing Newfoundland through Crummey’s vivid descriptions was worth the read; the island was a character as much as any person. The switch between past and present in Moses’ life in each chapter kept me turning the pages at bedtime, but the tension that was built from those shifts in time seemed to peter out toward the end of the book. I think I expected a more dramatic climax focused on the story behind the scars on Moses’ face, whereas the climax of the flashbacks related more to the history of the island. If you like fast plots and action, pass this one by. If you enjoy books rife with nature and character-building, or if you are considering the merits of becoming a recluse, spend a little time with Moses on his island. 7/10.
Station Eleven
Station Eleven was a book I had been hearing about long before it arrived in print, and once it hit the shelves, I kept hearing more and more people raving about it. I held off on buying it because I was busy with my own writing projects and had other books stacking up, so when it arrived as one of the four books in the Best of 2014 Book Riot box, I was very excited I didn’t already have a copy. It was worth the wait!
Title: Station Eleven
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Year: 2014
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Toronto and northern parts of the U.S.
Characters: Arthur (actor), Jeevan (paparazzi/EMT), Kirsten (Traveling Symphony actress), Clark (Arthur’s long-time friend), Miranda (Arthur’s wife #1, artist), Elizabeth (wife #2), Tyler (Arthur & Elizabeth’s son)
Plot: Arthur is in his 50s, acting as King Lear when he dies of a heart attack on stage. Jeevan, a member of the audience, tries to resuscitate him, but it’s too late. A little eight-year-old girl, Kirsten, looks on in confusion until Jeevan leads her away. Later that night, Jeevan learns from a friend that an epidemic is spreading. He heads up to his brother’s apartment with seven shopping carts of supplies. Days later, 99% of the world’s population is gone. Years pass, and people settle as they can, but one group chooses to make beauty as they can, the Traveling Symphony, through playing orchestra music and acting out Shakespeare. Kristen, now in her twenties, is one of their members. The story moves across chapters of different characters’ lives, drawing the connections between them until we find out how Kirsten came to possess two copies of a rare comic, Station Eleven, and how art can be the medium that strangely connects us all together, even in trauma and tragedy.
Verdict: Of course a supervirus is going to take us all out. Anyone could write that. And maybe even some could predict that people would band together and hold on to art by performing music and theater. But Mandel makes the story more special by bringing in such a broad cast of characters and motivations and tying them together through a graphic novel and the dysfunction of celebrity lifestyles. I’d recommend this book to just about anyone, and I don’t really believe in 10/10, so I’ll go with a 9.7/10–solid high A.
100 Sideways Miles
This was one of the four books in the Best of 2014 Book Riot box, a satisfying purchase made possible in part from my sister’s Christmas Book Riot money. Thank you, sister.
Title: 100 Sideways Miles
Author: Andrew Smith
Year: 2014
Genre: Young Adult
Setting: San Francisquito Canyon, California
Characters: Finn (17-yr-old narrator, epileptic), Cade (best friend, class clown), Julia (the crush), Michael Easton/Easton Michaels (Finn’s dad, author)
Plot: A dead horse fell from the sky, and now Finn smells flowers before his atoms begin to drift apart. Finn sees the world in terms of atoms and miles traveled in time, and at sixteen-turning-seventeen, is unsure where his dad’s book ends and his life begins. This bildungsroman of Finn’s first relationship and cross-country trip explores the common teen issues of sex, booze, and parental constraints with unique pairings of epilepsy, OCD, and fandom. I enjoyed it and may take a look at the author’s backlist. 8/10
Colorless Tsukuru
Hardcover, 2014
Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite contemporary authors, so when Colorless Tsukuru came out in the U.S. in August, and I picked up a copy pretty quickly. However, I didn’t get a chance to start reading it until the beginning of the new year because I was working on a ghost writing project of my own.
Title: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Author: Haruki Murakami
Year: 2013 (Japan) / 2014 (U.S.)
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Nagoya and Tokyo, Japan
Characters: Tsukuru (narrator), Aka (“Red,” the smartest), Ao (“Blue,” the rugby player), Shiro (“White,” the pianist), Kuro (“Black,” Shiro’s best friend), Sara (girlfriend), Haida (swimmer)
Plot: In high school, Tsukuru, Aka, Ao, Shiro, and Kuro, were inseperable best friends, but Tsukuru is the only one who leaves to go to college in Tokyo. He becomes a railway engineer, designing railway stations, and one day, he receives a call and is told to never talk to his four friends again. He reels from depression and struggles with ever trusting or letting anyone in again, especially after befriending Haida, a swimmer, only to lose him mysteriously as well. Sixteen years after he loses touch with his friends, Tsukuru meets Sara, who tells him he must resolve the issues in his past, and he finally reconnects with his friends and discovers why he was cut off and whether he can trust anyone again.
Verdict: I missed the elements of magical realism that 1Q84, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Kafka on the Shore incorporate, though the character Haida does offer a glimpse of that mystery, which is never really resolved. Murakami also scaled back on the historical elements that he often interweaves, choosing only to mention some of the student protests in the 60s. However, I connected with Tsukuru’s struggle to trust, his fear of being abandoned, his tendency to isolate and disconnect. The chapters were well-paced, and I enjoyed my time in each era of Tsukuru’s life. This wouldn’t be my first recommendation if I wanted someone to read Murakami, but it’s more digestible and accessible than a tome life 1Q84 and was a good book to start out the year.
2015 Reading List
| Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| Murakami, Haruki | Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage | Fiction |
| Hickman, Jonathan | East of West, Vol 1: Out of the Wasteland | Comic |
| Hickman, Jonathan | East of West, Vol 2: We Are All One | Comic |
| Cho, Michael | Shoplifter | Graphic Novel |
| Mandel, Emily St. John | Station Eleven | Dystopian Fiction |
| Smith, Andrew | 100 Sideways Miles | Young Adult |
| Rowell, Rainbow | Eleanor & Park | Young Adult |
| Fraction, Matt | Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick | Comics |
| Luna, Jonathan | Alex + Ada: Vol 1 | Comics |
| Faber, Michel | The Book of Strange New Things | Science Fiction |
| Hickman, Jonathan | The Manhattan Projects: Vol 1 | Comics |
| Gillen, Kieron | The Wicked + The Divine: Vol 1: The Faust Act | Comics |
| Aaron, Jason | Southern Bastards: Vol 1: Here Was a Man | Comics |
| Quick, Matthew | Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock | Young Adult |
| Crummey, Michael | Sweetland | Fiction |
2015 Reading Goals
Book Riot has issued a Read Harder challenge, and I am taking it on. In addition to considering their BINGO card, here are some of my goals:
- >52 books: 15 (as of 2/1/15)
- >10 countries: U.S., U.K., Japan, Canada, The Netherlands
- Re-read a book from high school (Count of Monte Cristo, Three Musketeers, Anna Karenina, Silas Marner, etc.)
- >3 non-fiction: The Empathy Exams
- Read more library books
- Blog about at least one in three books read
Book Riot Challenge
- Retelling:
- Guilty Pleasure:
- Audiobook:
- Romance Novel:
- Graphic Novel/Comic: East of West, Shoplifter, Sex Criminals, Alex + Ada, The Wicked + The Divine, The Manhattan Projects, Southern Bastards
- LGBTQ:
- Author from Africa:
- Poetry:
- Author over 65:
- Translated Book: Colorless Tsukuru
- Recommended Book:
- Opposite Gender (easy)
- Self-Improvement Book:
- Pre-1850:
- Indie-Press Book:
- 2015:
- Sci-Fi Novel:
- Award Winner:
- Indigenous Culture:
- Microhistory:
- Short Stories:
- Set in Asia: Colorless Tsukuru
- YA Novel: 100 Sideways Miles; Eleanor & Park; Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
- Author under 25:
Lucky Us
This was Riot Read #3 (September), though I read October’s first. The inside flap promised me an interesting story of America in the 1940s and of two sisters with madcap lives… or at least that was what I expected going in. I also hoped the lion and zebra on the tight rope would figure in.
Title: Lucky Us
Author: Amy Bloom (cousin to Harold Bloom; US)
Genre: Literary Fiction
Characters: Iris (older sister, actress), Eva (younger sister, tarot reader, eventually), Edgar (father), Reenie (Iris’ partner), Gus (Reenie’s husband), Danny (stolen orphan), Francisco (makeup artist)
Setting: 1940s WWII: Ohio, California, New York, and Germany
Plot: “My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.” And so Eva’s mother leaves her on Edgar’s doorstep, and Iris and Eva enter a partnership of sisterhood, culminating in a trip to Hollywood away from their father. Eventually Hollywood doesn’t pan out (lesbian orgies are faux paux, apparently), and when Edgar shows up, the sisters and Francisco, a benevolent gay makeup artist, pack it up and head to New York City. Edgar becomes a butler and Iris a governess, and Iris falls in love with the cook, Reenie. She falls hard enough that she reports Reenie’s husband as a German spy, and he is arrested and sent to North Dakota, where he eventually takes a one-way ticket to Germany. We learn pieces of the plot through letters from Iris and Gus, while Eva is the main narrator and the one who is an anchor through the shifting tides of love and loss.
Verdict: Of the four Riot Reads so far, I am least impressed with this one. I’m a shade more in its favor than to say I’m ambivalent, but it was not as impressive as Land of Love and Drowning or Broken Monsters. I enjoyed the historical flavors of Hollywood, New York CIty, and Germany, but I didn’t like the letters as a form of plot advancement. They enforce the separation between the sisters and the intensity of Gus’ experience, but I don’t think they were well executed and it made the transitions between chapters awkward, to me. I was also a little disappointed that there was no lion and zebra on a tight rope, but I can stretch the putty of my literary brain to see symbolism beyond the aesthetics. The brain putty can also recognize a lot of interesting commentary on racial, religious, and cultural identity, but who am I to comment on meaning?
If I had to recommend, I’d say …. yes, read it, but make it a upper mid-list pick.
Broken Monsters
I subscribe to Riot Read, a monthly book subscription club from Book Riot. Each book is a new release hardcover and arrives sometime mid-month, and content surrounding the book is curated online to supplement the experience. This was October’s pick.
Title: Broken Monsters
Author: Lauren Beukes (South Africa)
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Characters: Layla Stirling-Versado (16-yr-old girl), Gabi Versado (Layla’s mother and police detective), Cas (Layla’s best friend), Jonno (writer gone video blogger), TK (homeless ex-con), Clayton Broom (artist)
Setting: Current-day Detroit, recovering from economic crisis through start-up avant-garde artists and young entrepreneurs
Plot: The top half of a young boy’s body is found attached to the bottom half of a fawn, which initiates an investigation that develops into profiling a serial killer. Layla struggles to fit in at school and relies on her friend, Cas, who seems to have confidence in spades. This leads the two of them to catfish for a sexual predator online. While Layla is trying to keep her life and these pranks under cover, her mom is the lead detective on the murders. Meanwhile, we get an insider’s view of the Detroit art scene through Jonno, who stumbles into a relationship with a DJ who has connections to the artists and a vision for Jonno’s future as a video blogger. We find out early on who the murderer is, and we watch his mind succumb to the Dream of truly great art, of art that if given a chance and the right audience, will come to life.
Verdict: I haven’t read many thrillers outside of Stephen King, so this was a somewhat new experience for me. It was creepy enough to give me the heebie jeebies from time to time, but as usual, I tore through the book for the plot. Beukes invested a lot of time and thought into this book, though, and it offers interesting social commentary on a lot of different relevant topics, especially on social media and privacy and sexual content + minors. There was the reminder that what goes on the internet doesn’t ever really disappear (like this shitty book synopsis that I’ll one day regret), and the reinforcement that messages and posts aren’t just sent into the ether; they have consequences. It did remind me of the danger of incorporating modern technology/trends though, for at one point, Cas and Layla are using SpinChat… and I thought that was just a blip on the radar of stupid online websites people have fixated on. Maybe I’m just out of it, and everyone’s at home on SpinChat but me. I don’t feel great loss, somehow. Anyway – I say read this book, read it hard, especially if you like those trendy tv-crime dramas and serial killer crazy business but with some real backbone.
Joy Reads 