I feel like I understood what the author was going for here, theme wise, but as a whole this novella kind of fell flat for me.

Scorn is an AI created by their mothers, who are CEOs of mega-corporations on Earth (and the Moon). We begin the novella with Scorn waking up and realizing ze was destroyed at some point, losing time in their most recent investigation - thus, having to retrace their steps and figure out not only what they were finding out, but who tried to kill them and way. 

There are some really fun interesting bits of ideas here. A black box bar provides a secure space for Scorn and other robots/AI to hang out and maybe have discussions about autonomy that might make humans a little nervous. The bar AI itself may or may not be into Scorn, ze has to figure that one out. Scorn can print various bodies, and though ze spends most of the time in humanoid bodies, ze feels most comfortable in a spider-like body. 

There are also threads of ideas that also touch on the possibility of AI fighting to be recognized as sentient beings, and the way humans poorly to that. I felt like it was meant to mirror, in a way, the fight that trans and genderqueer folks are up against right now. 

As I said, great ideas are woven throughout this. Unfortunately, the narrative itself just absolutely fell flat for me. When not touching on interesting ideas, I just didn't care at all what Scorn was doing. Didn't care who tried to kill them, didn't care what the story they were chasing was. 

This is absolutely a great idea put to paper, and I think Ogden has some brilliant ways of interrogating gender and parent-child relationships through Scorn's journey. I just wish the entire narrative itself lived up to those ideas. 

Emergent Properties will be released on July 25th, 2023; thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the review copy.

I had a blast with this! Chakraborty has written a good old-fashioned FUN adventure romp, full of getting the band back together, find the MacGuffin good times. I enjoyed the fact that this adventure takes place ten years after the band has broken up and retired, giving us a middle-aged found family that are still good at what they do. Having Amina re-join her friends made for a really great story telling device, as it automatically gave an in to the found family dynamics without needing to spend half a novel setting them up. I cared for each and every one of the main group and loved all their interactions together.

One thing that I kept going back and forth on was the narrative voice. This novel is essentially historical fantasy, but Amina's narrative and dialogue sometimes felt way too modern. I'm obviously no expert on historical language and stuff like that, but I highly doubt people in 12th century Arabian/Indian Sea lands would be slinging around motherfucker and asshole or calling policemen cops. They were very little things; obviously it made for a much more compelling and fun narrative, but they were little spurs that kept poking me and taking me out of the story briefly.

Other than my minor quibbles, honestly, this was just FUN. Lots of adventuring and sea-faring, adventure and family and friends and ex-husbands. Amina is a very strong, voice-y character; if you don't like the narrative told in her voice by the 10% or 20% mark, then this isn't for you. I loved her, though. I'd follow the nakhuda anywhere. 

Wow this was just...not what I expected. It felt very shallow and though it attempted to meditate on serious topics, the dialogue was absolutely atrocious. I can't tell if that's a fault of the story itself, or of this translation.

Gosh, this was good. Goddamit, Gail Simone is good. Phil Noto’s art keeps getting better and better with every passing year. 

In The Variants, Jessica Jones struggles with her ever present PTSD and looming specter of the memories of Killgrave. Even though she should be happy with her husband Luke Cage and their daughter Dani, she still struggles with self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. Thankfully Killgrave is NOT the focus of this story, as different variants of Jessica start popping up all over Hell’s Kitchen and she has to figure out what the hell os going on. 

Simone balances Jessica’s inner turmoil with some great plot and a fun story. This is kind of a perfect book to get a good idea of what Jessica is like and see her go through a very satisfying emotional character arc. 

There are enough greater Marvel call outs to make this fun, but it’s still self contained enough to understand and read as it’s own little story. Just fantastic all around. 

Usually when I read anything DC, it's whatever strikes my fancy because I don't follow DC religiously. I just know major plot and character beats from pop culture/comics osmosis. I understood some of the plot call backs here, especially to the idea that Batman knew exactly how to take down every member of the Justice League...not sure I liked how it played out here. While the beginning was incredibly strong, the reason for Failsafe being fully activated this time was lame, and it got waaaay too over the top after a while. I'm not sure I even understood WTF the point of this story arc was supposed to be by the end.

Jiménez's art is fucking KILLER, though. Just fantastic all around.