This is the only superhero title I keep up with because it's just so enjoyable. I love that the series doesn't take itself too seriously- one of the final scenes involves a giant clone of Kamala battling a T-Rex- but still contains some very real emotional relationships. Kamala is struggling with trying to be a full time high school student, a member of the Avengers and also make time for her family. I also love how seamlessly Kamala's Muslim heritage is woven into the story. In this volume her brother gets engaged and the meeting of the two families to plan the wedding was one of my favorite scenes in the book.

I am along time fan of Ben Hatke from his Zita the Spacegirl series and this book did not disappoint. Jack struggles to bare the responsibly of looking after his fragile younger sister Maddy while his mother works long hours away from home all summer. Maddy never speaks- until a mysterious box of seeds at the flea market catches her eye and she asks for it. Amazed, Jack end up trading the keys to his mother's car for the seed box, which lands him in all kinds of trouble. But when they plant the seeds and end up with a fantasy garden of moving, living plants, it seems to have been worth it. But not all of the plants are friendly, and all are more than they seem. It did raise my eyebrows a little at the very end, when a plot twist occurred that was extremely similar to a plot twist in the first Zita book. But I'll wait until Mighty Jack book 2 until I judge it.

A trippy, classic sci-fi tale of space travel and revenge. A crew of misfits signs on to a ship with a mad captain, obsessed with the idea of digging an impossibly valuable element out of a star at the moment it goes nova. Guided by the Tarot these wanders tell their stories- of being a homeless orphan running barefoot in Istanbul, a sheltered student from Luna, a wild college party boy crashing through silk and velvet costume parties on different planets every week- all seeking that indefinable thing. One tries to write in into a novel, one tries to paint it in music, another tries to predict in with the cards, but no one can predict the moment a star will die.

Joining Neverwhere, Rivers of London and Kracken, here is another fantasy novel of London and magic. This book has not one but four different versions of the storied city, which sit one on top of the other like pages in a book. Grey London- our world- has forgotten that magic exists. Red London sings with overflowing magic, while White London starves for it. No one knows what is happening in Black London because the other three sealed it off when a dangerous magical plague began to rage through it. Kell comes from Red London, and he is one of two people with the ability to travel between worlds, carrying news and smuggled trinkets. What I have described so far are some of the aspects of the book that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, the plot that unfolds in these layered worlds as not as rich or as interesting as the worlds themselves. Kell and a plucky Grey London thief, Lila, spend most of the book running around trying to destroy a very powerful magical rock. They are chased by a pair of sadistic royals from White London, who make for somewhat boring antagonists, seeming to have no motivation other than the maintenance of their power. I loved the setting so much that I had hoped for a more complex narrative.

This third book in the Jackaby series finally dives into the mystery of Jenny, the spectral inhabitant and former owner of Abigail and Jackaby's home and headquarters. Her murderer, so it happens, is still on the loose and chasing down the reason and method of her death leads our heroes to the very door of the underworld itself.

This book is amazing. Butler has the ability to spin off alternate realities and alien races with an ease and grace that are frankly astonishing. My frequent complaint about sci-fi alien cultures is that they are too similar to humans for my taste. Not so in these worlds. The title story, "Bloodchild", centers around the relationship of a human family and an alien being native to their current host planet. Gan, a Terran boy, has known T'Gatoi since birth. T'Gatoi has worked tirelessly her whole life to mend relations between her race and the Terrans, serving as a steward and ambassador. Her kind offer humans some of their own sterile eggs to consume, which can extend human lives for many years beyond their natural course. But these things are offered in exchange, not for free, and Gan witnesses in this story the bloody offering he is expected to make of his own body, so that both Terrans and Tlic can continue to thrive. Another standout story (not that there's a bad one) was "Amnesty", in which a set of beings known as Communities have arrived on Earth and set up colonies in most of the harshest desert regions. A young woman named Noah works as a translator for these self-aware ecosystems. In this story she attempts to train a set of 6 new translators- each one clinging to deeply embedded fears and hatred of the alien race. I have already picked up my next Octavia Butler book!

I listened to this excellent short story collection as an audio book. Each of the 10 stories is read by a different narrator, which gives the collection as a whole the feeling of a world populated with related but extremely unique voices. The opening story, "The Summer People", introduces the level of magical realism that each story includes. In it a high school girl in a rural North Carolina town cuts class to tend to a house inhabited by chaotic Fey. "The Valley of the Girls" takes place in a valley of modern day pyramids, built by the super wealthy for their bored teenage offspring who party and hook up amid the rooms of offerings. In "The New Boyfriend" Emmy jealously watches her best friend unwrap the birthday present she most desires- a life sized robot boyfriend. Her friend already has two others boyfriend dolls. Emmy wonders, why can't she steal the affections of just this one? I loved how these stories felt like opening up new pockets of possibility, new corners of strangeness in a world so similar to the one we inhabit. Reading this book made me feel like magic might be going on all around me- around any corner, in some place I just haven't yet looked.

This novella (90 odd pages) packs a lot of big concept sci-fi into a tight container. I loved the main character, Binti, the first person from the Himba tribe to ever be accepted into Oomza University. The Himba live in the deserts on earth, fabricating complex and vital scientific instruments which are used across the galaxy. But the Himba themselves do not leave Earth. Until, that is, Binti runs away from home to take her place in a prestigious school on another planet. The set up of this story is great, though the ending seemed a little rushed. I still plan to pick up the second installment- I want to know where Binti will go next.

A graphic and gory but mostly faithful retelling of the poem Beowulf. Santiago Garcia has crafted a fast paced script which pairs well with David Rubin's gritty and creative comic pages.