mars2k's Reviews (226)

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a flawed book, but I liked it overall and I did learn a few things. Everything was explained very clearly, though sometimes it came across as somewhat dumbed down rather than just being accessible.

Unlike Dinosaurs Rediscovered, this book focuses on scientists more than science. Each palaeontologist mentioned gets a full introduction, which is sweet but it does take time away from discussing dinosaurs. The novel-like storytelling laden with anecdotes sometimes makes the book meander a little too much for my liking but it does make it more engaging to read. I liked the chapter “The Tyrant Dinosaurs” – it was nice to see tyrannosauroids besides the famous T rex getting some attention.

My main objection is that at several points throughout the book, assumptions and assertions were made with very little evidence to back them up. For example, Brusatte insists that palaeontologists are certain Tyrannosaurus must have had feathers, but T rex integument has been a highly controversial topic for many years and there has never been a solid consensus, only conjecture. Further dubious claims about T rex (it used its arms to subdue prey, it was intelligent, it lived in packs) are based on circumstantial evidence at best. They’re not necessarily wrong, we just don’t know for sure that they’re right. There are also some points that are known to be untrue, such as Archaeopteryx being “the oldest bird in the fossil record” (it was an avialan but not a true bird).

Palaeontology books are bound to include a few errors – that’s to be expected. My issue is that Brusatte presents guesswork and inaccurate information with confidence, and this book is aimed at non-experts who don’t have enough knowledge on the subject of dinosaurs to recognise these mistakes for what they are.

Still, this isn’t a bad book. I imagine it would serve as a nice introduction to palaeontology for the layperson. I’d recommend it as to someone interested but not particularly well-versed in palaeontology, with a reminder not to take the author’s word as gospel and to instead use it as a jumping-off point for their own research. 

 So... I want to start off with a disclaimer that Petals to the Metal is probably my least favourite arc of the Balance campaign. It’s not bad, but it is flawed. The same is true of this graphic novel.

One of the main flaws Petals has (in the podcast and in the book) is the major tonal dissonance. On one hand, there are a lot of sexual jokes (even by TAZ standards), to the point where it starts to get pretty uncomfortable to read/listen to. On the other hand, this arc is also incredibly sincere, tender, and emotional. The lewd goofs and the genuine heart don’t complement each other at all – in fact, they undermine each other and it gives the whole arc this weird, uneasy quality that I can’t quite put into words. It does make sense that this would carry through from the podcast to the graphic novel adaptation, and I know it would be unreasonable to expect unfeasibly drastic changes that would alter the entire plot and structure of the story. It does feel kind of unfair to fault the book for being a faithful adaptation, but at the same time this tone issue is difficult to overlook.

Quite a few changes were made, however. Some were small while others were quite significant, and some were much-needed while others seemed counter-intuitive. I can’t discuss every alteration because that would involve diving into the deep end of spoiler territory (and making this review ridiculously long) so I’ll just talk about the masks as an example.

In the podcast the animal masks were worn for anonymity. I understand why Pietsch drew them barely covering the characters’ faces – so that their expressions are still visible – but it kind of defeated the purpose. I think masks with Spider-Man-like inexplicable expressiveness would have worked better. For some reason, Hurley picked out the boys’ masks in this version, but Taako was still asked about the significance of the mongoose. This no longer made sense because he wasn’t the one who chose it, making the whole scene pretty confusing.

While I’m talking about Hurley, I just want to say she’s so cute and I love her design. I like Sloane’s design too, and I think they look great together. It would have been nice to spend more time with Sloane, but I’ll take what I can get.

The artwork in general is nice, though in some ways I feel it’s not as good as in the previous instalment. Something I praised in Rockport was the characters’ spot-on expressions (specifically Taako’s), but here he and other characters keep doing this ugly, distracting, Ren and Stimpy-esque pout. I’m not sure why this decision was made, but I’m not a fan. Some pages have way too much text. Exposition dumps aren’t a problem in a podcast, but in a graphic novel it does get a little annoying. The second half of the book is basically one big action scene, which isn’t Pietsch’s strong suit unfortunately. I worry that someone who isn’t familiar with the podcast would have a hard time following this story. I did appreciate the splash pages and the full-body character introductions, though – something I felt the previous two graphic novels were lacking.

I didn’t enjoy this book nearly as much as I enjoyed Gerblins and Rockport. I guess that makes sense since I didn’t enjoy the Petals podcast arc so much, but some of the problems this graphic novel has aren’t present in the podcast, so I can’t really attribute my disappointment to it being an adaptation of something I’m not a huge fan of. There were some touching moments and some funny easter eggs (like “Robots harder to draw than cars?”) but overall I just wasn’t into it. I’m giving it three and a half stars, though it’s probably closer to a three than a four. Hopefully the series will only get better from here. 

I never thought I’d say the words “I want to cosplay Garfield” but here we are.

Once again, Pietsch’s artwork was delightful. I noticed more varied line weight this time round, which made the characters really pop. Taako’s expressions are perfect. The structuring of the fight scenes was better than last time, making them much easier to follow.

Not illustration-related but it’s also worth mentioning: I think this book made better use of Griffin’s DM interjections – they felt a lot more natural.

On to the negatives... Magnus and Taako were exceptionally cruel to Angus and Jenkins, which was a bit of a turn-off. I know that’s how they behaved in the podcast, but I thought it’d be toned down a little for the graphic novel. They also kept the part where Merle suggests tricking a man into killing himself, even though it serves no purpose besides just... being a suicide joke. Then again, this is an adaptation. I know there’s only so much that can (or should) be changed.

The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited isn’t quite good enough to earn four and a half stars from me, though I’d still rank it higher than Gerblins. And honestly? I think I enjoyed this book more than I enjoyed the podcast arc it’s based on.
Next up: Petals to the Metal

It must be incredibly difficult to adapt a story from a podcast (all audio, no visuals) to a graphic novel (all visuals, no audio), but The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins more or less pulled it off. Of course, there were sacrifices when it came to the vocal humour – Magic Brian’s accent doesn’t always come across and Taako’s iconic voice is gone (I wonder what people who read the book without listening to the podcast think he sounds like...)

Pietsch’s loose art style is nice to look at and it’s versatile, which is great for a story that flits back and forth between silly and serious. The colour palettes are varied and engaging. The action scenes were sometimes a little hard to follow, especially when there was a lot of dialogue to keep track of as well. Even so, the general vibe of “there’s a cool fight going on!” was conveyed well through the dynamic, irregular panels (contrasting against the flat, rectangular panels used in calmer scenes) – I was able to understand the general mood even if the specific attacks and movements weren’t always as clear as they could have been.

As an adaptation it fared pretty well, but I can’t help but feel like Merle was a little out-of-character. For the most part he came across as too sarcastic, too grouchy, too quick to suggest violence. I remember him being much more agreeable, acting as something of a foil to Taako and Magnus, who can both be abrasively arrogant and impulsive. That said, this is only the first book of the series so I expect he’ll mellow as the story progresses.

Though not flawless, this graphic novel was fun and nostalgic. Gerblins is not the strongest Balance arc story-wise since the McElroys were very much still finding their footing, so I’m hoping the following installments will be even better than this one.

Yeesh... Where to begin?

Babbling Corpse seemed like a book that would be right up my alley. Vaporwave? Anticapitalism? Metaphorical ghosts? It seemed to tick all the boxes. At first, my feelings about the book were generally positive. It was nothing groundbreaking and it didn’t really offer me any new perspectives or insights, but it was fine enough... Until it wasn’t. The final chapter (“Sick and Tired”) is pretty awful, and I’ll try to unpack it here.

Like in Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism, ADHD is stated to be “one symptom of our manic, plugged-in, social-media-obsessed culture,” supposedly caused by “the datascape.” Both titles were published by Zer0 Books; I do have one or two books published by them that I’ve yet to read, but I don’t know if I’ll buy another because being confronted by this vaccines-cause-autism-esque speculation about ADHD two times out of two does not bode well.

Tanner goes on to talk about pop culture, specifically superhero movies and pop music. This starts off as some unoriginal bellyaching about blockbusters and chart-toppers being meaningless trash, but gradually it gives way to something more insidious – an utterly unhinged tirade about the “cultural regression” and “cultural collapse” of the West, which sounds uncannily similar to fascist cries of “degeneracy” if I’m being honest. A discussion about the MCU includes the frankly hilarious claim that “Rome went down like this.”

Taylor Swift is singled out as the epitome of everything wrong with contemporary pop music, and from here on out she’s used as a scapegoat. She is dramatically declared to “signal the end of history” and is implied to be worse than terrorism. You just can’t make this up.

There’s this ongoing grievance against people sincerely enjoying popular media. Escapism is framed as complacency with capitalism – or, rather, “unfettered capitalism” since Tanner seems to be too much of a coward to criticise capitalism outright. Snide sidenote aside (try saying that three times fast), this is such a toxic mindset to have. It’s not healthy or sustainable to constantly be in activism mode, “resisting the powers that be” 24/7, with no room for rest and leisure. It’s okay to take breaks, and it’s okay to indulge from time to time.

Tanner claims “the reigning opinions of the mainstream music press dictate the tastes that we buy into” and I can kind of see what he’s trying to say, but at the end of the day he could just listen to music he enjoys instead of hate-listening to the top 100. The baseless drivel about critics being silenced if they fail to be “childishly optimistic” and being “excommunicated to the valley of the haters” for not praising Taylor Swift enough made me feel nauseous. That section rose to a crescendo with “one critic refusing to jump on the critical bandwagon” being presented as some kind of musical martyr. Thankfully, the book ended soon after that.

After reading Babbling Corpse, I just feel frustrated and let down. Most of the book had nothing to do with vaporwave and there was no real critique or investigation into how capitalism promotes the use of nostalgia as a marketing tool. Instead, I was presented with a general “nostalgia bad” attitude and a miserable, cynical tone which bordered on far-right rhetoric at times. This is not a good book.

Monsters: A Bestiary of the Bizarre is a nice collection of historical artworks from various cultures, but beyond that it doesn’t have much to offer. There is very little text, and even then it mostly consists of surface-level observation – no deeper insight or contextual analysis, which is what I’d been hoping to see. The only fresh perspective this book introduced me to was the idea that monsters (human-animal hybrids in particular) reflect “a human preoccupation with retaining mastery over the animal kingdom.” Unfortunately this, like every other remotely interesting remark, isn’t elaborated on.

I assumed the author just didn’t know much about the topic, but the further reading page includes many intriguing sources. If this is essentially a bibliography, why did Monsters have nothing interesting to say? Perhaps it was intended to be a really basic introductory text? If so, I think it’s a little too basic. It’s vapid.

I also want to note that the book would have been far more reader-friendly had the illustration captions/credits been included alongside each corresponding image or all in one place at the back of the book, rather than being listed at the end of each chapter.

Three stars. A middle-of-the-road rating for a middle-of-the-road book.

There is a passage from this book (from pages 187-188 specifically) about the Chicxulub impactor, describing in detail the size and speed of the asteroid as well as the untempered devastation it inflicted on the Cretaceous Earth. I first read it about two years ago and it’s stuck with me ever since. I decided this year to read the original text, hoping the rest of the book would be as mind-blowing as that small fragment had been. Unfortunately it didn’t quite meet my (perhaps unreasonably) high expectations.

The meandering prose is a slog at times – a problem which isn’t helped by the overly long chapters. There were certainly some interesting parts here and there, but there was far too much padding around them and reading ended up feeling like a bit of a chore. I got tired of the global warming message pretty quickly. That’s not to say climate change isn’t an important topic to discuss – it absolutely is – but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Brannen was using that framing to make the book seem more “relevant” to audiences that otherwise might not care about prehistoric mass extinctions. In my case at least, he was just preaching to the choir (which wouldn’t be so bad were it not interrupting the actually interesting stuff)

I may be a little disappointed but my feelings about the book still lean positive overall. I learnt a considerable amount, I can’t deny that. I probably won’t reread it cover to cover but I’ll definitely leaf through it at some point and revisit some of the fantastic quotes. One in particular has wormed its way into my skull and set up camp: “a lone wandering pronghorn still running from ghosts.” Hauntingly beautiful.

Nimona surprised me. At first I was enjoying it as a lighthearted sci-fi fantasy adventure, but by the end I was deeply hooked and emotionally invested. This is a truly character-driven story. The main characters – Nimona, Blackheart, and Goldenloin – are all masterfully developed, with their own distinct attitudes and motives. Nimona’s chaotic impulsivity and Blackheart’s more cautious and by-the-books approach complement each other well, making them excellent foils. Meanwhile, Blackheart’s history with Goldenloin makes their relationship intriguing and believable.

The character designs (and the visuals generally) are simplistic, which lends them a certain charm as well as serving the practical purpose of being relatively quick to draw. I appreciate the concept art page at the end of the book – I love that sort of behind-the-scenes bonus content showing an artist’s process and the development of their ideas prior to creating the finished piece.

After finishing this book, I learnt that it was originally published episodically on Tumblr. I think it shows, especially near the beginning where the pace is quick and the stakes are low, only later reconfiguring to focus on a single ongoing arc rather than smaller escapades. Overall, the graphic novel improves both artistically and in terms of writing as the story goes on. It would have been nice to see more splash pages and panels without dialogue, though I recognise that slowing the story down in this way would have made the book incredibly long.

Nimona is one of those books I know I’ll revisit at some point. I’d love to give the audiobook a listen as well.

This Young Monster is undeniably interesting, but not quite what I was expecting or hoping for. There’s a chapter about Buster Keaton, for example, which I felt didn’t quite fit the theme of monsterhood – I can kind of see what the author was going for, but it was a bit of a stretch. The chapter “Spook House,” a script for an experimental play, also seemed a little out-of-place, though I suppose the chaotic tangents and shifts in tone are part of this book’s charm.

I’m not sure how to feel about the book overall, in all honesty. It’s definitely not bad but I can’t quite say it’s good either. It’s fascinatingly uncategorisable, which itself is really satisfying – it just feels right for a book like this to leave me slightly bemused. I must say, there were some wonderfully thought-provoking lines that have stuck with me, like “a monster is a fear assuming a form” and “monsters cause trouble, they disturb definitions, they discombobulate what we think we mean.”

This is going to sound really strange but bear with me: This Young Monster reminds me of the Sixth Doctor from Doctor Who. Brash, erratic, unrelentingly in-your-face, and definitely not what I was expecting, for better or for worse.

As someone who didn’t know a whole lot about Venezuela, I found this book very informative. While it is accessible even to those with little to no prior knowledge, it can be a little difficult to follow at times due to the sheer amount of information there is to take in and to keep track of – people, organisations, terminology, etc.

I appreciate Ciccariello-Maher emphasising that Venezuela’s current socioeconomic situation was a long time coming and that there wasn’t a single revolution in which everything changed overnight; rather, it’s an ongoing process and the product of decades of build-up. On the topic of building up, much of the book is dedicated to how the communes are constructed from the bottom-up through grassroots participation rather than from the top-down with the state/government choosing to decentralise. This was one of the things I was vaguely aware of before reading the book, but having it laid out so plainly made me really understand its significance and appreciate it more.

Building the Commune is definitely a book I’d recommend, and it’s probably one I’ll revisit at some point.