- The Sandman: Overture – Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams III & Dave Stewart. Such a strong way to start the new year. Although it had been well reviewed, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this given how long it had been since The Sandman series ended. I should never have worried. The writing is magical, the artwork is drop-dead gorgeous and the whole thing just works.
- Midnight Days – Neil Gaiman et. al. A mixed bag, as collections like this tend to be. I’d read the John Constantine, Hellblazer story before but it still packed a punch. The Swamp Thing stories were okay, but didn’t exactly inspire me to pick up more Swamp Thing material, and the last story, from Sandman Midnight Theatre, was a bit tough to get into but decent overall. A nice collection of some bits of Gaiman’s work I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise, with some really gorgeous art, but not something I’d advise you to run straight out to buy.
- Gotham Academy, Volume 3: Yearbook – Brenden Fletcher, Adam Archer & Sandra Hope. I don’t know why my local library system bought volumes one and three of this but not two, but I’m not okay with it because this series is so cute. Calling to cute is reductive because it’s also really well written, with plenty of mystery, adventure and shady dealings. Since this is a ‘yearbook’, different artists draw each story which works really well. For some reason, this has a lot of negative reviews on Goodreads but if you’re into the DC Universe at all, I’d recommend picking it up.
- Wolverine Old Man Logan, Volume 1: Berzerker – Jeff Lemire & Andrea Sorrentino. So… what the hell was up with this whole story? Logan is sad because Hawkeye (his ‘best friend’) has been murdered. By the Hulk’s hillbilly children. Okay… I like Jeff Lemire, and I get that this was suppose to be an interesting ‘what if?’ type of story but it just didn’t work for me.
- Heavenly Nostrils, Volume 4: Razzle Dazzle Unicorn – Dana Simpson. This worked for me though. So hard! Phoebe’s best friend is a unicorn called Marigold Heavenly Nostrils and together they explore concepts like friendhsip, love, loyalty and awesomeness. I’ve recommended this series before and I’m doing it again.
- Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure – Josh Elder, Adam Archer & Ian Herring. I suspect I might have liked this more if I’d know who the Scribblenauts were. But I didn’t know who they were (still don’t) and I didn’t enjoy it. It felt really, really long. Super cute artwork though.
- A Robot in the Garden – Deborah Install. When Ben finds a beat-up robot in his garden, he doesn’t realise that his whole life is about to change. A story about a man trying to grow up and a robot trying to survive, A Robot in the Garden is an utterly charming read that will make you laugh out loud (and wince with embarassment) more than once.
- Himself – Jess Kidd. Ah, lads. This book. Magical realism meets unsettling, unnamed horror meets rural Ireland. I just loved it.
- The Trouble with Women – Jacky Fleming. Did you know that, historically speaking, women who studied science also ran the risk of growing a beard? True story. The Trouble with Women is a hilarious and pointed exploration of the reasons why women so rarely appear in history books. It’ll make you mad, but it’ll also make you laugh. Recommended!
- Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie. It took me a while to pick this up but I finally, finally got around to it. To be honest, I spent 90% of the book going ‘okay, this is fine, but I don’t really get why it’s such a big deal’ and then the last 10% happened and I was all ‘!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’. A story of ships controlled by AI, an incredibly formal and hierarchical space Empire, and rebellion, Ancillary Justice takes a while to get going, but once it does, watch out.
- Ancillary Sword – Ann Leckie. We delve into the politics of the Radch empire in a big way in this one and it really, really works. From the micro to the macro level, everything is fucked, basically, but no one’s about to mention it without lashings of tea. Breq, who used to be a ship, is trying to make amends but nothing is as simple as it seems in a society that simply wipes its failures from the records.
- Liv, Forever – Amy Talkington. Right, so, I’d finished Ancillary Sword earlier than expected and I faced the commute home without a book, so I picked up Liv, Forever from the library because it looked short and kind of interesting. I’m still kind of insulted by the description on the back cover which calls it ‘spooky, sexy, strange and shocking’ because Liv, Forever is none of those things. To be honest, it’s a bit ham-fisted, the ending is completely unbelievable, and I can’t for the life of me understand why I gave it three stars on Goodreads (I have such a hard time with the Goodreads rating system because I can have a three star read that I thought was pretty dismal and another three star read that I really enjoyed).
- Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, Omnibus – Ben Templesmith. I described this on my Instagram as ‘zombie!Constantine in space’ and I stand by it. Wormwood is sarcastic, nihilistic and always in need of a pint. He’s also an inter-dimensional alien who sometimes encounter other inter-dimensional aliens with negative effects. Needless to say, I really enjoyed this and Templesmith’s art was gorgeous as always. (But see, I rated this three stars, just like Liv, Forever so you maybe see now how hard I find the Goodreads rating system!)
- Ancillary Mercy – Ann Leckie. I really don’t know what to say about this. It contained all the elements that made the first two books so enjoyable and wrapped everything up to my satisfaction. There’s so much going on in these books – explorations of colonialism, racism, classism, gender, slavery, freedom, rigid social tiers, power, tea – that it’s hard to boil them down to a few sentence. Basically, this series is not overhyped. If you have any interest in sci-fi pick them up and you won’t regret it.
- No Harm Can Come to a Good Man – James Smythe. James Smythe is one of my favourite discoveries of the past few years. His retelling of Frankenstein dripped with uncertainty and a growing sense of doom, his and the first two books of the Anomaly Quartet have left me in a permanent state of wondering why the concluding books haven’t come out yet because I want them, damnit! So as soon as No Harm Can Come to a Good Man came out in 2014, I borrowed it from the library. And then I didn’t read it until 2017. I DON’T KNOW WHY THIS HAPPENED! A political thriller, No Harm Can Come to a Good Man follows Laurence who wants to be President. To help his campaign he submits data to ClearVista, a programme which predicts everything from traffic to medical conditions. Which is when everything starts to unravel. James Smythe writes creepy unease better than anyone else I’ve come across and, although this isn’t my favourite of his books, this was a solid read.
- Acceptance – Jeff VanderMeer. I started this in September 2016, lost the book (it was a library book and thankfully whoever found it returned it) and didn’t get around to picking it up again until January 2017. For a trilogy I love so much this is unacceptable. Area X is inexplicable and unexplainable. In trying to understand it, The Southern Reach transforms into the thing it studied. There are stories, and facts, and artefacts, and even some answers, but so much is still hazy and uncertain and impossible to believe/conceive, and that is what makes this trilogy so fucking good.
- Adventures in Space: The Architecture of Science-Fiction – Jon Jardine et. al. This book came out of an exhibition that took place at The Lighthouse, Glasgow’s museum for architecture and design. AND I MISSED IT. I actually had no idea the exhibition had existed until I saw this book in the library catalogue. Gorgeously illustrated, I actually found the book to be a bit of a disappointment as it turned into a simple cataloguing of the styles of architecture featured in various sci-fi movies rather than any kind of exploration of why that type of architecture had been chosen. Interesting, but not quite what I was looking for.
Stargate SG-1, Season 04, Episode 06: Window of Opportunity
(A Town Called) Eureka, Season 03, Episode 04: I Do Over
Supernatural, Season 03, Episode 11: Mystery Spot
Dead Space (Series)
Event Horizon
Fortune’s Pawn – Rachel Bach
Stargate Atlantis: Homecoming – Jo Graham & Melissa Scott
The Long Earth Series – Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
Time Salvager – Wesley Chu
A Confusion of Princes – Garth Nix
Dust – Hugh Howey
No Harm Can Come To A Good Man – James Smythe
The Passage Series – Justin Cronin