Reading Wrap-Up: April 2021, part 1
May. 3rd, 2021 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
justanorthernlightTerrier by Tamora Pierce (Beka Cooper/Provost's Dog trilogy #1) - 200ish years before Alanna set out to be a knight, George Cooper's ancestor Beka Cooper joins Corus's Provost's Guard. She is helped along by Alanna's magic constellation god-cat, her aspiring King of the Rogue neighbor/love interest, and her own rare magic that allows her to hear unquiet ghosts, among other things.
The story is equal parts Pierce's usual "teenage girl and animal her animal friends have adventures" and the standard "rookie beat cop with a heart of gold learns the ropes" type of deal, but overall I really liked it. It reminds me a bit of the Discworl Watch novels (detective stories with a modern style but set in a fantasy world), but without the satire. I grew up on Pierce's early Tortall books, but I bounced hard off of the Trickster duology, and by the time this one was published I a.) wasn't reading for pleasure much and b.) was going through some teenage pretentiousness where I thought that things I liked as a child were beneath me.
It's interesting to compare this to the early Tortall novels, both in terms of content and structure. The Song of the Lioness quartet suffered a bit from early novel-ness, the Court of the Rogue and George's 'Sight' brand of magic weren't all that well fleshed out, nor was the deal with Alanna's talking magic cat Faithful, but they're given another deeper look here.
Structurally, there's a shift from middle grade to YA novel. YA wasn't really it's own genre back in my day, and I haven't really warmed to many of the tropes. Beka starts the story as a 16 year old, rather than a 10 year old, and the book is a bit longer, but other than that it doesn't really take on too many YA tropes. It was published in 2006, so maybe they hadn't been as strictly codified yet.
I did find the extended dog metaphor a little bit trying at times- guards are called 'dogs', trainees 'puppies', station houses 'kennels', etc.
Star Wars Volume 7: The Ashes of Jedha (Star Wars #38-43, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Salvador Larroca) - The gang journeys to Jedha to try to recruit the remains of Saw Gerrera's Partisans back into the main Rebellion, as well as stop the Empire from strip-mining more Kyber crystals for the war machine. Luke reflects on the sacrifices that the Rogue One team made that led to him taking the shot that destroyed the Death Star and visits the abyss where the Death Star tore through Jedha City, where people are now going to have Force visions.
Kieron Gillen is a much, much, much better writer than Jason Aaron was and I'm so happy about this author change. Chewie is actually involved here! Han is something other than incompetent comic relief! Gillen even brought Queen Trios over from the Darth Vader series. (I liked Trios there but the volume/arc she was in was the least connected to that series's main storyline, so this adds some retroactive weight to it.) We've also caught up to Rogue One's release and get to tie up some odds and ends from that movie, which I like.
Larroca has drawn a lot of the Star Wars comics that I've read, and for the first time I'm disappointed with his work. He's very clearly using OT movie frames as references (particularly for Leia), but the emotions the characters are displaying in those reference scenes are nowhere close to what he's supposed to be conveying on the page. It sort of took me out of the narrative at points.
Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 4: End of Games (Darth Vader #20-25 written by Kieron Gillen, art by Salvador Larroca) - Reread for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
swbookclub. Still a solidly enjoyable end to the series.
Star Wars: Poe Dameron Volume 1: Black Squadron (Poe Dameron #1-6, written by Charles Soule, art by Phil Noto) - Another reread forswbookclub . This series is my favorite so far of the multi-volume Star Wars comics (the 2015 Han Solo miniseries by Marjorie Liu is my absolute favorite), and also my favorite piece of Sequel era material.
The story is equal parts Pierce's usual "teenage girl and animal her animal friends have adventures" and the standard "rookie beat cop with a heart of gold learns the ropes" type of deal, but overall I really liked it. It reminds me a bit of the Discworl Watch novels (detective stories with a modern style but set in a fantasy world), but without the satire. I grew up on Pierce's early Tortall books, but I bounced hard off of the Trickster duology, and by the time this one was published I a.) wasn't reading for pleasure much and b.) was going through some teenage pretentiousness where I thought that things I liked as a child were beneath me.
It's interesting to compare this to the early Tortall novels, both in terms of content and structure. The Song of the Lioness quartet suffered a bit from early novel-ness, the Court of the Rogue and George's 'Sight' brand of magic weren't all that well fleshed out, nor was the deal with Alanna's talking magic cat Faithful, but they're given another deeper look here.
Structurally, there's a shift from middle grade to YA novel. YA wasn't really it's own genre back in my day, and I haven't really warmed to many of the tropes. Beka starts the story as a 16 year old, rather than a 10 year old, and the book is a bit longer, but other than that it doesn't really take on too many YA tropes. It was published in 2006, so maybe they hadn't been as strictly codified yet.
I did find the extended dog metaphor a little bit trying at times- guards are called 'dogs', trainees 'puppies', station houses 'kennels', etc.
Star Wars Volume 7: The Ashes of Jedha (Star Wars #38-43, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Salvador Larroca) - The gang journeys to Jedha to try to recruit the remains of Saw Gerrera's Partisans back into the main Rebellion, as well as stop the Empire from strip-mining more Kyber crystals for the war machine. Luke reflects on the sacrifices that the Rogue One team made that led to him taking the shot that destroyed the Death Star and visits the abyss where the Death Star tore through Jedha City, where people are now going to have Force visions.
Kieron Gillen is a much, much, much better writer than Jason Aaron was and I'm so happy about this author change. Chewie is actually involved here! Han is something other than incompetent comic relief! Gillen even brought Queen Trios over from the Darth Vader series. (I liked Trios there but the volume/arc she was in was the least connected to that series's main storyline, so this adds some retroactive weight to it.) We've also caught up to Rogue One's release and get to tie up some odds and ends from that movie, which I like.
Larroca has drawn a lot of the Star Wars comics that I've read, and for the first time I'm disappointed with his work. He's very clearly using OT movie frames as references (particularly for Leia), but the emotions the characters are displaying in those reference scenes are nowhere close to what he's supposed to be conveying on the page. It sort of took me out of the narrative at points.
Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 4: End of Games (Darth Vader #20-25 written by Kieron Gillen, art by Salvador Larroca) - Reread for
swbookclub. Still a solidly enjoyable end to the series. Star Wars: Poe Dameron Volume 1: Black Squadron (Poe Dameron #1-6, written by Charles Soule, art by Phil Noto) - Another reread for
swbookclub . This series is my favorite so far of the multi-volume Star Wars comics (the 2015 Han Solo miniseries by Marjorie Liu is my absolute favorite), and also my favorite piece of Sequel era material. 
