A selection of July graphic novels

 Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki and translated by Alex Dudok de Wit (2022) 160 pages

This is read right to left. The book was originally published in 1983 with it being translated into English just recently in 2022. The note from the translator at the end was fascinating. Miyazaki was doing much creative brainstorming in the 1980s and I definitely noticed some visuals like the slave wagon and the slave trade in the fortress town that were also used in Ghibli's Tales from Earthsea film. There are many beautiful watercolors. It is a quick read because there is not much text. There are some narrative leaps that I wish were explained or developed better, but still very enjoyable.

You and a Bike and a Road by Eleanor Davis (2017) 172 pages

Simple and kind of rough line drawings. No color. Nice journal of a journey by bicycle. Eleanor starts in Tucson, Arizona and is aiming to go all the way to Georgia. Cool observations. This fit with the #hooplachallenge July prompt of Tales in Transit.

The Road: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Cormac McCarthy with art by Manu Larcenet (2024) 160 pages

Yes, it is bleak in every way. A post apocalyptic tale of survival. I gather from the letter at the end, from the artist to the author, that it is a faithful adaptation. Smoke and ash, dirty decay and destruction, and alarming apprehension are illustrated realistically at every step of the way. There are moments of relative plenty, but often scarcity and death. A father and son can only rely on each other and are often scared of losing the other. When they find packaged food I like that we get a little bit of color. Some of the wide landscapes are beautiful even though desolate. After I finished, I flipped back to the beginning to write this review and there is a definite progression that the two main characters go through in becoming more ragged. This adaptation is handled really well.

Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes by Jon Macy (2024) 320 pages

Fascinating. I listened to the audiobook of her Nightwood recently. Struggled to understand it, but this graphic biography of her life is brilliant. I loved the art (b&w with bits of red like Djuna's hair). It captures the times realistically. Structured like a three act play, but not completely linear. The who's who of art and literary modernists she crossed paths with was incredible. The free love commune run by her grandmother was outrageous. So much throwing around the term genius. So many people striving to break the rules. So much alcohol, sex, and people living their queer lives. Djuna Barnes was a struggling artist who stood out in a crowd.

George Sand: True Genius, True Woman by Severine Vidal with art by Kim Consigny (2024) 344 pages

Following the graphic biography of Djuna Barnes, I read this biography of another writer. 19th century France and Aurore Dupin's life from childhood is very detailed. Despite her writing habits, liberal social values, and rebelliousness against the strictures of marriage, she remains a little mysterious. Her playfulness comes across strongly. Moving in circles of artists, taking many lovers, and seeking freedom by dressing in men's clothes and using a male pen name also comes across. There was a lot of family drama and romantic drama and social issues of the day that she used in her fiction. This graphic novel does a good job encapsulating a full life within its pages. The art serves its purpose without many surprises.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 336 pages.

This strange, quiet book is a little hard to describe. It swings back and forth between the life of famous Hollywood actor Arthur Leander, who dies on stage the same night that the world changes forever, and Kirsten Raymonde, a young woman performing in a traveling Shakespeare troupe twenty years later in the early days of the new world. There are a few other perspectives included, but these two characters serve as the anchors to guide us through their respective worlds. Arthur sits at the middle of a net of connections that exist invisibly in the world that remains after a plague wipes out the majority of humanity. 

I found this novel completely immersive. Once I started reading I found it difficult to put down, and I found the author's prose deeply moving. This is a quiet, reflective book, and I would recommend it wholeheartedly. 

Cloud Atlas

 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, 509 pages.

This nested novel is complex and twisting, but I will do my best to summarize it concisely nonetheless. The novel begins with the Pacific voyage of Adam Ewing in 1850, where there is much philosophy on the nature of race and civilization, and where Ewing is treated by his new friend Dr. Henry Goose treats him for a mysterious parasite. The story then jumps to 1931, when  disinherited bisexual composer Robert Frobisher finds his journal in the house of the aging composer who he is working for (and being abused by) in an attempt to break into the musical world. Then in the 1970s reporter Louisa Rey finds Frobisher's letters in the possession of a man murdered for trying to warn the world about an unsafe nuclear reactor, a catastrophe it falls on her to stop. A novelization of Rey's adventures are sent to publisher Timothy Cavendish in more-or-less present day England, which he reads on the run from debtors before being inadvertently locked in an old folks home. The film adaptation of Cavendish's ordeal is illicitly watched by Sonmi-451, a clone in a far future Korea taken over entirely by corporate greed where she has the opportunity to discover herself as a person instead of property for the first time. A recorded interview with Sonmi after her arrest is found by a young man in a post-apocalyptic iron age Hawaii, who's culture reveres Sonmi as a goddess. All of these source materials are interrupted, so all of these stories go unfinished. That is until we reach young Zachry on Hawaii, whose adventures at the end of recorded history reach their conclusion, as the stories finally ripple back through the centuries and all reach their conclusions. 

I picked up this book pretty much immediately after watching the 2012 film by the Wachowskis because I thought it was such a fascinating experiment in structure that I felt like I needed to compare them immediately. And I was not disappointed. Just as I suspected, the film and the novel are different in a lot of ways, but both play masterfully with their structures, allowing format to reinforce themes. And I would say that this is a novel driven by themes more than any other element; I believe I will be thinking about the details for quite a long time. This is an intensely literary novel, but despite that it rarely feels slow or difficult. It is full of action, and the characters are all flawed and compelling. I am also extremely impressed by how well Mitchell captured each of the many genres he wrote in, the style and language shifted dramatically in each story, which I think went a long way towards making each character feel complete in their own story (even if the language shift after the apocalypse was a little hard to parse until I got used to it. Overall I think this book was a masterwork, and I would definitely recommend it to others.

Wool

 Wool by Hugh Howey (2011) 528 Pages

I watched "Silo" on Apple Tv, which is based on the first half-ish of this book. I was blown away by the production of the show, we blew through it in a week. I just as quickly devoured this book! If you like thrillers, dystopian novels, post-apocalyptic-esque...etc...this is for you! Really well written. There are a number of differences between the book and the show, I recommend watching the show first. 

Thousands of people live in a sequestered community inside a massive silo underground. The organization consists of the up-top (higher class people like sheriff, the mayor, etc), the mids (middle class jobs and systems such as doctors, farms etc), and the down deep. There are no elevators, and each floor is traversed by a Grand Staircase, a spiral staircase within the middle of the silo. The Down Deep consists of mechanical  and the trash separators. All the people know is that the silo has always been there, it may have been created by a god. The history before 140 years was destroyed by a previous uprising, so nobody knows the history of people or why they are in the silo in general. The outside world is desolate and poisonous, and the only way to "get out" is to request to do so, a grave sin and highest crime in the society. The people follow "The Pact", a set of doctrines written by their predecessors. When someone commits a grave crime, or they request to "go out" they are sent out to "clean". Cleaning means the wiping of the sensor lens which gives the people inside a view of the outside world. There is a hill surrounding the land above the silo, and the people who go out to "clean" always end up wiping the lens. However, the air is so toxic that every single person who goes out to clean will eventually succumb to the toxicity of the outside air. There are numerous bodies within view of the sensor, never to move again or change. 

Because there are ideas and various ways of thinking that are forbidden, a conspiracy is born among various people within the community. Throughout the book we uncover the various lies between the "higher-ups", who have sworn to keep the community safe from creative thinking at all costs. Why are they there? Who put them there? Can they really not survive outside? are various questions some characters attempt to get to the bottom of.

Dance with the Devil

Dance with the Devil (Mercenary Librarians #3) by Kit Rocha (2022) 352 pages

I continued to enjoy this series. It picks up immediately after the events of the second book, and a relatively short span of time has past in total in all three books. The TechCorps security memos and such, which are inserted between chapters, are contemporary, so we are past the flashback scientific observation entries from the training days of various members of the team. Dani and Rafe now get to be the center of attention. Their relationship is developed. Their skills are needed especially for the key mission. Dani's superspeed and inability to feel pain as a security expert and Rafe's supersoldier intelligence officer experience make for an entertaining and tense grifter scenario amongst the rich on The Hill. It was teased at the end of the previous book that we would meet Rafe's family and we do. The team of reliable people building a community in the oppressed Five-Points neighborhood of Atlanta continues to grow. The found family continues to care for each other. Despite the gap between the rich and poor as well as the tech and medical dystopia setting, the main characters always find hope in each other. This third part perhaps has more sexiness and more pulse pounding action. There are still chapters from the point of view of each of the main team members, but they are short. This one wrapped up a lot of the story threads from the previous two books. However, there are still characters from the widening circle of Five-Points residents that have not had their chance at the center of a story, and we get hints of a future threat from the Franklin Center for Genetic Research that will lead to further adventures.
 

The Devil You Know

The Devil You Know (Mercenary Librarians #2) by Kit Rocha (2021) 304 pages

I read the first book in this series back in 2020. I was sold by the sales pitch that Deal with the Devil is Orphan Black meets the post-apocalyptic Avengers as well as the series being named the Mercenary Librarians. The story mainly takes place around Atlanta with an evil TechCorps that has monopolized services and resources for the wealthy on the Hill. A small group of super soldier men called the Silver Devils, led by Knox, finally escape being employed by TechCorps when their assignment is to eliminate a group of enhanced lady clones, led by Nina, who subversively help the poor and disenfranchised in the Atlanta area. The first book focuses on the leaders Knox and Nina and how the two groups find family and common purpose. There is action, romance, and psychological tension. This second book develops Maya, who has a super memory and is the primary librarian, and her budding relationship with Gray, the brooding sniper with a brain implant that his body is rejecting. The main mission is to save a bunch of cloned children, and they have a showdown with the big bad who wants our heroes dead. Tobias Richter is the big bad head of TechCorps security. There are chapters from the point of view of each member of the team mixed with traditional chapters in the third person. We also get background hints from company memos and journal entries from the woman who raised Maya. These keep the experiments done to the clones and super soldiers and the abilities they develop fairly mysterious. The found family grows with new members and allies. I'm continuing right away with the third book in the series.
 

Planet of the Apes Omnibus

Planet of the Apes Omnibus by Daryl Gregory with art by Carlos Magno (2019) 512 pages

I love this franchise. I read this on Hoopla. The movies all seem to take place in America. The story in this graphic novel series has an international scope. It takes place after Caesar leads the apes to form their own civilization, but before the events of the first movie with Charlton Heston. I enjoyed the art work and the steampunk touches in the design here. At the center are two women, an ape and a human, who were raised as sisters. Their grandfather was an idealist ape who led a small city where apes and humans were treated as equals. Now the sisters are grown and leading their respective groups as ongoing fighting continues. Alaya is the Voice of the council of the Apes. Mayor Sullivan leads the humans in their segregated part of the city. The characters and shifting power dynamics kept me engaged through the five different adventures. The fifth part of the series has a new artist take over who simplified the characters a bit, which I did not enjoy. However, the growth of the characters by writer Gregory was still entertaining.
 

Aftermath

 

Aftermath by LeVar Burton (1997) 320 pages

The author, who is the same actor from Roots, Star Trek: TNG, and host of Reading Rainbow, wrote this in the '90s. In a way, he predicted a future America that would elect its first African American President in 2012, but within three short months the President was assassinated. Then a civil war over race in America collapses our society. This reminded me a bit of Stephen King's The Stand, which I've only read in graphic novel form, but this book has fewer characters. There are really four separate stories for three quarters of the book. Renee is a scientist who has invented a neuro-enhancer, and she is able to mentally call out for help when a rival scientist steals her invention and imprisons her. I wish the four characters' stories wove together sooner and that combining their skills to save Renee took more planning. As it is, it all wraps up in less than 50 pages and it doesn't seem like there is a great reason for each of the characters to be there. Still I mostly enjoyed the journey.

The Summer Prince

 The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson, 289 pages.

June Costa is a young artist in the high-tech city of Palmares Tres, located in the area that used to be Brazil. The book starts in a Moon Year, which is the year that a young Summer King is elected in the Spring, before being sacrificed in the Winter. June's art quickly entwines her life with the new Summer King, Enki, and she finds herself falling in love despite herself, which sends her into even deeper trouble as Enki uses his position to cause all sorts of it. 

This book has been on my tbr pile the longest, which means I added it to my list when I was about 15 and stayed just interested enough in the concept not to delete it, but I think I may have enjoyed it more if I had read it closer to when I added it. I can see what the story was trying to do; there are a lot of themes of innovation and fear thereof, youth vs age, and the role of art in society. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of things in both the world-building and plot of this book that I just don't buy. For example, it does an absolutely terrible job justifying what the Summer King ritual is supposed to accomplish, which feels like a pretty central oversight. As cool as a South American cyberpunk novel sounds as a concept, this one didn't really work for me.

Hell Followed With Us

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, 416 pages.

Benji is sixteen, trans, and on the run from the fundamentalist cult that raised him, caused the apocalypse, and infected him with a virus that is slowly turning him into a monster. Benji is found and taken in by the ALC, the remnants of the Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, who are now banding together to try and survive the apocalypse and the cult that is trying to finish the job that the plague they unleashed started. A job that Benji was made to help them complete. But he figures that if he's being transformed into a monster anyway, he may as well make them suffer for it. 

For a debut novel this is pretty strong. If this was Kara's book club I would definitely have some items in the "Don't buy it" category, but it overall read very smoothly and was genuinely spooky and/or deeply disturbing in a lot of places. It's also, fair warning, very gross. There's a whole lot of body horror in this novel, and I would definitely say it's not for the squeamish. 

Side Note: this cover is so cool, I love the flat style and colors
 

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.  334 pp.

This classic of science fiction literature has been on my "to read" list for awhile and I finally got around to reading it. In a post-apocalyptic desert in the southwestern U.S. in a land devastated by nuclear war that essentially is a new Dark Ages inhabited by mutant victims of radiation and religious communities. The residents of a cloistered monastery worship Leibowitz and study the "holy relics" created by him. The relics amount to blueprints and random memos found in an abandoned fallout shelter where. The novel covers thousands of years centered around the monastery of St. Leibowitz up to a time in the far future when world annihilation is once again a threat. The appearance of "The Wanderer", a strange man who is apparently immortal, leads some of the monks to believe he is, in fact, Leibowitz. Even though this book was published in 1959, many of the topics are timely which cements it's place as a classic.

Severance

Severance by Ling Ma, 291 pages

When Shen Fever hits, Candace Chen is middle management, serving as the liaison between publishers and book manufacturers in China. She has no relatives in the U.S. (and only distant ones in China), she's just broken up with her boyfriend of five years, she has no place to go. So she keeps going to work. Even when everyone else in New York City leaves (or has become fevered), she keeps going to the office. Eventually, the lifestyle becomes unsustainable and Candace finally leaves town, hooking up with a small band of survivors heading west to "The Facility" where they can live safely in the long-term.

Bouncing back and forth in time from before and after the pandemic, this post-apocalyptic novel is a study in routine, in humanity, in solitude, and in self-sufficiency. This was an odd book, and I'll be musing on it for some time to come. I'd recommend it for fans of Station Eleven and The Dog Stars.

Severance

Severance / Ling Ma, 291 pgs.

Candace Chen is a hard worker.  She is often lost in her work and gets a lot done for the publishing company that employs her. She also has a long term boyfriend that she isn't TOO serious about.  Oh, and she seems to be immune to Shen Fever, the epidemic that is racing through the world.  Candace stays at the office when everyone goes home for good.  She really doesn't have any other place to go.  Her parents are dead, the boyfriend moved away and she doesn't feel close to anyone else.  After it becomes apparent the fever has killed most, Candace gets picked up by a small group of survivors.  They are heading to a place their leader Bob is billing their safe place.  She goes along but isn't sold on the group and is certainly wary of Bob.  How will this end up for Candace?  Learning her story along the way is at least half the journey here.  An interesting take on many topics and often quite funny.

Woman World

Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal, 247 pages.

The book is based on and expanded from the author's web / Instagram comic, also called Woman World. The comic (both book and Insta) explores the world after men slowly disappear; there are fewer born every year until woman are humankind. Simultaneously the world is wracked by a series of natural disasters and upheavals, leaving the population in a gently post-apocalyptic world. In a funny, satirical, and lighthearted way, Dhaliwal pokes fun at the world we live in and the way we go about our lives. A fun read with clean, interesting art.

The Obelisk Gate

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin, 410 pages

The second book in Jemisin's Hugo-winning trilogy (Yes! All three!) picks up where the last left off (so SPOILER ALERT if you haven't read The Fifth Season, which you really should): Essun is attempting to fit in with the community in the underground community of Castrima while simultaneously getting lessons in controlling the floating obelisks from her dying mentor, Alabaster. Meanwhile, Essun's daughter, Nassun, and husband, Jija, have fled south in search of a place that Jija is convinced can cure Nassun of her orogeny. When they get to this place, it's not exactly as it seems, bringing Nassun under the tutelage of Essun's old Guardian Schaffa. Has Schaffa changed his ways? It's unclear.

What is clear is that the final book in this series will bring some major power and major conflicts to this super-powerful mother and daughter, and I can't wait to read it. I love how Jemisin has created all of these wonderfully complex characters and situations in a world that's both completely foreign and so realistic. No wonder she's the first person to win the Hugo Award three years in a row, for all the books in a trilogy.

Severance

Severance by Ling Ma, 291 pages.

I love post-apocalyptic novels that are less about the grim struggle and more about the nostalgia, and are quietly reflective on the smaller things that were lost, more about the continuity of small sadness after the world has come crashing down. Station Eleven and Colson Whitehead's magnificent Zone One stand out in this sub-genre. And now Severance is there too. This is a character-driven piece of Post-A fiction and Candace is a quiet, likable, and compelling central character.
Candace is rooted in her small apartment in New York, still stuck in the loss of her parents and in the sense that she disappointed them. As Shen fever takes hold, and the world starts falling apart, Candace is left with her job, her photo-blog, and her failing relationship with Jonathan. The book cuts back and forth through time, settling at times in scenes of memory; Candace's parents and their journey to America, and their ongoing battle about staying or returning to Fuzhou, or the recent past with Jonathan, and her work on the Gemstone Bible, or settling into the present with Candace's role as a reluctant member of a survivalist group / low-rent cult, following the not-so-charismatic Bob on his quest to relocate to the mythical and sad "facility" somewhere outside of Chicago. A quietly great book.

Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood  376 pp.

This had been on my "to read" list for a long time and I finally got to it. Unfortunately, I didn't particularly care for it but that's just me. The post-apocalyptic story of humanity being ravaged by corporate bio-engineering raises scary possibilities for our own future. However, the love triangle part of the story doesn't really resonate with me. The central character, Snowman (previously known as Jimmy) is a sympathetic character who is just trying to survive after the pandemic caused by Crake's BlyssPluss drug. He is also doing his best to help the human-like beings that were bio engineered and and immune to the pandemic. In his dealings with those beings Snowman's references to Crake give him seem an almost god-like status. The rest of the book is the backstory about Snowman/Jimmy's childhood and meeting Crake and Oryx, the once child porn star. This is the first book in the MaddAddam trilogy but I'm undecided on whether to continue on with the next book.

Severance

Severance: a Novel / Ling Ma, 291 p.

Candace Chen - in two alternating before and after narratives - is devoted to the routine of work life overseeing the production of bibles, and heading cross-country with a band of survivors remaining after the American population becomes 'fevered.'   The fevered sound like zombies, except that they don't eat anyone, and are almost sweet, at least until their body parts start rotting away.  They remain stuck in loops of routine, setting the table, reading books, driving, folding clothes.  Ma stuffs a lot of motifs and ideas into a brief work: materialism, Chinese manufacturing, the challenges of 1st generation immigrants, not to mention finding love and meaningful work.  As heavy as that sounds, this is a great, consuming read, and frequently quite funny.  Recommended.

When the English Fall

When the English Fall by David Williams, 242 pages

When a celestial event knocks out all the modern technology, Jacob and his family are personally unaffected — they are Amish, after all. However, as the English (as the Amish call the rest of us) continue to slide away from civilization, they bring their needs, fears, and hostility to the Amish, forcing Jacob and his community to confront their fears and their faith as they move forward. This is a new twist on apocalyptic novels, though it's incredible that this hasn't been covered before. An excellent examination of the heart of religion, community, and humanity in the face of the unknown.

New York 2140

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson, 613 pages.
Two coders living on a rooftop in the flooded remains of Manhattan in the year 2140, believe that they have found a way to change some of society's fundamental rules. Turns out they are wrong, and they quickly realize this. In the aftermath of the events resulting from their mishap, Amelia Black, star of an internet wildlife rescue show; Gen Octaviasdottir; a police inspector, Franklin Garr, Lord of the Intertidal, an quant; and Charlotte Armstrong, a politically connected activist, all cross paths. Things do begin to change then in this enjoyable, but somewhat didactic tale of a future and waterlogged NYC.