A grab bag of literature comments

While I like to write about what I’m reading or watching, this is going to be a catch all of stuff that I didn’t feel like writing a full individual blog entry of.

The God Engines by John Scalzi

This novella is about an galactic empire whose spaceships are powered by literally torturing gods. Man, you cannot escape War Hammer 40,000, no matter how hard you try.

I’m honestly not sure what my final opinion about the story is but I have to say that Scalzi never backs off from his premise and relentlessly escalates.

Lady Knight by Tamara Pierce

Protector of the Small is the first series I’ve read by Tamara Pierce. And, of course I started in the middle of her Tortall books. Well, it convinced me to read more Tamara Pierce. Maybe even go back to the beginning lol

Amusingly enough, I didn’t realize how much the series kept building on Kel being a defender of the weak and down trodden until she was openly referred to as the Protector of the Small when she was rescuing a refugee camp’s worth of kids.

The theme and arc of the entire series is in the name :)

Soft & Cuddly by Jarett Kobek

I keep Boss Battle books on my devices so I have ‘safe’ reading material when I’m at work and around kids. Not so much with this one. Soft & Cuddly only spends one chapter on the title game and the rest is a bitter, angry history of England’s early micro computer industry. Clearly biased, very informative and pretty interesting.

Moon Knight - episode 5

Man, this is the episode that we were waiting for, when Moon Knight finally hit its stride. I am fully expecting a cliff hanger ending and the promise of another a season at the end of the season.

I realized for the first time that, as someone who first read Moon Knight in 1981, I went in with certain basic assumptions. Until this episode, it never occurred to me that there could be a question of who the original personality was.

Dragonbreath Book 11: The Frozen Menace

The last book in the series. Our son wanted to stop three chapters from the end. I wonder if he just doesn’t want Dragonbreath to end. I wanted to find out what happened so I finished it by myself.

While the series ends on an open note for more books, The Frozen Menace feels like an ending point. Danny achieves some character development that has been in the works since book one and the last paragraph is about how good going home is.

This was a good series for our family.

MCU and the many faces of Moon Knight

 As of me writing this, Disney+ is now halfway through their MCU version of Moon Knight. And it is abundantly clear that,’even more so than WandaVision, I’m going to have to actually see it all the way through to see what they are actually trying to do.

I haven’t been a regular Marvel Comics reader for a long time. Pretty much entirely due to logistics as opposed to lack of interest. I do like grabbing the odd graphic over from the library every now and then. I did read a fair chunk of Moon Knight’s first couple decades of existence but I don’t know what Marvel has done with the character lately.

Moon Knight is very much a writers’ hero because he’s never been popular enough for there to be a definitive version. Writers have historically been able to be flexible about how they depict the character.

I’ve often heard Moon Knight described as what if Batman was definitively an insane jerk. And I don’t think that’s unfair, even if it skips over a lot of the nuance. I do think Moon Knight is a very Bronze Age creation. He’s always veered towards gritty and street level with possible supernatural elements.

The MCU Moon Knight is definitely gritty but veers away from being street level. Instead, it uses psychological horror to take the story to more global settings and threats. Moon Knight and their different personalities are wandering through a half-lit gallery of ghosts and gods.

I will say that the MCU version SEEMS to have definitive supernatural elements. (Hey, there is still room to pull the rug out from under our feet in that regards, although I’m not expecting it) While I personally like it nebulous whether or not Moon Knight has some sort of mystic abilities or if he’s delusional but the tv show needs to stand on its own virtues, not my preferences.

On the positive side, Moon Knigjt has kept me interested. On the down side, I haven’t found the characters terribly sympathetic or empathetic. Which isn’t required but is something expect with super heroes. (Of course, you can argue that Moon Knight isn’t a super _hero_)