NonHuman Lead – Page 2 – Marked for Plot

Novella Readathon #7: Autobiography of Red

Two weeks ago, if you asked me the novella I was most excited to read, I’d have responded Autobiography of Red. It’s got several ardent supporters whose taste I trust, it tackles an obscure figure from Greek mythology, a creature whom exists only for Herakles to kill, and it deals in thorny and tragic gay relationships. Unfortunately, what should have been catnip for me ended up as a frustrating reminder of why I tend to avoid Literature. While I’ve enjoyed several novellas with a more Literary bent (most recently On the Calculation of Volume), this one ended up feeling more like work than enjoyment. I do plan to eventually reread it, and I’m hopeful that I’ll get more out of it on a second look, because the bits I liked were really quite phenomenal.

The Premise:
While there are some introductory materials and extra bits, most of this story is the autobiography of Geryon: a boy and man in the mid-1900s who is red and has wings. This goes largely unremarked in the story. It traces his troubled childhood and teenage affair with Herakles, his listlessness in adult life, and a chance reunion with Herakles that is perhaps not everything Geryon wanted it to be. This is … a poor description, I will admit. I’m not sure how to give a better one though. Mostly it asks you to crawl inside Geyron’s head as he floats through different portions of his childhood and young adult life.

Read If Looking For: Literature with a capital L, tortured souls, photography motifs, blank verse, books that feel like Indie Films

Avoid If Looking For: straightforward narratives, clear happy endings, adventure and thrills, Romance beats

Monkey Meat: The Summer Batch

Back in April, I read the first collection of Monkey Meat stories and fell in love. Juni Ba’s art, humor, and themes were catnip for me. The vibes are Sunday Morning cartoons focusing on the dystopian nature of late stage capitalism, with heaping of weirdness thrown into the mix. Overall, I think The Summer Batch is (mostly) a direct upgrade, but the two can really be read in any order. Each story is self-contained, with only a few characters appearing in multiple stories – and never requiring you to have read earlier tales to understand what’s going on. All that’s important is that you’ve returned to Monkey Meat Island! Don’t worry, all we ask for access to the theme park is your immortal soul.

The Premise:
Welcome back to Monkey Meat island! Like last time, there’s a wide variety of stories within this volume. This time however, the book itself is a magazine created by the Monkey Meat corporation, meaning you also get complementary ads. Isn’t that great?

Read if Looking for: the corporation always wins, irreverent humor, in-book recommendations for real-world art, meta-commentary

Avoid if Looking for: optimism or escapism, realistic characters or situations, subtlety

Comparable Media: The Triangle Agency, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Rick and Morty

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr – Vignettes on Death

This book has been sitting on my desk as a potential whole-class read for high school level comics classes. It’s award-nominated and generally has a phenomenal reputation. At 128 pages, this story is absolutely worth a look if you’re in the mood for something contemplative with some light humor elements. It feels very much like an Autumn book, in that it asks readers to think about their own relationship with death, but it remains pretty accessible throughout. Plus, it’s popular enough that you can likely nab a copy from your local library!

The Premise:
A child destined to discover immortality is born, and with it comes layoffs. Death finds herself without work, trapped in a human body and the pesky mortality that comes with it. This comic covers her many lives (she gets brought back by her companion Life often) as she comes into contact with the child (and later teen, adult, and elderly man) who caused her downfall.

Read If Looking For: a god experiencing mortality, episodic story structures, casual cigarettes, quiet storytelling with vibrant colors

Avoid If Looking For: the political machinations of gods, experimental art, novel and original endings

Comparable Media: Cloud Atlas, Sandman. I’ve also heard that it pairs delightfully with Daytripper and Karmen, both of which I’m intent on reading soon.

Barbalien: Red Planet – An Optimistic Story set in a Tragic Past

It’s unsurprising that the AIDS epidemic has been notably absent from Fantasy and Science fiction novels. There are lots of reasons for this: many read for escapism, the 80s/90s isn’t a common time period for fantasy or science fiction in general, and AIDS doesn’t fit neatly into the cute love story narrative that traditional publishers have historically leaned on when writing books about gay men. Things are improving – traditionally published trans protagonists exist, though they’re still rare – and there are a few novels that have tackled the idea (though I couldn’t bring myself to keep reading the train wreck that was Disco Witches of Fire Island). I live in hope, but my hopes aren’t very high.

Comics have actually done a much better job of engaging with the topic, though not always well. I got to teach a few lessons on the representation of AIDS in superhero comics a few years ago, and I’m hoping I’ll have the chance to expand it into a full unit soon. Barbalien was part of that journey, and a great example of how mainstream comics have evolved on the issue over 30 years. Barbalien is set in the The World of Black Hammer, a superheroverse more or less analogous to DC or Marvel. You really don’t need any previous context for the story, so don’t feel like you need to jump in ‘at the start’ if you aren’t interested in the cute and satirical set of villain interviews that form the universe’s first installment. Barbalien is a more serious story, but not so bleak as to suffer accusations of torture porn.

Finally, it’s important to note that while Jeff Lemire seems to be listed as the main author, the story is a collaboration between him and Tate Brombal. The actual script (dialogue, panel by panel story descriptions, etc) is all Brombal, an openly gay comic writer.

The Premise
Mark Markz is from Mars. When masquerading as a human, he works as a cop trying to do good. When openly martian, he fights crime as Barbalien. When both personas are needed at an AIDS protest, Mark comes into contact with Miguel, a young activist whose partner recently died of AIDS. As they fall in love, Mark grapples with his growing realization of how the system he works for is a force of oppression, finds connections in the queer underground, and is hunted by a rival from Mars.

Read If Looking For: queer joy, queer pain, and queer love

Avoid If Looking For: sympathetic cops, cinematic fight scenes, fleshed out supporting characters

Remarkably Bright Creatures – I Get the Hype … I Don’t Share It

This book was pretty far out of my wheelhouse, but it’s relentlessly good press plus my desire to stretch outside my comfort zone – this is so close to being realistic fiction in entirety – got me to pick it up. Octopuses are awesome, so what’s not to love? I left the book pretty torn: I understand why it worked for so many people, and I think if I were a bigger fan of realistic fiction I’d have enjoyed it. As it is, this was a slog to finish, despite really enjoying some significant chunks of the book.

The Premise
Brandon’s mother abandoned him at 9, and he never knew his father. After getting dumped by his girlfriend, he follows clues left behind to try and find his family. Tova is an aging woman who enjoys her knitting club and cleaning at the local aquarium, where she’s befriended the Giant Pacific Octopus. Marcellus is said octopus, who is desperately trying to find stimulation and enjoyment in his life.

Read If Looking For: heartfelt family stories, lovable old ladies, an octopus smarter than the humans who are stumbling through the plot

Avoid If Looking For: xenofiction to be the focal point, characters to communicate with each other

Comparable Media: A Man called Ove, Shadow Life

Monkey Meat – An Anticapitalist Fever Dream

I knew nothing about Monkey Meat other than its title and cover art. I didn’t quite know what to make of a hand crushing a Spam-esque can with a monkey on the front, but I knew I was interested in reading more. Monkey Meat: the First Batch is a zany and dark anthology that I fell in love with. It’s not the most original critique of capitalism I’ve seen, but it’s certainly one of the most engaging. I truly believe that if companies could get God to sign over the rights to people’s souls, they would absolutely do so. My only regret is that it doesn’t seem likely to get a sequel, but I will certainly be chasing down more of Juni Ba’s work in the future.

The Premise:
This anthology (though it might be better described as a mosaic comic) focuses on Monkey Meat Island. Once an untouched paradise, it is now ruled by a capitalist megacorporation cranking out questionably sourced meat, energy drinks made out of souls, and action figures showcasing the indigenous cultures the company eradicated to ‘honor’ them. Each story follows a different protagonist, but several characters run through the series, including the enslaved enforcer Lug and the supernaturally persuasive Salesman

Read If Looking For: unbridled creativity, unconventional art styles, episodic structures

Avoid If Looking For: consistent worldbuilding, subtlety and nuance, grounded characters

Comparable Media: Dungeon Crawler Carl, Invader Zim, Rick and Morty

Interview With The Vampire – A Turning Point in Vampire Stories

Interview with The Vampire has been on my read list for a while. Actually, I’ve been interested in exploring the history of vampires a bit more deeply once I realized that the three original vampire novels (The Vampyre, Carmilla, and Dracula) are all super queer. Interview with the Vampire represented a shift in how modern vampires were written. Rice placed them at the center of the tale instead of as an antagonist to be vanquished. As with its predecessors, it’s also super queer-coded. I think I came into the novel with incorrect assumptions about what this book would be, which led to this being a more disappointing read than I was hoping for. In the end I enjoyed it, but I wish discussion about the book was more accurate to the reading experience.

The Premise:
Louis is a vampire who has agreed to sit down for an interview. In it, he describes the story of his creation in New Orleans at the hands of the vampire Lestat, the creation of his daughter Claudia, and his flight away from his cruel creator. In his journey he grapples with what it means to take a life, to be a good person, to never die.

Read If Looking For: musings on the nature of immortality, immoral protagonists, interesting monologues

Avoid If Looking For: two gay-coded dads raising their vampiric daughter together, main characters who didn’t own slaves, traditional plot structures

An Inexplicable Act of Doom – Percy Jackson, but Make it Gay

I grew up loving Greek Mythology and imagining that half the characters in the books I read were actually gay. I would have loved An Inexplicable Act of Doom, and wish more books like this had been published when I was a kid. While written with kids in mind, I think adults looking for a more low-key reading experience will enjoy it a lot as well. Plus who doesn’t love a sweet romance between a god of your inevitable and unexpected doom with a guy who’s supposed to perish horribly while flying through the air on mechanical wings?

The Premise
Moros, also known as Doom Incarnate, has been tasked with arranging the death of Icarus to appease Posiedon (who’s still pretty upset about the whole King Minos situation and is taking out his anger on anyone remotely involved). Icarus has been living in a tower on a deserted island for the past ten years, and has just built one of his late-father’s designs: a pair of mechanical wings. Moros can tell Icarus is about to die horribly and decides, against his orders, to intervene in order to save the young man from certain death-by-gravity. This sets them both on a journey that will thrust them into the machinations of the gods as each tries to defy what the Fates have foretold for them.

Read if Looking For: harmless bickering, Greek Gods as narcissistic assholes, cozy adventures, witch Aunties who give great advice

Avoid if Looking For: typo-free books, positive depictions of Theseus, nuanced or complex themes & characters

Disclosure: I was asked to be an ARC reader for this book in exchange for an honest review, though I think this was closer to a final Beta-Read than a true ARC. I did also request that Cavehill would donate a single copy of the physical book to my classroom library for my students to read. I think they’ll quite enjoy it.

Unexpected Stories – Octavia Butler’s Posthumous Publication

Octavia Butler is, rightfully, a legend and institution in the speculative fiction world. I’ve taught her books in high school classes, enjoyed them on my own, and have found that she is one of the best writers at engaging in the uncomfortable messiness of the human experience. Unexpected Stories is a novella and a short story published posthumously. Both stories are part of the Patternist series, but stand on their own without context – I haven’t read the main series yet. It’s worth noting that Butler wanted both stories published while she was alive – one story was sold to be published in an anthology which fell through, and the other never got picked up by a publisher despite Butler shopping it around – so neither story is being published against Butler’s wishes.

At 81 pages, it was easy to devote time to these two stories from one of the genre’s masters. I enjoyed the first and felt rather unimpressed with the second, making this far and away my least favorite of Butler’s writing. That this volume is still worth recommending is an indication of just how much of a gift Butler has been to Speculative Fiction.

Read If: you like reading Butler’s work, are interested in exploring alien social dynamics, enjoy short stories with themes of justice and power

Avoid If: you’re looking for Butler’s deeper explorations of ethics and morality, look for friction between narrative and protagonist

The Cloak and It’s Wizard

After reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, I knew that I wanted something a bit less intense and heavy for my next read. The Cloak and its Wizard seemed just zany enough to satisfy. This met my needs for a fun and mindless breather book, though I found that I was ready for the story to wrap up about 100 pages before the book itself did. Ultimately, if the idea of a snarky magic item telling the story appeals to you, this is likely at least worth a look.

The Premise
The Cloak of Sunset and Starlight hasn’t attached itself to a wizard for a full century. When an unusual initiate joins the Order of the Open Eye, however, he can’t resist. Veronica is a surgeon, and the only reason she’s a wizard at all is because she was immune to the mind-altering magic that the Order used to try and remove her memories of her brother’s death at the hands of a monster. The cloak and its new wizard quickly get on the wrong side of The Order, but things are also looking especially grim with an unusually large number of interplanar beings invading Earth.

Read if: you enjoy harmless chaos, you want something lighthearted and pulpy, like adults with functional lives outside of The Plot

Avoid if: you’re looking for something deep and meaningful, you’ll get annoyed with the phrase ‘my wizard’, you like twists to help move the story forward

Comparable Media: Dr. Strange, Striker V, Dad Magic