Gladstone's School for World Conquerors, Issue 1

Click here for a followup to this post covering the first arc of the series

The new comic book series "Gladstone's School for World Conquerors" is about a school for superpowered kids, and I'm a sucker for stories like that. The X-Men, with Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, is the most well-known example. There was also the live-action Disney movie "Sky High," the comic book series PS-238 by Aaron Williams (the guy behind Nodwick), and no doubt countless others. I even wrote a superhero school novel for my first National Novel Writing Month novel. I'm also a big fan of the Teen Titans cartoon, which is not about a school, but it has the same wild energy of "Gladstone's School."

Movie Review: Summer Wars

Summer Wars is a film that fits a lot into two hours: there's action, romance, humor, tragedy, and wisdom. The film tells the story of a young man, Kenji, who agrees to accompany his classmate Natsuki to her grandmother's estate. When he gets there, he discovers that Natsuki plans on passing Kenji off as her fiancee for her grandmother's 90th birthday party. Natsuki's grandmother is a formidable woman who is proud of her samurai ancestry, so poor Kenji will have his work cut out for him if he is to impress her. But after the initial shock of being introduced to Natsuki's large family wears off, he realizes that he's never been part of such a vibrant and charming family before.

This sounds like the setup to a charming, light romantic comedy, and it sort of is, but there's something more to it: Kenji is a math whiz who works on Oz, a sort of mix between Google, World of Warcraft, and AT&T. While he's staying at Natsuki's grandmother's, Kenji receives a mysterious message that was sent to his cell phone asking him to solve a math problem. Kenji solves the problem in a night, then learns in the morning that Oz's supposedly unhackable security system has been compromised. As the intruder takes over more and more of Oz, it becomes a race against time for Kenji to undo the damage and restore Oz before the communications chaos causes permanent harm.

Book Review: Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis is a novel that takes place during the Second World War and features the struggle of the British Secret Service against a new threat: a Nazi experiment to give a group of teenagers superpowers. Faced with a power they cannot hope to oppose, the Secret Service calls in a group of British warlocks for assistance.

Эльфийская Рукопись (Elven Manuscript)

Эльфийская Рукопись (Elven Manuscript) is a Russian fantasy metal rock opera. The band, Эпидемия (Epidemia), tried to make a rock opera based on Dragonlance, but when they couldn't get the rights, they decided to make up their own story.

Book Review: Leviathan and Behemoth

First, I should note that my wife deserves all the credit. She's the one who first read Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan and Behemoth, and she insisted that I read them, too. It took very little persuasion, as I love the illustrator, Keith Thompson, who not only draws the inside covers (sadly not some of the actual covers) but also has gorgeous full-page black-and-white illustrations throughout both books.

The premise of the books is that the First World War is about to break out, but instead of using trucks, planes, and tanks, the Central Powers use walking war machines, whereas the Allied forces use specially-bred war monsters. The war is thus between the "Clankers" and the "Darwinists," and it's as much a contest between the machine-minded Clanker outlook versus the unnatural ecosystems of the Darwinists as it is about the imperialism and nationalism that led to the historical Great War.

Young Justice Looks Like it's Going to Rock

I would sum up Young Justice as being somewhere between Teen Titans and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. That's high praise indeed, as I am a huge fan of both shows.

Graphic Novel Review: North 40

I should start by pointing out that the cover above is a total misrepresentation of the story. The Goth girl and the chubby guy in the Cthulhu Lives t-shirt start things off, but they don't really figure much into the whole plot. Two of the main characters, Sheriff Morgan and Wyatt Hinckle, can be seen in the background, while the third, Amanda Walker, is nowhere to be seen. That strikes me as odd, as a scythe-wielding young woman on the cover strikes me as something that can be used to sell comics, but apparently Goth girls rate higher.

But I digress. North 40 was written by Aaron Williams, whom some of you may know as the mind behind the popular Nodwick comic. But while Nodwick, along with Williams's other comics, PS238 and Full Frontal Nerdity, are light-hearted comedies, North 40 is decidedly a weird horror comic. And if the tentacles on the cover didn't already give it away, the horror is of the cosmic/Lovecraftian/weird variety.