An interesting piece of SF canon but one that feels somewhat dated.
Montellier’s comics from the late 1970s and early '80s are reissued with new translations.
This collection gathers three comics (Wonder City, Shelter, and 1996) originally published in France’s Métal Hurlant and updates them with new English translations. (When they appeared in the American Heavy Metal magazine, “her dialogue was translated from straightforward French into such outlandish English that readers essentially had to translate it again,” according to translator Brock.) Wonder City is the story of a couple who meet and fall in love in a dystopian near-future New York before uncovering a terrible secret about the state-supplied birth control given to every woman. In Shelter, a group of strangers is trapped in an underground mall after a nuclear attack, and survivors live under the thumb of a tyrannical mall director. 1996 is a collection of shorter pieces; most are only a page or two long and echo the ideas and themes in the other two comics: totalitarian societies; oppression of women and people of color; violent suppression of protests, and more. The art consists of simple pen-and-ink drawings, done entirely in black and white except for some swaths of vibrant pink. A translator’s note by Brock and an interview with Montellier offer compelling and illuminating insights into the times in which these comics were written. However, as is often the case with older SF, what was once innovative is now commonplace—and, as such, these comics currently feel unsubtle and unsurprising. It’s a dystopian future but one viewed through the lens of the late 1970s with few 21st-century concerns. There are female protagonists—unusual for the time—but they’re constantly victimized by men or society or both; there are scenes of actual or implied sexual assault that feel exploitative. Although this collection can (and should) be appreciated as a piece of comic history, readers might be better served by translations of Montellier’s work from this century.
An interesting piece of SF canon but one that feels somewhat dated.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781681377407
Page Count: 200
Publisher: New York Review Comics
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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