Rat Queens Vol 4: High Fantasies by Kurtis J. Wiebe (Writer), Owen Gieni (Artist, Colorist), Ryan Ferrier (Letterer)

In the previous comic, Hannah's dad has gone before the Council and attacked them for not being what they should be.  It turns out that the last time years ago when Hannah was a child her dad took down the evil Council for its practices and installed those who were involved in the revolt as the new Council.  Hannah and the gang are heading to her hometown to visit her father because she hasn't heard from him in a while and is worried about him.  Dee wants to end her religion by killing their god.  But she needs help and luckily her brother happens to be there attending his fifth anniversary at the Mage University.  Her atheist brother is shocked to find out that there is a god in the first place.  But he has information on Hannah. Things she hasn't told her friends.  She entered a pact with a demon to help her with her school work and was sent before the Council and banished from the University.  While there she attacked the Council.  But it wasn't really her it was the demon working through her who did so.  Hannah's other secret is that she is half-demon herself.  Dee's brother helps her get rid of their squid god, but unfortunately, it goes to the Rat Queen's home base of Palisades.

The Rat Queens go adventuring when they run into Vi's twin brother and his group of fellows he calls the Cat Kings which include an old mage, a fungus druid, and a walking mushroom.  He intends to follow her and help her out whether she needs it or not and hopefully knock some sense into her and get her to come home.  When they go up against a dragon, the Rat Queens take it down in hilarious fashion while her brother stabs it in the eye once it's down.

They meet The Chorus, a group of four creatures who hunt down religious cults but don't seem to do anything about them.  They were headed toward Palisades to look into the Squid problem.   The next day the Rat Queens and The Cat Kings head out and do something they vow never to do again: Loot a temple.

This book is hilarious in true Rat Queen's fashion.  Vi is a bit heartsick because Dave is under the Squid cult's spell and Hannah is embarrassed about her father staying with them and the things he does.  Braga the Orc is looking for a new group to hang with.  And Dee and Betty are having a blast.  This was a great book that I really loved.  I give it five out of five stars.

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The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict

This book is about Albert Einstein 's first wife, Mileva "Mitza" Maric, a Serbian woman with a limp whose parents didn't believe she had any hopes of a future with a husband but was rather brilliant with math and science and could possibly have a future as a professor and doing research.  Switzerland was a progressive country that was allowing women into its colleges and universities and Mileva was accepted into Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich.

She took up lodging at Engelbrecht Pension an all-girl boarding house where she became friends with Milana, Ruzica, and most especially Helena who also had a limp. She had never had friends before.as.She was always teased and ridiculed. In class, Dr. Weber was particularly hard on her because she was a woman and because she was Serbian. One student reaches out to.her and that student was Albert Einstein.  He flirted shamefully with her and she turned him down.  Her friend Ruzica talked her into going into one of the cafes where Einstein and his friends were having an intellectual discussion on science and she found herself drawn into the discussion. When Einstein found out about the women's playing music after dinner he showed up uninvited with his violin to play with Milena.  The other women don't much care for him, though.

Helena and Milena have made a pact to not have a man in their lives and to focus on their careers.  But soon, Helena has found a man to love and has broken the pact.  So, Milena doesn't see why she has to keep the pact too, especially when her mother is encouraging her to pursue romance even though her father is against it.  Einstein and Milena have talked about marriage and while Einstein has graduated now and is looking for work, which is hard because his teachers aren't giving him good recommendations due to his absentees from class and his disrespect toward them.  Milena took a semester off her second year in order to cool off her feelings for him and got behind in school which meant that she had to wait another year before she could take the test.

Einstein talks her into taking a vacation at Lake Como where they can make love before they get married.  Milena comes back pregnant and Einstein won't marry her without a steady job.  She flunks the exams due to her pregnancy and he refuses to come to her home to talk to her parents about the pregnancy.  He has a lead on a job in the Patent Office but for now, he's tutoring.  She takes the train up to the next stop to see him but he refuses to take the train up to the next stop to see her.  Eventually, her money runs out and she must go back home furious at him for not seeing her.  She has a baby girl that he asks her to leave with her parents six months later because he got the patent office job and he listed himself as unmarried and he can't show up with a child in tow.  So she does for now.

On a paper they worked on together he asks that she take her name off of it in order for him to get better job prospects when he shows it to a friend.   A year later their daughter comes down with scarlet fever and dies. On the way home riding the train, she comes up with the Theory of Relativity.  The year 1905 was known as Einstein's Year of Wonder.  He published four groundbreaking papers.  Milena's name was supposed to be on them but he took her name off of them.  She was furious. This cracked their marriage.  Not to mention the infidelity.  Einstein was a real bastard.

While this book plays a little fast and loose with the facts in that no one really knows what really happened and the author is imagining what she thinks happened, it is indeed a possibility.  You really feel sorry for Milena who loses everything in her association with Einstein.  This was a really good book that tells an incredible story.  I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

 I had become the embodiment of the old Serbian phrase, Kuca ne lexi na zemlji nego na zeni; the house doesn’t rest on the earth but on the woman.

-Marie Benedict (The Other Einstein p 175)

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The Whole Town's Talking by Fannie Flagg

In the 1870s Lordor Nordstrom left Sweden for America and sought good land to build a dairy farm on and he found it in Missouri.  When he had settled he put out ads in Swedish American newspapers for others to come and settle the area around him and they did along with two Germans and a Norweigan and by 1880 they had built a settlement they called Swede Town.  He set aside land for a cemetery in 1889 called Still Meadows and every originating family would get plots for free.

Lordor had gone to other Swede Towns close by but had not seen a woman to marry. So someone suggested he do a mail order bride and advertise in the paper for one.  So he did.  Katrina lived in Chicago and worked as a servant in a large household.  When she saw the ad she was curious and responded and sent back a picture of herself. Lordor sent her a picture of himself and that must have been enough because she agreed to marry him.  The two would fall in love and have two children, neither of whom had an interest in running the farm.  But the neighbor's son was very much interested in the cow business and Lordor took Andor under his wing and taught him everything he knew and then when he got too old to run the farm anymore he sold him the farm for a reasonable price with his promise that it would stay in the Nordstrom family (Andor married Katrina's niece Beatrice).

Andor and Beatrice tried very hard to have a child and had a couple of miscarriages until when they were thirty-six years old and they had Hanna Marie who sadly turned out to be deaf.  They had her home taught sign language and reading and writing until she was old enough to go to college and then they sent her off to college in Boston.  When she graduated she came home with a young man named Michael who was a little slick for Andor's tastes.  But Andor promised his wife he wouldn't look him up, which was a shame as he wasn't what he seemed and Hanna Marie marries him and her life doesn't go so well after that.

This book is filled with a cast of characters. I've only shown you a few.  Beatrice's sister, Elner is another one and she is a hoot.  Everyone loves Elner.  She collects animals and meets the most unusual people out on her farm.  Also, Lordor is the first person to die and go to Still Meadows but not too much later his wife joins him and the two talk to each other out there.  And as others join them the dead are talking up a storm at the cemetery while the living is talking all around town.  It's an interesting way to do a book.  In order for the dead to find out what's been going on is for someone to die and let them know or for someone to tell them at the gravesite, which rarely happens.  This book will make you angry and feel like throwing it against a wall.  You'll get so attached to the characters.  And want to kill some of them.  Flagg has done it again.  I give this book five out of five stars.

Quotes

Oh, I don’t know, Beatrice. Momma said having babies is awful painful. I think I’d just as soon have a litter of kittens myself.

-Fannie Flagg (The Whole Town’s Talking p 147)

She knew exactly where her behavior came from and how silly it was, bur, on the other hand, if she didn’t clean those blinds, who would?  She wasn’t drinking or taking drugs or robbing banks; she just had a thing for Clorox.

-Fannie Flagg (The Whole Town Is Talking p 346)

“Mrs. Bell, at what age did you begin to feel old?” “Well, the last time they took my picture for my driver’s license, it nearly scared me to death. ‘Mercy’, I thought. ‘When did my eyes get so squinty and all those chins show up?’ It’s best not to have your picture made or hear your voice on a tape machine. It can really depress you. I thought I was still cute, but I was wrong. I was an old lady with an old lady’s voice. It sure wrecked my high opinion of myself.” 

-Fannie Flagg (The Whole Town Is Talking p 401)

Although they really liked her, most people thought Tot was tough and bitter. Ans she could say some pretty cruel things. But bless her heart, the truth was that all along, she had been hopelessly in love with a man who wasn’t there. Unrequited love will turn even the sweetest people bitter.

-Fannie Flagg (The Whole Town Is Talking p 453)

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The Ultimate Spider-Man Vol 16: Deadpool by Brian MIchael Bendis (Writer), Mark Bagley (Penciler), Mark Brooks (Penciler), John Dell (Inker), Mark MCKenna (Inker), Danny Miki (Inker), Mark Morales (Inker), Jimy Palmiotti (Inker), Jaime Mendoza (Inker), Justin Ponsor (Colorist), Richard Isanove (Colorist), Laura Martin (Colorist), VC"s Cory Petit (Letterer)

Peter Parker has broken up with Mary Jane because it is just too dangerous for him to date anyone. But that's before he meets Kitty Pryde of the X-Men who can take care of herself.  She wears a different costume so they can try and make an attempt to date while outside of the costume.  After bringing in the Ringer, Kitty takes the electronic transport back to the mansion and Parker goes home.

But someone looking like Storm and Wolverine attack her at the mansion and the plane is sent back to Parker.  He hops on and is tricked by Kitty into getting aboard a ship with some of the X-Men head out to Genosha where they are kicked out of the plane.  He's met there by Colossus who tells him about being tricked himself.  They run into Scott and find the same story with him and figure out what they are dealing with a shapeshifter as well as someone named Deadpool who was paid to get them all on the island and let them fight with his Revealers, those who have had modifications done to their bodies.  

Nightcrawler and Storm show up to help and soon they find that they are being televised on TV by Mojo.  And soon Spider-Man and Kitty's romance is no longer a secret.  Who will win the ultimate battle?  Also included is a comic about Blade and a comic with Daredevil and the Punisher and how Spider-Man learns some hard truths.  

I"ve always loved the Deadpool comics, but this wasn't the Deadpool that I've known and loved.  He wasn't witty and funny like Spider-Man often is and he wasn't the good guy, or at least the guy in grey.  The other two comics were excellent and powerfully written.  I'm going to knock it off a star for Deadpool's portrayal while giving it four out of five stars for a still stellar book.

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spider-Man-Vol-16-Deadpool/dp/0785119272/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ultimate+spider-man+deadpool&qid=1573220751&sr=8-1

I Have a Bad Feeling About This by Jeff Strand

Sixteen-year-old Henry who is a geek and afraid of everything including sea horses and lobsters get talked into going to a Survival Camp run by a scary looking dude named Max, by his parents and his best friend Randy.  He arrives there and there are only three other campers there beside him and Randy. Stu, Jackie, who has green hair and is younger than the rest of them, and Erik, who is more adept than the rest of them.  Max tells them to turn over the electronics they weren't supposed to bring or it will be destroyed when he finds it.  So they madly scramble to give over phones, iPods, game boys, and the like.  But Jackie is holding out and Max stomps on it.  Henry for some reason gets up the guts to talk back to Max and tells him he can't do that or tell them to do push-ups.  Max begs to differ and Henry finds himself doing pushups till he pukes and sleeping outside that night.

While he's outside that night he meets Monica from the music camp a few miles away.  Henry thinks she's hot and nice and really cool.  But when he asks to use her phone to play a game on it he sees a message from her roommate about how her boyfriend had texted her looking for Monica.  She hasn't said anything about a boyfriend so Henry hasn't given up on her yet.

The first day there Henry hits a bullseye on the archery field.   The next day he isn't so lucky. He and Randy team up to build a shelter outdoors.  It falls apart and catches fire leaving Max to wonder where he went wrong.  The other team only did marginally better.  That night Monica will bring some friends from her camp to the Survival Camp. While Henry doesn't have to sleep outside, he sneaks out to wait for Monica in case she arrives.  Monica wants to scare the boys inside their building and they do by screaming a bit in front of the boys' cots.  They freak out for a second but then are pleasantly surprised.  Until Max arrives with a gun and shoots up the ceiling scaring everyone.  Henry tells him to calm down that it's just some girls from the other camp and Max calms down.  He tells the boys it's alright if the girls come over but they need to be quiet. But the girls don't come back over and the boys have no luck finding their camp in the dark.

Every time Henry has to run, he has a tendency to trip and fall on his face.  Not to mention he can't run very far.  Then the Survival Games have started. You can get hit three times in the chest or twice in the arm or leg counting as one hit.  There are weapons in boxes around the forest as well as other goodies.  While they are off playing the game, Max gets a visit from the mafia who is owed money by Max's boss who told them that Max was actually his partner and who had the money. Max explains this to them and that the kids have left for the summer.  They kill Max just as Henry is coming back to camp after being the first person to get killed by Erik.  Henry manages to get away from them and runs into the woods finding Erik who he tells what is going on, but Erik doesn't believe him at first.  But once he does it becomes only a matter of time before the others come back to camp and meet up with the bad guys so they must find a way to protect the others.

What follows is a madcap adventure of the campers versus the bad guys in a hilarious adventure fit for the movie it will eventually be turned into.  This camp will teach Henry that there are more important things to fear than seahorses and that he could have spent a good deal of time swimming rather than being afraid of the water and that he's tougher than he thought he was.  Monica is one tough girl who can seriously kick ass.  Randy is pretty tough himself and a good best friend to have.  Erik isn't all he's cracked up to be.  This book is funny as hell and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Wilderness Survival Tip! Rest forty-five minutes for every hour that you hike. If you’re hiking fast or over rough terrain, increase that number to forty-nine. Hiking isn’t any fun if your legs get tired.

-Jeff Strand (I Got a Very Bad Feeling About This p 29)

Wilderness Survival Tip! If you need to start a fire, you and burn the pages of this very book.  Yes, you’ll hurt the author’s feelings, but that’s okay. Your life is more important.  (If you’re reading this as an e-book, setting it on fire is not recommended.)

-Jeff Strand (I Got A Bad Feeling About This p 42)

Wilderness Survival Tip! I hate to be Mr. Obvious but really, the best way to survive the wilderness is to stay inside. Sure, the outdoors has some cool stuff to see and do, but is it that cool?

-Jeff Strand (I Got a Bad Feeling About This p 75)

You can’t start a fire on purpose, but you can build a shelter that bursts into flames when if falls apart?  How is that even possible by any known laws of nature?

-Jeff Strand (I Got a Very Bad Feeling About This p 77)

“Sir?” asked Henry. “I drank the water too.” “Why?” “Because Randy asked me if I thought it tasted funny. It did, but we figured maybe you just put some weird flavoring in there.” Jackie raised his hand. “Sir? I drank some too. They asked if I could identify the flavor.” “And what did you think it was?” “Wheatgrass.” Max sighed. “Stu? Erik?” “I smelled it,” said Stu. “Can these parasites get in through your nose?” “Normally I’d say no, but I think you’d find a way to make it happen.”

-Jeff Strand (I Got a Very Bad Feeling About This p 84-5)

Henry if you drown in water that doesn’t even come up to your waist, I will go after your entire family. I mean it.

-Jeff Strand (I Have a Very Bad Feeling About This p 103)

Items Henry felt would have been useful when he was rushing out to attack a gun-wielding madman: a pitchfork, a pickax, a power source with a cord he wouldn’t trip over, ninja stars, an automobile with iron spikes on the front grille, a voodoo doll of Chad, a cow to use as a shield, three machetes tied together, a wheelbarrow filled with broken glass, Jackie Chan, A fully charged Taser, a shockingly vicious gerbil, a water pistol that contained acid instead of water (but not acid that would eat through the gun itself, which would be inconvenient), an aerodynamic wrench for throwing, a backup wrench  for bashing, bottle rockets, a chainsaw that would start on the first three tugs, a gun, rotten eggs, Excalibur, a baseball bat (wooden or aluminum---no preference),  a shaken-up can of Moutain Dew, one of those metal things you use to poke a burning firewood, an artificial limb (To use as a bludgeoning device not for locomotion), better shows, a bullwhip, a bull to whip, some variety of rocket, Captain America’s shield, Thor’s hammer, Black Widow’s costume for Monica to wear, a reliable flamethrower, a spear, an electric razor (which would do no real damage but might cause Chad to stop and thing Why is he running at me with an electric razor? Which would prove to be a deadly lapse of concentration), a potted plant, an orangutan, something with poison on it, a laptop computer that he didn’t mind breaking over somebody’s head, the power to control space and time, a lengthy screwdriver, a totally badass-looking piece os wood covered razor wire and rusty nails, roller skates, a tire iron, a javelin—come to think of it, the roller skates wouldn’t be very helpful on the uneven dirt ground, so he canceled that wish—a Model 1881 Gatling gun with the Bruce-style feed system (U.S. Patents 247,158 and 343,532), a pocketknife, a shark, and/or a scimitar.

-Jeff Strand (I Have a Bad Feeling About This p 167-8)

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The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen

 Ava blames her brother-in-law's death on herself because he was at her house and supposed to stay the night while her sister was at the hospital on-call but he left and she couldn't keep him there that New Year's Night and he drove drunk and died.  She slowly pulled away from her sister, Lucy and lost herself in the bottle.  She also got behind on writing her book of recipes.  So she decided to go to Maine for inspiration to a house called Brodie's Walk where the previous tenant left in a hurry making the rent cheap.  Also, two carpenters would be working on the widow's walk and the turret.

Ava is visited by a ghost, Jeremiah Brodie, the man who built the house 150 years ago who was lost at sea.  He promises she will get what she will deserve and that no harm will come to her as long as she is under that roof.  He knows she has a dark secret and that she did something bad that needs to be punished for and he's just the man to eke out that punishment and the pleasure.

She finds a much-beloved cookbook and an expensive Hermes scarf in the house that belonged to the former tenant, Charlotte, and she tries to send them back to her at her home in Boston but they come back to her. So she drives up to Boston to try to return them to her in person but her neighbor says she's still in Maine.  Her only forwarding address is the PO Box back in Maine and they say they don't have a forwarding address for her but that her box is overflowing.  On top of that the police have discovered a washed-up dead body of a woman.  Could it be Charlotte?

Dr. Ben Gordon, the local catch in town, is interested in Ava, but after nights with Jeremiah will a human man ever be enough again?  She goes out with him and tries really hard to like him because he's so nice, but she just can't seem to feel anything.  The police believe that the carpenter Ned Haskell is the one who killed the woman found because he was suspected of killing a girl who went missing five years ago.

Ava seeks out the help of a ghost hunter who believes that she needs to leave the house or she'll be trapped there forever until she dies.  Cut off from everyone.  That the ghost has a type and she fits the bill and the house has a long history of women dying alone in the house.

This is an interesting book that is part ghost story part story of punishment and redemption.  Ava is punishing herself for a mistake that anyone could have made and formed an unnatural relationship with a ghost who partly scares the hell out of her.  And she can't seem to find her way out of the bottom of a bottle.  You feel sorry for Ben who is so nice that Ava isn't giving him a chance.  I really loved this book. It lives up to Gerritsen's previous great work.  I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

There’s something about a warm and purring cat pressed against you that sets the world right.

-Tess Gerritsen (The Shape of Night p 18)

A ghost, afterall, is every woman’s perfect lover. I don’t need to charm or amuse him, or worry that I’m too old or toof at or too plain. He won’t crowd my bed at night or leave his shoes and socks strewn around the room. He materlializes when I need to be loved the way I want to be loved, and in the morning he conveniently vanishes into thin air. I never neeed to cool him breakfast.

-Tess Gerristsen (The Shape of Night p 68)

We keep our darkest secrets to ourselves. We keep them, most of all from those we love.

-Tess Gerristsen (The Shape of Night p 196)

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Jody Houser (Writer), Emilio Laiso (Artist), Paolo Villianelli (Artist), Oscar Bazaldua (Artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (Colorist), VC"s Clayton Cowles (Letterer)

 
Jyn Erso is separated from her father at a young age when the Empire kidnaps him to go and work on the Death Star.  Her mother is killed in the process.  She is raised by Saw Gerrera a member of the Rebel Alliance who leaves her when she is sixteen.  Jyn has been arrested and is in Imperial hands.

An Imperial pilot arrives on the doorstep of the Resistance saying he has a message for Saw Gerrera and he was sent by Gallen Erso that what the Empire has been working on is a planet killer.  The job is to get Jyn Erso out of prison so Captain Casian Andor and the robot KayToo (K2SO) go to break her out and she resists KayToo's attempts to help her until he forces her to go.  They need her to get them through the door to Saw's encampment.  They tell her she'll go free if she helps them.

They run into trouble with Imperial Guards and the Kyber Chrystal watchers Chirrut and Baze help them by getting rid of the Guards.  Jyn gets them into see Saw who is interrogating the pilot.  He has a message from Galen who says that he slipped in a defect into the design of the Death Star in the reactor module that would blow it up to bits.  But they need to go to Scarif to get the plans to see where to drop the bomb.  The Empire has decided to test the Death Star on the city they are in so they must head out quickly.  In the Imperial ship, the pilot stole they leave with Captain Andor, KayToo, the pilot,  Chirrut, Baze, and Jyn.

They head to Yavin 4 to the Rebellion Base to talk to the leaders about Gallen's message and what to do about it.  The different people argue and eventually, they come to a consensus that they shouldn't try to go and get the plans.  But the group from Jedha believes they should and plans on going anyway. Some of the soldiers agree to go with them.  They decide to name their ship Rogue One and take the Imperial ship.  Admiral Raddus sends troops along to help them when he finds out they've gone.

At the end of this comic is another comic that tells the story of how Captain Andor met KayToo and how he came to reprogram him while on a mission.  Jyn is a tortured young woman who loses her family all for the Rebellion cause and yet still fights for this cause because it's the right thing to do.  Captain Andor has a special relationship with the amazing KayToo who speaks its mind and Andor has to make hard decisions.  This book is filled with very interesting characters that won't all make it to the end.  I loved this comic and give it five out of five stars.

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Rogue-One-Adaptation-ebook/dp/B076C2KMC9/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=Rogue+one%2C+a+star+wars+story&qid=1572622468&s=books&sr=1-6