Black History Month Series: Welcome

Hello cyberspace!

It’s been a long time, but I’m back with a series on Black History Month. We’ll be looking at, of course, black history. But I’m also interested into looking forward. Let’s talk about black futures, black fantasies, and black science fiction. I’ll be writing at least a review a week and hoping to hit a few authors and books off the beaten path. To get us stared, here’s a couple of recommendations from my last year of reading:

• N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy

If you’ve been hearing about these books everywhere, good. If this is your first time, welcome. The Broken Earth is an amazing fantasy trilogy consisting of The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. Frankly, any discussion of the series will spoil the fun of figuring out the world as you go, so I recommend stopping this and reading now. But if you need more than that, read on.

The Fifth Season takes place in a place called The Stillness which is prone to massive geological disasters called Fifth Seasons which can span from a few years to generations. The entire culture of the Stillness is built around survival during Fifth Seasons. That includes their treatment of orogenes, people with the magical ability to influence and manipulate the earth. Orogenes are feared, ostracized, and virtually enslaved by a system used to control them and use their powers to keep those who persecute them safe. The story starts following three women: Damaya, Seinite, and Essun through this world and a Season that might change it all.

The series is masterful fantasy with compelling characters, relationships you want to root for, a world that’s a joy to learn about and explore, and narrative twists that are among the best I’ve ever read. It’s also an important exploration of prejudice, persecution, and how a civilization will build itself on the backs of those who are different from them. It’s a must read for fans of fantasy, strong women of color, well-executed social commentary, and great writing.

• Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler is one of the masters of science fiction. She’s known for strong women of color as protagonists, and for writing deft social commentary and part of excellent science fiction.

Possibly her best known work is Kindred, which follows a smart, independent black woman married to a white man in the then-modern era of the 1980s as she is repeatedly transported back in time to the South in the time of slavery. The book is a harrowing look at the brutality of slavery and the effect it has on the mind and soul, as well as the relationships between black women and white men.

I highly recommend her series Lilith’s Brood, which was previously known as Xenogenesis. In the books Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago, Bulter explores an alien species called the Oankali which adopts dying species into their lives and culture. The titular Lilith is a black woman who has been awoken in this culture and has to explore it, learn about it, and ultimately figure out how she will become a part of it. Finally, I’d recommend the Earthseed duo: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. These two books follow protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina through an apocalyptic world as she struggles to survive and eventually goes on to found a new faith, Earthseed. It was my first exposure to Butler’s incredible worlds and still the one I’m usually first to recommend.

I hope you’ll get started with these suggestions and join me for exploring more this month!

Required Reading: Neverwhere

I was introduced to Neil Gaiman years ago when I read American Gods and Anansi Boys, but it’s taken me awhile to get around to reading his other iconic novel: Neverwhere.

Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew, your average London office drone with an awful fiancé and boring life until he makes the choice to stop and offer aid to a young woman he finds injured in the street. The young woman is the Lady Door, and she comes from the magical world of London Below. Soon Richard finds himself unwillingly sucked into her world of places and people time forgot. There he joins Door on a journey to find out who killed her family, always one step ahead of sinister mercenaries sent to finish her off.

I actually started Neverwhere by reading the graphic novel version back in December. While it wasn’t my favorite graphic novel (not an art style I love), it was enough to pique my interest and convince me to pick up the full book. It was an interesting experience to read the book not so much for plot as for depth. In true Gaiman style, there is plenty of depth. The world of London Below is imaginative, surprising, and a delight to explore. It’s a mix of the magical and the truly creepy that was fun to spend time in.

The very idea that a city is full of places and people that have been forgotten is engaging. And it’s fun to see imaginative twists on how those worlds keep going without us. It’s also clear that Gaiman knows and loves London, and that gives the book charming depth that may have gone over my head. As someone who’s only been to London once as a child, I’m sure there were many jokes and references I didn’t get. I never felt lost in London Below though, unlike our poor protagonist.

Richard Mayhew isn’t the most exciting narrator. I can’t tell if he’s supposed to be a blank slate or something special. To me he was just another white boy we’re told is special for plot reasons. Fine. I’ll go with it. I also never got a clear picture of Lady Door. Was she childish or strong? A leader or lost? I know you can be both, but her character seemed unclear.

On the flip side, the novel is full of side characters that are crystal clear and likely to stick with you. The standout characters for me were Hunter, Mr. Croup, and Mr. Vandemar. Hunter is fascinating as the legendary fighter and bodyguard with an addiction to hunting. It can be hard to write stoic characters that don’t get boring or feel flat, but Hunter succeeds where others fail. The tireless and sadistic henchmen for hire Croup and Vandemar are deeply terrifying. Part of the magic of the story is that we never delve into their details, but these two appear eternal and love to cause pain. Their cold, formal, calculated brutality is chilling and fascinating. I expect they will stick with me long after hundreds of other characters have sunk like London Below into the bogs of memory.

Reading The Glamourist Histories

Earlier this week I wrote about Shades of Milk and Honey, the first book in Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories series. The basic premise of the books is a version of Jane Austin’s Regency England, with the addition of a decorative magic known as glamour. Shades of Milk and Honey follows Jane Ellsworth as she overcomes her own beliefs that she is accomplished but too plain to find love, saves her sister from a dubious suitor who would ruin her reputation, and (spoiler alert!) finds the love of her life in the professional glamourist Vincent.

Shades of Milk and Honey is a delightful Pride and Prejudice style romp that ends with the proposal. After that, Mary Robinette Kowal wrote four more books that chronicle the first four years or so of Jane and Vincent’s marriage. It took me about two and a half weeks to read all 5 books, so I thought I would write a sort of collective review and overview of the rest of the series. The basics are that if you loved Shades like I did, you’ll probably enjoy Glamour in Glass, Without a Summer, Valour and Vanity, and Of Noble Family.

The second book, Glamour in Glass follows Jane and Vincent on what is supposed to be a working honeymoon to Belgium. They quickly run into two big problems. The first is political as Napoleon escapes from his first exile and brings fear and danger to the continent. The second is more personal as Mrs. Kowal introduces one of the more interesting twists in her magical universe: glamour is considered a womanly art, but it’s dangerous for a woman to work glamour while in the family way, so to speak.

A book by a modern author about the Regency era with a female protagonist is automatically going to run into questions about the rights and place of women in society. One of the overarching themes of the series is Jane finding a way to work side by side with her husband in a profession they both adore at a time where the political and social norms make that very difficult. Adding in the physical manifestation of pregnancy and glamour not mixing heightens and complicates that theme in ways I found fascinating.

Glamour in Glass is less of a direct Jane Austin homage and more of an adventure novel than its predecessor. Here we leave the drawing room behind and find Jane and Vincent doing more hands on work. There’s also a healthy dose of espionage and straight up action as the danger from Napoleon becomes more and more real.

The third book, Without a Summer, returns to the romantic intrigue that made the first novel so unique. This installment finds Jane and Vincent taking Jane’s sister Melody to London to help her secure a good husband. But their work becomes entangled with plots that will endanger Melody’s prospects and their lives. This book delves much more deeply into Vincent’s troubled past. He gave up a life as the son of a powerful and hyper-strict Earl to become a working artist. But family doesn’t let go that easily, and Without a Summer explores his troubling family dynamic with intrigue to spare. This book also starts a trend in the series where it seems like the author was trying out different genres. Without a Summer is a little bit of a court room drama, which is fun to read.

If the third book is a courtroom drama, the fourth, Valour and Vanity is a heist book. Here Jane and Vincent are back on the road, this time in Venice. They find themselves swindled and have to try to swindle the swindlers to get back their lives and livelihoods. This book was the weakest in the series because while it’s a little fun to stretch the characters beyond their comfort zones, without the aristocratic drama of the earlier books, a lot of what makes these books unique disappears. Sure there’s some nice character development for Jane and Vincent, but it wasn’t as compelling as the previous books.

Finally the series finishes with Of Noble Family which finds Jane and Vincent journeying to Antigua to take care of affairs on Vincent’s father’s estate. This book wraps up the series with more of Vincent’s drama with his father, as well as Jane and Vincent finally undertaking the terrifying journey of starting a family of their own. This book is also the longest and most ambitious as Mrs. Kowal tries not only to finish the series, but to take on the issue of slavery on a Caribbean plantation. That’s a lot to accomplish in one book, but it does wrap up the series nicely while continuing the trend of expanding the scope of the books.

The series has several really interesting arcs that are certainly fun to follow and explore. At its heart the series is truly about the romance of Jane and Vincent as they work together to create art and a life that makes them both happy. Tied into that is the aforementioned struggle for Jane to build a satisfying life as a smart, independent woman in a society that did not value women. It’s a delight to watch the characters learn and grow through their struggles.

It’s also interesting to see a modern take on the Regency period for other reasons. There’s more racial and socio-economic diversity that one would expect from books on the period. It helps that Mary Robinette Kowal is a self-professed nerd. She worked hard to make sure that she kept the historical detail ridiculously accurate and authentic, which also means acknowledging the many strata of society present in the time, not just the ones we’re used to hearing about. The author’s notes at the end of each book are full of fun historical tidbits. There’s also the revelation that there’s a Doctor Who Easter egg in each book. I told you the author was a nerd. Fun, easy reading adventures with a complex female lead written by a detail loving nerd. It’s no wonder I enjoyed this series so much.

Required Reading: Shades of Milk and Honey (The Glamourist Histories #1)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a novel possessed of a good reputation must be in want of a parody. The immortal Jane Austin has proven this point by the staggering number of homages, parodies, and imitators she has accumulated since Pride and Prejudice became a classic. From the countless books that are essentially Austin fan-fiction to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Ms. Austin has no shortage of fans. Count among these fans one Mary Robinette Kowal, the author of Shades of Milk and Honey.

Shades of Milk and Honey has a pretty simple premise: it’s like a Jane Austin book but with magic. Mrs. Kowal has created a version of Regency England where a form of magic known as glamour is accounted one of the womanly arts all upper class ladies are educated in – along with needlework and music. Glamour is a mostly decorative art form used to create images along with music, life-like murals that include wind and smell, and even the occasional cooling breeze. This isn’t powerful, scary, dragon-fighting magic, but part of polite parlor conversation suitable for young ladies. It’s a delightfully different take on magic, and it fits well into a Jane Austin-esque story.

Shades of Milk and Honey follows the story of the two young Ellsworth daughters: Jane and Melody.. Melody is beautiful, charming, and will almost certainly gain a husband. Jane is her accomplished but plain older sister who has virtually resigned herself to spinsterhood at the ripe old age of 28. The story is told from Jane’s point of view as she accompanies her sister to dances and tries not to be jealous of her looks and charm. Of course that’s made difficult when Melody and Jane both have high regard for the same eligible bachelor. But the intrigue grows as two new gentlemen join the local society: a gruff and mysterious professional glamourist, and a dashing young Captain who may be up to no good.

The book is an obvious and lovely homage to Jane Austin’s most famous work. Jane and Melody have many things in common with Jane and Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice fame. Their restrictive world of high stakes courtship will be familiar to anyone familiar with the period. Their family situation also feels similar to the Bennet’s. They live on a similarly sized estate in a similarly small town. They have a doting and wise father, although they lack the gaggle of other sisters and instead have a hypochondriac mother. And the intrigue of trying to establish emotional connections and find a husband is much the same. Clearly Mary Robinette Kowal is a studied fan of Jane Austin and she does her source material proud.

Now don’t get me wrong. Shades of Milk and Honey is not high art on a level with Pride and Prejudice. It relies on a few more cliches, but it does so as a literary short hand so it can get to the point it wants to make, which is the magic. Magic and romance are the names of the game and the book delivers both. The details of glamour are specific enough to keep world-building fans happy, but not so detailed that they bog down the book with too much minutia. And the descriptions of finished glamour pieces are gorgeous and make me want to live in a world where such a thing is possible.

I’ll also note that this book has a bit more action in it that its predecessor. Jane has a certain modern spunk that leads her to take action when her family is threatened and makes the book’s 300 or so pages flash by too soon. I devoured the book in three days myself. Basically if the premise “Jane Austin with magic” appeals to you, know that Shades of Milk and Honey delivers.

2015 Year in Review: Books

I don’t know why I’m surprised about this, but this year it’s become clear to me that this is a book blog. Sure, I’ve enjoyed reviewing TV shows and movies that I’m watching, but most of the posts I’ve written and most of the posts that people have responded to have been about books or comic books. Looking back at everything I’ve read this year, it’s been a great year in books. Choosing favorites is almost impossible for me, but here goes nothing.

Favorite New Book: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

I’m going to throw in here the caveat that I’m terrible at reading books in the year they are released. I’m cheap and get most of my books second hand or from the library, so a book already has to get me excited for me to read it right away. As I discussed last week, Carry On did that for me. It got me hooked with a ridiculous and exciting premise and then delivered beyond what I imagined possible.

Honorable Mentions: Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor made this category really hard. I love the podcast. I loved the book. I love everything Night Vale and want to talk about it always. Look for a review soon where I do just that. I was also impressed by The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi and The Martian by Andy Weir (which was released in 2014).

Favorite Older Book: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Lillith’s Brood, and The Windup Girl

This is totally taking the easy way out, but I read widely this year and have a hard time comparing apples, oranges, and grapes. So these are the three books in wildly different styles that all stuck with me this year. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is the spooky epic fantasy novel to beat. It’s haunting, gorgeously detailed, clever, and truly lovely. Lillith’s Brood is an amazing science fiction epic. I’m probably already cheating by lumping the three books in this trilogy into one, but they’re each a part of this giant, ambitious whole that tackles big issues like xenophobia and what makes us human. And finally The Windup Girl was a shockingly plausible speculative fiction world stocked with memorable characters on one hell of a journey.

So what do you think? What new books this year did I miss? What classics should I make sure to read next year?

Required Reading: Carry On

Sometimes there are ideas that sound too silly to be true. Like a celebrated novelist writing a book about fanfiction, and then deciding to go ahead and write the book that she was writing fake fanfiction for. But you guys, Carry On is so real.

I loved Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, which is basically about a girl writing slash fanfiction for a book that is meant to be a stand in for the Harry Potter books. And then Rainbow Rowell announced that she had enjoyed writing snippets of the fantasy novels so much that she was actually going to write one. And oh yes, it is a gay love story.

So in October, she released Carry On which follows the Chosen One, a young wizard named Simon Snow, through his final year at the private magical school. Simon is determined to finish school, beat back the magical world’s terrible enemy, The Insidious Humdrum, and we all know he’s probably falling for his arch-nemesis and roommate, Baz.

Frankly I was super excited about this concept, but expected that the actual book would just be fun, but probably a little stupid and derivative. So I started reading the book and checking off all the Harry Potter similarities in my mind. Chosen Boy. Check. Orphan. Check. Raised among Muggles, I mean Normals? Check. Magical school? Check. Intimate relationship with the headmaster/father figure? This guy is no Dumbledore, but check. Sidekick friend who’s smarter than him? Check.

But after the first 75 pages or so, it became obvious that Rainbow Rowell didn’t just write one giant internet joke or piece of fan service. She legitimately wrote a fantasy novel about a chosen one as only Rainbow Rowell could do it.

Carry On is a much more intimate novel than the Harry Potter series. Everything is more personal. Part of that is because it’s equal parts love story and magical epic. Part of that is just what type of story Rowell is interested in telling. And part of that is that because (mild spoilers?) there’s a much more intimate relationship between hero and villain that we’ve ever seen before.

I have to give a shout out to Rainbow Rowell on her supporting cast. In a gay slash fic, it would be easy to focus only on the two boys and leave the ladies out of it entirely, but that’s not how Ms. Rowell rolls. So Snow’s best friend Penelope is as essential to his success as Hermione’s ever was to Harry’s. But not only is Penelope interesting, so is the journey of Agatha, Snow’s school sweetheart. Agatha is the character that allows Ms. Rowell to explore the relationship of her wizarding world with the outside world. Instead of its own insular magical society, Rowell’s world of magic is more interconnected and more dependent on Normal people. So maybe not everyone wants to leave the normal world forever. And maybe that’s ok.

Carry On not just a funny Meta joke, it’s a touching, sincere, page-turner of a novel that kept me engaged and engrossed from beginning to end and made me reconsider what fantasy can be.

Required Reading: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

If you’re reading this, I firmly believe you have a favorite book. It might not be cool. It might not be high-brow. But you’ve got it. It’s a book that meant the world to you once. Maybe the book helped you make friends or tied you closer to the friends you do have. Maybe it was your friend when you didn’t have any others. Maybe you grew up with it. Maybe you wrote fan fiction for it. But it changed your life and you wouldn’t be the same without it. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a love letter to that book.

Actually, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a love letter to many things. To books certainly, but also to technology and the places where old and new intersect. It’s a love letter to design and to craftsmanship and to San Francisco. It’s also a really fun read.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore tells the story of Clay Jannon, a web-designer who finds himself desperately unemployed during the recession and takes a job as the night clerk in a beautifully old fashioned bookstore. He soon discovers that the bookstore holds a mystery and sets out with a team of friends to solve it, and not the old fashioned way.

This book in a magical mix of old and new. Our heroes describe themselves like a Dungeons & Dragons adventuring party, but are armed with search engines, data-mining, and super-fast Mac Books instead of arrows, swords, and spell books. They are solving a 500 year old mystery, but using up to the minute technology. And that works really well. It’s perfect for people like me who love both their cracked old 70s Lord of the Rings hardcovers and their Kindles. It’s hacker-cool retro chic. It’s Ready Player One for bibliophiles (except way better written).

But that’s not what I love most about the book. What I love is that it’s also a love letter to the books that shaped us a kids and teenagers. What’s memorable about Clay as a character isn’t anything he’s doing or thinking. That’s all pretty archetypal or run of the mill hacker/sleuth/adventurer stuff. What’s memorable is his friendship with his old middle-school buddy Neel and the way they created an inseparable bond around the fictional Dragon Song Chronicles. That book-based relationship was so real, so true, and so lovely. It brought me back to pretending to be Animorphs with my elementary school best friend. It brought me back to talking the intricate details of The Lord of the Rings with my middle school friends. It’s truly the heart of the story, and it’s a beautiful tribute to the stories that shape us.

So no, the book wasn’t perfect. Its mystery, once solved, wasn’t earth-shattering. Like many of the genres it looks up to, it’s pretty guy-heavy. But going back to the first time I cracked my own favorite dragon-encrusted fantasy novels, what I demand from my books isn’t perfection – it’s magic and heart. And Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore has those in spades.

The Saga Begins/I Begin Saga

At this point, basically anyone who’s following comic books has probably told you that Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga series is amazing. Words like genius, brilliant, and “one of the standout comic books of the last decade” have all been thrown around by people a lot smarter and faster on the uptake than me.

So after devouring Volume 1 & 2 today, I’m going to try not to say all of those things, and say instead that I think comic books like this one are exactly what we need in order to get people into comics.

The whole point of this blog is that I’m working on educating myself about parts of nerd culture I’ve missed, and front and center in that curriculum are comic books. I didn’t read my first graphic novel until a friend handed me Watchmen in college. Frankly that was the first time comic books entered my orbit. I was a young girl in the world before the Marvel Comic Universe took over our lives and multiplexes, comic books weren’t really a thing for me and my friends.

But lo how the world has changed in the last twenty years. Comic books have blown up in a big way, and I’ve slowly found myself getting closer and closer to their orbit. But how do you even begin to approach a medium you hardly understand? I think it’s telling that the comic that brought me to comics is Lumberjanes. “Hold the phone,” I can hear you saying, “I thought this was a review of Saga.” I’m getting there.

Lumberjanes was my first title because I had been following Noelle Stevenson for years, and if she’s writing it, I was damn sure going to read it. But Lumberjanes was also my starting point because it was accessible. As an independent comic book, it doesn’t have all the intimidating history and weight of a DC or Marvel comic. There aren’t really ground rules you’re supposed to go in knowing. It’s just good clean fun, and that’s what I also find appealing about Saga.

Saga is a story that you don’t have to know anything about comics to enjoy. Brian K. Vaughan is creating a fantasy world that’s totally new and fresh. It doesn’t have baggage, and basically no matter how big of a nerd you are, we’re all starting from the same place. And what a place to start. The first moment tells you so much you need to know. A woman with wings is freaking out because she thinks she might be pooping on her horned husband while giving birth to their daughter, who has both wings and horns. Welcome to the world of Saga, where the facts are preposterous and fantastical, but the human emotions are familiar. And really, that’s the second piece of brilliance in Saga – the emotions and real and accessible. I may not have wings or children, but I know what it feels like to be freaked out and embarrassed by what my body is doing. I may have never been on the run from magical creatures or robot-headed armies, but I know what it’s like to feel cornered, singled out, and out of control of my own life. Who doesn’t? And that’s the magic of Saga.

Saga is so accessible, but that’s not the only thing that’s making it my official comics recruitment tool. Saga also has amazing, diverse, and well-rounded characters. From the good guys to the bad guys, these people are complex, contradictory and human (even when they’re actually floating teenage ghosts, or robot-headed royalty). This story screams come one, come all. This is a world with a place for you in it. A violent, sarcastic place, but a place nonetheless.

Finally, let’s get down to the real reason that this is the comic for you to give to that friend who never got your comics obsession: this story is COOL! Saga gets that part of the joy of comic books is that they connect you to your inner child. Comics give you crazy awesome things you won’t find anywhere else, and Saga provides that in spades. There’s a spaceship that is also a giant treehouse. WHO DOESN’T WANT A TREEHOUSE SPACESHIP? Finally, the art is stunningly beautiful, and sure to make those new to the medium understand how powerful it can be to wed words and glorious images like these to tell a story.

So if anyone tells you they might be interested in picking up a comic book for the first time, don’t try and catch them up on the 70 year history of the Dark Knight, or give them a comic book continuation of their favorite movie or TV show. Show them the full power and fun of comics by giving them the wide, wild, welcoming world of Saga.

The Mission. Quest. Thing.

Raise your hand if you’re a nerd!

Raise your hand if anyone has ever tried to make you feel like less of a nerd because you didn’t know about some other aspect of nerding.

Raise your hand if you found it strange and off-putting that instead of letting you enjoy your enthusiasm, someone was trying to make you feel inferior.

Congratulations, if you raised your hand (or, you know, just emotionally raised your hand because you’re on a bus right now and don’t want people to think you’re weird) to any or all of the above questions, this is the blog for you.

The Origins Story

My name is Jessica and I’m a nerd. I can distinctly remember the first time I saw Star Wars.  And I even more distinctly remember going into Kindergarten the next day and trying to explain to a future-cheerleader what a mind-blowing thing I had just experienced. It was impossible to articulate how much my life had just changed and how awesome this movie was. My Mother was a secret Trekkie. My Father read me the Lord of the Rings. I grew up with Harry Potter. I can speak a little Elvish when pestered. I play D&D. But I also have a life.

I grew up with nerdy things, but not exclusively. I didn’t watch a lot of TV back in the day. Still don’t compared to some. I missed a lot. And it never fails that I’ll be out at a con, or a nerdy MeetUp, and someone will bring up some classic piece of the nerd cannon, and all I can do is smile and nod. Or admit, I haven’t seen/read/played/ever even fucking heard of it. I didn’t read my first comic book, or experience my first Joss Whedon creation until I was 20. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

On the bright side, my verbal skills have gone way up since Kindergarten. I now have the words to express the way I feel when something awesome comes along and rocks my world. And the urge to share how excited I am about this cool new stuff, it hasn’t gone away. So this blog is a documentation of an experiment. I’m setting out to give myself the nerd education of a lifetime. I want to track down the things I’ve missed, and I want to share my newfound love for thirty year old movies, and decade old TV shows with you. And I want to hear what you’re reading and seeing and doing that’s rocking your world, be it for the first time, or the thousandth time.

So come one, come all. Bring me your converts, your former sheltered kids, your people who saw the movie first, your fangirls who only started watching Doctor Who because that Doctor guy was cute, your fanboys who’ve never bothered to read the book before now, your casual fans, your hardcore nerds with recommendations galore, your huddled cosplayers yearning to go squee. The only rules are that discovery is awesome and acceptance is key. Science Fiction, fantasy, and enthusiasm are for everyone. Let’s explore them together.