Lucas Blogs About Books

Yup! Five-ish months in and I'm still sticking with the same picture. No regrets. The Intro Welcome back to  Whan That Month  — Lucas Blogs About The Canterbury Tales . Two months ago , I tackled the third fragment, comprising tales told by the Wife of Bath (named, Alisoun, natch!), the Friar, and the Summoner. A good time was had by all. This month I start in on the fourth fragment, starting with "The Clerk's Tale" and I gotta say this one looks like it'll be a bit more like "The Man of Law's Tale" from a few months ago. A lengthy morality play with an out of date moral. But you never know, I could be wrong. The Hold-up, A Clerk Like the Guy who Checks You out at the Store? No, a clerk (pronounced "clark") is more like a medieval college student. But since medieval universities were affiliated with the Catholic Church, presumably the clerk is preparing for a career in the clergy. That said, if we judge by The Canterbury Tales , college st...

True story, the Krackle effect actually emanated from Jack Kirby's person during moments of inspiration. Also, any statement immediately following or preceding the phrase "true story" is a lie. So, what's this book's deal? Well, as you might guess from the title: Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics is a comic book biography of Jack Kirby (né Jacob Kurtzberg) one of the most influential comic book artists of the Twentieth (or any other) Century. It's written and drawn by Tom Scioli. You may recall that in the past I have expressed enthusiasm for comic books based on characters created by or evoking the style of Jack Kirby. You may have mentioned him a few times, yes. Heck yes, I have! Even before I knew who he was I was a fan of his creations. I loved the X-Men, Iron Man, and Fantastic 4 cartoons in the 90s. I'll give you the X-Men but the Iron Man and FF cartoons in the 90s sucked. I don't deny that, but I loved them. I especially lo...

Uh-oh, better keep this book away from Green Lantern! So, what's this book's deal? Well, hypothetical reader, Superman Smashes the Klan  is a collaboration between Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru (the work name of the Japanese artist team Chifuyu Sasaki and Naoko Kawano) who previously worked together on several volumes of comics about the continuing adventures of Aang et al. in the world of  Avatar: The Last Airbender . Though, as you might have guessed from the title, this comic book is about Superman. The Man of Steel Superman? The Man of Tomorrow Superman? Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound Superman? The very same. And specifically that version of the character. See, it's loosely based on a storyline from The Adventures of Superman  radio serial from the forties, where Superman takes on the Clan of the Fiery Cross. As you may be aware, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a resurgence following the release...

Yep, more Le Guin ! So, what's this book's deal? As you can see, it's another of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish novels. This time it's Planet of Exile  which, like Rocanon's World ,  includes both fantasy and science fiction tropes. Though it certainly does lean more into the science fiction side of the premise. The premise being? So, remember how the League of All Worlds is at war with some other unnamed faction? Vaguely. Well, that's still going on. However, it hasn't directly affected the planet of Werel, where this story takes place. Only indirectly? Yeah. See, the League has established a colony there, which is currently at relative peace with the local population. And by local population you mean who exactly. Well, the human settlers call them HILFs. Humanoids I'd Like to Fu— No! It stands for Highly Intelligent Life Forms. But yes, they are humanoid (again due to the spread of the ancient Hainish civilization) and yes, some of the settlers and so...