The Lampworks Lamplighter
SF & Fantasy News & Reviews
Graphic Novels Month
This month we are featuring graphic novels, those beautiful volumes that marry artwork with storytelling. The stories can be as deep and as moving as novels that employ only prose, but their form brings both freedom and constraints to tell stories in a different way.
The freedom, of course, is the artwork. Settings, characters, emotions, actions can all be expressed by the artwork. By lifting that burden from the text, the author can concentrate on the dialog and the storyline. Working together, the art and the text tells a story in a different way than a traditional novel.
That format brings constraints, as well. Dialog can’t run on for pages and pages. It has to be honed down to fit in the panels, where it has to take much less of the page than the artwork. Almost like distilling a scene or a thought to fit in the three lines of a haiku, the author has to think carefully about the impact of every word.
Most people know a few of the major graphic novels, especially those that have been turned into movies, such as Watchmen or V for Vendetta. We decided to feature a range of lesser-known titles that have entertained us. We hope you enjoy our selections below.
All the Reviews – Online!
We’ve reviewed nearly a hundred books for our newsletter and are adding a bunch more every month. These are all books we like and recommend. (We just don’t talk about the ones that don’t grab us.) If you’re looking for something to read, check out our Books We Like page on our website. It’s searchable by genre, keywords, author, and more. All in a spiffy database for fast retrieval.
Our Short Stories
Our short stories are available for download for our subscribers. For the price of a single subscription (free!) you can download five short stories in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Please check them out, and don’t forget our novels Sellenria and Knots. They’re all on Amazon, where your reviews are always appreciated.
Midwinter Knots
Chuck Boeheim
A new short story in the world of Knots. Escher and Emeline have brought a tree into the house to decorate, and Trefoil the cat must investigate, of course. There’s something not quite right about this tree – they’ve brought trouble into the house along with it. It’s up to Trefoil to guard the house against the mayhem that ensues. If he doesn’t get put outside first.
Free download from StoryOrigin
Viral
Chuck Boeheim
Stories are repeated. They evolve. They are cross-bred and spliced. Ideas take on a life of their own. The oldest legends appear in the latest retellings. One day, by design or accident, it had to happen…
You shouldn’t read this. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Free download from StoryOrigin
The Ledger
Chuck Boeheim
The corpse showed up with an ax in its head and a map in its pocket. Chaucer had not been born yet, and crimes were common in London that year. But when Bartolomeo the Coroner found pages sewn in the victim’s jacket, pages in Bartolomeo’s own hand, he knew this wasn’t one of the common crimes.
Free download from StoryOrigin
Interaction Region
Chuck Boeheim
That place where you tripped? What if a prominent but slightly odd physicist told you that’s where two universes intersect, and you’ve just stumbled into a universe that’s just slightly different? What if he then recruited you to tour neighboring universes to assess their stability? What if you agreed to help out, then realized when you went home every evening, your spouse was a slightly different person?
A short science fiction story set at a modern-day accelerator laboratory, with a healthy dose of humor.
Free download from StoryOrigin
Void Birds
Chuck Boeheim
Lieutenant Yusmara is an unconventional starship pilot. She steers by rope and canvas, at least in metaphor. She’s at the helm of the Gemini as something pulls onto a parallel course. They are beyond the edge of Human space, and no Human ship has yet encountered intelligent aliens. The crew of the Gemini prepares for a historic encounter in which Yusmara is uniquely suited to play a role. They have no idea how strange it is going to be.
Free download from StoryOrigin
What We’re Reading
The Spire
Simon Spurrier
A distant calamity has left humanity shattered into dozens of forms, with the ‘pure’ humans living in a spire above the noxious fumes. Shå is the Captain of the police force, and a Sculpted, or in vulgar terms, a Skew. That makes her impure but gives her abilities that make her good at her job. She is a favorite of the old Marchioness, secretly the lover of the young princess, and at odds with the new Baroness. Her past is a mystery, even to her.
A series of murders threatens to expose old secrets and call into question who is human and who is ‘pure’. Both artwork and dialog are outstanding in this GN.
Buy on Bookshop.org amazon
Castle in the Stars
Alex Alice
The universe is made up of aether, and if a ship could be built that could fly in it, humans could explore outer space. Claire Dulac flew her balloon into the stratosphere as an experiment in aether propulsion and disappeared. Her husband, a brilliant engineer, is sure she is lost forever, but their son is not so sure. A year later, when they are summoned to Bavaria by a mysterious person who seems to have Claire’s logbook, they are launched into a dangerous, high-stakes adventure, in an effort to be the first to conquer the aether and fly to the stars. Written for children, this is an engaging, fun tale for all ages.
Buy on Bookshop.org amazon
Mary
Brea Grant, Yishan Li
Mary is a regular teenager. Angsty, feeling a bit lost, having a hard time in school, family troubles… But Mary is also the descendant of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, and every female member of her family since then has been a great author, so the pressure is on! But what if that’s not what SHE wants to be? Then, with the help of a group of wacky but loyal companions, she embraces a secret talent that has nothing to do with writing but everything to do with who she is.
Buy on Bookshop.org amazon
Ekho: New York
Christophe Arleston
Fourmille Gratule is on a flight to New York when a strange creature accosts her with a request. When she lands in New York, she is no longer in a 747. She disembarks from a dragon into a strange and magical Manhattan in a world called Ekho. Her seatmate Yuri, a computer nerd whom she had never met, is dragged along in her vortex. The grumpy Yuri just wants to go home but ends up helping the vivacious Fourmille on her quest.
The world is full of magical creatures, but little squirrels called Preshauns seem to run the place. Their dark secrets seem to be tied up with the role that Fourmille has been given to play out. They try to sideline her but haven’t counted on her own brand of chaos.
The dialog is bright and humorous and the artwork is gorgeous. Buckle up for a wild ride.
Buy on amazon
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