Books Completed August 2023

I'm reading a lot of books right now, but I didn't finish many in August.

 

 

The Monster Overhaul, by Skerples - A birthday gift from my brother, and right up my alley. It's a Kickstartered tabletop RPG book billed as "a practical bestiary" with a focus of usability at the table and a minimum of cruft. The monsters are grouped by theme, which is generally quite nice and useful, except for the kind of abstract groups by season, but the indexes are so complete it still works okay. Art is lovely throughout, with lots of well-known contemporary artists who were paid out of the crowdfunding campaign, no filler or public domain art. I didn't read every line of every table (and there are hundreds of tables) but I can see how this would replace my other monster manuals in my bag if I ever were to play in person again.

 

Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir - The last of the pile of Christmas gifts from my wife. I was surprised how much I liked this - I think it came right up to the edge of how hard I can take my sci-fi. Even then it had two different flavors of unobtainium to make things work, but still a compelling story told through a narrative flashback framework that's real easy to do wrong. Maybe I will have to check out The Martian after all.

 

Cat and Girl Vol I & II, by Dorothy Gambrell - I saw a comment on this long-running comic's RSS feed that the author was clearing out a storage unit or something, so picked up five volumes. I've been reading this online forever it seems like, but actually it started in 1999. The author also added some sketches and dedicated the volumes, which was a cool surprise. The comics themselves mostly hold up well! I remember some of them, but some come hit me broadside with absurdity and insight and despair and she knows the medium so well.

 

 

The Emerald City of Oz, by L. Frank Baum -  Found this in a little free library and realized I hadn't read it. Apparently this was supposed to be the last Oz book, and it certainly ends on that note, but "financial troubles" saw Baum writing like seven more. Whoops. The story is kind of all over the place. Baum makes up horrible monster and tosses cruelty around casually in a way children of all ages are sure to love despite what grown-ups might think ("Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly slice him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed him to the seven-headed dogs."). Dorothy and friends Gulliver's Travel around Oz visiting various planet-of-hats style towns. Ozma and Glinda omnipotent away all threats, and then the series ostensibly ends. But it doesn't. Weird one.