The Baum Plan for Financial Independence  by John Kessel.  I was lucky enough to recently snag an ARC of John Kessel's The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and other tales, courtesy of Library Thing's Early Reviewer's program. The back cover copy promises witty intersections with classic literature like Pride and Prejudice, The Wizard of Oz, and A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Subversive literary mash-ups seem to be all the rage today, and Oz doubly so.  The last few years have seen the release of a manga, Alan Moore's pornographic Lost Girls, the excellent science fiction Dorothy of Oz comic, and the lackluster SciFi channel's Tin Man.  The title story (Baum as in L. Frank) is unfortunately rather middle of the road, as such things go.  Dot, a liberated gal of the mid twentieth, takes our narrator on an underground ride to a strange dream space where wealth is theirs for the taking.  It's rather unfortunate that "Baum Plan," like many of the other mash-ups, has a rather indecisive ending.  Kessel has a knack for the entertaining, and the pages kept turning, whether I was reading about a time-travelling Orson Wells or Victor Frankenstein doing the dance of manners with the cast of Pride and Prejudice.  I was particularly impressed an amused by the ultra-short "The Red Phone," which surpasses Nicholson Baker's Vox in humor and sexiness.


The high point of the collection by far is Kessel's linked shorts about life on a moon colony.  The world-building is excellent enough to be nearly invisible, and his stories about men in a matriarchal society are compelling enough that I literally couldn't put it down once I started the cycle.
With this collection, Small Beer press further confirms its reputation for producing excellence in the science fiction short form.  I'll eagerly look for more as Kessel as an author, and continue to seek out new releases from this charmingly otherworldly imprint.

Hellboy Volume 7: The Troll-Witch and Others by Mike Mignola. Collecting several of Mignolas shorts that have run in other collections (including the Dark House Book Of... series), The Troll-Witch offers concise creepy-funny stories firmly rooted in folklore. Each piece features a paragraph introduction by Mignola about the gestation of the piece, and a pinup and sketchbook section at the end. This should whet the appetite of any reader jonesing for a Hellboy fix.

The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti. Fans of more traditional atmospheric creeps and eldritch horror should enjoy this collection of Ligotti stories in graphic form. Each comes with an introduction by the author, and is matched visually by an impressive collection of artists, from Ben Templesmith to Colleen Doran. If you're squicked by clowns, manikins, or otherworldly cabals running the world, there should be something to terrify you. The casual horror fan should read this, and aficionados will likely want to add it to their library.

Heroes, Volume One. Collecting the ultrashorts that originally ran as webcomics, this handsome hardcover is a must-have companion to the first season of the fantastic television show. Beginning with shorter vignettes that introduce back stories of established characters (including Eden), the second half of the collection tells the more complete story of 'Wireless' and the meeting of Linderberg and Petrelli Sr. in Vietnam. Beautifully colorized with a retro 50's inspired 'cover' for each, this will appeal to fans of the show and superhero comics alike

Thin Air  by Rachel Caine. After throwing Joanne through some serious crises and loss of loved ones, Caine effectively hits the hard reset button on her series in this fifth book, which opens with an amnesiac Jo waking up naked in the middle of the wilderness, unsure of who or what she is. As she tries to recover her memories, she's thrown into the middle of more djinn politics, and a science-fiction evil twin: the demon who has stolen her history and is doing it's best to convince the Djinn and the Warden that it's the real Joanne. Caine breathes successful new life into a series that had been escalating to a point that was hard to one-up itself. I'll likely continue reading these for the consistently solid characters and fun weather channel antics.

Burning Bridges by Laura Anne Gilman. Gilman's fourth in her Retrievers series manages to bridge her first three into a conflict-ridden conclusion that leaves more questions than answers. The plot arc follows on from the events in Bring It On as the disagreements between Nulls, Council and fatae clash with the mysterious Silence, taking the inhuman community into an all-out street war complete with riots, protest marches, and the inevitable grisly murders. Wren and the Lonejack community have plenty on their hands without the relationship problems she's having with partner Sergi and his growing addiction to Current. It's an unevenly paced novel that fans of the series should enjoy mostly for the question of what comes next. Gilman has set up the grounds for a nicely complicated fifth entry without given any great hints as to how it will all end up. If you've followed thus far, it's worth picking up.

Alive 1 by Tadashi Kawashima. 

In this first volume of high-school horror manga, some strange otherworldly virus is making people commit suicide. Those small group of people who survive are baffled – or is there something more sinister at work? It's a fairly typical setup, but this does have some entertaining plot aspects going for it – a few relationships I see becoming more complicated, and enough blood and gore to keep the slasher fans amused. I'll probably pick up volume 2 when it arrives.

No Humans Involved  by Kelley Armstrong. Armstrong's latest in her Women of the Otherworld series focuses less on the furry and the witchy, giving center stage to psychic Jamie. While filming a reality séance show, she finds indications of some serious evil – the souls of young children killed in rituals that baffle the council of practitioners. It's a solid mystery with a pleasant dose of romance, and made me like the well-dressed tv psychic much more than I had from Armstrong's other paranormal titles.

Cover Up with Nicky Epstein 

Fans of intarsia and fair isle will be pleasantly surprised by this collection of afghans. I typically knit in neither style and checked out the book mostly to see what all the fuss over Epstein was about. Most of these I'd never consider knitting, be it for the color-scheme or degree of complication, or both. The Zodiac afghan, however, does give pause – it's clearly charted, and could be adapted (along with a few other designs) for use on a smaller scale, like pillows. All the designs have full color charts and schematics, so if you're looking for clear instructions for your next mammoth project, this might be the book for you.

The Plain Janes  by Cecil Castellucci, Jim Rugg. I'm quickly becoming a fan of the Minx line of graphic novels, aimed at teen girls. The Plain Janes covers familiar territory in an entertaining fashion; Jane, a city girl, moves to suburbia after surviving a bombing that left an unknown John Doe in the hospital. Armed with John's artist book, Jane struggles to find new friends and create meaning in a high school suffering from increasing paranoia in the wake of the terrorist attacks. She, and a group of similarly named outcasts begin a guerilla art movement that quickly sweeps the school, frightening authority figures and creating hope. It's a lovely little story, highly recommended.