Wake Up Dead Man (Netflix, 2025)

We got to this one fairly quickly as we’ve enjoyed the two previous “Knives Out” stories.  As usual this one’s got a great cast (I didn’t even recognize Thomas Haden Church).

This one carves up a twisty plot as the others did.  Strange to see Mila Kunis in the main position of authority but I liked her performance.   Daniel Craig’s accent doesn’t seem over-the-top this time around.

It’s a bit long.  It doesn’t exactly -plod- but it does take its time.  My wife says she had most of it figured out, but I had only figured out a couple of points before the reveal.  She gave it bonus points for some Netflix meta-referencing, too.

Still, it was a good watch and use of our Netflix money this month.

Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer (2016)

OK, this one has been a long time coming.  It was one of the first ebooks I collected, just sitting there in my queue.  I have friends who speak very highly of Dr. Palmer’s work.  Heck, I’ve met and spoken with her several times and found her to be nice.  I’ve even met her parents! (Lovely people.)

Lightning is NOT an easy book to read.  I emailed my friend after I was done and said that I felt too stupid to read it.  It was obviously a labor of love for Palmer to put so much of what she cared about within history and thought and extrapolate that into the future.

There are some authors that I like, but I tend to gloss over some of their details.  David Weber and the majority of his space battle descriptions come to mind, but ignoring that the math and strategy of velocity and breaking speed at the right time is a lot like what I did for descriptions of philosophy in this book.  The great thing is that Palmer’s in on it! Some of her internal dialogue is with the reader and she comes out at some points and says–it’s OK to skip this!

With that reservation in mind, she’s built an interesting future and I am curious about how it will come together.  I’ve got the next book on order so we’ll take it one volume at a time.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow Deluxe Edition for DCUI Ultra (2025)

Sorry for that mouthful in the title, but this week I received a special reprint of the 2021 miniseries. It was one of the first things I read completely on my tablet, so it’s funny that I now have a print copy. DC sends out a premium gift each year to its yearly subscribers to the Ultra tier, and this book was this year’s new title.

Word has it that James Gunn is relying heavily on this for inspiration for the Supergirl movie, so if you care about source material it’s worth reading just for that.  I find that most books that Tom King has written are worth reading.  The art by Bilquis Evely shows a powerful Kara Zor-El without resorting to the boobs-n-butt that so many male artists will, um, accentuate.

The story’s a good one, a bildungsroman for the girl that Kara befriends.  This retelling of Krypton and Argo City for Kara is an insight into her character that I can see James Gunn attaching himself to.

The special edition has an exclusive cover (pictured with this post) and welcome material on the inside cover, but otherwise has the features of the “regular” deluxe edition. I enjoy seeing variant covers; generally the art sketches or pencil reproductions don’t do much for me and the reproductions here are very small. If you are a budding artist, though, it is probably a great insight into how a story like this is made.  I appreciated the rejected script for issue #6 as that kind of thing is rarely reprinted.

This story has been frequently cited on “best of” lists and with the movie coming you’ll probably see a lot more about it. Check it out from your local library. If there’s a teen girl that’s looking for something ‘meaty’ in the world of the fantastic this is a perfect thing to pass along.