Book Review: Batgirl and Beyond

For over sixty years, every woman who took on the mantle of Batgirl has been a powerful, independent heroine, each belying the sidekick status the name implies and connecting with a unique subset of marginalized fans. Betty Kane, the original Bat-Girl, was a hero for young girls at a time when the genre was leaving them behind. Barbara Gordon embodied the values of the women’s liberation movement and became a powerful figure in disability representation. Cassandra Cain was a woman of color in the traditionally monochromatic DC Comics universe. Stephanie Brown was a perpetual outsider, a voice for those who never belonged but kept trying regardless.

Book Review: Networking for Writers

Networking for Writers is a practical, guided workbook to help you create, strengthen or revamp your current network—whether that’s because your current network is not the supportive community you need, or you haven’t found your community yet, or because the hoped-for income, sales, and opportunities that a network can provide hasn’t shown up the way you expected them to. It’s also a book for those looking to create a self-publishing team they can work with and rely on now, and in the future.

This book will help you create a networking practice that works for you—one that incorporates your goals, your communication style, the activities you enjoy, and the tools and resources that are available to you today. If you intend to be profitable and make a living off your writing, then organizing your thoughts and goals as a writer will help you achieve that success much faster. You can still be wildly creative and efficient and productive at the same time.

Book Review: The Endless Refrain

In The Endless Refrain, former Washington Post writer and editor David Rowell lays out how commercial and cultural forces have laid waste to the cultural ecosystems that have produced decades of great American music. From the scorched-earth demonetizing of artist revenue accomplished by Spotify and its ilk to the rise of dead artists “touring” via hologram, Rowell examines how a perfect storm of conditions have drained our shared musical landscape of vitality.

Combining personal memoir, intimate on-the-ground reporting, industry research, and cultural criticism, Rowell’s book is a powerful indictment of a music culture gone awry, driven by conformity and subverted by the ways the internet and media influence what we listen to and how we listen to it.

Book Review: The End of the Playboy

Larry Funk is in a funk. Adrift in Los Angeles’s celebrity-obsessed youth culture, the 49-year-old Gen X rock star and former Casanova grapples with fading fame, advancing age, and a waning musical career threatened by the pop culture wars in a fractured nation.

Set in the chaotic year of 2016, amidst national turmoil and heartbreaking losses, Funk and the rest of a wistful America are stuck in a “holding pattern.” But during one magical spring break weekend in L. A., his career is miraculously revived when he gets a second chance at love and becomes the unlikely star of a hidden camera reality show. With humor and grace, this authentic middle-aged hero with a crooked smile and an easy gait will momentarily charm a new generation of fans in this high-stakes game of who gets the girl. With the odds stacked against him, Funk, as always, will give the fans their money’s worth in this life-affirming and often hilarious odyssey.

Book Review: Trillion Game vol. 2

Self-proclaimed “world’s greediest man” Haru and timid computer whiz Gaku set out to make a trillion dollars. They start the company Trillion Game to accomplish this task and hope to iron out the details as they go. With charm, technical skills, and no business plan, can these unlikely friends reach their lofty goal?

Hoping to get their money-making efforts off the ground, Haru and Gaku enter a hacking competition sponsored by Dragon Bank. Competing against elite teams of professionals, the two implement a risky strategy that could lead to a life-changing payoff if it succeeds!

Book Review: Sons of Star Trek

In the aftermath of Kahless’ harrowing Day of Blood, Jake Sisko struggles to find his place in the universe now that his family has been reunited and his father, Benjamin Sisko, has once again saved the Galaxy.

Meanwhile, Nog faces the challenges of being the first Ferengi in Starfleet and Alexander Rozhenko is recovering mentally and emotionally from his time as one of Kahless’ devout followers. Although his father, Worf, was able to break him away from the Red Path cult, Alexander is haunted by his actions during the bloody coup and is unsure of his ability to atone for the devastation he caused.

Jake, Alexander, and Nog find their stories intertwined as they’re thrust into an alternate reality full of lessons that may be just what the doctor ordered!

Book Review: The Mushroom Knight vol. 2

An adolescent girl named Lem searches the deep dark woods for her missing dog, entangling her destiny with a chivalrous mushroom faerie named Gowlitrot on a mystical quest to protect the biome from catastrophic ruin.

As their friendship develops, Gowlitrot pledges to aid Lem in a quest to discover the fate of her missing dog, but as the search progresses, they uncover perilous betrayals that challenge the foundation of each of their worlds— both inner and outer. The natural world may never appear the same again.