(1) SITH PACK. Michael J. Martinez continues his Star Wars rewatch reviews in “Star Wars wayback machine: Revenge of the Sith”
It’s the final piece of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and — perhaps unsurprisingly — Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is the best of the prequels and, if I may be a touch heretical, on a par with Return of the Jedi. It very much echoes what made the original trilogy special, despite having many of the problems that plagued the other prequels.
(2) DIY STORMTROOPER. At io9 Andrew Liptak reports progress on making his own Stormtrooper armor in “So You Want To Join The Empire: Finishing Touches”. Some of the lingo is a bit specialized…
Greebles
I ended up trimming down the greeble on the abs plate – I didn’t trim it down enough the first time. The paint was also slightly off color after it dried, so I ended up picking up the correct shades,
(3) BARRIS FUNERAL. “I was wondering why there were so many cool cars in Glendale yesterday,” remarked John King Tarpinian. The answer: Batmobile designer George Barris was being laid to rest at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. Barris passed away November 5 at the age of 89 — click on the link to see Comic Book Resources photo of Barris’ casket, which features an airbrushed ’66 Batmobile on its side and specially-made fins on top, in honor of the creator’s work.
(4) DOCTOR STRANGE. Did they really want to work together? “Clea-ing The Air: Neil Gaiman And Guillermo del Toro Have Differing Memories Of Their Nixed ‘Doctor Strange’ Movie” at ScienceFiction.com.
What if… Neil Gaiman wrote a ‘Doctor Strange’ movie and Guillermo del Toro directed it? Sadly, that’s one tale that will never be told, but could it have been? Well, at least according to one of the creators involved, Gaiman, who tweeted a lament, expressing:
“I still wish Marvel had been interested in a [Guillermo del Toro] & me Dr Strange movie, because I wanted to write Clea so badly after 1602.”
(5) SEED BOMBAST. RedWombat cut loose with a mighty rant about the seed bombs entry in yesterday’s Scroll that is too good to be missed, so I am repeating it in today’s Scroll….
Part I: Okay. Seed Bombs. *clears throat*
Seed bombing is super-duper popular with “guerrilla gardeners,” with Girl Scout troops, civic-minded crafters, basically with all sorts of well-meaning folks who think that you can turn a vacant urban lot into Eden by throwing a ball of clay full of seeds over the fence and walking off with the warm glow that you have given nature a helping hand.
Except they don’t work.
There’s a couple factors at work here. #1, very rarely do people research the plants–like those wildflower meadow mixes in a can, they’re often dumping invasive weeds or short-lived annuals…because those are the only things that might survive under those conditions.
Which leads us to #2 — even assuming the seeds germinate (a big if, as we’ll see below) they will be packed in incredibly tight in the seed bomb, compete with each other for root space, the ones that die will rot intertwined with the others, etc. There’s a reason we thin seedlings. Your only survivors are going to be the hardy souls who can stand intense root competition, and frankly, those plants don’t need your help moving around…
…because #4, there is a massive seedbank in the soil already. Billions and billions! Japanese stilt grass seeds can survive up to seven years in dirt, waiting for the moment to strike. Wind, water, animals…there are seeds there already. If humanity vanished tomorrow, half our cities would be forests before the decade was out. So if nothing is growing in that vacant lot, the reason is probably…
#5 – Compacted soil is shit soil. I have been fighting for years with a hillside where the builders ran earthmoving equipment over it, and Nothing Grows. Not even weeds. Not even kudzu or stiltgrass or Japanese honeysuckle. It is hardpan. It is dead clay. Nature could fix it, but in a century or two. There are no worms, no microbes, no LIFE.
I’ve made great inroads, but not with plants. I had to fix SOIL. I tried seeds first, and what self-respecting seed would grow there? I dug in plants by hand, grimly. Most died. A few lived, but the toughest clay-busters nature can provide could not do more than occupy one small, hard-won clump.
I brought in dirt, compost, raked in leaves–not much, just an inch or two over the clay and that was enough. There are worms and microbes and the layer keeps the dead stuff moist and slowly it gets dug through and aerated by roots. It felt more like terraforming than gardening. A seed bomb on compacted soil is useless, unless you can find the very toughest pioneer species, the sort that are first to grow in abandoned quarries, and those don’t need help from guerrilla gardeners.
And even if you DID get the right seeds, it won’t matter because #6–seed bomb construction is desperately flawed. (Can’t speak to the one above, this is just the standard method.) The standard method is to pack seeds in damp clay, let them dry, and then throw them. Congratulations, you have killed a bunch of seeds!
The vast majority of seeds germinate when moist. A dry seed is a live seed, unless it gets wet, then it is a growing seed. If you dry it out immediately, you have killed that seed. You get one shot at germination if you’re a seed. No do-overs. Seeds can live in the pyramids and be viable, seeds can live in the fridge and be fine, seeds that get wet are done unless planted pronto. (Exceptions: those that require other, more specific triggers–fire, animal digestion, cold stratification, etc, and some few plant species adapted specifically to floodplains.)
Those paper cards with seeds in the paper, plant them, yay earth? Dead. Seeds are mixed with slurry pulp, get damp, dried out. Unless they pick the seeds very carefully, it’s just feel-good crap.
And now I have to go to breakfast, so part two: Why It Looks Like A Seed Bomb Worked will have to wait for a bit.
Part II: Ok, so Round Two!
“But RedWombat!” you say. “I made a seed bomb and stuff grew! Also there is no #3 in your rant!”
To which I say “shut up and let us troubleshoot your miracle.”
If you made a bomb and ran out the same day and flung it, the seeds didn’t dry out. If you threw it on soil that didn’t completely suck, that was not already overgrown with weeds, that was then gently watered by either moist ground or rainfall, if your seed bomb was not too densely packed or was a variety that tolerates close competition, then you may indeed have successfully grown a plant. If you picked your seeds carefully, there is even a chance that it’s not a corn poppy or some other short lived annual. This is basically why stuff sprouts under the birdfeeder.
Alternately, if you don’t specifically recognize the seeds you planted, then it was quite possibly stuff already in the soil bank and you’re taking credit for its hard work.
Now, nature is a mutha, and some seeds will survive terrible treatment through dumb luck or a tiny pocket of dryness or are a floodplain species or whatever. Or they land in the one tiny pocket of hard pan along the fence that’s loose because of the post-hole digger, and it rains at the right moment or whatever. But a seed would have ended up there ANYWAY. You could get the same effect dumping safflower over the fence, as above, except that the safflower has a far better chance of sprouting.
So, in conclusion, this is feel-good crap that lets nice but wrong people and smug Eco-bros feel like They’re Helping, when they aren’t, and there’s a dozen things you could do that DO help, but most of those are work and also don’t pay extra for the cards with seeds in them. If you’re going to green the world, there are very few quick fixes.
The end.
And there’s extra credit reading about working with hardpan soil in RedWombat’s third installment!
(6) RING MUSIC. Deborah J. Ross confesses “My Love Affair with the Music of The Lord of the Rings”.
When at long last it was my time to embark upon piano lessons, as a first-time older adult student, I grabbed a copy of the easy piano versions of The Lord of the Rings music. My goal was to play “Into the West.” I was one of those folks in the theater with tears down my cheeks as the song ended. But I was just starting out, I had zero self-confidence, and I wanted to make sure I had the skill to play it well. My teacher and I selected “In Dreams” (which is also the leitmotif for the hobbits) as one of my early pieces. Even in the easy version, it was a challenge. And it had words, words in a key within my limited vocal range.
Like others of my generation, I got caught in the folk scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and even taught myself a few chords on the guitar. Although I enjoyed singing in a group, I had become convinced I had a terrible voice. I remember being told as a child that I couldn’t sing. So of course, my voice was strained, thin, unreliable in pitch. With the piano to support my voice, however, along with lots of practice when no one else was in the house, not to mention having an encouraging teacher, I learned how to breathe more deeply and relax my throat. The higher notes became easier and more clear. I added other songs and vocal exercises, which helped my confidence. “Wow,” my teacher said after one class, “who knew you had such a voice?”
(7) Today In History
- November 29, 1972 — Pong, a coin-operated video game, debuted.
(8) Today’s Birthday Boy
- Born November 29, 1898 — C. S. Lewis. Leah Schnelbach’s Tor.com post “C.S. Lewis: Moral Fantasist” concludes —
We’re still not sold on Turkish Delight, but thank you for Puddleglum and Mr. Tumnus, Mr. Lewis!
(9) Today’s Birthday Girl
- Born November 29, 1918 — Madeleine L’Engle. Ryan Britt also has a feature at Tor.com.
Today marks the birthday of an author who forever changed the way we feel about time travel, alternate dimensions, and dark and stormy nights. Madeleine L’Engle was born on November 29th in New York City and started writing almost right away. Her first story was composed at age 8, and she went on to pen a universe of novels, poems, and non-fiction throughout her amazing and inspirational career.
(10) STAMOS OR SCALZI. John Scalzi’s poll “Does Teenage John Scalzi Look Like Teenage John Stamos?” crowdsources the answer to a question that has plagued John since he was a high schooler with a rock idol haircut.
In comments, David P. provides disturbing evidence that young Scalzi looked more like Snot from American Dad.
I can only hope David P. isn’t out there researching my look-alike….
(11) STARFLEET. At Future War Stories, a blog devoted to explaining the world of military science fiction — “Future Military Profiles: STARFLEET”.
Considering its size and complexity, Starfleet has a relatively straightforward ranking system for non-commissioned and commissioned personnel. For commissioned officers at attend the academy, they achieve the rank of Jr. Ensign, then Ensign, and by the time they graduate, they are Jr. Lieutenants.For the bulk of their early years in service, a majority of officers will remain within the Lieutenants grades. Once achieving the rank of Commander, it is a short trip to the big chair (well…not if you are Riker).
(12) JESSICA JONES SPOILER WARNING. “The 13 Most Epic Marvel Easter Eggs in Netflix’s ‘Jessica Jones’” at Yahoo! TV. The first Easter egg should be okay to quote, it’s not very spoiler-y.
- “And Then There’s the Matter of Your Bill”: Right off the bat, you know showrunner Melissa Rosenberg and the Jessica Jones team are going to provide plenty for comic fans to geek out over. One of the first scenes of the series is a shot-for-shot recreation of Jessica’s introduction in Alias #1, by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos.
(13) X-MEN SPOILER WARNING. From ScienceFiction.com, “James McAvoy Hints At How Professor X Loses His Hair In ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’”. If you don’t want to know, don’t read! If you do want to know, well, I’m not sure this is really going to help…
But in ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’, McAvoy’s appearance will bring him more in line with Stewart’s. Back in May, the actor tweeted a picture of himself having his head shaved for the film, indicating that even though he is a younger Xavier, he will actually go bald to more closely resemble his comic book counterpart.
How does this come about? Well, as is the norm, details about this super hero flick are being kept tightly under wraps. But while promoting his new movie ‘Victor Frankenstein’, McAvoy appeared on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ and did spill a tease about his character’s follicle metamorphosis:
“He ends up going through something so horrible and physically painful that he literally half pulls his hair out/half it falls out. Maybe, or maybe not…I just shit myself because I know Fox Studios who own me might be angry with me for sharing that.”
(14) CHARLIE BROWN. Since it’s a big favorite of mine, I hesitate to think about the Bizarro Charlie Brown special contemplated by the original producers. From “It’s your 50th television anniversary (and your 50th TV Christmas), Charlie Brown”.
Imagine “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with a laugh track and with adult actors providing the children’s voices. Now imagine it without Vince Guaraldi’s jazzy music and without Linus quoting the Bible, telling Charlie Brown what “Christmas is all about.”
Hard to imagine, isn’t it? There goes the charm. There goes the magic. And, perhaps, there go all of the animated Peanuts specials that followed this first one, including “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
But if even some of the producers’ early suggestions and the network’s preferences had been followed, the version of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” that first aired on Dec. 9, 1965, wouldn’t have become a cherished classic. And, good grief, it would have been an hour special, rather than a half-hour
[Thanks to Michael J. Martinez, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Iphinome .]
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Firstish ?
ETA : up to 9 episodes into JJones and it’s still holding up as a very good show. I will check the Easter eggs when I am done.
An epic seed bomb rant indeed but informative !
(5) SEED BOMBAST
Woohoo, go RedWombat!
Secondish?
And ::ticky::
(5) File770 goes digging in the dirt? What pixels lurk beneath the surface?
Actual ::ticky::
(And pre-Fifth?)
Fifth?!
(2) DIY STORMTROOPER
Very cool. I love when people do scratchbuilds.
(2) DIY STORMTROOPER – Wow. I’ve been semi-following this on io9, ,and given that it’s exponentially more intensive and complicated than the nearest thing I’ve done (a misspent youth building Master- and Perfect-grade Gundam and Patlabor models), I take my (non-exitent) hat off to Liptak and all his fellow cosplayers.
(5) SEED BOMBAST – I like the topic titles that we have now, but I do wish this had been called SEED SCREED :p
(6) RING MUSIC – Man, this. The LotR music and songs were perfectly designed to hit me in the feels. In addition to “Into the West”, “Aragorn’s Coronation” and “Edge of the Night” (both which used lyrics from the books!)
*laugh* Goodness, I was on a tear! Someone is wrong about plants on the Internet!
SEED BOMBAST: There’s a person in my newsfeed who’s been very excited about seed bombs lately. I’ll point them at those rants next time and let you know how it goes. Okay, no, you probably won’t want to know how it goes.
(Incidentally, I was on a panel about gardening in fantasy worlds last weekend, and recommended RedWombat’s LJ as a resource. It’s both informative and entertaining.)
The Dark Forest update: Even though I spent 12.5 hours travelling the local light-rail system yesterday, I didn’t get far into the book. (Turns out today I have a cold, which probably has something to do with why I didn’t have the mental energy to do much more than stare out of train windows yesterday.)
So far, two things have struck me about the book: first, being very aware once again that these come from a very different literary tradition, and second, that it covers a surprising number of the same issues as Seveneves, and handles them about a million times better. (Okay, so I don’t think Seveneves set the bar very high.)
Eleventy fifth!
Twelfth-ish!
I’m almost finished with Watchmaker, and I’m sorry to say it’s not gosh-wowing me (although I would pay hard cash for my very own Katsu). Natasha Pulley deserves a Campbell nom, I think, but it’s not going on my Best Novel list.
I’ve just started Gene Wolfe’s newest, A Borrowed Man. Now that grabbed my attention from the get-go. We’ll see how it stacks up.
Regarding Sith Pack: I’m sorry, but if your movie’s climactic battle reminds me of nothing so much as the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, your movie is bad. And that’s before we get to the latter-day Lucas’s anti-Kurosawa ability to wring terrible performances out of decent actors.
^ What Jim said.
I just finished WATCHMAKER myself, and had much the same reaction. Some wonderful atmosphere and compelling moments, but overall, it didn’t deliver on its potential.
Plus, there’s a bit at the end that indicates that the author didn’t understand the ramifications of a legal term she used…
Re Seed Bombast, RedWombat you were great! You almost make me want to go out and garden and considering that it has been raining all day that is saying something.
I just finished _Ink and Bone_. It’s, um, kind of grim. Interesting, but kind of grim. The basic premise of the book is that there is one Library (lots of branches) that controls what knowledge people are allowed to read, which is fine, but I have a bit of an issue with the worldbuilding in that the Library happened so long ago that it’s pretty surprising that major recent historic figures still exist and still have the same names. I understand why the author wanted to be able to speculate how these people would have reacted to their changed surroundings, but the Library would have changed people’s lives enough to change who survived, who met, who married and/or had kids–the people wouldn’t be the same. None of these historical figures are major characters (that I can tell; I’m not a history buff) but it kind of jolted my suspension of disbelief.
And I liked the setting, I think, but the book is awfully grim. I will probably read the sequel. Probably. Not on a day when I’m depressed, though.
Re DOCTOR STRANGE… that seems like a really thin excuse for an article. For all we know Gaiman had dinner with somebody at Marvel around that time during which the subject came up and somebody expressed some degree of enthusiasm. Or something like that. Interpreting his tweet to mean that an official pitch was made is a stretch. And that’s a reasonable basis for an article about “clearing the air” and “different memories”? Hm.
Introvert hiding here among the seed bombs, hoping RedWombat’s rant ensures it’s a safe hiding place. Too much time spent with people when not ready for it.
City of Stairs is on sale for $1.99 at Amazon.com, iTunes, Kobo, and probably other etailers! So if you haven’t gotten around to it yet (like me), and are okay with DRM for the right price (like me) or don’t care about DRM . . . today’s your lucky day! Er, as long as the sale lasts, anyway. Thanks to Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist for mentioning this.
This is probably U.S.-only (such things usually don’t cross regions), but I can’t tell from where I sit. Caveat emptor.
So, finally time for me to read the present tense (ugh!) sample and fall for all the hype. 😉 I mean, fall in love with the sample and buy it while it’s a great deal! LOL. Then it’s back to Jernigan’s No Return for me (post-sample). I’ve read very little over the Turkey Break, sigh. Too easily distracted.
Oh, look! Just for Meredith! It’s a Holiday Fantasy Bundle! 11 books for $15!
And there are 2 — TWO — Dragon books!!!
Re: Watchmaker… I had the feeling that Katsu’s builder was an earlier iteration of Teela Brown from Ringworld (hows that for a suitably non-descriptive description?).
Not so much in the way the book describes his unique viewpoint, as in the way the universe seemed to work in regard to the character.
I have this deep fan love for UrsulaV aka the RedWombat, and her treatises on soil creation only make my infatuation stronger.
@JJ
Ooh, thank you! *cheerfully ignores already blown from Black Friday ebook sales book budget* *because DRAGONS*
RedWombat – a master gardener I know found herself living on a barren clay lot cut into the side of a mountain. In trying to figure out what to do, she happened upon the writings of Ruth Stout (sister of Nero Wolfe creator Rex Stout) who wrote very amusing and incredibly helpful gardening books. Short answer – hay bale gardening! It lets you garden immediately while also building soil. Bigger, easier and more attractive than pickle buckets! I’ve had less success with them in Texas, but I think that’s because I give up on the outside world in late May and don’t go back outdoors until October.
{wanders near the seed bombs, casually drops a comfy afghan and a thermos of hot chocolate, then wanders away}
{Introvert notes sometimes good things appear without prior notice.}
TICK, and the world ticks with you.
Scroll, and you scroll alone.
@#4 – Well, whatever. I love Dr. Strange, and often buy the various reboot comics that Marvel puts out every few years. My favorite limited series is the one they did that teamed him up with an obscure Marvel romance character from the 60s, Night Nurse. That one will never get made into a movie! I’ll probably go see the Cumberbatch movie, but I’ll regret that it wasn’t made with Leonardo DiCaprio.
(1) SITH PACK.
When I watched RotS it was very much with a “fine, let’s get to the end of the story” attitude, and I’ve never bothered going back for a rewatch. I’m not convinced that a rewatch will show that it’s “on a par with Return of the Jedi”. I suppose RotS has the advantage that it’s wrapping up some big plot lines, so it’s probably least-worst of I to III.
(2) DIY STORMTROOPER
My favourite part of cosplay is being impressed by other people’s hard work (aka I don’t cosplay) and that’s really spectacular looking. Amusingly, in the article immediately after he says “I found the perfect thing: a heavy-duty plastic no parking sign.” I get an amazon advert for a “6×14 No Parking Sign” which is either the best or worst context-dependent advertising ever.
(12) JESSICA JONES
The interesting one for me was the question of whether Daredevil will get worked into JJ any further. I sort of hope it doesn’t – I think JJ stands on it’s own two feet perfectly well – but I doubt Netflix can resist running links between two hot properties that are explicitly set in the same few square miles.
Marko Kloos Alfie winning book Angles of Attack is one of the Daily Deals on Amazon UK today. 99p.
Cally: {wanders near the seed bombs, casually drops a comfy afghan and a thermos of hot chocolate, then wanders away}
Oh, hai, I was looking at an awards list the other day, and I meant to ask: are you related to Martha?
13 – Magneto gets a job selling hair care products door to door. Although he suspects that Magneto’s boss is a con man, Charles still buys a case of shampoo, just to be supportive. But when he washes his hair with it, it all falls out permanently!
In the end, everyone learns a valuable lesson.
If you take the Padmé – Anakin relationship in RotS at face value instead of attributing it to poor acting/directing it’s actually pretty darn grim.
I’m only up to how awful Padme/Anakin is in Attack of the Clones. Padme is this ambitious young woman who has already been head of state and repulsed an invasion and has since moved on to be a galactic senator and she falls for a guy whose personality vacillates between whiny teenager and man with a murderous rage.
In the prequels, Padme goes from ambitious queen to Senator…to fridging. And that is just one of their major problems with those prequels. In this day and age of sensitivity and recognition of female characters and their depiction, though, it stands out much more than it did when the movies came out.
UK based filers:
Emma Newman’s Planetfall is on sale at Amazon UK today (£3.01).
@Camestros Felapton
My headcanon is that Padmé has been part of court-life from a young ago, and after becoming queen at just 14 years old she’s never had a normal youth. She’s been denied even the formal courtships female royalty is normally subjected to.
Anakin (who was inducted at 9) is in a way a kindred spirit and their relationship could be seen an escape from the life she has chosen.
In truth none of the films bother to explain Padmé’s attraction to Anakin, which in itself is a major failing of the prequels. Padmé is reduced to little more than a meat-puppet acting out the plot, which happens to include a romance-of-sorts with a hypocritical psychopath who has been nurturing his obsession with her for a decade…
I find the whole relationship very sinister. If an adult male meets an eight year old girl and has an illicit sexual relationship with her as soon as she’s past the age of consent then we regard that as very wicked indeed. Anakin is obviously the victim of grooming, and this results in him going mad and killing all the Jedi children to save them from a similar fate.
ETA: Yes, I do regard Padma as an adult in the first film. There seems to have been some retcon saying that she’s 14, but it was an adult actress and she wasn’t there portrayed as a child. Perhaps the book said she was, but the film is all I have to go on.
My headcanon is three completely different movies.
I like mine better.
My heart was broken by one too many cancelled Doctor Strange series as long as thirty years ago. Marvel has rarely done well by him.
Given their recent record in movies and TV series, I have cautious hope.
I’d like to chime in and say I like Kyra’s better too.*
*No it doesn’t matter that I haven’t heard it yet.
@Another Laura – I’ve been hearing about straw bale gardening for awhile now–some people report really good results! Hay and straw make me itch like the devil, so I haven’t tried it myself. It sounds really cool as temporary raised bed gardening.
I much prefer the narrative in the spoof comic “Darths and Droids”, which is retelling all the Star Wars movies as if they were a series of roleplaying campaigns played by the same group over a series of years.
It has … oh, damn, I have to be careful to avoid spoilers. It has some hilarious explanations for things (For example, someone has to bring along their little sister early on and she enthusiastically jumps in, improvising ridiculous on the spot characters like Jar-Jar Binks and ridiculous planets and so forth).
And a recent very funny development is that Qnegu Inqre vf Cnqzr, abg Nanxva. Nf fbzrbar rkcynvaf, Jul xvyy Cnqzr whfg jura fur jnf trggvat ernyyl vagrerfgvat — zhpu zber fb guna gung zbcr Nanxva. Gung jbhyq unir orra fghcvq naq n pevzvany jnfgr.
In my head, there was no trilogy, just one prequel movie: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Dinosaur ponies!
Yes, exactly. Wouldn’t a nine-year-old girl could come up with something just like that for a character?
What’s more hilarious is that as she gets older and better at it, Jar Jar becomes a tactical and diplomatic genius.
So what you’re saying is that the Jedi Order is really a human trafficking ring that grooms hand-picked children as mates for busy career women?
I spent part of the holiday weekend rewatching all six Star Wars movies, and it’s frustrating because the prequels are objectively terrible by any standard, but they do have some impressive set-pieces (the speeder chase on Coruscant at the beginning of Attack of the Clones, e.g.) and take you to worlds that you’ve never seen on film before, and they’re often just gorgeous. It’s too bad the DVDs don’t come with an isolated score track for the audio; as it is, I’m tempted to set the language to, say, Mandarin without subtitles so that I can watch them and make up my own dialogue.
Isn’t that pretty much how we got the “DO NOT WANT!” meme?
Finished Ferrett Steinmetz’s sequel to Flex, The Flux over the weekend. A muchly enjoyable book, taking the obsession-fuelled magic in a more superheroic direction and wondering what might happen if Professor X was the bad guy.
A refreshing and fun read, and like its predecessor, recommended.
Now for The Traitor Baru Cormorant.