You Call That an Alien? Try Reading The Mote in God's Eye

If Star Trek is anything to go by, it isn't that hard to glue a few rubber ridges to someone's forehead and call him an alien. He can have the same desires for food, for love, for friendship, for success, for personal and spiritual fulfillment -- as long as they're skewed slightly from ours.

Of course, science fiction (including Star Trek) has a long tradition of using the ostensibly alien to illustrate our human assumptions. These aliens eat their dessert first, and they therefore have a whole different idea of what it means to truly live in the moment, seizing happiness wherever they can get it, celebrating life without our cumbersome self-punishing concepts of the order of dinner.

Lots of us read science fiction for an injection of the strange, for a glimpse at some of the real possibilities of our expansive universe. I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure that no alien we ever encounter will stand on two legs, shake our hands with one of its two arms, and grin beneath its ridged forehead.

So if there's one thing we can be sure of regarding alien life, it is that it will be weird. Not Uncle Hiram weird, either: weird like those horseshoe crab carcasses you find on the beach or those fans of fungus growing from the sides of trees.

And here, in the Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle novel The Mote in God’s Eye, we meet a truly alien species.

John Christopher's White Mountains

Aliens have invaded and destroyed our modern way of life, replacing it with ... the good old days.

These aliens have done what we never could ... created world-wide peace. And they've (re)created a sort of utopian middle ages society for us to live in. All we have to do in return is submit to wearing a metal cap, which will keep us from ever getting violent and trying to wreck the peace.

It all sounds pretty cushy and most everybody goes for it. Except for Will, a boy who resists the thought of being capped and losing ... what exactly?

A Story for Every Couch Potato Who Really Wants to Save the World

Life is not about the small things. That's a lie too many parents tell their sons. It is really about the large stuff, the things that take teamwork and effort. Like a couch. And some couch's are magical things and change the lives of three guys who are friends. Like in Couch by Benjamin Parzybok.

Orbital: Scars and Ruptures

Sylvain Runberg and Serge Pelle have created an expansive world in their Orbital graphic novel series that would do Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas proud. The first volume, Scars, was originally published in 2006 then released in English last year. Along with volume two, Ruptures, the Orbital series is a stunning achievement.

Published in a large format, illustrator Pelle creates a bustling 23rd century landscape. Runberg's story begins in 2278, when earth is allegedly poised to join the intergalactic Confederation. Unfortunately violence erupts, killing many of the Sandjaar race and the reputation of the humans.

Moving several years forward, Caleb Swany is now the first human to be a special agent for the Confederation's diplomatic unit. In a controversial move, the Prime Dignitary pairs up Caleb with Mezoke Ozzua, a Sandjaar Confederation Citizen. Caleb and Mezoke must deal with their own conflict, as well as those of the planet they are visiting and the horrifyingly destructive insects that also live there.

The new agents' mission is on the planet Senestam where war is eminent between a human colony and the Javlads. There is great conflict between all of the parties as Runberg leads his fictional world through realistic issues like immigration, racism and moral relativism. Runberg, who grew up in France, seems to be heavily influenced by Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, among many other Science Fiction staples. Orbital is a deep series of politics, though there is still a sense of adventure and the heavy issues never weigh down the books.

I may be over-gushing, but this is one of my favorite graphic novels of the last few years. Fans of Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man and Tim Eldred's Grease Monkey will enjoy Orbital.

Born to Rock

You are probably not going to have a summer job as surreal or as cool (or as potentially corrupting) as Leo Caraway's (not unless you have just discovered that your dad is the lead singer of the world's most popular punk rock band and you are about to be his roadie for a cross-country tour, in which case, good luck to you). For those of you stuck with work at the other end of the excitement spectrum, you'll be happy to hear that if you read Gordon Korman's hilarious Born to Rock, you'll score all the laughs of life on tour and none of the hearing loss.

Leo Caraway is all set to embrace his perfectly-planned future. He was president of the Young Republicans club, a model student, acceptance to Harvard in hand. Then two things happen that send this plan off the rails. First, he comes to the aid of a kid who he doesn't even like very much, gets accused of cheating on a test, and before he can say "That's not fair" his scholarship to Harvard is revoked. As if anything could be more disturbing, next he finds out his biological dad is King Maggot, the lead singer of Purge, the legendary punk band. This disturbing revelation quickly becomes Leo's best hope for finding his way back to the Ivy League. He decides to accept a job as a roadie for Purge's summer revival tour, expecting that he will "bond" with the King, and convince him to pay his tuition for the fall. It's not long before Leo realizes that the road is an even stranger and more surprising place than he had imagined it would be. Much hilarity ensues.

Aid in the Desert

Let me be upfront about this book, Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail. My mother is one of the authors.

She is a retired physician living in Tucson, Arizona, and she has spent the better part of the last decade volunteering to prevent deaths in the desert between southern Arizona and northern Mexico. The group she volunteers with, Samaritan Patrol, places water in the desert in the hopes of curbing the tremendous number of deaths by dehydration that occur every year, particularly during these summer months when the heat is unbearable.

In addition, they try to provide medical aid to the injured and dying, getting them to the hospital should they need. They also help migrants get in touch with the Border Patrol should they desire aid in returning home. What they do is legal, but politically charged. What isn't political are the heartwrenching stories she and two other Samaritan volunteers wrote down in this book.

Anthill by E. O. Wilson

Edward O. Wilson is one of the most accomplished biologist and conservationist working and writing today. A professor at Harvard, Wilson has discovered 337 species of ants. He coined the term "biodiversity" and was a pioneer in the field of chemical ecology (studying pheromones and the chemical signals insects and other animals use to communicate.) All this led to his most pivotal work, The Insect Societies, a study of social ants, bees, and termites. Wilson concluded that, while an ant is a simple creature, an anthill is greater than the sum of its parts. It's a complex system able to "remember" important information and adapt to new challenges.

Recently, Wilson published his first novel. Anthill is about Raff Cody, a boy from in southern Alabama (where Wilson spent most of his own childhood) trying to protect Lake Nokobee from developers. On a larger scale, though, it's about how people can accomplish big things when they work together. How, like ant colonies, human communities can become greater than the sum of their parts.

Trickster tales with Matt Dembicki

Comics creator Matt Dembicki is the editor/creative force behind "Trickster," a graphic novel anthology collecting tales of North America's first adventure heroes -- trickster figures like Coyote, Raven, and other "animal humans," who both transformed the world around them, and were often transformed by it (in spite of themselves).

The book pairs up Native American storytellers with comics artists, and provides a great batch of reading that is, well, both thrilling and yes, transformative. As you'd demand from any encounter with a trickster!

In the course of my comics review writing, I asked Dembicki some (virtual) questions about the anthology, which has been gaining lots of media notice -- perhaps because a project like this is so vastly overdue.

GLW: What was the original impetus for the collection?

MD: I was reading a prose anthology of Native American trickster stories when I decided to sketch some of the animals depicted in the various stories. Then it occurred to me that these tales could make great stories in a sequential art format. But if I was going to undertake such a project, I wanted to include Native American storytellers to have them write stories based on their tribes’ trickster tales. That was the only way to make it authentic.

GLW: How did you decide which trickster tales to include? (Did you want to keep from becoming "all-Coyote," say?)

MD: My goal was to have geographic representation among the storytellers. And since each region has its own trickster animal or being, it guaranteed a variety of animals. So, for example, many of the Southwestern tribes have coyotes, while those in the Northwest have ravens, Northeast raccoons and Southeast rabbits. Some tribes had a few trickster animals, so I encouraged storytellers to consider stories that were particularly unique or ones that featured lesser-known tricksters.

GLW: How did you match "teller" to artist? (Especially given the range of visual styles in the book?)

MD: After reading a storyteller’s submission, I would give him or her a short list of about four artists who I felt would do a good job rendering the story. I included a range of styles, from cartoony to more realistic. The storyteller then selected which artist he or she wanted to illustrate the story.

GLW: Had each teller worked in comics before? If not, how did you work the breakdowns and layout?

MD: None of the storytellers had experience working in the comics format. For most of the stories, the selected artist took the prose story and did some character sketches and pages thumbnails and got the OK from the writer. Many of the artists also did research on their own to ensure things like the setting, clothing and shelter were as authentic as possible.

GLW: Any thought of trickster tales from other cultures? Pan? Elijah? Anansi? (etc...!)

MD: I don’t think so. This project took four years to complete, which is quite a bit of time. But I may work on another Native American-focused project, something historically based. In the meantime, I’m finishing up a graphic novel about a great white shark’s journey across the Pacific!

The Enemy

I don't get my hands on ARCs very often, but occasionally my friends in the colleciton development and children's departments will send something along--possibly because I beg, and possibly because they know I'm particularly looking forward to something. Such was the case with The Enemy by Charlie Higson (author of the Young Bond series). This one was released in May, so I got to read it just a bit early. It should be available at your local library by now, and I'm thinking it will be pretty popular with anyone who enjoyed The Hunger Games.

London. Could be the near future, could be now. Most adults have succumbed to a wasting, terrible disease, leaving the city's children to fend for themselves. This is complicated by the fact that some of the adults have turned in to zombie-like creatures who survive by eating the children. Some kids have found each other and banded together, living in supermarkets, parks, and any other safe place they can find, trying to forage for food and stay one step ahead of the grownups. Some groups are bigger than others, some are having better luck finding food and fighting for their lives than others. Can society be rebuilt? Do they want it to be?

The Enemy follows some of the kids as they fight for their survival. Two rival factions who have been living in different grocery stores come together to make their way across the city when they are told of a refuge and much better life at Buckingham Palace. Their journey across London is full of action and peril. One kid who was dragged off by the grownups manages to escape them, and we also follow him as he is on his own, learning that the grownups he fears are not the only danger in the city. Rival leaders, different ideas about what the right thing is, and hard decisions are inescapable. This book is fast paced, action packed, and no one is truly safe. You'll be left rooting for these kids to survive and figure out what they're going to do next (and while this book does have an ending, there's lots of room left for a sequel). Zombie, apocalypse, and survival lovers, get your hands on The Enemy!

The Long Good-Bye

This is going to be my final post for Guys Lit Wire and I wanted to sign off with something appropriately epic. And what is more epic, more legendary, more mythical than myth itself? The first book in the Olympians series, Zeus: King of the Gods (by O'Connor), struck like a bolt of lightning, and now Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess (also by O'Connor) attacks with a vengeance. Athena was Greek mythology's fiercest warrior -- sort of an Ancient Greek Punisher -- and the book presents her at her battlin' best. Leading the gods against the invading army of the Gigantomachy or launching into an incredibly conceived, beautifully rendered, soaring battle against their leader Pallas, the action is like the very best that super-hero comics have to offer. At the same time, O'Connor has carefully researched his subject and fills his heroine with a seething, coiled personality and his tale with plenty of fascinating details. He doesn't just recount Athena's battles but also highlights her influence on the lives of mere mortals (and semi-mortals) like Perseus as he battles the Medusa and Arachne as she is punished for her arrogance. The series is already a high-water mark in heroic comics, with two more titles still to come (Hera and Hades).

As far as legendary heroism goes, you could do a lot worse than the samurai. From history to books to movies, their devotion to honor and combat skill has lived in the imagination for centuries. In Swordsmith Assassin (by Cosby, Nelson and Hayrula), Japan's greatest sword-maker, Toshiro Ono, returns home one day to find his wife and son dead. The true horror, he learns, is that they were slain with a blade of Ono's own making. The despairing swordsmith launches himself on a quest of honor to track down every blade he ever forged so that he can remove them from the Earth, intent on reclaiming them from whoever possesses them, be it the land's greatest sword master or the emperor himself. On this great emotional hook comes a gritty tale of conflict with something to say about the true path to redemption. And is this the only Japan-centered graphic novel that doesn't feature manga-style art? Maybe, but you won't miss it. Hayrula has created a dark, moody feudal Japan where you can feel the dirt under your feet and sweep of the blade as it cuts the air. And just look at that cover.

It's been my pleasure to spout off about things I love every month and an honor to do it in such impressive company. Thanks for reading.