The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Dreamsnake Vonda McIntyre, 1978 Hugo Winner - 1979 Premise: Snake is a healer traveling on her first year out of training. After a heartbreaking setback, she is determined to return to her people with something worthy of the trust placed in her. Looking at most covers of this book, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a fantasy. The first few chapters don't do much to discourage the notion, either. The full picture of the setting and the lives of the people there is only slowly revealed. I liked Snake - her attitudes and assumptions felt right for someone caught between being highly trained and being still pretty young. I could have done with a bit less screen time for the guy crushing on her, but he was inoffensive and made a decent spearcarrier/exposition man. I do want to mention: part of the early set up for the plot gave me a real emotional punch in the gut. It's supposed to, so that you feel Snake's own anger and despair, but if you, like me, ha

The Superior Spider-Man: Volume One: My Own Worst Enemy Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman, et. al., 2013 Premise: Otto Octavius has finally defeated Spider-Man. Defeated him, and become him. Now resident in Peter Parker's brain, with access to his memories, what will he make of Peter's quest to balance power and responsibility? Collects Superior Spider-Man #1-5 This is one of those cases where you just have to go with the insane set-up. Don’t worry, Peter doesn’t stay completely dead for even the entire first issue. The tension between the reader’s knowledge of Otto’s internal motivations and everyone else trying to make sense of his behavior is pretty fun, although not the real story. The real story is whether this Spider-Man’s different tactics and priorities will actually do a better job of protecting the city. It’s a classic ruthlessness-vs.-belief-in-redemption story that’s common to a lot of superhero tales, but it’s very well executed here. Oh, there’s also the side