u/BravoLimaPoppa

Bingo Square: Older Protagonist (HM)

Another one from u/beary_neutral ’s 25 comic recommendations for 2026 bingo 

This was another winner from that list. Wow. The story is that Valofax, the God of Blades, or Blade of Blades has chosen Emmett Quinlan, a widower with Alzheimer’s to be his champion. As someone who has watched his grandparents and older relatives deteriorate over time, this one hits home.

Yes, there are gods, monsters and zombies, but it isn’t just sword and sorcery. There is also love, compassion, fear and understanding. By issue 6 it’s clear that God Country is a story about family, about legacy.

The gods are amazing, like the New Gods or the Eternals with incredible art work. They literally dwarf the humans in the book. But there’s a vulnerability there as well. Balegrim the god of death comes across as a Loki like figure who did it all for his father’s approval. Aristus, for all that he’s a god of war, feels like a son who loves his father.And Attum, well, he and Emmett fight because they are much alike.

Moving to Emmett and his family, I like them. I see myself in Roy - in caring for his family in both directions and how that pulls at him. I also don’t think that I’m going to get a magic sword to come along and restore my mother to the observant, sarcastic person I knew and loved. For her it might be a chef’s knife, ladle or a rolling pin.

This is a damn good comic and I wish more people knew about it. I like it for sliding a story about family and growing older in there among the amazing art and men defying gods.

Bingo Square: One Word Title
Other Possible Bingo Square: Works in Translation

I have had this book thrust on me for years. Well meaning friends, librarians and teachers. And I never took to it and D-503’s moaning. Usually, I didn’t make it past the first chapter. But, having it for a book club read, I got motivated. And hey! My hold for the audiobook came in.

First, I listened to the Clarence Brown translation. I found it easy to understand and could practically see Brown’s camel case OneState. And yes, uni, is far better than unifs.

We is a classic early SF dystopia. And like all SF, it’s really about the time it was written. In this case, the early 20’s by a Russian engineer that spent two years in England that was a revolutionary, then a dissident of that same revolution and the Bolsheviks. And he wrote a lot of satirical works aimed at the Bolsheviks, and We is one of those. He’s mainly going after the authoritarianism and conformity and the Taylorism they imported from the west. And I wouldn’t have disappeared down that rabbit hole if it hadn’t been for Seeing Like a State mentioning We as a parody and what it was parodying.

Brown’s forward brings this also into view because he also takes aim at Taylorism and some elements of routine English life.

After acknowledging what We is aimed at, it comes across differently. 

D-503 is a true believer in OneState, its timetables and schedules, its mathematical perfection and one truth. So, when he meets I-330 and she flirts with him, he’s off the map and off the schedule.

The plot draws out a tour of OneState and how it came to be after the Two Hundred Years War between City and Country, which the City Won! I have to wonder how well they won since their outposts are inside the Green Wall…

You see a lot of what we came to see in 1984 and maybe Brave New World. Having come first, We gets to set the tone.

Was it funny? In parts. The pink tickets for sex visits were amusing, especially in the light of Taylorism and a quote from The Islanders another of Zamyatin’s books. It’s also a critique of high modernism and its traits and weaknesses - identifying everything, rigid categories, etc. But played straight and ultimately for laughs. 

It’s still a tragedy though with the ending and the operation to remove the imagination. That scene where the people that had been under the X-rays to remove it, moving to kettle the people that hadn’t… I’ll remember that for a long time. I wonder if there’s a producer and director out there that could bring that scene to life.

A weakness of the writing was D-503 referring to things he should have no knowledge of - cows, horses, religious themes and ideas. And generally, worldbuilding fell flat. 

Another thing was how D-503 didn’t go into sensory overload at the Ancient House after the enforced dullness and regimentation and dullness of OneState.

How did it make me feel? I laughed occasionally, but there were points where I wanted to just get it over with.

Overall, 7 stars. ★★★★★★★

Bingo Square: Five Short Stories (HM)

Another one from u/beary_neutral’s 25 Comic Recommendations for 2026 Bingo. This trade collects issues 1-5 and there are two stand outs “Crisis on Hearth 2” and “Strange Loop” with “Time Flies” coming in right behind.
The premise is that time is breaking down and it’s the end of the world! Only, life goes on. People go to work, fall in love, are born, die, etc. Outside the time crisis, there is one other unifying element - a hobo in a jetpack.

The first story is “Assorted Crisis Events” where Ashley is trying to keep it together as the world ends, and the clock that’s a last touchstone to her parents is broken. She also has to deal with movies being made outside her apartment taking advantage of the cheap effects. Then she has to audition to the clock repair people to get her clock repaired… Funny, amusing, about like an episode of the Twilight Zone.

“Slaughterhouse” is a time looped tragedy. Jesus is simultaneously five years old crossing the Rio Grande, at his father’s funeral, looking for work, working at a slaughterhouse and dealing with the time crisis. This one spares no punches - the slaughter house scenes remind me of when I had to go to the floor of a chicken processing plant. Which is probably why I didn’t like it as much. Still, it is a well done story.

Then there’s “Crisis on Hearth 2.” Where the surviving residents of Hearth migrate to Hearth in a parallel dimension. This one is very much a story about us and like “Slaughterhouse” it pulls no punches. We get to look at ourselves and the mirror is not flattering. But, there is hope, hope in the form of the children. 
“Time Flies” can be summed up as the old saw inside every 50 year old there’s a 10 year old going, “what the hell happened?” Here Mike is dealing with 60 years passing in days and the life that’s all around him and his lack of control. As a 50+ I identify and hope I’m at least trying more than Mike does.

“Strange Loops” is another time loop story where a young girl gets stuck in a sixty second time loop for millions of iterations. And it’s pretty traumatic - her folks are arguing and there’s violence. Everything spirals out from there - therapy, medications, drugs, attempts to run away - but it all comes back to that time loop. Eventually, she takes control of her own life, 60 seconds at a time, and does something and even does something kind. I hope we can all be like that at some point.

Overall, well worth the time and recommended. 8 stars. ★★★★★★★★

Bingo Square: Non-human Protagonist 
Other Bingo Squares: Politics and Court Intrigue 

It is a shame I can't use this for 2026 Bingo. But you can! 

The story is about a sexbot gynoid several hundred years after humanity has gone extinct. It starts with her “birthday” on Venus in one of it's floating casinos and an encounter with one of the robot aristocrats that emerged from the death of humanity but continuation of its legal system (the ariste is a corporation that owns other robots - Charlie gets into the details later). Shortly after that, Venus isn't a safe place for Freya and she's off to Mercury, Mars, the Jovian satellites and the Oort cloud. 

I don’t know how many times I’ve read this, but it’s the first time I listened to it and I think it made a difference. Bianca Amato altered how I “hear” Freya for one. The other is her range of voices also helped a lot. Dax, and the others grew a lot more as personalities and so did the Jeeves. And [SPOILERS] >!after Freya is slave chipped her reading made it a lot more chilling than reading it. And I swear Charlie and Adrian Tchaikovsky are comparing notes on SFnal mind control somewhere.!<[/SPOILERS].

As much as Freya and the rest of the robots breathe “life” into the story, the world building takes as much of a stage as the characters. Charlie gets how big the Solar system is and that it can take years to get from one orbit to another, even with high impulse engines. 

And even if you’re not organic, traveling the Solar system isn’t fun. Freya famously says space travel is shit and just how unpleasant it is is communicated early and often. 

Another bit of worldbuilding is that after humanity goes extinct, the systems keep shuffling along. Governments don’t exactly fall, but there’s never a quorum. Humanity’s descendants aren’t considered citizens by the law, but they sort of get around it by setting up LLCs with themselves as an agent and asset and the rest rolls from there.

I really like this book. Yes, it’s a parody of late Heinlein (a nipple that goes “spung!”), but I think Charlie took it beyond that. It’s funny, occasionally horrific and horrible (people are shit) and thoughtful and philosophical at points. It may be almost 20 years out, but I think it’s still a good book. 9 stars and one Saturn ★★★★★★★★♄.

Recommended for Charles Stross fans, tough SF fans, those curious about a truly posthuman civilization and a tour of the Solar System.