Explore, Expand, Escape by Guillaume Singelin

B E A U T I F U L. 

A science fiction, part space opera, part intimate character focused story, dealing with themes of capitalism, corporate greed, and the effects on common people. Common people of the future, that is, who are born in space or who have lived in space most of their lives. Spacers living in precarious, claustrophobic conditions, working their lives for corporations who exploit them. The art is astounding. Loved the colour pallet and original character design.

A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick

I just finished this book. Liked it a lot, so much it is now my favourite PKD (I've read Ubik, Do androis, and the 3 Stigmata). I might change my mind later, who knows, but the impact it's had on me won't change. It's a story of colonisation. It got me hooked on the third page when it introduced religious themes, particularly a character reading this from a religious book: "God is not supernatural. His existence was the first and most natural mode of being to form itself." The story is not about religion, but religion is part of some sort of guiding principle the characters follow or believe in. That, and the final twist, which transforms the story in a different kind of story and leaves you having existential thoughts.

Los Locos del Gekiga by Masahiko Matsumoto. (Crazy for Gekiga or Gekiga Fanatics).

Unfortunately, there is no English version of this manga. 

A nice read for anyone interested in manga. It follows the three mangaka, (Yoshihiro Matsumoto, Takao Saitô and Masahiko Matsumoto) in their late teens, for a couple of years. Working in Osaka, creating short stories for a detective series. It's not only about that. There is more to their lives. A nice dive into mid-20th century Japan, their hopes and hardships. 

Osaka, late 50s, a city that faces its future with the scars of war still visible, three young, unknown creators fight for a dream to become mangaka. Full of passion, new ideas, and unseen perspectives, this trio will try to break through in the complicated and sometimes sordid world of manga. Without realising it, they revolutionise manga forever. Matsumoto, Tatsumi and Saitô, three partners, three friends, three geniuses.

Tau Zero by Poul Anderson

A nice surprise. I read Brain Wave by the same author some years ago and didn't like it. The worst part for me was the cardboard characters. Thought the author wasn't for me, but a few weeks ago, I decided to read Tau Zero only because I liked the synopsis. This story is much better. I found the idea of an Interstellar trip reaching near light speed without the ability to stop, interesting, and original. A spaceship with broken brakes. Liked the depiction of the crew, the interactions, the worries, and the passing of time, not months or years, but hundreds of thousands, millions of years. Found the ending a bit rushed but still good, in terms of the physical, astronomical, and philosophical concepts used to create the resolution. A quote I liked: "This Leonora Christine, seventh and youngest of her class. Her outward simplicity was required by the naof her mission and was as deceptive as a human skin; inside, she was very nearly as complex and subtle. The time since the basic idea of her was first conceived, in the middle twentieth century, had included perhaps a million-man years of thought and work directed toward achieving the reality; and some of those men had possessed intellects equal to any that had ever existed. Though practical experience and essential tools had already been gotten when construction was begun upon her, and though technological civilisation had reached its fantastic flowering (and finally, for a while, was not burdened by war or the threat of war) - nevertheless, her cost was by no means negligible, had indeed provoked widespread complaint. All this, to send fifty people to one practically next-door star?"

The First Signs. Unlocking the mysteries of the world's oldest symbols by Genevieve von Petzinger

In Dec 2024, I read the New Scientist Essential Guide N4 where they highlighted von Petzinger's work. I made a note to read her book as I found this thing about signs so fascinating. The book is good. Some bits were a bit boring, to be honest, but overall, I liked it. The author tells her story about how she goes to all ice age caves in Europe, to inventory not cave art, but cave signs. She identified 32 signs that are repeated consistently across place and time. She explains a bit of evolutionary history, a bit of language, linguistics, and writing, as well as the difference between spoken language - ephemeral - and written language - permanent. She makes a case of how human beings might have been more than capable of abstract thinking and therefore writing, way before current beliefs. Finally she proposes a few ideas of what some of the signs could mean. Von Petzinger does not provide a Rosetta stone for cave signs but presents a very interesting view of prehistoric life. Hopefully, after more research is done, we'll have a better idea of what these signs mean. A couple of nice quotes: "There is no permanence to spoken language. It is very much anchored in the moment, in the exchange, after which it becomes only a memory, one that we may or may not remember accurately, and even the memory itself will soon fade into oblivion." "The first instance of making an intentional graphic mark was one of the most profoundly important moments in our species’ history – right up there with the invention of tools, the control of fire, and the development of spoken language. Whatever this mark may have been, even if it was just a single line, doesn’t matter. What matter is that, for the first time, someone purposefully made a mark on a physical surface with the intent to communicate meaning. That message had the power to survive beyond that specific place and moment, and language had officially taken on a life of its own – another life beyond that of its maker."

Don't let go by Didier Cassegrain and Fred Duval based on a novel by Michel Bussi

A so-so read. Nice art and gripping throughout until the ending, which I found a bit rushed and anticlimactic. I'd say I was pretty hooked during the first 2/3s of the book, and maybe my expectations for an amazing ending were too big. Anyways, I still want to read more from this team of authors. Previously, I'd read Black Water Lilies (Nenúfares Negros in spanish)and loved it.

Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh

I really struggled to read this book at the beginning. It's kind of dense and grim. It is the opposite of a quick, gripping read. I was interested in the subject story and insisted. Left it for a few days and then came back to it, reading 10 to 15 pages per night. Slowly, I got engaged with the story and the characters until the end, when I binged the last 30 pages or so. This book is about politics, power and control between human factions. A space station and a planet, so far from earth, it is easier to think they are their own system, with no attachments to 'home'. A military fleet from earth, rebels, and merchants. Live in the space station is depicted brilliantly. Claustrophobic, breathing recycled air, people living lives which are totally alien to what we have now.