Today’s stack: several books about other worlds! Some of them are like our own world but just with a few small differences, and some are entirely different, in case you want to escape into a new realm for a short visit.
Ink Girls and Clock Hands written by Marieke Nijkamp, illustrated by Silvia Bi
These two graphic novels take place in the land of Siannerra, a walled city inspired by Italian city-states in the sixteenth century. Ink Girls is about Cinzia, the apprentice to Mestra Arronne, a printer who has been publishing pamphlets that are displeasing to the royal family. Mestra Arronne tells Cinzia that telling the truth is of the utmost importance, but when she is arrested for her publications, Cinzia isn’t sure what to do. She finds a few young allies, and together they search for ways to prove Mestra Arronne’s innocence. There’s some adventure and mystery, as the kids try to track down evidence of the royal family’s misdeeds while dodging the authorities.
Clock Hands also takes place in Siannerra, but centers on a young person named Vale, one of the “guildless.” Although the guilds are technically open for anyone to join, the apprenticeship fees mean that in reality many townsfolk are shut out—and since the various guilds control most of the economy, that only leaves some odd jobs for the guildless to take. Maestro Giuseppi is a clockmaker who moved to Siannera and wants to build an astronomical clock, and he immediately sees Vale’s talent and begins to train them—but the guilds are upset that Giueseppi isn’t playing by their rules.
Both books are about battling injustice, which is often more than simply a matter of individual behavior but a systemic problem. The young people in these books find ways to build community, and build alliances with those in power who also see that things are unfair. Changing a system is never easy, but these books encourage readers to look for ways to create that sort of change.
Of Sorcery and Science by Mike Chen
Andy Lao is a high schooler in California, which is not a strange, faraway world. But what nobody else knows is that recently he stumbled through a strange portal to the magical land of Garriod, where he was proclaimed the Chosen One, studied with the mages, and defeated a Chaos Demon to save the world. And after those six months in Garriod, he came back through the portal to find that only a day had passed, and he was supposed to go back to his normal routine, going to school and working at a boba shop. His parents are constantly pushing him to do better, to prepare for college, but now Andy finds it really hard to focus on something so mundane as trigonometry. Then one day he visits the spot where he found the portal, and a teenager named Julia comes through the portal, claiming to be the Chosen One. And her quest is to kill “Andilow, the Destroyer.” Gulp.
I’ve written about several of Mike Chen’s novels over the last few years—a couple involve time travel (one of my favorite topics), and most of them I’d consider sci-fi. Of Sorcery and Science is his first young adult novel, and it’s also the one that’s got the most fantasy elements: Garriod is a land of magic, with glowing mana that Andy has learned to absorb so he can cast various spells. But when Julia arrives, she tells him that his efforts (which, for her, happened hundreds of years in Garriod’s past—oooh, time travel!) did not restore magic to the land, and that the mana is now unstable and often causes spells to backfire.
Once Julia decides that maybe killing Andy won’t actually solve Garriod’s problems, the two of them—along with Andy’s best friend Rich—set about investigating. As the title hints, science is involved: even though the mana is magic, there is also a science to it, and the three of them are able to experiment and learn about it in ways that the people of Garriod don’t understand. And they do all of that while trying to keep Andy’s parents from noticing that he’s been skipping school a lot.
Salvage by Renée Nault
This graphic novel takes place in a future world that has been drastically altered by climate change. The ultrawealthy live in the Uplands, partying the nights away and livestreaming their escapades. The not-so-lucky live in the Flats, a ramshackle floating community on the water’s edge, and one of their primary means of survival is scavenging for relics in the underwater skyscrapers.
When Paolo discovers a sealed case of designer clothes, instead of sending them to market, he takes a chance: he gets dressed up and takes the long train ride to the Uplands for a night on the town. There, he runs into Jules, a young artist with some famous friends, and pretty soon he is living a double life, diving for salvage during the days and pretending to be an Uplander at night. But what would Jules and her friends think if they knew he was from the Flats?
The book is about a romance that bridges these two worlds, and about what it means to be true—to yourself and to those around you. Paolo doesn’t trust his new friends to accept him and pretends to be something he isn’t, but what Jules really wants is honesty and authenticity. The illustrations are really striking, and I really enjoyed getting to know all the characters.
Hilda and the Mountain King by Luke Pearson
This one’s an older one that I only read recently—it’s from a comics series that was turned into the Hilda animated series on Netflix. (I watched a little of it back when I had a Netflix account and really enjoyed it.) Hilda is an adventurous little girl who lives with her mom in Trolberg, a walled city. It seems kind of like a normal village in many respects, except for the fact that there are trolls who live in the forests and mountains nearby. (Thus the giant wall, and the bells, which the trolls can’t stand.)
This graphic novel—which has a large, picture book format—takes place after a previous adventure (briefly summarized) where Hilda and her mom encounter a mother troll and her baby. But then after they get home, they awake the next morning to discover that the troll baby has become a human child in Hilda’s home, and Hilda is now a little troll girl in the mountain cave.
Hilda wants to get home to her mom (and turn back into a human girl), and her mom wants to find Hilda, but it’s not so easy. Not all of the trolls are as friendly as the mother troll, and Hilda’s mom is also worried about what will happen if a local troll-hunter discovers Hilda first. Hilda meets a troll who says he can help if she’ll do him some favors first, but should she actually trust him?
I believe this is the sixth book in the series, but even though I hadn’t read the previous books, it reads pretty well as a standalone adventure. I may need to go back and find the rest, because it’s really just a lovely world and it’s a lot of fun.
The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow by Jim Henson & Jerry Juhl, adapted by Roger Langridge
Here’s another blast from the past—not just because this comic book is from 2014, but because it’s based on a television special that Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl worked on back in 1968. They had written an outline, created some puppets, and taken some concept photographs, but it did not get picked up at the time. Roger Langridge adapted it into this book, and then in 2015 it was finally turned into a made-for-TV movie.
The story opens in 1668, when a meteorite falls to earth in New Hampshire, where it sits through the seasons, half-buried, until one day a bolt of lightning strikes it and something starts to peek out of it. Cut to 1968, when a kid named Timmy from Turkey Hollow (“Turkey Capital of New Hampshire”) makes some new friends while he’s trying to learn to play the guitar. This group of weird little creatures communicates through music and sound, and as Timmy strums, they join in with their chorus of accompaniment. In the meantime, crotchety old Mister Sump has been looking for ways to kick Timmy and his family off their land for years, claiming that the land belongs to him and that Timmy has been trespassing. And if he can get rid of Timmy’s family and the musical monsters, he’ll be even happier.
It’s a funny little story, but it certainly has the feel of a 1968 Thanksgiving special: some music, some strange Muppets, a mean old villain who gets his comeuppance.
Marvel Dimensions by Alex Ross
Alex Ross is known for his realistic paintings of comic book characters. He does a lot of comic book covers, but has also done full books like Kingdom Come (which he co-wrote). In this book, he takes on the Marvel universe, but with a twist. The narrator is Aaron, the Machine Man—left on a moon base to continue the work of the Watcher, observing infinite universes. He shares the stories of several familiar figures: Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Black Widow, and more, each with a two-page spread that summarizes their origin stories—though some of them are slightly different from the ones you may be familiar with. As Aaron explains, there are so many versions of these individuals but they usually wind up in the same place, using their superpowers to become heroes.
But, as the Watcher says, what if…? If there are infinite universes and infinite possibilities, what if these same individuals used their powers to conquer and subdue the population, setting themselves up as rulers? Thus, we are introduced to what Aaron calls the “In-verse,” a universe in which all of our familiar heroes have become supervillains, forming alliances like the 1st Strike and the O-Men. In this world. Captain America is instead the American Sword. Bruce Banner revels in his power as a living gamma bomb. While the bulk of Marvel Dimensions is painted, the In-verse is presented as its own inserted 32-page comic book, illustrated in a more traditional Marvel style, while Aaron ponders the implications of this distorted mirror reality.
The book is heavy on splash pages, but that’s Ross’ specialty: huge full-page spreads with dozens of characters battling it out. There are origin stories and Aaron’s musings, but the actual plotline of the In-verse comic is fairly brief; it’s more of a premise presented for discussion than a typical story arc, an excuse to portray a host of different characters in a different light (and in many instances design new costumes for them). This is definitely not the Marvel universe you’re familiar with, and yet it fits the Marvel multiverse just fine.
My Current Stack
I’m working on a few books that I think may be good for spooky season since that’s upon us now—though I always think I can read more books than I actually do, so we’ll see if I can get a list of those soon. I’ve also got several time travel books in the queue, and I keep telling myself I’m going to get through some of these big coffee table books so I can clear them off my office floor, but… well, we’ll see.
Disclosure: I received review copies of these books. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent bookstores!
