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Finally Watched It: “Hail Satan?” (2019)

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In this documentary, The Satanic Church goes toe to toe with various government boards in order to promote Satanism as a counterpoint to religion seeping into politics.

This doesn’t play about with the hypocrisy of religion in politics when a minority religion seeks to be represented. Every time the Satanic Church said “Hey, we’d love to put up our monument too!” in every case, the choice was made to not display anything.

But if you’re expecting something that’s all gung ho against religion, you won’t find it here. This is surprisingly fair-minded; even when the Satanists had to wear fucking bulletproof vests to protect themselves in public due to death threats. It makes me wonder they don’t have the support of other minority religions but that wasn’t the point of the documentary. I’d recommend this if you’re interested in contemporary politics.

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Lenni Reviews: “Komi Can’t Communicate” : Vol. 2 by Tomohito Oda

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Hitohito Tadano continues to help Shoko Komi with her awkwardness and inadvertently, this earns Komi a rival, Makeru Yadano; who wants to defeat Komi in the health exams. Komi also manages to pick up another friend, Ren Yamai, who has an obvious crush on her. Well, obvious to everyone but Komi.

Remember in the first review when I talked about the horrible dark turn? Well, I thought Yamai was going to be it but although she comes off as a fucking creepy-ass stalker, the manga does keep things light and folds her into the growing group of Komi’s friends. Tadano still seems to be the one who knows her best out of the bunch though. Still loving this series. 4 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “Lucifer Vol. 1: The Infernal Comedy” by Dan Watters, Max Fiumara, Sebastian Fiumara

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With the Dreaming broken and the Dream King missing, the son of Lucifer begins some dastardly plans. Lucifer himself is now a blind old man who must hunt down his own son to save the world. Meanwhile, a police officer John Decker finds something strange is going on in his recovery group.

I want to say this one is as cool as the first two I’ve read but I found this one to be the most confusing so far. The story has to jump between Lucifer trying to track down the mother of his son to whatever the heck Decker is going through with the demons haunting his friends. I liked it but not as much of the others. 3.8 out of 5.

 

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Lenni Reviews: “The Dreaming Vol. 1: Pathways and Emanations” by Simon Spurrier, Bilquis Evely, Neil Gaiman

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Taking full advantage of having different storylines in different books take place in the same universe, this volume starts with the same intro as all the other volume 1’s then branches off into its own story; this time within the crumbling Dreaming itself. Desperate to hold the world together in the Dream King’s absence, Lucien the librarian releases the Judge to keep order but he goes way too far.

This is a really cool story that doesn’t go the way you would expect. The main star is really Dora, a resident of the dreaming who is struggling with her identity. I honestly kept waiting for Dream to sweep in and fix everything but that would be way too easy. the art here is on point here again and the story also gets confusing here as well but I think this is because there’s a chunk of backstory here that I’m missing. These are the type of books you read more than once to catch the little details and I’m down for that. 4 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews: “House of Whispers” vol 1 by Nalo Hopkinson, John Rauch, Sean Murray, Dominike Stanton & Maika Sozo

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The Dream King is missing and the Dreaming is falling apart. The consequences spill out into the waking world when Maggie and her girlfriend Latoya find a strange book and the spells inside put Latoya in a coma.

As is typical of something in Gaiman’s universe, there is a LOT going on and trying to explain it all would result in spoiling some of the more interesting bits. So, I will have to cop out and say the art is beautiful, and I love the use of Voodoo lore in the story. There are some parts that are confusing and I’m hoping the next book will clear things up. 4 out of 5.

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September Writing Update

As you can see by the flood of posts recently, I am making a real effort to not only post every day but clear off my Kindle and clear out the books piled up in my room. This means expect a ton of reviews of stuff that’s all over the map.

This doesn’t mean I’m not writing. I haven’t been meeting my 5 page a day goals mainly because I haven’t outlined Emma’s book at all and I’m just sorta flowing with it. This means some days I write 4-5 pages and some days I write 4-5 words.

Unfortunately, this means I have no idea when my next book will come out. But I will be more forthcoming with updates in the future.

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Lenni Reviews: “The Tea Dragon Festival” by Katie O’Neill

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*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.

In a sort of prequel to Tea Dragon Society, this book follows Rin, an aspiring cook and excellent forager in the village of Silverleaf. While out searching for ingredients, she happens upon Aedhan, a dragon who has been asleep for the last 80 years.

Much like its predecessor, this comic’s story is as warm and rich as the beautiful color palate. We sit back and enjoy Aedhan slipping back into his role as protector of the village. Hesekiel and Erik are the connecting thread from the first book and they’re here to work out what kept Aedhan asleep for so long.

You can just curl up with these books and you get the feeling of wandering barefoot through a lush forest. They’re so calming and beautiful and not a bit boring despite not being chock full of sword-swinging or magical battles. A joy to read multiple times. 5 out of 5.

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Finally Watched It: “Tower”

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Using a combination of rotoscope animation, real testimony, and historical footage, this documentary goes into harrowing detail about the day a gunman opened fire from a clocktower on the University of Texas campus on August 1st, 1966.

I don’t pretend to be a hard ass so I have no problem admitting I openly wept several times during this film. The parts that are reenactment are so well done, you would hardly know it wasn’t as real as the life video spliced into it. The narrative centers on Claire Wilson, who was 8 months pregnant when she was shot and the continuing barrage made it so nobody could get to her and she lay in the hot Texas sun for hours unable to move. We hear also about a child who was injured, a woman who did only watch from inside, the police officers who finally killed the shooter along with help from a civilian. This even ends with interviews from actual survivors.

Even how the news was relayed around town and summed up afterwards was just brilliant. Even though even to my 80’s baby mind, it was frustrating to see communication break down so quickly as opposed to now when every one has a phone in their pocket. Absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it.

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