Happy Wednesday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here, and today, our writers share what they’ve been reading over the past month. Feel free to share what you’ve been reading over the past month, because we’re all part of the Geekly Gang. I’ll get things started by sharing what I’ve been reading this past month.

Kyra’s Fiction

I’ve been catching up with various novels I started but never finished. Dungeon Crawler Carl is one of those novels. Yep! I may need to lower the number of novels I begin at once. I should’ve read Dungeon Crawler Carl straight through. Like The House in the Cerulean Sea, I picked up Dungeon Crawler Carl’s sequel, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario. Dungeon Crawler Carl is dumb fun. I can see why it has a massive following. Sometimes, you just want to laugh. I love Princess Donut. She’s a talking Persian cat who can fire off Gandalf-level magic missiles. The dungeon’s bosses are puns in the best possible way. I belly laughed during Carl and Donut’s fight with The Juicer, a roided out lizard man. “I’m proud of you, bro,” he said. “You fought through the pain.”

Dungeon Crawler Carl reminded me that writing and reading can be fun. Does it have a larger message to share? Probably not. I’m sure some readers will find some meaning in the text, but that doesn’t matter. This is a fun book, and I hope, a fun series, because I intend to read the next novel in the series. It also doesn’t hurt that Princess Donut is a tortoise shell Persian. My cat, Cinder, was the exact same breed and coloring. And if Cinder had magical powers and could talk, she’d most likely sound like Princess Donut. Donut is my queen.

I said that this past month featured numerous finished novels that I started earlier, and I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com continues that trend. This one didn’t stick the landing. I loved the earlier three-quarters of the novel, but quickly remembered why I put down the book: the sex scenes. I still marvel at how well Lemming writes sex scenes. I don’t know if I could pull off scenes like hers. And I had fun with these scenes during the earlier portions of I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com, but the scenes came out of nowhere, detracting from the action Lemming had set up. The book didn’t have “too many” sex scenes. But I couldn’t suspend disbelief with a sex scene occurring during the middle of a dinosaur chase scene. What?

And of course, I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com included a large sex scene after the events unfolded, but by this point, I grew tired of the scenes. Again, these scenes are well written. I just wanted to see what would happen next on the planet.

Speaking of a story not sticking the landing, I finally read Scott Snyder’s Batman: The Court of Owls Saga. Snyder is notorious for writing an amazing first three-quarters of a story, and then the story falls apart. I enjoyed most of Batman: The Court of Owls Saga. This graphic novel features a lot of interesting storytelling methods. At one point, artist Greg Capullo turns the panels ninety degrees, not once, not even twice. This simulated Batman’s disorientation. I won’t say any more than that and risk spoiling the story, but this was highly effective. And Snyder’s writing up to this point was solid.

And then an M Night Shyamalan twist occurs at the three-quarter point of Batman: The Court of Owls Saga. I groaned. Out loud. Ugh! The worst part was that I could see the twist coming. Still, I enjoyed most of this graphic novel. The Court of Owls is a great addition to Batman’s rogues’ gallery. So much was working at the beginning of the graphic novel. I loved the opening. The ending doesn’t ruin the entire graphic. I’d still recommend Batman: The Court of Owls Saga.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight has an interesting premise. It sets Batman’s story in the turn-of-the-century United States. Weird. I wanted to like Batman: Gotham by Gaslight more than I did. The art is fantastic. Mike Mignola lends his Hellboy style to Batman. What’s not to love? But again, the stories (there are two short stories in this collection) left me wanting. The Jack the Ripper story was odd and clunky. The second story was slightly better. The Master of the Future is a bombastic take on Ra’s al Ghul. The two aren’t a perfect one-to-one, but they share enough similarities that I wondered if The Master of the Future was one of Ra’s’s children. He has more children than Talia. As far as I know, The Master of the Future doesn’t have a connection with Ra’s.

Despite the Jack the Ripper cringe of the first story and the goofy Ra’s wannabe in the second story, I can see why Batman: Gotham by Gaslight was a huge Elseworlds (alternate universe) hit. Batman: Gotham by Gaslight predates DC Comics’ concept of Elseworlds. This is one of the comics that started alternate reality versions of DC Comics characters. Without this graphic novel, we may not have the excellent line of Absolute DC Comics.

That’s what I’ve been reading over the past month. Season and Skye are taking this month off for watcha reading, so feel free to share what you’ve been reading over the past month. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.