Tag: Tristan Palmgren

Squirrel Girl: Universe

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On 19th April 2023

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Marvel Heroines book Squirrel Girl: Universe by Tristan Palmgren and published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

Also, I won’t lie, I have looked at other reviews to see what others think, so there may be some influences from them in this book review. If I am going to quote them, I will attribute them. But if I forget to, or something is highly influenced by them, and you think I ought to attribute someone, let me know so that I can.

What is Marvel

Look at this point I would bore you with a bit of background to the game/universe, but lets not, you all know the Marvel Universe, if you don’t have you been living under a rock!

The Marvel Heroines series focuses on the female hero’s of the Marvel universe, the other books in the series so far have all be very very good!

The Story

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl aka Doreen Green, the heroine with the powers of a squirrel AND a girl, is one of Marvels most beloved modern characters, she is quirky, bubbly and fun, something which Tristan captures so well.

And above all else, she is a selfless hero who puts others before herself, and that’s where this story begins, as the Mad Thinker tries to relocate her adopted home of New York to the other side of the universe!

Taking action to prevent the entire city being moved, she takes action, but this ends up moving herself along with her trusty side squirrel Tippy Toe, fellow heroes Chipmunk Hunk, Koi Boy and Brain Drain, along with friends Nancy and Mary to a strange new world along with the Mad Thinker!

Hitching a ride on a passing Space Whale, turns out Koi Boy can communicate with stellar aquatic lifeforms too, and head to an alien space station, where they find themselves taken hostage on the frontline of a looming interstellar war that could claim the lives of trillions!

So just a perfectly normal week for THE UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL!!!!

Conclusion

This book took me ages to read, but that’s largely down to my brain injury giving me issues, but over the past couple of days I utterly devoured it, its an amazing book and captures the spirit of Squirrel Girl just right, as she sets out to prevent the war that to most seems inevitable.

That Squirrel Girl will stop this war against all odds, is never in question, its what she does, but how she gets there is fun!

The book is boisterous, fun and chaotic as well as super wholesome, and part of me wonders if this would be better targeted at young adults, but its juts as awesome for humans and squirrels of all ages!

There is literally nothing wrong with this book, its perfect, it has captured the spirit of the character perfectly and is a great example of what prose can do that comics can’t, especially in its beautiful descriptions of black holes and other stellar phenomena!

Also the Warhammer 40,000 and other sci-fi references are just *chefs kiss*!

I already bought the eBook to read again and Megan has gotten the paperback!

5 out of 5

Squirrel Girl: Universe is available now as an eBook and paperback.

The Siege of X-41

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On 3rd January 2023

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new School of X book The Siege of X-41, written by Tristan Palmgren, and published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What is Marvel

Look at this point I would bore you with a bit of background to the game/universe, but lets not, you all know the Marvel Universe, if you don’t have you been living under a rock!

The School of X novel series is focused on the heroes that attend Xavier’s Institute and their adventures and the books in the series thus far have focuses on what would very much be considered b-list heroes, which is good because it allows the authors to do a lot more with the characters than they would be able to do with more established heroes.

The Stories

This story picks up a few threads from previous books, specifically, Liberty & Justice for All by Carrie Harris (still need to read this, missed it on Netgallery, but I have bought it since), First Team by Robbie MacNiven, and Outlaw: Relentless by Tristan Palmgren (interestingly part of the Heroines series instead of School of X/Xavier’s Institue, so a nice shared universe being built up).

So this is kind of the culmination of those stories, with things like Anole adjusting to his new arm, and Josh, now known as Elixir, dealing with his fellow students knowing that before he discovered his powers, he was an anti-mutant thug.

These two are the main characters, and to be honest, there is a huge acknowledgement of the fact that their experiences in the previous stories, has left them with mental trauma and struggling to deal with the emotional fallout of kidnapped family members and being held as a slave.

The story sees a team of students, being sent down to X-41, a deep-sea outpost built to assist in the relationship between the Atlanteans of Namor, and the mutants under Charles Xavier. The outpost has been out of use for a while and needs maintenance.

Shortly after arrival, they find themselves under attack by a group of vampiric Atlanteans who relentlessly attack the station, eventually leaving them stranded and trapped at the bottom of the sea, with no way to return to the surface, or communicate with the X-Men.

But things start to go wrong, and it seems like the team is being sabotaged from within!

Conclusion

There is a great continuity in the Aconyte Marvel novels, and I think that good planning and excellent editing, has created a tight, consistent feel to the universe that Aconytes, sadly now former, publicity referred to as Earth 616-Aconyte, just slightly removed from the main Earth 616 with a few differences to make the novels work as a series.

So I am gonna hope that this level of attention of detail is kept up and maintained, because something that Marvel has failed at over the decades, is prose novels, and I really think they are on to a good thing here.

I just listened to The Extinction Key and now listening to Hostile Takeover, and if I am frank, the quality of these video game tie-in novels, is a huge world apart from the Aconyte books.

So turning to this specific book, and its a really cool idea, take two characters, who, frankly hate each other, force them into a small confided space, and throw in some horror!

This story, reminded me greatly of The Thing, in the way the isolation and hostile environment play such a major part in the story, its a really good mix.

The protagonists start off as fairly unlikable, Josh in particular was hard to sympathise with, and Anoles deep hatred of Josh combined with his trauma made him difficult to understand, but as the story wore on, and the situation became more dire, they are both forced to work together and overcome their mutual hatred.

I am gonna give the story 5 stars, its a really good plot and an awesome reward if you have been reading the other novels!

The Siege of X-41 is out now as a paperback and eBook!

Outlaw: Relentless

By

On 8th September 2021

In Book Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Marvel Heroines book Outlaw: Relentless by Tristan Palmgren published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

Also I won’t lie, I have looked at other reviews to see what others think, so there may be some influences from them in this book review. If I am going to quote them, I will attribute them. But if I forget to, or something is highly influenced by them, and you think I ought to attribute someone, let me know so that I can.

What is Marvel

Look at this point I would bore you with a bit of background to the game/universe, but lets not, you all know the Marvel Universe, if you don’t have you been living under a rock!

The Marvel Heroines series focuses on the female hero’s of the Marvel universe, Tristan wrote the first book in the series, Domino Strays, which I really enjoyed, so I was looking forward to this book.

The Story

This is not an origin story, this picks up very much in the middle of The Hotshots, the posse lead by Domino being a thing, and begins with them doing a job for Tony Stark, by seizing an AIM freighter headed for Boston.

When the job goes south, Inez Temple, AKA Outlaw finds herself taking the blame, and starts wondering if she is losing her mind and her health as she feels run down and seems to be missing parts of her time.

She has always counted on her wits to survive, but now feels like she is being robbed of it. Taking a journey back home to Texas, via the Xavier Institute, she has to face her past to find out why she seems to be losing herself.

Look I don’t want to go too much into the story, because frankly, I don’t want to spoil it for you, and much more would spoil it.

The story draws a lot from Outlaws limited history within the comics, which despite her being only a very recent addition to the comics, is still quite rich.

But don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything as everything you need to know is explained in the story, its very good, in the way it portrays the background you need as almost wandering thoughts within Outlaws mind as she tries to make sense of what’s going on.

Conclusion

I can’t lie, The Hotshots is one of my favourite super teams, there are kickass women, who despite having very different background and abilities, actually get on very well, a real sisterhood. This novel is set slightly before that really clicks into place and there is still a bit of tension between the original members of Dominos Posse, and the newer recruits, but by the end, they are well on their way to being that tightknit team.

This story is full of action, but at the same time is quite introspective, there is a lot of time alone, that Outlaw has to think about the journey that lead her to where she is now. The way it sort of beats around her fear that she may be developing a form of dementia is actually really emotional.

The book contains links to some of the other Aconyte Marvel novels, which I loved, although one of them I haven’t yet read, but I can see myself buying it.

I am not sure what else to say, this book is super enjoyable and I literally devoured it in two sittings.

Absolutely a 5 out of 5 stars from me, and I really hope Tristan does more Hotshots novels.

The eBook is out now and the paperback hits the shelves on 11th November.

Domino Strays

By

On 5th September 2020

In Book Reviews, Reviews

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Marvel Heroines book Domino Strays by Tristan Palmgren published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

So lets get in to it, the book as the title suggests concentrates on Domino, the mutant whose power is luck, if you are familiar with the comics, this is set in the current timeline with her being the leader of the Hotshots and contains the rest of the team in supporting roles. If you are less familiar, she was played wonderfully by Zazie Beetz in Deadpool 2.

The story revolves around the Hotshots infiltrating the compound of a cult leader in Chicago to save her clients two children. It skips between three different time periods, giving us the reasons why Domino hates the idea of people being held in cages, and why she has a particular thing for crazy zealots.

Its told from a second person point of view with Domino telling the reader the story, given how closely Domino is associated with Deadpool, I think it would have been very easy for this to go down the route of breaking the fourth wall, but I think this works way better, because they didn’t do that. Honestly it feels like we are holed up in some seedy bar as Domino relates the story to us over drinks.

You get a fantastic inside look at the Hotshots, how they work and the relationship dynamic between them, especially between the closest three of them, those being Domino, Diamondback and Outlaw.

My favourite parts of the story were those that covered Dominos infiltration of the Project Armageddon compound in the Everglades and those about her childhood in a church orphanage. The present days story for me was more of a device to tie it all together, and it was really good at that.

Another positive was that they didn’t overly play on her superpower, she rarely relied on it, and as she points out, its not something that makes her invulnerable and isn’t very cinematic, she has to rely on honed skills and experience, only relying on her superpower when she absolutely needs to.

The only real issue I have with the story is the footnotes, which are in themselves great, but they are all at the end of the chapters, which are in themselves, not that long, but its a pain to have to keep flipping through to make sure you read them when you are supposed to. I would much rather they be at the end of the page they belong with, but I wonder if this is a limitation of the ePub format.

I was a big fan of the Domino: Hotshots series by Gail Simone and this was a fantastic deep dive into that team. You don’t need to have any background in the characters as the book does a great job of giving you all the background you need, but in a natural very easy flowing way. The dynamic between the team was just perfect, with the characters balancing each other out just like they do in the comics. The relationship between the core of Domino, Diamondback and Outlaw, with the other members was just perfect, especially with Atlas Bear, who is only reluctantly a member of the team.

Footnotes aside, this is a very good read and given that the characters are very much Marvel B-List characters (Other than Black Widow), means that its accessible to those who only really know Marvel from the MCU.

In short you have a great book looking at one of Marvels more interesting characters and its really enjoyable.

Domino Strays is going to be released on October 6th.

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