New releases in fiction, non-fiction and comics that catch our eye.
Sacrificial Animals By Kailee Pedersen
There’s something about the idea of coming home and awakening a dormant family trauma that just makes for great horror stories and Sacrificial Animals not an exception. In the novel, brothers Nick and Joshua Morrow return to their family farm in Nebraska after years of estrangement from their abusive father, reopening old wounds and allowing supernatural forces to take root. Sacrificial Animals It jumps between “Then” and “Now” perspectives, the boys’ childhoods under a violent and racist man, and the weight of going back after learning he’s dead.
The slow-burn horror story uses flowery language in Chinese mythology and a lack of Cormac McCarthy-like quotation marks (and McCarthy-like brutality) to give it a truly folkloric feel. But do yourself a favor and skip those words if you’re planning on reading this, because it gives away a little too much about where the story is going.
Trash Talk: An Eye-Opening Study of Our Planet’s Dirtiest Problem By Iris Gottlieb
Humanity’s garbage problem is so massive and complex that it can be difficult to even understand, especially for those of us who are more or less removed from its reality. I mean, every week I find out that an item that has long been recyclable isn’t actually recyclable, and garbage even accumulates in space. of Iris Gottlieb Trash Talk: An Eye-Opening Study of Our Planet’s Dirtiest Problem breaks down the whole issue, diving into the many aspects of global waste production and management and examining how we got to where we are.
It’s full of illustrations and insights to help contextualize a problem that, unfortunately, isn’t going away anytime soon, and it’s a great read for anyone who wants to know more about what’s really going on when you throw away your trash. “
convert John Arcudi, Savannah Finley
First thing that came to my mind when I saw the cover of issue 1 convert It was Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy. A man in a space suit – with his helmet removed – stands in a field with a giant gun in his hand, surrounded by strange flora that seems to be trying to destroy it. The mental comparisons to VanderMeer’s Area X series only continued as I read it, but its last few panels confirm that convert has its own story.
The first issue of a new sci-fi/fantasy series from Image Comics is out this week, and it’s visually stunning. In the opening pages, “Scientist Orrin Kutela finds himself stranded on a distant planet, starving and haunted by the ghosts of his dead crew.” “On his deathbed, he makes a startling discovery.” convert Written by John Arcudi, with art by Savannah Finley, colors by Miguel Joe, and lettering by Michael Heisler. The second issue comes out on September 25.
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