Reading Roundup Wrapup: April 2026

Pick of the month: The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. My secret Santa on LibraryThing got this for me, a weird religious science fiction novel. More anon, I suppose; I haven't really processed it yet.

All books read:

1. Britain after Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400–1070 by Robin Fleming
2. Star Trek: Vanguard: Summon the Thunder by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
3. Death of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E.C. Gaska
4. Star Trek Classics #3: Encounters with the Unknown by Jeffrey Moy, W. C. Carani, et al.
5. The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
6. Star Trek: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind by David Mack
7. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by W. W. Denslow
8. DC Comics Classics Library: The Legion of Super-Heroes: The Life and Death of Ferro Lad by Jim Shooter, Curt Swan, and George Klein
9. Star Trek: Vanguard: Open Secrets by Dayton Ward
10. Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion by Terrance Dicks
11. The Speckled Rose of Oz by Donald Abbott
12. Black Panther: Panther’s Prey Omnibus by Jack Kirby, Ed Hannigan, Peter B. Gillis, Don McGregor, Jerry Bingham, Denys Cowan, Gene Colan, Dwayne Turner, et al.
13. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Hugo reading has begun!

All books acquired:

1. Edges: Thirteen New Tales from the Borderlands of the Imagination edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Virginia Kidd
2. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
3. The Space Cat by Nnedi Okorafor and Tana Ford
4. Absolute Wonder Woman, Vol. 1: The Last Amazon by Kelly Thompson, Hayden Sherman, and Mattia De Iulis
5. The Invisible Parade by Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio

As has Hugo buying! This is the first batch; a second should come in a few days. 

Currently reading:

• Star Trek: Vanguard: Precipice by David Mack
• Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters by Malcolm Hulke

In between Hugo finalists, I am working my way through the Star Trek: Vanguard novels and third Doctor novelisations. 

Up next in my rotations:

1. Star Trek: Vanguard: Declassified by Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore, Marco Palmieri, and David Mack
2. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois
3. The Poe Clan Vol. 1 by Moto Hagio 
4. On Progress in Physics and Subjectivity Theory: An Amateur’s Meanderings as Inspiration for Actual Physicists by N. Otre Le Vant 

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 669 (down 2)

Black Panther: Newly Reprinted Stories from the Panther's Prey Omnibus

Black Panther: Panther's Prey Omnibus

Collection published: 2026
Contents originally published: 1977-96
Read: April 2026

I recently finished my reading of all of Marvel's Black Panther comics that have been released for free on either comiXology or Hoopla... but also recently, Marvel has put out the Panther's Prey Omnibus, a mammoth 1,236-page collection containing every Black Panther–related comic from 1977 to 1996. Mostly it's taken up by the Jack Kirby run, the Gillis/Cowan/de la Rosa miniseries, and Don McGregor's Panther's Quest and Panther's Prey. Sprinkled in among these stories, though, are a number of guest appearances and one-offs that have not previously been collected. Or, at least, that I haven't read. (With only two exceptions, the new-to-me stories all come from the 1978-80 timeframe.) In this post I'll be writing up and reviewing just those new-to-me stories from the Panther's Prey Omnibus.

"Conjure Night!"/ "Voodoo and Valor!", from Marvel Two-in-One #40-41 (June-July 1978)
plot by Roger Slifer, dialogue by Tom DeFalco and David Kraft, art by Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos, letters by Irv. W & Annette K. and Joe Rosen, colors by Phil Rachelson and F. Mouly

These two issues come from Marvel Two-in-One, which I think was a series where in each issue, the Thing teamed up with a different superhero. In the first issue collected here, the Thing teams up with Black Panther (duh), while in the second, Brother Voodoo, but it concludes the story begun in the previous issue and still has a decent-sized role for T'Challa. They were released during Kirby's run (between #9 and 10); SuperMegaMonkey's Marvel Comics Chronology places them after Kirby's run came to an end in issue #13, before the last two issues by other writers.

I actually liked the glimpses of the bits of drama we got of the Thing's life; the other highlight of the story was actually getting to see T'Challa as inner-city teacher (an idea coined for The Avengers, I think, which was quietly dropped later on... because really, it makes no sense). The actual story here is pretty nonsensical; a lot of the drama revolves around a list of prominent black citizens of New York City... a list that no one can find a copy of even though it was published in the newspaper! Then there's a bit where the Thing lands an airplane with one hand while holding one of its wings on with the other! There are a number of creators whose other work I have enjoyed involved in this (The Omega Men's Roger Slifer, Justice League Europe's Pablo Marcos), but none of them are doing their best work. Or even their mediocre work.

"The Razor's Edge!" / "The Killing of Windeagle!" / "Journey through the Past" / "The Ending, in Anger!" / "Battle Royal!" / "Like a Proud Black Panther..." / "The Left Hand of Silence!" / "Cry-- Vengeance!", from Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #87 (Nov. 1979), Marvel Premiere #51-53 (Dec. 1979–Apr. 1980), The Defenders vol. 1 #84-86 (June-Aug. 1980), and Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #100 (Dec. 1980)
written by Steven Grant, Ed Hannigan, and Chris Claremont (with John Byrne); penciled by Gene Colan, Jerry Bingham, Don Perlin, and John Byrne; inked by Frank Springer, Gene Day, Alan Gordon, Tex Blaisdell, Jim Mooney, Pablo Marcos, and Bob McLeod; lettered by Robins, Diana Albers, M. Higgins, and A. Kawecki; colored by G. Wein, Bob Sharen, G. Roussos. and Robbie C.

from Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #87
(script by Steven Grant, art by Gene Colan & Frank Springer)

The next story is a Spider-Man team-up from Marvel Team-Up; the omnibus places this after Black Panther #14-15, but as SuperMegaMonkey points out, it must actually precede those two issues. since Marvel Premiere #51-53 continues straight on from Black Panther #15. It is pretty dire. I don't know what's up with writers who invent lame villains who even the characters in the story call out for being lame. Why cut your own story off at the knees like that?

The three issues of Marvel Premiere continue straight on from the cancelled Black Panther ongoing, with the same creative team of Ed Hannigan and Jerry Bingham. These issues are a bit of an oddity. So, Don McGregor's original run on Black Panther in Jungle Action was abruptly cancelled mid-story in 1976; in 1977, it was replaced by Jack Kirby's ongoing, which completely ignored everything McGregor had been doing. When Kirby left Marvel and Hannigan and Bingham took over in 1979, they began a story to explain what had happened to all the story threads and characters abandoned when McGregor was fired... but then their book was cancelled too, so the issues ended up published in Marvel Premiere instead. All of that is to say, this is a wrapup to a cancelled story that was itself cancelled! And it finished in 1980, over three years after the story it was designed to wrap up! Intellectually, I admire that Marvel actually bothered... but in practice it's a terrible story and they probably shouldn't have bothered. Memory loss is a hacky explanation for it all, and there must have been a better way to handle this. Did Monica and her boyfriend (who I think all later writers just forgot about) really sit around for years before trying to figure out why T'Challa abandoned them? It admittedly has been a long time since I read the original Don McGregor run, but the explanations given here surely do not line up with it in any way, shape, or form. I feel like there's no real conclusion here anyway; just a bunch of fights and then people are like, "Oh the story is over now."

from The Defenders vol. 1 #86
(script by Ed Hannigan, art by Don Perlin & Pablo Marcos)

The other issues here are more team-ups: a three-issue arc of The Defenders featuring Black Panther and a one-issue story of T'Challa meeting Storm of the X-Men. The Defenders arc is by Ed Hannigan again; it has some good ideas but I feel like Hannigan's writing jerks around from idea to idea and the choices the characters make range from arbitrary to stupid. I found these a struggle.

Issue #100 of Marvel Team-Up is the story that established a preexisting relationship between T'Challa and Storm. I hadn't realized that had happened all the way back in 1980 in a story by Chris Claremont and John Byrne; I don't think it made its way into an actual Black Panther comic until much later, I want to say not until Reginald Hudlin's run in 2006. It's a short ten-pager about an enemy from Storm and T'Challa's youth popping back up in the present; the backstory is fine, the present-day stuff is kind of silly. But this small story had a profound impact on the future of both characters.

"Panther's Pest, Part 231 of 8!" / "Of Kings...and Bright, Shiny Things...", from What the--?! #9 (Oct. 1990) and Over the Edge #6 (Apr. 1996)
written by Don McGregor and Ralph Macchio, penciled by Mike Harris and Robert Brown, inked by Tom Palmer and Mike Witherby, lettered by Joe Rosen and J. Babcock, colored by Marsha McGregor and Glynis Oliver

from What the--?! #9
(script by Don McGregor, art by Mike Harris & Tom Palmer)

The first of these stories is a ten-page humor comic satirizing Panther's Quest... written by Don McGregor, writer of Panther's Quest! Though not every joke landed, and I didn't really care for the art, I appreciated McGregor's ability to laugh at himself. If you've ever read a Don McGregor Black Panther comic, there are some good jokes here.

The other story is a Daredevil team-up from 1996; I thought this might be a humor comic too at first thanks to the ridiculous art, but no, that's just how they thought comics should look in 1996. I don't know why people keep getting Ralph Macchio to write Black Panther stories because they're almost always bad. In this one, Black Panther attends an extradition hearing for Ulysses Klaw that's attacked by Killmonger;  Foggy Nelson is representing T'Challa, so Daredevil is close to hand when the attack begins. Guess what: the introduced-just-moments-ago best buddy of T'Challa turns out to be traitor. Kid has like one line of dialogue before this "twist"; I feel like Macchio wasn't even trying. The art often fails to communicate basic essential information.

The moral of this story is probably that none of these issues were probably really meant to be (re)read on their own like I did. As seasoners to the omnibus, things meant to show you you're getting your money's worth because they haven't been collected before whereas most of the other stuff here has been, they probably work just fine. But as a main feature, they're very much lacking. 

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Jump to the Beat!

As has been mentioned here on several occasions, I've been listening to my music more consistently in the last couple years. The consequence of this is, of course, that so have my kids. While Kid One is largely agnostic toward music (they do occasionally enjoy a bit of They Might Be Giants), Kid Two, like me, is the kind of person who will get a song stuck in their head and begin singing it randomly later on.

A particular favorite of Kid Two's in this regard is Belle and Sebastian's "The Party Line." I know Belle and Sebastian has been around for a while, and plays the kind of music that is very much to my taste, but I only got into them within the past six months, and have listened to their album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (2015) a decent amount. Kid Two would randomly bust out with "jump to the beat of the party line!" and begin jumping around. It actually hit the point where I could be listening to a different Belle and Sebastian track and he would start going, "Put on 'Party Line'!" (I do not think Kid One has this capacity to recognize different artists' styles yet.)

This wasn't the only song Kid Two would bust out with at random; in particular, the other was Goldfish's "Show You How," where he would just start going "get up and shake it now!" To a lesser extent, he'd sometimes also do the "oooh waaah oooh waaah oooooh oooh waaah oooh waaah oooh" bit from Goldfish's "This Is How It Goes."

Additionally, at his daycare, he somehow picked up "We Will Rock You," though he thought it was "We will, we will, we will rock and roll you," and would often ask for "rock and roll"... and would accept literally no other song as "rock and roll" because it didn't say "rock and roll" in it! I don't have any Queen on my iPod, but I did persuade him to accept "We Built This City" as a substitute... though the version I own is from 2011's The Muppets!

This seemed like enough songs for a critical mass, so I ended up making Kid Two a Yoto card. A Yoto, if you don't know, is a kid-friendly, screen-free audio player. Both of our kids own Yoto Minis, which allow them to place various cards in them that stream audio content: music, audiobooks, podcasts, and such. You can purchase premade cards from Yoto (we have bought a number of audiobooks from them especially), but you can also build your own playlists and link them to "make-your-own cards"; for Kid One, I have made a card of Pokémon theme songs, for example, and both kids have copies of a card of songs from Colourblocks and Numberblocks.

Kid Two was into the card. This was back in January, I think, and as time has passed, I have added songs to it either when I notice him singing them a lot or when he specifically requests I do so. He listened to it a lot early on, less so recently, but I'm sure he'll rediscover it sooner or later. Here's the current track listing:

1. "The Party Line" by Belle and Sebastian, from Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (2015)
2. "Show You How" by Goldfish, from Get Busy Living (2010)
3. "This Is How It Goes" by Goldfish, from Perceptions of Pacha (2008)
4. "We Built This City" by the Muppets, from The Muppets (2011)
5. "Shake It Up" by Nortec Collective, from Tijuana Sound Machine (2008)
6. "Mouthwash" by Kate Nash, from Made Of Bricks (2007)
7. "Up the Mountain" by Regina Spektor, from Home, before and after (2022)
8. "Talk to Me" by Goldfish, from Late Night People (2017)
9. "If I Could Find" by Goldfish, from Late Night People (2017)
10. "What Might Have Been" by Regina Spektor, from Home, before and after (2022)
11. "They Might Be Giants" by They Might Be Giants, from Flood (1990)
12. "Watching You" by Rogue Traders, from Here Come the Drums (2005)

Forty-eight minutes of excellent taste! Clearly a fan of South African house music in particular. His interest can often turn on very small things, in all seriousness; "Mouthwash" is on there because he likes the bit where Kate Nash goes "and I'm singing 'uh oh' on a Friday night..."

I do have to double-check lyrics before loading them onto the card (thankfully the Kate Nash song is appropriate for example! on the other hand, "The Party Line" includes the lyric, "People like to drive their cars and smoke up / People like to sit inside and toke up").

I recently asked him which of the songs on the card was his favorite, and he told me it was "Up the Mountain" by Regina Spektor. That one is a hit with both kids!

EDITED ON 2 MAY 2026: Just added "Get Down" from They Might Be Giants's new album The World Is to Dig at his request!

Supergirl: Reign of the Cyborg Supermen / Escape from the Phantom Zone by Steve Orlando, Brian Ching, et al.

Supergirl, Vol. 1: Reign of the Cyborg Supermen

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2016-17
Read: February 2026

Writers: Steve Orlando, Hope Larson
Artists: Brian Ching, Emanuela Lupacchino, Ray McCarthy, Matias Bergara, Inaki Miranda
Colorists: Michael Atiyeh, Eva De La Cruz
Letterers: Steve Wands, Deron Bennett

My seven-year-old is a bit of a Supergirl fan; they've read all of the Supergirl volumes in DC's short-lived "Silver Age" series of trade paperbacks, the Showcase Presents Supergirl volumes that cover what that series doesn't, and even The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl trades collecting the 1980s material. So one day, when I was flipping through the books in my library's "Friends of the Library" bookshop and found the first collected edition of Supergirl's "Rebirth" comics, I paid a dollar and brought it home for them (after doing enough perusing to determine it was age-appropriate). They enjoyed it and requested the next, and I ended up picking the other three volumes online, and once they finished the series, I decided to read it myself.

I'm not very au fait with Supergirl's "New 52" continuity, but writer Steve Orlando does a very good job of quickly orienting the new reader. Kara has recently lost her powers (and I guess Superman is dead, but by the time of vol. 2, he's not anymore, so it doesn't really matter), but has agreed to work with Director Cameron Chase of the Department of Extranormal Operations to cooperate with them in exchange for getting her powers back. Part of this deal is that Kara will be adopted and raised by a married pair of DEO agents and live as a human, even attending high school.

The art really nails the cute-but-dorky vibe.
from Supergirl vol. 7 #6 (script by Steve Orlando, art by Brian Ching)

But just as Kara is settling into her new home and family, the ghost of her old home and family return. National City is attacked by the Cyborg Superman, who I guess Supergirl has battled before—but what she didn't know until now is that he's the Brainiac-revived remnants of her father, Zor-El. 

You go Kara.
from Supergirl vol. 7 #7 (script by Steve Orlando, art by Matias Bergara)

This is basically perfectly-executed light superhero comics. I mean, there is some heavy backstory here, but overall the book's not going for exhausting; it keeps the pace moving and the energy up. I don't think I've ever read anything by Steve Orlando before, but he writes above-average dialogue for superhero comics, which manages to balance action and character and exposition. Orlando moves into position a solid cast of supporting characters, including Kara's new parents, Cat Grant, and a guy at Kara's new school named Ben. You can sense things being shifted into position for an ongoing run, in a good way; this is a setup that should continue to generate stories.

Poor Kara.
from Supergirl vol. 7 #3 (script by Steve Orlando, art by Brian Ching)

Orlando is ably aided by Brian Ching, who draws all but one of the seven issues collected here, and whose style is a perfect match for what Orlando is doing in the writing. Ching was one of the regular artists on the Star Wars ongoing Knights of the Old Republic back in the day, and was instrumental to that series's success; I'm glad to see him employed by one of the Big Two.

"Yes, we swear these characters who were previously from totally different continuities really do have a relationship!"
from Supergirl vol. 7 #8 (script by Steve Orlando, art by Matias Bergara)

I even really like Steve Wands's lettering. Contemporary comic book lettering is often very samey, but he does some different things here that I found very effective. 

Supergirl, Vol. 2: Escape from the Phantom Zone

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: February 2026

The second volume is pretty good, too. It begins with three one-shots: one where Kara teams up with Batgirl (in the "Burnside era," though after the original creative team left and I stopped reading), one where Kara helps redeem a villain from the previous volume, and one where Kara connects with her cousin. Each of these is pretty solid; the best is definitely the middle one, a really well done story about Kara reaching out and helping someone who needs her, someone who was let down by everyone his whole life; Matias Bergara does a solid job fitting the Brian Ching style. I though the team-up was fine, though Supergirl seemed to be made a little dumb so that she had a reasons to need Batgirl's help. The Superman one has some good moments, but Matias Bergara's art seems rushed and the story is too obviously there to make sure you know how everything fits together.

The last three issues are one long story, "Escape from the Phantom Zone." On the one hand, I was glad Brian Ching was back, but on the other hand, I found the premise didn't play to the strengths; Supergirl, Batgirl, and Ben end up trapped in the Phantom Zone, and the setting of National City and Kara's supporting cast is largely irrelevant; Ben is there, but having him interact with Supergirl turns out to be dramatically inert. I did not think the villains were very interesting, either. 

I do appreciate how Orlando paces his ongoings. Usually each issue's story ends a couple pages before the end, then there's a bit of a breather/coda, and then the issue will end with a couple pages setting up the next one. It's a simple but effective device.

Marvel's The Transformers Year Two, Part III: Return to Cybertron (US #17-20 / UK #64-74)

"To a Power Unknown!" is another one of those stories from the UK annuals that, due to continuity issues, the Til All Are One compendia choose to place in volume four with the other out-of-continuity stories. However, my practice is to try to read them as close to where they could fit if they did fit. For "To a Power Unknown!", that seems to be somewhere between UK issues #65 and 71, as the story has Megatron and Shockwave in joint command over the Decepticons. Given that, I suggest it reads best between Second Generation! and Return to Cybertron, as the latter story leads straight into "Command Performances!", where Shockwave cedes sole leadership to Megatron.

from The Transformers UK #65

Second Generation! Parts Two & 3, from The Transformers UK #64-65 (7-14 June 1986), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

written by Simon Furman, penciled by Kitson and Jeff Anderson, inked by Perkins and Jeff Anderson, letters by Scott and Annie Halfacree, colours by W&P and T. Jozwiak

Surely this is the most "meh" of all the UK-original storylines thus far. Part two of Second Generation! is mostly a dream sequences, as Optimus Prime and Buster Witwicky see a vision of the future of the Transformers, expanding on "The Special Teams Have Arrived" from ten issues back. At that point, Furman runs out of story, so part 3 is on a totally different topic, the struggle between Megatron and Shockwave for control of the Deceptions, which resolves with them adopting joint leadership. Fine, whatever. 

 

"To a Power Unknown!", from The Transformers Annual [1986], reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)

script by Ian Mennell & Wilf Prigmore, art by Will Simpson, letters by Annie Halfacree, colours by Josie Firmin

from The Transformers Annual [1986]

My kids have watched a decent amount of toy tie-in tv over the years. Seeing things like PAW Patrol and the Hot Wheels show have made me realize that's while it's certainly not high art, we got lucky with Transformers. Its creators took it seriously enough. Every now and again, though, you get a Transformers work by someone who plainly did not take it seriously. Such is true of "To a Power Unknown!", which has a stupid premise and risible dialogue. In another world, it could have all been like this, though, so we should count our blessings. This is kiddie stuff in the sense that it's written by people who think they can get away with crap if it's for kids... which very much jars with the fact that this is the story where the Autobots accidentally kill an innocent human being with a heat-seeking missile! Is this the only human death in Marvel's Transformers? So weird.

 

Return to Cybertron / "Command Performances!" / "Showdown!" / "The Mission" / In the National Interest, Part 1, from The Transformers US #17-20 (June-Sept. 1986) / The Transformers UK #66-74 (21 June–16 Aug. 1986) and The Transformers Annual [1986]; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

written by Bob Budiansky, Jamie Delano, and Simon Furman; penciled by Don Perlin, Herb Trimpe, and Will Simpson; inked by Keith Williams (with Vince Colletta), Ian Akin & Brian Garvey, and Will Simpson; lettered by Janice Chiang and Annie Halfacree; colored by Nel Yomtov and John Burns

from The Transformers US #17

I am a big fan of Transfan "Broadside"'s analysis of Transformers storytelling as falling into two modes: Budianskian and Furmanist. Named after the two primary writers of the G1 comics, Budianskian stories place the Transformers in a human context, Furmanist ones don't see the necessity of that. (I lean more Furmanist than Budianskian in my tastes, personally; my two favorite pieces of Transformers media, Beast Wars/Machines and More than Meets the Eye/Lost Light are both Furmanist.) As Broadside points out, each man was capable of adopting the other mode, however; Furman's approach in IDW's continuity was Budianskian, while Budiansky's Return to Cybetron arc collected here is Furmanist. Each writer actually excels in the other mode—Return to Cyberton remains one of my favorite G1 comic stories. For the first time, we find out what's been happening on Cybertron in the millions of years since Optimus Prime and the Ark left the planet; it's become an apocalyptic hellhole ruled by the Decepticons. We follow the beleaguered Autobot resistance, particularly Blaster and Scrounge, as they work against Lord Straxus of Darkmount. It's dark stuff, which works well here, and Blaster and Scrounge are both great characters. Poor Scrounge! I might go so far as to suggest that Furman's own "Furmanist" stories (such as the imminent Target: 2006) actually take their cues from it, meaning that both modes of Transformers storytelling are actually Budianskian!

 

After four US issues of mediocre wheel-spinning, this is actually a very solid run of US comics overall. "Command Performances!" features an amazing sequence where the newly built Autobot warrior Omega Supreme lays the smackdown on the Decepticons, but the other highlight is "Showdown!" If Return to Cybetron features Budiansky at his most Furmanist, then "Showdown!" represents the peak of Budiansky's Budianskian mode. Skids has been damaged and isolated from the rest of the Autobots; he's found a grocery store cashier named Charlene in rural Wyoming, who dreams of bigger and better things. Skids enjoys the respite from centuries of war (he was originally an anthropologist), while Charlene enjoys the attentions of someone who validates her dreams of adventure. But real "adventure" finds them when Ravage tracks Skids down, and Skids must go back to war to defend his innocent friends while Charlene must learn to enjoy the life she has. As I said above, I prefer Furmanist storytelling on the whole (though it certainly has its failure modes), but this shows the real potential of the Budianskian approach. It's a lot like Russell T Davies's approach to Doctor Who, actually: these exciting things only matter inasmuh as they affect ordinary people.

 

from The Transformers Annual [1986]

After this, we get a decent UK text story, "The Mission," about Hoist and Jazz on a desperate mission in the Alaskan wilderness. It's intense stuff! And then the first part of In the National Interest, which promises good stuff; Furman always does well by the Dinobots. I didn't expect Professor Morris from The Icarus Theory (UK issues #45-46) to come back! We'll see how this goes in future installments. 

 

This is the sixth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers UK issues #75-84. Previous installments are listed below:

1. US #1-3 & 33-34 / UK #1-6 & 9-17 (1984-85)
2. US #4-8 / UK #7-8 & 18-30 (1984-85) 
3. US #9-12 / UK #31-41 (1985-86) 
4. US #13-14 / UK #42-54 (1985-86) 
5. US #15-16 / UK #54-63 (1985-86)

Doug Dorst, S. (2013)

What S. looks like is a book called Ship of Theseus by V. M. Straka, published in 1949. Translated into English, the book has footnotes by its translator, F. X. Caldeira. It's a specific copy, taken out of a high school library and never returned by a guy named Eric; the book is filled with his annotations as he (much later) prepares to write his doctoral thesis on it. His copy is found by an undergraduate library worker named Jen, who responds to his annotations, and then he replies to hers, and so on. (Different colors of ink allow you to partially decode the sequence of annotations.) There are also physical objects in the book, like longer letters between the two, postcards, newspaper clippings, photocopies of journal articles, and so on. (The book was originally published with a slipcase that I believe credits the real author—Doug Dorst, from an idea by film director J. J. Abrams—but my library copy doesn't have that, so someone who picked the book up off the shelf without context would, I suspect, be somewhat baffled!)

Some friends recommended this book to me back in grad school. (I think the same friends who recommended me The Signature of All Things, actually.) S. is the kind of book that scholar Katherine Hayles would call a "technotext": one that draws attention to the fact that it is a text, a physical assemblage, like Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts. (This is distinct from metafictions, works that call attention to the fact that they are fictions, though some books are both metafiction and technotext.) Back in grad school I was briefly obsessed with these kinds of books, though I had the much more awkward descriptor "non-novel novels," novels told in the forms of things that were not novels; many years later I discovered the much better descriptor of "hermit crab fictions" for this kind of thing.

S. was certainly inspired by Nabokov's Pale Fire, where you have a book that's been translated and annotated, and the narrative emerges from the tension between the embedded story and the act of annotation. But it goes further. We have a few different stories here: 1) There's the actual story of Ship of Theseus, a sort of Kafkaesque one about a guy who ends up on a mysterious ship and in the employ of a mysterious group. 2) There's the story of how Ship of Theseus was written and its mysterious author, Straka, and his relationship with his translator, Caldeira. 3) There's the story of Eric and Jen and their growing relationship with each other as they work to uncover the story of Straka, Caldeira, and the mysterious S., while competing with Eric's former Ph.D. advisor. (I'm much less certain if Dorst read this, but there's definitely resonances with the best novel about literary criticism ever written, A. S. Byatt's Possession. The other book this reminded me a lot of, actually, is Daniel Handler's Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. Is S. just A Series of Unfortunate Events for grownups?)

Ship of Theseus by V. M. Straka

Published: 2013
Read: January 2026

So it's a complicated book, and a bit difficult to read. According to the Internet, some people actually read Ship of Theseus first, and then the footnotes, and then the first time track of Jen/Eric interactions, and then the second, and so on! I ended up reading one chapter with its footnotes, and then doubling back and reading all the Eric/Jen annotations for that chapter, just doing my best to keep in mind what had happened when in each of the three parallel tracks. (I wasn't capable of reading more than one chapter in a single sitting; it took up a lot of cognitive load to read this book!) I don't think I could have read all of Ship of Theseus on its own without the other layers; the embedded novel is intermittently interesting, but it never grabbed me, possibly because one never shakes the feeling its been constructed as a clue in a mystery and not a genuine novel. 

It is beautiful to look at; the team that designed it did an excellent job, as it really looks like a 1930s library book, and the annotations and the interpolated objects all look authentic. (Nice of Eric and Jen to be very consistent about their ink colors, though!) I loved the very dumb articles in the student newspaper; they are all quite accurate to my experience reading many many student newspapers. It's just a pleasure to thumb through the book and consider it. Back when I was in grad school, people were arguing about books-as-conveyors-of-information and books-as-physical-objects, and what we lose through digitization (they might still be arguing about these things, I don't know, I've moved on), and this is definitely a book that trades on the power of the latter. There is an ebook and even an audiobook... but why? what would be the point of reading the book in such forms? The pleasure of the book is remembering the pleasure of reading any well-loved book, thumbing through it, trying to find its depths and mysteries, something any lover of literature can identify with, I am sure.

As I said, I didn't find the Ship of Theseus story terribly interesting; I also wasn't very much into the mystery of Straka and Caldeira. Thinking of books as a series of mysteries to decode, with right or wrong answers, just doesn't resonate with how I read literature. (It doesn't seem too much of a surprise, however, to discover that J. J. Abrams thinks of literature this way.) There's some good stuff here but I just wasn't interested in the puzzle-solving aspect of the book, and I was very happy for Eric and Jen to do all that work for me. Some people who've read the book have done deep dives on exactly who Straka and Caldeira and S. were and what happened between them. I can't imagine myself doing that!

What I can imagine doing, however, is doing a deep dive on Eric and Jen. They, for me, were the real success of the book. What the annotations also capture is that feeling of being in love with a book and the joy of exploring it with someone else. Reading is a solitary activity in some ways but it's also a communal one. We bond over books, we love it when we can share a book we love with someone else who ends up loving it as much as we do. And loving stories in this way can be an aspect of actual love, of coming to know and love someone else. I recommended the book to my department's staff assistant (after a discussion of Nabokov with her lead me to Pale Fire and then to S.), and she told me it was one of the best romance novels she'd ever read. I hadn't thought of it as a romance novel, but I immediately knew that she was right.

Here is a bit of a spoiler, but a bit I found particularly interesting was when you find out Jen and Eric have had sex. Obviously you discover that fictional characters have had sex all the time! But when I found out they had had sex, I had a little bit of a shudder, like I had found out something I wasn't supposed to find out, like the time I was helping a student do something on her laptop and a sext from her boyfriend popped up. (Macs are weird.) The form of the book creates an intimacy with Eric and Jen, but a voyeuristic one. They're falling in love, but you're overhearing it, and you're not supposed to. This is their copy of the book, not yours. The ending of their story is particularly cute. 

It's been over a decade since the book came out, and I think it's probably set when it came out, so Eric and Jen would be in their mid-to-late thirties now. It's easy to imagine them still existing, though I don't know exactly what they would be doing. I hope they're happy together still, and I hope they've figured out their lives. It's hard work to figure yourself out, but figuring out literature gives you a blueprint to do it, so they ought to be able to if they put in the effort.

Reading Issue #2 of Oz-story Aloud to My Kids

Like the first, the second issue of Oz-story Magazine collects a original and reprinted Oz and Oz-adjacent comics and prose stories, edited by Hungry Tiger publisher David Maxine with art direction by Eric Shanower. Like the first, it's a beautiful package, and like the first, I read it some of it aloud to my two children.

Oz-story Magazine, Number Two
edited by David Maxine
art director: Eric Shanower

Anthology published: 1996
Contents originally published: 1905-96
Acquired and read aloud: February 2026

There wasn't as much that was read aloud-able as in the first issue, however. The main star of the volume is the novella "Dorothy and the Mushroom Queen," where Dorothy, the Glass Cat, and Flicker explore a recently discovered underground kingdom of mushroom people. This is credited to "Janet Deschman," but actually the work of Eric Shanower—which I feel like should have been obvious, given Flicker is a character from one of Shanower's Oz comics. It's a well done story of a classic Oz format: the group of weird and antagonistic life-forms our heroes must escape using their wits. (See, especially Dorothy and the Wizard.) The idea that the underground people would think the Glass Cat the most beautiful thing they had ever seen, and that she would be taken in by this, is probably the high point of the story; I love the Glass Cat, and this is a good showcase for her at her best.

The only other story I read aloud to my kids was "Christmas in Pumperdink," one of Ruth Plumly Thompson's pre-Kabumpo Pumperdink short stories. Certainly cute enough.

This issue's complete Oz-adjacent novel is Policeman Bluejay by L. Frank Baum, one of his "Twinkle tales"... but it's the seventh story in a series, and though it stands alone just fine, it seemed I ought to read the previous stories to the kids first. So I skipped it in favor of picking up the complete Twinkle Tales volume, which I'll detail in a future post.

The volume's other prose features didn't strike me as being as kid-friendly, so I just read them to myself. "The Magic Land" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (illustrated by Lauren Lynn McGraw) is about how Baum came to write the Oz books, which I didn't think my kids would find interesting. I certainly knew they would not be into "Abby" by Eric Shanower, which picks up the adventures of Twink and Tom, the child protagonists of Jack Snow's The Shaggy Man of Oz. (It includes illustrations from Shaggy Man by Frank Kramer.) One, they definitely don't remember Shaggy Man, and two, the story focuses on Twink (now Abby) and Tom as middle-aged adults trying to reconcile their strange childhood experiences with the realities of middle-aged adulthood! This I quite enjoyed; it has a well-done melancholy tone, and it also does some interesting stuff with the concept of Oz-as-reality. Baum and his later imitators often used the conceit that Oz was real, and they were relaying what happened there... but what would it be like to get home to America and for a book about you to be published!? Shanower posits that the kids had no contact with Snow, but the book's prose was all accurate, though the pictures were not. (I felt a little bit of a slam against Kramer here when Abby observes that Kramer drew her differently in different pictures!) Shanower also suggests that while the story was never wrong, it didn't include everything: that Conjo was creepier than he comes across in the book, that there were logistics about bodily functions that were omitted. I liked this a lot; one of the things I always enjoy about Oz books is their methodical, realistic nature within a fantasy framework, and Shanower simply ups the ante on that here for an adult readership. I really liked this story... and I want to know what happened to Tom!

There are also some comics, a mix of old and new; my seven-year-old read these to themself, and I also read the ones that interested me. There's "The Greed Goblin of Oz" (story by Shanower, art by Anna-Maria Cool), a cute story about a goblin who preys on greed but struggles because the Scarecrow has none; a very weird 1946 Mary Marvel comic that includes robots of some Oz characters (it very much seemed to be made up as it went along); the second half of Walt Sprouse's adaption of The Land of Oz; and "Skin Deep" (story by Shanower, art by Archie's Dan Parent), a fun story about an ugly monster seeking transformation.

The very best thing in the whole issue, though, is the back cover: "If Six Great Cartoonists Had Drawn Oz Comics!" Shanower gives us six panels from potential Oz comics, each one in the style of a different artist. I didn't recognize all of them, but we get a Little Nemo pastiche, an Annie pastiche, a Scrooge McDuck pastiche, and so on. The very best of these, though, is the Jack Kirby one, which renders a scene from Ozoplaning with the Wizard in the style of the King. First, Shanower just totally nails the Kirby style in this panel... but moreover, what a genius combination! If ever there was an Oz novel in the Kirby metier of the technological sublime, it surely was the bizarre but propulsive story of Ozoplaning. I would pay real money for an entire adaption of Ozoplaning in Kirby's style, I love the idea so much. At the very least, if Shanower sold a print of just this panel, I would snap it up in a heartbeat.

Peter S. Beagle, In Calabria (2017)

In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle

Published: 2017
Read: December 2025

One of my wife's favorite ever books is Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, so I periodically buy her other Beagle fantasy books as presents. I have never read The Last Unicorn, though—nor, I think, anything else by Beagle. (I will get to Last Unicorn in 2044(!) as part of my project to read Hugo-winning and Hugo-related books.) Several years ago, I bought her this unicorn-focused book by him; back in December, I semi-randomly plucked it from her shelves and decided to give it a go, as my introduction to Beagle.

I'm not going to write off Beagle based on this one book, but I did not particularly enjoy this. Beagle writes well, and creates an evocative setting and a clearly drawn central protagonist... but the story itself I just didn't care for at all. An old Italian man discovers a unicorn is living on his farm and must protect her from the world, that's fine, but really the unicorn comes across as a sideshow to the main plot, which is that a hot twenty-something woman falls in love with him for no readily apparent reason, the end. I'm not opposed to an age-gap romance, but there's no work put into this one. Love is work, but this guy does none (at least in the relationship, he puts work into the unicorn), he just gets rewarded with a hot chick. Evocatively told, but I hope other stories by Beagle have better premises than this.

Marvel's The Transformers Year Two, Part II: Devastation Derby! (US #15-16 / UK #54-63)

In the Til All Are One compendia, the two prose stories from the 1985 UK annual are placed in volume four, with the stuff that doesn't fit. Since I'm trying to read these stories in a hybrid chronological/publication order, I wanted to read them among the 1985/86 stories. The Transformers Wiki will tell you that the lineups in these stories pretty much preclude them from fitting anywhere in the main US/UK comics continuity, but it does say that most of the characters in "Missing in Action" were introduced in UK issue #53, and that the sequel to "Missing in Action" in the 1986 annual ("The Return of the Transformers") references the events of UK issue #65, so I've placed "Missing in Action" in between those two points; there's a continuity gap between UK issues #58 and 59, so that works nicely. "Hunted!" pretty much doesn't fit anywhere according to the wiki, so I just read it alongside "Missing in Action." In retrospect, since it includes Megatron as Decepticon leader, I think it would read better in the nebulous, nonexistent gap during the original US miniseries where other early UK stories take place.

"I, Robot-Master!" / "Plight of the Bumblebee!", from The Transformers US #15-16 (Apr.-May 1986) / The Transformers UK #55-58 (5-26 Apr. 1986); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

written by Bob Budiansky and Len Kaminski, penciled by Don Perlin and Graham Nolan, inked by Keith Williams and Tom Morgan, lettered by Janice Chiang and Bill Oakley, colored by Nel Yomtov

from The Transformers US #15

I have bad memories of the US stories from when I previously read them on their own; these are certainly the kind of stories that explain why. Like many recent US stories, "I, Robot-Master!" seems to indicate Bob Budiansky has lost interest in the Transformers themselves, as this focuses almost entirely on humans trying to cover up the existence of Giant Alien Robots from Space on the earth. This isn't a bad premise per se, but the way it's carried out here isn't particularly interesting, either: the Intelligence and Information Institute of the US government recruits a comic book writer to pretend to be a human terrorist masterminding the Transformers, though by the story's end, he's working for the Decepticons. There are some decent jokes (I liked the gag about Donny's cigarette) but it goes on too long compared to how interesting it is (Donny is just not interesting enough as a person to sustain this). Also, this is the debut of Don Perlin, who I think becomes better later on, but at this point is just not very good at drawing giant robots.

 

The story that follows this, though, is worse: Shockwave decides to disable Bumblebee, calling him the weakest of the Autobots... completely coincidentally at a time when Bumblebee leaves the Ark on his own because he's feeling down. Bumblebee ends up falling in with a pair of two-bit crooks and helping them do crimes. Like... why? Again, you could probably tell a good story with these ingredients—one where Bumblebee gets a sense of belonging from these guys, but then realizes they're toxic—but instead it more feels like he passively sits there and lets them do stuff until he doesn't. The end.

 

"Missing in Action" / "Hunted!", from The Transformers Annual [1985]; reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four (2025)

written by James Hill, illustrated by John Stokes

from The Transformers Annual [1985]

These two prose stories from the 1985 UK annual were apparently written to focus on characters who hadn't yet made it into the main comic. In "Missing in Action," Tracks falls in with a pair of two-bit crooks and helping them do crimes... why was this a thing? The best part of the story is the appearance of a kid, Danny Phillips, who is a strong viewpoint character in the tradition of Buster and Man of Iron's Sammy. The other story, "Hunted!", has the Autobots discovering a nefarious plot by Megatron in South America. It's fine. In both cases, the selling point is clearly the John Stokes art; in particular, catch that beautiful title page image of Ravage in "Hunted!" That said, given the point of these stories is to highlight toys, it's weird there aren't more images of actual Transformers in these stories. A lot of the pictures are just of humans doing human things!

 

Robot Buster! / Devastation Derby! / Second Generation! Part 1 / "The Special Teams Have Arrived", from The Transformers UK #54 & 59-63 (29 Mar. & 3-31 May 1986); reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One (2025)

stories by Simon Furman; plot idea by Barry Kitson; pencils by Barry Kitson, Will Simpson, and John Stokes; inks by Barry Kitson, Tim Perkins, Will Simpson, and John Stokes; colours by Josie Firmin, T. M. Cooks, and John Burns; letters by Annie Halfacree and Mike Scott

This run of UK stories focuses on Buster, first as he attempts to augment his abilities so he can hang out with the Autobots and then as it's discovered the Creation Matrix being installed in his mind has had lingering effects. The idea of Buster getting a robot suit to fight alongside the Autobots is a bit silly, to be honest, and I did not find this to be among Furman's better work on the title so far. Of particular note is how the stories attempt to integrate the new Combiner toys (the "Special Teams") into continuity. They would not appear until much later in the US stories, but Hasbro needed them to be in the UK comic earlier as the toys were on the shelves. So that their eventual debut in the comic would not be contradicted, Furman solved this dilemma by having Buster dream about the impending characters! This happens in the Second Generation! story in issues #63-65; a three-page preview of the story was published in issue #54. This preview works on its own fine as a regular (if incomplete) tale, but if you read it in the context of Second Generation! is cleverly revealed as a fragment of Buster's dreams. (The compendium places it before part 1 of Second Generation!, but I think it reads better between parts 1 and 2.)

from The Transformers UK #54

Anyway, so this might be clever from a storytelling construction standpoint... but I hate combiners. They are good toys (I assume: I wouldn't know, I've never owned any), but bad as characters in actual stories, since you suddenly add a half dozen new robots whose main function is to not have distinct personalities. Making your combiners just dream characters makes it all even worse because they're not even real!

This is the fifth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #17-20 and UK issues #64-74. Previous installments are listed below:

1. US #1-3 & 33-34 / UK #1-6 & 9-17 (1984-85)
2. US #4-8 / UK #7-8 & 18-30 (1984-85) 
3. US #9-12 / UK #31-41 (1985-86) 
4. US #13-14 / UK #42-54 (1985-86) 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Graphic Novellas #9–11

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Sith Hunters

Published: 2012
Acquired: November 2012
Read: January 2026

Scripts: Henry Gilroy & Stephen Melching, Justin Aclin
Art: Vicenç Villagrasa & Vicente Ibañez, Ben Bates, Eduardo Ferrara
Colors: Marlon Ilagan, Michael Atiyeh
Lettering: Michael Heisler

With these three graphic novellas, I finally come to the end of my journey through all of the Clone Wars–related content of the old Star Wars "Expanded Universe." (Well, EU content that I care about; there were many more tie-ins I'm sure!)

Of these three, I found The Sith Hunters the least interesting. This is about a recently resurrected Darth Maul and his brother (who, even by standards of Star Wars villain names, is a bit obvious: was "Savage Oppress" ever going to work in logistics?) going on the run from both Jedi and Sith while Obi-Wan leads a Jedi task force to hunt him down. It seemed to be a fairly close sequel to a Clone Wars episode I hadn't seen, which isn't really the book's fault, but negatively impacted my enjoyment nonetheless. As result, the story doesn't really begin... but it also doesn't really end, either, I'm assuming because things had to be left open for if Maul ever reappeared in the tv show. 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Defenders of the Lost Temple

Published: 2013
Acquired: June 2014
Read: January 2026

A lot of these novellas will send a set of familiar Jedi characters on a mission (usually, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and someone from the movies) along with one original character. In theory, I appreciate the introduction of original characters... but the one in this story is plainly just Bruce Lee as a Jedi, and usually that's the issue with these original characters: there's so little to them it feels pointless. 

Of these final three, Defenders of the Lost Temple was my favorite. No familiar characters in this one (at least protagonist-wise); it's about two Jedi and a squad of clones sent to secure an ancient artifact. Justin Aclin's story has some nice beats, with a strong character focus, as the story's padawan befriends a dopey clone who thinks he might have the Force in him. Decent art from Ben Bates, a bit more expressive than is the norm for this series.

It does suffer a bit from being clone-focused: four identical characters in identical outfits are a tough thing to pull off in comics, and I sometimes lost track of which one was which. But this is the kind of one-off action-focused story this series excels at at its best.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Smuggler's Code

Published: 2013
Acquired: July 2014
Read: February 2026

The Smuggler's Code is somewhere in between the two, quality-wise. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka are on a beach vacation when Obi-Wan notices a criminal who eluded his grasp years ago. He won't let Anakin and Ahsoka help, but ends up gaining the assistance of a suspicious smuggler.

It's basically fine. There's little to do with the "Clone Wars" here, but the story is competent enough, though a bit predictable. I didn't care much for the art style; I do think the 3D The Clone Wars show had a much less comics-friendly art style than the 2D Clone Wars show, but I also think Eduardo Ferrara hasn't really made it work. Too jagged.

All in all, this is a fun enough series, if not as good as the Clone Wars Adventures series it supplanted. They work well enough on their own; I will probably give them to my kid to read during the gap between Episodes II and III as we make our way through the Star Wars saga. 

The SFWA Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Complete Set

In 1965, the Science Fiction Writers of America was founded. In 1966, they presented the first Nebula Awards for the best sf of the previous year. But what about the best sf up prior to that point?

The SFWA held a vote, and the result was an anthology of twenty-six short stories from 1929 to 1964, entitled The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, edited by Robert Silverberg. This was published in 1970 by Doubleday and remains in print, though now from Tor. 

This must have been a success for everyone involved because it was followed up in 1973 by The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two, edited by Ben Bova, which collected the best pre-1964 novellas. Collecting twenty-two novellas would make the volume quite massive, so it was split into two hardbacks, volumes two-A and and two-B. These also remain in print from Tor.

I acquired volumes one and two back in 2007 when I was invited to pick through the sf books of the late brother of one of my mother's friends. Story-for-story, volume one is excellent, one of the best sf anthologies I've ever read; if I was going to teach some kind of general sf survey, it would definitely be on the syllabus. Weirdly, I didn't find volume two-A very satisfying, but I do think that volume two-B had as good a hit rate as volume one.

---

The SFWA must have wanted to keep a good thing going (my understanding is that the organization receives the royalties from the books), because 1981 and 1986 saw the release of volumes three and four, respectively. (Volume three was edited by Arthur C. Clarke and Geo W. Proctor; volume four, Terry Carr.) But with the best pre-SFWA stories collected, these shifted to collecting the best stories from the SFWA era, which is to say, Nebula Award winners. Volume three collects Nebula-winning short fiction (short stories, novelettes, and novellas) from 1965 to 1969, and volume four from 1970 to 1974.

These seem to me to be kind of redundant, given the SFWA already publishes annual volumes of Nebula winners, and the hit rate is presumably lower when you're collecting the sixteen best stories of five years, not the twenty-six best of thirty-five. I imagine readers must have felt the same, because these volumes have no subsequent US editions after their original publications by Avon. 

I own both volumes three and four; I found them in used bookstores in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Of the two, I have only read volume three. It was fine. Some excellent stuff, but indeed, not as strong as volumes one or two-B.

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I have read other histories of the SFWA's Hall of Fame series, and they usually stop here, but that's not really where it ends! In 1991, the name of the organization was changed to "Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America." Volumes three and four of the Hall of Fame do contain fantasy stories because fantasy is eligible for the Nebulas, but volumes one and two did not. So the SFWA held a new vote, for the best fantasy short fiction up to 1990.

The result of this was The Fantasy Hall of Fame, edited by Robert Silverberg, published by Harper in 1998. (Confusingly, in 1983, Silverberg had already co-edited an anthology with this title, released by Arbor House.) This is billed as being as good as the original Science Fiction Hall of Fame, but I would guess for whatever reason it has not had the staying power, because it did not stay in print.

Back in 2019, upon finishing volume three, I tracked down a copy of this online; I'd never encountered it in the wild, and it seemed like I wasn't going to if I hadn't done so after ten years. 

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There is one final "Hall of Fame" volume from SFWA, but it's very different from the others. The SFWA European Hall of Fame is a collection of translations of non-Anglophone sf from Europe, containing sixteen short stories; this was edited by James Morrow and Kathryn Morrow, published by Tor in 2007. I believe it was funded by a grant from the SFWA, hence the title.

I did encounter this in the wild, to my surprise, given fifteen years had passed without me bumping into it. It was in the book room at ICFA a couple weeks ago, and I immediately grabbed it. As you can see in my photo above, it is very different from the others! I had been hoping its dimensions would match.

But I'm always happy to have a complete set of any series; it only took me nineteen years in this case! (I am the only LibraryThing user to own all seven volumes, fact fans.) Hopefully it doesn't take nineteen years for me to get around to reading my remaining three volumes.