The Uncollected Internet Doctor Who Short Trips, 2004–21

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about all the short Doctor Who stories with Christmas themes that had never received some kind of hard-copy publication. In the process of researching it, I had to also figure out all the Internet-published short Doctor Who stories that were not Christmas-themed. Just as I read all the Christmas-themed ones as a sort of "book" in 2022, for Christmas 2025, I read all the other ones. Once again, here is a handy guide to all of them, along with my thoughts. (Note there were a bunch of short stories published on the official site during lockdown in 2020, but those were all subsequently collected.)

Adventure Calendar

As covered in my previous post, the official Doctor Who web site used to run an annual "adventure calendar" that often included short stories. Some were Christmas-themed, but some were not. Here are the ones that were not:

• "Number 1, Gallows Gate Road" by Rupert Laight (4 & 11 Dec. 2008). The tenth Doctor lands at a boarding house in 1940 where everyone—including himself—is curiously lacking in ambition. Published in two parts, I found the first pretty strong and atmospheric. Like a lot of Doctor Who stories, the second part, where you have to give explanations and solutions, is less engaging, but still I enjoyed it.
• "Houdini and the Space Cuckoos" Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four by Joseph Lidster (15-16, 19, & 25 Dec. 2012). In this story, the eleventh Doctor must team up with Harry Houdini to stop some aliens. I usually get on with Joseph Lidster's work very well, but this is more action-focused and less character-focused than plays to his strengths, I think. I did think he did a good job of capturing the voice of the eleventh Doctor.
• "Doctor Who and the Horror of Coal Hill" by Gavin Collinson (21 Dec. 2017). This is a bit longer than some of the other ones, and I found it surprisingly engaging. The main story is about the first Doctor visiting Coal Hill School during the time Susan is a student there, and helping a teacher fight off an alien menace; the story periodically jumps ahead and shows later Doctors coming back to the school later on to remember the events of the story. It's a neat story that parallels the Doctor's status as an outside with the perils of immigration. I thought Collinson's Christmas stories were a bit slight, but this one is strong.

Other Stories from the Official Site

• "The Feast of the Stone" by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright (3 Apr. 2004). This is the only story in this post to predate the 2005 revival, back when the official Doctor Who site was a subsection of "BBC Cult." (It is amazing to me that twenty years on, it's still there, though!) This is the only other story to ever feature the Doctor and his companions from the webcast Scream of the Shalka; it was part of a BBC Cult vampire-themed initiative. It's decent enough, but I very much enjoyed the glimpses of this unique Doctor with his unique companions, particularly the robotic shell of the Master. Scott & Wright to a good job capturing the voices of both Richard E. Grant's Doctor and Derek Jacobi's pseudo-Master.
• "'42' Prologue" by Joseph Lidster (12 May 2007). You may remember the 2007 episode "42," about the tenth Doctor and Martha, told in real time aboard a dying spaceship. This story chronicles the four minutes before they showed up, from the perspective of one of the characters on the ship. It doesn't particularly work on its own (it would be interesting to read it and then immediately start the episode, I think), but it's Joseph Lidster, so it has a strong sense of voice and character.
• "The Lonely Computer" by Rupert Laight (24 May 2008). The David Tennant years were really the peak of content on the official site; this story is based on a passing reference to the Doctor having met a lonely computer in Belgium in "The Unicorn and the Wasp." It's a little underdeveloped but Laight does well by both the tenth Doctor and Donna.
• "Blue Moon" by Oli Smith (July 2009). For the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo missions, the BBC site released this story about the Doctor discovering secret alien intervention in the moon landing—a premise the show would use itself just a couple years later. I thought this one was just okay, not much to say about it.
• "The War of Art" by Paul Cornell (Aug. 2010). I forget what the occasion for this one was, but I feel like it did have one, like it was a tie-in to a game or something. Paul Cornell is one of my favorite writers (not just Doctor Who writers, but writers full top) and he can do good, beautiful character work—but as this story shows, he can also be quite funny. Aliens invade a futuristic gallery, and Cornell uses this as the opportunity for a number of art jokes; I laughed out loud repeatedly.
• "The Night after Hallowe'en" by Mark B. Oliver (29 Oct.–5 Nov. 2010). This is the first of several stories by Mark B. Oliver about a family of kids the eleventh Doctor keeps meeting; they also appeared in a couple Christmas stories. I find the kids pretty generic, as is the plot here. I don't feel like they warranted repeat appearances.
• "What the TARDIS Thought of 'Time Lord Victorious'" by James Goss (15 Nov. 2020). This is one of two online prose tie-ins to the "Time Lord Victorious" event; it is told from the perspective of the TARDIS, picking up from the end of "The Waters of Mars," establishing how the tenth Doctor gets from there to the events of the crossover. It's fine. Goss always writes with a strong sense of voice, but the basic premise of the crossover was a bit silly.

Stories from Other Sources

• "My Dad, The Doctor" by Jamie Mathieson (First News, 29 Oct. 2015). Mathieson, writer of several Peter Capaldi tv stories, writes this prose story about him, one where the Doctor uses his sonic sunglasses to take over the mind of a kid's dad in the middle of a crisis. Well written but I found the final twist didn't make a ton of sense. It was written for a kids newspaper, but Mathieson republished it on his own blog.
• "The Dawn of the Kotturuh" by James Goss (official newsletter, 25 Sept. 2020). This is another tie-in to Time Lord Victorious, one explaining how the alien Kotturuh brought death to the universe during the Dark Times. It was originally published in the official Doctor Who e-mail newsletter. Frankly, even by the standards of Doctor Who, I don't think the idea of a universe with living things without death makes any sense, and this story didn't make it work any better.
• "The Voice of Many Angels" by Gavin Collinson (Maze Theory’s Into the Unknown web site, 18 Mar. 2021). My understanding is that the videogame Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins had a tie-in website called Into the Unknown, purporting to be a conspiracy theorist blog focused on the Weeping Angels. This was the final post on the site, a short story from the perspective of the guy who ran the site. The site and the story are gone now, but author Gavin Collinson was kind enough to share a copy of it with me via e-mail. I really enjoyed it; creepy and suggestive, and it expanded on Weeping Angels lore in interesting ways that I liked. Amazing to think there are new angles on them, but I loved the idea of a support group!

Since the time span covered in this post, there have been a least a couple more, tie-ins to another crossover event ("Doom's Day") but I haven't read those yet. These thirteen stories run over 250 pages if formatted like an official BBC Books anthology, so it makes for a nice set of readings. I wonder if any official publisher will ever be motivated to collect any of this work?

Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock

Beginning in 2010, BBC Books has published a series of "prestige" Doctor Who hardcovers, with different "big name" authors of various sorts, mostly a mix of authors with legit reps outside of Doctor Who (e.g., Stephen Baxter, Jenny Colgan), "celebrities" within the Doctor Who world (e.g., Tom Baker, Sophie Aldred), and people imitating the voice of Douglas Adams. I have previously read just one of them, a 2011 Christmas book, The Silent Stars Go by by Dan Abnett.

Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles; Or, Pirates of the Second Aether!!
by Michael Moorcock

Published: 2010
Acquired: September 2012
Read: October 2025

The very first of those, which I have had for a long time but never read, was The Coming of the Terraphiles, by Michael Moorcock. Moorcock is one of those authors I know of but have read very little of, just a couple short stories; the universe of print sf is so large and one only has so much time! Apparently this book's "Second Aether" is a milieu he has developed in his original fiction, and some of its characters and concepts span his wider multiverse.

As an experiment, I think it's a worthy one. BBC Books's tie-ins to the new series can be easily accused, I think, of being unambitious; of not really trying to be like novels but novelisations of unseen episodes that don't play to the strengths of the prose medium. Like, they are often fun enough, but often don't do what the best tie-ins do, refract the parent show though a different and interesting lens.

Moorcock definitely is doing that here... but I didn't find it worked terribly well in the execution. The book is meandering, which can be fine if you enjoy the diversions, but I don't know why there is so much P. G. Wodehouse pastiche when Moorcock is only "quite okay" at it. (I coincidentally read some actual Jeeves and Wooster shortly after this, and the difference was stark.)

The book is at its best when it's weird and big, like the diversion into the all-red universe depicted on the cover. Those are the coolest moments, when the book is audacious, but in a way that transcends the CGI ways in which a tv show can be audacious. There are lots of fun bits; I particularly enjoyed all the goofy sports the characters play, and the role of the Judoon is so very well pitched, having them do stuff we never saw on screen that totally fits with it. Those jokes were probably my favorite. I think Moorcock has a decent handle on both Matt Smith's Doctor and Amy Pond, though not a great one. 

Overall, I'm glad this book exists, but I don't think I'm quite as glad about the actual process of reading it. Still, I look forward to reading future installments in this series.

Justice League International Year Seven, Part I: Destiny's Hand (JLA #70-77 / JLTF #1-3)

This series of posts took a bit of a breather. Partially because I have to track down out-of-print trade paperbacks, but partially also because trying to read the stories in any kind of reasonable or accurate sequence gets much harder around this point! I had been using the Cosmic Teams timeline, but it has lots of placements that very obviously do not make sense if you read the actual stories, making me think it was done from someone's vague memories of the series. So I kept on reading, but put my writeups on pause while I tried to work out the best order.

Now, finally, I am back in action. It is interesting; this era gives you some signs that the Justice League family of titles was in trouble, in that approaches are constantly being jerked around and creative teams switching. But it also gives you indications things were going quite well, because a third ongoing monthly title was added to the lineup. Has there ever been any other era in the history of DC where there were four ongoing Justice League titles? (America, International, and Task Force all as monthlies, but also Quarterly keeps going, with three issues' worth of content every quarter, so essentially another monthly.)

This post covers the end of Dan Jurgens's run on Justice League America (collected in a book called Superman and Justice League America, Volume 2... even though Superman is dead for every single one of these issues!) and the first three issues of Justice League Task Force. Based on chronological considerations, it will be a bit before we get back to JLE, now retitled Justice League International. Plus, a single issue of JLQ!

from Justice League America #76

"Grieving" / "A New Look" / Destiny's Hand / Blood Secrets, from Justice League America #70-77 (Jan.-Late July 1993), reprinted in Superman and Justice League America, Volume 2 (2016)
words/layouts by Dan Jurgens (guest pencils by Sal Velluto), finishes by Rick Burchett and Romeo Tanghal & Bob Smith, letters by Willie Schubert, colors by Gene D'Angelo

So, JLA #69 ended with Superman showing up to battle Doomsday. JLA #70 begins with him dead, having been killed off in Superman #75 as part of the Death of Superman story. The issue first focuses on the reactions of the various League members to the events of the battle with Doomsday: Ice, who had a crush on Superman, is devastated; Blue Beetle is in a coma; Booster is beside himself at both the injury of his best friend and the destruction of his suit. It then takes a broader approach, as other characters show up to grieve, like the Flash and Aquaman and Hawkman and Green Arrow. Even Guy Gardner is sad! It's fine, it does exactly what it should, I suppose. Dan Jurgens's art lifts his story; he's very good at classical heroic heroes emoting, which is exactly what this needs.

The next issue is one of those dull transitional issues, establishing the new status quo for the League: who quits, who joins, &c. Wonder Woman takes over as team leader. Ice quits. Booster and Fire are still around but neither has powers. A bunch of new members join, including the Ray (who lasts for quite a while) and two other characters who I honestly forget were even in the title until I went to write these issues up just now! These are Condor and Agent Liberty. Jurgens never really establishes their deals in an interesting way during his run, and they just vanish after it's over; I am pretty sure they are not written out, they just stop appearing after issue #75! I would say that's typical of the post-Giffen/DeMatteis JLA, which very much struggles to create a compelling mix of characters no matter who's writing.

At this point, Jurgens's run fizzles out. First we get a really boring four-part story about Doctor Dee dreaming a harsher Justice League into existence, which begins to bleed into the real world. It's just not a very interesting idea and it goes on far too long. The whole thing wraps up with a two-part story finally explaining what's been going on with Bloodwynd: he's the Martian Manhunter in the form of Bloodwynd. This is a great twist but not a great story because it turns out J'onn J'onnz thinks he's Bloodwynd so he's acting exactly how Bloodwynd would act. It tells us nothing about either Bloodwynd or J'onn as a character, so what's the point? I do like how Jurgens writes Blue Beetle, though, never forgetting that in addition to being a goofball he's also an obsessive genius.

from Justice League Quarterly #11

"Beautiful, Wonderful, Perfect" / "Heat Wave" / "The Damnation Agenda, Part 1 of 5: The Hiding Kind", from Justice League Quarterly #11 (Summer 1993)
writes by William Messner-Loebs, Pat McGreal & Dave Rawson, and Michael Jan Friedman; pencils by Mike Wieringo & Lee Moder, Dave Cockrum, and Mike Mayhew; inks by Richard Space, Peter Gross, and Dan Davis; letters by Bob Pinaha and Tim Harkins; colors by Gene D'Angelo, Steve Mattsson, and Glenn Whitmore

The lead story in this issue is said to "take place before current issues of Justice League," but there's pretty much nowhere it could go, as it features both Wonder Woman and Ice in the JLA, and Ice quit the same issue Wonder Woman joined (JLA #71). Additionally, Beetle is unseen but mentioned as active, yet he was comatose from JLA #69 to 75. But it can't go later, once Ice rejoins (JLA #85), because by then, Crimson Fox has quit the League!

Anyway, the lead story here has potential but, like all of William Messner-Loebs's contributions to JLQ, is not very well done. The League is asked to protect the wife of a conservative Muslim prince, so only female members can be used. The main characters have to be pretty dumb and gullible for the whole thing to work. There are some decent character moments among the leads, but also I feel like Mike Wieringo and Lee Moder's art wasn't quite ready for prime time. (But then, I guess JLQ isn't exactly prime time.) There's also a flashback story about the Martian Manhunter in the 1960s, battling racism in the South. I wouldn't say it's great comics, but I thought it was solid, and surprisingly nuanced for the early 1990s. It's cowritten by Pat McGreal, who overall did some solid stuff for JLQ; I'd've liked to have seen more work from him. And the art is by the great Dave Cockrum; nice to see him get to cut loose with something other than standard superhero fare.

Lastly, this issue sees the debut of JLQ's first-ever ongoing feature. This stars Praxis... and if you're going, "Who?", I don't blame you. Praxis has a very flimsy JL connection; way back in JLQ #1 he was a member of Conglomerate. It would be quite easy to not remember him! (I see from DCUGuide that he actually debuted in a 1989 Spectre story arc, but I don't think that's ever mentioned in any of his JLQ appearances.) Why would he be picked up for a return appearance? Well, if you remember the 1990s, it's not too surprising: he wears a leather jacket and sunglasses and mostly goes around angsting. So totally of his time it almost reads as parody. Praxis was a cop who failed to save his niece from a serial killer and got superpowers; after Conglomerate fell apart, he returned to police work. The story here, told from the perspective of his female partner, focuses on them trying to stop a new serial killer with a grisly MO. It's by Michael Jan Friedman and Mike Mayhew, both solid comics creators, but I found there was a bit too much narration. Let the story breathe!

from Justice League Task Force #1

"The Tyranny Gun!" / "Split Hit" / "Twisted Glass!", from Justice League Task Force #1-3 (June-Aug. 1993), reprinted in Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague (2018)
written by David Michelinie, pencils by Sal Velluto, inks by Jeff Albrecht, letters by Bob Pinaha, colors by Glenn Whitmore

Justice League Task Force is a new ongoing. It only has two consistent lead characters, Martian Manhunter and Gypsy; other than the two of them, each story arc sees a new team assembled every issue, from a broad mix of DC superheroes. Interestingly, this grabbag approach also extends to the series's writing: David Michelinie gets first author on the collection cover, but actually only writes three of the twelve issues it collects... but no one writes more than three. While ongoing comics with rotating creators aren't unusual, I can't remember another comic I've read where the writer is constantly changing, but the artist is not; Sal Velluto pencilled all but two of the series's first fifteen issues.

In the first story, the UN uses the newly formed Task Force to take down rebels in a Caribbean nation. In this one, in addition to Manhunter and Gypsy, there's the Flash, Aquaman, and Nightwing. I don't really care for it. Sal Velluto has done good work elsewhere but this isn't his best, leaning too much into the early 1990s grim-and-gritty style; the writing is like that, too, with the characters always barking and snarling at each other. I don't find attempts to insert mainstream superhero characters into "realistic" geopolitics very interesting. This must go shortly after JLA #77 for J'onn, but the trauma he went through there is never mentioned, and weirdly, the actual JLA series never mentions why J'onn suddenly never appears again after his return!

I feel like David Michelinie was probably meant to write more of this title than he did. He gets cover credit on the fourth issue even though it was written by someone else (more on that next time), and the ending of #3 seems to set up a recurring villain who never recurs.

This is the eleventh in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #78-83 of JLA, #51-52 of JLI, and #4-8 of JLTF. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Justice League #1-6 / Justice League International #7-12 (May 1987–Apr. 1988)
2. Justice League International #13-21 (May 1988–Dec. 1988)
3. Justice League International #22-25 / Justice League America #26-30 / Justice League Europe #1-6 (Jan. 1989–Sept. 1989) 
4. Justice League America #31-36 / Justice League Europe #7-12 (Oct. 1989–Mar. 1990)
5. Justice League America #37 / Justice League Europe #13-21 (Apr. 1990–Dec. 1990)
6. Justice League America #38-50 / Justice League Europe #22 (May 1990–May 1991)
7. Justice League America #51-52 / Justice League Europe #23-28 (Feb. 1991–July 1991) 
8. Justice League America #53-60 / Justice League Europe #29-36 (Aug. 1991–Mar. 1992) 
9. Justice League America #61-65 / Justice League Europe #37-42 (Apr. 1992–Sept. 1992)
10. Justice League America #66-69 / Justice League Europe #43-50 (Sept. 1992–May 1993) 

Black Panther: Range Wars by John Ridley, Stefano Landini, and Germán Peralta

Black Panther: Range Wars

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2022
Read: November 2025

Writer: John Ridley

Artists: Stefano Landini & Germán Peralta

Color Artists: Matt Milla & Jesus Aburtov

Letterer: Joe Sabino

I really enjoyed volume 1 of John Ridley's Black Panther run, finding it a return to form after Ta-Nehisi Coates's. It was interesting, from a character, action, and thematic perspective, surely the best work on the title since Christopher Priest.

So I was very much surprised by how much I thoroughly disliked this. The first few issues here wrap up the "Long Shadow" arc, and I found them dumb. I get that people might be mad at T'Challa having a secret plan of shadow agents... but I found the reactions here entirely disproportionate. The agents didn't even do anything. Can you get mad at the legitimate ruler of a country for having spies? Because that's literally all he did, yet everyone suddenly acts like T'Challa has committed the ultimate transgression. Yet he very much did "worse" things throughout Priest's run! And suddenly he's being deposed, being hunted by Wakandan police. Does it even make any sense? T'Challa is a popular ruler, you can't just politically turn on a guy like that. I didn't buy any of this at all, it made no sense. Clearly Ridley has a long game he's playing, and he's trying to get all the pieces into position for it, but the hand of the author is too obvious. To make all this work, you need to buy what Ridley is selling, and I did not.

A metaphor, you say? Surely not.
from Black Panther vol. 9 #10 (art by Germán Peralta)

The rest of the book contains another story that actually reads much more like an Avengers story in its features, even if I would say it's a Black Panther story in terms of its project. No longer king of Wakanda, a depressed T'Challa is focusing on his duties as chairman of the Avengers when Earth comes under attack by the "Colonialist," an entity from another dimension. This is science fiction in the classic tradition of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds: what if the aliens did to the Earth (i.e., specifically white people) what white people have been going around doing to other people? The idea is fun enough, there's a couple good jokes, but I didn't find the actual story did as much with it as you might hope for; there's not really any interrogation on the part of the white characters as to what this says about them. I did like the "Buffalo Soldier" character a lot, though.

I was also glad to see Germán Peralta graduate from one-shot/back-up artist to the series main artist. He's good at action and emotional expressiveness; clear composition and good storytelling.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

If You Haven't Got a Penny, Then a Ha'penny Will Do

Visiting Grandma's yarn store in Grandma's sweater.

Our second kid had the misfortune to be born just a couple days before Christmas. This means his birthday almost always bumps up against our travel plans. I think across 2022-24, we were either driving on his birthday, or his birthday was the last Friday of school before winter break, the day before we drove.

But the way these things move around finally worked out to his advantage this year, as Son Two's fifth birthday came three days after the last day of school. So we could spend two days travelling and then celebrate his birthday on a day with no driving... and even be with my family when we did! This coincides with his increasing awareness of his own birthday; this is the first year, I think, where he's been anticipating its arrival for a sustained period of time.

(At first, he was opposed that he wouldn't get to celebrate with his friends on his actual birthday, but he came around eventually, though he keeps referring to the party we'll have now that we're back home as his "fake birthday party.") 

Indeed, it was nice to celebrate. We were at my parents for Christmas, so they were both there, plus my sister and my brother's ex-wife. Son Two got some good presents, and for once, I felt like the presents of the birthday were well-separated from the presents of Christmas... three whole days! And then, instead of just getting to pick what fast-food restaurant we stopped at on our drive, he got a proper meal, generously prepared by my mom. He picked one of his favorite foods, pizza with black olives. And my mom also make a rainbow cake, which totally delighted him.

Son Two is at an interesting age (aren't they all?) where he is incredibly creative and playful but also desirous of a high level of autonomy that he doesn't get to receive. Lots of times his playfulness can be leveraged—he loves to use his turboboosters to race you to the bathroom—but other times it gets in the way—he might not stop playing with a cat toy long enough to actually do what he's supposed to do.

But I think our relationship is improving. He's more like me than Child One in some ways, especially his sense of humor and his desire to tease and be teased. For a long time, I think I often ended up focusing on Child One while my wife focused on Son Two, for lots of good and understandable reasons, but I've been trying to redress that balance a bit. He's into playing games like "hug monster" and he likes spinning imaginary stories with me; he had fun pretending we were driving a stolen car when we were doing Christmas shopping, for example! Some of his bad tendencies he definitely picks up from observing his older sibling, who struggles with violence.

He's starting to figure out reading; he knows all his letters and the sounds they make, but we haven't hit that phonics breakthrough of putting them together to sound out words. Of course, he's only in pre-K, so that's fine! 

His favorite "treat" is chocolate. Santa (i.e., my mother) put a bag of chocolate chips in his stocking, and never was a kid more ecstatic on Christmas morning.

I look forward to seeing how he continues to grow up over the next year. Hopefully he gets a real birthday again.

Reading Roundup Wrapup: December 2025

Pick of the month: BBC VFX by Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker. I read mostly tie-in fiction and comics this month, so nothing was terribly great, but I did find this a pretty effective piece of nonfiction squarely in my interests.

All books read:

1. Black Panther: All This and the World, Too by John Ridley and Germán Peralta
2. The Worthing Chronicle by Orson Scott Card
3. Star Trek Into Darkness by Alan Dean Foster
4. Wesley Dodds: The Sandman by Robert Venditti and Riley Rossmo
5. Milk for Gall by Natalie Louise Tombasco
6. The Lonely Computer and Other Internet Doctor Who Short Trips, 2004-21
7. Gabriel Gale’s Ages of Oz: A Fiery Friendship by Lisa Fiedler, illustrated by Sebastián Giacobino
8. Star Trek: Khan by Mike Johnson, Claudia Balboni, David Messina, et al.
9. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth by Karen Miller
10. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 2 by Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, Stephen Molnar, Erfan Fajar, Claudia Balboni, et al.
11. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 3 by Mike Johnson, Erfan Fajar, Yasmin Liang, Joe Corroney, et al.
12. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 4 by Mike Johnson, Tony Shasteen, Cat Staggs, Rachael Stott, et al.
13. Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 1 by Eve L. Ewing, Chris Allen, Mack Chater, and Craig Yeung
14. BBC VFX: The Story of the BBC Visual Effects Department, 1954-2003 by Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker
15. Baby Cat-Face by Barry Gifford
16. Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 by Dan Vado, Kevin West, Rick Burchett, et al.
17. In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle
18. Black Panther: Reign at Dusk, Vol. 2 by Eve L. Ewing, Chris Allen, Craig Yeung, Mack Chater, et al.
19. The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
20. Justice League Task Force, Volume 1: The Purification Plague by David Michelinie, Sal Velluto, et al.
21. Star Trek / Green Lantern: The Spectrum War by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez
22. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan
23. Ultimate Black Panther: Peace and War by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
24. Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds by Mary Shelley, edited by David H. Guston, Ed Finn, and Jason Scott Robert
25. Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume One: Aflame by John Jackson Miller, Federico Dallocchio, Ivan Rodriguez, et al.
26. Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller
27. Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Two: Deluge by John Jackson Miller, Sergio Abad, Iban Coello, et al.

I have not had a month this productive since reading for Ph.D. exams, back in January 2013!

All books acquired:

1. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth by Karen Miller
2. Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 4 by Mike Johnson, Tony Shasteen, Cat Staggs, Rachael Stott, et al.
3. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium One
4. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two
5. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Three
6. The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Four
7. Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 1 by Dan Vado, Kevin West, Rick Burchett, et al.
8. Doctor Who: Dark Horizons by J. T. Colgan
9. Gabriel Gale’s Ages of Oz: A Dark Descent by Lisa Fiedler, illustrated by Sebastián Giacobino
10. Batman & Robin: Year One by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee
11. Star Trek / Green Lantern: The Spectrum War by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez
12. Three Californias by Kim Stanley Robinson
13. DC Finest: Science Fiction: The Gorilla World by John Broome, Sid Gerson, Murphy Anderson, et al.
14. DC Finest: Events: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One by Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Doug Moench, George Pérez, et al.
15. Victoria's Secret: Her Life by Lida Bell Lunt
16. The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall
17. Santa from Cincinnati by Judi Barrett and Kevin Hawkes
18. Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, Marck Campos, et al.
19. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller
20. The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
21. The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman
22. Superman: Up in the Sky: The Deluxe Edition by Tom King, Andy Kubert, and Sandra Hope 
23. Novels & Stories: The Female Man / We Who Are About To... / On Strike Against God / The Complete Alyx Stories / Other Stories by Joanna Russ
24. Star Trek / Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez

That was, of course, counterbalanced by all the books I got! I can't blame Christmas for this; presents (#12-17 and 20-23) weren't even a majority of what I acquired.

Currently reading:

• Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 5 by Mike Johnson and Tony Shasteen
• S. by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
• Ultimate Black Panther: Gods and Kings by Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, and Carlos Nieto
• Wonder Woman and Justice League America, Volume 2 by Dan Vado, Mark Waid, Marc Campos, et al.
• Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 3 by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, et al.
• Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller
• Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Three: Escape by John Jackson Miller, Marco Castiello, Vincenzo Acunzo, et al.
• Star Trek / Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds by Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez

Up next in my rotations:

1. Formerly Known as the Justice League by Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein
2. Getting There by Manjula Padmanabhan 
3. Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twentieth Century: A Political and Legal History by Vincent Shandor 
4. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Starcrusher Trap by Mike W. Barr

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 672 (up 1)

 

Star Trek: The Peacekeepers by Gene DeWeese

Star Trek: The Next Generation #2: The Peacekeepers
by Gene DeWeese

Published: 1988
Acquired: ???
Previously read: September 2005
Reread: October 2025

This is an old The Next Generation novel, the second original one ever published. At the time Gene DeWeese wrote it, I am not sure he would have even seen any episodes of the show, probably just read scripts. I felt like the influence of "Heart of Glory" was particularly obvious here: like in that episode, a significant early sequence is about Geordi going aboard a derelict vessel, his VISOR allowing him to see what others cannot.

I was surprised to see on LibraryThing that I read this before. Admittedly, it was exactly twenty years ago, but there are Star Trek books I read longer ago that I still have detailed, vivid memories of. Even as I reread this, absolutely nothing struck a chord of familiarity.

I assume this is because the book is dead boring. It's slow, agonizingly so, like DeWeese realized he had a 200-page idea but had to turn it into a 300-page book. Characters have long conversations, the action is repetitive for no purpose. The alien society is not at all interesting, nor is the dilemma that the book tries to set up, even though I feel like it could be. I think it would take a lot of reworking to make these basic ingredients come alive.

Black Panther: Into the Heartlands by Roseanne A. Brown, Dika Araújo, Natacha Bustos, Claudia Aguirre, et al.

Into the Heartlands: A Black Panther Graphic Novel

Published: 2022
Read: November 2025

Written by Roseanne A. Brown
Illustrated by Dika Araújo, Natacha Bustos & Claudia Aguirre
Layouts by Geoffo
Colors by Cris Peter
Letters by Arianna Maher

This YA graphic novel takes us back to the childhood of T'Challa and Shuri, after the death of their father T'Chaka, before T'Challa ascended to the throne himself. The two children fight and argue, and both seem somewhat ill-prepared for their future responsibilities; T'Challa is a bit pompous, and disdains his younger sister, while Shuri would rather be doing science and thinks she's smarter than anyone else.

Only at a Wakanda ceremony both are ill-prepared for something goes horribly wrong, and people—including their mother, Ramonda—are infected with a mysterious virus. Could the work of T'Challa's birth mother, herself a successful scientist, lead them to a cure in the mysterious heartlands of Wakanda?

The result is a decent book about the two siblings going on a quest together along with a talking jerboa with a mysterious past. Like the flashback story in the recent Long Shadow collection, this leans more into the African storytelling traditions more than many Black Panther stories, and I very much enjoyed that aspect of it. The art is pretty typical for a YA superhero comics, sort of anime influenced, but I particularly enjoyed the vibrant coloring of Cris Peter.

I was a little disappointed in how the character of T'Challa himself was handled. I feel like the story turns much more on Shuri's decisions than his, and would have liked to have seen him project the commanding presence he's more commonly depicted as having.

(Lots of people on the Internet, including the Hoopla catalog, call this book "Shuri and T'Challa: Into the Heartlands," but the "Shuri and T'Challa" part of the title appears nowhere on or in the actual book as far as I can tell.) 

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The Autobiography of Carl Kasell (1934–2018)

I've been a devoted listener of NPR's weekly news quiz Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! since around 2010; it's one of three podcasts I listen to most weeks. I've been a listener of NPR for even longer; I got into it in high school because at the time I was a pretentious swot who only listened to classical music and so I tuned into Cincinnati's local NPR affiliate, WGUC, when driving. So Carl Kasell's voice was in my ears for a long time, first as a broadcaster on NPR News and then as Wait Wait's scorekeeper, a position he held up to 2014. He had a great voice, which was why NPR used to offer it as a prize for Wait Wait listener-contestants; one of my friends in grad school said it was his dream to tune into NPR and hear Carl Kasell introduce himself by saying, "This is NPR News from Washington. I'm Carl Kasell, and I'm not wearing any pants."

Wait Wait...I'm Not Done Yet! by Carl Kasell

Published: 2014
Acquired: October 2014
Read: October 2025

Anyway, after Carl (I don't normally refer to people I don't know by their first names when writing, but it feels weird to call him "Kasell," who does that?) retired from Wait Wait in 2014, he soon published a memoir, which I am pretty sure I acquired by pledging to the Connecticut NPR affiliate. Carl passed away in 2018, but of course it took me another seven years to get around to reading it.

It's only 239 pages, and a lot of that is essays by friends and colleagues; I read the whole thing in a single night when I couldn't fall asleep due to the pain of shingles. Carl grew up in rural North Carolina, and the book starts with a lot of affectionate memories of his family. He knew from a young age he wanted to be on the radio, though he envisioned himself more as a DJ; in high school, his drama teacher was Andy Griffith! He didn't finish an English degree in college because he was drafted and posted to Italy, where he met and fell in love with his first wife, who came back to the States with him.

The book chronicles his ascendant professional life, from local radio to becoming a cornerstone of the early, almost fly-by-night NPR News operation, to finally getting to unleash his inner ham when being tapped for Wait Wait. One doesn't get an impression of Carl as a complicated man: he was a hardworking, generous professional with a talent who lived a fulfilling life. Perhaps there are skeletons in his closet, but I guess an autobiography isn't the place they're going to come out... but I hope not, because I don't want my mental image of him punctured! Anyway, it's a fun, light read; I don't think you're going to find anything deep here, but you will find some interesting anecdotes, both personal and professional, from a life well-lived.

Also some good jokes from colleagues. No one has a bad word to say about him!

Temeraire by Naomi Novik, Book 6: Tongues of Serpents

Tongues of Serpents: Book Six of Temeraire
by Naomi Novik

Originally published: 2010
Acquired and read: September 2025

In this volume of the Temeraire series, Captain Laurence—along with Temeraire, of course—has been exiled to Australia following his betrayal of Britain back in book four. Laurence must find some way to navigate no longer being allowed to serve technically, while still also being of use to his country.

I think this is probably one of the lesser installments of the series, but I still enjoyed it immensely. Novik conjures up character, place, and society with skill in equal measure; I love Laurence and Temeraire, of course, and the bits with Captain Bligh are fun but also kind of horrifying. The worst part of Temeraire's world are of course part of ours as well. Like with Throne of Jade and Horn of Ivory, some of the book hinges around discovering that a non-European society makes its own complex and interesting use of dragons. I have to say, an anti-orientalist bent is honestly not what I expected from this series going in! But it very mush is interested in using dragonriding to interrogate the way Britain sees the rest of the world. I think what hold this one back is it's more of a travelogue, without a strong sense of climax, but it was a journey I enjoyed nonetheless.

Every ten months I read an installment of Temeraire. Next up in sequence: Crucible of Gold