Hugos 2023: Monstress: Devourer by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Monstress, Volume Seven: Devourer

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2022
Acquired: July 2023
Read: September 2023

Writer: Marjorie Liu

Artist: Sana Takeda

Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

Every year, I read the latest volume of Monstress for the Hugo Awards, and every year, I think to myself, "This series is baffling and you're not enjoying it; you should stop picking it up." But then the next year rolls around and I think to myself, "You own all the previous volumes, why would you stop now? How bad can it be?" Then I read the newest volume... and I am baffled and don't enjoy it. Too many characters, too many plot threads, too much backstory. Maybe this would read better straight through, but that's not how it was released; it was released over seven years with absolutely no concession to that fact. Maybe when it's done I'll take a stab at it again, and maybe volume seven will make more sense if it hasn't been a year since volume six.

Hugos 2022: Monstress: The Vow by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Monstress, Volume Six: The Vow

Collection published: 2021
Contents published: 2020-21
Acquired: April 2022
Read: May 2022

Writer: Marjorie Liu

Artist: Sana Takeda
Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

Another year of voting in the Hugo Awards, another volume of Monstress. This collects two issues of the Talk-Stories miniseries and #31-35 of the regular series. The two Talk-Stories issues are pretty good, nice little snapshots of two of our protagonists before the war; I especially liked the one about Kippa the fox arcanic, of course. But then we're back to the regular series, and unlike volumes four and five which kind of worked, this one is again an aimless blob of confusing politics, overcomplicated mythology, and too many characters. When this series is over, maybe I'll reread the whole thing in one go and like it more then, but for now, I really need to give up on it.

Hugos 2021: Monstress: Warchild by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 2020
Acquired and read: June 2021

Monstress, Volume Five: Warchild

 

Writer: Marjorie Liu
Artist: Sana Takeda
Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

Like volume four, I found this more interesting than I remember the series typically being. The dense continuity of this series does make it tough to follow the big story (I read volume one back in 2017, so that's four years ago), but this volume has an individual story that works on its own, about a city under siege. Like with volume four, I found the stuff about Kippa, the adorable fox kid, trying to navigate a cruel and dark world the most interesting; I continue to be bored any time we delve into the backstory of the main character. People must like this because it keeps making the Hugo ballot, but it does not really take me. I wonder how long it will go on for. But volume of this quality provide a nice day's diversion if nothing else, and there is a good joke about nuns.

Hugos 2020: Monstress: The Chosen by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Comic trade paperback, 167 pages
Published 2019 (contents: 2019)
Acquired April 2020
Read May 2020

Monstress, Volume Four: The Chosen

Writer: Marjorie Liu

Artist: Sana Takeda 
Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

I keep claiming I'm done with this series, and keep coming back because it keeps ending up on the Hugo ballot. (In fact, it has won three years in a row!) I think, however, that this was my favorite volume since the first, though I still can't say that I love it or anything. This one had more focus on Kippa, the fox Arcanic and my favorite character. I can't say I think giving her a mythical destiny is my favorite thing (I much prefer her as an ordinary child caught up in horrible events), but I did like her steadfast belief in goodness, even in horrible events, and the sly cleverness she shows in this volume. This one also had a coherent story that I could follow from beginning to end. The political stuff, however, I don't care for, and the mythic stuff, I just can't follow. Plus I cannot be made to care about the main character's destiny or backstory.

The art is still very good, if not even better than it's ever been.

Hugos 2019: Monstress: Haven by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Comic trade paperback, 161 pages
Published 2018 (contents: 2018)
Acquired April 2019
Read May 2019

Monstress, Volume Three: Haven

Writer: Marjorie Liu

Artist: Sana Takeda 
Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

I wrote a lukewarm review of volume two of Monstress but I think I was trying to convince myself I liked it more than I actually did; there's a reason that when I filled out my ballot for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story I placed it last. So I decided to stop picking up its volumes at that point-- however when volume three also became a finalist, I decided I might as well keep my set going. Anyway, I get that people like this but I just do not. Sana Takeda's art is marvelous and gorgeous, but Marjorie Liu's writing has largely lost me by this point. I just don't care about Meika or her backstory or her mom or her backstory or her captive god or its backstory. It's all a bit too unrelentingly grim and humorless. The sparks of light come from the innocent fox Arcanic, Kippa, and her attempts to make the world a better place, and the cat spymaster, Ren Mormorian, and his attempts to do right by his various allegiances but also by Kippa. However, there was much less of the two of them in this volume than in previous ones, and hence it suffered for it. I'm done with the series. (Unless, of course, it ends up on the Hugo ballot again!)

Review: Monstress: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Small note: here's my review of Fire with Fire, the first Star Trek: Prometheus audiobook from Big Finish.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2016 (contents: 2015-16)
Previously read June 2017
Acquired June 2017
Reread October 2017

Monstress, Volume One: Awakening

Writer: Marjorie Liu

Artist: Sana Takeda 
Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

When I read volume one of Monstress through the Hugo voter's packet, I liked it enough to pick it up in hard copy as well as any follow-ups. A reread didn't actually clarify the fuzzy parts of the story for me: there is a lot to keep track of, a lot of people after Meika, the rogue Arcanic with a terrifying god hidden inside her somehow, all with their own agendas. But that's not what you read Monstress for (and by "you" I mean "me"). Its central character is kind of inscrutable and not really my type, but I love the issues she raises: the various ways the bodies of the culturally undesirable get used and transformed and exploited by the powerful. Meika is a slave (or others would make her a slave, anyway) in more than one way. Liu and Takeda create a complicated, historical, lived-in world, with multiple fantasy races, but minorities and conflicts within the races, too, and amazing visual designs for everything and everyone.

Ren Mormorian: not as badass as he hopes.
from Monstress #2

I almost said that Meika is exploited on the basis of gender above, but that's not actually true as far as I can tell. This is a feminist story, not in the sense that Women Are Awesome, but in the sense that it passes the Bechdel test-- and fails, I think, the reverse Bechdel. Almost every significant character, hero, ally, and villain, is female. Even the people exploiting female prisoners for sex are other women.

Ren Mormorian: more cuddly than he'd like.
from Monstress #4

Outside of the world, the art, and the feminism, what carries me through the book are Meika's two sidekicks: Commander Ren Mormorian, the feline nekomancer, and Kippa, the naïve vulpine Arcanic. Mormorian is awesome, a powerful, cynical guy... with all the disadvantages of being cat-sized in a world of humans. And Kippa is just adorable, an innocent foil to Meika's anger and guilt. I could fill this review with a dozen scans of Ren moments, but I'll restrict myself to just a few.

Ren Mormorian: as foul-mouthed as he needs to be.
from Monstress #1

Hugos 2018: Monstress: The Blood by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

I'm back at it! Once again, I'm attempting to read all the 2018 Hugo finalists (in certain categories) and vote. I'll be running these posts on Wednesdays, since I don't use Wednesdays for comics reviews anymore. First, I'll be starting with a couple sequels to 2017 Hugo finalists that I'd already read before they were announced as 2018 Hugo finalists, beginning with the sequel to Monstress: Awakening:

Comic trade paperback, 149 pages
Published 2017 (contents: 2016-17)
Acquired and read October 2017

Monstress, Volume Two: The Blood

Writer: Marjorie Liu

Artist: Sana Takeda 
Lettering & Design: Rus Wooton

I'll be honest, I don't really follow the unspooling backstory behind Monstress. All the stuff about gods and inheritances and dead gods and spirits and Dawn Courts and Dusk Courts... it's a bit impenetrable to be honest. But that's okay, because Liu and Takeda are much more adept at carrying the reader through the human, the immediate, and the emotional. As much as we learn about the god hidden inside Meika Halfwolf, we also learn about her relationship with her mother, and her childhood with tiger-pirates(!), and her determination to figure out how everyone around her is using her and escape it. We also get her being manipulative and clever, but not as clever as she thinks she is.

We also also get more Ren Mormorian, and more of catkind in general, and we get more Kippa being adorably innocent: loved her learning to swim with the help of a shark-pirate, and then that backfiring when she came along with Meikea and Ren. Loved Ren getting pushed around because he's so small, but sticking with Meika because of a promise he swore, and then getting to use his badass nekomancer powers. Loved Ren's superior explaining the significance of being a feline:

from Monstress #7

It's not a perfect comic (man I wish I cared more about the epic fantasy backstory), but I'm enjoying it, and it's different than anything else I can remember reading, and Takeda's art is still gorgeous. Hope that Monstress runs and runs, but I also hope she goes on to do even bigger and better things now that she's had her "big break" once it's over.