I was more generous to the first series this time around because I was impressed by how tightly it works as a single story, despite being episodic. While there are lots of gems in this series, it doesn’t feel as tightly constructed, and there are also some weird things that don’t really work for me (like a conspiratorial diatribe against the FBI?). I don’t regret rewatching it, but it just isn’t as good as the first series.

This season wasn’t awful so much as “just okay,” but I’ve come to expect more from the show. It took my least favorite book and changed it in weird ways that didn’t feel like they fixed much. A few changes were good, but others felt like they added too much complexity to the plot or that they were trying to lend a gravitas to characters that don’t need it.

I have tried to rewatch this a few times since discovering it in 2023, and I’ve always stalled out by the final episode of Series 1, which is so cruel and cynical that it’s difficult to watch. Yet, it fits nicely with the themes of the show (and especially the first series), so I’m glad I made it through this time. I’m still critical of the misogyny and brownface that led me to dock points from my last review, but seeing how carefully the show sets up that final episode of the series (especially during an era where season arcs weren’t nearly as important as they later became) has won my respect.

I have been meaning to read this book for months and was happy to have an uninterrupted couple of hours on a flight so that I could finally get to it.

It covers familiar ground but without feeling repetitive. I expect to cite it frequently in the future—in fact, I ought to work it into some slides I’m presenting tomorrow!

I wasn’t sure about this book at first, and I’m not totally sure about it at the end, but there was enough in the middle to mostly win me over. Herron continues to be a cruel narrator with one of the major developments of this book, and the other major development really raises questions about where the series will go from here.

This comic is dumb, but mostly the funny kind of dumb, but still not quite enough to get more than a middling review.

Honestly, I was getting bored of this series, but this story got me back on track! It helps that it features a Project 2025/DOGE-type villain, anticipating our current nonsense. The characters are also as (or more) compelling as usual, and things felt less outlandish than in some of the preceding books.

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while, and I got weak and ceded to Hoopla rather than wait for the TPB to arrive at my local library.

I continue to appreciate this series, and Issue 43 (the real horror is what’s going on in the world right now) is really good, a highlight of the whole thing. I have to admit, though, that it didn’t otherwise feel worth the wait. Maybe I got my expectations too high, or maybe there are just diminishing returns. I’m not giving up on the series, but I feel like it’s uneven.

I probably ought to rate this book higher. Even if I’m not terribly interested in psalmic structure and how it applies to the Book of Alma, there are some fascinating readings of familiar characters and stories in this book. In particular, Turley’s reading of Ammonihah and “fire and brimstone” has really impacted me, and I want to spend more time with it.

In fact, that’s ultimately what keeps me from rating the book higher. I’m powering through this series and more often skimming than reading. I don’t regret that if it’s the price I pay for finally making my way through all twelve volumes, but it does mean it’s hard to truly evaluate some of these books.

It’s not great literature, but I don’t remember ever having read it, and it felt like the kind of escapist fun I could use right now. I think the Alphabet Squadron series is a superior successor in terms of having something to say beyond escapism, but Corran Horn is a fun Mary Sue to read about, and I think I’ll keep reading.

It’s not my favorite book in the series, but it isn’t bad. There are some interesting plot developments here, but I also feel like Diana Taverner is stuck with the idiot ball from page one, which isn’t as fun as it could be. Won’t stop me from continuing to read, though.

Oh là là, comme il a beaucoup exigé ce livre ! Ça fait des mois que j’essaie de le lire, et les écrits d’Ellul ont souvent dépassé ma capacité de comprendre le français philosophique.

Je pardonne beaucoup à ce livre pour trois raisons. D’abord, c’est surtout un brouillon, n’ayant jamais été publié, et ce qui était surtout pénible aurait sans doute été corrigé lors d’une vraie édition du livre. Deuxièmement, il y a beaucoup de pépites d’or là-dedans, même s’il faut beaucoup creuser pour les atteindre. Enfin, malgré mes plaintes, j’aime beaucoup la façon dont ce livre joint les deux grands thèmes de l’écriture d’Ellul lors de son vivant.

As a member of Community of Christ, I’m supposed to be a Trinitarian, but if I’ve learned one thing in recent years, it’s that I have very little patience for insistence on Trinitarianism. It doesn’t make much more sense to me now than it did when I was a practicing Latter-day Saint, and if I can recognize value in the theological reflections that emerge from an assumption of Trinitarianism, I am just not sold that it’s the only (or even best) way of understanding God.

Bon, j’avoue que elle devient de mojns en moins intéressant, cette série, mais je peux beaucoup pardonner pour une aventure en Alsace.

I remembered enjoying this volume, and it lived up to my memory! It’s one of the darker entries in the series, but it’s not as absurd or outright bleak as some of the others. A nice balance that was fun to revisit.

Ellul can be hard to review, and especially in this book! The core metaphor here is interesting and useful—I plan to draw from it personally and professionally. It’s also combined, though, with wild assertions, exegesis and theology that don’t land (for me), and moral panic that might be intentional hyperbole or might just be off base.

So, there are some parts of this that are excellent and some parts that don’t really work. That makes it hard to evaluate as a whole!

I will be interested to see what the TV adaptation of this book is, since my least favorite books have sometimes been redeemed by the TV adaptation. For the time being, though, I didn’t love this one. It seems to exaggerate all the things about the books I don’t like, and I found the characters especially unsympathetic.

I backed this Kickstarter project several years ago, when a comic about Mormonism felt like it was right in the center of the Venn diagram of my interests. That’s still not far from the truth, but my relationship with Mormonism—and my experience as a Latter-day Saint missionary—is a lot more complicated than it was then.

In fact, I’ve been thinking about rereading this for ages but have bounced off of it a few times. I have big theological disagreements with some comics in the anthology, and I’m not a huge fan of the implicit queerphobia in at least two comics.

Wow! Sure, coming from outside the LDS tradition, I have some theological quibbles with parts of this book, but what an amazing example it is of what I love about this series. It uses a close reading of the Book of Mormon—and some of the most obscure and overlooked parts of the Book of Mormon—to draw lessons that I can really get behind. It makes me want to already revisit the book and to the passages that it’s working with.

There are a few IDW comics that I got in a summer Humble Bundle but couldn’t bring myself to read over the summer. I’m glad I gave this one a try. I figures that after reading so much Ice Cream Man, I might be more open to a horror comic than I thought, and I think I was right. There is a lot of interesting character work, ethical reflection, and even heist plot in this one, and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.

I feel like I should like this series more than I am. I’m caught between liking the general vibe of the comic and not really relating to the characters (and some stuff from the 2000s really not aging well). I’m committed to finishing the whole series, but I am also wondering if it’s going to reach out and grab me more.

I can’t remember how much of this series I’ve actually read, but I remember this one being my favorite of those I have read, and wow does it deliver on that memory. It’s a powerful example of what responsible, justice-oriented Book of Mormon theology can look like. It takes more effort to engage with than some of the previous volumes (especially considering how sleepy I was as I finished it this afternoon), so I think I need to revisit some of these arguments in more detail, but even though I was predisposed to enjoy this reread, I was still surprised at how many parts of the Book of Mormon it warmed me up to.

Ça faisait des années que j’avais l’intention de lire cette bande dessinée, et j’ai enfin trouvé un exemplaire en français il y a quelques semaines, grâce à mon beau-frère.

On a tellement l’habitude de diaboliser l’Iran aux États-Unis qu’il est même facile d’oublier qu’il y a de quoi diaboliser ! L’histoire personnelle de Satrapi est très émouvante, et je suis bien content de l’avoir lu. Je vois pourquoi c’est une classique parmi les bd.

This book impressed me in an unexpected way. When I first read it, I didn’t think much of it. I was pleasantly surprised by how good the TV adaptation was. I see why they moved around scenes they did, gave certain characters more to do, etc.

Coming back to the book, though, I think the TV adaptation opened me up to how good the underlying story could be. I appreciated the cruel wordplay and foreshadowing Herron uses in the beginning of the book, which is horrible and delightful when you already know the end. I like the original takes on some scenes even when I also agree with the changes made in the adaptation.

I can’t remember if I’ve read the color editions before, but I know I haven’t read paper copies before, so this is fun. I have never seen the movie, but I’ve seen enough YouTube clips to know it’s my style. After watching enough of those clips, and knowing that I’m not likely to watch the movie (since it’s not my wife’s style, and I don’t watch a lot of movies on my own), I say “I ought to just read the books.” This is my second time doing so, I think?