The author of The Stars Came Back , a Heinlein-esque young-adult work of science fiction with a heft side dose of life philosophy, has a new book Komenagen in that same universe. The title is based off of the Platean society’s rite of passage into adulthood. If you like Heinleinian juveniles, this will scratch that itch.

Daredevil’s Season 3 on Netflix has a lot to offer, despite some early warning signs suggesting it might be overly political. The overall plotline involves the return of Wilson Fisk (now openly known as the Kingpin), and Daredevil’s attempts to keep him from regaining control of the city’s criminal underworld. We have an excellent guest villain from Daredevil’s rogues’ gallery, and there are many well-done and subtle callbacks to that character’s earlier appearances in all formats. We get a bit more backstory for Karen Page, which is interesting but awkwardly inserted. We get some significant revelations for Matt Murdock himself.

Season 2 represents a clear improvement over Season 1 of this show in every respect. The dynamic between Danny Rand and Christine (his girlfriend and sidekick) changes significantly for the better, with Christine’s (or rather, the actresses’) noticeably superior martial arts skills getting recognition. Danny’s own moral failings are pointed to and wrestled with. Some problems are recognized as unsolvable, at least by vigilante superheros. Like Season 2 of Luke Cage , there’s some significant moral ambiguity present, but it’s somewhat less drastic.

I don’t have much to say about this one. It was better than the first season, but had too much focus on the criminals. There was significant moral ambiguity, particularly towards the end, which could either be a bad thing or a deliberate storytelling choice that will be redeemed next season. This season, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The cameo appearance by Iron Fist was good, but did not mesh well with Iron Fist Season 2 as a whole. (I’m not sure of the chronology). An improvement over the first season, not least because it was shorter and thus had less time to waste. If they had cut it down to 6 episodes instead of ten, it might have worked.

Elliot Kay’s new book Run Like Hell asks and answers the question: “What is it like to be the monsters when an adventuring party kicks down your front door?”

Although the book is technically game-related literature, it doesn’t have the usual hallmarks of character sheets or explicit rules elements. It’s just set very solidly in the generic fantasy game setting, with the perspective reversed. Gaming fans will have a lot to recognize while finding quite a lot of new and interesting elements from the perspective shift. It’s definitely light reading, and quick at just under 200 pages.

Brandon Sanderson has had a series of stories featuring a character named Legion (real name, Stephen Leeds) whose “superpower” (in a thinly defined world mostly similar to our own, but with science fiction elements) is a form of multiple personality disorder. In essence, he hears voices and sees things, specifically, other people. These “aspects” encapsulate and represent the information and expertise that his own own mind cannot itself contain and represent. Think of them as a coping mechanism for a supergenius.

Port of Shadows occupies a strange place in the chronology of the Black Company; it predates almost all of the history we know, picking the story up after the first book and before the second. The author appears to be numbering it 1.5. Thank god for decimals.

This is not a good place to start the series. Read The Black Company (the first book of the series by the same name) for that.

Legion is a TV-form production licensed from Marvel, set in the X-Men side of the universe. Unless you are familiar with the character from the source material, it’s not going to feature any well known characters. The first season is very odd, as you might expect from a series revolving around a main character whose defining characteristic is his paranoid schizophrenia. Or, in other words, he hears voices. And occasionally sees things. And occasionally blows up his kitchen with his mind, and then forgets about it.

The 7th book in Evan Currie’s Odyssey One series, this book adds a few new elements to the series that are less than ideal. Still, the writing is good, and the story remains entertaining. There are still space battles, but less exploration.

If you’ve enjoyed the series up to this point, there’s no reason not to continue reading, but I can’t give the series a full thumbs up because of the unnecessary and intrusive virtue signaling. If that continues, and gets more intrusive, I might have to give up on the series; but it’s not there yet. I’m just baffled as to why the author thinks that has any place in the story.

Wearing the Cape is the first book in a rather interesting, if not especially deep, superhero series. As you might expect, the first book is the origin story, but it covers a bit more than that. It’s obvious by the end of the book that we’re not dealing with a comic-book level plot. These heroes have grown-up problems.

It’s worth reading at certain price points. I started the series when it was on Kindle Unlimited, but it’s no longer there, and the books are currently priced at $8 each (about half a traditionally published new release, and roughly the same as an older traditionally published book). The writing and editing merits the price. The length is … less so, as the books usually come in around 200 to 300 pages. I held off on finishing the series for that reason, at least for a while.