Uncanny Avengers (Vol 1 - 3), Rick Remender

"The Marvel Universe's greatest era starts here! In the wake of Professor X's funeral, Captain America creates a new Avengers unit comprised of Avengers and X-Men, humans and mutants working together. But the Red Skull has returned - straight out of the 1940s - and he wants to destroy all mutants! What gruesome weapon has given him dangerous new powers? Rogue and Scarlet Witch face off against the Red Skull's S-Men, Wolverine and Captain America investi gate the worldwide mutant assassination epidemic, and Havok and Thor battle the spreading infl uence of Honest John, the Living Propaganda! And when an Avenger defects, the rest must face the terrible might of the Omega Skull! Plus: Wonder Man, Wasp and Sunfire join the team - just in time for the Grim Reaper's revenge! Uncanny Avengers Assemble!"

"The future begins in the past! It's an 11th century clash of the titans as Thor batt les Apocalypse! The Avengers' ancestors are being hunted, with Rama-Tut and Kang pulling the strings, and only a young Thor can save his future companions! And in the present, the beginning of the end looms as the Apocalypse Twins debut! Why are they targeting the Celestials? What is their connection to Kang? And how is Thor responsible for their mighty power? Apocalypse's Ship attacks S.W.O.R.D., a Celestial meets a shocking fate, and the Four Horsemen of Death are' unleashed! And as the Twins' new henchmen shatter the Uncanny Avengers, Wolverine discovers the Midnight City - and immediately wishes he hadn't! When all hope dies, Ragnarok begins! Plus: Kang and the Apocalypse Twins enter the Age of Ultron!"

"It's the dark origin of the Apocalypse Twins, as Kang's true motives are revealed! A secret pact between Ahab and the Red Skull will bring horror to all mutants. But against his masters' orders, a deranged and vengeful Sentry kills an Uncanny Avenger! It's no hoax, no dream...and only the first casualty of many! To allow reinforcements from other eras, the Wasp must find and destroy the Twins' tachyon transmitter, but first she'll have to defeat the Grim Reaper. Meanwhile, the Scarlet Witch makes an impossible choice that will define her forever. And Sunfire and Rogue, without backup, must defeat the combined might of both Apocalypse Twins - or watch the end of our world! Bring on the bad guys, because Ragnarök is now!'




Uncanny Avengers is the Avengers at its very worst, a joke line up that competes with West Coast Avengers for how much of the barrel it's prepared to scrape. The idea behind it is that following the events of AvX, and the fact that people now hate and fear mutants and ever before, the Avengers have suddenly realised that maybe if they stopped punching the X-Men for more than a week people might learn to trust them. So Captain America looks to create a 'unity' team of all the X-Men and Avengers no other writer wanted; Wonder Man! Wasp! Havok! Scarlet Witch!

If those aren't names to inspire confidence, they also have Thor and Wolverine thrown in. So, just to go over that: Wonderman (was a villain in last appearance), Wolverine (unsanctioned murder squad leader), Havok (Brother to 'Terrorist' leader) and Scarlet Witch (only Avenger to ever actually commit Genocide). Fortunately, they also have Rogue ... who's a former member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. So I can't see how that plan can possibly go wrong.

It's hard for me to express how much hate I feel for some of these characters. Not in a detatched, 'oh they're so annoying, but they're fictional' way, but in a very real, very visceral 'I wish they had never ever been written' way.

Scarlet Witch is a great example of that. Daughter of Magneto, chaos magic wielder and reality warper, Scarlet Witch's most famous action in the last two decades was to kill half of her own Avengers team, rewrite reality into a mutant-lead parallel universe, then destroy all but 200 mutants. She then came back and tried to hand wave it all away as being Doctor Doom's fault.

If you're looking for a reason why people hate mutant, that right there is it. She single handedly fought every superhero in the world to a standstill, then when she lost she almost destroyed a species. Wow, guys. I can't at all understand why someone might be afraid of that. You should probably put her up on stage as the face of mutant rehabilitation.

Or Havok, a guy whose very first defining action in the book is to renounce Cyclops, a flawed, but great, leader who successfully reignited mutantkind, saving his species. Then, he follows it up, by deciding he doesn't want to be called a mutant because Havok is a whinge. I hate Havok. When I say he's the third best Summers brother, you know that it's low.

You know what. There are better X-books, and better Avengers books. This is just a hot mess that nobody will remember in 5 years time. Art is lovely though.

Also Try:
Any X-Men book
Any Avengers book
Avengers Assimilate: Identity Politics in Uncanny Avengers, http://comicsalliance.com/uncanny-avengers-5-rick-remender-identity-politics-mutants/ (and Remender's response: http://www.newsarama.com/17328-remender-responds-to-uncanny-avengers-m-word-controversy.html)

Idiot America, Charles Pierce

"The three Great Premises of Idiot America:
· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units
· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough
· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it

Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves."

This is an entertaining, but shallow look at where America's unreasonable distrust of reason has come from. Unfortunately it's a little bit too please with itself and comes across as a caricature of smug liberalism, exhausting the things it actually has to say about 20 pages in and then continuing on for much longer than is really required.

I've got a lot of time for people who want to raise the level of public discourse in the US, who believe that vilifying science and education, raising up the ignorant and creating an atmosphere of debate where there's two sides to every story is ridiculous and damaging but this book is more focused on cheap point scoring and ad hominem attacks, plus a peculiar fascination with the work of James Madison and obscure 19th Century cranks and oddballs.

The root of the problem comes from Pierce's idea that there's something noble and righteous about being slightly unhinged and coming up with crazy iideas. He just thinks they've become too mainstream and America has followed them too far into the wilderness. This misses the point, that education, science and the progression of knowledge invalidate the crank altogether.

Not really worth reading, in the end, but it does have a beautiful cover illustration, and the book itself has the heft and weight of something much better than itself.

The Shining Girls, Lauren Beukes

"The girl who wouldn’t die – hunting a killer who shouldn’t exist.

In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras, leaving anachronistic clues on their bodies, until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and turns the hunt around."

A bizarre little beauty of a book, this time travel serial killer murder mystery who-dunnit, is, as that description suggests, a mish-mash of all sorts of genres that shouldn't really work but do.

The story itself is lithely written, racing along at a solid pace. Both the heroine, Kirby, and the villain, Harper, are terrifically written, with neither given the treatment of flawlessness; Harper is a monster, but also a victim of circumstance, petty, vindictive, cruel and murderous, but also weighed down upon by the House, and his own half-created destiny. Kirby is broken, but rarely sympathetic, she's shattered into cold edges, and like Gone Girl this a story of flawed human beings who often exert little in the way of humanity.

Trotting between eras, the real skill of The Shining Girls is in picking out victims that do pull at the herat strings; Harper's task, to kill off women with something exceptional about them is horrifyingly, cruelly misogynistic and utterly readable. In choosing such an obviously 'good' group to target Beukes removes the need to make them 'good' people; their lives are testament to that, and so Kirby's own flaws mean very little compared to what she could have been. Her survival is in a world that she is out of place in, her achievements after are through a prism of her broken nature.

Really enjoyable book. Perfect thriller.

Also Try:
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Travelers Wife
Robert Harris, Silence of the Lambs
Dean Koontz, From The Corner of His Eye

Double Down: Game Change 2012, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann

"Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen—facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money machers, and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrest back control of the White House—and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught of super PACs and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of GOP contenders—ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish—as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination."




This is, for me, probably the best book on political action, American politics and campaigns ever written. It's utterly fantastic, and hyperbole-busting stuff, the kind of writing which clutches at you and drags you with it to the finish from the very first page.

With surgical incisiveness Halperin and Heilemann dissect the hows and whys of the 2012 Presidential Campaign, examining in detail the merits and failures of the Republican and Democrat bids for the White House. From the excoriation of the performances on the Right, to the shellacking of Obama's record and position, the book shows how either side could have truimphed, but how the Republicans intransigence and mistakes sank their run and handed Obama the victory.

But rather than just looking at the two candidates and their rivals, the book also examines in depth the teams and outside agents who ran the race, from those in charge of Super PACs, to prominent critics and champions, to the donors, backers and stirrers of modern politics in Washington. Insightful, withering and witty, the book is paced like a thriller and written with a verve and style that belies the seemingly dry subject matter.

So worth reading, I've ordered the first book, chronicling the 2008 campaign, to keep going.

Also Try:
Barack Obama, Audacity of Hope
Molly Ivins, Bushwhacked
Al Franken, Why Not Me?

God's Politics, Jim Wallis

"Jim Wallis' book is a scathing indictment of the way that conservative evangelicals in the US have self-righteously attempted to co-opt any discussion of religion and politics. And, while the Right argues that God's way is their way, the Left pursues an unrealistic separation of religious values from morally grounded political leadership. God's Politics offers a clarion call to make America's religious communities and its government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition - pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life and pro-family. These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community at the core of what many people believe, whether Christian or not."




The image on the front cover is misleading, because this isn't a book about George Bush, or religion and faith in politics in the sense of the 'family values' or 'religious right' crusaders. Instead, it's a thoughtful and essential examination of some of the biggest issues in contemporary culture, from war and violence, to political action, to the enviroment, and how Christians should respond.

I must confess to being slightly enraptured by it, because it is overtly Christian and resolutely progressive. Whilst some of the conclusions it reaches are the antithesis of the 'liberal' platform, they are all neatly and comprehensively wrapped in a single core fact; God loves us, and the world, and we should represent that through love and service towards others.

This for me then is the summation of what Christian life is, and the debates and wisdom contained within are challenging and enlightening to me both as a liberal christian and a Christian Liberal. Some of it I disagree with, most of it I find humbling, but none of it can be easily disregarded. For any Christian who wishes to adequately grapple with the demands of faith and politics in the 21st Century this is essential reading.


Also Try:
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistable Revolution
Sojourners, http://sojo.net/

The Male Brain, Louann Brizendine M.D

"Dr. Louann Brizendine, the founder of the first clinic in the country to study gender differences in brain, behavior, and hormones, turns her attention to the male brain, showing how, through every phase of life, the "male reality" is fundamentally different from the female one. Exploring the latest breakthroughs in male psychology and neurology with her trademark accessibility and candor, she reveals that the male brain:

*is a lean, mean, problem-solving machine. Faced with a personal problem, a man will use his analytical brain structures, not his emotional ones, to find a solution.
*thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy.
*has an area for sexual pursuit that is 2.5 times larger than the female brain, consuming him with sexual fantasies about female body parts.
*experiences such a massive increase in testosterone at puberty that he perceive others' faces to be more aggressive.

The Male Brain finally overturns the stereotypes. Impeccably researched and at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, this is a book that every man, and especially every woman bedeviled by a man, will need to own."

Loaned to my by Jim, my Father in law, who is a counsellor and Psychologist, this is a compulsively readable breakdown of what's going on inside Men's heads through their lives, from childhood to old age, and how the competing biological drives and hormones their bodies release.

It's endlessly fascinating, both as an insight into typical human development, and for the knowledge it contains. Facts about every aspect of the brain are astonishing anyway, and to see them explain and predict the conscious and unconscious desires and demands of a person is incredibly interesting.

The mix of science and anecdotal experience is jarring, however, and the constant use of Male friends or clients of the author and their actions that provide examples and evidence to back up her claims is unnecessary. I trust that the author knows what she's discussing, and her use of case studies I can't study doesn't make it more readable or reliable.

But this is probably brilliant if you have a male child; I would certainly say it's provided insight into my own thoughts and actions, and stuff I can always use to prove JJ wrong. So that's good, anyway.

Also Try:
Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain

Know Why You Believe, Paul. E. Little

"Have you ever asked

Do science and Scripture conflict?

Are miracles possible?

Is Christian experience real?

Why does God allow suffering and evil?

These questions need solid answers. That's what a million people have already found in this clear and reasonable response to the toughest intellectual challenges posed to Christian belief. This edition, revised and updated by Marie Little in consultation with experts in science and archaeology, provides twenty-first-century information and offers solid ground for those who are willing to search for truth. Including a study guide for individuals or groups, the classic answerbook on Christian faith has never been better!"

Know Why You Believe is a wide casting look at the 'most common' questions that non-Christians ask; things like whether Science and History are consistent with the Biblical narrative, whether God is good, and all of the other questions you would expect. This is part of the problem; these hoary old questions have been rehashed so much that they barely provide anything new on either side. Like two grandmasters playing chess, both sides know the best moves to make and the opening gambits are simply about manouvering. It's only by going deeper that anything actually interesting or challenging can be reached.

This, however, is very much a surface level introduction, and if you're keen to just read one book and be convinced, you probably will be. It's well argued, impeccably sourced and clearly articulated, but it really is only skimming the surface. The chapter on science is no comprehensive rebuttal of The Selfish Gene or God Delusion, the two most prominent critiques of religion from Dawkins, which would be the kind of thing any Christian faced with this question in real life would need to answer.

In fact, much of its muscle comes from a reliance on Biblical exegesis and authority, a difficult position to maintain if the reader doubts the inerrancy of that text. This leaves it in a halfway house of trying to prove the Bible, whilst asserting the relevance of the Bible as the ur-text and proof. Neither legally rigorous or logically consistent, this is best read as an introduction, for a few snappy soundbites and quotes, and then moved on from, swiftly.

Also Try:
Lee Strobel, Case for Christ
Richard Dawkins, God Delusion
Karen Armstrong, The Bible: A Biography
Tom Wright, Creation, Power and Truth