SHUT IN THEATER: Weekend Reading 184

It’s Saturday, and that means Weekend Reading 184 is here! As usual, we’ll be holed up in Stately Beat Manor, getting lost in a good book.

What will you be paging through? The Beat is waiting to hear from you! Give us a shout-out in the comment section and let us know what you’re thinking.

AVERY KAPLAN: This weekend I’m checking out Coven by Jennifer Dugan and Kit Seaton, with design by Eileen Savage and Cindy De la Cruz. While Halloween may have passed, we all know witches are forever, right? Then as far as prose goes, I’m excited to finally check out Star Trek: Discovery: The Enterprise War by John Jackson Miller. Previously, I read and adored his more recent Franchise tie-in novel, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country, which also focused on Captain Christopher Pike. I’m looking forward to The Enterprise War and hope we get another SNW book from Miller, so as to form a “trilogy of Pike”!

DEB AOKI: I’m currently binge-reading two series on Webtoon: 

Eleceed by Jeho Son and ZHENA and Omniscient Reader (a.k.a. Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint by Sleepy-C, Umi (Studio Redice) and singNsong, which has its first volume of its print edition coming in December from Ize Press.

Eleceed is kind of a recent find that has so far charmed me enough to binge-read about ⅓ of the 245+ episode series so far. Jiwoo is a kind, but shy high schooler who has bounced from school to school all his life because he’s been told to keep his talent, super speed, hidden from others. Moving from school to school has made making and keeping friends his age hard, so Jiwoo’s one joy in life is adopting and feeding stray cats in his neighborhood. But this kindly habit puts him in the path of an unlikely ally: Kayden, a super-powered secret agent who finds himself trapped in the body of a very fat ginger cat. 

Eleceed is a surprisingly fun mix of action, super-powered teens, with some hilarious details that will leave most cat lovers / cat owners nodding in recognition. The art is cool and the plot has just enough interesting twists to keep you swiping up to read chapter after chapter. 

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is already a cult hit on Webtoon, and with art and action that’s quite similar to another webtoon hit Solo Leveling, it’s not that surprising that Ize Press picked it up for a print edition. 

A QA tester at a game company finds little joy in his life except for one thing: he’s been a devoted reader of a long-running fantasy webnovel. In fact, by the time it reaches its final chapter, he’s pretty much the only person still reading it. But after reading the last installment of the story, he finds out that everything that he’s read so far is a blueprint for the end of the world – and he’s the only one who knows how to survive it. Set in modern day Seoul, ORV is a dystopian fantasy adventure that has some nods to mythology and online games that will entertain readers of Solo Leveling and Re: ZERO. It’s a long series, but so far, it’s managed to keep my attention to keep reading chapter after chapter.

LUCIA IANNONE: I’m planning to read It’s Lonely At the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thoroughgood this weekend, a surreal, autobiographical entry in Thoroughgood’s oeuvre. Part of me thinks I’m going to love it and part of me thinks it’s just going to make me uncomfortable without any other lasting impressions. But I’ve heard great things about this one, and it’s undoubtedly beautifully drawn, and that’s arguably half the battle. And in prose, I’m going to try to finally start Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir this weekend—not sure it’s exactly my speed, but the FOMO’s been getting to me.

TAIMUR DAR: Continuing my read of the original Invincible comics. This weekend I’ll also be reading the Static: Up All Night graphic novel by Lamar Giles and artist Paris Alleyne. My sister got me a preview copy at a library conference a few months back and read a bit of it. But for whatever reason, I decided to hold off on reading the full thing until the actual release date. Now that it’s here, I am diving into it. 

DERRICK CROW: Something new!I bought this book WHERE THE ELF KING SINGS by Judie Wolkoff recently because it has such a wonderful cover, and despite its more fantasy feeling title the synopsis reads as such: “The Vietnam War. For the Breckenridge family (mother, father, Marcie and David), the war hasn’t ended yet. Years after Daddy returned wounded from combat, he’s still haunted by the vision of his best friend dying in front of him–and still getting drunk to forget. Now he’s lost his job. Marcie is sad, and angry, too. Her head is spinning with taunts about her father from schoolmates, she pulls her bike up at the old graveyard on Route 119. Her friend Dominique has said something nasty about a curse connected with that graveyard and Daddy… Enter Mrs. King who prowls the cemeteries in her rubber hip boots and bright red lipstick, sprucing up headstones of “friends” and war dead dating back to 1775. She takes the Breckenridge kids under her wing, and with her vibrant soul and shining wit, throws light into the shadows of their lives. They begin visiting her, not in graveyards, but in her wondrous pile of a house on Leghorn Drive. All in secret. Then their father disappears. And even Mrs. King–for a while–can’t help. Judie Wolkoff’s story, like Mrs. King, touches the heart of a family that finally breaks free–still together–from the clutches of war.” This is a children’s book. Sounds like it will be a fun time. lol

DEAN SIMONS: Pretty busy weekend as I attend Thought Bubble in ol’ Blighty. Should I have time to read, I am endeavoring to finish Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War sequence. I made a big leap with the penultimate novel when I had covid last month and am aiming to finish last book Victory Conditions over the weekend or on the train home. I also have about three weeks of 2000 AD to get through, as well.

KRISTINA ELYSE BUTKE: I’m going to continue to read the BL series Sasaki and Miyano by Shou Harusono. I recently watched the adorable anime and decided to give the manga a try, and I’m on Volume 5 (the series is currently up to Volume 9). In addition to that, I’m reading the new BL releases from TOKYOPOP’s LoveLove line, All You Want, Whenever You Want by Omayu and I’ll Never Fall in Love with an Egoist by Emu Soutome.

REBECCA OLIVER KAPLAN: I’m in a comics rut. I’m bored with a lot of what’s coming out. So instead, I’ve been reading some prose. This weekend, I’m finally checking out the long-awaiting autobiography of pop icon Britney Spears, The Woman in Me. I also want to learn more about the history of anime so I used my November Audible credit to buy Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World by Matt Alt.

You can peruse the 183 previous entries in The Beat’s Weekend Reading archive by clicking here.