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MAGNIFICENT BASTARDS OF THE APOCALYPSE

A sprawling and detailed comic adventure.

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A group of misfits scrambles to save the world—and themselves—in Torgo’s dystopian debut novel.

In 2614, after several terrible disasters, the only habitable portion of Earth is the Feculent Zone, a wasteland of ruined cities and dry seabed. It’s the home of a great many scavengers, including Gibson Taylor, a man with ocular implants; Flapman, who always covers his head with a bag that has a face drawn on it; and Super Patriot Boy, who wears a kilt and a tricorn hat. It’s also home to all manner of predatory horrors, including gigantic, radioactive Kaiju monsters, huge sandworms, and gangs of violent Perpetubabies (“genetically engineered thugs with adorable and deadly baby bodies”), among others. Flapman finds himself the target of the Bolshevik, a notorious mercenary and repo woman who, for some reason, is after Flapman’s hammer, “Ol’ Smashy.” The most dangerous enemies, however, are those who wield real power. Gibson, for example, runs afoul of the governing Overloards as he attempts to use the Chronoballer, the world’s only remaining time machine, to escape the FZ. The Overloards order him to help an unfriendly artificial intelligence called the Biggens in its quest to find the legendary Cudgel of Malthior, an object that can reputedly seal interdimensional rifts caused by previous time-travel expeditions. In fact, the Cudgel could finally put an end to the troubles that have made Earth such a mess in the first place. To complete their quest, Gibson and his friends—who barely function as a unit in the best of times—must team up with unsavory characters who would ordinarily kill them on sight. Can they manage to find the Cudgel and save the planet?

Torgo’s prose is precise and often funny as it contrasts post-apocalyptic depravity with the quotidian details of life in the 27th century: “The surface was bustling with activity on this lovely, low ambient-toxicity day, and though they saw a number of organisms that they would normally murder, they respected the Scavengeday truce as they traversed the crumbling asphalt of this wretched place.” The sheer amount of imagination in this work will be enough to draw most readers in, as its mythos is rich in pastiche, allusion, absurdity, and wonder. Indeed, the fine worldbuilding helps to balance out the weakness of the characters, who are, sadly, less intriguing than their outfits would indicate. There are many big personalities, but they all tend to be big in a similar way, and most interactions devolve into fits of profanity, violence, or both. The story also takes its time getting going, in part because Torgo pursues frequent digressions that flesh out the fictional universe but don’t further the plot. The book’s satirical tone, too, loses some of its appeal after more than 300 pages. There’s a lot to enjoy here, though, and some readers are sure to love every minute of it. Even those who might wish for a tighter, more character-driven story will look forward to the author’s future offerings.

A sprawling and detailed comic adventure.

Pub Date: July 1, 2020

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 361

Publisher: Infernal Rift Press

Review Posted Online: June 27, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020

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BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

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Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).

In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

Pub Date: June 10, 2025

ISBN: 9781250320520

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

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MY FRIENDS

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.

Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

Pub Date: May 6, 2025

ISBN: 9781982112820

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

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