Murderbot and Squirrel Girl

[psocoptera]

Not actually related, that is, these are two separate works, not a team-up. But doesn't it scan nicely? (Murderbot and Squirrel Girl, walking through the forest, laughing back and forth at what the other has to say... okay maybe not, but now it's in your head too...)

All Systems Red is the first novella of the Murderbot Diaries, a new series by Martha Wells (who also wrote the Raksura books). I loved it - great character, snappy plot, perfect amount of story for its format. I can't wait for the next one, and I'll be shocked if this one doesn't make the Hugo ballot.

Squirrel Meets World is a prequel novel to the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comic series, written by Shannon Hale & Dean Hale (Shannon Hale: Princess Academy, Rapunzel's Revenge, Book of a Thousand Days, the Princess In Black series). It has both the prequel problem and franchise problem of the character and ending already being really pinned down, so there isn't a lot of space for anything really interesting to happen, and thus felt pretty missable. But it was sweet, and funny in spots (the bad: way too much of a running gag about the squirrels' slang, which was obviously vastly more fun to write than to read; the best: anything involving SG's thoughts about/interactions with other Marvel characters), and hit a couple of good beats on the perennial "who is the truest self, the wallet name or the cape name" question. And, you know, I am entirely in favor of the existence of more kid-friendly girl-centric superhero stories, and totally intend to see if Junie likes it (she's really into the Super Hero Girls series right now, which I haven't read any of yet, but I think she read the Squirrel Girl comics so might be interested). (Doreen is 14 in it; it read like middlegrade to me rather than YA, and that's how our library shelved it, but I've seen reviews calling it YA.)

Comments

[jedusor]

"Murderbot and Squirrel Girl" scans to the tune of "Lazyhead and Sleepybones" by They Might Be Giants, so now that's stuck in my head. :P

[glynhogen]

Super Hero Girls is pretty good. Kaia read the first one before I did, so I asked if she recommended that I read it. She did, and I made it obvious that I was taking her advice to try it and also enjoying it. (Lately, I've been hitting the "people like different things and that's okay"--JoJo Siwa is a prominent example of a thing Kaia can absolutely like even if I don't--so I've also wanted to make it clear when we like the same things, especially if they're things that she discovers.)

[glynhogen]

I am sort of torn about the Tor novellas. On the one hand, novellas! I like that length just fine. On the other hand, there is part of me that objects to single-packaged novellas (especially when Tor's doing them in series). Like, isn't that why you have short fiction collections? (Remember those?) Obviously, I see the economic argument, and the price points are probably not going to make me not buy something I'd otherwise buy, though they've maybe stopped titles from bubbling up to the top of the list as quickly as might otherwise be the case. My brain is processing "two paperback novellas for around $20" as more annoying than "one novel for around $20" in a way that makes little sense. It's not like I factor out the per-page cost of books to figure out their entertainment value. But it's a consumer behavior I've noticed in myself and I'm vaguely curious if it lurks elsewhere, too.