Wayward Vol 1: String Theory by Jim Zub

Wayward Vol 1: String Theory written by Jim Zub and illustrated by Steven Cummings and John Rauch collects the first five issues of the ongoing comic book series. I previously posted a short review of Issue #1 and when I saw Volume 1 on Netgalley, I couldn't resist.

Rori Lane is trying to start a new life when she reunites with her mother in Japan, but ancient creatures lurking in the shadows of Tokyo sense something hidden deep within her, threatening everything she holds dear. Can Rori unlock the secrets of her power before it's too late?

After a half-Irish, half-Japanese girl moves to Japan to live with her mother, she quickly crosses paths with weird supernatural happenings and discovers that she herself has some supernatural powers. In her quest to try to understand what's going on, she teams up with some other powered teens (or are they really teens? I'm not sure about one of them). On almost a whim they decide to seek out some weird supernatural happenings, not content to wait around.

I quite liked Rori and her friends. As well as Rori's ability to see some sort of magical strings (hence the title), there's a girl with an affinity to cats and anime hair, a schoolmate with powers, and the fourth member of the band who seems to be a random bystander/victim, but I'm assuming there's more to him than we've seen so far.

The story stars to deal with some heavier issues, like Rori's mum having to work long/strange hours to make ends meet and self-harm. Obviously, Rori's struggles to fit into a new school in a new country also come up, but those kind of take a back seat to the supernatural stuff going on. I've read elsewhere that the Japan presented in Wayward is en pointe, but having visited the country only once almost a decade ago, I can't really comment.

The story in this volume has a pretty definite arc with a significant climax and a bit of a cliffhanger ending. I'm definitely going to want to read the next volume in the series to find out what happens. It's tempting to just get the next few issues that are already out, but I will be strong and stick to my rule of reading comics in collected volume form only. I would definitely recommend Wayward to anyone interested in the setting and/or stories about teenagers with superpowers. I suspect that covers a reasonable portion of my readers.

4 / 5 stars

First published: April 2015, Image Comics
Series: Wayward Vol 1 of ongoing series, collecting issues #1-5
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Ravenous Dead by Natasha Hoar

The Ravenous Dead by Natasha Hoar is a new ebook-only novella published by Carina Press. Continuing Carina Press’s trend of releasing series of related novellas, The Ravenous Dead follows on from The Stubborn Dead (link to publisher page). I haven’t read The Stubborn Dead and, while I could guess vaguely what it might have been about, I didn’t feel I needed to have read it before The Ravenous Dead nor that The Ravenous Dead was likely to have spoiled the earlier story for me (of course, I might be wrong on that second part, who knows).

Rachel is a rescue medium which means that it’s her job to help free souls which are stuck on Earth and deal with certain supernatural creatures. In this novella, a reaper, an undead soul-eater, is ravaging Vancouver and leaving a trail of bodies in it’s wake. Rachel sets out to stop it with her protege (with his own special powers) Kit.

It was a little bit gory at the start when the bodies were described but after that the story was mainly action and a little bit of detective work.

There were a few scenes from the reaper’s point of view which felt a bit odd. They seemed to make the reader sympathise a bit with the reaper (who didn’t end up as a particularly soul-thirsty reaper on purpose) but then ended with him being an emotionless killing machine. It turned out there was a reason for this, story-wise, but it confused me a bit.

There was a nice hook at the end for a possible future story which definitely made me want to read more.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad story but it didn’t elicit any particularly strong emotions in me. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys urban fantasy and is looking for a quick and action-heavy story to pass the time.

3.5 / 5 stars