THE DISCO AT THE END OF THE WORLD, moonbases and alien motherships inside discoballs...WILD!

THE DISCO AT THE END OF THE WORLD
NATHAN TAVARES
Titan Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: An alternate 1970s science fiction romance blending first contact and queer counterculture in the Los Angeles disco scene, perfect for readers of Vajra Chandrasekera and Victor Manibo.

In 1977—a world where America launched its space program shortly after WWII—Mitch Ward is a grunt in the US Spaceguard. Stationed in a backwater base on the Moon, his only friend is Gloria, who performs "Lady Moondust" for fellow soldiers, until he's briefly reunited with Flynn, a love from his youth who has never been far from his heart.

Following a visit from an unseen, terrifying but also maybe euphoric being, Mitch and Gloria find themselves quickly discharged from the Guard, and sent back to Earth. Moving to Los Angeles to chase their dreams, the duo scrape by, dancing between joy and defiance at the discos in a rapidly changing city that's unwelcoming to those who don't fit the Golden Age of Hollywood standard.

But when Flynn crashes back into their lives, he comes with a warning. He claims to be the host for a traveler and emissary of a utopian civilization, who has caught notice of Earth. This civilization is either the source of humanity's salvation—or its destruction. And they're on the way.

With the strange new powers blooming in Mitch and Gloria and Flynn's motives perhaps as hazy as those fog-filled LA dance floors, it's up to this community of disco-loving misfits to stand up for what is beautiful and right. And save those who maybe wouldn't do the same for them.

They're not going down without a fight—and one hell of a party.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'd give it four stars just for the Mothership being a disco ball.

As it was, I gave it four stars because the chilling terribleness of a 1970s Reagan presidency coming as a natural development of Ronnie's disgusting authoritarian conversion in the 1950s, ushering in a repressive crackdown in place of Stonewall...well, it was a seasick feeling of "are we *sure* this didn't happen?"

I spent less time pondering Flynn's freaky-deaky...um, alteration?...than the alternate history elements. In fact the aliens were not particularly convincing to me, in that their role in the story felt less than integral to my sense of what should happen next. I found the ending flowed from their presence, so it wasn't joltingly out of place...just wasn't what I'd've preferred.

The Metronomes substitute for the christian nationalist horrors of our time quite neatly. Substituting one set of soi-disant judges for a different one is a wish-fulfillment move. It's like thinking the grade-school "how would you like it" argument on steroids...unconvincing, flimsy, and ultimately self-defeating. I'm not raving like I would be had we stuck to our alternate history premise, but honestly...I was having fun, so I unpuckered and got the pleasure the story I was reading offered me. I left the pining for something else on the dance floor with the fifth star.

HYBRED: A Graphic Novel, meditating on how bad the world will get set to *gorgeous* artwork

HYBRED: A Graphic Novel
JAMIE MUSTARD (illus. Francesca Filomena)
Street Noise Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$20.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Set in a future-adjacent, alternative Los Angeles, this is a story of staggering poverty, drugs, and violence and of an artistic child who finds beauty in the ugly and sublime hope in our conflicts.

HYBRED shows us how in our most marginalized communities lies an astonishing amount of genius which goes unnoticed and is so often tragically wasted.

Nine-year-old Johnny James lives in The Casque, the poorest neighborhood in Greater Angeles, where he shares a one-room apartment with his mother, stepfather, two brothers, and an army of cockroaches. He spends his days in the sweltering heat of the neighborhood, at the movie theaters, playing tackleball, or drawing—but there’s no money for him to go to school.

As death, addiction, and violence swirl through the neighborhood, Johnny grows up with friends, adventures, and magic around him. And he discovers how to use art, beauty, and personal strength to transcend the forces destined to hold him back.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: This graphic story is a heightened, fictionalized alternate-history version of Author Mustard's real-life memoir Child X, recently published by BenBella Books. Added fantastical moments...levitating while in a flow state from making art, conjuring rain to ease "the Long Drought" afflicting his alternate LA...Author Mustard works within the world-view of a kid with no memories of brighter days, who can't conjure a brighter future.

we set our scene; Johnny exhibits powers

It comes to pass that, even in the direst, most terrible poverty, living with his four-person family in one room and unable (due to lack of money) to attend school, Johnny is capable of seeing true beauty, of creating from the drabness around him glimpses of a world imbued with the hope inherent in beauty.

Johnny's home is his world

I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that Johnny is magical, like so many trapped in his terrible circumstances...without hope, without prospects, paths to escape.

There is inside him the wellspring of beauty and art, and this story paired with the gorgeous artwork, does its best to show that anyone, no matter how deeply oppressed and neglected, can escape.

I don't know that Author Mustard really turned the trick of proving this point; in the end, I was more uplifted by the gestalt of the artwork and the story's points of view on the world Author Mustard created to hold his only mildly distorting mirror to our complacent, privileged faces.

Hold the image of the beautiful inside and out Johnny in your mind's eye; he will shine beauty back at you, nourish you with his goodness.

A treasure indeed.