This volume collects the adventures of the spunky Maggie; her annoying, pixie-ish best friend and sometime lover Hopey; and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy―as well as the aging but still heroic wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie's handsome love interest, Rand Race. After the sci-fi trappings of his earliest stories (as seen in Maggie the Mechanic, the first volume in this series), Hernandez refined his approach, settling on the more naturalistic environment of the fictional Los Angeles barrio, Hoppers, and the lives of the young Mexican-Americans and punk rockers who live there. A central story and one of Jaime's absolute peaks is "The Death of Speedy." Such is Jaime's mastery that even though the end of the story is telegraphed from the very title, the downhill spiral of Speedy, the local heartthrob, is utterly compelling and ultimately quite surprising. Also in this volume, Maggie begins her on-again off-again romance with Ray D., leading to friction and an eventual separation from Hopey.
Mike and Cindy are soul twins. They are also omnipotent Gods who, together with their eight other soul mates, have lived forever. While living in the Prime Realm, they possess the infinite power and knowledge that is enjoyed by all omnipotent Gods. However, most of the time they choose to live in other realms where they are totally unaware of who or what they are. Like all people who have elected to leave the Prime Realm, they have chosen to live their lives as ordinary mortals, possessing absolutely no special knowledge or powers. Their reasoning for doing this is simple. For them, living a heavenly existence in the Prime Realm isnt so heavenly after all. It means living a blissfully boring existence, one devoid of the opportunity to work, to grow, to learn, to be challenged, to fail, to succeed, and to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those around them. Nine of the ten soul mates have completed their most recent lifetimes on Earth and are temporarily back home in their mansion in the Prime Realm. Only Cindy remains alive on Earth. While the others await Cindys inevitable death and her subsequent return to the Prime Realm, they research a variety of exotic planets and realms in which to spend their next mortal lifetimes together. Three are among their leading planetary choices. Kardon is a world where the population has mastered complete control of gravity. Baltham, another favorite, is a world where complete strangers routinely request and grant sexual pleasures to each other. Benu, the most interesting of all, is located in the Seventh Realm where planets and suns are alive and their inhabitants consider them to be gods. When Cindy at last dies and rejoins her group, the ten soul mates decide to spend their next lifetime on the planet Benu, whose Sun is predicted to go supernova within the next several hundred years. Their goal is to work together in their new incarnations helping the inhabitants of Benu find some way to avoid total annihilation. Before embarking on this new adventure, they place blocks on their godly memories and powers. Determined to save the planets inhabitants, the ten soul mates soon encounter numerous obstacles and pitfalls. At every turn, the group must deal with a deeply religious population who shuns science and instead prefers to leave their global fate in the hands of their planetary and solar gods. One way or another, the team of intrepid soul mates must overcome the populations massive resistance to embracing science over religion, which in actuality offers their worlds only hope for salvation. In addition to being a riveting sci-fi tale, this book offers readers highly original answers to the eternal questions regarding our purpose in life, where we came from, and where we are going. You may find yourself asking, Suppose, just suppose . . .
A sharp and entertaining essay collection about the importance of multiple forms of love and friendship in a world designed for couples, from a laser-precise new voice. Sometimes it seems like there are two American creeds, self-reliance and marriage, and neither of them is mine. I experience myself as someone formed and sustained by others' love and patience, by student loans and stipends, by the kindness of strangers. Briallen Hopper's Hard to Love honors the categories of loves and relationships beyond marriage, the ones that are often treated as invisible or seen as secondary--friendships, kinship with adult siblings, care teams that form in times of illness, or various alternative family formations. She also values difficult and amorphous loves like loving a challenging job or inanimate objects that can't love you back. She draws from personal experience, sharing stories about her loving but combative family, the fiercely independent Emerson scholar who pushed her away, and the friends who have become her invented or found family; pop culture touchstones like the Women's March, John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, and the timeless series Cheers; and the work of writers like Joan Didion, Gwendolyn Brooks, Flannery O'Connor, and Herman Melville (Moby-Dick like you've never seen it!). Hard to Love pays homage and attention to unlikely friends and lovers both real and fictional. It is a series of love letters to the meaningful, if underappreciated, forms of intimacy and community that are tricky, tangled, and tough, but ultimately sustaining.
ROBERT SILVERBERG confronts the paradoxes of time travel in a brilliant novel of the 25th century, when the only escape from suffocation in a totally controlled environment is to hop backward through time. Since time hopping rearranges the past on which the structure of current existence is based, it must be stopped - but not too quickly. For the history of the 1970's includes the arrival of hoppers who have not yet left the 2490's - and whose departure thus must not be stopped!
Quinny has a lot to say. Hopper gets to the point. Quinny has one speed: very, very, extra-very fast. Hopper proceeds with caution. Quinny has big ideas. Hopper has smart solutions. Quinny and Hopper couldn't be more different. They are an unstoppable team. But when summer ends, things suddenly aren't the same. Can Quinny and Hopper stick together in the face of stylish bullies, a killer chicken, and the brand-new Third Grade Rules-especially the one that says they aren't allowed to be friends anymore? Praise for Quinny & Hopper: "First-time children's author Schanen skillfully captures Quinny's zest and Hopper's timidity through their interactions and alternating narratives, and Swearingen's smudgy spot illustrations amplify the lively tone. The story's best moments showcase the spirited friendship between Quinny and Hopper, but there's much to appreciate throughout this exuberant debut." -- Publishers Weekly "The book is engrossing, and the likable duo change and grow in believable ways. Quinny and Hopper, who take turns narrating, have distinct, well-differentiated voices, and Schanen makes good use of her individuated secondary characters as well. Swearingen's black-and-white drawings both capture the spirit of the characters and enhance the narrative. This endearing story about true friendship should appeal equally to boys and girls." -- Kirkus Reviews
Jessica Hopper's music criticism has earned her a reputation as a firebrand, a keen observer and fearless critic not just of music but the culture around it. With this volume spanning from her punk fanzine roots to her landmark piece on R. Kelly's past, The First Collection leaves no doubt why The New York Times has called Hopper's work "influential." Not merely a selection of two decades of Hopper's most engaging, thoughtful, and humorous writing, this book documents the last 20 years of American music making and the shifting landscape of music consumption. The book journeys through the truths of Riot Grrrl's empowering insurgence, decamps to Gary, IN, on the eve of Michael Jackson's death, explodes the grunge-era mythologies of Nirvana and Courtney Love, and examines emo's rise. Through this vast range of album reviews, essays, columns, interviews, and oral histories, Hopper chronicles what it is to be truly obsessed with music. The pieces in The First Collection send us digging deep into our record collections, searching to re-hear what we loved and hated, makes us reconsider the art, trash, and politics Hopper illuminates, helping us to make sense of what matters to us most.
Edward Hopper (1882-1967), one of the most important American painters of the twentieth century, spent nearly every summer of his long artistic career in New England. This book presents many of Hopper's finest paintings of the region and examines the crucial role New England played in Hopper's development as an artist. Carl Little is author of Paintings of Maine and is a regular contributor to Art New England and Art in America.
