New releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our consideration.
Putnam Pub Group
An agoraphobic engineer named Henry spends his days locked away in his extraordinarily good dwelling constructing freaky little robots, together with one that appears like a magician and rides round on a tiny bike. His spouse, Lily, is the one individual he actually ever sees, however issues have grown tense between them — a state of affairs solely worsened by the truth that he’s often holed up alone within the attic engaged on a secret venture. Sooner or later, Lily invitations some former coworkers over to encourage Henry to socialize, and Henry takes the chance to lastly exhibit his biggest creation: William, a complicated AI system housed in a crude robotic physique. Horror ensues.
Mason Coile’s William (stylized W1LL1AM) takes the well-worn trope of a naive creator confronted with their out-of-control creation and provides haunted smart-house creepiness, with a twist ending. Naturally, it’s drawn comparisons to Frankenstein and even The Shining, however I’d dare to say there’s a touch of Demon Seed in there, too. That is one other quick learn, coming in at underneath 250 pages, and it’s simply the precise factor to get you into the spooky season temper. It takes place, appropriately, on Halloween.
Penguin Press
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and its subsequent transformation into X as we now understand it dominated headlines for months, so that you couldn’t be blamed for feeling such as you’ve heard all there may be to learn about the entire saga. However for individuals who do need a deeper look into the way it all transpired, journalists Kate Conger and Ryan Mac have dredged up a ton of beforehand unreported data of their guide Character Limit, which pulls from interviews with insiders and inner recordings from the rooms the place all of it went down to offer us the total story of Twitter’s takeover. And it’s a messy one.
Picture Comics
I can’t consider one other new sequence in latest reminiscence that’s left me so hungry for the subsequent challenge as The Tin Can Society #1. Earlier than I get into it, although, I ought to word that this primary challenge opens with a content material warning about violence and discussions of ableism and racism. It’s intense from the bounce. The Tin Can Society begins with against the law scene: tech mogul turned superhero Johnny Moore has been murdered.
Moore, born with spina bifida, rose to fame because the genius creator of superior exoskeleton-style mobility aids, and he wore a full-body armored model of one in all these fits whereas working because the vigilante hero, Caliburn. When he’s discovered useless, the swimsuit is gone. The Tin Can Society follows Moore’s childhood associates, who come collectively after years aside to resolve his homicide. There’s a number of coronary heart within the first challenge because it bounces between their present-day setting and the previous, constructing out the backstory of Moore’s youth and the tight-knit pal group that after was. I’m excited to see the place this one goes. The Tin Can Society will probably be a nine-part mini sequence, and the subsequent challenge drops in late October.
