As the second book in the Terra Ignota series, Seven Surrenders picks up right where Too Like the Lightning left off. That’s hardly surprising, as Lightning doesn’t conclude so much as it… halts. This made it really easy to pick up, with the major aspects of the world mostly fleshed out. There’s still plenty of complexity that needs clarification–it’s just easier than starting from square one. Author Ada Palmer nails down a bunch of details, once again smartly mixing subtle clues with direct explanations from Mycroft Canner to their reader.

In 1998, the Smashing Pumpkins released a music video for their latest single, Ava Adore. Like many of the great music videos of the era, it’s visually engaging, conceptually enticing, and thematically unrelated to the song it tracks. Too Like the Lightning is a science fiction novel written twenty years later, and despite the laws of time and causality, it explains the Pumpkins’ music video far better than the music itself.

Too Like the Lightning is a swirling, chaotic fever dream set 400 years in the future, and I love it. Author Ada Palmer describes a convincingly-complex world. The population is divided across seven nations called “hives” which, thanks to technological advances, are not bound by geography. Their citizens have distinctive values, reflected in their unique governing structures. A world war situated in the book’s past and our future culminated in a universal ban on organized religion.

I’m feeling pretty shallow these days. Blacksad is the second consecutive work I’ve picked up based on appearance. And for the second time, my superficial interests have been rewarded with depth. I hope I’m not learning any lessons. Somewhere in the Shadows (the first volume of the 2010 collection) is pretty standard hard-boiled crime fiction. I’ll read a good detective story any day, but I wouldn’t necessary call it “deep.” The subject matter in the other two volumes, Arctic Nation and Red Soul, caught me off guard.

Back when Mirror’s Edge was released in 2008, gamers I knew generally enjoyed it, but nobody was blown away. Still, it seemed like a distinctive and polished game, and I was convinced that I missed out on something special. I also knew that it’s pretty short. Since my present-day tolerance for long games is still unproven, I decided to give it a try. The game’s least subtle trait is its visual style, so we’ll start there.

In Batman: Curse of the White Knight, writer/artist Sean Murphy revisits the alternate universe Gotham City that he created in Batman: White Knight. I was impressed by the first story, so naturally, I had high hopes for the sequel. Dashed! Those hopes were dashed! On the surface, it sure looks promising. Murphy’s art here meets the high standard set in the first installment. His use of lighting, his costuming, and his set design are all just as satisfying this time around, and that’s no small achievement.

As a fan through the second half of Bad Religion’s career, I’ve always felt the band put their message before themselves. Their personalities haven’t been nearly as front-and-center as so many other rock stars I’ve followed. It’s only thanks to album liner notes that I’ve learned just enough about them to be curious: how did Greg Graffin come to be a professor at Cornell? How did Mr. Brett’s role change over time?

Barbara, our 11-year-old protagonist, is unconcerned with fitting in socially or academically. She can see things that no one else can. She has a higher calling. Pretty standard fare for pre-teen fantasy, right? There are zillions of YA graphic novels out there, though. I Kill Giants’ theme sets is apart. When books in this genre strive beyond simple escapism, they usually don’t go much farther than coming-of-age tales. To be honest, I probably would have been satisfied with that.

Paul Dini has done a lot for Batman. He wrote for “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Batman Beyond.” He worked in comics, writing classic stories about Zatanna, Black Canary, and Batgirl. He even invented one of today’s most recognizable villains, Harley Quinn. His writing is mature and thoughtful in all the right places–rare qualities in a medium that’s often dismissed as fodder for the imagination of little boys. Having disclosed my bias, it should come as no surprise that I was psyched to read Dark Night: A True Batman Story.

I thoroughly enjoyed Left 4 Dead with my brother and his friends back in the late aughts. We spent hours protecting each other from zombies, pausing only to shoot each other with Nerf guns. You know, for balance. That game was more like an arcade than any FPS I’ve played. For all of its inherent strengths, it was the comradery (and occasional vindictiveness) that made the experience. When the group dispersed, my interest likewise dried up–even though Left 4 Dead 2 has just been released.