OH MY GOSH. I. LOVED. THIS. I was expecting to like it, but "A Hundred Thousand Worlds" went light years beyond what I hoped. My geeky little heart is pounding with happiness from this stories and all the pop culture and comic and superheroes themes, but mostly from Alex and his story.
I'll need to come back and write a slightly more detailed review, but the words escape me right now. I'm still reeling from this book. ( )

*reviewed from uncorrected egalley*

fiction (sci-fi/tv/comic geekery and fandom). I liked the layers at first, but sort of got bored with the details of the tv series and the mundane conversations of those in the comic book writing/drawing biz. I might have stuck with it longer if I'd had a hard copy (since my ereader stopped working and I have to view these egalleys on the computer). I suspect it could be a very good book, but I might only recommend it to those who are into these topics of fandom. ( )

I’ve never read a book that gets fandom like this one. Proehl understands what makes science fiction and comic books so beloved, and how the behind-the-scenes of shows and writing and cons works, and how geeks think. The plot, and the subplots, and the wit of the prose, and even the structure of the novel are steeped in it all, and there are too many cameos and name drops to mention. (All shifted a step or two sideways, of course.)

Also, Proehl gets people and he gets life. This is a book about how messy and flawed and complicated the world is, about how fierce love and pain and anger can be, about coming to terms with mistakes and bad situations and making the best of it. There’s no character who didn’t feel real enough to step off the page, and in a genre where people can get a bit too neat as they’re written towards an ending, that was refreshing. (The plot also didn’t veer towards the pat for the most part, and I wasn’t sure how things would end until they did.)

Other things I liked: the way Proehl uses SF tropes to shift the story and to comment on the tropes themselves; the way Valerie’s show intrudes on the story; the sense of fun that permeates everything; every scene with the lesbian comics writer; the fact that I actually tried to nab some quotes from it for my queue but every sentence was so good I’d have to type out the whole novel; the sense of hope for a better world and a better fandom.

Basically, I really, really liked this one and if you’re a genre-savvy SF geek or simply a fan of well-executed lit fic, I highly recommend.

Warnings: There’s a recurring group of booth babes/cosplayers in those tight, high-cleavage outfits, but they’re not written as bombshells, more as commentary on sexism in comics. There’s also commentary on sexism in fandom, internet trolls, and sexist hiring practices, and some of the shadier bits of comic book history besides.

9.5/10 ( )

A Hundred Thousand Worlds
by Bob Proehl
2016
Viking
4.5 / 5.0

I love Bob Proehl!
Fun and imaginative, Proehl is an ambitious writer and quickly becoming a favorite author.
I really connected with Alex, the young son of Valerie Torrey, who was once on a popular, cult hit TV series called Anomaly.
It's the 10 year anniversary of Anomaly. Valerie is set to make guest appearances and sign autographs at comic conventions across the USA. Alex knows his mom is taking him on a trip to see his dad, but he doesnt realize for how long. Along the way, they stay in hotels, and meet a wide variety of people, some that influence Alex in many ways. Alex loves to read and lives much of his life through the adventures he reads. The more I read of Alex, the more I loved him. ( )

A charming book that kept it's charm for me almost all the way through - it wasn't until the last few pages that 9 year old Alex started to seem a little too good to be true, and ends were a little too neatly tied up. The Alex/Valerie story line could have become cloying, but it was nicely balanced with the lives of other slightly more rough-edged characters on the Comicon circuit. The author does a great job of giving the reader a deep dive into superhero comics without getting explainy. It worked for me anyway, and I know nothing about that world (or worlds - a hundred thousand of them, in fact.) I can't say that I'm now a fan of superhero comics, but I certainly appreciate them more. I like what one character says about them: "You know what all of this is, don't you? This is the immune system of the human soul. Superheroes, space rangers, time cowboys, they are the T cells of the spirit." This book gave my spirit a few more T cells to help cope with the political shit show that is America 2017.

( )