Marjorie Liu and Jason Aaron’s “Star Wars: Han Solo” collects “Han Solo” #1-5 written by Liu, penciled by Mark Brooks, inked by Brooks and Dexter Vines, colored by Sonia Oback and Matt Milla, lettered by Joe Caramanga, with cover art by Lee Bermejo, Tula Lotay, Olivier Coipel, and Kamome Shirahama as well as “Star Wars” #8-12 written by Aaron, penciled by Stuart Immonen, inked by Wade von Grawbadger, colored by Justin Ponsor, lettered by Chris Eliopoulos, with covers by Stuart Immonen, von Grawbadger, and Ponsor. The first five issues from the “Han Solo” miniseries focus on Han and Chewbacca entering the Dragon Void race as cover to pick up Alliance spies within the first year after the Battle of Yavin. They do this as a secret mission for Princess Leia in a story that explores Han’s morality and sense of duty. The story evokes Brian Daley’s “Han Solo Adventures” from the late 1970s, though using the current aesthetic of the “Star Wars” galaxy. The “B” story, from “Star Wars” #8-12, alternates between Han Solo and Leia Organa’s encounter with Sana Starros, who claims to be Han Solo’s wife and wants to collect the bounty of Leia, and Luke Skywalker traveling to Nar Shadda seeking a covert way to Coruscant in order to learn more about the Jedi. The Han/Leia/Sana story has the types of romantic misunderstandings that characterize Han and Leia’s relationship in the Original Trilogy. Meanwhile, the Luke story affords a deeper look at Luke’s process of learning more about the Jedi and the Force following Ben Kenobi’s death but prior to his trip to Dagobah. In this, it resembles elements of Kevin Hearne’s “Heir to the Jedi.” The addition of these stories to the “Han Solo” collected book feel somewhat disjointed. They work well as “Star Wars” books, but are tonally and thematically different than the “Han Solo” series. That being said, fans of the Original Trilogy will enjoy this collection and its character-driven stories.

In “American Born Chinese,” Gene Luen Yang alternates between a fictionalized account of his youth, the story of the Monkey King from Wu Cheng’en’s “Journey to the West,” and a satirical account of Chin-Kee, who represents the unkind way that Anglo-Americans view Chinese and Asian immigrants as well as personifying the identity that Chinese-Americans seek to repudiate in order to be seen as more than their ethnicity. His use of humor and dynamic character designs will help this story reach all audiences and give them a greater understanding of the immigrant and first-generation experience, though filtered through Yang’s unique perspective. Disney+ recently adapted this series, but they left out Chin-Kee. Even though the character fulfills a valuable narrative purpose, such an overtly racist caricature would not work well for a corporate streaming service’s production.

David Bushman and Ken Deep’s edited collection “The Companions of Doctor Who” features essays exploring the importance of the Doctor’s companions throughout the sixty-plus years of “Doctor Who.” They structure the book in reverse-chronological order beginning with Donna and Wilf as they appeared in the sixtieth anniversary specials, though those episodes had not yet aired when essayists Shaun Lyon and Joseph Dougherty wrote so they mostly focus on their time with the Tenth Doctor, alluding to the Fourteenth Doctor in their conclusions. From there, Mackenzie Flohr examines Yaz and the Thirteenth Doctor; Amanda-Rae Prescott looks at Bill Potts and the Twelfth Doctor; Scott Ryan examines the role of Clara Oswald; David Bushman takes a look at Amy Pond and the Eleventh Doctor; Dr. Gina Rosich explores the complicated legacy of Martha Jones and the Tenth Doctor; Joshua Lou Friedman takes a look at Rose’s time with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors as the first companion after Doctor Who’s revival in 2005. This first half of the book covers the revived “Doctor Who” while the second half begins with Yee Jee Tso looking back on his own character, Chang Lee, in the 1996 “Doctor Who” movie. Following Tso, Joshua Lou Friedman and Sophie Aldred write about Aldred’s character Ace and her time with the Seventh Doctor; Paul J. Salamoff examines Sarah Jane Smith, who traveled with the Third and Fourth Doctors before appearing in special episodes, spin-offs, the second series of the revived “Doctor Who,” and even her own show; Charlie Ross, Lucy Chase Williams, and Amy Krell all give insiders’ insight into Ian Marter, who portrayed Harry Sullivan alongside the Fourth doctor; Edwin Thrower writes about Jo Grant, who traveled with the Third Doctor before reappearing in the “Sarah Jane Adventures” and “Tales of the TARDIS”; Ken Deep discusses Jamie McCrimmon’s time with the Second Doctor; Barnaby Edwards writes about Ian Chesterton’s travels with the First Doctor as the model for other male companions, who are often outliers when many of the most well-known companions are women; and Ken Deep closes out the book with an interview with Carole An Ford, who played Susan Foreman alongside the First Doctor. The book is a nice companion to the franchise and a good introduction for newcomers who might feel overwhelmed by the Doctor’s long history and numerous companions. Each author brings their own insights and clearly writes about their favorites, so the chapters are a joy to read. A lovely volume for Whovians to purchase for themselves or as a gift for fellow fans.

Devin Grayson and Becca Farrow’s adaptation of Tamora Pierce’s “First Test: Protector of the Small – Book 1” faithfully adapts the first book of Pierce’s third Tortall quartet. The story introduces Keladry of Mindelan, who trains as a knight a decade after the events of the “Song of the Lioness” quartet in which Alanna trained and Jonathan of Conté made it legal for girls to train. Kel faces an uphill battle from the beginning with an added probationary period which other pages need not pass, though she seeks Lord Wyldon’s approval. Her sponsor, Nealan, sponsors her in the training and helps her learn the unofficial rules of training. Along the way, Kel discovers that she has a secret benefactor and makes friends while she challenges the systemic bullying at the school. Each of Pierce’s Tortall quartets may be read on their own and this works as an easy entry point for new readers, though some prior familiarity with “Song of the Lioness” and “Immortals” will help readers appreciate the world that Pierce built. “First Test” may appeal the most to new readers’ tastes, however, and what they expect from YA fantasy. Grayson’s adaptation honors the original text while taking into consideration the areas in which the art will tell the story. Farrow brilliantly compliments Pierce and Grayson’s writing with distinctive character designs and great visual world-building. Her art and Grayson’s adaptation will introduce new readers to Pierce’s writing and enhance their appreciation of Tortall. The book concludes with Farrow’s character sketches and a glossary of medieval and fantasy terms for newcomers. I look forward to Grayson and Farrow continuing to adapt the other books in the “Protector of the Small” quartet.

In “The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn,” Dr. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers argues, “Lying at the crossroads of race, sex, and politics, Julia’s life illuminates how some Black women in the Old South utilized interracial partnerships to negotiate and acquire a modicum of power for themselves and their families while simultaneously highlighting the clear limits of that power: the farther away the Johnson women moved from home and their networks of privilege, the less authority they had” (p. 1). Dr. Myers thoroughly researches Julia Chinn’s family from the historical record, including what personal correspondence survive as well as contemporary letters and newspaper coverage, while also incorporating later popular historiography and family histories to contextualize Julia Chinn’s legacy. Acknowledging the gaps in the historical record, Dr. Myers acknowledges that “to reconstruct the lives of enslaved women, to write Black women back into the historical narrative,” she “must use materials created by white folks, white men, who never intended for their documents to highlight Black women’s voices” (p. 7). Dr. Myers argues, “Although sexual unions in the Old South between white slave owners and Black enslaved women were common, these ‘relationships’ were always complicated affairs, where enslaved women had limited options, none of which were good, and little choice in the matter because of the intersection of slavery, racism, and patriarchy” (p. 35). Julia Chinn’s narrative, then, should not be read as one of romance as there always existed a power imbalance between her and Richard Johnson while the society in which they lived inscribed its own rules on all relationships. As Dr. Myers notes, “The Johnsons’ relationship was…never a love story. Richard was always a slaveholder. Julia was always his property” (p. 85). Despite these constraints, Dr. Myers argues, “This was Julia Chinn’s main mission. Like Black mothers well before her and those who would come long after, every step she took was carefully planned so her descendants would rise up higher, and go much further, than she herself ever would” (p. 55). When Richard Johnson opened the Choctaw Academy on his property for Native American children, it revealed the complicated racial hierarchy that shaped the lives of white settlers, enslaved and free Black people, and Native Americans. Dr. Myers argues that the episode reveals “how settler colonialism and white supremacy warps everyone” (p. 88). Similarly, the liminal semi-public space of the church afforded another realm in which Julia Chinn and her daughters might enjoy an elevated position due to class within the confines of race due to the church’s place outside of civil governance (p. 91-115). Though most modern national histories may offer only a brief discussion of Richard Johnson’s political career, Dr. Myers reveals how his relationships played a critical role in shaping that career in his own time. She examines contemporary newspaper coverage and argues, “Having sex with a Black woman and fathering children of color hasn’t prevented other white men from running for political office in the United States… The problem for Richard, however, was that he… was open about his relationship with Julia. He never married a white woman for cover” (p. 132). Going public nearly derailed his national political ambitions. As it was, Johnson became the first – and only – Vice President elected under the Twelfth Amendment (p. 157-158). Even then, he could not secure a second term as Vice President. In death, his brothers sought to disavow his and Julia’s union as well as their children (p. 169). As a result, “National attitudes toward Blackness, slavery, and interracial sex all played a role in erasing Julia Chinn and her daughters, Imogene Johnson Pence and Adaline Johnson Scott, from US history textbooks as well as from the memories of their own families” (p. 189-190). Their descendants crossed the color line, though some retained an inkling of their family’s history. Dr. Myers’ book reveals the critical intersection of race and gender in U.S. history with a focus on local, state, and national politics. Julia Chinn’s connection to a Vice President of the United States makes this history all the more important as Johnson and Chinn’s connection was known in their own time, but has since faded into the mists of history. The Vice President’s Black Wife reveals the complicated narrative of U.S. history while recovering the story of a forgotten figure who helped shape that history. This book is critical reading for any historian of nineteenth-century America.

Alyssa Wong’s “Star Wars: Doctor Aphra Omnibus, Vol. 2” collects “Doctor Aphra” (2020) #1-25 written by Wong with pencils by Marika Cresta, Ray-Anthony Height, Robert Gill, Minkya Jung, Federica Sabbatini, and Natacha Bustos; inks by Victor Olazaba; colors by Rachelle Rosenberg; letters by Joe Caramagna; and cover art by Valentina Remenar, Leinil Francis Yu, Sunny Gho, Joshua “Sway” Swaby, Sara Pichelli, Nolan Woodard, and W. Scott Forbes. The story continues the saga of the “Star Wars” galaxy’s favorite rogue archaeologist, Chelli Aphra, following the events of “The Empire Strikes Back” as the Rebel Alliance is on the run and Darth Vader holds a grudge against Aphra for the fallout from their partnership. Meanwhile, she’s put together a new team consisting of herself, Black Krrsantan, Detta Yao, Doctor Eustacia Okka, Just Lucky, and TA-418 while they try to evade Ronen Tagge, a member of the wealthy Tagge family who seeks out rare, one-of-a-kind pieces just so that he can be the last to hold them before destroying them in the ultimate display of privilege. Dealing with these artifacts eventually brings Aphra into conflict with Domina Tagge, whose family business threads a narrow path in the Empire in order to enrich itself and maintain a political status quo beneficial to their plans. Aphra’s emplyment with Tagge leads her to missions involving Crimson Dawn and malevolent Ascendant artifacts. This volume concludes with an Ascendant artifact taking possession of Aphra, leading her associates to unite in order to free her from its grip. Wong’s writing advances Dr. Aphra’s narrative while expanding the scope of the “Star Wars” galaxy to include more groups paralleling the Jedi and Sith in the ancient past. Cresta, Height, Gill, Jung, Sabbatini, and Bustos’ art all brings Wong’s story to dynamic action while Rosenberg’s colors pop. A great collection for fans of Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra, though less than half as long as the first omnibus.

In Gene Luen Yang’s “Saints,” the second volume of his “Boxers & Saints,” he parallels the first story by focusing on the fourth daughter of a family who desperately seeks her family’s approval and love. Dubbed “Four Girl,” she believes herself to be a devil and contorts her face accordingly in public. Her family takes her to an acupuncturist where she first becomes aware of Christianity, eventually converting and taking the name Vibiana. Her work in the church shows her a different side of the changes occurring in China as a result of colonial interests. They bring her into conflict with Bao’s group. Yang ends this volume with an epilogue for both. Like the previous volume, he uses magical realism to show how the Boxer Rebellion was a clash between belief systems and how easily a movement can become subject to its most extreme members. “Saints” is a great introduction to the topic for newcomers and Yang includes a guide to further reading in the back, though it should be read alongside its companion book, “Boxers”.

In “Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl,” Hyeseung Song describes her life immigrating to Texas from Korea as a young child, growing up in poverty even while her family expects her to succeed. Her family struggles early on due to her father’s various failed business ideas and they only gain some security when her mother gets a job. The financial insecurity combined with her parents’ vastly different personalities leads to domestic violence, further adding to Hyeseung’s sense of uncertainty. Over time, she begins to make friends and find success at school, but her parents’ strict expectations leave her feeling adrift in her own home. She writes, “You learned love was entirely conditional, and you could vanish – even to your own mother – at any moment” (p. 72). Even getting into Princeton and succeeding at her classes isn’t enough to allay her feelings of displacement. Hyeseung writes, “Pinning everything on the nail of achievement had meant that failure was death and life was small. Ultimately, I had suffered anyway and my belief in this ontological structure had faltered” (p. 125). In her philosophy studies, Hyeseung found a way to describe what had been bothering her. She writes, “Descartes had devoted his life to locating contradictions and striking those that turned out to be false, in order to see if science were possible. But I wanted to know if I in any consistent way were possible. The solution up until then had been to amass achievement visible in both cultures, pursue a workable synthesis of beliefs, and shift my behavior depending on the local culture, while trying not to disappear through it all” (p. 165). Describing her mounting mental health struggles and how she perceived them during her combined law degree and philosophy PhD studies, Hyeseung writes, “My self-worth was tied to Work, as if Work were a star. Work and Worth were bound together and if one fell, then the other did, too” (p. 202). She links this to the added stress of her immigrant background and feelings of dual identities between her American and Korean cultural heritages, but this sense of self-worth will resonate with nearly anyone who has pursued graduate studies, particularly if their family treated their success or failure at these studies as reflective of the family’s worth. Hyeseung concludes, “In my life, I had tried to be a great daughter, a great student, a great wife, an American, a Korean, even a great artist – and through these pursuits, I had always chased an ought, forgetting to revel in what I actually already was” (p. 288). Song’s book will resonate with anyone who has felt torn between identities or struggled with their mental health. In particular, those with extensive experience in academia cannot help but find themselves in her words. Her honest narrative is a moving read for anyone who finds themselves feeling lost without the words to articulate the feeling.

In “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space,” Adam Higginbotham examines the history of the Space Shuttle from its initial concept and early experiments conducted by Maxime Faget and Dottie Lee through the selection of Astronaut Group 8, nicknamed “TFNG,” which included the first American woman in space with Sally Ride, the first African-American man in space with Guion Bluford, the first American woman to perform a spacewalk with Kathryn Sullivan, and the first Asian-American in space with Ellison Onizuka. After the wind-down from Apollo and the Moon, the Shuttle opened up a new way for Americans to envision space. Despite technical and historic achievements, the portrayal of the Shuttle as safe and entirely reliable by NASA, its contractors, and politicians belied the complex system at the Shuttle’s heart and how thoroughly it depended upon new technologies with little to no room for error. Higginbotham continues to demonstrate how Morton Thiokol underestimated the danger of their O-ring system at a management level while NASA’s own management sought to meet impossible launch schedules in order to appease government and private interests. Of a Morton Thiokol presentation on O-rings, Higginbotham writes, “obscured amid the blizzard of charts, data-filled binders, and Viewgraph slides, the rocket engineers failed to realize that they had reached a critical inflection point. Over the course of the years they had been developing and flying the solid rocket motors, the men at Thiokol and Marshall had slowly expanded the parameters of what they regarded as acceptable risk in the joints” (p. 206). Even when the quick-thinking of Jenny Howard saved a Shuttle launch with an abort-to-orbit, NASA did not pause to seriously examine and reconsider every part of the launch equipment (p. 239). In the end, Richard Feynman’s conclusion proved particularly prescient given the latter disaster involving the Columbia: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations… for nature cannot be fooled” (p. 450). Higginbotham’s book is an authoritative account of the Challenger disaster for those who don’t remember it or who want a book that explains the technical information without aiming for a technical audience. Eminently readable, he manages to balance a cast of hundreds and weave their narratives together as part of an organic whole that inexorably led to disaster amid institutional failures. “Challenger” is a warning to all such institutions to carefully examine their systems and avoid allowing outside pressures from business or politics to influence their decision-making away from safety.

In “The Sentimental State: How Women-Led Reform Built the American Welfare State,” Dr. Elizabeth Garner Masarik argues, “Grief and sentimentalism were major factors that influenced [women’s] political activity” and “sentimentalism gave middle-class women the language to demand protections of the mother and child connection, particularly when it came to issues of infant and maternal mortality or the sexual ‘fall’ of girls and women” (p. 2). Masarik further argues that her “subjects created the associative welfare state by creating organizations that eventually became associational arms of local and state governments, which later fed into national government entities such as the U.S. Children’s Bureau” (p. 10). She draws upon the work of scholars such as Laura Wexler and Ellis Hawley, though she counters Hawley’s rhetoric against big government despite his useful model for examining government development (p. 9). She structures her work around an examination of sentimental fiction, the development of social ideas regarding maternal bonds in the Victorian era, the actions of Black women in segregated post-Civil War America, and the actions during the Progressive Era that bridge early nineteenth-century activities with modern politics. Describing the role of early sentimental fiction, Masarik writes, “These sentimental writers used emotion to push readers to feel anger, sadness, or empathy for the characters that they read about, as well as feel anger or frustration at the social conditions that forced protagonists into horrific situations” (p. 19). She argues, “Sentimental culture captured the anxieties of two periods of danger, death, and grief in mother’s lives. One trop celebrated and mourned the purity and innocence of infancy and early childhood, the other warned of and mourned the loss of purity in late girlhood… The dangers to the family led some women to eventually move beyond sentimental reads to social activism by taking not just their own but ‘the sorrows of others’ to their hearts as well and acting upon those sorrows. Sentimentalism and emotion were core, driving forces behind middle-class women’s push into the political realm” (p. 39). Turning to political activity, Masarik opines, “It is worth noting how the funding that supported many philanthropic endeavors was coded male, while the reproductive labor of the day-to-day operations was coded female” (p. 42). Masarik writes of Victorian concepts of motherhood, “Nineteenth-century sentimental understandings of the mother and child bond, and the manner in which girls should transition into women, meant that any deviation from a sexually pure childhood and legally sanctioned sexuality in marriage was anathema. Therefore, social purity reformers were not just lamenting the rise of sex work on city streets but also the affront to middle-class standards of sexuality in young adulthood” (p. 56). Further, “The infantilization of young girls in need of rescue rallied middle-class women to their cause and perhaps filled a need for women who felt compassion in a different way, through their love of their own daughters both living and dead” (p. 65). Reformers did not solely focus on women and children. Masarik writes, “Raising moral boys was imperative to changing the status quo. Additionally, astute reformers argued that it was also a way to curb the sexual violence white men committed against Black women… [Martha] Schofield unabashedly highlighted the constant danger that some white men posed to Black girls and women, noting that white people were aware of this threat and did nothing” (p. 66). Age of consent laws offered an avenue for women to advocate for significant political change. Masarik writes, “…The battle over the age of consent caused a variety of reformers with different backgrounds to come together and argue that women had to be the maternal protectors and shields of the home. Many social purity reformers’ outspokenness was always couched in the understanding that these reforms were for the protection of the home, and particularly for the children that inhabited it” (p. 67). Describing urbanization in the New South, Masarik writes, “Women’s bodies became a central flashpoint in determining the future image of Atlanta. Prominent Atlanta citizens viewed women as either the city’s ‘best hope’ for future progress as respectable mothers raising prosperous citizens, or as the city’s ‘greatest threat,’ by embodying sin and vice” (p. 75). Contrary to the expectation of women’s labor occurring in the background, Masarik notes that “maternalists like Waller Barrett were very aware of the fine line they had to tow when entering the political realm, a space historically off-limits to women. They were stepping out of the Victorian home and into the turn-of-the-century public sphere by extending a woman’s capacity to mother, care, and nurture from her own family to the vulnerable of society” (p. 80). Addressing the early Progressive Era, Masarik writes, “As the Victorian nineteenth century gave way to the Progressive Era of the early twentieth, ideas about betrayed and fallen women took on more biological meanings, and a transition in the way reformers and social workers understood female sexuality took place” (p. 87). This entailed the transition from strictly moral language to terms incorporating eugenics and linking biology to morality in a far different manner. To this end, “The increasing connections between private charity and public welfare created spaces for women to hold positions of authority… This network of reform-minded women’s clubs was part of the Progressive Era movement toward an expanding state and federal apparatus in support of social benefits. However, this network largely maintained vestiges of nineteenth-century sentimental ideas about family and motherhood, and their romanticized views worked their way into public policy” (p. 93). Masarik notes that Black women faced their own challenges and paths to sentimental activism in the post-Civil War era. She writes, “Through social welfare, middle-class women would guide the race toward uplift and respectability. Black women reformers founded social welfare organizations, such as settlement houses, kindergartens, and rescue homes, to build their communities while imposing a moral ideological framework centered on middle-class values” (p. 98). Further, “Black women reformers developed a reliance on a Victorian sexual morality based on an ideology of sexual control or even denial to counteract the white social construction of ‘devious’ blackness. Members of the Black middle class felt intense pressure to adhere to Victorian sexual respectability, for their own safety against white men, and to control their tenuous grasp on their middle-class economic and social power” (p. 105). The labor market brought its own moral pitfalls. As Masarik notes, “Within the Victorian code of sexuality, the appearance of purity or moral sexuality was easier to claim when one labored inside of one’s own home. A majority of Black women of all economic statuses worked outside of the home, primarily out of economic necessity” (p. 110). Activism from club and other associational organizations achieved official success through the creation of the U.S. Children’s Bureau in 1912 (p. 135). Further, “to make lawmakers listen and act, large numbers of American women agitated en masse for their demands through the women’s welfare network” (p. 137). Of sentimental organizations, Masarik concludes, “Longstanding women’s voluntary organizations, coupled with the long histoy of grief and sentimentalism surrounding child and maternal death, wove the threads that knitted the associational state to the realm of reform and volunteerism” (p. 141). Masarik continues, “Groups like the GFWC, DAR, and the National Congress of Mothers were at the forefront of demanding change,” helping to advocate and publicize the work of the Children’s Bureau (p. 147). Masarik argues, “Despite a small budget, the Bureau was able to accomplish so much because of the support of the women’s welfare network” and that “the government relied on the groundwork that local organizations laid while local organizations benefited by having their causes supported and taken seriously by the government” (p. 153). These efforts were chronically underfunded and – as a result – understaffed while mothers’ pensions similarly suffered from a lack of funding and political will. Masarik writes, “Thus the need for an associational welfare state continued” (p. 161). Masarik concludes, “Sentimentalism is still an important element in public discourse surrounding children, sexuality, and welfare… The piecemeal, associational welfare state that we have today has of course aided in lowering child mortality in the United States, but the country is in no way at the vanguard of safeguarding infant and maternal health” (p. 171). She argues, “The limited supports of the current welfare state have their roots in the powerful networks of women who marshalled both sentiment and social science to advance women’s presumed shared interests” (p. 172). She argues that such collective action and modern sentimentalism offers hope for policy change to “promote the welfare of all” (p. 172). Masarik’s “The Sentimental State” offers an excellent study connecting several threads of nineteenth-century political thought as well as the role of race and gender in the United States to explore the link between decades of activism and modern political efforts. She uncovers the often-obscured role of women in these activities, highlighting how gender could offer an avenue for entry into the political arena that would normally be denied to women.