Christopher G. Nuttall's Blog, page 39

The Demon Headmaster Reboot Review

“Look into my eyes …”

I have grown to hate reviewers and critics calling books, films and television programs ‘timely,’ ‘relevant,’ and ‘what we need to see,’ over the past few years.  It isn’t just that buzzwords imply a certain lack of clarity, confidence and/or self-awareness, although that definitely is a major problem; it is that storytelling exists, first and foremost, to tell a story and if it fails to tell a story it will also – inevitably – fail to tell a message.  The vast majority of the audience will not listen to your message, no matter how important it is, if you are unable to tell a story or – worse – undermine your own message.  Indeed, whenever I read a review that is not focused on the novel (or whatever), I instantly decide the reviewer has nothing useful to tell me.

And yet, The Demon Headmaster – rebooted by CBBC – actually is ‘timely,’ ‘relevant,’ and ‘what we need to see.’

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I went back and forth on actually watching the show.  The Demon Headmaster, both the books and the TV series, were part of my childhood.  Dinah Hunter was the first true heroine I liked.  The show managed to adapt the novels and expand them without actually losing the thread, giving a greater role to the titular Headmaster than the novels could allow.  I was not impressed, however, when I heard of the reboot.  Too many rebooted shows have failed, in my view, because the people who rebooted them didn’t realise what made them popular in the first place.  And I didn’t really enjoy the latest novel, the one the new series is (partly) based upon.  Much to my surprise, however, I did enjoy the series.  The link to the older series – it’s really more of a sequel, rather than a direct reboot – seals the deal.  The producers are to be commended for taking a lacklustre novel and turning it into a workable show.

Lizzie Warren, and her younger brother Tyler, have been away from Hazelbrook School for six months after Lizzie was suspended for fighting with Blake, the school bully.  The two return to Hazelbrook with a complete lack of enthusiasm, only to discover that the once-failing school has been turned around completely.  The teachers are stern, the students are well-behaved … even Blake is well-behaved.  Increasingly creeped out, Lizzie and Tyler discover that the source of the change is the new headmaster, a man who exerts control over every aspect of the school.  They rapidly discover the headmaster has hypnotic powers and that they too are not immune.  The headmaster casts a spell over everyone who encounters him.  Their lives are torn apart to suit him.

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Realising the headmaster is drawing everyone into his orbit, they start trying to resist.  But the headmaster is ahead of them at every turn, alternatively holding out the promise of a better world and manipulating them so they expose the flaws in his scheme before he takes it national.  Their first acts of resistance only make things worse, even though they find allies amongst the student body; it isn’t until they find clues leading them to the headmaster’s old school – from the original series – that they find a powerful outside ally.  Dinah Hunter.

But even then, the headmaster is ahead of them.  Dinah falls back under his spell, as does Lizzie’s mother … now revealed to be the missing Rose Carter, the headmaster’s servant from the original series.  Realising the sole gap in the headmaster’s plans, knowing he has to be stopped before he hypnotises the Prime Minister himself, they launch a final desperate gambit.  But even that seems to fail … until the original headmaster arrives, proclaims the project a failure and orders the new headmaster to shut down the school and retreat.  And he’s still out there somewhere …

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The reboot gives us, in Lizzie Warren, a very different heroine to Dinah Hunter.  The young Dinah was a quiet girl with a genius mindset, who became friends with the kids who were immune to the headmaster’s powers.  Lizzie, by contrast, has anger issues … not, it should be said, without reason.  Her temper drives her on, but also leads her to make mistakes.  Dinah’s plan to stop the headmaster fails, at least in part, because Lizzie – under the impression that Dinah has betrayed them – accidentally blows the surprise too early.  She does learn from this and manages to recover, barely.  Tyler, Angelika and Ethan are very different characters too, struggling to keep their thoughts their own as they try to find a way to resist.  Indeed, all three of them serve as examples of how creepy the headmaster’s power truly is.  They are reshaped to suit him.

Blake is, in many ways, the most impressive character.  He starts the show as a bog-standard school bully.  I hated him on sight.  And yet, he manages to grow and develop – partly through an odd friendship with Tyler – into one of the most persistent thorns in the headmaster’s side.  It is Blake, dismissed as fit only for menial work, who has the bright idea of locking the headmaster up; it is Blake, caught in an endless struggle between the headmaster’s commands and free will, who frees the others and gives them their last chance to stop the headmaster. 

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The headmaster himself is cool, collected and always in control, even when he’s scrambling to patch up the holes in his plan.  He never loses his cool, he never raises his voice … he has an odd verbal tic of addressing people by both names – “Lizzie Warren,” “Dinah Hunter” – if they’re interesting to him.  (He always addresses Blake as simply “Blake.”)  He’s always firm, lacking any of the weaknesses other evil characters have.  There’s no sense he’s got any interests or lusts beyond command and control.  His sheer confidence is as unnerving as his hypnotic powers.  He’s smart enough to round up the troublemakers, even the ones who stayed under his control, before his plan goes into the final stage.  His only real mistake is underestimating Blake.  This is a (sort of) recast that works. 

The show also reintroduces three characters from the original series.  Rose Carter has little impact on the plot, beyond providing more tension for Lizzie.  It’s not even clear if the headmaster knew – or cared – who she was, before she became useful again.  Dinah Hunter comes across as very different from her past self (not helped by both her and Rose being recast); it’s hard to draw a line between the two.  And the original headmaster steals the show, even though he only appears for a few minutes.  He’s as creepy as ever, but with a very different edge.  His mission statement is terrifying.  The only lighter moment is that he also cracks a very black joke that’s slightly out of character.

It’s rare for a show largely dependent on child and teenage actors to do well, in my view, but most of the child and teenage actors put on a convincing performance.  They come across as largely convincing personalities, particularly Lizzie and Blake.  And the headmaster is superbly recast.  Indeed, of all the major characters, Dinah is the only one who isn’t wholly convincing.  It might have worked better if they’d hired the original actor or simply designed a new character.

The reason this show is timely, however, is two-fold.  On one hand, it illustrates just how much power lies in control of security and surveillance systems.  The headmaster’s hypnotic powers may be out of this world, but everything from CCTV cameras to internet censorship and deepfakes are not.  The characters find themselves caught in a web that is horrifyingly real, where information can be scrubbed and rewritten to suit their enemy’s implacable will.  The headmaster’s plan to destroy the library is very far from (just) petty spite.  It’s a great deal easier to rewrite history online, particularly if you refuse to allow anyone to engage in honest debate.  I’m actually surprised they got away with it.

And, on the other, the sheer folly of the headmaster’s plan.  Programming students with knowledge is good for creating drones, but useless for original thinking.  That’s what does him in, at the end; hypnotic tapes are switched around, ensuring the students don’t know how to do what they’re supposed to do.  This has uneasy resonance in the real world, in that students are rarely taught critical thinking and parents are discouraged from supervising their children’s education.  The headmaster’s plan was doomed well before it ran into people willing to resist.

The resistance was dangerous too.  They came up with plans, or adapted themselves to fit an ever-changing situation, but never thought about the endgame.  Blake is the only one who tries to confine the headmaster, thus giving the group a moral dilemma about what to do with him, while Dinah is the only one who outright tries to kill him.  (Of course, none of them knew there was more than one headmaster.)  Most protestors don’t think about what they actually want, even though it should have been simple here.  Get the headmaster out.

As always, these days, the show nods towards wokeness.  The cast is fairly diverse – it’s made clear that Angelika’s mother is either bisexual or lesbian (her former girlfriend is black), raising the question of who fathered her – but this is mostly a second-order issue.  It does, however, run into a major headache.  At one point, to give Ethan a family, the headmaster convinces everyone that he’s Lizzie and Tyler’s brother.  This simply won’t last, once he steps out of the headmaster’s zone of control.  Ethan is black.  There’s no way he’s their real brother.  The headmaster seems to have overlooked this entirely. 

Overall, The Demon Headmaster works fairly well.  It does feel a little extended – apparently, the plan for five episodes became ten – and there are a handful of little nits, but it tells a fairly coherent story.  (And the headmaster’s powers ensure that any discrepancies have a fairly simple explanation.)  It presents a creepy mystery, a battle against a seemingly overwhelming force and a promise the story will be continued.  And it raises points that need to be addressed.  How much do you trust your child’s teachers?  Really?

I look forward to the next one.

“Until we meet again, Lizzie Warren …”

Start Small II

One of the fundamental problems with activism – and protests and riots – is that effecting real change, positive change, takes time and effort.  The would-be activist needs to convince a majority of the population that the changes they propose, and want, will be either beneficial or neutral to them.  This requires a degree of hard work, ranging from organising an activist organisation that is capable of working towards change without being corrupted by violent hardliners or subverted by the establishment to actually listening to the people the activist needs on their side.  This can be immensely frustrating work and the urge to take shortcuts is overwhelmingly powerful, but it cannot be avoided.  Reformers who fail to do the ground work rarely accomplish anything positive.  The results are almost always negative.

I’m writing from the other side of a giant ocean, so I may be completely wrong about this, but I don’t believe the protests and riots currently sweeping over America will achieve anything positive, either for the protestors themselves or anyone else.  This is because of three factors:

First, the riots will do a great deal of damage to areas that were already badly hit by the virus and lockdown.  Destroyed businesses may not be reopened.  Those that do will face higher insurance costs, forcing them to raise prices, cut wages and slash their workforces; investment will be cut back to the bone because the district will look like a poor risk.  Unemployment will rise sharply, putting ever-greater strains on the social network; anyone with any money or sense will head for the nearest exit as quickly as possible.  In short, things will get a great deal worse for the inhabitants.

Second, the riots will confirm every negative stereotype about people who live in such districts.  Sympathy from outsiders will vanish.  People who try to leave the area will find themselves very unwelcome, as they’ll be seen – unfairly – as having very bad habits.  There will be strong opposition to federal funding for relief programs, etc, etc.

Third, the political establishment has no incentive to change.   Why should it?

Now, obviously, I don’t live in those areas, but if I did – and I wanted things to change – I’d start looking at ways to do it.  The trick, it seems to me, is to bring pressure to bear on the political establishment, the sort of pressure – the risk of being voted out of office – that politicians take very seriously.  A lone voter is statistically insignificant.  A voters movement that has a clear idea of what it wants – and is ready to vote for candidates or even nominate its own politicians – is a serious player. 

The key to running a campaign is to bear in mind that you can group people into three categories.  You have people who will support you as long as you work to give them what they want (Supporters).  You have people who will be largely indifferent to you, as long as you don’t interfere with them (Neutrals).  And you have people who will oppose you because they feel you’re either wrong or likely to interfere with them (Opponents).  DO NOT fall into the trap of dismissing your Opponents as bigots (or whatever).  This will both impinge upon your ability to reach out to them and make you look bad to the Neutrals. 

I’d actually start by recommending you read Take Back Your Government, by Heinlein.  It’s somewhat outdated now – tech and politics have moved on – but it’s still a pretty good primer for the aspiring politician.  However, if you haven’t read it or don’t have time to read it, here’s a rough outline of what you can do.

First, know what the rules of the game are before you start to play.  Sit down and do some basic research.  Who runs your state?  Who runs your county?  Who runs your city?  Who’s in charge?  How do they get elected?  You can find most of these details online, if you look; put together a rough outline of how power ebbs and flows around the state.  Find out the local political offices, see who works there and what they do.  If you’re not registered to vote, get registered; encourage others to register.

Second, work out what you actually want.  Make a list of things your community wants and needs.   Speak to your neighbours, ask them what they want; don’t – don’t – belittle them if they don’t want what you want.  Listen to them!  Half of good politics is listening to what people want.  Learn to compromise, learn to work towards something you can live with instead of trying to take the whole pie. 

Once you have your list, start working out how you want them done.  Stick to plain English.  Ill-defined buzzwords weaken your case (at best, they’ll be vague; at worst, they’ll turn people against you.)  Again, listen to people.  If there are reasons things cannot be done, take them seriously and work out how to compensate for them.  And stay local.  You do not want to start taking on impossible challenges (like fixing the entire world). Keep outside politics – particularly international politics – out.

Third, start organising a group of voters.  Register voters to vote (if you haven’t already).  Put together a list of voters who’re pledged to vote for your list.   You want solid numbers.  If you experience pushback, if you discover there are items on your list the majority doesn’t like, modify or drop them.

Fourth, you can start visiting local politicians.  Give them the list.  Inform them that they can either push for the measures you demand or your voters will vote against them.  (When?  Find out.)  Make it clear you expect effective movement quickly or else. If they drag their feet – remember, a lot of national-politicians don’t like grassroots movements, right or left – remind them you’ll be booting them out in the next election.  That should get them moving.  If it doesn’t, vote them out.

You’ll probably start drawing national attention at this point.  Expect attempts to subvert or co-opt your movement, to make you care about greater issues or pressure you into falling in line.  Stay small.  Greater issues aren’t unimportant, but you’re working for your community.  Make it clear you won’t be dislodged, even when you start getting some very negative media attention.  Put together more lists, work out simple ways to fix problems – and, if your ideas fail, learn from your failures.  It’s hard.  But it can be done.

The point is that you have to master two separate skills to get anywhere.  First, you have to learn to work the system before you try to reform it. You have to understand why things are the way they are, before they can be changed.  Second, you have to learn the fine art of compromise, of balancing dreams with practical reality.  You have to reach out to people, to convince them that supporting you will help them – or, at the very least, won’t hurt them.

There’s little hope of fixing things on a national, let alone a global scale.  Trying to do too much too quickly is asking for failure and/or irrelevance.  Losing your focus on local problems means you’ll probably do more damage than harm.  Tacking ill-defined problems makes it impossible to set any kind of victory conditions – how will you even know if you’ve won?  That’s the sort of problem that leads to a movement failing or being co-opted by people who don’t care about anything, but power … people who cannot be removed easily because it’s hard to gauge their performance. 

But on a small scale?  Things can change.  And change can spread.  And the more things get better, the better they will get.  Seriously – you tackle the root causes of a problem, the problem will go away. 

I know it’s not easy.  But it has to be done.

I’ll let Mike Williamson have the last word:

“Not every problem has to be solved right this moment, nor even within a given book or series, or in forty-two minutes plus commercials on the idiot box. Some issues are too large for an individual, and it really isn’t kind to whip up that kind of hope in a fragile youth, only to toss them into the depths or jadedness or despair too soon, when they realize it’s just not that easy in the real world. The first thing any juvenile has to do is grow up. That of itself is a massive undertaking in any society. One can’t conquer the world until one has conquered oneself. Nuclear wars and oil crises and ice ages and global warming and pollution and overfishing and creeping socialism and growing oligarchic capitalism and fluoridated water can wait. First, just become the type of person you should be. That’s what the world needs most of all.

That message is timeless. It’s also important. And most of all, it’s a message that young people of every age really want, and need, to hear.”

OUT NOW – KNIFE EDGE (THE EMPIRE’S CORPS XVII) – PLUS FREE BOOK!

An all-new story of The Empire’s Corps!

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Earth has fallen.  The Core Worlds have collapsed into chaos.  War is breaking out everywhere as planetary governments declare independence, entire sectors slip out of contact and warlords battle for power.  The remnants of the once-great Empire are tearing themselves apart.  And, in the shadows, the Terran Marine Corps works to save what little they can to preserve civilisation and build a better tomorrow.  But now they might have met their match.

The marines have seized control of the corporate world of Hameau, only to discover that Hameau is merely the tip of the enemy iceberg and that the battle is still very much undecided.  Cut off from their brethren, the marines fight desperately to hold their ground while millions of innocent civilians are caught in the middle …

… And all too aware that whoever wins the war will determine the fate of the entire galaxy.

Read a FREE SAMPLE, then download from the links here: US, UK, CAN, AUS, DRAFT2DIGITAL.  And read the afterword HERE.

AND … The Empire’s Corps will be available, free, between Thursday 4th and Saturday 6th (US time).  Click here to download a free sample, and then buy it from Amazon here!

Updates

Hi, everyone

I’m currently 25 chapters into Oathkeeper.  It seems to be going well, although there will be the usual round of edits, edits and more edits until it gets released.  I’m hoping for July, although I can’t make any promises about it (yet.)

Knife Edge will be released sometime in June, hopefully fairly soon.

I’m currently working on the plot for the last three (planned) Schooled in Magic books.  Planned titles are: The Right Side of History, The Face of the Enemy and Lone Power.  The last might be changed – I’m not sure yet.  Possible alternatives include The Heart of All Things and Child of Destiny.

My rough plan for the next few months:

June – Lady Heiress

July – The Last Guardian (stand-alone, possibly part of new series)

Aug – The Halls of Montezuma (TEC18)

Sept – The Right Side of History.

I’m still going backwards and forwards on when I’ll be doing the next Ark Royal book.  I’ve also been looking at doing the next Their Darkest Hour book, now I’ve brushed up the plotline and suchlike. 

Let me know what you want to see.

Chris

OUT NOW: Debt of Honor (Angel in the Whirlwind/The Embers of War)

A year ago, the war against the Theocracy ended. But it didn’t bring peace.

Admiral Kat Falcone was lucky—her side won the war. But without an external threat, Kat’s homeworld government, the Commonwealth, begins to burst. The galactic war may be over, but there is a civil war on the horizon.

The king and parliament disagree over the Commonwealth’s future. The Commonwealth’s first recession is plaguing corporations. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs. And the colonies are demanding their share of power. The Commonwealth has become a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode.

Meanwhile, the Theocracy is making one final, desperate bid for power. As the external threat looms and the internal threat grows ever larger, Kat and William will need to join forces in order to save the Commonwealth. But it may already be too late.

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Download a FREE SAMPLE, then purchase (Ebook, Paberback, Audio) from the links here: US, UK, AUS, CAN

Snippet – Oathkeeper (Schooled in Magic 20)

Prologue I

Emily dreams.

She knows she is dreaming, although she doesn’t know how.  The dreams are a blur of visions, of things that happened and things that didn’t happen and things that happened, but happened differently.  She sees faces – Alassa, Frieda, Jade, Cat – in places they’d never been, doing things they’d never done.  The dreams are so confusing that she can barely follow the thread, if indeed there is a thread.  And every time she wakes, the dreams are gone.

In her dream, she is a firstie again, in a class she shouldn’t have taken.  Not yet.  She sees herself – and Jade, and Cat, and Aloha – running through the valleys and mountains, trying to escape the orcs.  Sergeant Harkin leads them, bellowing encouragement as he fights to buy them time.  She sees an orcish blade slice through his neck …

She wakes, tears stinging her cheeks.  It didn’t go that way!

And then she dreams again.  The orcs are surrounding them, closing in … each one a shambling parody of the worst of humanity.  She wants to run, but there is nowhere to go … Jade is dead, Cat is dead, Aloha is dead … Alassa is dead.  Alassa wasn’t there … the alternates buzz through her dreams, each one bringing new horrors.  She dies, the last of the team to fall.  The orcs take them, doing unspeakable things before they finally die; the orcs hand them over to Shadye, who takes her power and uses it for himself.  Whitehall falls, the wards shattered, the walls cracked like eggshells.  And a new monster is born. 

But it didn’t go that way!

She tries to focus, tries to break out of the nightmare.   It didn’t go that way!  She tries to recall what really happened, how they escaped from the orcs … some of her memories are missing, her imagination trying to fill in the gaps and failing.  Others … she twists, crying out in her sleep.  The dreams haunt her, mock her.  Nothing is real.  Everything is real.  All is real and nothing is real …

They’d been on a forced march.  She remembers that much, although it’s hard to be sure.  Not in the dream.  And they’d been attacked by Shadye’s minions.  And she’d escaped and …

The alternates surge forward, driving her memories – the real memories – away.  She dies, and wishes she lives.  She lives, and wishes she died.  Her friends die, time and time again; her tutors and mentors curse her name, curse her for what she brought to their walls.  She lives long enough to see everything broken, to see a dark and hungry god unleashed upon the land.  She watches, helplessly, as a nightmare moves north, killing everyone brave enough to stand against it.  Brave or coward, it matters not.  They die.  The world dies.

But it didn’t go that way!

The memories surface, briefly.  She’d made a deal.  She’d made a promise.  And she’d sworn an oath to the Unseelie.  And she’d saved her friends.  And …

Emily wakes, to a bed drenched in sweat.  The dream overshadows her mind.  She isn’t sure if she is awake, or if she still dreams.  The waking world seems a fragile place, weak and frail compared to the realm of nightmares.  She fears she is losing her mind, she fears she is trapped forever within the dream.  She blinks …

… The alarm rings …

… And the dream is gone.

Prologue II

The chamber would have horrified any normal man, Rangka knew.  It would have horrified him, in the half-forgotten days before he’d embraced necromancy.  It was a barren cave, the walls unmarked by paintings or runes or anything else that would have marked it as the home of an intelligent creature.  Servants scurried about, trying not to catch his bright red eyes.  They knew he could kill them – or worse – on a whim.  There was no point in being loyal if one knew it would never – could never – be recognised, let alone rewarded.  Their master was mad.

Rangka knew it to be true.  He was mad.  He was the oldest necromancer known to live, a feat he couldn’t have managed if he hadn’t kept some grip on reality, but he felt the madness howling at the back of his mind.  It didn’t bother him, even though he knew – on some level – that it should.  The person he’d been – the name he’d abandoned long ago – would have been horrified to know what he’d become.  That didn’t bother him either.  The person he’d been was dead and gone.

Power throbbed through the air, his awareness reaching out to encompass the approaching armies trudging their way through the ashy mud.  Neither of his prospective allies had come alone, knowing – as well as himself – that the rewards of treachery could be great indeed.  Thousands of orcs, creatures raised from the depths … and, behind them, slave-soldiers bound to their master’s will.  He drew his awareness back, slightly, as the other two necromancers made their shambling way through the caves, their mere presence sending Rangka’s servants fleeing for their lives.  One necromancer was a nightmare beyond comprehension.  Three in one spot heralded the end of all things.  Reality itself seemed to hang on a knife edge as the necromancers faced each other.  The only thing keeping them from trying to kill each other was the certain knowledge that the one who didn’t join the early confrontation would be the winner.  And yet … the chamber hummed with tension.  Being together, being so close, felt unnatural.  It was the one thing, Rangka acknowledged privately, the necromancers had in common with their enemies.  They should not be together.

He wanted to reach out with a spell to sooth their tempers, to make them listen to him, but he knew such subtle magics were beyond him.  He’d paid a price for his power, a price he hadn’t realised until it was too late.  He had immensely destructive spells at his fingertips – power burned through his veins, threatening to burst out and consume everything if he lost his grip – but he could no longer cast the simple spells of his childhood.  They were beyond him, despite his power.  He could no longer shape the spellwork to make them work … and besides, the others wouldn’t be affected.  They were creatures of magic now, not men.  They couldn’t be manipulated through magical means.

Rangka braced himself, trying to shape his arguments.  Cold logic told him they should work together, against the common foe, but logic and reason had no control over them.  He found the idea of sharing the risk and the reward difficult to comprehend, even though – again – cold logic told him there would be enough rewards for everyone.  It wouldn’t last, he knew.  They would battle their enemies until they were victorious, then battle each other until there was only one, standing in the midst of a dead world.  A dark god, a power beyond imagination … a hungry creature that would eventually – inevitably – starve.

No!  He refused to think about their fate.  It could not be true.

He looked from one to the other.  Bersuit was a hooded man, his skin blackened and burnt by fires until it was unnaturally charred.  He was the most human of the necromancers, yet – perhaps – one of the most dangerous.  His body looked humanoid, to the naked eye.  Rangka could sense things writhing under the cloak, things that defied even his sensors.  Gerombolan was a walking skeleton, wrapped in blue fire.  His red eyes were the only hint he so much as had a face.  It wasn’t clear how he walked.  And Rangka himself was a rotting corpse, animated only by his magic.  He’d long since ceased to care.

“Dua Kepala is dead,” Rangka said, curtly.

“Good.”  Bersuit’s voice was as cracked as his soul, a rasping screech that would have deafened a normal man.  “His lands will be ours.”

“And so is Shadye,” Rangka said.  “They were both killed by the same person.  A sorceress called Emily.”

“The Necromancer’s Bane.”  Gerombolan’s voice was utterly inhuman.  “They say she is our doom.”

“She has killed two of the most powerful of us, in less than five years,” Rangka said.  It was hard to measure time, in the Blighted Lands.   “They’re dead and gone.”

“And so their lands are ours,” Bersuit hissed.  His armies were already laying claim to Shadye’s former territories, doing their level best to avoid the Inverse Shadow.  “So what?”

Rangka stared at the hooded man.  “How long until she comes for us?”

“She will not kill me,” Gerombolan said.  “I am beyond death.”

“Shadye thought the same,” Rangka reminded him.  “He was wrong.”

He understood, better than he cared to admit.  Necromancers died all the time.  A sorcerer who was unable to handle the sudden burst of power would be destroyed by it; a newborn necromancer, a beacon of power to those with eyes to see, could be killed by an older necromancer before he had a chance to establish himself, seizing lands and human livestock to make something of himself.  And even the older necromancers weren’t that old.  The Blighted Lands were a constantly-shifting morass of endless scrabbling, wars and treacherous backstabbing.  They were penned in, held prisoner by the terrain and the ever-watchful guards.  There was nowhere to go.  Shadye had attacked Whitehall and Dua Kepala had crossed the Desert of Death and neither had returned alive.

“How long will it be,” he repeated, “before she comes for us?”

The words hung in the air.  It was hard to believe a lone girl could defeat one necromancer, let alone two.  The stories he’d heard credited her with killing ten necromancers – or a hundred, or a thousand – and he knew that wasn’t true, but neither Shadye nor Dua Kepala had survived their wars.  Rangka had heard enough to believe there was some truth to the story.  It was a rare magician who took on a necromancer and lived to tell the tale.  A lone girl killing two – or more – necromancers was difficult to believe.  And yet it had happened.

“We will end her, if she comes,” Gerombolan said.  “She will feed us …”

“If we survive long enough,” Rangka said.  “We cannot let her come to us.”

He pointed towards the walls – and the distant mountains beyond.  “We must fight now, before she comes for us.  We must get over the mountains and ravage the lands beyond.”

Gerombolan made a hissing sound.  “And how do you intend to achieve this … wonder?”

“By working together, we can break through the mountains,” Rangka said.  “If we combine our powers, and our forces, we can break into the lands beyond.  And then there would be no stopping us.”

He saw it, a vision on the verge of becoming reality.  The Allied Lands had been lucky.  They could hide beyond high mountains, impassable oceans and passes guarded by a network of fortresses and walls.  They couldn’t match the necromantic forces in hand-to-hand combat, or sheer power, but they could slow them down immensely.  If the mountains were to be destroyed, or merely weakened, the armies could advance through the rubble, an endless wave of blood-maddened orcs and monsters and slaves …

His rotting mouth fell open in a smile.  It was going to be glorious.

He spoke on, telling his allies his plans …

… And, all the while, preparing to betray them the moment they outlived their usefulness.

Chapter One

“I have grown to hate mirrors.”

Emily stood in the spellchamber, eying the mirror warily.  It was the only object within the chamber, a large freestanding mirror big enough to show her body from tip to toe.  There were no magics surrounding it, nothing suggesting it was enchanted – or a gateway to an alien realm – but she didn’t feel any better as her image looked back at her.  She looked … tired, tired and worn.  The dreams, the dreams she couldn’t remember, had disturbed her more than she cared to admit.

She rubbed her eyes, feeling them narrow as she studied her reflection.  Was her hair a little darker?  Were her eyes a little harder?  Her bearing a little stronger?  Six months of apprenticeship, six months of everything from magic study to tests that were disguised missions, had changed her, in ways she was only beginning to appreciate.  Void was a good teacher, she acknowledged.  He knew things she’d never known existed.  And yet, she was slowly starting to realise he also had his own agenda.  The missions she’d carried out on his behalf had served a greater purpose.  She just wished she knew what it was.

Forget it, for the moment, she thought.  Right now, you need to stay focused.

She studied her reflection thoughtfully.  She hadn’t changed that much, had she?  It was hard to be sure.  Void had kept her hopping, practicing magic daily.  She’d grown used to being his student.  And yet … she rested her hands on her hips, studying herself in the mirror.  The black apprentice robe was strikingly simplistic, nothing more than a shapeless black dress.  Void had given her very clear orders not to wear anything else, even hairpins or the snake-bracelet.  She’d let her hair fall down her back and left the transfigured snake in her bedroom.  He wouldn’t have told her to wear as little as possible if he hadn’t had a good reason.

“Emily.”  Void stepped into the room, his face calm and composed.  “Are you ready?”

Emily turned to face him, clasping her hands behind her back.  Void was inhumanly tall, easily a head taller than himself.  His face was oddly timeless, framed by dark hair that seemed to have grown a little longer in the past few months.  It was hard to remember, at times, that he was literally old enough to be her great-grandfather.  And yet … she could sense his power, bristling around him like a thunderstorm.  He wasn’t making any attempt to mask his power.  No magician her age had such a presence.

“I think so,” she said.  They’d gone over the spellwork time and time again, assessing each and every section of the spell.  It was easy to see, now, why so few magicians risked casting the spell, even when it would have come in handy.  Being in two places at once wasn’t as simple as it sounded.  “Are you?”

“I’m not the one who has to cast the spell,” Void said.  He moved past her, peering suspiciously into the mirror.  “If you want to back out, now is the time.”

Emily shook her head.  She understood the risks.  The books he’d given her to read had discussed the risks in graphic detail.  They’d even included illustrations that – Void had told her – were surprisingly close to reality.  But she also knew she couldn’t step back now.  Mastering magic – and using it – had become her cause.  She wanted – she needed – to keep going until she reached the top.  The possibility – the very serious possibility – that there was no top didn’t deter her.

And yet, she reflected as Void paced around the mirror, such power came with a price.  It was harder and harder to remember, sometimes, that there was an outside world.  The missions he’d sent her on, over the past few months, had felt like distractions from her real work.  The ever-growing pile of letters from her friends – and others – rested on her desk, largely unopened.  It was hard – now – to keep track of what was happening in the outside world.  She had to force herself, sometimes, to go outside.  Even meeting her friends was difficult. 

She yawned, suddenly.  The dreams – the dreams she couldn’t remember – nagged at her mind, tormenting her.  She’d wondered if they were a sending, a subtle attack from one of her enemies, but it was hard to imagine a spell that could reach through the wards.  Void’s tower was practically invulnerable, even to a magician who operated on the same level.  Emily had lived in the tower for months and yet she knew she hadn’t even come close to learning all its secrets.  It was bigger on the inside, with chambers and lairs she barely knew existed.  She wondered, at times, what might be within the structure she didn’t even imagine existed.

Void glanced at her.  “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”  Emily unclasped her hands, steadying herself.  “I’m ready.”

“Stand in front of the mirror,” Void instructed, as if he hadn’t gone over the details time and time again.  It was a measure of how dangerous the spell could be, if the casting went wrong, that he’d practically nagged her into memorising each and every detail.  It was so out of character for him that she’d studied the spell and all its variants extensively.  “Make sure your entire body is reflected in the mirror.”

Emily stepped forward until she was standing right in front of the mirror.  Her reflection gazed back at her.  Emily studied herself again, silently grateful she couldn’t see any differences.  The reflection was a reflection, not an alternate vision of herself.  Her other self was dead, or trapped on the wrong side of the dimensional barriers.  She’d studied every book she could find on mirror magic and none of them had gone any further than shaping a pocket world on the other side of the mirror.  The meeting with alternate timelines was – apparently – unprecedented.  It was unlikely she’d meet her other self here.

She looked up and down, from tip to toe.  She was encompassed within the mirror.  The wall behind her looked utterly bare, sensibly bare.  There’d be nothing and no one else to be caught up within the spell.  Void had said it was possible to cast the spell with a smaller mirror, or no mirror at all, but it was better to start small.  Emily’s lips twitched at the thought.  It was rather like learning to juggle and starting with knives and daggers, rather than chainsaws.  The danger was only minimised in comparison.  It didn’t go away.

“Start the spell when you’re ready.”  Void’s voice was very quiet.  He’d masked his power so thoroughly she couldn’t sense his presence.  It was hard to remember he was even there, even though he’d told her – time and time again – not to even consider trying the spell without him.  “Or step back, if you’re not up to it.”

Emily lifted her head and looked into her reflection’s eyes.  Magic sparkled through her, pervading every cell of her body.  She’d grown more and more used to thinking of it as a part of her, as much her as her arms and legs.  It was a danger as well as a boon, Void had cautioned her, yet … it was hard to believe it could be dangerous.  And yet, she knew it.  The danger of forgotten how she did things – and then losing the ability to improve upon her spells – was very real.  And if she fell into that trap, she’d peak.  She’d never get any better.

The spell glimmered in her mind, a remarkably complex piece of magic.  She’d seen the spellwork back in her first year, but … she hadn’t been able to follow it, let alone cast it.  Now … she could see how the different sections interacted, how they worked together to create a duplicate of herself.  No, not a duplicate.  Two minds in one body.  One body in two minds.  A balance between the two … she kept her eyes open, focused on the mirror, as she gingerly brought the spell to life.  The magic surged around her.  She felt as if she were caught in a hurricane, as if she were being shoved and yanked to one side … her head spun, unable to cope with the sudden shift in sensation.  She felt …

She stumbled, the magic sparkling out of existence.  “Blast!”

“Calm,” Void advised.  “I didn’t expect you to get it on your first try.”

Emily felt her cheeks flush, even though she knew he was right.  She’d done more, in a few brief seconds, than many other magicians would ever do.  It would be a long time before she matched Void, before she was a Lone Power in her own right, but she was already well ahead of many others.  She scowled at the thought, reminding herself not to get too conceited.  She’d met too many magicians who thought having magic made them little gods to want to go the same way herself.  They’d thought …

“I know.”  Emily put the thought out of her head.  She knew better.  She wasn’t going to go that way.  “I wanted to impress you.”

“You already have.”  Void sounded surprisingly warm.  She felt a thrill of pride.  “But you have to proceed at your own pace.  There’s nothing to be gained by trying to go too fast.”

Emily nodded as she looked back at her reflection.  “I’m going to try again.”

“Then try,” Void said.  “Once more.  Just once.”

Do or do not, there is no try, Emily thought.  She had a feeling Void would not have approved of Yoda, if they’d met.  Sometimes you try as hard as you can and still fail.

She took a long breath, then lifted her head and started the spell again.  This time, the surge of magic felt stronger, more focused.  She felt something pulling at her, but also pushing at her … she was being pulled in two directions at once.  She wanted to resist, to fight the feeling even though she knew that trying would be the worst thing she could do.  She had to give into the sensation, somehow keeping control while giving up control … a year ago, she wouldn’t have had the discipline to make the spell work.  She wouldn’t even have been able to believe two contradictory things at once.

A thoroughly unpleasant – and indescribable – sensation ran through her.  She stumbled to the side, her legs quivering uneasily.  The world was dark.  Her eyes were closed … when had she closed them?  She opened them … and found herself staring into her own face.  The mirror … no, not the mirror.  Her counterpart … her head spun as she realised she was staring into her own face, her true face.  She’d split herself into two bodies …

“Do I …?”

She stopped.  Her voice sounded odd in her ears.  Both sets of ears.  Of course … she didn’t normally hear herself talking, not as if she was a different person.  She’d read something about it somewhere, although she couldn’t remember the details. Alassa had joked that people who fell in love with the sound of their voices did so because they couldn’t hear themselves …

“Incredible,” she – they – said, as one.  It was hard to disentangle themselves completely.  They were the same person.  “Do I really look like that?”

Her perspective shifted.  She was looking at herself.  Her other self.  She could see Void standing by the wall, watching them with thoughtful eyes.  She understood, suddenly, why he’d insisted she wore as little as possible.  It might have been safer to be naked, the first time she’d tried the spell.  But she couldn’t have done that, not in front of him.  Or anyone, really.  She felt her thoughts starting to fracture … her perspective shifted again, until she was looking away from Void.  It felt weird, as if she was in two places at once … she was in two places at once, one mind in two bodies.  She looked down and saw her other self look down too.  They hadn’t split completely, then.  They were still intermingled at a very primal level.

“Good,” Void said.  His voice was suddenly hard, hard and commanding.  “And now, turn away from each other.”

Emily tried to turn, but it was hard.  Invisible ropes seemed to be holding her firmly in place, keeping her and her other self looking at each other.  She felt her mind switch bodies time and time again, Void blinking in and out of view with each shift.  It felt odd, so odd … wrong, yet not painful.  She found herself taking a step towards herself … her head spun as she struggled to stay still, to stay in two places at once.  Her vision blurred, very slightly, as she forced herself to turn.  It felt as if she were doing something fundamentally wrong …

“Emily …”

She looked at Void.  “What?”

Her master seemed surprised, his eyes going wide as Emily’s legs buckled as she fell to the ground.  He hadn’t said anything.  It hadn’t been his voice.  Emily felt her vision start to blur again, growing worse with every passing second.  Her other self … she was suddenly in the other body, staring at herself on the floor.  She couldn’t follow what was happening, she couldn’t understand it and …

“Emily …”

The voice echoed through her mind.  It wasn’t real.  It wasn’t real.  And yet, she felt her thoughts start to fragment.  She was in two places – no, many places.  She was already on the floor, yet it came up and hit her … darkness swallowed her, pain surging through her body.  And …

Void’s face came into view, hazily.  “Emily?”

“I …”  Emily swallowed hard.  Her head hurt.  Her memories … she felt a twinge of pain as she realised she’d literally been in two places at once.  It hurt to even think about what had happened and yet she had no choice.  “What happened?”

“You didn’t disentangle yourself correctly.”  Void helped her to sit up, then conjured a glass of water from the air and held it out to her.  “You split your body into two, but you didn’t quite managed to split your mind.”

Emily sipped the water, gingerly.  It tasted pure, so pure it was practically tasteless.  “It felt … wrong.”

“It does, yes.”  Void sounded pensive for a long moment.  “Even trying can feel like committing suicide.  The trick is to maintain your mental integrity while tearing it in two.”

He smiled, humourlessly.  “And if you can grasp the contradiction,” he added, “you’ll be one step closer to making it work.”

“I’ll try,” Emily said.  Her memories felt weird, as if she’d collapsed and watched herself collapse … as if she had two sets of memories.  She supposed she had, in a sense.  “I thought I heard someone calling my name.”

Void frowned.  “You might have imagined it,” he said, slowly.  “Your thoughts were being split in two.  You could have been thinking to yourself, hearing your own thoughts.”

“… Maybe.”  Emily wasn’t so sure.  The voice hadn’t been hers.  What did her thoughts sound like anyway?  She knew how to recognise someone else, by their mental voice, but … what would her own thoughts sound like?  She thought she’d know her own thoughts.  And yet, it had been oddly familiar.  “I don’t know.”

She passed him the glass, which sparkled into nothingness as soon as he took it, and tried to stand.  Her legs felt weak, as if she couldn’t quite stand by herself.  Void held out a hand, allowing her to lean on him as she stumbled to her feet.  The mirror was a pile of shattered glass, lying on the floor.  Emily winced, despite herself.  The Heart’s Eye mirrors had shattered too, when they’d broken contact with the alternate dimension …

“No more magic today,” Void said, firmly.  If he noticed the way her mind was wandering, he said nothing.  “Go back to your room and rest.  Eat dinner in bed, if you don’t feel up to joining me.  Or sleep.  We can go through the spell tomorrow before we try again.”

“Yes, sir,” Emily said.  She was suddenly very aware of her own tiredness.  Her body felt weak and worn.  Her magic felt as if she’d pushed it right to the limit.  The concept seemed so simple, but turning it into reality had nearly killed her.  She felt a stab of pain in her head and shuddered, trying not to be sick.  The simplest concept could be the hardest to make real.  “How long did it take you to master the spell?”

Void gave her a sidelong look.  “I’d say it isn’t a spell one can ever truly master,” he said.  “It depends on your ability to control magic, true, but also your ability to … separate your thoughts and then merge yourself back together.  My old master made crude jokes to ensure I got the point.  I couldn’t afford to think of myself as two people or reintegration would become impossible.  You’ll have the same problem.”

“I see, I think.”  Emily wasn’t sure that was true.  “And what happens if something happens to me?  I mean, to one of me?”

“It depends on the spell.”  Void shook his head.  “Go get some rest.  We’ll discuss it later, when you’ve had time to consider what happened and then try again.  And don’t try it without me.  You cannot afford to be alone if something goes wrong.”

Emily nodded.  “I understand.”

“See that you do,” Void said.  “Do you need help to get back to your room?”

“No,” Emily said.  She thought she could walk to her room before she collapsed.  “I can make it on my own.”

“That’s what they all said,” Void told her.  She remembered, suddenly, that he’d had students before her.  “And they were all wrong.”

Updates – and Pre-Orders

It’s been a hard few days, but I have finally finished the first draft of Knife Edge¸ which is pretty much the direct sequel to Favour The Bold.  I’m not sure when it will be released yet, as I have editing and suchlike to do, but I’m hoping for early June.

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Debt of Honor, the next Angel in the Whirlwind book, launches on the 19th (or thereabouts) of May.  If you want to pre-order, feel free to hop over to the Amazon page.

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We’re still working on getting Fantastic Schools I up, but it should be soon.

My current plan is to write Oathkeeper, Schooled in Magic 20, next, followed by The Lady Heiress (Zero 8).  The planned title for Knife Edge is The Halls of Montezuma.

And, in other news, my friend Jagi Lamplighter recently released The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 5).  If you like SIM, why not check out the series?  Book One is free!

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Chris

Musings on Picard and the Star Trek Franchise

Picard failed to grab me.

It’s hard to say why.  Jean-Luc Picard embodies – or embodied – the ethos of Star Trek, in both his strengths and weaknesses.  Picard is both a highly-intelligent and highly-moral man, but – at the same time – he has a tendency towards both self-righteousness and a pollyannaish view of the universe that undermine his character.  Picard may be a better man than Sisko, in my view, yet I would sooner have Sisko in the captain’s chair if hard decisions have to be made.  Picard wanted to keep his hands clean.  Sisko had fewer qualms about getting his hands dirty if necessary.

This alone, however, is not enough to kill a show.  A series about a character who learned better – or reshaped the universe to suit himself – would have to start with a character in a poor position.  The real problems, however, are deeper.  To understand why, we must ask ourselves a simple question.  Why did Star Trek go mainstream in the first place?

I think the answer is fairly obvious.  The original series consisted of a number of individual episodes (there was only one two-part episode) that touched upon a wide range of themes, ranging from battles with hostile powers to humour, love stories and encounters with strange – and very inhuman – aliens.  If you didn’t like one, you might like others.  Star Trek itself embodied the IDIC principle, for better or worse.  The Next Generation followed the same basic idea, with a new crew and a new ship that did … well, pretty much the same as the original series.  There were a number of two-part episodes, but – by and large – you didn’t need to follow the series from the start to understand what was happening.  By the time all good things – hah – came to an end, this formula had played itself out.  The next series would have to be different.

Deep Space Nine was different – it was set on a space station, ensuring the crew could never drop into warp and outrun the consequences of their actions – but, for the first two seasons (and for some considerable distance afterwards) it remained bound to the episodic formula.  There was a story arc, but that arc didn’t become all-consuming until the final two seasons.  It worked, because of the arc; the arc had time to take root because of the episodic formula.  In theory, Voyager could have gone the same way.  There was no way the crew could drop in to a handy shipyard and patch the holes in the ship.  In practice, it didn’t do so well.  The writers seemed incapable of producing either a retreat to the Next Generation formula or striding boldly into the unknown.  That is not to say Voyager was bad, but the rot was starting to set in.  Enterprise failed for pretty much the same reason as Voyager, with a twist.  The fans wanted something that was both completely different (because it was set in the pre-federation universe) and the same (because it had to live up to the carefully drawn out timeline the fans held in their hearts).  It stumbled and fell. 

At this point, it became clear the producers no longer understood their own show – or what made Star Trek great in the first place.  The rebooted movies might have been spectacular, but they were not Star Trek.  They were conventional action movies that alienated fans without drawing in any new fans.  The producers themselves had reached the limits of the overall formula.

It isn’t easy to write stories set in utopia.  Iain M. Banks wrote the Culture novels, set within a far more advanced universe, but most of his stories featured the Culture’s enemies, the Culture’s misfits, or the Culture’s immigrants.  Only one novel can truly be said to feature mainstream Culture citizens.  It isn’t a coincidence that this happens when the super-advanced Culture is facing an Outside Context Problem, an issue it can’t solve with super-technology.  In some ways, Star Trek has the same problem.  It’s not easy to write stories when there is relatively little at stake. 

Discovery had all of Enterprise’s weaknesses, but added a few of its own.  It was a series of interlocking episodes, each one telling part of an overall story.  None of them were stand-alone.  Viewers had to start at the beginning, or be hopelessly lost.  This, combined with a flawed premise, badly weakened the show.  It might have done better if it hadn’t been Star Trek.  Again, like the movies, Discovery alienated fans without drawing in any new fans.  This was, I think, quite predictable, even before the political BS started.  It might have been wiser to set a story in the post-DS9 universe.

Picard should have been that story.  However, it managed to copy most of Discovery’s mistakes.  On one hand, it started another series of interlocking stories that locked out fans who didn’t get interested right from the start.  On the other, it played political games and overrode common sense in a bid to make political points.  It’s not unreasonable, for example, for the average Federation citizen to have qualms about providing a new home for members of a race that has been both an enemy and an ally over the last two hundred years (particularly as they had an empire themselves, with plenty of spare room).  The logistics of shipping billions of people across interstellar space would have been daunting, even without the political concerns.  And then we have the problem of feeding and caring for the refugees.  In theory, the Federation could handle it.  In practice, again, there would be issues.  It is easy to reduce the real-like migration crisis to politically-correct soundbites, but such soundbites rarely acknowledge the problems caused by uncontrolled migration.

Jean-Luc Picard himself suffers from a degree of character assassination.  It was in character for him to take a political stand, but unwise of him to stake his career on an all-or-nothing approach.  (Really, Picard should have been dishonourably discharged for failing to destroy the Borg when he had a chance.)  He should have realised this was a dangerous path to take, instead of being surprised when his superiors accepted his resignation.  This is also true of the Federation itself.  Why does it – now – discriminate against artificial life forms?  Why does it discriminate against ex-Borg?  Picard himself is an ex-Borg.  It feels, very much, as though the Federation has fallen into darkness.

Perhaps it got better.  But it wasn’t Star Trek.

It might have been better to develop a completely new show.  It wasn’t as if there wasn’t room.  A starship patrolling the post-war universe?  Perhaps trying to sort out the mess caused by the war?  Dealing with political factions, insurgents, terrorists … and other threats, trying to move into the former enemy space.  Hell, why not just turn the New Frontier books into a movie?  We could have had the grim awareness that life isn’t perfect, mingled with the dream of a rosy and idealistic future. 

And, at the very least, it wouldn’t have alienated so many fans. 

Musings on Biden and METOO

Normal commenting rules apply.

“For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time. But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron.”

-Joe Biden, 2018

It is a truth rarely acknowledged that mass protest movements, driven by raw emotion, rarely achieve much (at least within a short space of time).  They tend to be victims of their own success, growing too fast to establish a proper internal structure before fractures within the movement start tearing it apart.  Movements like Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March and #METOO started well, offering the promise of real change and better lives for all, before they ran afoul of their own contradictions.

These problems tend to manifest in a number of different ways.  Infighting within the group, often over focus or politics, can shatter the movement into a number of different factions.  Individual members can sell out, either through a desire to monetise their experience or a honest belief that a diluted version of the cause will appeal to more people.  Political battles, particularly when they intersect with the cause, can threaten it’s integrity.  And, worst of all, the cause’s excesses can and do power a reactionary movement that is unwilling or unable – for fear of creating conceptual superweapons (here and here) that can be used against them – to acknowledge that the original cause was valid.  In a sense, the activists drive their movement onto the rocks because they want whatever they want NOW.

People have a right to be angry.  But people who allow their anger to override their common sense can be very dangerous.

This is a key part of human – and mob – psychology.  Anger is a good servant, but a dangerous master.  A person who is angry may calm down and start thinking calmly again; an angry mob will keep the anger going until they’re trapped in a vicious circle.  Those who try to talk their fellows into calming down and thinking will be seen as traitors.  Humans do not react well to being betrayed.  Mobs can turn on someone they think betrayed them with terrifying speed.  They can also go too far very quickly.  Think how easy it is to have a very bad day, then ruin your relationship with your partner/siblings/parents/children with a single anger-driven act.  Now scale it up by several orders of magnitude and you see the problem with mob rule.  Activist groups have only a limited amount of goodwill from outsiders.  When it’s gone, it’s gone.

METOO started well.  There was little doubt Weinstein deserved to be called out.  His behaviour was an open secret for years.  It also exposed how the media could be manipulated to keep his victims from telling their stories and how many abusers had ties to prominent politicians, including – most strikingly – Hillary Clinton.  Weinstein’s fall led to others, exposing people who ranged from being abusive and exploitive to people who showed terminally poor judgement.  It looked as if things would change for good.

However, the rot had already started to take root.  There was little coherence in how accusations were made, no standards for what constituted abuse, no patience for the legal system’s show movement and, most importantly of all, no way to curb the excesses of the movement.  The willingness to uphold trial by mob, for example, ensured that people who felt the victims had been denied a fair trial would turn against the movement.  The failure to define abuse ensured that male workers would edge away from their female co-workers, denying women the chance for mentorships, networking and everything else they’d need to reach the very highest levels.  And this was impossible to stop.  If there is no solid definition of bad behaviour, the safest thing to do is keep your distance.

As Nelson Mandela understood – and so few others have grasped, before or since – it is important to create a world everyone can live with.  METOO had a good chance to dictate terms of surrender.  It wouldn’t have been perfect, but it would have been progress.  It failed to take the chance before it was too late. 

This came to a head during the Kavanaugh Hearings.  The first accusation levelled against Brett Kavanaugh was inherently impossible to prove.  If one goes by the standard of ‘Believe All Women,’ then Kavanaugh should have been hounded out of public life; if one goes by the standard of ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ then Kavanaugh should have been assumed to be innocent until proof surfaced.  The political storm surrounding the hearings ensured they became political.  In the absence of proof, there was no perfect solution.  METOO started to be seen as – accurately or not – a weapon to be deployed against the GOP.

This might not have proven fatal, if METOO had acknowledged the problem.  It might have seemed absurd to argue that METOO should try to go after a balanced ticket of Democrats as well as Republicans, but it would have gone a long way towards ensuring a certain degree of bipartisan support.  And there was a very big – and obvious – target, Bill and Hillary Clinton.  There has not yet been any serious accounting for Bill’s actions while in office, nor Hillary’s role in covering them up (and the money she took from Weinstein).  This is something that should have been done a long time ago.  Indeed, hard questions should be asked about how much Obama knew when he allowed his daughter to intern for Weinstein.  Was the Secret Service asleep at the switch?  But this opportunity was lost.

And now, we have the charges levelled against Joe Biden.

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Like Kavanaugh, it is impossible to prove the charges.  Biden has the presumption of innocence.  That said, there are circumstantial reasons to suspect there may be some meat to them.  It was never established that Kavanaugh and Christine Ford actually met; Tara Reade worked for Biden during the time of the alleged assault.  There’s no evidence that Ford told anyone of the assault at the time; there’s some evidence that Tara Reade did.  Kavanaugh has no history of inappropriate behaviour  during his career; Biden has an endless series of photos showing him engaging in just that.  In short, there’s good reason to suspect there’s some truth to the story.

But you wouldn’t know it from the (lack of) reaction.

The left has done its best to bury the story (although some left-wingers are starting to break ranks.)  There has been no call for a full investigation, for automatically giving Tara Reade the credence given to Christine Ford.  METOO appears to have adopted the mantra of ‘believe all women, unless it is politically inconvenient.’  At the very least, the scrutiny that was aimed at Kavanaugh should be aimed at Biden.  It would have suggested, very strongly, that METOO was a politically-neutral movement.  Instead, we have a fracturing movement that can no longer claim the moral high ground.  I’ve heard right-wingers openly gloating about how the affair exposes hypocrisy and double standards – and how they’re going to teach the left a lesson by using their weapon – impossible to prove accusations – to crush Joe Biden.

Civilisation depends on a shared understanding and application of the law.  If [X] is unacceptable when Bob does it, it’s equally unacceptable when Alice does it.  Double standards – “do as I say, not as I do” – are maddening even when there’s a good reason behind them.  There isn’t one here.  If you burn down all standards of common decency – and weaken the rule of law – what are you going to do when someone does it back to you?  Why should they not?  You did it to them first.

The blunt truth is that due process exists for a reasoning.  The wheels of civilised justice grind very slowly, but they grind very fine indeed.  This isn’t satisfactory for the angry people who want whatever they want now, yet it is the only way to ensure proper punishment and lasting change.  In a bid to embarrass and weaken President Trump, METOO has become a political football, a weapon that can cut both ways …

… And now, as Joe Biden has come to discover, it has.

I don’t know if there’s truth in the accusations levelled against Biden.  But we live in a world where increasingly fewer people, right and left alike, care.

Audio Editions

Hi, everyone

As you may have noticed, there’s been a lot of questions asked about the audio production schedule (and why it isn’t quicker).  The simple truth is that most of my books are either independent or hybrid, ensuring there’s little synchronisation between the different versions.  Paperback (for indie) comes out a week or so after eBook; audio takes a little bit longer.  Books produced by big publishers tend to be synchronised, so they all come out at once, but the Angel series is the only one that does that.

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Anyway, this is the rough schedule for the coming months:

Their Last Full Measure – May 26

First Strike – June 16

Mirror Image – June 23

Favor the Bold – September 8

The Family Pride – December (?)