Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 115

An Interview and Introducing the Speculative Fiction Showcase

I’ve been interviewed at the Speculative Fiction Showcase and talk about writing, food, movies, recycling and speculative fiction, of course.

This reminds that I haven’t actually talked about the Speculative Fiction Showcase yet. The Speculative Fiction Showcase is a group blog dedicated to all things indie speculative fiction, run by Heidi Garrett, Jessica Rydill and myself.

The Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month round-up will be crossposted there and I’ll also be posting a weekly round-up of speculative fiction links. We’ll also be having new release spotlights, posts on all sorts of speculative fiction related topics such as Jessica Rydill’s WorldCon report, guest posts like this one by British SF author Harry Manners about writing post-apocalyptic fiction and author interviews. If you want to be featured, drop us a line.

And since we needed a guinea pig for the author interviews, I ended up doing the first interview.

So check out the Speculative Fiction Showcase on a regular basis, cause we’ve got lots of good stuff planned.

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New Crime Short Available: The Cork and the Bottle

I actually expected the next new release announcement to be for the next two (yes, you read that correctly) installments in the Shattered Empire series.

But instead I did another eight hour fiction challenge and wrote a short mystery (and yes, this time it is a proper mystery according to narrower US genre classification) called The Cork and the Bottle.

Over at the Pegasus Pulp blog, I have a more detailed post about how I came to write the story. But for now, enjoy:

The Cork and the Bottle

When the landlord of The Cork and the Bottle ends up dead in a puddle of blood on the floor of his own pub, the case seems clear. The teen burglars who broke into the pub to steal the contents of the till are the culprits.

But there are things about the case that just don’t add up. And eventually, Detective Inspector Helen Shepherd begins to suspect that the killers are to be found much closer to home…

 

 

For more information, visit the The Cork and the Bottle page.

Buy it for the low price of 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Casa del Libro, Inktera, txtr, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Der Club, Libiro, Nook UK, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books, Flipkart, e-Sentral, You Heart Books and XinXii.

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More WorldCon and Hugo Links

We’re still talking about WorldCon and the Hugos, so here are some more links:

At The Daily Dot, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw compares WorldCon with Nine Worlds, a newer multi-fandom con also held in London, and detects a notable generation gap.

Bethan Jones also describes a notable generation gap as well as a gap between media and book fandom in her LonCon3 write-up. She also talks about attending a very good panel on diversity and internationalism.

Bertha Chin also tackles the diversity issue in this great post, wherein she describes repeatedly having to turn down participating in a diversity panel she didn’t feel qualified for and how she felt she was mainly assigned that panel because of her Asian surname.

Ana S. offers an extensive con and panel report at Things Mean a Lot.

At Staffer’s Book Review, Justin Landon analyses Hugo voting behaviour in detail as well as the influence of the Sad Puppies (who seem to be a bloc of sixty to seventy nominators/voters). Some interesting stuff there, though he can’t resist a jab against Seanan McGuire.

The big takeaway from Justin Landon’s post, however, is how important it is to nominate for the Hugos (and every LonCon member can nominate next year) to prevent future Sad Puppies and other rabid fans. Indeed, I already have a document where I list anything genre related that catches my eye as a potential nominee under the respective category, so I don’t have to strain my memory next year at nomination time.

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It came from the compost heap or The mystery plant from outer space

As you may or may not know, we have a vegetable garden. We also have a compost heap. And sometimes, plants sprout in said compost heap, which is only natural, since compost is intended for fertilizing.

Most of the time, the plants sprouting in the compost heap are just weed, but occasionally you get something useful like a pepper or pumpkin plant.

This year, the compost sprouted what looked like a pumpkin or maybe a zucchini plant, so we rescued the seedling and planted it in the vegetable garden proper, where it thrived and grew to quite epic proportions.

However, once the plant began developing fruit, those fruit turned out to be not zucchini or pumpkins but something quiet different and rather weird.

The mystery squash in the garden. It sure is pretty, but what exactly is it?

Two more mystery squashs.

I asked the internet for ideas regarding the identity of the mystery fruit and the consensus was that it’s probably some kind of summer or maybe winter squash, probably a hybrid.

As for how they came to be, in the fall we always buy pumpkins and squashes for pickling and cooking from a local farmer (they’re cheaper to buy than to cultivate). This year, we also had a decorative arrangement of smaller and particularly colourful squashes and gourds next to our front door in fall and early winter, since the farmer where we always buy the pumpkins and squashes has a very broad selection. You can see some photos at the end of this post here.

After preparing the pumpkins and squashes, the seeds and other remnants landed on the compost heap. And once the decorative squashs and gourds went mouldy, they ended up on the compost heap as well.

And from that primordial soup of gene material arose the mutant squash from outer space.

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More reactions to the 2014 Hugo Award winners

It’s getting really difficult to find new titles for all of these Hugo related posts.

Besides, I forgot to mention that the 1939 Retro Hugos have been awarded as well. Now I have to confess I don’t quite get the point of the Retro Hugos, particularly when none of the nominees are still alive to enjoy them. Never mind that the Retro Hugos will always be coloured by hindsight or does anybody honestly believe that two early shorts by a teenaged Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury published in fanzines would ever have made it onto a Hugo ballot in 1939, let alone that one of them would have won?

In general, the results are a mix of the bleeding obvious such as John W. Campbell’s classic “Who Goes There?” winning in the best novella category or Orson Welles’ classic radio adaption of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (yes, that radio adaption) winning in the best dramatic presentation category and the utterly mind-boggling such as a Clifford D. Simak story I’ve never heard of beating Robert E. Howard’s excellent Pigeons from Hell as well as the Henry Kuttner’s highly amusing Hollywood on the Moon and C.L. Moore’s Werewoman. Or how about an early story by a teenaged Arthur C. Clarke published in a fanzine beating Lester Del Rey’s Helen O’Loy (which I dislike for its creepy sexism, but it’s still a minor classic).

I’m also surprised at the results in the best novel category with The Sword in the Stone and C.L. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet both beating E.E. Smith’s Galactic Patrol (largely unreadable these days, but of enormous importance to the genre as such) as well as Jack Williamson’s Legion of Time (still readable) and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Carson of Venus (ditto). I know a lot of people are fond of Lewis because of Narnia (which largely passed me by as a kid), but Out of the Silent Planet is pretty bad and doesn’t even have the significance of something like Galactic Patrol.

Now the Retro Hugos have been dispensed with, here are some more reactions to the 2014 Hugo Award winners from around the web:

At The Guardian, Hannah Ellis-Petersen offers a summary of the 2014 Hugos, though she neglects to mention Charles Stross, Mary Robinette Kowal and Sofia Samatar.

At The Daily Dot, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw offers a summary of the winners and controversies and points out that in spite of the alleged “greying” of Worldcon this latest slate of Hugo winners looks very different from the white male canon of previous years and is also finding their audience in different ways.

Jamie Todd Rubin points out that this year’s Hugo winner slate saved science fiction for him by restoring his flagging interest and faith in the genre. I guess many of us feel that way today.

Double Hugo winner Kameron Hurley reposts her two acceptance speeches at her blog for those who couldn’t hear them live. Some very good points about change, rage and the importance of words plus some bonus fuzzy llamas.

At Teleread, Paul St. John Mackintosh points out that the sad puppies came out looking badly out of their Hugo campaign and might have harmed their cause and credibility more than they furthered it.

Tim Hall makes a similar point at Where Worlds Collide and wonders whether the aim of the Sad Puppies campaign was truly to challenge a perceived leftwing dominance at the Hugos or whether the aim was to discredit WorldCon and the Hugos in the eyes of the fans of the Sad Puppies. Which strikes me as strange, because the Sad Puppies can (and probably already did) set up cons and awards of their own to hang out with likeminded people without discrediting those of the larger genre community.

At From the Heart of Europe, Nicholas Whyte offers some in-depth analysis of the Hugo voting and nomination stats.

Thea and Ana of Hugo-nominated The Book Smugglers offer a recap of their LonCon and Hugo experience with lots of pictures.

Ann Leckie, winner of the Hugo Award for best novel for Ancillary Justice, also recounts her WorldCon and Hugo Awards experience.

John Chu, winner of the Hugo Award for best short story for “The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere” recounts his Hugo experiences and reposts his acceptance speech.

The only thing that somewhat marred the otherwise excellent news from the 2014 WorldCon is that the 2016 WorldCon will be held in Kansas City, Missouri, a city whose main claim to SFnal fame is being thoroughly destroyed by a nuclear bomb in that infamous anti-nuclear war film The Day After in 1983, rather than in Beijing, capital of a country of one billion people, which has a huge if largely non-westernized SF fandom. Considering this comes after the 2015 WorldCon was awarded to Spokane in Washington (which has no claim to SF fame at all, as far as I can tell) over Helsinki and Orlando, it’s kind of obvious that many fans still haven’t grasped the significance of the “world” bit in WorldCon.

Jonathan McCalmont at Ruthless Culture had some thoughts about why holding two subsequent WorldCons in smaller US cities is not a good idea and why he feels there shouldn’t be two US WorldCons back to back at all. One potential solution might be a rule similar to the selection of football World Cup sites, since the FIFA rules state that two subsequent World Cups cannot take place on the same continent. Continents are perhaps a bit much in this case, but why no rule that two subsequent WorldCons cannot take place in the same country?

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The 2014 Hugo Awards Post

The 2014 Hugo Awards have been given out and the slate of winners is highly diverse and overall very good (detailed voting and nomination breakdown here), which is even more remarkable considering that the 2014 Hugo shortlist was probably the most controversial in ages. For some background, see my posts here, here and here.

My reaction, when I saw the list of winners this morning (I spent Sunday night writing and didn’t follow the announcements live, deciding I didn’t need the grief) very much matters that of Natalie Luhrs from The Radish: Faith in humanity (and fandom) restored.

The Hugo Award for best novel went – highly deservingly – to Ann Leckie for her Ancillary Justice. Now Ancillary Justice has made an almost unprecedented sweep of this year’s SFF awards, winning also the Nebula, Clarke Award and Locus Award for best first novel, making it the standout SF novel of the year. And indeed, Ancillary Justice stood heads above all of the other nominees in this category. Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross finished in second place, which is not unsurprising, since he has many fans, even though I am not one of them (writing wise – I like Charles Stross as a person). Parasite by Mira Grant a.k.a. Seanan McGuire finishes in third place and the two most controversial nominees, the entire Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson as well as Warbound by Larry Correia finish fourth and fifth respectively, proving that even a rabid fanbase (and one focussed only on one specific work or author) isn’t enough to win a Hugo without broader fandom support.

Looking at the extended nomination list, it turns out that Neil Gaiman was nominated for The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but declined, which is a pity since I liked that novel much more than any of the other finalists except Ancillary Justice. However, we cannot blame Neil Gaiman for either Wheel of Time or Warbound, since the novel that snuck onto the shortlist instead was Parasite. However, if you eliminated both Wheel of Time and Warbound, the best novel nominees would also have included The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes and A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar, which would have made for a much stronger shortlist.

The short fiction categories look very good as well. Novella is a bit disappointing with Charles Stross winning for Equoid (sorry, but his work just doesn’t do it for me, even if it includes unicorns), followed by Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne Valente, my personal favourite Wakulla Springs in third place and the two sad puppy candidates finishing fourth and fifth respectively. Personally, I found best novella the most disappointing category this year and voted “no award” in second place.

After being disqualified on technical grounds last year, Mary Robinette Kowal wins in the best novelette category for The Lady Astronaut of Mars. This wasn’t my first choice in the category (that would have been The Waiting Stars by Aliette de Bodard), but it’s one I’m happy with. I didn’t much care for the Ted Chiang story, but I know he’s very popular. I’d also love to congratulate the oft nominated but never winning old workhorse “No Award” for finishing in fifth place.

The Hugo for best short story went, pretty surprisingly IMO, to John Chu for The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere. Again, this wasn’t my first choice (that would have been Selkie Stories Are For Losers by Sofia Samatar), but one I’m very happy with. Indeed, John Chu’s short story was one of only two pleasant surprises in this year’s Hugo voter packet, the other being The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who in the graphic story category. Rachel Swirsky’s Nebula winning story If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love, which was among the most divisive nominees this year with people either loving or hating it, landed in third place, Thomas Olde Houvelt (which I wanted to love, but didn’t) in fourth.

The Campbell Award goes – again well deservedly – to Sofia Samatar. I’m a bit disappointed to see Benjanun Sriduangkaew finish in last place, since I like her work a whole lot. But then she was probably disadvantaged due to being the only pure short story writer on the list.

This makes three women, two writers of colour and one international writer winning in the fiction categories with only one winner a white man. Coincidentally, it also means that a piece of non-binary gender fiction and a piece of GLBT fiction are among the winners.

The rest of the winning slate looks similarly good. Best related work and best fan writer go to Kameron Hurley, again highly deserved. But then there were no bad choices for fan writer this year and indeed every single nominee would have deserved to win. Both art categories were taken by women, which I think is a first, with the wonderful Julie Dillon winning for pro-artist and Sarah Webb, who is only 19 years old, winning fan artist.

The editing categories also go to two women, Ellen Datlow and Ginjer Buchanan respectively. Lightspeed wins in the best semi-prozine category, while A Dribbel of Ink wins best fanzine. Personally, I would have preferred The Book Smugglers in that category, but it’s still an excellent choice.

In the short dramatic presentation category, the Red Wedding a.k.a. the Game of Thrones episode “The Rains of Castermere” knocks out umpteen reiterations of Doctor Who as well as Orphan Black. Judging by the nomination breakdown, the extended ballot would have included yet more Doctor Who, more Orphan Black, more Game of Thrones as well as Sleepy Hollow (didn’t work for me, but at least it’s something different), Fringe (Is that still on?) and Chris Hadfield performing “A Space Oddity” aboard the ISS, which would have been interesting.

Gravity a.k.a. Sandra Bullock moaning in space wins unsurprisingly in the long dramatic presentation category, since it’s exactly the sort of serious science fiction film that Hugo voters like. I’m surprised to see Frozen finishing in second place, but then I don’t get the love for this one at all. My personal No. 1 and 2 choices, Iron Man 3 and Pacific Rim, both finished lower than I expected, namely in third and fourth place. But then Iron Man 3 got a lot of backlash, though I personally enjoyed it quite a bit, and Pacific Rim, while fun, isn’t exactly deep. Looking at the extended nomination list, I’m a bit sad to see that my two non-mainstream nominations, Only Lovers Left Alive and The Congress didn’t even gather enough nominations for a mention, but then both movies didn’t get a US release until 2014.

Finally, the win for the XKCD strip Time in the graphic story category leaves me completely stumped, especially considering it knocked out such fan favourites as the excellent Saga and Girl Genius as well as the surprisingly lovely The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who. No I’m not the world’s biggest XKCD fan in general, though I find it amusing on occasion. But Time just left me scratching my head and wondering “What is the point?” In fact – and Randall Munroe can live with this, considering that he won – I voted Time under “No award”, because I had no idea what it was supposed to be about. I did place it ahead of Meathouse Man, though, cause the less said about that one, the better.

So overall what threatened to become the biggest Hugo embarrassment in decades turned out to be a good year after all. Fandom has spoken and it has decided that it wants to be a place for diverse voices, the it wants to see women and creators of colour and international creators.

Scotch Frye Samizdat pretty much echoes my views, particularly with regard to the many wonderful women nominated.

In the end, all the sad puppies achieved was heaving some works onto the ballot that wouldn’t have been there otherwise (Toni Weisskopf and Brad Torgersen would probably have made it, since Weisskopf is a respected editor and Torgersen popular with the Analog crowd) and pissing off the Hugo electorate so much (since Hugo voters really don’t like the award being gamed) that even nominees who did not endorse the sad puppy slate such as Dan Wells or Elitist Book Reviews as well as otherwise popular nominees like Brad Torgersen or Toni Weisskopf suffered by association. Though I have to admit that I placed all the sad puppy nominees low on my ballot – even those who distanced themselves from the campaign – because I just didn’t like the works in question very much. I was willing to give Brad Torgersen (whose previous Hugo nominated story “Ray of Light” I quite liked) and Dan Wells a fair shot, but I found that I just didn’t like the works of theirs that were nominated. I also tried reading Warbound and Opera Vita Aeterna and again, I didn’t even feel bad about placing them low on the ballot, because I just didn’t like the works. As for Toni Weisskopf, I find that I buy a lot fewer Baen Books (only Lois McMaster Bujold and Sharon Lee/Steve Miller) since she took over. Now of course the sad puppy candidates weren’t the only works on the ballot I didn’t like. I also didn’t like the two Charles Stross works or The Ink Readers of Doi Saket or Time or Meathouse Man or Frozen or Gravity or Orphan Black, even though I have no political disagreements with their creators.

Though it is interesting that the point of the sad puppy campaign – at least as far as I can tell – was to prove that works by rightwing and conservative writers were unfairly neglected regardless of literary merit. However, in order to make that point it would be helpful to – you know – actually nominate works that have literary merit beyond being written by people of the right political views or being liked by Larry Correia. And if you look at the nomination breakdown, you see how many bullets were dodged, including not just fiction by John Ringo and Sarah Hoyt, which might actually have turned out to be good, but also an RPG handbook by Larry Correia and an essay on training soldiers by Tom Kratman, which have no more place on the best related work ballot than the filk CDs and podcasts, which have infuriated me in previous years.

Of course, literary taste is subjective and it is possible that the sad pupy nominators really thought Warbound or Opera Vita Aeterna or The Butcher of Khardov (that sounds like the nickname of an East Ukrainian separatist leader) or The Chaplain’s Legacy or The Exchange Officers really were among the best works of the year. After all, the Wheel of Time nominators also seem to genuinely believe that that series of really derivative big fat epic fantasy is truly among the best the genre has to offer.

I also understand that it sucks if your taste is consistently out of touch with that of the Hugo voters. After all, a lot of my favourite SFF works and writers and even whole subgenres never were nominated for Hugos either, let alone won. I guess fans of grimdark epic fantasy or romantic urban fantasy or steampunk or paranormal romance or SF romance or Franco-Belgian comics or another of the many subgenres traditionally ignored by the Hugo Awards will sympathize with the grumblings of the sad puppies. However, ballot stuffing is not the answer. And besides, right-leaning SF already has its own award with the Prometheus Award (won by Campbell nominee Ramez Naan this year), though for some reason the Prometheus Award also regularly nominates and even is won by pretty hardcore socialists. Hmm, maybe they mistake utopias for dystopias and vice versa.

John Scalzi offers his thoughts on this year’s Hugo Awards and also predicts some of the losers’ reactions on Twitter.

He turns out to have been surprisingly correct, judging by this choice Do-Not-Linkified butthurtness from Larry Correia and Vox Day and a somewhat more measured response by Brad Torgersen.

I find the lengthy Mad Genius Club quote at the end of Correia’s post also amusing in the way that particular mad genius claims that the “Left”, whoever that may be, shot themselves in the foot by not voting for the more moderate among the sad puppy slate. Because obviously people are obliged to vote for works they dislike just to disprove the paranoia of some rightwing writers. And because obviously, no one who voted for Ancillary Justice or The Lady Astronaut of Mars or The Water That Falls On You from Nowhere actually liked them.

Comments are screened and I’m not in the mood for trolls, so sad puppies, please cry elsewhere.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier revisited or When is it appropriate to cry at movies?

Yesterday, I bought Captain America: The Winter Soldier on DVD – on release day actually, which was coincidence, because I happened to be out shopping anyway. And I didn’t even have to wait for it because of the current slapfight between Amazon and Disney, since I got it at Media Markt, a big brick and mortar electronics chain.

My Mom happened to be with me – she doesn’t drive anymore and so I have to take her grocery shopping, when my Dad isn’t home – so I said, “Hey, do you want to watch this tonight?” So we ended up watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier last night.

Now my Mom is a bit ambivalent about superhero movies (“You don’t want to watch that, do you?” she sometimes asks with reference to pretty dreadful fare like the Fantastic Four movies or Green Lantern), but she really enjoys the Marvel Avengerverse movies. So far she’s seen all three Iron Man movies (she’s a big fan of Robert Downey Jr.), the two Thor movies (took a bit of persuading, but she liked them) and The Avengers (Robert Downey Jr. and Thor and Loki and – oh, just watch it already, will you?). She hasn’t seen the first Captain America movie (I offered, but she didn’t want to watch it – WWII settings not being attractive for people who actually lived through it) nor The Incredible Hulk (because it’s not very good). Coincidentally, she has also expressed interest in watching Guardians of the Galaxy or “that movie with the raccoon and the tree”, as she calls it. Nonetheless, she mainly knows Captain America as “that superhero you don’t like” as well as from what she’s seen of him in The Avengers.

I gave her a bit of catch-up information regarding what had happened to Steve and who Bucky and Peggy were. I also had to explain easter eggs and throwaway references to her such as that Bruce Banner who was sometimes mentioned was Hulk, that Tony Stark was Iron Man and Howard Stark his Dad, who Stephen Strange was, who Baron von Strucker was and who the twins in the mid-credits sequence were. And of course, I had to point out the Stan Lee cameo, for while Mom knows who Stan Lee is, she isn’t primed to recognize him as soon as he shows up.

Nonetheless, the Avengersverse movies are really, really good at being comprehensible even to people who have never read the comics nor seen any of the previous movies. Of course, you get more out of them if you have seen previous movies or read the comics, but it’s not necessary to enjoy the films. In fact that very reason why these movies are so fantastically successful is that they appeal to the average viewer as much as to the hardcore fan.

Since she didn’t follow the comics and isn’t plugged into the geeksphere like I am, my Mom was also probably the only person in the known universe who didn’t know who the Winter Soldier was. In fact, whenever he was in screen, she said, “Why doesn’t he take the mask of? Why do they never show his face?”

“Because it’s meant to be a surprise”, I said, “And if you don’t know it, then I’m not going to spoil it for you.”

In fact – and I didn’t notice this myself until watching the movie with someone who had no idea about the true identity of the Winter Soldier – the movie does a very good job keeping his face either hidden behind his mask or – in the scene where he visits Alexander Pierce (Mom: “Oh my! That’s really Robert Redford.”) at home – keeping it in the shadow, so the audience never fully gets to see his face until Steve does. Besides, the Winter Soldier’s hairstyle is completely different from that of 1940s Bucky Barnes, so someone who went into the movie unspoiled had no chance of figuring out the true identity of the Winter Soldier before Steve.

And indeed once the mask came of, my Mom said, “Okay, so he’s really handsome. But who was he supposed to be again?”

Talking of handsome, one thing my Mom noticed was how very many handsome young men there were in the movie. She explicitly mentioned Steve, Bucky (though she claimed he had weird ears), Brock Rumlow, Jasper Sitwell, though her personal favourite was Sam Wilson a.k.a. Falcon.

In fact, one thing that’s notable about the Avengersverse movies is how much they cater to the female gaze. Not only are they chock full of handsome men (and handsome men of various races at that, though the leads are still overwhelmingly white), the camera also spends a lot of time lingering on their impressive muscles, while the plot finds reasons to have them take their shirts off. The Thor movies are the most blatant in this regard, since Thor pretty much blinds Jane and Darcy with his impressive physique (and in a total reversal of the usual gender roles of Golden Age SF, Jane is the brilliant astrophysic and Thor is her hot alien trophy boyfriend). But you get similar female gaze scenes in all the Avengersverse movies. Just note how we first see the newly muscular (and shirtless) Steve through Peggy Carter’s eyes. And even Tony Stark spends a surprising amount of time either completely shirtless or in sleeveless shirts to show off his rather impressive muscles (particularly considering Robert Downey Jr. is pushing fifty by now).

Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson, Cobie Smulders, Emily VanCamp and Hayley Atwell are all very attractive women (ditto for Gwynneth Paltrow and Natalie Portman in the other movies), but the film does not sexualize them. We do see Black Widow in a plain black undershirt at one point and of course she wears her signature black leather catsuit, but the usual cleavage and butt shots are almost entirely absent (whereas we get butt shots of Steve, Bucky and Falcon) and Natasha spends most of the movie in a shapeless hoodie instead. And while my Mom commented on how handsome many of the men were, her remarks on the women mostly focussed on how much they kicked arse (though she did say that Cobie Smulders and Hayley Atwell were both very pretty).

So in case anybody is wondering why the audience of the Marvel movies is almost 50% female, the fact that they cater to the female gaze and do not unnecessarily sexualize the women and give us a lot of different and impressive women in general probably has a lot to do with it. And there are still enough fights and explosions and car chases to keep men of all ages and 12-year-olds of every gender happy.

Talking of car chases – and The Winter Soldier has quite a few of them – for a couple of years now, my personal gold standard for action scenes in general and car chases in particular has been the German cop show Alarm für Cobra 11 (Alarm for Cobra 11), which has the best car chases on TV (Don’t believe me? Watch it online here). My Mom and I both agreed that the various car chases and action scenes in The Winter Soldier could absolutely compare with those in Alarm für Cobra 11. However, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a Hollywood blockbuster with a budget of approximately 170 million US-dollar, whereas Alarm für Cobra 11 is a TV series with a budget of maybe one million Euro for the more elaborate episodes. Even more bizarre is that Alarm für Cobra 11 was originally intended as a homegrown replacement for car chase and explosion heavy US-shows like The A-Team and Knight Rider, on which the network RTL had built its success in the 1980s. And now some twenty years later, the German copy is the gold standard for action scenes, whereas the US no longer shoots such scenes at all (very few US TV shows have car chases these days, let alone on a regular basis) and needs a triple digit million budget to do it properly.

In general, I have been very impressed with both Captain America movies and I’m saying this as someone who doesn’t even like the character and used to refer to him as “Captain Nationalism”. However, Marvel manages to incorporate the problematic ultra patriotism that has been a vital part of the character since the beginning and yet never turns Steve in “Captain Nationalism”. Instead, the movies show that while Captain America started out as a propaganda icon, this is a role that was thrust upon Steve, not one he chooses for himself. And indeed he casts it off at the first opportunity and instead focusses on what lies at the heart of all superhero movies, namely how to be a good person. Interestingly – and I’m not sure if the narrative is fully aware of this – the movies also show Steve and Bucky as victims of the very same propaganda for which they were both utilized (because the Winter Soldier is as much a propaganda figure as Captain America). Propaganda induces both Steve and Bucky to volunteer for WWII (even though Steve didn’t have to go and Bucky didn’t have to go so soon) and in the end it costs them both dearly, when they lose decades of their lives only to find themselves in a world neither of them recognizes. Steve at least gets to define his role for himself, Bucky doesn’t even get that. He does get his identity back in the post-credits scene at the Smithsonian, but the Bucky he reads about is Bucky the Howling Commando and propaganda figure, not the Bucky who was Steve’s best friend. We’ll have to wait until 2016 to get that Bucky back.

Now The Winter Soldier has something of a reputation as a tearjerker and indeed it is the most depressing of the Marvel movies (though The First Avengers is also pretty depressing, which makes for an interesting pattern). And my Mom is one of those people who unfailingly cries at movies, even if she has seen the film before, if it’s not very good and/or manipulative as hell and if she knows the outcome already. I vividly remember her crying her eyes out at the execution of Anne Boleyn in (I think) The Tudors. “Why the hell are you crying?”, I asked her at the time, “You knew from the beginning that this was going to happen.”

Since The Winter Soldier actually is a tearjerker – unlike Anne Boleyn getting beheaded on screen for the twentieth time – I expected my Mom to cry. However, to my infinite surprise she didn’t. I actually asked her about this the next day and she said, “Oh, but there was way too much action and excitement to cry.” A bit doubtfully she added, “That’s a notorious tearjerker? Really?”

“Probably the second biggest tearjerker of the year after The Fault in Our Stars“, I said, followed by an explanation of what The Fault in Our Stars was ["That sounds absolutely horrible", my Mom said].

“So what was I supposed to cry about? The death of Nick Fury?”

“Maybe that, too”, I said, “But mostly about Bucky and Steve and how absolutely horrible it is what was done to Bucky.”

Now I honestly wonder why my Mom, who cries at anything included the totally expected execution of Anne Boleyn in a bad historical drama, was not moved by the Bucky/Steve relationship which has drowned most of Tumblr in a sea of tears. I guess it’s partly a generational difference and partly that has a non-comic reader and someone who hasn’t seen The First Avenger, she doesn’t fully get how important Bucky was to Steve. But then, a lot of Tumblr fandom has never read the comics either.

Indeed, her remark that “there was too much action to cry” also made me reflect on when it is considered culturally appropriate to cry at movies in general. For starters, it’s not true that my Mom doesn’t cry at action films, because I have seen her cry at Alarm für Cobra 11 more than once. Of course, she probably was more invested in the characters of a long running TV series than in people she’s only seen in a handful of movies.

But in general, action films are not considered appropriate to cry. Unless they are disaster movies, then it suddenly is appropriate to cry at the noble sacrificial death du jour. Witness Titanic and all of the crappy tearjerky disaster flicks that followed like Armageddon or Pearl Harbour. Hell, you can even go back to the disaster movies of the 1970s, which usually have at least one Hollywood veteran (often a woman) nobly sacrificing her life.

Science fiction, fantasy and superhero movies are also not considered suitable for crying outside fandom, though inside fandom several SF, fantasy and superhero films are known for notorious tearjerker scenes. Unlike my Mom, I have never been one to cry at movies, but when I do, it’s mostly at SF and fantasy movies, whereas mainstream tearjerkers like Titanic or Love Story or Doctor Zhivago or Out of Africa or The Champ leave me totally cold, probably because they are either blatantly manipulative (Love Story, The Champ) or the characters and their personal dramas are so boring that I can’t bring myself to care what happens to them (all of the above, really). I’m also not entirely sure just why some films are considered tearjerkers by mainstream audiences. It can’t be the realism aspect, because The Champ and Love Story are not remotely realistic, even though they are theoretically set in the real world. It might be that the blatant emotional manipulation pays off with mainstream audiences, but then genre cinema can be just as manipulative as mainstream cinema (looking at you, Joss Whedon) and yet Titanic or Love Story or The Champ are considered tearjerkers, whereas Serenity is not. Or maybe it’s that genre audiences generally go into a movie already emotionally invested in the characters and their world and thus cry at Serenity or The Winter Soldier, whereas mainstream audiences first need to develop emotional investment, which often happens via blatant manipulation. Now a lot of the time this manipulation is simply too blatant to work for me (The Champ is particularly bad about this) or the characters are simply too dull, annoying or downright stupid for me to get invested in them (Titanic is a particularly bad offender, but also Love Story).

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Odds and Ends

This blog had been rather quiet these past few days, since I haven’t been feeling well. However, there are some news from elsewhere to report:

For starters, I am now a contributor to the Speculative Fiction Showcase where the “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month” feature will be crossposted on the last day of every month.

What is more, Kobo’s own e-book discovery platform Kobo Next just launched in German, featuring my own Die Liebe in den Zeiten des Frischkornmüslis among others.

Finally, I have blogged over at Pegasus Pulp about the frankly bizarre e-mail Amazon sent to all KDP authors as well as about some Amazon bashing articles and videos from Germany.

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Plane Crash in Bremen

This has certainly been a summer of disasters in general and plane crashes in particular. First Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in Ukraine, which rattled me a lot, because my Dad has flown the very same route only a few weeks ago. Then a TransAsia flight crashed in Taiwan, an Air Algerie flight in Mali and a private plane crashed into a supermarket parking lot in San Diego, all within the span of less than a month.

Yesterday at noon, Bremen was hit by an airplane disaster when a small plane crashed into a warehouse shortly after taking off at Bremen Airport, killing both people on board. Luckily, no one was hurt on the ground, because the plane hit a tyre warehouse on the premises of a car dealership rather than the showroom or the workshop, both of which would have been full of people. The crash site burned for several hours though, some homes in the area were evacuated and there was a smoke plume over Bremen.

Radio Bremen and Weser Kurier have more (in German). Here is also a report from the local news program buten und binnen (Outside and inside in Low German) with lots of footage and interviews with spokespeople of the Bremen police and fire brigade as well as two apprentices at the car dealership. Here is another buten und binnen clip interviewing a spokesperson of the German flight safety agency. Finally, here is a follow-up report from today with footage of the burned out crashsite and an interview with the owner of the car dealership.

The cause of the crash is not yet known, though the pilot apparently reported problems directly after the start and witnesses report that the plane was burning before it crashed. It is suspected that he tried to turn the plane around and crashed before he could reach the airport. The crash site is only a few hundred meters behind the North-Eastern end of the runway.

The plane was a Saab 91 Safir from 1954, which was owned and operated by the Lufthansa commercial flight school. The plane was about to go out of service and would have been transferred to the Lufthansa museum in Berlin later this month. There has been no official confirmation about the identity of the two people inside the plane, but the current word is that they were an experienced Lufthansa pilot and an Italian journalist.

This whole thing was something of a shock to me, because I know the neighbourhood where the plane crashed very well. The plane managed to crash right next to the intersection of two busy roads, which are main routes into the city centre and where I drive along all the time. My aunt and uncle live within walking distance of the crash site. A gentleman I know via my translation work lives literally next door. And just two days before the crash, I had lunch with my Mom at a café opposite the crash site. So it’s kind of obvious that I’m a bit rattled.

It didn’t help either that I heard the planes passing over my house all afternoon. I live under one of the flight paths from Bremen airport, though far enough out that the planes are audible, but not annoying. Apparently, yesterday they diverted all air traffic to the path that leads over my house to avoid the smoke plume. The airport was even closed for a while and a few flights had to be diverted to other airports. Mind you, all this happened on the busiest travel weekend of the year, because the summer holidays in Bremen and Lower Saxony started the day before.

The truth is that horrible as the deaths of the pilot and the passenger of the doomed plane are, it could have been much worse, is the plane had hit the showroom or the workshop of the car dealership or the ethnic supermarket behind the crash site or the houses nearby or the two busy roads intersecting next to the crash site or 24-hour gym and shoe shop on the other side of the road or the popular café opposite the crash site (the café is a wooden building, too) or the Airbus plant right next to the airport or the various office buildings that sprung up at the airport in the 1990s. Not to mention plenty of residential areas and several shopping malls and schools underneath the flight path. For example, my school was under the flight path as well and the planes were still so low and so loud that when the windows were open, we had to interrupt the lesson until the plane has passed. There was a particular Ryan Air flight which regularly interrupted my English class. In fact, it’s a stroke of luck in the middle of a bad case of misfortune that there weren’t more casualties yesterday.

As with all tragedies of this sort, you get the usual suspects airing their views. The delightfully named “Association for those damaged by air traffic”, actually just a bunch of people who bought cheap real estate near the airport and now wish that it would stop operating except for the two weeks they are on holiday, is already yelling and in the comments at a national news site, people were calling for banning all amateur pilots, totally disregarding the fact that the plane was not piloted by an amateur at all, but by an experienced Lufthansa pilot. As for the flight school connection, the Lufthansa flight school has been operating at Bremen Airport for more than fifty years without incident.

Here are a few facts: Bremen Airport opened for business in 1920, i.e. it is 94 years old. The first commercial connection was a flight to Amsterdam, operated by KLM. 94 years later, this same service still exists, though the planes are very different. Parts of the original 1920 Art Deco terminal building were still visible until a remodelling in the 1990s by the way. What is more, in those 94 years, the city grew and moved a lot closer to the airport. In fact, some of the residential buildings in the area were built in the 1920s and 1930s, i.e. not long after the airport. Would it have been more prudent to build the airport somewhere else? Probably. But the airport is where it is and relocating it elsewhere isn’t possible for a variety of administrative reasons too complicated to go into right now.

Besides, in its 94-year-history, Bremen Airport only experienced three crashes. The first was the Lufthansa flight 005 crash in 1966. The plane missed the runway, probably due to low visibility and heavy rain, and crashed into a field on the South-Western end of the runway, killing all 46 aboard, including actress Ada Tschechowa and several members of the Italian Olympic swimming team. I still remember that there was the burned out ruin of a barn at the site of the 1966 crash well into the early 1980s, until they extended the runway and relocated the road.

The second crash happened in 1972, when a prototype VFW-Fokker 614, which was being built in what is now an Airbus plant right next to the airport, crashed onto the airfield, killing the co-pilot. For some reason, this crash is almost completely forgotten, probably because it did not involve a plane in active passenger service.

The third crash, finally, happened yesterday, 42 years after the previous one. Not too bad considering that Bremen Airport is used by approx. 2.6 million passengers per year.

By the way, my Dad managed to drive past the sites of both the 1966 and 2014 crash just minutes after they happened. In both cases, he later said, “There was a fire. I had no idea what had happened.”

Finally, even living far from any airports is no guarantee that you won’t be affected by a planecrash. I bet the people of Eastern Ukraine (not the separatists, the ordinary farmers in the region) did not exact to find airplane parts and bodies raining onto their fields and villages. The people of the Scottish village of Lockerbie certainly did not expect to have an airplane dropped onto their heads (and the Pan-Am bombing also killed eleven people on the ground).

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Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month: July 2014

It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some June books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Once again, we have a broad spectrum of titles, featuring science fiction, space opera, grimdark fantasy, Steampunk, dystopian fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, urban fantasy, Asian based fantasy, fairytale retellings, the ever popular vampires, the ever popular zombies, the not quite so popular selkies, dinosaurs, gladiators, superpowers, soul thieves, funeral gatecrashers, the afterlife and much more. We even have a non-fiction essay collection

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

The Heretic by Lucas Bale

Earth is gone.

Centuries have passed since the First Cataclysm ended life on the blue planet. Humanity’s survivors are now dispersed among distant colonies, thousands of light years from the barren, frozen rock that was once their home.

A new Republic has formed – one in which freedom no longer exists. In return for the protection of the Consulate Magistratus, citizens must concede their rights. The Magistratus controls interstellar travel, access to technology – even procreation. Organised religion is forbidden. All crime is punished by banishment or a lifetime of penal servitude on the Kolyma prison fleet.

And humanity’s true history survives only in whispers of a secret archive.

Yet there are those who preach a new religion and who want to be free.

A revolution is coming…

Wrathlight by Christopher Barrieu

The Bathel: A race of psychopaths and murderers, consuming worlds and cultures with terrible sadistic joy. They have conquered every race they have found.

Now they have found mankind.

Scott Shaw, soldier, widower, and father, is the best warrior humanity has. He is trained in the alien combat of humanity’s new universe. But compared to the Bathel, he is a mere novice.

The Bathel demand a ritual combat: should Scott win, the Bathel will leave the small colony of mankind alone. Should he lose, everything and everyone he knows will suffer beyond the imaginations of humanity.

But no one has ever won, and Scott knows he heads to certain death on a foreign world.

Yet the natives speak of Wrathlight, the ultimate power, the power of judgement, wielded by powerful spirits with sky-blue eyes. An old myth, but can a mere man perhaps embody such a thing? Can he strike back for all the suffering races and save his own?

Scott is about to find out.

Steel and Song by Ani Bolton

Airwitch Tova Vanaskaya’s choices are few: use her magic to fly an elite aircraft in the Grand Duchy’s army or be shipped to the trenches. But invoking too much magic can kill the wielder, and her Cossack captain has a hell-bent-for-leather streak that pushes her to the brink. It’s a good thing she’s not afraid to push back.

Airship captain Piers Dashkov lost his friends, family ties and self-respect in a rash act years ago, so it’s fine by him if the odds of surviving a dogfight are slim to none. His goal is simple: find redemption through valor and regain his lost honor in death if not life. He needs the smart-mouthed airwitch to achieve that impossible goal, but he never thought she would prove to be his salvation.

While the enemy is on the move, and whispers of revolution echo from the salons of the noble Cossack Houses to the tenement slums of Muscovy, one reckless night of passion creates a connection that will reverberate fatally for nations as well as for Tova and Piers.

Degenerated by S. Elliot Brandis

Humanity is divided.

In the tunnels, beneath the city…

Flynn was imprisoned at birth, spurned by society because of his differences. By age thirteen he was ready to die. By all accounts he should have.

Now he lives amongst those who’d wish him dead, struggling to understand the affliction that saved his life. Life in the tunnels is dark and twisted. He must find a way to make things right.

On the surface, in a sun-scorched wasteland…

Pearl lives in a camp of survivors, learning to adapt to the hostile climate. The mood has begun to darken. Bad habits and dangerous ideas are infiltrating her people.

When the camp decides to attack the tunnels, she faces a choice: will she do as she’s told and stay safe, or risk her life to save a society of people she doesn’t understand.

DEGENERATED is the second novel in The Tunnel Trilogy, following Irradiated.

Zombie Town by Griffin Carmichael

From city to suburbia, zombies are all the rage as they rampage on their quest for sustenance, taking down strangers, friends and neighbors alike, without pity or remorse.

Here are nine short stories about the times when the dead walk and the living fear.

MY BIG FAT ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: What better place to be when the dead rise than the local fitness center.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT CAROL: Suburban life can be deadly dull. Or maybe just deadly.

FIGGY PUDDING: Holidays are known for feasting and jubilation, but one restaurant manager comes to regret keeping the doors open one Christmas eve.

NEITHER RAIN NOR: Public servants are said to be a dedicated lot, but carrying on with business as usual after the zombie apocalypse is taking it a bit too far.

SILENT: Little children look forward to a visit from Santa with great anticipation, but there’s nothing good coming down the chimney this year.

DARKNESS FALLS: Even a sturdy fallout shelter isn’t any protection when the super flu everybody’s been predicting lays waste to the world.

FLASHLIGHT: All she wanted was a flashlight so she could see what all the ruckus outside was about. Sometimes it’s better to remain in the dark.

IN THE MEADOW: Winter has come to a small Nebraskan town, bringing huge snowfalls. But nobody is in the mood to build a snowman.

RITUALS FOR THE LIVING: Long after the dead have risen, the survivors learn to cope with new ways of living and dying.

Selkie by Claire Chilton

She just lost her heart to the ocean…

Ex-hacker, Cassie Easton, has just made out with her boss—mistake #1. And he’s just told her he’s engaged—mistake #2. She thinks her heart might have just been shredded for good.

The idea of going back to work with him after that is humiliating enough, but things just keep getting worse. Sean’s not acting like the man she knows and loves. She barely recognizes him anymore. Something fishy is going on, and Cassie reverts to her criminal ways to find out why sexy Sean O’Callaghan is dating an old trout and running scared.

When it turns out to be the mystic forces of the ocean that’s screwing up her love life, she wonders if she’s finally lost her mind. If she can just survive a wasted wizard, a jealous sea witch and Selkie lore, maybe she’ll get to fall in love, assuming she doesn’t get arrested first.

Selkie is the first book in The Celtic Witches series.

Hidden Intentions by Stacy Claflin

Fun-loving Clara is keeping a dark and deadly secret from William, the love of her life.

Not because she wants to hide things from him, but because her story is so unbelievable he will probably think she’s crazy.

If she tells him, she could lose him. If she doesn’t tell him, she will.

This is a standalone novel loosely connected to The Transformed series. And yes, it’s speculative fiction.

Hunted by A.J. Colby

Vampires, werewolves, and serial killers, OH MY!

Eight years after the attack that changed her life forever, Riley Cray is confronted with something she never thought she’d have to face again: Samson Reed, the werewolf who nearly killed her, has escaped from prison. With the help of Special Agent Darius Holbrook, Riley is racing against time to stay one step ahead of the crazed werewolf. But Reed isn’t the only monster with his eyes on Riley and as the bodies are piling up she’s beginning to wonder how long it will be before she’s one of them.

Fight or Flight by Chele Cooke

A single secret might change a war, but a lie can destroy those fighting it.

Georgianna Lennox’s biggest fear has become reality: she has been sold as a slave. Caught in the middle of the brewing war between the Adveni oppressors and Belsa rebels, she is recruited to be the rebels’ eyes behind enemy lines.

As the Belsa make bolder attacks against the cruel Adveni, Georgianna finds that the lies she is tasked to tell her owner are nothing compared to the secrets she must keep from her friends – secrets that could change the war in their favour, and lies that might destroy them all.

Part 2 in the Out of Orbit series, following Dead and Buryd, which is free right now.

The Girl Who Believed in Fairy Tales by Heidi Garrett

Heidi Garrett has written a lyrical collection of short stories woven with the threads of three very poignant fairy tales that pull this literary tapestry together to create a shimmering picture of love and acceptance.

THE GIRL WHO WATCHED FOR ELVES desperately needs to find her elf–it’s her only hope for happiness and, ultimately, survival.

THE GIRL WHO DREAMED OF RED SHOES is slowly dying inside until she learns that nothing is right until it’s the right fit–and in vivid, living color.

Lastly, THE GIRL WHO COULDN’T SING has to step out into her dream or she’s going to die with her song hidden inside her heart.

Anyone who misses these tales, will miss the experience–no, transformation of a lifetime. It’s time for everyone to get their real on!

The Wish by Judy Goodwin

Jodi is in love. The problem is that she’s in love with her best friend, Tanya. And her best friend is in love with Roger. Even worse, they’re getting married. As her friend prepares for a big wedding combining her Japanese and American traditions, Jodi finds herself praying to a long lost Japanese goddess for help.

When the goddess answers, Jodi is faced with a terrible choice. She can either have passion and heartache, or she can have friendship and loneliness.

Wishes always come with strings attached.

Bonus short story: Reflections of Chi

Geneva Lin runs a respectable interior decorating business. Her orderly world turns to chaos when a woman barges in, insisting that her house is rearranging itself. Geneva only hopes a little Feng Shui will solve the problem.

The question is, what do you do with a house that may want to kill you?

Warbound: The Shield Maiden by C.P.D. Harris

A LOST CONTINENT. A LEGION IN PERIL. THE FATE OF TWO EMPIRES.

In the Domains of the Chosen magic is power.

The Grand Championships are over. Two Gladiators have joined the ranks of the immortal rulers of the Domains. As Gavin and Sadira learn their way as Chosen, their friend, Vintia sets sail with an expedition that will reshape the future of the empire. Chosen Brightloch has found the way to Ithal’duin, a continent lost since The Reckoning. New allies, and new dangers await. Fortunes will be made and the balance of power will shift. It is up to Vintia and the Ninth Legion to safeguard this expedition. Yet, while the Legions faces strange foes, the politics of the Chosen might present an even greater danger.

This is the third book in the Domains of the Chosen series, following Bloodlust: A Gladiator’s Tale and Bloodlust: Will to Power.

The Abnorms by Gregory Hoffman

The world thinks they are useless.

Society thinks they are freaks.

They are Abnorms.

People born with special powers that set them apart from normal humans. Abnorms with useful or dangerous powers are snatched up by the government and never seen again, those with powers deemed useless are set free, back into a population that hates and shuns them. This is a story about a group of so-called useless Abnorms but these teens must do their best to make their useless powers useful as they try to rescue one of their own from the clutches of the government, and maybe fall in love along the way.

Heir’s Revenge by Patty Jansen

If Miran had princesses, Ellisandra Takumar would be one. Smart, pretty, engaged to a high-profile man, everything a high-class Mirani woman should be. But things are not well in Miran. Many years of boycotts have taken their toll on society, and the regime becomes more desperate to keep its citizens under control. Revolt is brewing. As director of the state theatre, Ellisandra has been asked to stage a violent traditional play which stands stiff with threatening political messages for the populace. She hates it, but speaking out would risk that she’d be cast out from the only world she’s ever known.

Next to her house is the burnt ruin of the house of another high-class family, the Andrahar family. They fled Miran for political reasons when Ellisandra was a little girl and the house has lain untouched ever since. One night, she spots a mysterious young man walking around the yard, putting out pegs and pieces of string. He’s re-building the house. That makes no sense, because the family is no longer welcome in Miran, and who is he anyway?

She is curious and investigates. He seems too good-natured and naïve for his own good, so rather than telling her brothers, she tries to shield him from her own society. And so starts the slide that leads to her being cast out from the only life she’s ever known.

This is the final book in the Return of the Aghyrians series, following Watcher’s Web, Trader’s Honour and Soldier’s Duty.

Mission: Flight to Mars by V.A. Jeffrey

Bob Astor is a Quality Assurance agent working at Vartan Inc. Lately his days have been stressful, to say the least. Butting heads with upper management has put his career on life support. A surprising change in circumstance has Bob going on a business mission to the moon city, Langrenus. On the way, he meets one of the delegates on board the Starbird, a desperate man with a dark past and a very dangerous secret. Through a mysterious series of events Bob finds himself in the middle of an interplanetary crises that no one knows about. These secrets could change – or destroy – all human life on Earth. The key to the answer of the crises is on the Red Planet, Mars. It’s up to Bob, the burnt-out Q. A. agent to rise to the occasion and stem the dangerous tide coming from beyond the solar system.

The Dinosaur Four by Geoff Jones

They came for the coffee and wound up in the Cretaceous.

A ticking sound fills the air as Tim MacGregor enters The Daily Edition Café, hoping to meet his new girlfriend for coffee. Moments later, the café is transported 67 million years back in time, along with everyone inside.

As Tim and the others try to find out what caused the disaster and how to get home, one survivor plots to keep the group trapped in the past, in a world filled with prehistoric monsters.

Dark Legion by Paul Kleynhans

Once a Prince, now a slave. Once a torturer, now a liberator. But still his transformation is nowhere near complete…

Saul Baz Sharmoun has been holding onto something lost to many of his fellow slaves: hope and a desire for justice. A fire was set ablaze within him, growing brighter with each of the twelve years since the Emperor slaughtered his family, and he knows the time to escape his shackles – and to free his people – is now. With his hunger for retribution fueling him, Saul begins an epic journey, searching for his brother and looking to rebuild a world that would allow the crown in his family’s name to rise from the ashes.

But the road to justice is never a straight one. Saul and the uncertain allies fighting alongside him find themselves up against a much greater enemy than they could have imagined. If he is to emerge victorious, he must fan the flames in his heart, and never allow himself to forget that he will stop at nothing to see this done…no matter how much blood must be spilled along the way.

She Who Fights Monsters by Kyoko M.

Jordan Amador. 23. New Yorker. Waitress. Investigator for souls with unfinished business, also known as a Seer. Michael O’Brien. 25. New Yorker. Lead guitarist. Commander of Heaven’s Army. The dynamic supernatural duo is in the middle of trying to solve a deadly case. Someone is methodically hunting down and murdering Seers one by one. After six months with no leads on the killer, Jordan and Michael are forced to work with their worst enemy—the archdemon Belial: a self-professed Prince of Hell who is dead set on stealing Jordan for himself. However, with the archdemon’s help, they pick up on the trail of the serial killer and plan to stop him no matter what the cost. When the shocking truth behind the murderer’s identity is revealed, Jordan begins asking herself if she is still fighting for the good guys or has she become one of the monsters she is desperately trying to stop?

This is the third part in a series, following The Black Parade and The Deadly Seven.

Masque of Shadow by T.A. Miles

Heartbroken over the premature death of her young sister, Estelle conceives a dark plan to recover Lunette’s innocent soul from the thief she witnessed taking it. The price is higher than she anticipated, reaching far beyond the loss of her own innocence when she enters voluntarily into the realm of the Lord of Shadows, into a theater of madness constructed by the souls of the dead.

This is a short story. Contains violence, mild gore, sexuality, and thematic elements

 

A Brief History of the Future – Collected Essays by Sunny Moraine

As an author, scholar, and essayist, Sunny Moraine has mused on a variety of things in a variety of ways. In this collection, spanning over two years of work, they make their way through thoughts on the form and business of writing, the nature and meaning of games, the interweaving of society and technology, and the anxieties, awkwardnesses, and hopes of the everyday.

Gently humorous, self-deprecating, and occasionally painfully honest, these essays offer a journey through a process of body, heart, and mind, and hints of what waits beyond.

The Commons: Book 1: The Journeyman by Michael Alan Peck

“Paul Reid died in the snow at seventeen. The day of his death, he told a lie—and for the rest of his life, he wondered if that was what killed him.”

And so begins the battle for the afterlife, known as The Commons. It’s been taken over by a corporate raider who uses the energy of its souls to maintain his brutal control. The result is an imaginary landscape of a broken America—stuck in time and overrun by the heroes, monsters, dreams, and nightmares of the imprisoned dead.

Three people board a bus to nowhere: a New York street kid, an Iraq War veteran, and her five-year-old special-needs son. After a horrific accident, they are the last, best hope for The Commons to free itself. Along for the ride are a shotgun-toting goth girl, a six-foot-six mummy, a mute Shaolin monk with anger-management issues, and the only guide left to lead them.

Three Journeys: separate but joined. One mission: to save forever.

But first they have to save themselves.

Strangers at a Funeral by Phronk

Brandon notices them at his grandpa’s funeral first: a pair of men in sunglasses who nobody seems to know. They’re not family, they’re not friends, they’re just … there. No big deal, until they show up again at the next funeral. Drawn into a world of funeral selfies and burial crashers, Brandon needs to know what these strangers want from the dead.

Only problem is, nobody gives a crap except him, and his school frowns upon skipping classes to watch people get buried. His sanity can’t take many more funerals, and those bulges under the strangers’ coats probably aren’t concealing anything pleasant.

Strangers at a Funeral is a 5500 word (22 page) short story.

Cedar by Daniel Wallock

Far in the future, night never ends.

Cedar, a young man, wakes up with a mysterious electric kit embedded in his chest.

Doctors force Cedar to Mortem– a place where Citizens embrace stinging lights of an electronic city, never sleep, and depend on liquid called Lixir to keep them happy.

Cedar, who has little memory, feels strange– he senses there is something more to life than drinking hallucinogenic Lixir and working a tedious job.

Cedar’s dreams begin to uncover what used to be. He remembers more and more about the past and he realizes that there may be life beyond Mortem.

As Cedar shares his memories and begins to ask more questions, he becomes the target of the government.

Cedar is faced with either conforming to Mortem’s culture or trying to escape with his life.

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