Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 24

Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for May 2022

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 and small press authors newly published this month, though some April 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 new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have urban fantasy, epic fantasy, dark fantasy, sword and sorcery, fantasy romance, paranormal romance, paranormal mystery, science fiction romance, space opera, military science fiction, near future science fiction, dystopian fiction, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, horror, magical realism, LitRPG, wizards, dragons, immortals, assassins, exorcists, first contact, alien abductions, super soldiers, space marines, stargates, crime-busting witches, crime-busting ghosts, pirates of the sea, the air and space and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.

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:

Wizard’s Tower by Gregory Allanther:

The humans call me Nemon Fargus. They call me wizard, and [Elementalist] and [Enchanter]. They call me teacher. They call me adventurer.

But I don’t care. Not anymore.

For more than 150 years I’ve served the Kingdom of Sena. Through four Kings and a Queen. Two wars and a rebellion. I’ve founded and taught at a magic school. I’ve fought against beast waves and dungeon breaks.

But now? Now, the one close friend I had left has passed. So, I’m done with their politics and their economics. The short and busy lives of humans are more burden than benefit on the weary soul of this half-elf.

Now, I’m looking for a refuge, a place that can well and truly be my own. Away from the growing cities and the bustling markets, away from the pointless wars, away from the eager students and the arrogant adventurers.

I’m seeking the peaceful life of a wizard in his tower, studying magic to advance my spellcraft…We’ll see if that happens.

Experience the start of a LitRPG Series from Gregory Allanther, the bestselling author of An Old Man’s Journey. With millions of views previously on Royal Road, this hit web serial is new and improved on Kindle & Audible.

Adrift in Starlight by Mindi Briar:

When set adrift in the universe, some things are worth holding onto.

Titan Valentino has been offered a job they can’t refuse.

Tai, a gender-neutral courtesan, receives a scandalous proposition: seduce an actor’s virgin fiancée. The money is enough to pay off Tai’s crushing medical debt, a tantalizing prospect.

Too bad Aisha Malik isn’t the easy target they expect.

A standoffish historian who hates to be touched, she’s laser-focused on her career, and completely unaware that her marriage has been arranged behind her back. This could be the one instance where Tai’s charm and charisma fail them.

Then an accidental heist throws them together as partners in crime.

Fleeing from the Authorities, they’re dragged into one adventure after another: alien planets, pirate duels, and narrow escapes from the law. As Tai and Aisha open up to each other, deeper feelings kindle between them. But that reward money still hangs over Tai’s head. Telling Aisha the truth could ruin everything…

Their freedom, their career, and their blossoming love all hang in the balance. To save one might mean sacrificing the rest.

Sky on Fire by Lindsay Buroker:

The dragons of eld, once benevolent allies to mankind, have been infested by a magical parasite that makes them cruel and aggressive. They’ve flown through the ancient portal to invade Torvil and plan to kill or enslave all of humanity.

If Jak and his allies can’t figure out how to destroy the parasite, a parasite the powerful dragons themselves were helpless to thwart, everyone they care about—everyone in the world—will be doomed.

Panecea Genesis by L. Ana Ellis:

Mariela Stafford’s life just hit rock bottom. Her boss, the CEO of Panacea Corp, created a digital clone of himself, demoted Mariela, gave the clone her job, and told Mariela to train it. Now the clone wants her to help it kill the CEO.

In 2115, embedded chips, virtual reality, and the threat of extreme weather have led to a market for businesses that keep a person’s body alive in a habitation pod while the person lives entirely in the metaverse. But not everyone embraces technological advances– a group of people have adopted the tech of 2005 while isolating themselves from the temptation of advanced technology. Panacea Corp – the world’s most powerful corporation – connects both worlds through providing the metaverse, the pod warehouses, and the land to the technology resisters.

Mariela Stafford, a vice president for Panacea Corp, is demoted after her new boss assigns his digital clone to take over her job. Assisted by Amoco, an eccentric polymath who also works for the corporation, she schemes a way to get rid of the clone. To delete it, they’ll need to recruit a team to access an eighty-year-old server farm in a remote location—which would be a lot easier to do if the records on the location of the server farm hadn’t been lost.

This ‘earth’ opera—a tale with all the drama, expansiveness, and varied cast of a space opera, but set on earth—will appeal to anyone who’s ever felt out-of-control of the technology in their lives.

Inquisitor’s Bane by Rachel Ford:

The Inquisitor is dead. But Black Port’s problems are only just beginning.

Knight Protector Portia Daysen returns to the South, she’s a new woman, with new secrets. She means to continue the work of Black Wyvern, the secret order intent on rescuing elves and dragons from captivity and death.

Meanwhile, Captain Valia Iceborn struggles with her growing feelings for Portia – and how they may be impacting her judgement. Should she stay in Black Port, and risk detection? Or should she go to ground now, before the king’s men – and a new inquisitor – show up?

When the pair learn of the kidnapping of a rare black wyvern hatchling, a hatchling who can communicate with mortals and immortals alike, they realize his rescue must be priority number one.

But if there’s one thing the nations of North and South can agree upon, it’s the danger to their own power that such a wyvern poses. To rescue the missing hatchling, the two women will need to contend with more than inquisitors.

They’ll need to outwit and outrun the forces of two nations, hellbent on stopping them by any means necessary.

Ghostly Shadows by Lily Harper Hart:

Harper Harlow has it all, including a new business, a husband she adores, and a best friend she’s determined not to murder even though he’s determined to be the groomzilla to end all groomzillas. Life is good … until it’s not.

Everything is thrown into doubt when her former boyfriend, a grifter on trial for murder, escapes from the county courthouse and starts terrorizing Whisper Cove.

Her husband Jared Monroe is on edge. Quinn Jackson has proven himself to be a threat more than once, and it’s clear Quinn is gunning for Harper because he blames her for being caught in the first place. That means Zander and Shawn – who are in the midst of preparing for their wedding – have to move in so everybody is safe.

It’s a full house and the stakes are high. A dead courthouse guard is their only guide, and he’s not enough.

Harper is determined to get her happily ever after, as well as Zander’s too. That means they have to grapple with Quinn before the big day arrives.

Murder is on the menu and Quinn has nothing to lose. It’s a race to the finish – and down the aisle – and winner takes all.

Strap in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Alondra by A.L. Hawke:

I fell in love with a goth, but she’s a witch.

Starting school at Hawthorne University was not going well, until I met my classmate Alondra. Allie was different. She was goth. But she was also mysterious, confident and fun. I was into that. My name’s Liam. My friends call me Lee.

Things got weird after I accompanied her to her haunts. Poltergeists and demons attacked little girls. I watched Alondra help exorcise these ghosts, but some of their evil stuck to me.

Well, being attracted to a witch was one thing; dating one was quite another. It seemed the closer I got to Allie, the more her witchcraft endangered my friends. And my soul. You decide. I chronicled everything here in her book.

Alondra is a prequel to the internationally bestselling Hawthorne University Witch series. The novel takes place twenty years before Broomstick.

Content warning: Alondra is a new adult college paranormal romance containing profanity, sexual scenes, adult situations, and, of course, witchcraft.

Ambassador: The Unfolding Army by Patty Jansen:

For three months, Cory and his team have hung with Asto’s military in orbit, watching as drone armies attacked Earth.

They could have helped more had Nations of Earth communicated with the fleet or if they could only find out where these drones come from, who controls them and from where. The enemy is smart, enmeshed with sections of Earth’s population and Asto’s military severely hamstrung by Nations of Earth playing chicken.

Three months ago, the president contacted Cory asking for help. The connection was interrupted and never re-established.

It’s as if they don’t want help.

Cory’s got gamra breathing down his neck with the requirement that Nations of Earth officially approves the presence of Asto’s military in orbit.

Something has to give.

He and his team return to a battle-scarred Earth on a hare-brained mission to talk to Nations of Earth, to check on the president, to get him to sign for approval. Getting there is hard. The state of the Nations of Earth assembly is deeply troubling. But getting out, that’s where it gets truly interesting.

The Obanaax and Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors by Kirk A. Johnson:

“The Obanaax” is a collection of two novelettes and two short stories that take the reader on a journey to the world of Aaduna on the great northern continent of Mbor. This novel’s imaginative sword and sorcery world, influenced by several West African languages, sets this book apart from other stories explored in this genre. These narrative elements, naming conventions, and heart-pounding prose makes “The Obanaax” an adventure that will ignite a passion for exploring this undreamed-of new world far beyond the last page has turned. These tales from far afield will introduce to you the adventurous daring-do of those unaccustomed to the monstrous chaos of the unnatural and, at times, its alien desires. An epic for those willing to brave far and away from the world we know.

Dark Factory by Kathe Koja:

Welcome to Dark Factory! You may experience strobe effects, Y reality, DJ beats, love, sex, betrayal, triple shot espresso, broken bones, broken dreams, ecstasy, self-knowledge, and the void.Dark Factory is a dance club: three floors of DJs, drinks, and customizable reality, everything you see and hear and feel. Ari Regon is the club’s wild card floor manager, Max Caspar is a stubborn DIY artist, both chasing a vision of true reality. And rogue journalist Marfa Carpenter is there to write it all down. Then a rooftop rave sets in motion a fathomless energy that may drive Ari and Max to the edge of the ultimate experience.Dark Factory is Kathe Koja’s wholly original new novel from Meerkat Press, that combines her award-winning writing and her skill directing immersive events, to create a story that unfolds on the page, online, and in the reader’s creative mind. www.Darkfactory.club

Sun & Dream by J. Steven Lamperti:

Anise has power in her dreams – too much power.

When your dreams can change the world, you need to learn to control them.

Anise’s uncle Sebastian takes her to the Academy, the school where the wizards of Liamec learn to use their powers.

But the people in Anise’s small village are not the only ones who notice the young girl’s abilities. Who is the Watcher, the malevolent presence Anise feels in her dreams, and why is Helios, the sun-god, protecting her?

While Anise studies the ways of the wizards, a dark secret that hangs over the founding of the Academy threatens to unravel reality and destroy the land of Liamec.

Death’s Touch by Erme Lander:

Centuries ago Tomas made a promise and has kept it out of cowardice. He has lived under the radar for all this time, hiding from the authorities where he can. Recipient of a terrible gift, his belief that he is the only one like himself is about to be exploded. The gods’ favoured are corrupt, power hungry and know how to find him.

 

 

 

Friday the Witchteenth by Amanda M. Lee:

Bay Winchester is newly married and happy. Things have been quiet since she returned from her honeymoon, which means trouble is just around the corner. When it comes, it takes the form of a despondent man on a bridge. Despite her best efforts, Bay and the hostage negotiator can’t save him, and death is swift.

That should’ve been the end of it, but a weird symbol on the dead man’s hand piques Bay’s interest, and when the negotiator turns up sick with the same symptoms, she knows that they have a problem on their hands.

Suicide as a contagion? It’s not the fight Bay was expecting, and it’s definitely not the one she was looking for. Still, it’s the problem that keeps on giving … especially when it spreads to Mrs. Little.

In her heart, Bay knows that she shouldn’t care about the woman who has hurt her family at every turn. Ignoring the problem isn’t an option though. If she stands back and does nothing in an attempt to end the chain, she’ll never be able to live with herself. If she gets too close, she could get infected herself.

Bay has never doubted her magic, but the current fight is out of her wheelhouse. Magic is at the core of what’s happening, but their enemy is invisible.

The Winchester witches have never met an enemy they can’t fight … until now. Will they be able to pull together and save Hemlock Cove? Or is the town doomed to fall to a curse without a name and an evil without a soul?

Strap in, because the answer is more than anybody is expecting, and if everybody is to survive, the fight will have to move to an entirely new level.

The game is on. In this one, the winner will take all.

Fire by L.C. Mawson:

It only takes one night for the world to turn on its head…

Finishing my second degree was supposed to be a quiet time of wrapping up my academic work and maybe making a friend or two before everyone left town. That was before the monsters started attacking.

I’ve always ignored the strange occurrences that tend to happen around me, but now these creatures are hunting me, everything I touch is erupting into flame, and all I’ve got to help is a guy I barely know, his reclusive sister, an invitation to train with a secretive magical faction, and a strange necklace that apparently belongs to the magical world’s most wanted…

I’m not used to trusting anyone, but as monsters close in, I don’t think I have a choice.

Iron Paws and the Tinker’s Forged Marriage by Juli D. Revezzo:

A year ago, Vesta Bartlett received a rather unusual assignment.

Now, as if perfecting her clockwork puppies for Queen Victoria weren’t enough, a surprise invitation to present them to the Texas Republic president makes Vesta question a number of things, including will the president accept the clockwork from a woman? Unsure, she agrees to allow Henry to go along, as her spokesman and husband, regardless of how her father may feel about a fake marriage.

But they have bigger problems than her father’s anger when an anti-alchemist group takes issue with her clockwork creations and decide they need to stop Vesta’s work. By any means, no matter how violent.

Speed of Dark by Patricia Ricketts:

Mary Em Phillips has decided to end it all after losing her beloved Mamie, who raised her; her husband, Jack, who has left her for another woman; and her only son, Petey, who has died as a result of a freak bacterial infection. But when Mosely Albright, a black man from Chicago’s South Side, comes to her back door one morning needing a drink of water and seeking directions back to the train, her plans are derailed . . . to the chagrin of Mishigami (so named by the Ojibwe, also known as Lake Michigan), who has been trying to lure Mary Em into his icy depths in the hopes that she will save him.

Mary Em wants nothing more than to end her anguish. Mosely is searching for the love he’s been missing most of his life. And Mishigami—who fears he is dying from rampant pollution and overfishing—seeks a champion.

A story of friendship, survival, connection and the unquestioning power of nature told through three distinct voices, Speed of Dark affirms a love of humanity that transcends all else, including race and background.

The Exorcist’s House by Nick Roberts:

This psychological thriller follows a family to their Appalachian farmhouse, where they encounter an unimaginable horror.

In the summer of 1994, psychologist Daniel Hill buys a rustic farmhouse nestled in the rolling hills of West Virginia.

Along with his wife and teenage daughter, the family uproots their lives in Ohio and moves south. They are initially seduced by the natural beauty of the country setting. That soon changes when they discover a hidden room in the basement with a well, boarded shut and adorned with crucifixes.

Local legends about the previous owner being an exorcist come to light, but by then, all Hell has broken loose.

This 1990s horror novel is perfect for fans of family thriller books, stories of demonic possession, exorcism fiction, the occult, or thrillers like The Exorcist, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Amityville Horror.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Huntress by Glynn Stewart:

A peaceful world in the crosshairs
A rising threat armed by an old foe
A call to arms she can’t ignore…

Admiral Kira Demirci lost the coin toss with her second-in-command and was supposed to be taking a holiday. That meant waiting in the Redward System while Memorial Force’s new carrier Huntress was commissioned and turned over to the mercenary space fleet.

But when a stranger arrives looking to hire Memorial Force to protect her homeworld, Kira finds money, boredom and altruism combining to bring her into action. The majority of her fleet is elsewhere, but she has two heavy warships, including Huntress. More than enough to protect the pacifist system of Samuels from their neighbors.

Those neighbors were armed by Kira’s old foes in the Brisingr System, and she smells the hand of the Equilibrium Institute behind the scheme. A chance to protect the innocent and frustrate two old foes at once is hard to turn down—and even if things go wrong, the rest of her fleet is on their way.

She’s planned for everything. Hasn’t she?

City in the Sky by Glynn Stewart:

“Killing a man isn’t an easy thing to live with, no matter the cause.”

Erik Tarverro is a skilled blacksmith, a better swordsman—and hated for his mixed aeradi parentage. Denied mastery of his craft in the human city he grew up in, he accepts a risky contract from a dangerous stranger.

With new enemies at his heels, he leaps at the chance to join his father’s people in the sky city of Newport. Despite his human blood, he finds his place among the aeradi: heir to an ancient noble family.

His duty leads him to sailing the skies and learning what it means to lead soldiers. But Erik’s enemies will have blood, and the peace between his people and the Draconan dragon riders is like a powder keg. All it would take is one spark—and dragons will fly on his newfound city in the sky.

Reclamation Mind Jack by E.L. Strife:

Marci, a super soldier and escapee of the Astral’s bio-enhancement military program Zedger, has found a new purpose in rescuing others like her. But she can’t do it alone, and not without parts. Marci must travel to the last standing city of Tellurians in the irradiated expanse of Zion. There, in EsoTerra, she must fight for her right to trade with others for what she requires.

She tries to hide her identity, mask her skills, play down her expertise, but too many have heard rumors of her. Marci can’t hide from the truth forever.

Soon, she finds herself helping other soldiers dumped from Zedger. Recent “disposals” have lost their minds to the Genesis program Astrals use to control their creations. Marci must deep dive the soldiers’ cerebral enhancements to figure out why and salvage everyone she can.

What she discovers when searching Genesis streams alerts Astrals to her position. Lead rain soon falls from the sky in the form of BloodTitans.

Can Marci save the soldiers and her people? Or is this the Tellurians’ last stand?

With Slight Tremors by Ed Teja:

It’s time to take a break from the world you think you know and to step through into another one. These five stories offer a guided tour of new possibilities and different places. They rely on magic, science, and sleight of hand, and will betray your trust at every opportunity. But just because they are fantastic, doesn’t mean they aren’t real (somewhere).

You can stay tucked away on a safe perch and let this book unveil the genre-bending consequences of rather minor changes to a world that might be the one you live in, or might not; you can follow the way events unravel when cause and effect aren’t quite so boringly predictable.

Stories of ideas are, however, always dangerous. Consider yourself warned.

Martian Jump Gate by James David Victor:

Humanity has opened a door that allows for instantaneous travel through the stars. What they find on the other side might mean the end of all mankind.

The invention of jump-gates has allowed instantaneous travel throughout the solar system, and beyond. Captain Shoji Mora will lead the first expedition through the jump-gate to Mars in a gigantic space robot known as Tin Man. Their mission soon turns from mining and exploration to defending humanity from an alien invasion. Can the giant space robot defend mankind from certain destruction at the hands of a superior alien armada?

Mars Jump Gate is the first book in the Tin Man Space Opera Adventure. If you like fast-paced sci-fi adventures, make Tin Man your next epic space adventure.

The Orion Abduction by Dylan White:

He’s either the key to our evolution or our destruction. And they’re coming for him.

For most of his fifteen years, Joshua Fox believed he was being abducted by aliens.

Just searching for normalcy in his small Kansas town, he discovers he’s unwittingly been involved in something much bigger and everything he thought he knew is now in question.

All Josh really knows is he must find out the truth before it’s too late—not just to save himself and his friends, but the entire world.

Grayshade by Gregory A. Wilson:

For ten years, the assassin Grayshade has eliminated threats to the Order of Argoth, the Just God. Within the towering walls of Cohrelle, all bow to the Order’s authority, even while the city officials publicly distance themselves from its actions.

As the supreme executor of the Order’s edicts, Grayshade dispatches his targets with protocol and precision. But when an assignment breaks these rules, he does the most dangerous thing an Acolyte of Argoth can do: he asks why. Now a target of the Order he so long served without question, he must use all of his skills not only to kill . . . but to stay alive.

Grayshade is a novel of violent faith and shifting loyalties, a story about whether we can rise above our pasts to craft new futures.

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for May 2022

Welcome to the latest edition of “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of crime fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some April 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.

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, animal mysteries, historical mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, psychological thrillers, action thrillers, adventure thrillers, horror thrillers, police procedurals, detective novels, police officers, ex-cops, private investigators, amateur sleuths, thieves, con artists, serial killers, organised crime, drug dealing, human trafficking, heists, sleazy megachurch ministers, crime-busting witches, crime-busting socialites, crime-busting ghosts, crime-busting dogs, deadly writer retreats, murder and mayhem in London, Rutland, the Pacific Northwest, Florida, Texas, Kansas, Calgary and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Crime Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Indie Crime Scene, a group blog which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things crime fiction several times per week.

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:

Murder Over the Cold Grave by Blythe Baker:

When a serial killer draws Lillian Crawford into a deadly game, she and Eugene Osbourn must team up one final time to thwart their mysterious foe. But will they stop the murderer’s twisted game in time to prevent one more death?

 

 

 

Iconoclast by Laurie Buchanan:

Burdened by the pressing weight of survivor’s guilt, Sean McPherson, an ex-cop, is desperate for redemption. At Pines & Quill, a writer’s retreat in the Pacific Northwest, he and his fiancée, Emma Benton, are planning their lives together. He wants to go back into law enforcement. She plans to walk again.

Georgio “The Bull” Gambino, head of a Seattle-based crime family, has a long reach. Like cockroaches, his minions infiltrate even the most inaccessible of places to do his bidding. With Seattle to the south, the Canadian border a stone’s throw to the north, and Bellingham Bay—a gateway to the Pacific Ocean—immediately to the west, Bellingham is the ideal location for the Gambino crime family to traffic drugs, weapons, and humans. But McPherson’s in Gambino’s way, which means he must be eliminated.

The writers in residence at Pines & Quill include an Afghanistan War veteran, a professional photographer, a civil rights attorney, and a gourmet chef. But McPherson suspects that there’s more going on than the joy of creating plot twists. Is one of them conspiring murder outside the pages of their manuscript?

Murder With Daffodils by Beth Byers:

Vi and friends have traveled to a nearby village to see the flowers. These aren’t just any spring bulbs. They are fields of flowers planted as a living love poem. People who know of their existence travel from miles around to witness the beauty.

If only they could be surprised when they discover a mystery along with the blossoms. Vi and friends are also not surprised when, once again, they can’t leave things alone. This time they’re intrigued by the very person the flowers were planted for, and the one who planted them.

As the case progresses, they wonder if it’s a romance or a horror story. Violet uncovers clues and chases down secrets, delving into the darkness amidst the beauty. Only as they draw closer to the killer, they discover that maybe they don’t want to know what happened after all.

The Megachurch Heist by L.W. Cadle:

1.4 million in stolen cash. It should be a simple heist to steal from a thief. What could go wrong?

Darla Doyle could have retired with the money she made from her last heist. But her partner in crime, Flynn, comes to her with an offer she can’t refuse.

Andrew Curtis, a sleazy megachurch minister, has stolen 1.4 million in donations and hid the cash, and Flynn knows exactly where. Darla has a personal grudge to settle with religious scammers, so she signs on.

But when they get to the Kansas church, posing as a preaching couple wanting business advice, Darla finds it nearly impossible to keep up the persona they’ve created for her. She’s no actress, she’s a getaway driver! And worse, the megachurch’s head of security, Silas Flecke, is far sharper an operator than she expected to encounter.

Flecke is a pro at securing the church against crime. Darla and Flynn are pros at stealing. Who will come out on top when they break into the church at night to retrieve the stolen cash?

Watch Your Back by Stacy Claflin:

Even perfect neighborhoods have deadly secrets.

Ariana and Damon moved to the gated neighborhood of Rosy Hills to leave behind their traumatic pasts. Now they have their dream jobs and are part of a tight group of friends. All of that crumbles when their neighbor Rita disappears without a trace.

Now it looks like one of their own could be a killer. Ariana and Damon must figure out who it is, or they risk never finding Rita alive. If they don’t reach her in time, they could all end up dead…

Kiss of Death by Adam Croft:

An elderly woman collapses and dies during a Sunday morning church service in Oakham. But things aren’t quite as innocent as they seem.

Within hours, there’s a second unexplained death in Rutland. Then a third. But the victims appear to be completely unconnected.

With the body count rising by the day, DI Caroline Hills and DS Dexter Antoine need to uncover the link before more innocent people die.

Only one thing is certain: a killer walks the streets of Rutland. But no-one knows who the next victim will be, when they will be killed — or why.

The Bus to Beulah by E.C. Hanes:

On her way to a new job in America, Maria Puente accidentally discovers a human trafficking ring. Fearing exposure, the American company that manages the operation—with the help of their Mexican partners—kidnaps Maria.

Maria’s disappearance triggers a desperate search, by her family and local law enforcement, to find her before the kidnappers can permanently dispose of her. As the investigation unfolds, long-time Hogg County high sheriff Will Moser confronts Albert Waters, a powerful businessman who Will suspects knows about Maria’s disappearance—but Albert and his Mexican cartel partners prove to be brick walls.

At the urging of his wife, Lana, Will calls on Elijah Kahn, a man he got to know while serving in Vietnam who now runs one of the largest international security firms in the world. The idea of working with men who are rightly known as mercenaries troubles Will, but he knows he’ll never find Maria without Elijah’s help—and when Lana reminds Will of the debt they owe to Tomas Delgado, Maria’s uncle, his hesitation evaporates.

Organized in an hour-by-hour structure, The Bus to Beulah is a taut thriller that culminates in a massive, heatrt-pounding chase to save Maria—before she disappears forever.

Ghostly Shadows by Lily Harper Hart:

Harper Harlow has it all, including a new business, a husband she adores, and a best friend she’s determined not to murder even though he’s determined to be the groomzilla to end all groomzillas. Life is good … until it’s not.

Everything is thrown into doubt when her former boyfriend, a grifter on trial for murder, escapes from the county courthouse and starts terrorizing Whisper Cove.

Her husband Jared Monroe is on edge. Quinn Jackson has proven himself to be a threat more than once, and it’s clear Quinn is gunning for Harper because he blames her for being caught in the first place. That means Zander and Shawn – who are in the midst of preparing for their wedding – have to move in so everybody is safe.

It’s a full house and the stakes are high. A dead courthouse guard is their only guide, and he’s not enough.

Harper is determined to get her happily ever after, as well as Zander’s too. That means they have to grapple with Quinn before the big day arrives.

Murder is on the menu and Quinn has nothing to lose. It’s a race to the finish – and down the aisle – and winner takes all.

Strap in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Deceived by Mary Keliikoa:

PI Kelly Pruett finally feels like she’s coming into her own. With her personal life well on track, a gig uncovering what drove a client’s granddaughter underground could be good for business. But after her undercover operation at the homeless shelter reveals rampant drug dealing, she’s suddenly kicked off the case… just as another girl goes missing.

Vowing to expose the truth even if it means pro-bono work, Kelly is taken aback when her half-sister helps her hunt down answers in a tent city brimming with distrust. When her investigation doesn’t move quickly enough to save a second woman from a vicious murder, Kelly doubles her efforts unwilling to accept defeat.

Friday the Witchteenth by Amanda M. Lee:

Bay Winchester is newly married and happy. Things have been quiet since she returned from her honeymoon, which means trouble is just around the corner. When it comes, it takes the form of a despondent man on a bridge. Despite her best efforts, Bay and the hostage negotiator can’t save him, and death is swift.

That should’ve been the end of it, but a weird symbol on the dead man’s hand piques Bay’s interest, and when the negotiator turns up sick with the same symptoms, she knows that they have a problem on their hands.

Suicide as a contagion? It’s not the fight Bay was expecting, and it’s definitely not the one she was looking for. Still, it’s the problem that keeps on giving … especially when it spreads to Mrs. Little.

In her heart, Bay knows that she shouldn’t care about the woman who has hurt her family at every turn. Ignoring the problem isn’t an option though. If she stands back and does nothing in an attempt to end the chain, she’ll never be able to live with herself. If she gets too close, she could get infected herself.

Bay has never doubted her magic, but the current fight is out of her wheelhouse. Magic is at the core of what’s happening, but their enemy is invisible.

The Winchester witches have never met an enemy they can’t fight … until now. Will they be able to pull together and save Hemlock Cove? Or is the town doomed to fall to a curse without a name and an evil without a soul?

Strap in, because the answer is more than anybody is expecting, and if everybody is to survive, the fight will have to move to an entirely new level.

The game is on. In this one, the winner will take all.

Scavenger Hunt by Duane Lindsay:

It looked like taking candy from a baby. Until it didn’t…

For a con artist like Dani Silver, the mark’s low-hanging fruit—a recently signed basketball prodigy suddenly worth millions—and too young and naïve to know who to trust. Only one problem–so many people are already trying to scam him there’s literally no way to get to him.

Except, that is, to make a deal with the devil— aka Greville Norquist, a fixer with a reputation as the prince of darkness. The deal: Greville will arrange an intro and in return, Dani must provide him with four seemingly worthless items scammed or stolen from people Greville specifies—one of them being a snuffbox.

It’s a perfect set-up for author Lindsay to work his comic magic, deftly twisting one plot around the other like a couple of puppies in a box. But there are two obstacles— first, the snuffbox owner turns out to be nearly as hard to find as the mark.

And second, the mark turns out to be a sweet kid with an even sweeter fiancée— Leticia’s so lovely Dani’s ally, Foster Stevens the gay apy, more or less falls for her. In fact, pretty soon the whole gang balks at scamming these two. And Dani herself has taken a vow never to cheat a good guy.

So how are they supposed to turn a profit on this one?

As it turns out, it’s the least of their worries—Greville’s declared war on them.

Dog’s Honest Truth by Neil S. Plakcy:

Steve and Rochester seek the truth about a neighbor’s murder

There’s a new dog in town – a golden retriever named Luke, in training to be a seeing-eye dog. He and Rochester immediately bond, but there’s something odd about Luke’s human, Ben Ji. How can someone so young afford an expensive townhouse on Sarajevo Way? When Ben is shot, Steve begins to discover the lies he has been telling.

Steve’s also forced to tell the truth about his past, when he deals with a student plagiarist at Eastern College, a professor locked in the stone age, a climate activist with dangerous habits, an angry bartender—and a rifle-wielding assassin.

Will he and Rochester be able to dig up the clues to all these mysteries? Or will a deadly killer go unpunished?

The Exorcist’s House by Nick Roberts:

This psychological thriller follows a family to their Appalachian farmhouse, where they encounter an unimaginable horror.

In the summer of 1994, psychologist Daniel Hill buys a rustic farmhouse nestled in the rolling hills of West Virginia.

Along with his wife and teenage daughter, the family uproots their lives in Ohio and moves south. They are initially seduced by the natural beauty of the country setting. That soon changes when they discover a hidden room in the basement with a well, boarded shut and adorned with crucifixes.

Local legends about the previous owner being an exorcist come to light, but by then, all Hell has broken loose.

This 1990s horror novel is perfect for fans of family thriller books, stories of demonic possession, exorcism fiction, the occult, or thrillers like The Exorcist, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Amityville Horror.

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Elusive Charity by Wayne Stinnett:

Since the recent death of a wealthy but perverted businessman, Charity Styles has been hiding in plain sight, as if challenging anyone to come after her.

She’s on her own once more, living day to day on her beloved Wind Dancer, anchored near a quaint little Gulf Coast town in the Florida Panhandle. But when the son of a fishing client ends up dead, the father’s employer hires Charity to find the person responsible.

Intrigue mounts faster than the list of suspects and Charity finds new purpose and direction, and possibly a guide. But will her new outlook make her fall prey to the local crime boss? Very few know of her abilities and many have come up short in trying to take her. Will this be Charity’s final downfall from grace?

Murder at the Circus by Lee Strauss:

Murder’s a spectacle!

When Ginger Reed ~ aka Lady Gold ~ and Basil Reed’s son Scout runs away to join the circus, it’s not all fun and games. As a disgruntled teen unhappy at boarding school, Scout intends to work with his cousin Marvin, newly (and dishonourably) discharged from the navy. An animal lover at heart, Scout is tickled to assist the animal trainer and develops a particular bond with the matriarchal elephant, Tulip.

The big top event pleases the crowds, but when a performer dies under suspicious circumstances, Scout and Tulip find themselves in real, three ring trouble!

Pineapple Podcast by Amy Vansant:

Pineapple Podcast is packed full of Pineapple Port surprises!

Charlotte hunts a killer with a curious cookie-cutter calling card who seems to be out to impress the local true-crime podcaster. The work keeps her from concentrating on the fact her boyfriend has been acting strange…it seems Declan is ready to make a few major life decisions.

Meanwhile, Mariska and Darla take over a local restaurant while the owner’s out of town, and can’t help but add a few things to the menu… bad idea, since the owner belongs to a true crime club that roots for the killers…

Mix in an earbud-wearing puppy, a starry-eyed deputy, and white-knuckle action and you’ll find yourself wanting to move to Pineapple Port…again!

Immersed in the View by P.D. Workman:

A Wake Up Call

Detective “Parks” Pat is back. Now an established and accepted member of the homicide squad, she unexpectedly brings a new case to the table when she stumbles across a body as Canada Day dawns. While it was initially assumed to be an accidental drowning, the autopsy results say otherwise.

Margie is soon off and running, but the lack of witnesses has her going in circles. Meanwhile, the brass wants the investigation put to bed before the city is flooded with Calgary Stampede tourists and dignitaries.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Meets the “Children of the Comet”

It’s time for the next Star Trek: Strange New Worlds review. Reviews of previous episodes (well, just one so far) may be found here.

Warning: Spoilers under the cut!

The second episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds kicks off with throwing a dinner party in his quarters. Invited are the bridge crew and other officers as well as Cadet Uhura who shows up in her dress uniform and is of course completely overdressed, thanks to a prank by helmsman (or rather helmswoman) Erica Ortega, who herself wears her favourite cargo pants and combat boots combo. This is not the end of the humiliation for poor Uhura, because next she manages to offend Hemmer, the Enterprise‘s chief engineer, who happens to be an albino Andorian and blind, but really does not like to be treated as if he were impaired, because he’s not, thank you very much.

Science fiction from the 1960s and 1970s is often very ableist – see The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey and “Stranger in Paradise” by Isaac Asimov, both of which horrified me with their casual dismissal of disabled people. Even Star Trek was not immune and the Original Series episode “The Menagerie” is another example of casual 1960s ableism, because of the way it portrays Pike’s life as a disabled person after his near-fatal accident. This even spills over into Strange New Worlds, because Discovery made the stupid and unnecessary decision to give Pike a prophetic vision of his ultimate fate, which has come up in every episode so far, though to be fair, it was only two episodes. But considering that Strange New Worlds finds itself saddled with the ableist legacy of “The Menagerie”, it’s good that they have added a disabled character to the cast who lives a full life. Even if Hemmer hasn’t been given a whole lot to do so far.

Uhura perks up, when she chances to hear a Kenyan folk song in the music on rotation at Pike’s dinner party. In fact, Poke likely put that piece of music in rotation to get Uhura to loosen up a little. It works, too, because Uhura tells Pike and the assembled crew a bit about herself. She is from Kenya (which we already knew) and a linguistic prodigy who speaks thirty-seven languages. She was planning to study xenolinguistics at the University of Nairobi, when her parents and her brother died in a shuttle crash, leaving young Uhura adrift. She goes to live with her grandmother, a retired Starfleet officer who encourages her to apply to Starfleet Academy, which Uhura does. Though at this point in time, Uhura is still not sure if Starfleet truly is the right path for her. This brief scene gives us more background on Uhura than we got in three season of the Original Series plus one season of the Animated Series and six movies, as Keith R.A. DeCandido points out in his review at Tor.com.

Of course, dinner party scenes are ideal for characterisation and so Spock also gets a nice character moment, when Pike recounts a funny story about chasing some alien and tripping over his own pants and everybody laughs except Spock, who just looks delightfully puzzled, since he cannot grasp what’s supposed to be so funny about somebody else’s misfortune. “Sometimes, things go so disastrously wrong that you just have to laugh,” Pike says.

I have always been sceptical about recasting iconic Original Series characters like Spock or Uhura, but Ethan Peck absolutely nails Spock in a way Zachary Quinto in the J.J. Abrams movies never did. And Celia Rose Gooding makes an excellent young Uhura. Both actors also nail the relationship between Spock and Uhura, such as when Spock tells Uhura that if she isn’t really sure that Starfleet is for her, she should either become certain of her place or move on and make way for someone else. In turn, Uhura teases Spock about Christine Chapel’s obvious liking for him, which confuses poor Spock very much.

The Enterprise is observing a comet, when they realise that the comet will hit a planet, which is inhabited by an intelligent, if primitive species. Of course, the Prime Directive forbids directly interfering in that species’ development, but Pike is not willing to let them die either – something that Picard has to be persuaded to do for another doomed alien species in the (terrible) Next Generation episode “Homeward”. That is, not the episode itself is terrible – it’s okay actually – but the fact that everybody in Starfleet, including moral paragon Jean-Luc Picard is fully willing to let the aliens die, if not for the intervention of Worf’s human foster brother Nikolai Rozhenko. Tor.com‘s Keith R.A. DeCandido explicitly calls out “Homeward” as well as a Voyager and an Enterprise episode to point out that no, the Prime Directive is not actually a license to commit genocide by neglect, even if it has occasionally been interpreted that way. Indeed, as Pike explicitly says in this episode, “We don’t interfere in the development of species, but we also don’t just let them die.”

And so Pike comes up with a plan to launch some photon torpedoes and nudge the comet away from the inhabited planet. “Come on, let’s save a planet before breakfast”, he says. There’s only one problem. When the Enterprise fires its torpedoes at the comet, they are repelled by a force shield.

Comets usually don’t have force shields, but a closer scan of the comet reveals not only a force shield, but also some kind of building or structure on the surface. The force shield would likely also hold off a shuttle, but it only activates, when some object is aimed at the comet. Beaming an away team down to the comet’s surface to figure out how to deactivate the force shield and/or move the comet should be possible. This away team consists of Spock as chief science officer, La’an Noonien Singh as chief of security, Lieutenant Sam Kirk (older brother of James Tiberius), since he is a xenobiologist, and Cadet Uhura, since she is the closest thing to a xenolinguist the Enterprise has.

Uhura understandably freaks out – she’s just a cadet after all and not supposed to go on away missions – but both Spock and Pike tell her that she is the only person for the job they have on board. Again, Celia Rose Gooding does a great job portraying Uhura oscillating between sense of wonder (“I’m standing on the surface of a comet”) and sheer panic.

The away team ventures into the structure on the surface of the comet, which is obviously man or rather alien-made. The entire building is covered in markings and at the center is a giant egg, which should make anybody who has seen Alien very uneasy. “Are those markings linguistic or just ornamental?” Sam Kirk asks Uhura, who realises that as the resident xenolinguist, she is the one who is supposed to figure this out. Uhura finally detects a repeating sequence in the markings, which she deduces as a code. Sam Kirk decides to try it out – apparently, he is as impulsive as his more famous brother – and promptly gets blasted by the egg. He lands on his back on the floor, grieveously wounded, in a shot very reminiscent of the first (and last) time we saw Sam Kirk on screen, fifty-five years ago in the Original Series episode “Operation: Annihilate!”

La’an hails the Enterprise and tells them to beam everybody out now, but – surprise – the force shield reactivates and the away team cannot be beamed out. They’re stuck, though La’an manages to stabilise Sam Kirk. Well, we know he wasn’t going to die here, because we’ve already seen him die in “Operation: Annihilate!” some ten to fifteen years later.

Understandably, Uhura freaks out even more. Spock attempts to give her a pep talk, which works just as well as you’d imagine. In order to calm herself, Uhura starts humming a folk song from her home, which causes the marking on the wall and the egg to light up. The comet is clearly responding to her.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise has problems of its own, because a giant spaceship suddenly appears out of nowhere and fires on the Enterprise. When Pike hails them, the alien captain informs him that he and his people are the Shepherds of the comet, which they call M’hanit. The aliens are convinced that M’hanit is no mere comet, but a life-giving, all-knowing deity that must not be tampered or interfered with. Pike apologises to the Shepherds and points out that M’hanit is currently on a collision course with an inhabited planet and that this impending collision will not only wipe out the planet but also destroy M’hanit itself and all the Enterprise was doing was trying to prvent that collision. The Shepherds, however, are not impressed. M’hanit knows best and if M’hanit decides to strike the planet and commit suicide in the process, then so be it. The Shepherds are also not at all amused that the Enterprise landing party has desecrated the temple on the surface of M’hanit and warn against further interference.

Now the Shepherds are clearly religious zealots, though – as Keith R.A DeCandido notes – their non-interference policy is not that different from the Prime Directive, though Starfleet usually isn’t that fanatic about it. However, Pike is just as determined to hold true to Starfleet’s ideals of saving those in need and that’s what he will do, Shepherds be damned.

Meanwhile, back on M’Hanit, Uhura has deduced – based on the fact that the comet responded to her humming – that the mysterious markings are a form of musical notation. And since music is also mathematics, she manages to decode the markings and begins to hum the melody they represent – with some help from Spock, since Sam Kirk is still unconscious and La’an doesnt sing. It works, too, because the M’hanit deactivates his force shield, allowing the Enterprise to beam the team back up.

Unfortunately, this also infuriates the Shepherds – so much for “M’hanit knows best”. And so they start firing at the Enterprise and unfortunately, they have the bigger guns. However, the Enterprise has Erica Ortegas, who flies the ship into the comet’s tale and closer to M’hanit, close enough that the Shepherds stop firing for fear of hitting the comet. Pike then orders all systems except for life support shut down. Then he hails the Shepherds and tells them that the Enterprise is unable to manoeuvre due to the battle damage it sustained. He then asks the Shepherds to tow the Enterprise out of the comet’s tail and promises that the Enterprise won’t touch the comet. Which it doesn’t.

While the Shepherds are busy with towing the Enterprise, a lone shuttle emerges unnoticed from the Enterprise‘s shuttle bay. The shuttle is piloted by Spock and its hull radiates heat. Spock then flies very close to M’hanit in order to melt some of its mass off and nudge the comet into a path that will keep it from colliding with the planet. The manoeuvre is successful, too, and Spock even laughs out loud, because – to quote Pike – sometimes things go so disastrously wrong that you can only laugh about it. The special effects of the space battle, the chase through the comet’s tail and Spock’s flight are very impressive as well. Episode 1 was fairly low on special effects and set mostly on a planet that looks eerily like 21st century California, probably because they saved up the special effects budget for this one.

However, M’hanit is not just nudges off course, the melted off chunk of ice enter the atmosphere of the planet, injecting a lot of water vapour into the atmosphere and causing rains on the arid planet, which will help the people living on its surface. M’hanit has indeed brought life to the desert world. The Shepherd captain contacts Pike again and smugly says that Pike has now seen the power and wisdom of M’hanit. Pike does not contradict him, because it is no use arguing with zealots.

Meanwhile, Uhura has decoded the musical notes from M’hanit and finds that they not only describe Spock’s exact flight path but also the exact shape of the chunk of ice that Spock broke off the planet. But how could M’hanit and whoever built the structures on its surface know that, especially since Uhura recorded the music from M’hanit well before the plan to nudge the comet off course without touching it was even formed.

So is M’hanit truly all-knowing and a messenger of some alien deity or – since this is Star Trek – highly advanced being and did he just need a little help from Starfleet to fulfill his mission? The episode never really answers those questions. However, the experience with M’hanit reminds Pike of his terrible ultimate fate once more. Earlier in the episode, he told Number One that he knew the names of all the cadets whose lives he saved, so he asks the computer to look them up and is of course faced with photos of approximately eight to ten year old kids.

As for Uhura, Spock tells her that if she decides that Starfleet is the path she wants to take, this will be a win for Starfleet. Of course, as James Whitbrook points out in his review at io9, we already know that Uhura will stay in Starfleet and aboard the Enterprise and that she will be communications officer by the time we meet her again. Nonetheless, this episode not only gave Celia Rose Gooding a chance to shine, but also fleshed out Uhura’s character and used one of the few things we do know about her from the Original Series, that she loves singing and music, to do so. Plus, Uhura gets more to do in this episode than in most episodes of the Original Series.

This was another great episode, which not only showed us the Enterprise crew “sciencing the shit” out of a problem. Even better, it was a linguistic first contact story and I have a soft spot for those. In general, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues to be highly enjoyable and probably the most Star Trekky of the 21st century Star Trek series. This is what Discovery should have been like, when the decision to set the show approx. ten to fifteen years before the Original Series was made. Discovery has since found its own path, though it is still great to finally get the show that Discovery should have been, but wasn’t.

A Trio of Links and News

Here’s a brief link post, since I have a couple of things to announce:

For starters, my latest article is now live on Galactic Journey. This one is about a forgotten tragedy from fifty-five years ago, a devastating fire at the À l’Innovation department store in Brussels on May 22, 1967, which not only gutted a historic Art Noveau building, but also killed more than three hundred people (the exact number of dead is still disputed). I’m very proud of this article and it’s probably the most detailed account of this forgotten tragedy available in English.

Content warning: There are no photos of bodies, but if you have issues with fire, proceed with caution.

In other news, voting is now open for the 2022 Hugo Awards and the full Hugo voter packet is available to all members of Chicon 8, the 2022 Worldcon. You can also still download my portion of the Hugo Voter Packet for free at StoryOrigins – no Worldcon membership required. Though you will need a membership in order to vote.

Finally, in exactly one month, on June 28, 2022, you can hear and see me as well as Todd Sullivan and Jana Bianchi read at the Online Flash Science Fiction Night event organised by my good friends of Space Cowboy Books, an SFF specialty bookshop in Joshua Tree, California.

The reading is 100% free, so what are you waiting for? Register and join us for a night of short science fiction.

Star Trek Explores “Strange New Worlds” and Returns To Its Roots

At last, here is the long-awaited Star Trek: Strange New Worlds review, starting with the first episode, which is entitled simply “Strange New Worlds”.

Warning! Spoilers under the cut!

The episode starts off with a Star Trek classic, namely a first contact situation. Only that we see it from the POV of the contactees, similar to the Next Generation episode “First Contact”. And so a group of stereotypical bumpy-foreheaded and spotty-faced Star Trek aliens are stunned to suddenly see a Starfleet ship appearing in their orbit. However, this ship is not the Enterprise, but the USS Archer, named after the captain of the first Enterprise from the eponymous series. It’s not even the only callback to a character from another Star Trek series in ship naming patterns. There also is a shuttle named Stamets, obviously named for Discovery‘s chief engineer and inventor of the spore drive, who buggered off to the far future prior to this series.

Before we can see how the first contact will evolve, there is a shift of scene to Earth, specifically Montana, in winter. The camera zooms in on a person on horseback riding through the snow and if not for some distinctly twenty-first century looking wind turbines, we might have been in a nineteenth century western. The person on horseback heads for a wooden ranch house, which again could be straight out of the nineteenth century. We finally see that it’s Captain Christopher Pike, though he has grown a long hair and a beard since we last saw him. Pike also continues the tradition of Star Trek captains coming from landlocked parts of the US. After all, James T. Kirk hails from Iowa, Kathryn Janeway hails from Indiana and now Christopher Pike hails from Montana. Finally, Pike also upholds the tradition of Star Trek captains living their civilian lives in rather old-fashioned surroundings, see Chateau Picard and now Pike’s wooden ranch house.

We also see that Pike has a lover, a fellow Starfleet captain whose name I did not catch. Pike makes pancakes for her, while watching the original 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still. “It’s a classic”, he replies when his lover asks him why he is watching a more than two hundred years old movie. The brief clip of The Day the Earth Stood Still is also foreshadowing for later in the episode, when we get a replay of sorts of the famous ending speech with Pike in the role of Klaatu.

But for now, Pike is done with Starfleet, though his lover tries to persuade him to return to his duties aboard the Enterprise.  Pike, however, replies that he still has a week to make that decision, while the Enterprise is receiving repairs and upgrades in spacedock. As for why Pike is wavering on whether to return to the Enterprise, getting a vision of his eventual fate (which Star Trek fans have known about since the first season episode “The Menagerie”) in the Discovery episode “Through the Valley of Shadows” has left him understandably depressed, even though he knows that fate is still more than a decade away.

In the end, Pike’s decision on whether to return to the Enterprise is made for him, when a shuttle arrives and spooks Pike’s horse during one of his rides through the snow (“You’re going to spook the horse, idiot,” I yelled moments before the horse did spook). The person who emerges from the shuttle is none other than Robert April, Pike’s predecessor as captain of the Enterprise and now a Starfleet admiral.

Robert April is portrayed by Adrian Holmes, one of those actors who are instantly recognisable, because they’ve been in everything. The casting of Holmes led to some outrage among the usual suspects, because Adrian Holmes happens to be black, while the one time he was seen in screen in Star Trek: The Animated Series, Robert April was an older white man. Now we see these reactions a lot, whenever a character who used to be white in a previous version of the story or even one who was assumed to be white (see the uproar when Rue from The Hunger Games, a character explicitly described as black in the books, was portrayed by a black actress in the movies). Just recently, there was a really nasty case, when twelve-year-old actress Leah Sava Jeffries was inundated with hate, because she had been cast to play Annabeth Chase, a character described either as white or not at all (I honestly don’t remember, though I did read the first book) in the Percy Jackson novels, in the upcoming TV adaptation. Previously, we had similar uproars surrounding black elves in Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel and actors of colour playing main characters in The Wheel of Time TV shows.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, these complaints about black actors playing characters previously portrayed as or assumed to be white, is pure racism. And the uproar about a black actor playing Robert April is one of the sillier examples, because the character only appeared once forty years ago in a single episode of a cartoon show, which as far as I know isn’t even available to watch anywhere right now. Robert April is less character than the answer to a trivia question. Of course, you’d think people would be less likely to complain about changing the race of a character seen only in animated form than they would be with someone who had live action appearances, but then you’d think wrong. Some He-Man fans are outraged that the characters of Andra, who was only seen once in a single comic hardly anybody remembers first hand, and King Grayskull, heroic ancestor of He-Man who only appeared in a single episode of the 2002 Masters of the Universe cartoon, were both black in Masters of the Universe: Revelation and white in their previous appearances. Toxic fans will be toxic.

Robert April brings bad news. The first contact between the USS Archer and the bumpy forehead aliens seems to have gone wrong. Contact has been lost and the Archer‘s crew is missing. What brings Pike in is the fact the the commander of the USS Archer was none other than Una Chin-Riley, better known as Number One, Pike’s first officer aboard the Enterprise.

So Pike is back in the saddle and the Enterprise‘s stay in spacedock is cut short. However, the Enterprise still needs her science officer, so the scene switches to Vulcan, where we see Mr. Spock out on a date with T’Pring, his finacée from “Amok Time”. And yes, Spock on a date is as awkward as you would imagine him to be. T’Pring doesn’t really mind though and actually asks him to marry her, because apparently on Vulcan, it’s the women who ask. Spock and T’Pring decide to seal their engagement with a kiss, which is apparently a shocking display of emotion by Vulcan standards, so shocking that Spock and T’Pring are asked to leave the restaurant, which they happily do for engaging in even more shocking displays of emotion in private. Yes, we see Spock about to have sex with T’Pring, when his communicator beeps and Pike interrupts them to recall Spock to the Enterprise. “Are you naked?” Pike asks. “No, but he was about to be”, an annoyed T’Pring replies.

Of course, every Star Trek fan knows that Spock and T’Pring will never get married. Though I still liked seeing them together in happier times, since “Amok Time” only gave us the end of their relationship. Besides, Strange New Worlds gave us a scene of Spock about to have sex in its very first episode, which is sure to reel in the fans, even casual ones like my Mom, for whom “Spock almost has sex” has definitely bumped Strange New Worlds up in the to-be-viewed queue.

Once aboard the Enterprise, we also meet the rest of the crew: Dr. M’Benga and Nurse Christine Chapel, both of whom appeared in the Original Series, Cadet Nyota Uhura, another very familiar face from the Original Series, helmsman (or helmswoman) Erica Ortegas, a character who was male in “The Cage”, and La’an Noonien-Singh, a young woman with a troubled past (and not just the troubled past her surname suggests), who fills in as First Officer while Number One is off on her own mission. There’s also a young male Asian transporter operator and an Asian woman pilot whose names I did not catch. It’s early yet, but in general I think the reinterpretations of Original Series characters like Uhura, M’Benga and Christine Chapel work well, though the actors don’t resemble their Original Series counterparts all that much. Christine Chapel also has had her bio upgraded from nurse to civilian bio researcher assigned to the Enterprise who fills in as nurse.

In his review at Tor.com, Keith R.A. DeCandido notes that Original Series characters like Dr. M’Benga, Christine Chapel and Nyota Uhura being aboard the Enterprise during Pike’s tenure contradicts “The Menagerie”, where at least Uhura and Christine Chapel don’t seem to know or recognise Pike or at least show no reaction to the state he is in.

Now I used to be vary much in favour of maintaining continuity, though I have relaxed a little on that front in recent years, considering that a whole lot of franchises I enjoy have multiple continuities coexisting. Marvel Comics continuity is different from Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity, which is different again from the continuity of the Sony Spider-Man or Fox X-Men movies. DC Comics reboot their continuity every year or so (which is part of the reason why I always preferred Marvel, because with DC you never knew which continuity was the correct one these days), plus the DC movies and the DC TV shows have different continuities again. And in fact, based on the sheer number of Batman films and TV shows out there, there are multiple different continuities for Batman alone, some of which also include Superman or the Justice League. Masters of the Universe, finally, has had several different continuities in forty years from seven different cartoons (five He-Man and two She-Ra cartoons), lots of different comics, audio-dramas and the 1987 live action movie, many of which contradict each other. And while Mattel had someone in charge for a while, who tried to tie the different Masters of the Universe continuities together (just as Star Wars had someone like that in the Lucasfilm days, though Disney does not seem to have continued the practice), the various cartoons and comics still pick whatever they like from the continuity on offer.

So my older self has moved on to, “Yes, continuity is important, but not so important that it should get in the way of the story.” Until season 2 of Discovery, all we ever saw of Christopher Pike’s tenure on the Enterprise was “The Menagerie” and “The Cage”, which was hardly ever shown until the 1990s. But now that Pike and his Enterprise have their own TV series, should it really be tied down by “The Menagerie”, a single not-all-that-great two-parter which was broadcast fifty-five years ago, or should we ditch “The Menagerie” continuity, if it gets in the way of the story, just as Strange New Worlds ditched the precedent set by the one appearance of Robert April in The Animated Series almost fifty years ago or Picard ditched the sole appearance of Picard’s mother as an old woman and had her commit suicide, when Picard was a boy.

After the introductions have been done, the Enterprise is off to the planet Kiley 279, where Number One and the USS Archer were last seen. The USS Archer is still there, in orbit, albeit empty. The Enterprise also discovers the Warp signature that led the USS Archer to initiate first contact, since the Federation only contacts worlds once they have developed Warp technology. However, scans of Kiley 279 indicate that the planet is about at the technological (and social, it turns out) level of 21st century Earth, i.e. not nearly advanced enough to have Warp technology, unless they got it from someone else. Plus, their Warp signature does not seem to hail from a Warp drive, but a Warp bomb.

This is unexpected, because so far every world that developed Warp technology used it to build stardrives. However, it can also be used as a devastating weapon, similar to how nuclear fission can be used to build nuclear bombs as well as to build nuclear power stations. Though in the real world, nuclear power was a byproduct of the nuclear bomb and the world would be a better place if neither technology had ever been developed.

As for how Kiley 279 got Warp technology two centuries early, that goes back to the of Star Trek Discovery. it turns out that the massive battle against the rogue AI control and the wormhole which took Discovery into the future happened close enough to Kiley 279 that the inhabitants could detect the battle and the resulting Warp signature with their long-range telescopes and reverse engineer Warp technology. So the Enterprise and Discovery themselves accidentally violated General Order One (as it’s still called at this point in time) a.k.a. the Prime Directive. Oops.

So the Enterprise crew not only have to rescue Number One and the rest of the Starfleet personnel, they also have to find a way to rescue them (since they are held too far underground to just beam them out) without violating General Order One even further. This is where Doctor M’Benga and Christine Chapel come in, since they have developed a way to temporarily change the genes in order to superficially make humans (and Vulcans) resemble a different species. And so the away team, consisting of Pike, Spock and La’an Noonien-Singh, undergo gene therapy to make them look like natives of Kiley 279. The change is excruciatingly painful, so Christine Chapel wants to administer an anaesthetic first, which La’an refuses for reasons connected to her troubled past. Changing Spock also proves an additional challenge, because of his mixed Vulcan and human genes.

Once the transformation has been successful, Pike, Spock and La’an beam down to Kiley 279 and also gain appropriate local attire, which includes a weird shorts suit for Spock, who is not at all amused about having to wear short pants. Walking around the city, Pike, Spock and La’an chance to see video footage of some kind of unrest shown on a public screen. That footage has since caused some controversy, because it is not footage that was shot specifically for Strange New Worlds (which would have been expensive, given the number of extras required, and also difficult because of covid restrictions), but stock footage of the 2013/14 Maidan protests in Kyiv, Ukraine, as James Whitbrook explains at io9. Now when Strange New Worlds was shot and edited, no one could of course predict that Russia would invade Ukraine and that eight to nine-year-old stock footage would suddenly become a lot more relevant. Nonetheless, the integration is clumsily done, because the footage is recognisable for what it is and at one point you even prominently see a Ukrainian flag. Nevermind that it feels tasteless to take a pivotal event in the history of a non-US country and just repurpose it as a protest on an alien world, assuming that no one will recognise it, whereas footage of protests in the US (there is footage of the January 6, 2021, protests and attempted uprising later in the episode) is only used as exactly what it is. Honestly, the best solution would have been to use fictional protest or riot footage from a movie or TV show. Paramount surely has some of that somewhere in its vault.

This is as good a place as any to talk about the costume and set design, which does a good job looking modern, while also capturing the feel of the original and the retro feel in general. The scenes on Kiley 279 are shot among the sort of 1960s/70s Brutalist buildings that have been standing in for “the future(TM)” for more than fifty years now. Even the original Star Trek used Brutalist buildings to portray space colonies, e.g. in “Operation Annihilate!”), as did pretty much every other science fiction series or film well into the 1980s. The Enterprise bridge, med bay and corridors manage to look modern and are not exact recreations of the original Enterprise set, but also recall the look of the Original Series with their bright colours. The uniforms do have the bright colours of the Original Series, but the fabric and cut are more modern. Hairstyles are mostly modern, though we occasionally see styles that recall the beehives of the 1960s, e.g. the disguise that La’an wears during the mission. The civilian clothing we see the people on Kiley 279 wear looks retro, but it is a mix of styles from fashions and hairstyles that recall the 1940s and 1950s in the crowd scenes to an outfit and hairstyle that would not have looked out of place in the 1980s episode of Dynasty for the president of Kiley 279. Even the special effects try to emulate the psychedelic of the 1960s.

Pike, Spock and La’an trace both the missing Starfleet personnel as well as the Warp bomb to a highly secured building, which is being picketed by protesters, suggesting that the people of Kiley 279 are no happier with their government experimenting with weapons of mass destruction than people elsewhere. However, the security measures, which involve scanning badges and retinas, make it impossible for the away team to just walk in. Therefore, La’an fakes an accident in order to distract two of the Kiley scientists, before Spock nerve-pinches them.

There’s a short debate what to do about the unconscious scientists. Pike suggests beaming them into the Enteprise‘s med bay, where they’re out of the way, and keep them sedated, so they won’t be telling any tales about aliens kidnapping them and beaming them to their spaceship to subject them to medical examination, even though that’s exactly what M’Benga and Christine Chapel do in order to allow Pike, Spock and La’an to infiltrate the compound. I’ve always liked First Contact in reverse stories and over the years, Star Trek has served up quite a few of those, and I really like the idea of someone being abducted by aliens, sedated and subjected to a medical examination for what are ultimately benign reasons.

Of course, the sedation wears off quicker than expected and so both Kiley scienists wake up in understandable confusion. Dr. M’Benga managed to re-sedate one of them quickly, but the other runs off, leading Christine Chapel on a merry chase through the corridors of the Enterprise. He stumbles into a turbolift, where he meets Uhura, who is not at all shocked or surprised to see an alien loose on the Enterprise. Instead, she says “Hi” and then starts talking about a popular ballgame on Kiley 279, which as communications officer she has seen in broadcasts from the planet. The scientist is taken aback – just as we would be when we found ourselves abducted by aliens only for the aliens to want to talk about football – and distracted just long enough for Christine Chapel to sneak up on him and sedate him again. She doesn’t get much to do in this episode, but I have to admit that I really like Celia Rose Gooding’s take on Uhura.

Dr. M’Benga and Christine Chapel are able to conjure up the proper uniforms, badges and retina alterations to get Pike and La’an into the complex as scientists. However, there is a problem with Spock, because due to his half-human, half-Vulcan physiology, the genetic alterations don’t hold and he keeps reverting back, which not only almost gets him stopped at the security checkpoint, but also causes him intense pain. In fact, I have to wonder about the wisdom of taking the one person with an unusual genetic make-up on a mission that requires superficial genetic changes, but then Spock is a main character and “Spock in danger” has been a popular generator of drama since the days of the Original Series.

M’Benga and Chapel work their genetic magic just in time to get Spock past the checkpoint, but more trouble ensues, when Spock’s ears start reverting to their natural pointed shape in an elevator full of Kiley people and even Pike’s attempt to distract the woman who notices don’t really work.

The elevator finally takes the away team to the holding cells and here they find Number One and two Federation scientists. Number One and one of the scientists have been injured in altercations with the Kiley 279 security forces. It also becomes clear that Number One and La’an know each other, a little tidbit La’an did not mention before. Eventually, La’an comes clean about her troubled backstory. She and her family were captured by the Gorn, when La’an was a kid and subjected to all sorts of tortures. Only La’an survived, which is why she is so tough. It is Gorn custom to send the survivor back into space on a kind of life raft. They’re not really expected to survive, but La’an did thanks to a passing Starfleet ship rescuing her. Number One was one of her rescuers, which is why La’an was so eager to go on this mission.

Pike tells La’an that she should have trusted him and told him the truth. But first, they all have to get off Kiley 279. Number One and the scientists started hacking a hole into the concrete wall of their cell, which should allow a transporter signal through. However, they are too deep under the surface to beam them out, so they first have to get to a higher level of the complex. On the way there, they are intercepted by security guards and a fight breaks out. Pike calls the Enterprise and orders them to beam everybody out except for him and Spock, who has by now fully reverted to his usual Vulcan form. “Is this wise, Sir?” Spock asks, “After all, I look visibly alien.” Pike replies that that’s exactly the point.

After all, there is still the matter of the Warp bomb, a technology which could destroy all life on Kiley 279 and which they wouldn’t even have, if Starfleet hadn’t messed up and had a massive battle within the range of their telescopes. Pike plans to set this right. And so he allows Spock and himself to be captured. “Take me to your leader,” he says.

This is exactly what the Kiley security guards do – but then they already know from the appearance of the USS Archer that there really are intelligent spacefaring aliens out there. And so we next see Pike having an audience with the president of Kiley 279, a woman who looks as if she stepped straight out of a 1980s episode of Dynasty. Pike basically says, “Sorry, you were never supposed to have this technology in the first place, but now that you’ve got it, you really shouldn’t use it to build weapons, because you might destroy your whole planet before you ever naturally make it to the Warp stage. Also, maybe negotiating with your opponent is the better solution.”

The President, however, is not impressed. First of all, she’s not going to let some alien tell her what to do. Besides, she insists that her opponents are so bad that they just cannot be reasoned with. They have the Warp bomb now and they are going to use it.

Pike, meanwhile, just smiles and says, “Well, if it comes down to who has the bigger stick, then I guess that’s me.” Then he orders the Enterprise to enter the atmosphere of Kiley 279.

Now the entire planet knows that aliens exist. This – according to a rather breathless news reporter – brings the President and her opponent to the negotiation table for the first time in years. However, they’re still yelling at each other, while the rest of the planet watches with bated breath.

So it’s up to Pike again to make them see the light. And so he steps up to the podium and gives them a little history lesson. He shows them images of Earth in the 21st century at about the same technological level as Kiley 279 is now. Pike says that there was a lot of conflict and unrest at the time – illustrated by footage of the January 6 protests and riots in Washington DC (which unlike the footage of the 2014 Maidan protests gets to be exactly what it is, since American protests and riots are by definition of universal importance). As on Kiley 279, the conflict parties wouldn’t even talk to each other, until World War III broke out, illustrated by special effects footage of Washington, New York, San Francisco and Paris getting nuked.

Pike tells the leaders of Kiley 279 that they are on the same path as Earth was in the 21st century. However, they still have a chance to avoid total destruction and eventually join the Federation. The choice is theirs.

I guess I’m not the only one who noticed that this is basically Klaatu’s speech from the end of The Day the Earth Stood Still (and by 1951 standards, that’s a remarkably diverse crowd listening to Klaatu) and the clip from the actual movie does foreshadow this even further.

I’ve said several times that the main qualification a Star Trek captain needs to have is the ability to hold inspirational speeches and Christopher Pike as portrayed by Anson Mount has this in spades. I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly impressed with Anson Mount before Discovery, but then all I’d seen him in was The Inhumans TV show that Marvel would rather forget (and that show had plenty of issues which had nothing to do with Anson Mount, who actually wasn’t a bad Black Bolt) and a guest role as an assassin in an episode of Hawaii Five-0. However, I liked Mount a lot in season 2 of Discovery and he is chiefly responsible for turning Christopher Pike from the answer to a trivia question into a fully fledged character. And I suspect it was the strength of his performance as well as those of Etha Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Number One/Una Chin-Riley that got Strange New Worlds greenlit.

There have been some complaints that the moral message delivered by Pike is way too blunt and “too woke”, to which I have to reply, “Duh, have you ever seen Star Trek?” Cause it’s always been blunt in its moral messaging – “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, anyone? – and it has always been what is called “woke” these days. Social justice and blunt moral messaging are as much part of the DNA of Star Trek as transports, phasers, tricorder and aliens with bumpy foreheads. As for that Fox News piece, where the author, one David Marcus (not Kirk’s long lost son, obviously) complains that Star Trek is trying to influence US elections now, “Dude, get over yourself.” Yes, one might view Pike’s message as directed at the Democrats and Republicans in the US. You could also view it as directed at Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy with regard to the war in Ukraine (and in fact I think that the war in Ukraine is a much bigger risk to escalate into nuclear war than the January 6 riots in the US ever were). Or you could apply it to any other conflict currently going on in the world.

The people of Kiley 279 obviously made the right choice, because we get a neat montage of children in remarkably British looking school uniforms learning about the day the aliens came and playing with Enterprise toys.

Meanwhile, back in spacedock, Robert April tells Pike, Number One and Spock that he persuaded Starfleet not to court martial them all for violating General Order Number One, since in theory it had already been violated and Pike was only doing damage control. Pike is also revigorated and decides to return to duty. We also see two more crew members arriving, an albino Andorean and one Lieutenant Kirk, who turns out not to be a young James T. Kirk (whom we’ll supposedly be seeing in season 2), but his lesser known brother Sam, who was first (and last, since he dies in that episode) see in the Original Series episode “Operation Annihilate!” back in 1967. Sam Kirk is another one of those trivia answer characters, so it will be interesting to see how Strange New Worlds fleshes him out.

Is Strange New Worlds the show we would have gotten, if “The Cage” had gone to series back in 1965? No, it isn’t. If you look at “The Cage”, Pike’s Enterprise was still very male and very white, Number One and Yeoman Colt notwithstanding. However, based on the first episode, Strange New Worlds is a fun reinterpretation of the characters and the ship we only briefly saw in “The Cage”, a look at what might have been.

Some Thoughts on the 2021 Nebula Award Winners – and Two SFWA Uproars

Yes, the much delayed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode reviews are coming and there will be more Masters of the Universe action figure photo stories as well, simply because I enjoy doing them.

However, for today I’m interrupting your regularly scheduled programming for another popular feature on this blog, namely awards commentary. For the winners of the 2021 Nebula Awards were announced last night. The full list of winners may be seen here. For my comments on the finalists, see here.

SFWA has also been beset with two very different problems during the annual Nebula Conference, which was virtual again this year. The first and IMO more serious problem is that someone scraped the private SFWA members directory and published all personal information contained therein online. This is a bad enough in itself and made worse by the fact that we know that there are multiple groups of trolls and bad actors out there who’s sole purpose in life seems to be harassing SFF authors and critics. And the SFWA doxxing has just given those trolls and bad actors more information about existing victims as well as access to other potential victims. In short, this has the potential to be very bad indeed and I am surprised that there is so little discussion about it, most likely because it was drowned out by the Nebula ceremony which started almost immediately afterwards.

So let’s take a look at the 2021 Nebula winners:

The 2021 Nebula Award for Best Novel goes to A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark. IMO, this is a very good choice, but then the 2021 Nebula ballot for Best Novel was very strong in general and I would have been okay with any of the finslists winning.

The winner of the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Novella is And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed. I haven’t read this novella, so I can’t really comment on it, though I am happy for both Premee Mohamed, an author who does good work but is usually overlooked by the various genre awards, as well as for the small press Neon Hemlock, which again does good work, but cannot compete with the marketing budget of Tor.com.

The 2021 Nebula Award for Best Novelette goes to “O2 Arena” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. This is a win which makes me very happy, because not only is it a good story, but it’s also (to my knowledge, at least) the first Nebula win for an author who lives and was born in Africa. Coincidentally, it is also the first Nebula win for Galaxy’s Edge magazine, which normally doesn’t get a whole lot of awards love.

The winner of the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Short Story is “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” by Sarah Pinsker. Again, this is a wonderful story and a great choice.

The people who are permanently worried about male authors being excluded from the mayor SFF awards, because we have had a few years of more women than men winning and even entire years of only women winning, should be relieved now, because of the four main fiction categories at the Nebula, two were won by male authors. Alas, both P. Djèlí Clark and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki are black, so I suspect that usual suspects will continue to complain.

The 2021 Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and YA Fiction goes to A Snake Falls To Earth by Darcie Little Badger. I haven’t read this book yet, but I enjoyed last year’s Nebula and Lodestar finalist Elatsoe a whole lot, so I’m glad to see Darcie Little Badger recognised.

The winner of the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation is WandaVision. Now WandaVision was the most positive surprise of last year’s crop of Disney+ Marvel shows for me, because I expected very little of it and ended up enjoying it a whole lot. Not to mention that it gave a lot of screentime and characterisation to underused characters like Wanda and Vision, introduced a memorable villain in Agatha “All Along” Harkness and managed to pull off its bonkers “sitcom parody cum Philip K. Dickian reality slip” premise, too. So I’m happy that WandaVision was recognised by the Nebulas, especially since the Emmys snubbed the show by putting it not in the sitcom category, where it belonged, but in the mini-series and TV-movie category, where it was squashed by very serious dramas (TM) about very serious issues.

There are some complaints from the usual suspects on the left that SFWA members should not have voted for a Disney-produced movie or TV-show, considering Disney’s continuing failure to pay writers contractually agreed royalties. However, the writers of WandaVision are not to blame for Disney’s crappy behaviour and may well be affected themselves. Never mind that four of seven finalists in this category were Disney productions. And the three non-Disney finalists, The Green Knight, Space Sweepers and What We Do In the Shadows are probably a bit too niche to win. Not that we shouldn’t talk abut Disney’s dominance in the world of SFF TV and movies. However, while Disney has more money and marketing dollars than God (all the more reason to finally pay writers what they’re due), they also put out a lot of good work. Okay, so I personally have zero interest in Encanto, but it’s far from an unworthy finalist. And WandaVision, Loki and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings were all very good and entertaining entries in the Marvel canon.

The 2021 Nebula Award for Game Writing goes to Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Now I’m not a gamer and know nothing about the finalists in this category, but Thirsty Sword Lesbians is an awesome title and deserving of a Nebula for that alone.

Several special awards were also given alongside the Nebula. The winners of the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award are Arley Sorg, Troy L. Wiggins and (posthumously) Petra Mayer. All three are excellent choice who have done a lot for the genre. I’m particularly happy to see NPR reviewer and critic Petra Mayer honoured, since she left us far too early. The Kevin I’Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award goes to Colin Coyle, whom I’m not familiar with.

Finally, the winner of the 38th Damon Knight Grand Master Award is Mercedes Lackey. I thought this was a good decision, when it was announced earlier this year, because Mercedes Lackey is one of those authors who – inspite of a lengthy and very successful career – has been mostly overlooked by the major SFF Awards, probably because her career started at a time when there was still a massive bias against fantasy among the Hugo and Nebula electorate. Besides, Mercedes Lackey had LGBTQ people and diverse characters in general in the 1980s, when this was far from common, so she is a highly deserving winner.

But then today, this happened. Personally, I think that part of the blame here lies with the moderator who should have corrected Lackey’s use of an outdated term now considered offensive. And if the moderator had intervened and Lackey had apologised, I suspect that would have been the end of it.

Apparently, Mercedes Lackey’s husband Larry Dixon was removed from the Nebula Conference as well, according to this Twitter thread here, which makes me wonder whether there isn’t more going on here than just a single slip of the tongue.

Anyway, this is a fine crop of Nebula winners and there’s not a single choice I’m dissatisfied with. Let’s hope that the winners and their celebration are not overshadowed by the twin uproars.

Secrets of Eternia: A Photo Story or Watch Cora Play with Action Figures, Part 2: The Origin of Teela

It’s the second installment of a new series of posts which are basically me posing my Masters of the Universe Origins action figures to reenact scenes from the cartoons and my imagination. Part 1, where I discuss the secret identity of He-Man, is here.

However, in addition to the secret identity of He-Man, Masters of the Universe: Revelation also addressed another major secret, which has been a part of the series at least since the original Filmation cartoon from the early 1980s, namely the mystery of Teela’s origin.

As far as Teela knows, she is the adopted daughter of Duncan a.k.a. Man-at-Arms. However, the original cartoon revealed that Teela’s biological mother is none other than the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull and all subsequent versions (except for the recent Netflix CGI cartoon, which has Duncan and Teela as good friends of the same age for reasons best known to the writers, though the Sorceress is still her mother) have stuck with this.

Once again, Teela’s true parentage is kept secret from her to keep her safe, because as the guardian of Castle Grayskull and the Orb of Power that rests underneath the castle, the Sorceress is also a prime target for Skeletor, Hordak, King Hiss and anybody else who wants to conquer Eternia. In many ways, this makes more sense than Adam keeping the fact that he is He-Man from his parents and Teela.

However, there is no real reason for the Sorceress not to tell Teela the truth, once Teela comes of age, especially since Teela has not only inherited her mother’s abilities but is also expected to eventually succeed her. As for why Duncan doesn’t tell her, the Sorceress swore him to silence and he is the sort of person to honour such a vow under any circumstance, which is probably why he winds up keeping every single secret on Eternia. Though in an episode of the 2002 cartoon, an uncommonly angry Duncan demands that the Sorceress tell Teela herself that she is her mother.

As with the secret identity of He-Man keeping the truth about her parentage from Teela actually causes more harm than good. For starters, Teela is terrified and confused by the powers she inherited from her mother and only embraces them, once she learns the truth.

Another issue, which is mostly only alluded to in the various cartoons, is the psychological effect that believing she is a foundling orphan has on Teela. Because in every version of the story, Teela is an absolute overarchiever. Whereas Adam is often seen napping, reading, fishing or otherwise relaxing with Cringer, Teela is always training or practicing. I don’t think we ever see her relaxing just once. And her constant training is rewarded with success, because she is promoted to Captain of the Royal Guard at a very young age and orders about soldiers a lot older than she is.

Now as a kid, I always liked Teela. And a large part of the reason is that Teela always was the best at everything, stronger, faster and more skilled than Adam in his untransformed form. However, as an adult I can see how annoying growing up with someone like Teela must have been for everybody else around her. There is a flashback in an episode of the original cartoon, where an approximately twelve-year-old Teela is seen bossing around a squad of teenaged boys and making them march around the palace courtyard. She also bosses Adam around, who lets her, because he loves her. Plus, Adam has figured out how to sneak away and avoid Teela, when he’s not in the mood for yet another combat training session.

In another episode of the Filmation cartoon, we see Teela furious, because she lost a Sky Sled tournament. Her father, Adam and even Queen Marlena try to comfort her and praise her performance, but Teela won’t have any of that and even lashes out at poor Adam, when he tells her that she did great. No matter how good her performance, she lost, so she is a failure. Honestly, rewatching those cartoons as an adult, I often want to tell Teela, “Please, girl, just  slow down, relax and have a bit of fun.”

If you work with young people, you will have encountered overarchievers like Teela. Mostly, they tend to be girls, though there are boys like that as well. Maybe you’ve even been one yourself (I was). As for why kids are like that, they realised at some point that getting good grades and being the best at something gains them approval from parents and other adults, so some of them develop the idea that they always need to be the best to be loved and wanted and that not being the very best mean they are a failure.

With Teela, there is an additional layer here, because as far as she knows, she’s an abandoned child who was adopted and therefore she feels the constant need to prove herself worthy of being loved and cared for. Of course, Teela doesn’t need to prove anything – her father loves her and her friends love her – but she still feels that she does and that’s why she is the way she is. It explains why she is constantly exasperated at Adam’s more laid back attitude, probably because she assumes that Adam can afford to be something of a slacker, because his position is assured, unlike hers. Though Adam of course has problems of his own, since his father thinks he’s something of a failure.

None of the cartoons ever explicitly spelled this out, but it’s definitely there in the background. And I read somewhere that Filmation actually had a teacher (the teacher of one of the kids of Filmation founder Lou Scheimer) on staff as a pedagogic consultant to review the scripts and come up with the little moral messages tacked on at the end of every episode. And as a teacher, you encounter overarchieving kids very quickly – there’s usually at least one in every class –  so that consultant would have known exactly what such kids are like and that “You know, your parents will still love you, even if you’re not always the best” was a message they needed to hear once in a while.

Revelation comes the closest to spelling all this out, when Teela, just as she is about to be named the new Man-at-Arms, tells Adam that she has finally proven to everybody that this little orphan girl is worthy and Adam replies that she never had to prove anything to him. Even Teela’s rebellion, complete with hairstyle, clothing and career change, fits in with this, because constant overarchievement is not sustainable and these kids eventually tend to rebel and reinvent themselves, usually sometime in their twenties.

Would telling Teela the truth about her parentage, once she was old enough, make her less of an overarchiever? Probably not, especially since most kids who are overarchievers are not adopted. However, knowing that her mother gave her away to protect her and not because she didn’t want or love her would still have helped.

Teela does come close to uncovering the secret of her parentage a few times and the Sorceress even has to wipe her memory at one point, but she only learns the truth when Adam (who found out in an episode of the original cartoon) tells her in Masters of the Universe: Revelation – after her mother has been murdered by Skeletor.

Proud parents: Duncan and the Sorceress with grown-up Teela.

As for why Duncan wound up raising Teela, the various cartoons offer slightly different versions of the story. In the original Filmation cartoon ( You can watch the episode in question here), Duncan just happens to pass by, while the Sorceress is defending her baby from an attack by Mer-Man and his cronies. After Mer-Man has been defeated, the Sorceress realises that she cannot protect her daughter and gives her to Duncan.

Here is a recreation of that version of the story:

Yes, I know the Sorceress puts her baby in a bird’s nest in the original cartoon for reasons best known to herself. However, I did not have a bird’s nest, though I did have a turtle-shaped silver pill box. The baby is a figurine for baby showers and the like that just happens to have the right scale.

“Hah, this child will make a tasty morsel for our Lord Cthulhu, when he rises from the depths.”

“Over my dead body, fiend!”

“Duncan, protect our daughter!”

“You were right, Duncan. The royal palace is a safer place for our baby than a tortoise shell.”

“Have no fear, my love. I shall protect our daughter – with my life if necessary.”

“Waahhh!”

“Don’t cry, little Teela. The big bad stinky Mer-Man can’t hurt you anymore. Here, Daddy has a rattle for you.”

“Duncan, that’s no rattle.”

“I know. But do you have a better idea to calm her down? Here, little one, look at the pretty flashing lights on the mace – err – rattle.”

Eternian Family portrait: The Sorceress, Duncan and Baby Teela.

But if the Sorceress is Teela’s mother, then who is her biological father? The original cartoon mentions an unnamed husband of the Sorceress, a brave warrior who died in battle.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation ditches the mysterious dead husband and simply shows us Duncan and the Sorceress as two people who fell in love and had a baby together. But then the Sorceress had to fulfill her mythic destiny and abandon all attachments and Duncan was left holding the baby.

Eternian Family Portrait No. 2: The Sorceress and Duncan with their baby daughter.

I like this version of the story much better, if only because every version of this story from the original cartoon onwards has hinted that Duncan is in love with the Sorceress. It’s fairly low-key and I for one never noticed until very recently (probably because you don’t pay much attention to the parent figures, when you’re a kid, and certainly don’t want to imagine them getting romantically entangled), but it’s definitely there all the way back to the Filmation cartoons of the early 1980s.

Duncan and the Sorceress enjoy some quality time together in the bowels of Castle Grayskull.

The 2002 cartoon series, meanwhile, goes for a mix of both versions described above. Once again, Duncan is handed a swaddled baby by the Sorceress and once again, he vows to protect the child and raise her as his own. But unlike the Filmation cartoon from the 1980s, this version of the story gives us some more information about the Sorceress’ mysterious husband (who is very much not dead in the 2002 cartoon), though we still don’t learn his identity, largely because the Sorceress herself doesn’t know for sure.

Basically, the Sorceress gets bored being all alone inside Castle Grayskull all day and decides that she wants to see more of Eternia. Her magical powers don’t work very well outside the Castle, but well enough for her to defend a village against some attackers. All this happens during something called “the Great Unrest” (basically a civil war, which makes me wonder how the Sorceress thought this would be a good time to leave her magical castle empty and undefended). One day, a grieveously wounded soldier is brought into the village. The Sorceress nurses him back to health and they fall in love, even though the Sorceress has never seen his face, since it’s completely covered in bandages, nor does she know his name, because the soldier has amnesia due to his injuries. In fact, I suspect that main reason these two fell in love or rather lust with each other is because they literally are the only compatible humans in the whole village, which is inhabited by white little Ewok type creatures. At any rate, they get married. Apparently, either US children’s TV in general or Mattel in particular had a policy that characters have to be married before having children, even if that wedding is literally officiated by a small fuzzy Ewok critter.  Eventually, the soldier recovers his memories and leaves the village and his pregnant wife behind, promptly forgetting all about her. And yes, I know that’s not how amnesia works and in fact this whole story sounds like the plot of a bad Mills & Boon/Harlequin romance novel with a title like The Wounded Soldier’s Secret Baby.

But who was that mysterious soldier? The episode in which the Sorceress recounts that tale heavily implies that it was Duncan himself, especially since Duncan and the wounded soldier have the same square jawline. However, the writers were apparently planning to go into a different direction and reveal that Teela’s biological father was none other than Fisto.

What the fuck…?

That was my reaction, at any rate. True, he may be partly inspired by late medieval knight Götz von Berlichingen, who had an iron hand prosthesis to replace a hand lost in battle, with a bit of Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane thrown in, but Fisto has always been a bit of a joke. He is the character who gave birth to a thousand memes and mainly seems to exist to allow the writers to sneak fisting jokes into a kids show. Even the Götz von Berlichingen connection is appropriate here, because nowadays, the historical Götz von Berlichingen is mainly remembered for the very rude quote that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe gave him in his eponymous play about Götz, much to the delight of every German schoolkid forced to read that play.

Could this man be Teela’s biological father?

“Eat steel knuckles and tell Skeletor that he can lick my arse.”

The strict standards of US children’s TV with regard to swearing prevent Fisto from quoting the other steel-fisted warrior Götz von Berlichingen, but he has always been something of a weird character.

When he was first introduced in the Filmation cartoon in 1984, Fisto was actually a villain of sorts, a grumpy loner who lives in the forest and harrasses Eternian peasants until the superior fists of He-Man and the power of kindess make him see the error of his ways and join the good guys.

Fisto in his grumpy woodsman persona.

As an origin story, it’s weird and I now wonder whether Fisto was initially intended to be a villain, until Mattel decided to make him one of the good guys or whether Filmation just told the story they wanted to tell, toy continuity be damned. And because Fisto had such a weird origin story, the 2002 cartoon retconned it somewhat. In this version, Fisto is still a grumpy loner who hangs out in seedy bars and gets into fights. However, this Fisto is also the estranged brother of Man-at-Arms. Duncan and Fisto a.k.a. Malcolm don’t get along with each other – which is unusal, because Duncan gets along with everybody – and nearly come to blows more than once, though Fisto also saves everybody’s lives and badly damages his hand in the process, which is why Duncan builds the iron fist for him. The reason why Duncan and Fisto don’t get along is that Duncan thinks Fisto is a coward and deserter, because he vanished in the middle of a battle. Fisto, however, insists that he was injured and had amnesia… just like the Sorceress’ wounded soldier.

Fisto only shows up in the last few episodes of the 2002 cartoon and so the mystery of who Teela’s father is remains unsolved on screen, though someone from Mattel later confirmed that Fisto was supposed to be revealed as Teela’s biological father eventually. However, personally I prefer Duncan to be both the biological father and the parent who actually raised Teela. For starters, because both Teela and the Sorceress deserve better than Fisto. Never mind that I have a hard time believing that a guy called Fisto is straight.

Still, since I had all the required figures, I made a little photo story about what happens when Duncan confronts Fisto about this:

“Get out of my sight, Malcolm. You’re a coward and deserter.”

“I was wounded and had amnesia.”

“Right, and isn’t that a convenient excuse?”

“So you’re calling me a liar?”

“He-Man, do you think we should intervene?”

“No, Teela, they need to sort this out between themselves.”

“You’re a coward, a deserter and you slept with my girlfriend, arsehole!”

“What?! I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.”

“So you’re denying you slept with my girlfriend?”

“Duncan, you never even had a girlfriend. Always way too focusses on your duty to have a bit of fun.”

“At least I did my duty. Unlike you, deserter.”

“Eat steel knuckles, shithead!”

“That’s it. I’m stepping in.”

“I agree, Teela. Let’s stop them before they hurt each other.”

“Had enough yet, Duncan? Or do you want some more of my iron fist?”

“Anytime, deserter and girlfriend poacher.”

“Father, Uncle, stop it!”

“No, Dad, he’s not worth it. Save it for Skeletor.”

“What’s the matter, Duncan? Hiding behind your daughter? So who’s the coward now?”

“That’s enough, Fisto. Stand down or you’ll feel my fist.”

“That’s it. I’m talking to the other person who knows the truth. And she will tell me.”

“Father, come back!”

“Yeah, run off, Duncan, like the coward that you are.”

“Shut up, Fisto!”

“So, He-Man. do you have any idea what that was all about?”

“Uhm, Teela, you’d better ask your father about that.”

A bit later, at Castle Grayskull…

“No, Duncan, I did not sleep with your loser brother. What do you take me for?”

“He’s not a loser. Okay, he is, but… are you sure, my love? Cause he said…”

“Of course, I’m sure. I do remember who I sleep with.”

Men! Why do I even bother?”

“My love, wait. I’m sorry. I…”

“Uhm, Duncan, if it helps, I’m actually gay and she’s so not my type.”

Brothers in arms: Man-at-Arms and Fisto a.k.a. Duncan and Malcom

“Wait a minute, you’re gay? Why did you never tell me?”

“Because you’re… well, you’re you. You’re straight as an arrow and you always find fault in me, so I had no idea how you would react.”

“How do you think I would ract? You’re my brother and I love you.”

“Only that you forget that at times. But anyway, you and the Sorceress…?!”

“Got any problems with that?”

“No, I’m just surprised, that’s all. And Teela…?”

“Is our daughter, but don’t you dare tell her. So, Malcolm, do you… uhm … have anyone?”

“Yeah, but that’s private. So about the Sorceress, I’m curious. Are those wings part of her outfit or her body?”

“That’s private. But maybe I’ll tell you over a drink.”

“Yeah, let’s have a drink.”

I actually wanted to take a picture of Duncan and Fisto sharing a drink, but it turns out that I did not have any bottles or beer glasses in a remotely correct scale. The only thing I had was a Playmobil baby bottle, which isn’t really suitable. And even though I have decided that Fisto is gay in my head canon, I have no idea whom I’ll eventually fix him up with.

Anyway, the secret identity of He-Man and the origin of Teela are the two long-standing secrets that are revealed in Masters of the Universe Revelation.  However, there are yet more dark secrets surrounding the royal family of Eternia.

The Orb of Power is actually a shiny marble, but it works really well.

“And this, He-Man, is the Orb of Power, from which all the power in the universe flows into your sword.”

“Why is it sitting in a tortoise shell?”

“Because the tortoise shell was useless as a baby crib, but makes a good orb holder.”

“What do you need a baby crib for?”

“Ahem, that’s private. Anyway, the Orb…”

“Wait a minute, why does your sword look like the twin of mine?”

“Not all secrets shall be revealed today, He-Man. Anyway, the Orb…”

So tune in again for the next installment of my Secrets of Eternia Photo Stories, where we tackle the mystery of He-Man’s long lost sister…

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just bought some toys, took photos of them and wrote little scenes to go with those photos. All characters are copyright and trademark their respective owners.

Secrets of Eternia: A Photo Story or Watch Cora Play with Action Figures, Part 1: The Secret Identity of He-Man

Easter Monday was my birthday. There wasn’t much of a celebration, because my Mom is in hospital for hip replacement surgery, so it was just me and my Dad. Though I did get a nice haul of books, which you can see below:

Birthday book haul plus a box of chocolates from a friendly neighbour

Meanwhile, I also got some gifts for myself, because what’s the point of being an adult, if you can’t do that? And those gifts were something my ten-year-old self would have loved as well. Because I’ve been buying some of the Masters of the Universe Origins action figures Mattel has been putting out, inspired by enjoying Masters of the Universe: Revelation so much more than I expected to (see this and this post, now also collectd in a Hugo voter packet near you) and also by seeing Matt John of the excellent Rogues in the House sword and sorcery podcast post pictures of his collection.

The whole collection to date. I eventually need to find another domicile for them, because that table is getting crowded.

Now except for Teela and Flutterina from She-Ra: Princess of Power, both fleamarket finds, I never had any of the vintage Masters of the Universe toys, even though I liked both cartoons and toys a whole lot. It’s not that my parents wouldn’t have bought them for me – they had no problems buying Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bear toys – it’s just that I was terrible at articulating “I want this. Please buy this for my birthday/Christmas/Easter.” By the early 1980s, I was very self-conscious both of the fact that things like Star Wars and Masters of the Universe were considered for boys (which again never bothered my parents – I had a huge collection of Hot Wheels cars as a kid, sadly lost to my stupid cousins) and also that they were violent and war-glorifying American trash and not appropriate for good children (which is hilarious, given the wholesome moral messages of these cartoons). So I adopted the strategy of standing in the toy aisle and gazing longingly at the Masters of the Universe or She-Ra or Star Wars or M.A.S.K. toys and hoping my parents would buy them for me. This worked about as well as you can imagine, namely not at all. My parents were mostly irritated, when I spent ages in the toy aisle, and never really paid attention to what precisely I was spending ages looking at.

In fact, both my parents have zero memory of either He-Man and the Masters of the Universe or She-Ra: Princess of Power, neither of the cartoons nor the toys. They did notice the colourful figures showing up in the house and occupying what’s supposed to be a coffee table and asked about them and when I tried to explain what they were, I just got a blank look. Re-enacting the whole “By the Power of Grayskull…” bit and showing them the intro of the old Filmation cartoon on YouTube did not spark any recollections either, even though they were right there in the room with me, when I was watching those cartoons. I also tried to explain the rather complicated family and friendship relations between the different characters and finally gave up and said, “You know, it was just like Dynasty, only with swords and magic and monsters and for kids.”  Which is not only a pretty good description, but is also one of the things which sparked this post.

The other thing, which sparked this post, are the figures themselves. They’re highly posable, a lot more posable than the vontage 1980s figures, and it’s so much fun posing them and making them re-enact moments from the various cartoons or just from my imagination. So I had way too much fun posing the figures and taking photos of them and using whatever props I could find.

I posted some of the photos on Twitter, but a blogpost is less ephemeral. In fact, I had so much fun setting up action figures and taking photos of them, that this will be a multi-part post. I’m planning to give them a more suitable environment eventually and may even get a Castle Grayskull, when I can find one for a good price. But for now, I used whatever props I had at hand to create their surroundings.

So enjoy photos of Masters of the Universe action figures as well as some thoughts about the stories themselves and how much the He-Man/She-Ra universe is driven by secrets and people withholding information, usually for the best of reasons, but often with disastrous consequences.

In fact, Masters of the Universe: Revelation not only has “revelation” right there in the title, the entire first half is also about the central secret of the entire franchise being revealed in the worst possible way and the fallout from that.

That central secret is of course the fact that Prince Adam is also He-Man. Interestingly, this was not the case from the beginning on – the very first mini-comics packed in with the early figures introduced He-Man as a wandering barbarian in the Conan mold. Prince Adam showed up in a DC comic a bit later – DC knowing a thing or two about dual identity heroes – and was then adopted by the Filmation cartoon and has been a central part of the lore ever since. There’s an interesting video about this here.

In fact, the intro to the 1980s Filmation cartoon spells out the whole premise for everybody watching, especially since I don’t recall that He-Man ever got an origin story in the original cartoon, though She-Ra did and both the 2002 cartoon as well as the current Netflix CGI cartoon both show Adam transforming for the very first time.

“I am Adam, Prince of Eternia and defender of the secrets of Castle Grayskull. And this is Cringer, my fearless friend…”

Best friends forever: Adam and Cringer

“Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said, ‘By the Power of Grayskull’…”

I ran the photos through an effect filter to get the disco sparkle transformation look.

“Cringer became the mighty Battlecat and I became He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe…”

I’m kicking myself for not doing a Cringer to Battlecat transformation, but here is He-Man in his classic pose.

“Only three others share the secret…”

“Our friends the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms and Orko. Together, we defend Castle Grayskull from the evil forces of Skeletor.”

Some of the Evil Forces of Skeletor – with bonus Hordak

Of the three who share He-Man’s secret, the Sorceress is an obvious choice, because she is the guardian of Castle Greyskull and the power that rests within its walls. She’s also the one who gives Adam the Sword of Power in most versions of the story. Man-at-Arms is another obvious choice, because he is Adam’s mentor, friend and surrogate father figure in pretty much every version of this story. As for Orko, I always assumed that he accidentally stumbled upon Adam transforming and had to be told, because much as I love Orko, he’s not the sort of person to whom anybody in their right mind would entrust an important secret.

However, there are also people who are very important to Adam, but don’t know that he is He-Man, namely his parents King Randor and Queen Marlena (though Marlena figures out the truth on her own) and his best friend/comrade-in-arms/love interest Teela.

Now the reasons given for Adam keeping the truth from his parents and Teela is to protect them, because knowing He-Man’s true identity would make them targets. But no matter how noble that intention, I’ve never quite bought that reasoning, because as King and Queen of Eternia, Randor and Marlena already are prime targets anyway for Skeletor, Hordak, King Hiss and any other lowlife who wants to conquer Eternia. And there are several episodes in the original cartoon and the 2002 version where King Randor and/or Queen Marlena are attacked, kidnapped or otherwise threatened. Besides, Randor and Marlena can take care of themselves. Marlena used to be an astronaut and we have seen her putting her piloting and shooting skills to good use from the original cartoon to Revelation. And while the Filmation cartoon of the 1980s mostly portrays Randor as an “Old King Cole was a Merry Old Soul” type, Revelation and particularly the 2002 cartoon show him as a warrior leading his troops into battle. The 2002 cartoon even shows a young Randor charging into battle as Captain of the Royal Guard before he became king.

As for Teela, she, too, is already a prime target as Captain of the Royal Guard and adopted daughter of Man-at-Arms. Never mind that Teela is usually right there at the forefront of the battle, fighting alongside He-Man, her father and the other heroes of Eternia. In fact, the only way to keep her away from danger would be by locking her up. Finally, Teela can take care of herself, too, and doesn’t need to be protected.

In fact, Adam not telling his parents and Teela that he is He-Man does more harm than good. For starters, there are plenty of times where Adam has to run off and find a quiet place to transform rather than just transforming right there in the throne room or the palace courtyard. There also are times where Adam waits longer than he should to transform, because – and this is something that every version of the story stresses – Adam is very eager to prove that he doesn’t need to become He-Man to be a hero.

And indeed, there are plenty of moments in every single cartoon series where Adam does get to be incredibly heroic and brave as himself, because he cannot transform for some reason, usually because he lost his sword. Revelation has the best example, where Adam faces up to Skeletor, while literally bleeding to death, and distracts him long enough so Cringer can free the good guys, but there are similar scenes across all the cartoons. The 2002 series has a scene where all the other heroes have been captured and Adam – sans sword – and Cringer are all that stands between Skeletor and Castle Grayskull. This Adam is younger than most versions, only sixteen, and yet he manages to steal Skeletor’s havoc staff and hold him off long enough for the wounded Sorceress to recover and protect the castle. Yes, Adam can be damn heroic, only that most of the time no one is there to see it except maybe Skeletor.

Prince Adam as a hero in his own right. Or maybe he is just taking his Sky Sled for a joyride.

Futhermore, telling Randor that Adam is He-Man would also improve Adam’s relationship with his father a whole lot. Because something else that is remarkably consistent in any version of this story in the past forty years is that Randor thinks that Adam is something of a failure and is not particularly shy about letting Adam know how disappointed he is in his son. Now Adam clearly loves his parents and Randor loves his son, but their relationship is often strained and anything that improves it would be good for both of them.

Duncan and Teela comfort Adam, because his father thinks he’s a failure… again.

As for Teela, she spends much of the various cartoons either wondering where Adam is, being angry at him for missing a training session or worried that Adam might be in danger. Worrying whether Adam is safe obviously distracts Teela in battle and therefore puts her at risk. There is also at least one episode where Teela drags Adam off on a half-cocked mission without giving him the chance to “find” He-Man first and puts both of them in danger.

The entire first half of Masters of the Universe Revelation deals with what happens when Adam’s secret is revealed in the worst way possible. He-Man manages to get himself killed, while saving Eternia and the rest of the universe from total destruction, and reverts back to Adam just before he is disintegrated – all in front of Teela’s eyes.

The impact is devastating – not only on Eternia, which is not only not saved, since the destruction of the universe has only been slowed down, but also loses pretty much everybody who kept the planet relatively safe and stable – but also on Adam’s loved ones. King Randor responds by lashing out at everybody around him – Duncan, Orko, Cringer and even his wife Marlena.

Duncan gets the brunt of it and is stripped off his rank, banished and threatened with execution, if he ever comes back, which is a hugely excessive reaction considering that not even archvillains like Skeletor or Hordak or King Hiss have ever been threatened with execution. Instead, Skeletor’s cronies are just locked up in prison (from which they inevitably escape), whenever one of them is captured. But Randor threatens to execute Duncan, who’s not only his most staunchly loyal supporter and commander of his troops but also his best friend? Sorry, but that’s a very extreme response and very likely due to the fact that Randor realises that he was a pretty shitty father to Adam (there is a reason he almost earned himself a Darth Vader Parenthood Award) and also that Duncan was the one who was there for Adam, when his own father was too busy ruling Eternia, and the one Adam trusted with his secret, when he didn’t trust his own father. This is particularly notable in the 2002 cartoon, where Adam always looks to Duncan for advice, even when his father is standing right there.

Meanwhile, Teela has not only lost her best friend, but is also furious that everybody she ever cared for lied to her, so she walks away from it all, cuts her hair, may or may not engage in some same sex experimentation and spends a few years working as a mercenary, determined that she is through with being a hero.

Of course, Adam gets better and he and Teela are reunited. In Revelation, their reunion is overshadowed by the fact that Eternia is in grave danger – again. But here is how it might have gone if there hadn’t been another huge crisis going on at the moment:

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re He-Man?”

“Teela, I’m sorry, I… ouch!”

“Listen, Teela, I’m really sorry. Can we maybe talk about it?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

“So are we good now?”

“I don’t know. I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

“Me, too.”

He-Man and Teela are sharing a moment, while Battlecat cringes and wishes he were somewhere else.

Revelation ends with Adam and Teela holding hands and declaring that they are a team and that there will be no more secrets between them.  There is no kiss – and in fact, Adam/He-Man and Teela have never kissed in forty years of cartoons, though apparently a comic does show them getting together and introduces their son – and whether this ending means that they are a couple now or just good friends remains open, especially since Revelation also gave Teela a shippable relationship with her new friend Andra (who sadly only has an action figure in the wrong scale).

However, I have been shipping Adam and Teela since I was ten, so they get together in my head canon. Nothing against Andra, who’s awesome, and I hope she finds someone eventually.

And that’s it for part 1. There will be more action figure photo stories coming soon and in part 2 I’ll tackle the other big secret revealed in Revelations, namely the origin and parentage of Teela. And yes, I will also do the overdue reviews of the first two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Star Trek Picard Bids “Farewell”

Here is my take on the final episode of season 2 Star Trek Picard, Though this is not the last of the Star Trek reviews, for Paramount in its infinite wisdom is blessing us with even more Star Trek in the form of Strange New Worlds, so there is a review of the first episode of that coming soon. For my take on previous episodes and seasons of Star Trek Picard, go here.

Warning: Spoilers below the cut!

When we last met Jean-Luc Picard and his Merry Men and Women, Picard had just uncovered the deep dark trauma (TM) at the centre of his being, Agnes had just decided to build a better, kinder Borg race and took off with La Sirena to do so and Dr. Adam Soong was still trying to sabotage the Europe mission and/or kill Renee Picard because… well, I guess because he still believes that getting rid of Renee will make him the saviour of the future. Or maybe because he’s a crazed alcoholic scientist in full supervillain mode.

Renee had been largely forgotten these past few episodes, so it’s nice to see that the writers remember she exists, even if the show has largely treated her like a MacGuffin. Even better, the show also remembers the other plot threads and characters occasionally forgotten for episodes at a time such as Kore Soong, Elnor, Guinan, Q and the weird Borg ship from episode 1, all of whom get some kind of resolution. Only Agent Wells, the would-be Fox Mulder of the Star Trek universe, has been forgotten and does not appear again.

The bulk of the episode is dedicated to saving Renee and making sure she takes part in the Europa mission and that the Europa mission succeeds. Dr. Soong is hellbent on thwarting them. Of course, Picard and his team are still stuck in France and Agnes just took off with their sole means of transport, but luckily Tallinn does have a transporter of her own, though it only leads back to her apartment. Regarding Chateau Picard and the fact that it got shot up quite badly during the previous episodes, Picard remarks that the bullet holes in the walls were still there when he lived at the Chateau with his parents and that there were all sorts of family legends surrounding where the bullet holes came from. Well, the truth would have been too weird, I guess. Still, since Picard knows the bullet holes are supposed to be there, he believes that they are on the track to restore the future.

However, Agnes or rather the Borg Queen also left the rest of the team with the cryptic and ominous remark that in order for the Europa mission to succeed, Renee must both live and die. Tallinn, who has after all been assigned to watch over Renee, decides to take this remark as meaning that someone needs to die in Renee’s place and decides that this someone might as well be her. So she uses her transporter to transport into Europa mission control. In time-honoured tradition, Picard grabs on to Tallinn in order to dissuade her from sacrificing herself, while Seven, Raffi and Rios head to Soong’s modernist mansion to stop the evil doctor from sabotaging the mission.

And so Seven, Raffi and Rios creep up on Soong, as he seems to voice-control a bunch of drones to take out the rocket to Europa. However surprise – Soong is not there, though the drones and a recording of his voice is. Seven, Raffi and Rios realise that the drones are Soong’s back-up plan and that they are booby-trapped to blow up the house if someone tampers with them or tries to destroy them. Of course, Raffi tries to hotwire the drones anyway to gain manual control, though she is only able to gain control of one drone, which Rios uses to destroy the remaining three.

But of course, Dr. Soong himself is still at large and he pops up at the Europa mission control center, where he bullies the mission director into letting him shake hands with the astronauts, even though that violates quarantine protocols. Once again, I wonder just how Soong came by enough money to not only donate a huge enough sum to the Europa mission that the director has to defer to his annoying arse, but also to summon special forces at will and buy a mansion in what looks like a very expensive part of Los Angeles, not to mention four armed drones and all sorts of scientific and computer equipment, when the first time we saw him in the show, he was begging Lea Thompson not to cut the funding for his research. Honestly, this is just one of the many things about this season that makes no sense.

Picard and Tallinn spot Soong at mission control and know that he’s there to sabotage the launch and/or kill Renee. Tallinn is still hell-bent on sacrificing herself, if necessary, and no, she’s not going to let Picard’s feelings for someone who looks a lot like her deter her from her path. So Tallinn takes out a member of the suit-up team, steals her coverall and goes to see Renee, who of course immediately notices that this woman is not supposed to be there, even though she looks mightily familiar. Tallinn now reveals herself as Renee’s guardian angel, someone who has always been watching over her ever since she was a child. She reveals that Renee has a deep dark trauma (TM) of her own. Her mother died, when she was a kid and the reason Renee wants to go to the frontiers of the known universe is because she secretly hopes she’ll find her mother there. So are Picards not only destined to be explorers and space farers (unless they are Luddite winegrowers), but are they destined to be driven to extremes by the tragic loss of their mothers as well?

We next see Renee or rather someone who looks like her run out in panic into the corridor, babbling about an intruder who says she’s her guardian angel, only to bump straight into Dr. Soong, who calms and down touches her hand. “Renee” suddenly starts to feel sick, whereupon Soong cracks his best supervillain grin and pulls a latex coating from his hand which he reveals was coated in a deadly neurotoxin. “Renee” is doomed.

Only that the woman was not Renee at all, but Tallinn using her Watcher shape-changing gear to change herself into Renee. The real Renee is safe aboard the Europa mission and blasts off into space, while Tallinn expires in Picard’s arms. Of course, Tallinn is not human but Romulan, so it’s a bit of a stretch that a neurotoxin designed and dosed to kill a human will kill her as well, but the show never asks these questions. Just as the show never explains why the farewell party for the Europa astronauts had much tighter security than the actual mission control center, so that Tallinn was able to impersonate a member of the suit-up crew and actually get into the astronauts’ quarters, while Soong was able to walk in, murder someone and walk out again.

We next see Soong returning to his mansion to find his research scattered and trashed. He turns on the TV and sees a report about the successful launch of the Europa mission and hears Renee’s voice. Furious, Soong decides to self-medicate with a bottle, when he is hit by yet another blow. His estranged clone daughter Kore hacks into his computer via a WiFi hotspot in a public library and deletes all of his research. How does Kore, who has never even left Soong’s house before, know how to find a public WiFi hotspot? Again, the show doesn’t expect us to ask these questions.

Soong has now lost his daughter, his research and his future and he’s also a murderer. However, he also has one back-up, a physical file he keeps in a desk drawer. A file marked “Confidential” and “Project Khan”. Uh-oh.

In the end, Soong emerged as the main villain of season 2, which was unexpected, because he did not even show up until halfway through the season and played second fiddle to Q and the Borg Queen for most of second half. However, both Q and the Borg Queen turned out to be not as villainous as expected (more about that later), while Soong turned out to be unapologetically evil. And Brent Spiner clearly has so much fun playing him as a full-blown supervillain. Also, as Paul Levinson points out in his review, Dr. Soong is still alive by the end of season 2, so we may well see him again engaging in some more villainy.

Meanwhile, Kore Soong receives a mysterious messages telling her to come to a specific address, if she wants to know what happens next. According to Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido, the address in question does not actually exist in Los Angeles, though he traces it to Griffith Park. Somehow, Kore manages to make her way there – even though she has spent all her life cooped up in a mansion and has never navigated a big city before. And there in the park she meets – no, not Q, though that’s whom Kore (and the viewer) expects – but Wesley Crusher, who left to became a so-called Traveler way back in The Next Generation episode “Journey’s End”. And now Wesley pops up in Los Angeles in 2024 to recruit Kore to join the Travelers and watch over all space and time, much as he was once recruited. And reader, I cheered when Wesley showed up. Even though I didn’t particularly like the character back in the day, like most Next Generation viewers. Honestly, if you’d told me thirty years ago that I’d ever cheer when Wesley Crusher of all people would show up in a new Star Trek show, I’d have thought you were crazy.

In fact, it turns out that more than one current Star Trek show wanted to bring back Wesley and that Picard won because of Wesley’s connection to The Next Generation and Jean-Luc Picard. In fact, the rehabilitation of Wesley Crusher from a character pretty much no one cared for (in fact, when poor Wesley was threatened with death or execution yet again, I occasionally to my infinite shame hoped that someone would just get on with it) to fan favourite shows what an actor can do for a character and how the internet-enabled connection between actors and fans can rehabilitate a character.

Before Wesley takes off with Kore for new and amazing adventures (for of course Kore accepts his offer), Wesley also notes that the Travelers are the ones who appoint Watchers like Gary Seven or Tallinn. Will we see Wesley or Kore again? I certainly hope so, though at least Isa Briones has pointed out that she is not in season 3 of Picard. Come to think of it, the Travelers also seem quite similar in concept to the Time Lords of Doctor Who fame, only somewhat more active.

With Renee safe en route to Europa and Soong thwarted – for now – Picard and his remaining crew as well as Teresa and Ricardo return to Chateau Picard to figure out what to do next now they’re all stuck in the past (and in a not particularly pleasant period of Earth history either). Raffi and Seven finally share an on-screen kiss as do Rios and Teresa. Picard wanders through the remarkably well preserved Chateau (honestly, it’s very obvious that this is not a centuries old vineyard, but a modern building made to look like a Tuscan villa) and puts the key to the door of the room where his father locked up his mother back in the very spot where young Jean-Luc found it as a kid. Then he returns to the greenhouse, where he meets none other than Q.

Now Q finally reveals what the true motives for this bizarre backwards and sidewise in time caper were. Cause it turns out that Q was not trying to torment Picard – though that’s what it was in effect – but that approaching death has made Q mild and that he wanted to help Picard to come to terms with the suicide of his mother and the guilt he feels over it, so Picard can move on with his life and find some happiness in his final years. “Even Gods have their favourites,” Q points out, “And you have always been mine, Jean Luc.”

Q had clearly been set up as one of the two main villains of this season, but in the end Q’s actions turn out to be more misguided than actually villainous. Because let’s not forget that Q did a lot of harm and that people died because of his actions. And indeed, Picard points out that Elnor and Tallinn died because of Q meddling with the timeline (as well as a bunch of special forces soldiers who got Borgified and the guy Agnes picked up in a bar, slept with and killed) Q replies that Tallinn always dies in every timeline, but that this is the only one where she gets to meet Renee before she dies. As for Elnor, Q absolves himself of all guilt. After all, he did not kill Elnor – Seven’s shitty husband from the facist future did.

It’s mainly due to the excellent performances of John DeLancie and Patrick Stewart that you accept Q’s explanation for why he did what he did and don’t want to punch him in the face for what he put everybody through. io9 reviewer James Whitbrook points out that the scene between Q and Picard in that fateful greenhouse is almost romantic – more romantic than the scenes Picard has with his actual love interest Laris/Tallinn. At any rate, it is sure to generate a lot of fanfiction.

Since Q has fulfilled his mission to persuade Picard to accept that his mother’s suicide was not his fault, he also wants to use the last of his power to send everybody back to the 25th century. However, unsurprisingly, Rios elects to stay behind. He has fallen in love with Teresa and also with the more intense and adventurous life in the 21st century. Rios points out that he never really fit into the Federation or Starfleet, which is why he became a freelance starship captain. He’s right, too. In many ways, Cristobal Rios is a Star Wars character who has accidentally wandered into the Star Trek universe. And since Q can’t send Rios into the Star Wars universe, the 21st century is the best place for him. Never mind that he gets to have a ready-made little family.

“Oh well,” Q says, as everybody says their good-byes, “Room for one more then.” Q even gets an awkward hug from Picard, then he snaps his fingers one more time and Picard, Raffi and Seven are back where the season started, aboard the Stargazer, just as the masked Borg Queen is about the take over the Stargazer and the whole Starfleet armada. Now, however, Picard understands what’s going on. He deactivates the self-destruct mechanism and yells at the Starfleet officers to stand down and stop firing, because this version of the Borg Queen is not a threat.

And indeed, once the Stargazer bridge crew has finally stopped shooting, the Borg Queen’s weird mesh mask retracts, revealing none other than Agnes Jurati’s face. After four hundred years, Agnes and the Borg have returned to Federation space. They don’t want to assimilate or attack anybody, because these new kinder Borg no longer do that, which begets the question whether there were always two different kinds of Borg out there or whether the timeline change just eliminated all previous Borg stories in one fell swoop.

Instead, Agnes points out that the Borg have come to warn the Starfleet of a transwarp conduit that will open and belch huge amounts of cosmic radiation into a sector full of inhabited planets and will kill lots of people. The Borg have no idea where that transwarp conduit came from – which is certainly interesting, because the Borg are normally the ones who create transwarp conduits. However, they have figured out how to stop the energy discharge from devastating the entire sector, namely by modifying their shields to block the energy. Alas, the Borg ship can’t do it alone, that is why Agnes is temporarily taking control of the Starfleet vessels, to harmonise their shields. This is exactly what the Borg ship and the Starfleet vessels do. And since the Stargazer is short of a captain, since Rios elected to stay behind in the 21st century, Picard uses his admiral powers to promote Seven to captain, finally giving her the career Starfleet denied her due to being Borg. Elnor pops up on a viewscreen, very confused but miraculously alive again. Q apparently did feel sorry for getting Elnor killed and brought him back. Oh yes, and Agnes’ Borg want to join the Federation, because they are still looking for connection. Also, they want to guard the anomaly, in case it belches out more deadly bursts of cosmic radiation.

In many ways, this ending brings season 2 full circle. We’re back aboard the Stargazer, where everything started, only that Picard, Starfleet and the viewer realises that the true threat were never the Borg, but that our prejudices led us to assume they were a threat. All that’s missing is that little 1980s cartoon moral lesson tagged on at the end, where Picard turns to the camera to tell viewers at home that we should never judge someone by their looks.

“Remember, kids, just because someone looks like a genocidal cyborg hellbent on assimilating the entire galaxy doesn’t mean that they are a genocidal cyborg hellbent on assimilating the entire galaxy. So talk to them and find out what they want. Until next time!”

On the other hand, the mystery anomaly that threatens all life in the entire sector literally comes out of nowhere and the problem is resolved in five minutes with some talking and a few special effects. This is even weirder, considering that the sister show Star Trek Discovery just spent an entire season on trying to deal with another mysterious planet-eating anomaly that turned out to be caused by aliens who were just misunderstood.

Now personally, I believe that season 4 of Discovery wasted way too much time on the so-called “Dark Matter Anomaly”, which was interesting enough for maybe an episode or two, but not as a season arc. Meanwhile, Star Trek Picard deals with a similarly dangerous anomaly in literally five minutes, which is too short.

Finally, there is yet another coda (as James Whitbrook points out, half the episode is basically various codas) as Picard, Raffi, Seven and Elnor head for Guinan’s bar for a drink. This time around, Guinan actually remembers meeting Picard in the past – even though the Guinan of 2024 did not remember meeting Picard in 1893 in “Time’s Arrow”, which seems like a mistake. However, Guinan is mainly there to tell us what happened to Rios, Teresa, Ricardo and Renee.

Rios and Teresa founded a medical charity a la medicins sans frontieres and helped wherever someone needed help. Teresa died of old age, while Rios managed to get himself killed in a bar fight over medical supplies in Morocco. “He died as he lived,” Guinan says, though like Paul Levinson, I’m not sure if we really needed to know that. As for Renee, she did find an alien micro-organism on Europa, which took over people and entire space stations and then built a stargate – no, that’s The Expanse – somehow solved all ecological problems on Earth. As for Ricardo, he grew up to be one of the scientists who solved those problems together with Auntie Renee.

Of course, Rios never met neither Renee nor Guinan in the entire season nor did Renee meet Guinan or Teresa, but let’s overlook that little problem. After all, Picard may well have told Rios to head to Guinan’s bar, if he needs help or feels the need to talk to someone who understands who and what he is. No idea how Renee fits into all this, though someone might have sought her out to tell her what actually happened.

In fact, in many way season 2 of Star Trek Picard feels like a Next Generation two-parter that has been blown up to ten episodes and got lost in all sorts of meandering side quests in the process. As Camestros Felapton says in his review of the final two episodes of season 2 of Star Trek Picard, the season does have a neat ending – just a pity that that ending has very little to do with most of the season.

In his review at nerds of a feather, Arturo Serrano points out that season 2 of Star Trek Picard is aimless and inconsistent. It touches on a lot of themes, but in the end doesn’t really have much to say about any of them. The main theme of season 2 seems to be childhood trauma and how it can impact a life and the whole world, which is certainly a good theme, though I’m not sure Jean-Luc Picard is the right character to explore that theme. The other main theme, which is the main theme of Star Trek Picard and one of the main themes of Star Trek in general, is prejudices against the Other (synths, Borg, Romulans, Q) and that overcoming them and finding out what the Other wants is usually the better path forward. Again, this is a good and important theme, it just gets lost in the meandering plot.

Don’t get me wrong, season 2 of Star Trek Picard was a lot of fun and I don’t regret watching it. However, it is also an unholy mess that doesn’t even seem to be sure which story it wants to tell most of the time. Camestros Felapton points out that inconsistency, weak endings and nigh schizophrenic shifts in tone and mood are a general problem with all the modern Star Trek shows and wonders whether the problem might not be that Star Trek isn’t really a good fit for streaming services with their shorter seasons and arc-driven plots.

Because even though Star Trek did have internal continuity and plot arcs at least since the 1980s/1990s, Star Trek was always an episodic show at its heart. I also have no idea why it can’t still be that. Not every TV show has to have a season or series arc and indeed, episodic shows like the various “case of the week” cop shows, lawyer shows and doctor shows continue to thrive, though usually not on the streaming services. Even though, if the reasonable explanations of Netflix’s recent woes (i.e. not the far right explanations that Netflix subscribers got freaked out by seeing underage girls dancing, trans people existing or other things that shake their worldview and thus cancelled the service altogether rather than just not watching things that offend them) is to be believed, the vast majority of people were actually watching cop shows like CSI or NCIS or sitcoms like Friends or The Office (all of which have very little internal continuity and no season arcs) on Netflix and cancelled their subscriptions, when those shows went away to other streaming services.

Of course, the target demographic for Star Trek is not the same as for CSI, NCIS or Friends and SFF shows usually do have season arcs these days. I’m just not sure whether we really need them or whether every SFF show needs to have an arc plot, especially since arc plots are only as good as their resolution (see Lost or The X-Files or Heroes or Twin Peaks any other arc plot show that just fizzled out), whereas episodic shows are endlessly rewatchable. At any rate, I am far more likely to rewatch a random Star Trek episode, when I come across it on TV than a random episode of e.g. The X-Files.

Paramount is not letting us rest, but giving us Star Trek Strange New Worlds right away, which is supposedly more episodic. I’m not sure if I will be doing episode by episode reviews of Strange New Worlds, because these reviews take a lot of time and I’m just about trekked out. Giving us a breather before throwing yet more Star Trek at us would have been welcome.

Cora is in the Local Newspaper as well as Free Sword and Sorcery

Yes, it’s another link post.

To begin with, I was in the local newspaper Kreiszeitung today and Andreas Hapke wrote a great profile about me and my Hugo nomination. As a bonus, you can see my three Hugo pins in close-up as well as a photo of me holding my DisCon III Hugo finalist certificate.

In other news, if your looking for some new edge sword and sorcery that has all the thrills of the classic stuff, but none of the retrograde attitudes, you can now get a free sampler of contemporary sword and sorcery, if you sign up for the Thews You Can Use sword and sorcery newsletter. Don’t worry, you can unsubscribe at any time.

So what are you waiting for? Get your free sword and sorcery sampler with fiction by Remco van Straten and Angeline B. Adams, Dariel R.A. Quioge, Mario Caríc, Chuck Clark, Nathaniel Webb, Michael Burke, J.T.T. Ryder and yours truly. Plus, a great cover by Hardeep Aujla.