Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 26

Cora is a Three-Time Hugo Finalist!

As you probably know, the finalists for the 2022 Hugo Awards have just been announced. And I promise you that the detailed analysis of the finalists, which I know you’re all waiting for, is coming as soon as I can get it done. And the ballot is truly excellent this year, with several firsts, including the first ever black African-born finalist and the youngest ever Hugo finalist.

But for now, I want to focus on just one category, namely the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. Cause if you take a look at that category, you will find – among the most excellent company of Paul Weimer, Jason Sanford, Chris M. Barkley, Alex Brown and Bitter Karella – my name. Yes, I’m a Hugo finalist for Best Fan Writer again!

I’ve known about this for about three weeks now (for those who don’t know, the Hugo administrators contact you beforehand to ask if you want to accept the nomination). Indeed, I got the mail from Chicon 8 a day after I posted my Open Letter to the 2022 Hugo Finalists on this blog.

It’s a great honour to be a Hugo finalist for the third time and I want to thank everybody who nominated me.

Now there are three Hugo pins.

Because the covid pandemic is still ongoing, I’m not sure if I can attend Chicon 8 this year. I certainly hope that I can attend, but I’m not holding my breath. So I may I lose out yet again on my chance to attend the Hugo ceremony in person as well as the reception beforehand and the party afterwards again. That said, I got the full Hugo finalist experience in Dublin in 2019 as the designated accepter for Galactic Journey.

I also have a request. Like all Hugo finalists, I will be asked to put together a selection of writings for the Hugo voters packet. And that’s why I need your help. Which 2020 articles, essays or reviews of mine should go into the Hugo Voters packet? There is a full list here, so let me know in the comments which ones you think should go into the packet.

How can you vote for the 2022 Hugos? I guess pretty much everybody here knows how it works, but for those who don’t, it’s quite simple. If you buy a supporting membership for Chicon 8, the 2022 Worldcon, you can vote for the Hugo Awards as well as vote to select the location of the 2024 Worldcon. You also receive all of the convention publications and get access to the Hugo Voters’ packet, which contains most of the nominated works either in part or as a whole. If you buy a virtual membership, you can also attend the virtual panels and other events online. If you want to attend in person, you’ll need an attending membership. You can buy memberships here.

As I said above, the detailed analysis of the 2022 Hugo ballot is coming soon. But for now, I just want to say thank you for nominating me.

This is last year’s Hugo finalist packet, including the pin and certificate, from DisCon III, which came in the mail two days ago.

Star Trek Picard Sings “Fly Me To the Moon”

Here is my take on the latest episode of Star Trek Picard. And yes, I know this is late, but I have been tired and busy. My take on Moon Knight will probably come in the next few days. 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, Rios was still in prison, Elnor was still dead, Seven and Raffi were bonding over Seven’s attempts to drive a 21st century police car, Agnes was still playing cat and mouse with the Borg Queen and Picard had just found the Watcher, who looks uncannily like Laris, his Romulan housekeeper and potential love interest.

However, the woman is not Laris. She is called Tallinn and she is a supervisor like Gary Seven from the Original Series episode “Assignment Earth”. Of course, it was widely theorised that season 2 of Picard would reference “Assignment Earth”, which was after all one of the time travel episodes of the Original Series. And indeed, Picard even namechecks that particular adventure of his predecessor as captain of the Enterprise. There are a lot of visual callbacks to “Assignment Earth” as well such as the smoke effect when entering Tallinn’s retro apartment which in itself looks more like the 1960s than 2024. Honestly, that could be a repurposed Mad Men set. And while talking of “Assignment Earth”, doesn’t Teri Garr look just like a Mod era Barbie in this publicity still with the human form of Isis, the cat? This 1968 Barbie dress named “Rare Pair” hits the look even better. Honestly, she looks like the lost Roberta doll. Coincidentally, this also explains why I have always liked the Mod era Barbies so much. Because they look like Star Trek supporting characters. See this Christie doll from 1968, who looks a lot like Uhura.

Like Guinan last episode, Tallinn isn’t particularly eager to help Picard, until he introduces himself to her. For it turns out that the person that Tallinn is supposed to watch over and protect is none other than Renee Picard, a direct ancestor of Jean-Luc Picard. Renee is a brilliant overarchiever, a teenged single-hand sailor, former test pilot and now the NASA astronaut, who is supposed to take part in the Europa mission, for which we saw billboards all over the place. Renee is also the blonde woman whom Q was observing at the end of last episode.

Even though Renee is brilliant, she also suffers from the bad case of imposter syndrome as well as depression, so NASA has assigned her a therapist. Unfortunately, that therapist is Q who’s doing his utmost to make things worse for Renee and talk her out of the Europa mission, which is apparently the timeline change he is trying to make. Picard learns all this from Tallinn’s handy futuristic laptop, via which she watches over Renee.

Tallinn also tells Picard that once Renee and the other astronauts go into pre-launch quarantine, she’ll be safe from Q’s influence and it will also be very difficult for her to back out of the mission. So they’ll only have to keep Renee on track for another day or so. Unfortunately, this day involves a huge party thrown for the astronauts pre-launch. This reminded me very much of A.E. Van Vogt’s 1944 story “Far Centaurus”, where the narrator kisses a girl at exactly such a pre-launch party and the moons over her whenever he awakes from cryosleep on a five hundred year sublight mission to Alpha Centauri. They do get a happy ending, though you have to read the story (or my review, but just read the story) to find out how.

However, infiltrating the pre-launch party to build up Renee’s confidence and get her away from Q won’t be easy, because security will be heavy. “We’ll need help”, Tallinn notes. Luckily, Picard has got a team that can help.

Which brings us to Raffi and Seven who are still trying to rescue Rios from ICE detention, deportation and possibly worse. Agnes has managed to beam Raffi and Seven to a hilltop near the road that the ICE prison bus carrying Rios and others about to be deported will come along. Raffi wants Agnes to just beam out Rios (though he lost his com badge at the Mariposa clinic), though Seven points out that this will cause a lot of attention they cannot afford. Of course, Raffi and Seven themselves just vanished into thin air in front of a bunch of police officers after a chase with a stolen police car, so one person suddenly vanishing into thin air from a ICE prisoner transport will not exactly make things worse. In fact, considering that Starfleet personnel been showing up in California – usually San Francisco, but also Los Angeles – regularly since 1968, I suspect there are urban legends about strange visitors from the future or alien planets who suddenly appear out of and vanish into thin air all over California.

However, if the solution to Rios’ dilemma was as simply as beaming him out of the bus, the car chase, which made up the bulk of the previous episode, would have been entirely pointless and so the show goes for another solution. Seven uses Raffi’s tricorder to disable the bus via an EMP pulse, causing it to stop.

Rios realises that the unscheduledd  bus failure is probably the prelude to his rescue and tells one of the other prisoners, Pedro, to be ready. This attracts the attention of one of the ICE guards, who doesn’t speak Spanish (which should be a must for someone dealing with immigrants from Spanish speaking countries), but really doesn’t like his prisoners talking. Rios knocks out the annoying guard with some help from Pedro, then Raffi and Seven storm the bus, stun the driver and proceed to free all the prisoners. Rios hugs Pedro and Raffi briefly mistakes a young Hispanic man with long hair for Elnor, to show both that Raffi is still mourning Elnor and probably also to justify why Evan Evagora is still in the credits, when his character has been dead for two episodes now.

Of course, by freeing a busload of prisoners who were destined to be deported and/or disappeared, Raffi, Seven and Rios may well have changed history in a big way, but the episode ignores this implication. Besides, those ICE thugs really had it coming and freeing the prisoners is a “Hell yeah!”, so we shall just ignore the potential issues and assume that all of the freed prisoners will keep a low profile. Unless Raffi, Rios and Seven accidentally changing the timeline by doing good is the plot for season 3, which we know was shot alongside season 2.

Meanwhile, aboard La Sirena, the Borg Queen is lonely and bored. She is missing the voices of the Collective in her head, so she tunes into the local radio and cellphone chatter. Then she accesses La Sirena‘s computer – mimicking the voices of Seven and Picard before realising that La Sirena only responds to Rios – and places a call to the local emergency services to order herself some company.

The local emergency services send a gendarme to check out the call reporting about hearing a woman screaming for help on the deserted vineyard. The gendarme checks out the chateau first and is literally seconds from finding Agnes, who is not in danger at all, but sleeping on the couch, when he notices a flicker among the trees outside, which turns out to be the La Sirena‘s cloaking device fizzing out.

The gendarme apparently expected the call to be a hoax and did not expect to find a spaceship from the future. He even less expected to find the Borg Queen inside the spaceship, because no one expects to find a Borg Queen. Before the poor gendarme can as much as fire his gun, the Borg Queen wraps a tentacle around his throat.

When Agnes comes back, carrying a shotgun that was seen hanging over the fireplace of Chateau Picard last episode, she finds the Borg Queen with her hostage. The Borg Queen promises Agnes she’ll let the gendarme go, if Agnes allows herself to be assimilated, since it’s Agnes the Queen really wants. Agnes, however, pulls the trigger and shoots her – with a rifle that was seen hanging over a fireplace at Chateau Picard. Yes, Agnes literally shoots the Borg Queen with Chekhov’s (Anton, not Pavel) Gun, which makes my geeky heart a lot happier than it should.

Raffi, Seven and Rios make it back just in time to find a blood-splattered Agnes, a dead Borg Queen and an unconscious gendarme. Though Agnes has managed to stabilise the gendarme and erase his memories, so he won’t be blabbering about alien spaceships and murderous tentacled cyborg women who are only torsos. When Picard arrives with Tallinn in tow, Raffi and Rios are just dragging the still unconscious gendarme out of La Sirena, prompting Tallinn to ask if Picard is sure that these are the right people for the job.

However, it’s not as if Picard can hop back into the future to grab Ryker, Worf, Geordi, Data, Beverly Crusher or Deanna Troi. Okay, if Picard were to break the fourth wall, he could in theory grab Ryker or at least Jonathan Frakes from the director’s chair, but it’s not that kind of show. Therefore, this is the team he has and so they get to work. Security at the astronaut pre-launch party is tight – facial recognition, biometrics, the whole shebang – so infiltrating the party is extremely difficult. Hacking the guest list isn’t possible either, because the guest list is kept on a separate computer. And Tallinn can only sneak one person in, not six.

So it is decided to send Agnes in and let her be captured, so she can get into the security center and hack the guest database. Which is exactly what happens. Agnes attends the party in a stunning red gown, has a glass of champagne while the band plays “Fly Me To the Moon”, justifying the episode’s title.

And while we’re on the subject, can we talk a little about the use of music in season 2 of Star Trek Picard. Because not only does season 2 have a lot of non-orchestral music, which is normally rare in Star Trek – Remember the fury when Star Trek Enterprise had a (perfectly fine) theme song with lyrics rather than an orchestral theme? – but music from a very particular era, namely the 1950s and early 1960s. “Fly Me To the Moon” was written in 1954 and the famous Frank Sinatra recording was made in 1964. “Time Is On My Side”, which can be heard in episode one, was written in 1963 and the famous Rolling Stones recording was made in 1964. And “Non, je ne regrette rien” was written in 1956 and recorded by Edith Piaf in 1960. All three songs fit the mood perfectly, but they’re songs you’d expect to hear in Mad Men rather than in a series set in 2024 and the 25th century. And indeed, “Fly Me To the Moon” did appear in Mad Men, playing over a scene where Peggy Olsen masturbates in what I always thought was a brilliant music and visual match, even though Mad Men also had a lot of anachronistic music choices, which are one of my pet peeves in period TV shows. Of course, Guardians of the Galaxy popularised the idea of pairing up science fiction with vintage pop music (though Guardians picked songs from the early to mid 1970s, i.e. the Musikladen era) and it worked really, really well, so it was likely that other SFF shows would eventually follow suit. Though I still wonder why Picard went for music from the 1950s and early 1960s. It’s not because the 1960s were the era of the Original Series, because the songs playing in Picard all date from a few years before the Original Series. Also, pop music changed and evolved extremely quickly in the 1960s, a lot quicker than in any other decade. In 1966, when the original Star Trek premiered, “Fly Me To the Moon”, “Time Is On My Side” and “Non, je ne regrette rien” were not exactly the cutting edge of pop music. Anyway, I may be overthinking this, but I find it interesting.

Everything goes as planned. Agnes is arrested, taken to the security center and handcuffed to a chair. However, we then get a flashback to what really happened aboard La Sirena when Agnes shot the Borg Queen. Because just before the Borg Queen expired, she transferred part of her mind into Agnes’, setting up Agnes to either become the new Borg Queen (which would fit in nicely with her terminal loneliness) or a Borg hybrid disconnected from the Collective like Seven or Hugh. Either way, this is going to throw a massive wrench into Picard’s plans. It’s also a shocking moment, for while it was obvious that Agnes was at risk of assimilation, I for one did not expect it to happen like this and neither did Paul Levinson, as he explains in his review of this episode.

However, Picard and his team are not the only ones who have a plan. Q has a plan as well. And since he can no longer make things happen just by snapping his fingers (and what’s up with that anyway?), he, too, recruits himself some help. This help happens to be a brilliant of unorthodox geneticist named Dr. Adam Soong, ancestor from Noonien Soong, creator of Data. Like every male member of the Soong family, Dr. Adam Soong is played by Brent Spiner, who has by now played four different members of the Soong family, six if you count Data and Lore. We first meet Dr. Adam Soong in front of a university committee, which is withdrawing his funding for unethical behaviour. The chair of the committee is played by none other than Lea Thompson, star of several 1980s SFF films, who also directed the last two episodes. Sitting next to her is a man billed as Dr. Rozhenko by his name plate. Star Trek fans will recognise the name, since the Rozhenkos were Worf’s adoptive family.

Dr. Soong is heartbroken, for he has a very good reason for crossing all sorts of red lines with his research, namely his daughter Kore (played by Isa Briones, who also played Soji and Daj and is apparently what all female members of the Soong family look like). Kore has a rare genetic disorder which means that expore to sunlight or dust can kill her. Dr. Soong is looking for a cure, which is why he is so desperately pursuing his research.

Soon after losing his funding, Soong is contacted by a mysterious benefactor, who just happens to have a small vial of a blue liquid that could cure Kore. However, the cure is only temporary and in order to make it permanent, Soong will just have to do a little favour for this mysterious benefactor. And of course, the benefator is none other than Q. The phone number on the dramatic calling card Q leaves for Soong actually does work, as James Whitbrook points out, and plays a snarky message from Q himself, if you call.

I hadn’t heard that Brent Spiner would be in season 2 of Picard, so his appearance her is a pleasant surprise. Though it’s also notable that not only do all Soongs look at same, they’re also all in essence mad scientists tampering with life itself. Also, why do all the Soongs look the same? Are they clones, just like the Emperors Three from the Foundation TV show?

While the previous episode moved too slow, “Fly Me To the Moon” is a very busy episode. New characters are introduced and a lot of stuff happens. Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido is happy that the plot is finally moving forward again, since the season has already reached its mid point. However, io9 reviewer James Whitbrook also points out that “Fly Me To the Moon” has almost too much plot and that quite a few things don’t make a whole lot of sense.

For example, why is the security so tight at the astronaut pre-launch gala? Cause the sheer amount of security suggests a G7 summit rather than a party for some astronauts. And if NASA security is so tight in this era, how can Q of all people sneak in, posing as a therapist? And since Q’s finger-snapping trick no longer works, how did he come to have the cure Dr. Soong needs for Kore? Finally, why exactly do Q’s powers no longer work? And what is up with Agnes and the Borg Queen? And what about the Mariposa Clinic? Was that a red herring or is it going to be significant in the future?

It’s a credit to the writers that you don’t ask all of those questions during the episode, but only realises that there is a lot here that makes no sense when you think about it afterwards.

“Fly Me To the Moon” has pushed the plot a large step forwards, so let’s see where the show goes next.

Fanzine Spotlight: Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations

I initially started the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project to highlight Hugo-eligible fanzines, fansites and podcasts. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

The Hugo finalists for 2022 will be announced later this week, but I want to keep the project (as well as the Non-Fiction Spotlights) going, because after the Hugo nominations is before the Hugo nominations. And besides, there are still a lot of great fanzines, blogs and podcasts out there that I haven’t covered.

Today’s featured fansite Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations is a blog which focusses on reviews of vintage science fiction from the 1950s to the mid 1980s.

As regular readers will know, vintage science fiction is also close to my heart, therefore I am pleased to welcome Joachim Boaz of Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations to my blog.

Tell us about your site or zine.

Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations maps the varied landscape of SF produced during the turbulence of the post-WWII to the mid-1980s world. I am fascinated by the ways authors responded to the advent of nuclear weapons, the rise of 50s suburbia and commercialism, the Civil Rights movement, the Counterculture and radical student politics, the Vietnam War, and the 1970s political backlash. I chart what’s produced in a specific time and territory to understand the people who dwelled at that moment—their dreams for the future, their fears of the present, and all the manifestations of estrangement and elation generated by a rapidly transforming world. Science fiction is a fantastic way to get at the zeitgeist of an era.

I am particularly receptive to New Wave science fiction of the late 60s and early 70s that attempted to tackle our oblique interiors via radical structure/politics, non-standard characters and perspectives, and experimental prose. Sometimes it’s beautiful. Sometimes it doesn’t work. But it’s all fascinating.

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

It’s just me – Joachim Boaz! I’m a historian by trade and training under another name. My pseudonym comes from a wonderful Russell Hoban novel—The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (1973)—about a son’s quest to find his father who sells magical maps that diagram the locations of inspiration and clarity. Other than the occasional guest post that I solicit, I write and edit everything posted on Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations.

Why did you decide to start your site or zine?

My site was birthed in a moment of acute isolation—my first year of my PhD program in 2010. I needed an outlet for my non-medieval passions. And despite my other areas of interest, my fascination with post-WWII to mid-80s science fiction was never going to disappear. I now see my website as my primary avenue for writing and research. And the wonderful community keeps me going. I hope my passion comes across!

What are your current research projects?

In addition to my normal reviews on whatever I happen to be reading, I have four current science fiction short story reading initiatives that I’ve started over the past few years. My newest series explores future formulations of the media landscape spurred by the explosion of television ownership in the 50s, fears of both Communist brainwashing and corporate subliminal messages, and the theories of Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). Other series include a readthrough of Carol Emshwiller’s pre-1980s short fiction, subversive takes on astronauts and the culture that produced them, and generation ships.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

The sites I end up visiting the most contain frequent reviews of older science fiction due to my research interests. A handful of worthy writers include Rich Horton over at Strange at Ecbatan, Mark Yon and John Boston (among others) at Galactic Journey, Rachel S. Cordasco at SF in Translation, James Nicoll Davis at James Nicoll Reviews, J. W. Wartick’s vintage reviews at Eclectic Theist, Andrew Darlington’s SF articles at Eight Miles Higher, and our wonderful host Cora Buhlert and all the various places she posts her ruminations on older SF.

Where can people find you?

Website: Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations

Social Media: Twitter

Email: ciceroplatobooks@gmail.com

Thank you, Joachim, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations, cause it’s a great site.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

 

 

First Monday Free Fiction: Sacrifice to the Kitayu

Welcome to the April 2022 edition of First Monday Free Fiction.

To recap, inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who posts a free short story every week on her blog, I’ll post a free story on the first Monday of every month. At the end of the month, I’ll take the story down and post another.

This month’s free story is called “Sacrifice to the Kitayu and it can be found in Children of the Stone Gods, a collection of science fantasy, planetary romance and sword and planet stories. As for why I chose it, I realised that in four years of First Monday Free Fiction, I had never posted a story from that particular collection before, so time to rectify that.

So accompany the beautiful Hafzira, as she becomes a…

Sacrifice to the Kitayu

It was near the time of returning and the people of Volitan were preparing this solar cycle’s sacrifice.

Like every cycle, the sacrifice was chosen from the daughters of Volitan. One lunar cycle before the returning, all women of the colony who were of childbearing age and not yet mated were called together in the Great Hall to select this cycle’s sacrifice.

Many came willingly, for it was considered a great honour to be chosen as an offering to the Kitayu on their annual return. After all, only the best and brightest, the purest and the most beautiful of all the daughters of Volitan were considered worthy of becoming an offering of peace and tribute to the Kitayu.

Others had to be forced. They were pulled out of the cellars and closets and outhouses where they’d been hiding and led into the Great Hall in restraints. Some girls also tried to escape the selection by getting mated very quickly.

Still, in the end they all came, willingly or not. All the unmated women and girls of childbearing age of the whole colony gathered together in one place, so that the sacrifice could be chosen.

The selection process was rigorous. First, all of the young women were subjected to a thorough physical examination to determine whether they were healthy and thus fit to be sacrificed. The girls’ virginity was also inspected to prove that the chosen sacrifice was pure and worthy.

Girls found impure escaped the selection process and were led away from the Great Hall in shackles, lest they contaminate its sacred atmosphere with their impurity. They were taken to the gaol and eventually condemned to lifelong servitude in the houses of lust for daring to defy Volitan’s customs and laws.

Next, those girls found to be healthy and pure enough were subjected to a battery of scans, puzzles and tests to determine the quality of their intellects and their very minds. Great machines bestowed by the Kitayu themselves compiled results and evaluated the tests and in the end, an algorithm honed by centuries of experience selected this cycle’s sacrifice, the best and noblest and worthiest young woman Volitan had to offer.

In the end, the great machine spat out a single name, the name of the chosen maiden, printed on a sealed piece of paper. The seal could only be broken by the Pontifex of Volitan, governor and high priest combined into one.

Before the name was read out, all doors of the Great Hall were locked and barred. For in the past, it had sometimes happened that the chosen maiden attempted to escape and had to be chased down. So trusted guards were placed at all exits, making sure that the chosen one could not slip away.

A hush fell over the assembled women and girls, as the Pontifex stepped onto the stage, attired in his splendid red robes of office, to break the seal and read out the name of the chosen one. And many a young woman breathed out a clandestine sigh of relief, when the name was read out and it was not her own. Though a handful of girls — those who had volunteered for the honour — could barely hide their disappointment.

Though everybody present agreed that the great computers had chosen wisely, for this cycle’s sacrifice, the beautiful Hafzira, was a most worthy tribute. Tall and statuesque, intelligent and of sterling character, with red hair, gilded skin and brilliant green eyes — yes, none could imagine a more worthy candidate than Hafzira. And if Hafzira herself had harboured a smattering of hope in her well-formed bosom that she might be spared and another chosen, then she hid it well. As a true daughter of Volitan, she knew where her duty lay.

***

Once the selection was made, the chosen maiden was whisked away by the guards at once, to prepare herself for the sacrifice in seclusion and solitude. She would spend the remainder of the lunar cycle in quiet study and contemplation to familiarise herself with the sacred texts handed down by the Kitayu themselves.

And so Hafzira was led to the chamber of seclusion. She was given new garments, the plain white robes of the chosen sacrifice, and handed the sacred texts, thick dusty tomes printed on yellowed paper. Then the door was locked behind her and Hafzira was left alone. Only now did she break down, sobbing bitter tears into her plain white robe.

She cried a lot during those first few days and cared not who knew it. Though she suspected her tears did not much bother the priests and attendants, for they left her strictly alone. Only once every day, when the morning bell rang, was the door to her chamber unlocked and a low-level attendant brought her a bowl of cleansing broth, a jug of water and some bread, for the chosen maiden had to be prepared for her sacrifice by strict fasting.

Sometimes, Hafzira tried speaking to the attendants who brought her food, but they never replied. Once she even hurled the bowl with the scalding hot broth at an attendant, but the woman just ducked and left without a word, while Hafzira went hungry that day.

Every night, when the evening bell rang and the sun set behind the tiny barred window of Hafzira’s cell, the door to the chamber was unlocked once more and High Priest Matadan, right hand to the Pontifex himself, entered. He forced Hafzira to kneel on the bare stone floor of her cell and demanded that she confess her sins and repent. When Hafzira told him that she had no sins to confess, the high priest would clasp her hands in his and force her to pray with him, chanting prayers with nigh hypnotic intensity.

If the silent attendants were frustrating, Matadan was a thousand times so. For though he at least spoke to Hafzira, he still did not listen to her nor did he answer her questions. He merely chanted prayers, demanded that Hafzira confess and repent her sins and admonished her to study the sacred texts.

Once, Hafzira began to cry while Matadan was chanting his prayers at her. Matadan regarded her, entirely unmoved.

“Cry as much as you wish, child,” he finally said, “For tears cleanse the mind and the soul and thus will prepare you to receive the wisdom of the Kitayu.”

Another night, Hafzira hurled her soup bowl at the priest. It was empty and cold by then and as the attendant before him, Matadan dodged it easily. Nonetheless, he ordered that she be subjected to a light flogging as well as two days of strict fasting to drive the defiance out of her. After that, Hafzira did not resist again.

And though she had initially rejected the sacred texts, Hafzira began to read them anyway after a few days of silence and seclusion, because she was bored out of her mind. Not that the sacred texts provided much in the way of relief to her overwhelming boredom, for their content was as dry as the dust that had settled onto their ancient pages.

When cracking open the sacred texts, Hafzira had expected something along the lines of Matadan’s chants. But instead, the sacred texts seemed to focus on science and technology. There was a lot about machines and astronomy and navigation, though in directions and dimensions that Hafzira had never heard of. There were other subjects, too, subjects that Hafzira did not even know the names of.

Every night, Matadan asked her, “Have you been faithfully studying the sacred texts, child?”

And every night, Hafzira answered, “I have. But I do not understand them.”

“You will, my child, you will,” Matadan said, patting her head, “Enlightenment will come, once you are joined with the Kitayu.”

“But do not wish to be joined with the Kitayu,” Hafzira said, “I do not understand the sacred texts, which must mean that I am unworthy of the honour bestowed on me.”

“On the contrary child, you are most worthy in spite of your willfulness,” Matadan declared, “After all, the great machine of the Kitayu chose you. And the Kitayu and their machines are eternal and unfailing.”

Then he departed, leaving Hafzira alone in her cell once more with only the sacred texts to keep her company.

***

As the day of the Kitayu’s arrival drew nearer, the preparations for Hafzira’s sacrifice intensified. Matadan spent more time with her, praying and chanting and exhorting her to confess and repent her sins. Hafzira finally confessed every wrong she had ever done in her life just to get rid of him.

On the night before the sacrifice, the silent attendants arrived to lead Hafzira away to the bath chambers. They washed and cleansed and scrubbed her until her skin was raw and then they anointed her with scented oil that was supposed to be pleasing to the Kitayu.

After the bath, Hafzira was given new robes, the scarlet robes of the chosen sacrifice. She was also handed a goblet and told to drink the sweet wine mixed with spices that dulled her senses and sapped her will.

Once Hafzira was dressed, Matadan appeared again, together with a full accompaniment of temple guards and the Pontifex himself.

As befitted a true daughter of Volitan, Hafzira dropped to her knees before the great man, asking his blessing and imploring him to reconsider her sacrifice, for she still did not feel worthy of the honour bestowed upon her.

“Oh, I’m quite sure the Kitayu will find you most worthy, my child,” the Pontifex replied, “After all, the great machine said so and the great machine is never wrong. But we must hasten, for the time of arrival approaches. So be blessed for your great service to our world and our people, my child.”

The Pontifex nodded to one of the guards who stepped forward to bind Hafzira’s hands behind her back with iron shackles.

Then finally, Hafzira was led to the place of offering. The Pontifex walked on her right side and Matadan on her left and the temple guards surrounded them on all sides.

Hafzira walked with her hands bound and her head demurely lowered. And the people of Volitan who had come to witness the sacrifice praised her humility and modesty and remarked what a worthy choice she was.

The full contingent of guards ascended the first three levels of the tower of offering, but only Hafzira, Matadan, the Pontifex and two handpicked guards ascended to the fourth level.

The morning air was cool up here, the wind fresh and Hafzira shivered in her thin sacrificial gown.

“Have no fear, my child,” the Pontifex whispered in what was probably supposed to be a sympathetic tone, “It shall all be over soon.”

Hafzira did not feel comforted by that at all.

The Pontifex and the two guards remained behind on the viewing platform of the fourth level of the tower. Only Matadan accompanied Hafzira onto the final ledge that led to the place of offering.

The ledge was narrow and oxidated with age and covered in strange machinery that sang and hummed as Hafzira passed.

She made the mistake to look down at those gathered below, hoping to spot her parents in the crowd, so she might see their faces one more time. But the ledge was so narrow and the ground so far down that she stumbled and swooned and might have fallen, had not Matadan’s iron grip caught her just in time.

“Oh no, girl. You won’t get out of this so easily.”

And then she was at the end of the ledge and there was no further to go. Matadan’s hands were still closed around her upper arm like an iron shackle, as he reached up to retrieve the traditional mask of the chosen sacrifice.

Hafzira emitted a squeak of fear as she saw the sacrificial mask, though seen this close it was more helmet than mask and a truly terrifying thing indeed.

“No, please, I…”

The mask locked around her face, cutting off her voice and plunging Hafzira into darkness. She screamed, but there was no one to hear.

Behind her back, she felt movement. From witnessing previous sacrifices, she knew that Matadan was now connecting a thick cable to the back of the mask. Supposedly, it was to facilitate her union with the Kitayu, but Hafzira felt and saw nothing, so that was probably just a myth.

She did not see the Kitayu descend from the sky, did not see the massive metallic body hovering right above the tower of offering. She only felt their presence, as the strong gusts of wind generated by the Kitayu’s arrival pressed her robe to her body and sent a shiver through her bones.

Far below, the people of Volitan waited with bated breaths, if the Kitayu would accept the chosen sacrifice or if they would visit their wrath upon the world and its people. Their hearts hammered more rapidly than Hafzira’s own, as a door opened in the side of the great metal vessel of the Kitayu and a lance shot out, examining the sacrifice.

Because of the mask, Hafzira never saw the lance, though she did feel the cable that shot out of its tip to wrap itself around her body. Against her will, she felt herself pulled forwards, pulled into the embrace of the Kitayu.

The door in the belly of the Kitayu closed behind her and the people of Volitan cheered. They were still cheering as the Kitayu ascended to the heavens again, dropping gifts for their faithful servants as they left.

***

When Hafzira came to again, everything around her was still dark. She was not in pain, not even in discomfort, apart from the fact that she could not see.

Briefly, she wondered whether she was dead. But this sensation of floating in a sea of inky black water was not like any of the legends of the afterlife that the priests had recounted.

There was a voice, in her head or in her ear, she knew not which. It was a friendly voice, gentle almost.

“Welcome, child. Do you have a name?”

“Ha… Hafzira,” she said or thought, she knew not which. Never mind that in this sea of blackness, speaking and thinking were the same anyway.

“Welcome, Hafzira of Volitan. I am Cruiser XW-56Z of the Kitayu Expeditionary Forces.”

Hafzira was just about to ask if the voice had a nickname, something shorter and catchier by which to call it, when all of a sudden her vision returned and she could see again. Only that she was no longer on Volitan or even inside the great metal belly of the Kitayu. She was floating, floating amongst the stars.

Knowledge flooded into her, knowledge about the stars and their names and how to get there. Hafzira smiled in wonderment or maybe she just thought she did.

“You will be my pilot, Hafzira, and together we shall travel the universe.

***

That’s it for this month’s edition of First Monday Free Fiction. Check back next month, when a new free story will be posted.

A Couple of Mixed Links, Mainly Promo-Stuff

This week’s Star Trek Picard review is coming and I’ll probably do Moon Knight, too, once I’ve actually watched it.

But in the meantime, here are some mixed links to elsewhere on the web. Cause I’ve actually had quite a lot of things coming out in the past few weeks and there’s even more coming up.

Let’s start with a flash story that came out only today as part of the Friday flash fiction series of Wyngraf Magazine of Cozy Fantasy. My story is called “Rescue Unwanted” and it’s the story of a knight, a princess and a dragon. And since it’s cozy fantasy, two of them even get a happy ending. So head over to Wyngraf Magazine and read “Rescue Unwanted”.

I also was a guest on Oliver Brackenbury’s excellent So I’m Writing a Novel podcast, where we chat about sword and sorcery, pulp fiction, the Silencer, writing, linguistics, self-publishing and all sorts of other stuff, so give it a listen.

Furthermore, I was also at Galactic Journey and back in 1967 last month, reviewing a very infamous SFF book, namely Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman, while my colleague Victoria Silverwolf reviews Why Call Them Back From Heaven?, a science fiction novel about cryogenics by Clifford D. Simak. Needless to say that Victoria got the better deal.

I offered to review Tarnsman of Gor, for even though I was of course aware of its reputation, I had never actually read the book. DAW Books were not all that easy to come by in pre-Internet Germany and the import bookstore where I got most of my English language SFF paperbacks in the 1980s and early 1990s never had any Gor books. I also suspect that they wouldn’t have carried them anyway, since whoever stocked the two genre fiction spinner racks at that store certainly knew their SFF and kept most of the problematic stuff out, though they missed Piers Anthony.

I remember coming across a whole shelf full of yellow-spined Gor novels – at least thirty or so – in the catacombs of a used bookshop on London’s Charing Cross Road (and yes, that store really had a network of mazelike catacombs that went down so deep that a passing Northern Line tube train would make the shelves shake) as a student in the mid 1990s and being entranced by the striking Boris Vallejo covers. I contemplated trying the series, but there were so many books and I couldn’t figure out the order, so I passed. In retrospect, that was a wise decision.

So now that I’ve actually read Tarnsman of Gor, what is the verdict? Well, it is a bad book, though not entirely for the reasons I expected it to be bad.

What I knew of the Gor books was that they were BDSM erotica disguised as Edgar Rice Burroughs style sword and planet adventure and that the BDSM to Burroughs ratio shifts in the course of the series in favour of the former. But while the Burroughs influence is certainly notable to the point that things happen to Tarl Cabot just because the same thing happened to John Carter, the BDSM stuff and the sexual content in general is mild by modern standards. Mostly, Tarnsman of Gor is just dull.

Honestly, I would never have imagined that a book infamous for its kinky sexual content could be so dull. Because the entire first third of Tarnsman of Gor is basically one endless infodump about the history of the Cabot family and then the history of Gor. The fact that this endless infodump is imparted mostly in extremely stilted dialogue doesn’t help either. While slogging through the never-ending infodump, I came close to crying out, “You promised me sex, you promised me slave girls, you promised me adventure, so where is it? Where is any of that?”

Honestly, if I had bought Tarnsman of Gor in that used bookshop on Charing Cross Road, intrigued by the iconic Boris Vallejo cover (which wasn’t actually the cover of the 1966 edition I reviewed for the Journey) and had then gotten mired in endless infodumps, the book would have met the wall very fast.

While I’m on the subject of Galactic Journey, their publishing house Journey Press just released a brand-new anthology of science fiction by women writers of the 1950s. It’s called Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women Volume 2 (1953-1957) and collects some excellent and little reprinted stories that will prove that the much repeated claim that women did not write science fiction during the so-called golden and silver ages of science fiction wrong.

I’m obviously not a science fiction writers of the 1950s, so how did I get involved with this anthology? Well, every story is accompanied by an essay by contemporary woman SFF writer, critic, scholar or artist and I contributed the essay for “The Queer Ones” by Leigh Brackett.

Finally, feast your eyes on that cover and then get the book and volume 1, too, if you don’t have it already:

Women write science fiction. They always have.

Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1953-1957) offers, quite simply, some of the best science fiction ever written: 20 amazing pieces, most of which haven’t been reprinted for decades…but should have been. Whether you are a long-time fan or new to the genre, you are in for a treat.

This collection of works—18 stories, 1 poem, 1 nonfiction piece—are a showcase, some of the best science fiction stories of the ’50s. These stories were selected not only as examples of great writing, but also because their characters are as believable, their themes just as relevant today, their contents just as fun to read, as when they were written almost three quarters of a century ago.

Dig in. Enjoy these newly-rediscovered delicacies a few at a time…or binge them all at once!

Amazon | B&N | Bookshop.org | Journey Press

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for March 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 February 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, historical mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, Regency mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, psychological thrillers, legal thrillers, adventure thrillers, financial thrillers, revenge thrillers, historical thrillers, romantic suspense, police officers, private investigators, amateur sleuths, FBI agents, lawyers, hookers, serial killers, con artists, missing children, terrorism, organised crime, crime-busting witches, crime-busting socialites, crime-busting reporters, crime-busting morticians, murder and mayhem in London, Chicago, Florida, Ohio, Montana, the Caribbean 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 Among the Silent Dead by Blythe Baker:

While visiting a London cemetery, Lillian Crawford and her twin brother Felix are witnesses to a violent crime. When Felix is mistakenly arrested as the culprit, it’s up to Lillian, with some assistance from the handsome Eugene Osbourn, to uncover the truth.

But will Lillian find the answers she needs in time to clear her brother’s name?

 

 

An Infamous End by Blythe Baker:

After the terrible revelations of the past several weeks, Jane realizes she can no longer stay with her Pemberton relations. Fleeing to the countryside, she becomes a temporary guest in the home of her sister and brother-in-law.

But danger finds Jane once more, when she becomes entangled in the investigation of a local murder. And worse, the shadows of Pemberton Heights continue to beckon, threatening to draw her back once more…

 

The Tea Shop Witch by Thora Bluestone:

A disappearing body.
Hidden magical talents.
An adorable mind-reading dog.
And small-town secrets . . .

Addie James’s life imploded when she discovered her fiancé cheating and got downsized from her biotech job. So she left Silicon Valley for the haven of her Aunt Kate’s tea and apothecary shop in the peaceful mountain town of Stargaze. There, she plans to take a deep breath and figure out what’s next.

But when Addie reaches Stargaze, there’s no trace of her aunt. Until one night, Aunt Kate’s lifeless body shows up and then disappears from the locked shop.

And that’s when things really start to get strange.

As Addie sets out to find the murderer, she begins to realize her own hidden magical talent is the key to discovering what really happened to her aunt . . . who might not be quite so dead after all.

The problem is, logical Addie isn’t sure she can accept the magical parts of herself that science can’t explain. Will she learn to embrace this new life that’s full of supernatural surprises and solve her aunt’s case?

Hometown Magic by Amy Boyles:

There is a killer on the loose in Peachwood, and that person is targeting witches. Worse, there’s no rhyme or reason to the murders. Clementine and Rufus are at a loss as to how to find the killer.

They need help, and a lot of it. So the entire witch and wizard community of Peachwood bands together to help. Only, those folks tend to whine a lot and they’re not sure if Rufus can be trusted. With time running out, and more attacks occurring, Clem and Rufus are forced to rely on witches who can’t be trusted for help.

Will they solve the mystery? Or will Clem and Rufus be the next victims?

God’s Ponzi by Robert Buschel:

Gregory Portent demands revenge. Revenge is best served cold and when the prey begs to be the target. With his skills and charisma he lures them in easy—using an investment bank to launch a Ponzi scheme. Gregory Portent has one advantage—artificial intelligence. At a critical point, he loses his way. A ‘black swan’ event follows and the Ponzi scheme borders on the brink of collapse. It’s not about revenge anymore; it’s about survival. Greedy lawyers, the FBI, and international syndicates pursue him. Greg must go on the run. Everyone he cares about is now in danger. He must win. The strange thing? You’ll be rooting for him the whole time. Will he win big and get his vengeance? Robert Buschel proves beyond a reasonable doubt, he is a rising storyteller. Pick up God’s Ponzi and unlock the secret behind the world’s most diabolical Ponzi scheme.

A Romantic Little Murder by Beth Byers:

Jack and Vi have been on edge. Maybe Vi has been snippy and distracted. Maybe Jack has been sharp and irritable. Maybe they panic when they realize they’re unhappy with each other.

On an evening of romance, they dance, they kiss, they connect, and then they find a body. Of course, they aren’t surprised. Only this time, they realize they know the victim.

Once again, they delve into an investigation. They work together to find a killer, and if they repair what’s been going amiss between them at the same time, they’re all right with that too.

Fortuitious Justice by Dennis Carstens:

WHEN THEY THROW THE BOOK
AT YOU, WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

ANSWER: You’d better call top Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Marc Kadella.

Fixer Burt Chayson had well and truly fixed it this time. About to be charged in a vote-buying scandal, he was overheard declaring that if he went down, he’d take some people with him. Within hours he’s dead, and, at first glance, it looks like a suicide—until incriminating fingerprints are found.

The suspect—and Marc’s client—is realtor Hope Slade, one of a group of law-breaking former Vikings cheerleaders, now known as the Suburban Housewife Hooker Ring. Hope’s had a little bad luck lately—her husband threw her out, her children no longer trust her, and she’s already facing a plethora of other criminal charges. All she needs is a murder rap.

But not only are her fingerprints on the murder weapon but the victim, a client of several of the Housewife Hookers, was last seen with her.

Relying on the SODDI (Some Other Dude Did It) defense that’s worked so well for him before, Marc knows he’ll have no trouble coming up with other suspects. But even if Hope’s not convicted of the murder, she faces RICO, prostitution, and money laundering charges.

And it’s not just Hope. The Grand Jury’s thrown the book at the entire hooker gang, apparently in an attempt to squeeze them for information on much bigger fish – a major local drug wholesaler. The major local drug wholesaler. And danger shadows them since some of those people the fixer had planned on taking down with him want to make sure the hookers don’t spill Burt’s pillow talk.

Bridge to Trouble by Elisabeth Grace Foley:

Jeanette Pierpont is out of patience.

On the run from hurt and humiliation, she’s fled back to her home in the Montana mountains in search of solitude. But to her unpleasant surprise, she discovers she’s not alone there. In fact, there are altogether too many strangers lurking in the woods and around the abandoned mining town nearby—some decidedly suspicious, others merely infuriating.

Before long it becomes clear that the mountain has become the setting for a daring crime—and Jeanette finds herself dragged into a race against time to foil it before it’s too late.

A novella that blends the classic romantic-suspense style of Mary Stewart with the rugged setting of the American West.

Love, Lies and Suicide by Elle and K.S. Gray:

“You can’t always get what you want.”
“But, if you try, you might find…”

You’ll get exactly what’s coming for you.

FBI agent Olivia Knight has seen the realities of what happens when nightmares come to life.

When she’s called to investigate a case of an apparent murder-suicide in an affluent community.

She finds herself buried by the unexplainable questions that arise regarding the couple’s seemingly perfect life.

When a deep dive into the life of the philanthropic couple leads to a revelation to a potential double life.

Olivia finds herself wondering if their hidden life finally caught up to them…

They say the purest form of good in this world is love.
But what happens if the love you feel is all a lie?
What happens when the thing you love the most turns into a monster that breaks you?

With her own romantic life in shambles, Olivia begins to wonder what price one’s willing is to pay for love?
And what is the truth behind this case of love, lies, and suicide?

Tall Tales and Witchy Fails by Lily Harper Hart:

Splat.

That’s the sound Hali Waverly made when she hit the pavement after a drunken billionaire ran her over with his golf cart.

Cha-ching.

That’s the sound her bank account made when his handlers got him under control and swooped in to buy Hali off. The offer? Ownership of a tiki bar on the property of a busy resort and lodging in one of the villas on St. Pete Beach.

Now Hali is officially successful. That doesn’t mean her life is a beach of roses.

When private investigator Grayson “Gray” Hunter shows up asking questions about a missing woman, Hali is evasive. It’s not because she doesn’t want to help as much as she’s already running her own investigation with the help of her best friend, another witch, and a group of sirens who control the beach.

Gray and Hali lock horns as they continuously cross paths with one another, to the point where they agree to join forces … but only temporarily.

Evil is stalking the resort. Young women are going missing at every turn. It’s going to take a mixture of magic and might to save the day … and even that might not be enough.

St. Petersburg has a new crime-fighting team. Are they strong enough to survive the rising tide and take down a monster?

You’re about to find out.

Path of Justice by Robin James:

To everyone else, Denny Sizemore is the handsome face on a highway billboard. A man to be trusted. Respected. Re-elected.

To college student Neveah Ward, he is her monster.

When Neveah accuses the former mayor of a brutal rape, it’s easier for everyone not to believe her. Mayor Sizemore has lived his life in the public eye. He’s a family man. A rising star in Ohio politics. She’s a nobody with questionable motives and a shady past.

Except DNA doesn’t lie and Neveah never wavers from her story.

Lucky for her, Prosecutor Mara Brent never backs down from a worthy fight.

The case will pit Mara against some of the biggest power players in the state. They soon learn Mara can’t be bought. But she has plenty at risk in her personal life as she gears up for a nasty custody battle against her formidable ex-husband.

Mara’s willing to put her career on the line to champion Neveah. But when the rape trial takes a shocking turn, the fallout could cost Mara what she cherishes most of all. Her son. This time, the path to justice could reveal a dark family secret those close to her would do anything to protect.

Sticks and Crones by Amanda M. Lee:

When Scout Randall’s past came into focus, she thought the hard part was behind her. She was wrong.

Now, not only is she dealing with a day-walking vampire who has all the strengths and none of the weaknesses associated with his kind, but there’s also a new bloodsucker in town … and this one is out for revenge.

When she killed the last master, Scout assumed that was it. She didn’t count on him having a brother. That brother is intent on making her pay, and he’s not shy about dropping bodies in an attempt to rattle her along the way.

Scout has a sister she can’t trust, a former partner she’s trying to bring back to the world of the living, and a crew that’s often steeped in drama. When you add the Winchesters from Hemlock Cove into the mix, she has her hands full. A new vampire gang is the last thing she needs, especially when people start falling under glamours and making targets of themselves.

Scout has magic and might on her side but the fight she’s facing could force her to make a choice she never thought she would have to make.

Darkness is taking over Hawthorne Hollow. Vampires are gathering evil forces to take over the town.

The fight is on.

Fake News & Office Blues by Amanda M. Lee:

Taking down a killing team means Avery Shaw is getting a lot of attention. It’s almost too much attention. That’s why she’s ready for a new story, and when one falls in her lap, she’s more than ready to flip the script.

When leaving the courthouse, she witnesses two men in a car trying to abduct a local woman. She intervenes, but when the dust settles, the woman is nowhere to be found and people are telling her that she’s reading too much into the situation.

She knows better. Unfortunately, nobody will listen.

Her boss is trying to force her to cover pageant stories. Her husband is trying to placate her. And the sheriff? He’s convinced she’s losing her mind.

Avery doesn’t play around, however, and she keeps digging … despite the numerous distractions she’s got going. What she finds is a huge operation, and when it’s time to take it down, she’s the one in danger of not only losing her life but also her freedom.

Avery Shaw is a force to be reckoned with. She’s about to prove it … again.

Patient Vengeance by A.L. Masters:

The 2012 London Olympic Games are coming up and the country is in a state of excitement. The mood in the country is positive and hard times are forgotten, if just for a short time. But a young woman is reported missing. And then a dismembered woman’s body is discovered at an ancient historical site. Or is it? Another young woman is reported missing. Another body is found floating in the Thames. Or is it? Spence Hargreaves and his team find themselves hurled into an investigation that stretches from the Wiltshire countryside to London to East Anglia to Australia. What brings things together? Is the past the past and the present the present? Or can past and present never be separated? Is vengeance ever just? Is it true that we reap what we sow? As the reader ponders such issues, Spence and his team struggle to understand the reason why? And then how to unravel the threads.

Don’t Get Close by Matt Miksa:

An infamous reincarnation cult resurfaces in the wake of a deadly bombing, and it’s up to an FBI novice to learn its true aim—and uncover its dark past before it consumes her.

Special Agent Vera Taggart walked away from a promising career as an artist to join the FBI, and she impresses her new colleagues with her eerie ability to divine conclusions from the grisliest crime scenes. Taggart’s first assignment is a decades-old cold case centered on a cult of suicide bombers known as the Sons of Elijah who believe they’ve been reborn hundreds of times, going back centuries. It seems like a low-risk assignment until a bomb tears apart a crowded Chicago restaurant. The Sons of Elijah have returned—and now it’s up to Taggart to stop their modern-day reign of terror.

Taggart’s investigation begins with Dr. Seth Jacobson, a renowned psychiatrist who claims to help people remember past lives through hypnotherapy. Jacobson had treated two of the Sons of Elijah’s founders before they’d gone on to commit a series of horrific murders. Desperate to understand how these ordinary patients could have taken such a violent path, Taggart agrees to undergo similar treatment with Jacobson.

Through her hypnosis sessions, Taggart comes to suspect the Sons of Elijah are targeting a high-tech government laboratory that could expose the group’s greatest secret with a controversial experiment. To save millions of innocent lives, Tag must come to grips with the shocking truth about the cult and her own puzzling role in its timeless mission. The fate of humanity rests on her ability to determine which threats are real and which exist only in her mind—and to decide whose side she’s really fighting for.

Bad Blood Sisters by Saralyn Richard:

Quinn McFarland has grown up around dead bodies…

Quinn’s always joked about death, but this summer, death stops being funny. For one thing, her brother finally undergoes transplant surgery. For another, Quinn’s estranged BFF—her “blood sister”—is brought into the family mortuary, bludgeoned to death.

Quinn is haunted by the past, her friendship gone awry, and the blood oath she’s sworn to keep secret. The police consider her a person of interest, and someone threatens her not to talk. Quinn is the only one who knows enough to bring the killer to justice, but what she’s buried puts her in extreme danger.

Little Did She Know by Willow Rose:

It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life when her kidnapped daughter returned, but it wasn’t.

Fourteen years ago, Clarissa Smalls was born, and a few hours later, she was taken from the hospital. Kidnapped. Her mother searched desperately for her for years, but she never found her.

Until now.

When Clarissa Smalls is suddenly found in the swamps of central Florida, badly bruised and confused, it causes much joy and celebration in her family, especially with her mother, who has waited fourteen years to see her baby girl again. Little did she know that this day would end up being the worst in her life. Because Clarissa doesn’t want to know about her mother, she refuses to talk to anyone and won’t tell the police what happened to her.

When another baby girl is kidnapped from the same hospital, in the same manner, the police believe it’s the same kidnapper that took Clarissa. Suddenly, time is of the essence to make her answer the many questions that are piling up.

Where was she for fourteen years?

Who took her?

Why won’t she tell them who her kidnapper is?

The FBI brings in former profiler Eva Rae Thomas to help them in this peculiar case. Eva Rae Thomas knows the girl’s mother very well and is willing to go to great lengths to help her out, even though the two of them share an unpleasant history. In addition, Eva Rae’s sister recently came back into her life after being kidnapped thirty-five years ago, so the FBI hopes that she can contribute with a deeper understanding of the situation and maybe get through to Clarissa.

Little could she have known that soon she would wish that she never got involved in this, as the case becomes very personal for her.

Murder at the Savoy by Lee Strauss:

Mrs. Ginger Reed, known also as Lady Gold, settles into homelife with her husband Chief Inspector Basil Reed, son Scout and newborn daughter Rosa, but when an opportunity to join a dinner party at the renowned Savoy Hotel is offered, she’s eager to engage in a carefree night with friends. Some of the guests are troubled when their party’s number lands at unlucky thirteen, as death is sure to come to the first person who leaves the table.

Thankfully, the Savoy has an answer to this superstitious dilemma. A small statue of a black cat fondly known as Kaspar is given the empty seat, rounding the number to fourteen.

Unfortunately, in this instance Kaspar didn’t fulfill his duties and a murder is committed. The case is tricky and complicated by a recent escape of a prisoner who has a bone to pick with Basil. Are the two seemingly unrelated incidents connected?

Ginger and Basil work together to solve one while avoiding the other, and what can they do about the black cat who crossed their path?

Confusion People by Ted Teja:

Framed for a bewildering array of crimes, Martin is on the run. The government thinks Hodges is either dead or gone rogue. That makes it hard to save the world from his ex-wife who is doing her best to take over various arms and drug deals, and whatever else the cartels are doing. With both Interpol and the bad guys after them, time is not their friend.

 

 

The Girl Who Killed You by Amy Vansant:

When Mick and his retired military gun-for-hire “fixer” service is hired by a United States Senator to find his missing son, he enlists the help of his daughter, Siofra “Shee” McQueen. An experienced tracker, Shee quickly tracks the boy to a Bahamian island playground catering to the young and wealthy. The job seems like such a breeze, she hires her daughter, Charlotte, to infiltrate the age-restricted compound. They’ve just been reunited after a lifetime apart, and the mission offers them serious quality mother-daughter time.

Is the mother-of-the-year award in the mail yet?

Before Shee can kick back with a Bahama Mama, the senator’s son’s girlfriend turns up dead. The boy is the primary suspect. Could be he’s not the underachieving goofball he seemed to be…and her daughter is on the island with him.

Shee needs to extract Charlotte, but communication has been cut, and the sinister underbelly of the resort is beginning to show.

Shee will need to tap into her father’s collection of ex-military misfits, including a retired FBI agent, a newly-hired thief hiding a secret, and Charlotte’s father—the wounded SEAL whose heart Shee once trampled—if she’s going to save their daughter.

The island has other ideas.

Star Trek Picard finally meets the “Watcher”

Shockingly, we only have one Star Trek series airing right now (but have no fear, because Disney Plus is giving us Moon Knight next week), so here is my take on the latest episode of Star Trek Picard. For my take on previous episodes and seasons, go here.

Warning: Spoilers below the cut!

When we last met Jean-Luc Picard and his Merry Men and Women, they had traveled back in time to 2024 and landed themselves right in trouble again. Elnor was killed, Agnes was almost assimilated by the Borg Queen and Rios was injured and arrested by ICE. Worse, neither their com badges nor their transporters are working properly. Things are not looking good for Picard and his friends.

The episode opens with Seven and Raffi arriving at the Mariposa Clinic, looking for Rios. They find the clinic ransacked. Only the nurse is present and tells them that Rios was arrested along with Doctor Teresa. Teresa is a US citizen, so she will be released eventually. Rios, however, has neither an ID nor a Green Card nor proof of citizenship, so he will be deported to hell knows where. That is, if the ICE doesn’t get even worse in the next two years and simply disappears people altogether, which this episode at least implies.

We next see Seven and Raffi on a city bus, where we get the first of several Easter eggs that call back to previous Star Trek time travel episodes. This one is a callback to the bus scene from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, because Seven and Raffi encounter a middle-aged punk with a noisy boom box on the bus and have as little appreciation for bad punk music (and it is bad punk music) as Kirk and Spock almost forty years before. The boom box still plays the same song and they even got the same actor Kirk Thatcher (who’s actually a production designer and producer) to reprise the part. Only that this time around no one needs to nerve-pinch or punch out the punk, because when Seven asks him to turn down the music, the punk touches his neck and switches off the boom box. It’s a fun cameo, even if makes next to no sense, because very few former punks still wear a mohawk and full punk get-up at age 60. Nor would they use an ancient boom box – if they can even find one that still works (one of the old boom boxes I had in the 1980s – a cheap South Korean no name radio, not the pricey Sony one – actually does still work, though the tape deck has been broken for years) – but would probably listen to the music on their phone or maybe an iPod. Never mind that this random bus-riding punk has no real reason to connect to strange men he met on a bus in 1985, one of whom nerve-pinched him, with two strange women he meets on a bus in a different city almost forty years later. Besides, as other events in the episode show, the punk most likely does not even remember the incident with Kirk and Spock back in 1985, because due to the impending timeline change it may never happen.

Since they know that Rios has been arrested, Raffi and Seven make their way to the LAPD headquarters, which would seem to be the logical place to find someone who has been arrested. However, the desk sergeant can’t find Rios in the system and an outraged Raffi getting in her face doesn’t help either. After Seven pulls Raffi away, a random good Samaritan informs them that someone arrested by ICE won’t be in the LAPD system and that they’d better hurry before ICE disappears Rios forever. I’m not sure if this is a reference to the fact that ICE apparently “lost” several of the detained children they separated from their parents or if this hints at something more ominous.

Once they leave LAPD headquarters, Raffi is determined to determined to draw even more attention to herself – something the team have been explicitly warned against, because it could affect the timeline – by pulling a phaser she wasn’t supposed to take out of the ship and using it to disintegrate the window of a parked police car.

“You’re not going to steal the police car”, a horrified Sevn exclaims. Raffi tells her that she only wants to steal the laptop inside the car to look up Rios’ whereabouts. But then, a bunch of cops catch wind of what Raffi is doing, so Raffi and Seven are forced to steal the police car anyway. Raffi finally finds Rios in the computer and learns that he is held at an ICE detention facility, while Seven is forced to take a crash course in driving a 21st century police car. Seven’s issues with driving the car – and understanding traffic rules – ring true, even if the “yellow means go very fast” joke is almost as old as Star Trek by now, though Raffi is a little bit too skilled with the computer, compared to Scotty’s failed attempts to interact with a 2oth century computer in The Voyage Home. And how does Raffi know what GPS is, considering that GPS has likely long been replaced with a succesor system by the 25th century? Finally, it’s striking that neither Raffi nor Seven ever consider switching on the police car’s siren, which would have at least chased other cars out of their way.

While Seven and Raffi are trying to rescue him, Rios is not having a good time. He finds himself locked up in a cage in an ICE detention facility and when he tries to intervene on behalf of another detainee – Rios being the type who just doesn’t know when to shut up – he promptly get himself tasered. He also has a few nice chats with Doctor Teresa through mesh wire. Teresa has by now pegged that something is really off about Rios, especially since he seems to be completely unaware of the routine cruelties of ICE. Rios doesn’t tell her who he really is – though she probably wouldn’t have believed him anyway – though he does try “I’m a starship captain from the future, I’m only passing through and if you’d just let me fulfill my mission, I’ll be gone and will bother you no more” on a guard, with the expected success.

Meanwhile, Picard and Agnes – and the revived Borg Queen – are still aboard La Sirena, trying to get the various systems running again. The heating is among the systems that are not working and Agnes is clearly cold, so Picard suggests retiring to Chateau Picard, which is deserted in this time and has been since WWII, when the Picard family fled to Britain from the Nazis. This bit of history does double duty here, to explain why no one noticed La Sirena crashing and destroying large swarthes of Chateau Picard’s grounds as well as to offer an entirely unnecessary explanation why Jean-Luc Picard speaks with a very British RP accent, in spite of being French.

Inside the deserted chateau, Picard has another flashback of his mother and manages to start a fire in a remarkably well-preserved and too modern looking fireplace. How Picard manage to start a fire with likely neither matches nor a lighter (if he even knew what to do with either) nor anything else is another mystery to episode glosses over. Picard tries to persuade Agnes to rest and sleep, but Agnes is too wired (in the literal sense, since she was plugged into the Borg Queen only last episode) to sleep and instead begins to grab random books, wine bottles and other things lying around. All of these things include the number 15 – the 15th volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1915 bottle of pinot noir, so Picard and Agnes realise that Agnes’ subconscious is trying to tell them something she got from the Borg Queen.  They figure out that the timeline change will happen on the April 15th and that today is April 12th, so they have three days to prevent the timeline change and save the future from becoming a fascist hellscape.

Since they have no time to waste and the transporter is working again, Picard beams to the coordinates where the Watcher is to be found according to the info Agnes stole from the Borg Queen, while Agnes stays behind aboard La Sirena with the Borg Queen, even though that is obviously a very bad idea.

Picard lands in a dilapidated part of Los Angeles – another Sanctuary district, it seems – but one which he recognises because he visited it in the first episode of season 2 in the regular timeline. Precisely, Picard was there to visit a certain bar, a bar which also exists in 2024 almost unchanged, but then is was clearly a historical retro bar in the 25th century.

Guinan was at the top of the list of people who might be the Watcher and indeed, once I saw where Picard was going, I thought, “Well, that was kind of obvious.” Though in the end, the show was not quite as obvious as I feared, for while Picard does meet a young Guinan in the bar, Guinan is not in fact the Watcher.

If this had been Star Wars, we would have been treated to a creepy digitally de-aged Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan. Star Trek, however, doesn’t really do digital de-aging and so Ito Aghayere plays this much younger version of Guinan. Personally, I prefer this approach, because while the digital de-aging technology has advanced significantly and we certainly have enough footage of the younger Whoopi Goldberg to use, the result has that typical uncanny valley creepiness. See Mark Hamill’s digital ghost guest-starring in The Book of Boba Fett recently. Besides, Ito Aghayere does a fine job playing the younger and much more disillusioned Guinan.

Guinan does not recognise Picard – even though they met in “Time’s Arrow” back in 1893. The episode itself never really goes into this, but the implication that due to the impending timeline change, which will wipe the Federation from existence, Picard never travelled back in time to 1893 and so Guinan has never met him. And so this younger, angrier and more cynical Guinan initially assumed that Picard is trying to rob her and threatens him with a shotgun even after Picard has befriended her dog (going by the obvious rapport between Picard and the dog Luna, I wonder whether this is another of Patrick Stewart’s real life dogs). Picard tells Guinan that he knows she’s an El-Aurian, which gets her attention.

It turns out that Guinan is planning to leave Earth behind forever, because it’s just too shitty and terrible a place.  Picard tells Guinan that the timeline is about to be altered for the worse – something which Guinan with her sensitivity to timeline changes is noticing herself – and begs her not to leave just yet, but Guinan is adamant. She’s done with Earth.

Now I certainly sympathise, because the US of 2024 as portrayed in Star Trek Picard certainly is a shitty place, a bit like the Trump era on steroids, though at least it does not seem to have covid. However, Guinan has been living on Earth at least since the late 19th century, so she’s certainly seen worse times, particularly as a black woman.  Cause awful as this version of the early 21st century may be, it’s still not nearly as bad as things used to be. Guinan already lived on Earth when she would neither have been allowed to vote nor would have been allowed to go into many public places. If she spent most of her time in California, she lived through several racism fueled riots – not to mention two World Wars and several genocides. So the question is, why is Guinan so adamant to leave now? Is the awful 21st century, where “they’ve traded hoods for suits”, really the straw that broke the camel’s back?  Or is Guinan just upset because the plot demands her to be.

Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido has similar issues. Guinan must have seen a lot of shit in the more than a century she’s been on Earth, so why is she so upset now? Keith R.A. DeCandido also takes issue with the fact that “Watcher” hammers home its message – that this world, which is very much like ours, is shit – with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Which is absolutely true, but then Star Trek has never been subtle with its messages – “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield”, anybody? In fact, I find “Watcher” a lot less annoying in spite of its very blunt message than “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield”, because “Watcher” does not really engage in clumsy metaphors like “Battlefield”, but gives us a slightly exaggerated version of things that already happen in our world. Besides, no matter how blunt and unsubtle Star Trek is about its messages, there are always people who still won’t get it. Witness Brad Torgersen, who honestly thought that Star Trek was a show about automatic sliding doors.

I also don’t find it very believable that Guinan, no matter how angry and upset, would not at least listen to Picard, especially since she realises herself that something is wrong. Guinan has normally been portrayed as a more reflective character and someone who is willing to listen. As it is, however, Guinan only listens when Picard tells her his name – which should mean nothing to her, since their meeting in 1893 never happened in this timeline – and agrees to take him to see the Watcher, though she also warns him that the Watcher is not easy to get along with.

They go to see the Watcher in a park with a lake, which is one of those locations you’ve seen a hundred times in different movies or TV shows. Guinan departs once the Watcher or rather their avatar appears, for the Watcher takes over different bodies Dr. Mabuse style, jumping from a little girl to a hot dog vendor to a creepy random dude and finally appearing as a well dressed woman who looks very much like Laris, the Romulan with whom Picard has a complicated relationship. Why does the Watcher look like Laris? That won’t be revealed until next week, though lots of people suspect that the identity of the Watcher will tie in to the 1968 Star Trek episode “Assignment Earth”, one of several time travel episodes of the Original Series. The fact that there are plenty of Easter eggs referring to the Original Series scattered throughout this episodes, e.g. the existence of a 21st Street Mission, which was the name of Edith Keeler’s organisation in “The City on the Edge of Forever”, or a plaza named after Dr. Jackson Roykirk, inventor of the errant space probe from “The Changeling”, would support this theory.

While Picard is catching up with a younger Guinan, Agnes is left stuck aboard La Sirena together with the Borg Queen, which is not a good place for her to be. And so the Borg Queen needles Agnes mercilessly. Agnes, however, understands the Borg Queen as well and point blank tells the Borg Queen that with the Collective gone, she is lonely, just as Agnes is lonely. Agnes also offers her a deal, help her restore communications and the transporters and she’ll talk to the Borg Queen on occasion.

Leaving Agnes alone with the Borg Queen is not a good idea at all and indeed I fear that poor Agnes may be headed for assimilation or may even become a new Borg Queen – or the original Borg Queen, via timey-whiny shenangigans. I’m not the only one who worries about this, Paul Levinson and io9 reviewer James Whitbrook have similar suspicions. James Whitbrook also points out that Agnes is not only stuck in the tech support, the rest of the team also doesn’t treat her very well, which may drive her further to seeek connection via Borg assimilation.

However, it also seems to me as if the writers don’t quite know what to do with Agnes, just as they have no idea what to do with Soji and Elnor. And so Soji is simply forgotten after a brief appearance in episode 1, while poor Elnor is killed off. Which is a pity, because all of those characters have potential.

As for why Agnes so desperately needs to get the transporters and communication system back online, Rios is put on a prison bus to be deported to presumably Mexico, so Raffi and Seven urgently need to rescue him, before he disappears forever, Mexico apparently being some kind of black hole in this version of 2024. Either that or this version of ICE just kills people to be deported and buries them in the desert.

However for now, Raffi and Seven are still stuck in the middle of an extended chase with the police. By US TV standards, it’s not even a bad car chase, though nowhere near the level of Alarm für Cobra 11, but then what is? However, this is Star Trek and not Alarm für Cobra 11 and for Star Trek, the chase goes on way too long. Though the way the chase ends is fun, for Agnes has finally managed to get the transporters back online and tell Seven to break, even if it seems counter-intuitive, because Agnes cannot beam them out of a moving vehicle. So the police car comes to a halt and is immediately surrounded by LAPD officers, only for Raffi and Seven to vanish in front of their eyes. The official police report about that incident will certainly be interesting.

Raffi and Seven reappear on a hill near the road that the prison bus with Rios on board is travelling down. So now they have to stop the bus and rescue Rios – without any equipment or even a vehicle.

The lengthy car chases also masks the fact that even though this is a busy episode with lots of things happening, the plot barely moves forward at all. Rios was in ICE detention at the start of the episode and he still is in ICE detention by the end. Seven and Raffi were chasing after Rios at the start of the episode and they still are by the end. Agnes was at risk of falling under the spell of the Borg Queen at the beginning of the episode and she still is at the end.  Only Picard’s plot moves forward at all, though not very fast, cause he spends most of the episode catching up with Guinan and only meets the Watcher – if the woman who looks like Laris is indeed the Watcher – at the very end. The often glacial pace was already a problem in season 1 of Picard and in season 4 of Star Trek Discovery and sadly, it continues to be an issue in season 2 as well.

Finally, there is also Q, who’s sitting at a table in some kind of outdoor café, watching a woman who’s reading a Dixon Hill mystery (a nice callback to the Next Generation episode “The Big Goodbye”), while trying to feed her insecurities and imposter syndrome. Patches on their clothing indicate that both the woman and whoever Q is pretending to be work for the Europa mission that is advertised in billboards all over Los Angeles of 2024. Well, it should have been obvious that those were Chekhov’s (Anton, not Pavel) billboards and not a random bit of set decoration. And so the impending timeline change will clearly have to do something with this mission and probably its failure and the woman Q is harassing is clearly important. Though Q himself is having problems, for when he snaps his fingers, nothing happens.

Season 2 of Star Trek Picard is still a lot of fun, but it’s increasingly obvious that the plot moves at a glacial pace. This entire episode could have been condensed to fifteen minutes and nothing would have been lost. Let’s hope the speed picks up next week.

 

Star Trek Picard Undergoes “Assimilation”

Season 4 of Star Trek Discovery ended this week, so here’s my take on the third episode of season 2 of Star Trek Picard. For my take on previous episodes and seasons, go here.

Warning: Spoilers below the cut!

When we last met Picard and his friends, they found themselves stranded in an alternate timeline, where Earth is the centre of the xenophobic and fascist Confederation, courtesy of Q altering the timeline in the year 2024. So our heroes – and the Borg Queen, whom the team saved from execution and with whom they’ve formed a temporary alliance – escape aboard the alternate universe version of La Sirena and plan to travel back in time, using the solar slingshot method first seen in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” way back in 1967. That’s also why Picard and friends need the Borg Queen, in order to make the necessary calculations.

But before the La Sirena and her valiant crew can make the trip to the past to fix the timeline and make everything right again, they are interrupted by the Magistrate, a high-ranking Confederation official, who also happens to be married to Seven in this reality. The Magistrate and his armed goons are not at all amused that Picard, Seven and the gang wrecked his political rally cum public execution ceremony by absconding with the Borg Queen. And so he beams after them, shoots Elnor (the Confederation is rabidly xenophobic and Elnor is a Romulan terrorist in this timeline) and holds everybody else at gunpoint. Seven tries to bluff her way out of the situation by confronting her terrible husband and yelling at him for interfering with a classified operation. However, the Magistrate isn’t having any of it. He has noticed that his wife has been behaving strangely and while he has no idea what precisely is going on, he suspects that Seven (as well as Picard, Raffi and Rios) is an imposter. So he demands that Seven say his full name, something she can’t do, because our Seven has never seen the Magistrate before.

However, the Magistrate makes the mistake of letting Seven get too close to him. Close enough to grab his phaser and shoot one of the goons. Raffi and Rios quickly launch into action as well and manage to take out the Magistrate and his goons, while Agnes Jurati plugs the Borg Queen into La Sirena.

Once the Magistrate and his goons are dealt with, Raffi and Seven rush Elnor to sickbay, only to find hardly any medical supplies that they recognise. Apparently going fascist has also seriously stymied medical development in the Confederation. They do patch up Elnor, but his condition is deteriorating rapidly.

Meanwhile, Confederation ships are still in hot pursuit. Everybody aboard gets shaken around and the Borg Queen is knocked out of her containment field. Agnes has a terrifying encounter with the legless Borg Queen moving about on her hands in a scene that is reminiscent of the famous chase in the rain from the 1932 film Freaks. But just as Agnes thinks that she is about to be assimilated, the Borg Queen instead plugs herself into the ship, hanging suspended like a spider in its web or a pinned butterfly. This version of the Borg Queen, though disconnected from the collective, is scarier than the Borg have been in a long time. io9 reviewer James Whitbrook also notes that the Borg or rather their Queen are scarier in this episode than they have been in ages.

Picard manages to disable one of the pursuing ships and then the Borg Queen takes over, assuming control of the ship and executing the solar slingshot maneouvre. The visuals are reminiscent of the time travel scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, though of course vastly updated, because Star Trek IV‘s primitive CGI is really massively dated. And talking of time travel, it’s notable that the director of this episode is none other then 1980s star Lea Thompson, who is best remembered for starring in the Back to the Future trilogy, though she was also in Red Dawn, Howard the Duck and a lot of other films of the era. Having someone best remembered for starring in a beloved trilogy of time travel films direct a time travel episode is certainly a nice touch.

That said, La Sirena‘s arrival in the past is not all that pleasant. Much of the power is gone and many systems are not operational. The Borg Queen has passed out and Rios can barely control the ship, as it heads for a crashlanding on Earth. Agnes points out that crashing the ship in a densely populated area like Los Angeles is a really bad idea, so Picard suggests crashlanding it in an unpopulated area near what appears to be Chateau Picard. Picard’s ancestors will be thrilled that their great-great-great-grandson has just ruined the harvest and destroyed a forest in order to save the future.

But a bunch of trees near Chateau Picard are not the only casualties of the crash. Because the crash knocks out what’s left of the power supply, including to the machines that keep Elnor alive. It turns out that the Borg Queen is siphoning off power to restore herself. Rios wants to shoot her, but Picard and Agnes point out that they still need to Borg Queen to tell them precisely where the timelines diverged, not to mention to get back to the future, so everybody labours to unplug the Borg Queen from La Sirena‘s power supply, so the sickbay gets power again. But it’s too late. Elnor gives Raffi his amulet and dies. Yes, they killed Elnor, the bastards.

Of course, it’s possible that Elnor will get better, once the timeline is restored. That said, killing him off still comes as something of a shock. What makes this even worse is that Elnor has the potential to be a really interesting character – a naive but deadly Romulan warrior monk who always tells the truth – only that he is perpetually underused. Still, why kill him off? Why not just leave him behind in the proper timeline like Soji, who was only briefly seen this season, having dinner with some Deltans.

Everybody is affected by Elnor’s death, but Raffi, who had sort of adopted him, is particularly heartbroken. She also tells Picard that this is all his fault, because if Picard hadn’t been sparring with Q, the whole thing might never have happened. Picard replies that Q is the one who’s playing with him. But Raffi does have a point. Q clearly enjoys harassing Picard and putting him in impossible situations, which occasionally get Enterprise crewmembers killed. Would Q do what he does, if he hadn’t found an foil in Picard? And does Picard unwittingly egg him on? It’s the familiar “Don’t feed the trolls” problem. Do trolls go away, when they don’t get the response they hope for? Or will they increase the harassment to elicit a reaction?

But that’s a philosophical question to be discussed later. For now, the team must try to get the La Sirena and the Borg Queen back online as well as figure out how to undo the timeline change. Before she passed out, the Borg Queen said that the timeline divergence occurred in Los Angeles and that a Watcher is present there who can help.

So Seven, Raffi and Rios try to dress in an approximation of 20th century clothing (though Rios remarks that they still look fascist) and beam to Los Angeles to find the Watcher, while Picard and Agnes try to bring the Borg Queen back online to get some more information out of her. “Don’t step on any butterflies”, Agnes warns them in a reference to both the butterfly effect as well as Ray Bradbury’s famous 1952 time travel story “The Sound of Thunder”, where a time traveller accidentally stepping on a butterfly during the late Cretaceous changes history and brings about a fascist regime in the present day. The parallels to the origin of the Confederation are notable and they will become even more notable over the course of the episode.

Since the Watcher will likely be using alien or futuristic technology, scanning for such should lead the team right to him. So Raffi proposes heading to the tallest building in Los Angeles in 2024, the Wilshire Grand Center, and scan the area for alien lifesigns and/or tech from the top of the building. This surprised me, because I had assumed that the tallest building in Los Angeles was the so-called US Bank Tower a.k.a. the round skyscraper, which gets blown up in Independence Day. Alas, the Wilshire Grand Center surpassed the more iconic US Bank Tower in 2017, so that’s where they’re headed.

However, the three first have to find each other, because the transporter doesn’t function very well and so Raffi, Rios and Seven get separated. Seven materialises in some kind of park, observed by a little girl, who asks her if she is a superhero. Raffi materialises in an alley and wanders out into an encampment of homeless people – a nod to the so-called “sanctuary zones” from the Deep Space Nine episode “Past Tense”, which is set in the same year. Raffi remarks on the contrast between the gleaming skyscrapers and the homeless camp and promptly gets mugged. However, the would-be mugger also makes the mistake to get to close to Raffi, allowing her to disarm him, knock him out and empty his wallet, much to the amusement of Seven.

Raffi and Seven make their way to the top of the Wilshire Grand Center, where they’re discovered by a security guard. Once more, Seven bluffs her way out of a tricky situation by declaring that she and Raffi just got engaged and that they had their first date atop this building and that they now want to take a picture and besides, the other security guard – “Kevin” supplies this guard – let them in. It’s interesting that Seven blithely assumes that no one will bat an eyelash at the fact that the person she got engaged to is a woman. Of course, hardly anybody in Los Angeles in 2024 will bat an eyelash, but the reaction could have been very different, if they had arrived thirty years earlier or in a different part of the world. Luckily, the security guard is not homophobic and also determined not to be upstaged by “Kevin” and leaves Raffi and Seven alone.

It’s interesting how Star Trek Picard conveys that this is not our world, but one very close to it. Los Angeles in the Star Trek universe looks like Los Angeles in our universe and the highest building in the city is the same and looks the same. However, there are subtle differences. Cause our Los Angeles does not have sanctuary zones and to my knowledge, it also does not have large homeless camps in prominent areas of the city. There’s also a billboard in the distance, announcing a mission to Europa, and I’m sure there won’t be a prominent (and manned) mission to Europa in the next two years.

In other ways, the 2024 Los Angeles in the Star Trek universe is remarkably similar to our universe, as Rios is about to find out. While Seven and Raffi got lucky and materialised on the ground, Rios materialises in mid air. He tries to grab a fire escape, but fails and plunges to the ground in front of a shop named Tiptree – a reference to James Tiptree Jr? Rios hits his head and is knocked out. A good Samaritan finds him and takes him to a free clinic in the neighbourhood, which offers treatment to people without health insurance, including the homeless and undocumented immigrants.

A lot of time travel stories, including previous Star Trek time travel episodes, tend to ignore the fact that not all time travellers will be equally safe in whatever period they end up in. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home addressed this issue in a somewhat jokey manner, when Pavel Chekhov blithely asks for directions to a military base housing a nuclear submarine with a notable Russian accent, in 1986 at a time when the Cold War was at its tensest and San Francisco was not exactly a safe place for a Russian person. And of course, Chekohov is promptly arrested, though the whole thing is more played for laughs.

Chris Rios is a Hispanic man with neither ID nor money and Los Angeles in the early 21st century is not exactly a safe place for Hispanic people with neither money nor ID. And so both the good Samaritan as well as the doctor at the free clinic immediately assume that Rios is an undocumented immigrant like most of the other patients at this clinic. The doctor, a Hispanic woman named Teresa, also assumes that Rios’ eagerness to be gone is due to fear of the police or the ICE and assures him that she want report him. Meanwhile, Rios seems to be not at all aware that Los Angeles in 2024 is not a safe place for him due to who he is. You’d think that time travellers would at least read up on the period they’re planning to visit.

Even worse, Rios loses his com badge at the clinic. The badge is picked up by a little boy, who turns out to be the son of Dr. Teresa. Rios manages to bribe the kid with a platter of cookies – and note how Rios eats one and is utterly thrilled that the cookies are made with real peanutbutter, cause he has most likely eaten replicator food for most of his life – and gets his badge back, but Teresa confiscates it again and also tells Rios that he can’t leave yet, because he has a concussion and a dislocated finger.

Sparks fly between Rios and Teresa. Teresa asks Rios for his favourite childhood memory and he recounts that his mother worked at the Academy – ahem, a piloting academy – and that Rios snuck into a simulator at the age of eight to try it out and wound up beating the high score of all Starfleet cadets and setting off alarms all over the place. So Rios is not just an ace pilot, he’s also a prodigy.

Teresa and her nurse have also washed Rios’ clothes – his very weird clothes, Teresa points out – and have just returned them to him, when disaster strikes in the form of an ICE raid. Teresa and the nurse shoo all the patients, including a very confused Rios out the backdoor, while Teresa attempts to stall the ICE agents. Rios sees armed thugs abusing the doctor who just helped him and since he’s a hero, he decides to help her, even though he knows he has to keep a low profiles. So he grabs a lab coat and a stethoscope and reappears as a doctor who urgently needs Teresa’s help with a patient in a messy condition. Alas, the ICE agents notice Rios’ bandaged hand and don’t buy that he’s a doctor, so Rios and Teresa both get arrested, while Picard’s voice can be heard from Rios’ com badge. So I guess Seven and Raffi will have to break Rios out of immigration detention next episode.

The free clinic is called the Mariposa Clinic and “mariposa” is Spanish for butterfly. Plus, this Star Trek fan Twitter account points out that there is butterfly imagery all over the place in the clinic scenes. Remember Agnes telling Rios, Raffi and Seven not to step on any butterflies. Well, it seems Rios has not only stepped on a butterfly, but actually blundered into a butterfly house. The timeline divergence very likely is connected to the Mariposa Clinic.

In his review, Paul Levinson theorises that the problem lies with Rios losing his com badge and the badge ending up in the wrong hands. That’s certainly a possibility, though personally I suspect that we’re headed for a variation on “City on the Edge of Forever” (where a timeline change in the past also brought about a fascist regime – gee, this keeps happening a lot in Star Trek) with Teresa as an Edith Keeler figure, which will mean heartbreak for Rios and a tragic end for Teresa. Though I really hope I’m wrong.

While all this is going on, Picard and Agnes are facing a completely different drama aboard the La Sirena. The Borg Queen is still down and out and the information that the team needs to complete their mission is hidden inside her head. Picard points out that the Borg rarely speak, because thoughts are instantly shared among all Borg. So the key to finding the Watcher lies inside the Borg Queen’s head.

Picard can’t go into the Borg Queen’s mind, because he has been assimilated once, so the Queen knows his mind and would take him over almost instantly. However, the Borg Queen does not know Agnes and a full Borg assimilation takes some time. So Agnes suggests that she plug into the Borg Queen, find the information about the Watcher and bring the Queen back online. Picard strenuously objects, but he has no better plan, so Agnes prevails. Besides, there will be safeguards such as Picard monitoring Agnes to disconnect her the moment things turn dangerous.

What follows is a tense scene of Agnes rummaging through the mind of the Borg Queen while trying to avoid being assimilated. Agnes babbles as the Borg Queen triggers different emotions such as anger and sadness. Finally, Borg Queen and Agnes are about to become one and Agnes speaks with the voice of the Borg Queen and the Borg Queen with the voice of Agnes, until Picard finally pulls the plug.

The Borg Queen is awake now and gloats that she won’t help Agnes and Picard find the Watcher. However, it’s Agnes who has the last laugh, because while the Borg Queen was rummaging through Agnes’ emotions, Agnes copied the location of the Watcher to La Sirena‘s computer. The Borg Queen tells Agnes that she has impressed her and that’s more dangerous than she knows.

The not-quite-assimilation scene is made even more tense by some excellent acting from Alison Pill and Annie Werschinger. But the acting in Star Trek Picard is great across the board. Of course, if your star is Sir Patrick Stewart, one of the best actors of his generation, great acting is only to be expected. However, it’s not just Patrick Stewart who’s excellent, it’s everybody. Of course, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera and Alison Pill are all actors with lengthy careers who’ve been in lots of things and actors you usually noticed, whether you knew their name or not. In general, both Discovery and Picard have excellent casts with no real weak links.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this episode, even though the plot hasn’t moved forward very much – after all, we already knew last episode that the team would have to go back in time to find the Watcher and undo the timeline change and they’re no nearer to that goal than they were last week. I have complained about the odd and often glacial pacing of season 4 of Star Trek Discovery, but Picard doesn’t necessarily move any faster. So far the first three episodes have basically been the crew trying to find each other in three different settings. But there’s a lot more happening, so you don’t necessarily notice that there isn’t a lot of forward momentum.

In general, Star Trek Picard feels very much like Star Trek‘s Greatest Hits, since there’s very little here that we haven’t seen loads of times before. I mean, we have Picard and Q bantering, Picard having intimacy issues, we have someone mucking about with time to bring about a fascist alternate timeline, we have time travel to our present, which the writers use to comment on the current day, we have the team struggling to adjust to our time, we have the Borg Queen being creepy and mysterious, we have inspirational speeches and space battles, we have Seven kicking arse and moral messages delivered with all the sublety of a sledge hammer. Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido also points out that there’s nothing in Picard that we haven’t seen in Star Trek dozens of times before.

Nonetheless, I don’t mind, because Star Trek Picard is just such a lot of fun. And yes, I know it’s weird calling a show where the main cast has to deal with some less pleasant aspects of our present in order to prevent a fascist dystopia in the future fun, but that’s exactly what Star Trek Picard is. The cast are clearly having a blast and we get to watch them having fun.

So far, season 2 of Star Trek Picard delivery solid Star Trek and solid entertainment and what more can you want?

Let’s see what the fearless crew of the La Sirena does next.

 

Star Trek Discovery Is “Coming Home”

It’s the season 4 finale of Star Trek Discovery. Reviews of previous seasons and episodes may be found here.

Warning: Spoilers under the cut!

When we last saw the Discovery and her valiant crew, they had just figured out how to communicate with the mysterious Species 10-C and persuade them to stop using the DMA to mine boronite, when that arsehole Ruon Tarka had to throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings, took Jet Reno and Book prisoner and breaks out of the containment bubble to try to steal the DMA power source, even though he knows that this will cause Species 10-C’s hyperfield to collapse, putting Species 10-C, Discovery and her crew as well as the entire population of Earth, Titan and Ni’Var (and not to forget Book, Reno and Tarka) in mortal danger.

Meanwhile, Discovery is still stuck in the impenetrable bubble and can’t persuade Species 10-C to let them out, because Species 10-C insists that Discovery has already left the bubble, clearly confusing Book’s ship with Discovery. And Discovery can’t use the same method Tarka used to break through the bubble either, because Tarka exploited Discovery‘s plasma venting to break out of the bubble.

Worse, Michael knows that someone aboard Discovery helped Tarka and quickly suspects that it must be one of the delegates. Rillak is worried about the diplomatic implications of detaining and questioning the delegates. She needn’t have worried, however, because Ndoye confesses almost at once and is confined to her quarters. Ndoye is also genuinely shocked to hear that Tarka is mad (even though that was bleedingly obvious for a long time), that he took Book and Jet Reno prisoner and that his plan may well kill everybody. In fact, I found it striking how long it took for everybody to catch on to the fact that Tarka is insane, considering he almost blew up Discovery in his very first appearance.

In order to persuade Species 10-C to let Discovery go, President T’Rina attempts to mind-meld with Species 10-C, which promptly causes her to pass put and Saru to hover anxiously over her. Once T’Rina comes to again – while Saru is still anxiously hovering – she reports that she managed to make contact with Species 10-C and that Species 10-C have a collective consciousness – though not like the Borg, T’Rina adds, which again begets the question: “What happened to the Borg by the 31st century?” However, T’Rina suspects that Species 10-C may have no concept of individuality, which is why they won’t differentiate between Discovery and Book’s ship.

Since Discovery is stuck in a bubble, the best chance of stopping Tarka lies with Book and Jet Reno. Unfortunately, they are locked up behind a forcefield. And while Tarka initially has problems flying Book’s ship, he quickly gets the hang of it, at least enough to evade the hyperfield bubbles that Species 10-C sends after him. By now, Tarka is also so far gone that he doesn’t respond to Jet and Book pointing out that his only motivation is grief and loss and that while they sympathise, both having lost loved ones, they can’t let Tarka kill a shitload of people (in the widest sense of the word that encompasses giant floating sentient jellyfish).

Tarka tells Book to come with him to the parallel universe where he wants to go. Kwejian will still exist there and Kyheem and Leto will still be alive and everything will be as it was. Jet points out that even if Kwejian, Kyheem and Leto exist in the other universe, they won’t be the same people and that both Book and Tarka have to accept that their loved ones are gone. Book has finally come to terms with losing Kyheem and Leto, but Tarka has not come to terms with losing Oros and is willing to put his plan into action, consequences be damned.

The way Book and Jet escape their forcefield prison is genuinely clever. And yes, it involves reversing the polarity, but it also involves Grudge’s cat collar, which is programmed to automatically let Grudge passs through any forcefield. Unfortunately, the opening in the forcefield is literally a size of a cat door, much to Jet Reno’s dismay.

So Jet and Book escape the forcefield and manage to knock out Tarka (very satisfying to finally see Tarka get punched in the face), though Tarka has locked the controls of the ship, so Book can’t regain control. He gives his transporter badge to Jet to allow her to beam back aboard Discovery and warn the crew. Book also asks Jet to tell Michael he loves her.

Once Jet is back aboard Discovery, Book wakes up Tarka to try to persuade him to abandon his plan and unlock the controls. Tarka finally accepts that Oros is gone and that he won’t see him again, but he still can’t reprogram the controls in time before the ship reaches the DMA controller and destroys it and everything else along with it.

Meanwhile, Stamets has finally figured out how to free Discovery from its bubble, though he warns Michael that she won’t like it. Basically, they will fire up the spore drive without jumping until the spore drive overheats and blows a hole in the bubble. Didn’t Stamets say three episodes ago that the spore drive doesn’t even function beyond the galactic barrier, because there is no mycelial network there? I guess this is a case of the writer’s conveniently forgetting a fact established earlier that would hinder the plot. After all, it was established back in season 2 that using the spore drive damages to mycelial network so badly that it should not be used at all, another fact that writers have conveniently forgotten. I guess by now that spore drive is and does what the plot needs it to be and do this episode.

“Coming Home” requires the spore drive to blow up and punch a hole in the hyperfield bubble. Unfortunately, this manoeuvre will also take out the spore drive and it cannot be repaired without the resources of a space dock and there are none of those beyond the Galactic Barrier, which means that Discovery has to limp home at warp speed Voyager-style. When Stamets announced the dire consequences of his plan, I thought, “Well, season 5 is going to be Star Trek Voyager Redux then.”

However, billions of lives on both sides of the Galactic Barrier are at stake and so Michael has no choice and orders Stamets to put his plan into action. A lot of random consoles and panels on the bridge as well as the spore drive chamber in the engineering section explode in showers of sparks, but Stamets finally succeeds and blasts Discovery out of the bubble.

Discovery immediately sets off after Book’s ship, because everybody agrees that Tarka must be stopped, whatever the cost. And the cost to stop Tarka turns out to be steep. For the best way to stop him is to load a shuttle up with explosives and crash it into Book’s ship to take it out. Unfortunately, the resulting interference will make it difficult to beam anybody out, so both Book and Tarka as well as the shuttle pilot will probably die. Reluctantly, Michael gives the order and Detmer volunteers to fly the shuttle, since she is the best pilot. The look on Owosekun’s face when Detmer volunteers for a suicide mission says it all. These two are definitely more than just friends.

However, Detmer is spared, when Ndoye volunteers to pilot the shuttle to redeem herself for her part in bringing this situation about in the first place. Ndoye succeeds, too, and manages to crash the shuttle into Book’s ship just as Book has persuaded Tarka that he is chasing a forlorn hope and that he’ll likely never see Oros again.

Discovery manages to beam out Ndoye just in time and both Book and Tarka survive the initial explosion as well. However, Book’s ship is out of control and will slam into the hyperfield, which will completely destroy it. So Tarka gives Book the sole transporter badge and tells him to beam back to Discovery. Meanwhile, Tarka will take his chance and hope that the explosion when the ship smashed into the hyperfield will generate enough energy to power up transporter and send him into the parallel universe where he wants to go.

Discovery locks on Book’s signal and proceeds to beam him onto the bridge. But just as Book begins to materialise, the ship hits the hyperfield and explodes. Book’s signal flashes out of existence in front of a horrified Michael. I expected that Book would not survive season 4, but the way he blinks out of existence just as he has seemingly been saved is still a shock. Also rest in pieces Book’s ship, which never even got a name

Michael comes close to breaking down on the bridge – after all, she has just seen the man she loves get disintegrated in front of her eyes. It is Rillak of all people who comforts her. And since Michael is too Vulcan to allow emotions to derail her for long, she quickly pulls herself together.

While all this is going on, Earth, Titan and Ni’Var are being pelted by debris, as the DMA is barrelling towards them. Starfleet has sent every vessel available to aid with the evacuation efforts, which includes some lovely callbacks and tributes to former Star Trek characters and actors. And so we have the USS Mitchell, named after Gary Mitchell from the Original Series episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, the USS Nog, named after Nog from Deep Space Nine to honour actor Aron Eisenberg who died two years ago aged only 50, as well as the USS Yelchin, named after Anton Yelchin who played Pavel Chekhov in the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies and died in a freak accident in 2016, aged only 27.

Coordinating the evacuation efforts as Admiral Vance aboard Starfleet Headquarters, which is not only mobile and warp capable, but which also has detachable decks with individual warp drives. Aiding with the efforts is another familiar face, namely Sylvia Tilly, whom we haven’t seen since she left Discovery in “All is Possible” to teach at Starfleet Academy. Tilly is leading a bunch of cadets to assist with the evacuation, including the Orion cadet and the tusked alien we met in “All Is Possible”.

But in spite of Starfleet’s best efforts, the time is too short to evacuated the entire populations of Earth, Titan and Ni’Var. Vance heroically offers to remain aboard Starfleet headquarters to fire at debris to cover the retreating ships and Tilly stays behind to help him, having first sent her cadets to safety. And so Tilly and Vance share a flask of Risian whiskey, ironically a gift from Tarka to Vance, and muse about their lives. Tilly remarks that her life has been pretty good and that she accomplished a lot, even if she would have wished for more time. She also assures Vance that his daughter knows that he loves her.

Back on the other side of the Galactic Barrier, Species 10-C has clearly been watching the fireworks and sends a message to Discovery to inform them that they assumed that Discovery and Book’s ship and everybody aboard it was a single individual. However, now Species 10-C has realised that they are dealing with multiple individuals and ask how many of them there are and if they could they meet them all maybe. We suspect that Species 10-C is in for a huge surprise, once they realise how populated the galaxy next door is.

But for now, Species 10-C guides Discovery to a landing pad on its gas giant homeworld and also creates a neat bubble full of breathable atmosphere. The diplomatic delegates as well as Michael, Saru, the bridge crew and Dr. Pollard all step outside to meet Species 10-C. We finally get a good look at Species 10-C and they look like giant floating space jellyfish.

Species 10-C repeats its question how many beings they’re dealing with and then it’s time for inspirational speeches, because it would not be a Star Trek season finale without inspirational speeches. Rillak begins by explaining that all Federation citizens are individuals (so we presume the Borg never joined) but also connected. When Species 10-C asks about Book’s ship, Michael steps up to explain that Book and Tarka were once connected to Discovery and her crew, but broke away because of personal pain and loss. When Species 10-C asks why Michael is sad (presumably they can detect her sadness pheromones), Michael explains that she lost “her one”.

“Oh, about that…” says Species 10-C, “…we intercepted this weird signal just before Book’s ship blew up and thought it might be important, so we stored it.” And then Book plops back into existence.

Don’t get me wrong, I like David Ajala a lot and am happy that Book survived, but the whole thing does feel a bit like a cop-out. How in the universe did Species 10-C even know what a transporter signal was and how did they know to intercept and store it? And how did they manage to restore a healthy and whole Book rather than something terribly mangled?

Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido points out that even though no fewer than six regular characters offer to sacrifice their lives in this episode, only one of them actually dies and it’s Tarka, the guy no one liked anyway. Not that I want Book, Detmer, Tilly, Vance or even Ndoye to die, but it is a bit strange if characters repeatedly offer to go on suicide missions only to survive. Especially since this is not the first time Discovery has pulled a stunt like that – Tilly and the bridge crew also survived certain death in the season 3 finale. And both Philippa Georgiou and Hugh Culber actually came back from the dead. Now I like all of those characters and am happy they survived, but if characters routinely survive certain death, Discovery is wading into comic book territory where no one ever stays dead, not even Bucky and Gwen Stacy.

And for the record, we don’t know for sure that Tarka is really dead. After all, his transporter may have worked and transported him to the parallel universe of his dreams. In general, I feel that Tarka’s plot was insufficiently resolved. For what happened to Oros? Tarka mentioned at one point that he could find no trace of Oros either alive or dead, so what happened to him? Did he make it to the parallel universe or did the Emerald Chain kill him and hide the body where no one ever found it? Considering how important Oros was to Tarka’s subplot, it’s just strange that they never even explained what happened to him. Even a brief shot of Oros in a parallel universe – either with or without Tarka – or of an unmarked grave on some distant planet would have been sufficient.

Talking of plot threads that are just dropped and never mentioned again, the random Ferengi who was part of the Federation delegation is briefly glimpsed in this episode, but never utters a single line nor does he ever get a name, so what was the purpose of this character? Why stick an actor in Ferengi make-up, when you don’t give him anything to do?

Keith R.A. DeCandido also notes that Jet Reno just vanishes halfway through the episode (and she has fewer scenes in season 4 in general), though that may have to do with the ongoing covid pandemic. Tig Notaro is a breast cancer survivor and therefore has a  heightened risk of a severe covid infection, so she may only have been able to shoot at limited times. The same explanation may apply to other actors and characters who seemingly vanish halfway through the series like Tilly or Bryce or even the random mystery Ferengi.

Once Book is restored to life, he takes over the inspirational speaker duties and explains to Species 10-C that the DMA destroyed his homeworld and his people. Species 10-C is genuinely sorry and explains that they had no idea that there were sentient lifeforms in the galaxy next door. However, they will be more careful and only deploy the DMA in uninhabited parts of space. Book tells them that this is not good enough, because the DMA leaves behind subspace rifts and wormholes which pollute space.

Species 10-C points out that without the DMA, they don’t have enough power to maintain the hyperfield, whereupon the Discovery crew points out that they don’t need the hyperfield, because no one is threatening them or going to harm them. So Species 10-C switches off the hyperfield and creates one last wormhole to send Discovery home, so they won’t have to pull a Voyager after all. Species 10-C knows that they are not alone in the universe, the Federation has made a new friend and everybody is happy.

The solution to the DMA season arc is very typical of Star Trek. The attack is only a misunderstanding and the conflict is resolved by talking rather than shooting. Basically, we have a very typical Star Trek situation here, namely “We’re sorry, but we had no idea that you’re sentient, since you are so very alien”, a plot which goes all the way back to the Original Series episode “The Devil in the Dark”, when the Horta turns out to be just a Mom protecting her kids, whom the miners are accidentally mining. However, Discovery puts a neat spin on this old plot by making the Federation the ones on the receiving end and the ones whose sentience is questioned.

The rest of the episode is devoted to tying off loose threads. The Discovery crew is reunited with Tilly and prepared for a long overdue holiday. Rillak offers Michael the captaincy of the new Starfleet flagship Voyager, but Michael declines. Saru and T’Rina decide to take their budding romance to the next level. Book, who has after all broken umpteen laws, is sentenced to the Federation equivalent of community service and is sent to help with the resettlement of DMA refugees, which compared to Michael’s ridiculously high sentence from season 1 proves that the Federation justice system is capable of evolving, even though it was still pretty shitty by Voyager‘s time.

Finally, Earth rejoins the Federation (and Andoria is in talks to rejoin as well), so the founding members of the Federation are all back on board now. This momentous occasional is celebrated by Rillak shaking hands with her earthly counterpart, the President of United Earth, who is played by none other than Stacey Abrams, politician from Georgia, romance author and avowed Star Trek fan. The usual suspects are complaining that Star Trek has gotten political, completely ignoring that Stacey Abrams is not the first or the highest ranking political guest star. After all, King Abdullah II of Jordan has a cameo appearance on Voyager more than twenty years ago. Coincidentally, does the fact that both representatives of United Earth – Ndoye and the President – that we’ve seen in Discovery so far are black women mean that United Earth is ruled by black women? Cause that would be very cool.

All in all, this was a very uneven season of Star Trek Discovery. The good thing is that Discovery finally seems to have found its feet, which is a far cry from season 1, where the show seemed to change direction every few episodes. And for the most part, season 4 of Discovery delivered solid Star Trek.

That said, the DMA was always more of a clumsy metaphor for various ills of our time – climate change, dependance on fossile fuels, the covid pandemic – than a compelling threat. The fact that the pacing of the whole season was really off didn’t help either. The DMA is supposedly the worst threat Starfleet has ever faced (even though a space anomaly would have been Tuesday in the days of Kirk or Picard), yet there is very little urgency in dealing with it. Instead, the plot meanders about at an almost glacial pace.

The pacing issues are also apparent in the season finale with the extended codas and wrap-ups that take up almost the entire back half of the episode. io9 reviewer James Whitbrook actually likes this and the various character moments are fun to watch, but they nonetheless take way too long. For example, couldn’t Earth have rejoined the Federation in an earlier episode?

Part of the weird pacing and other issues may be due to the covid pandemic impacting filming, so I’m willing to cut the show some slack. After all, no TV series, not even Star Trek, is worth endangering the lives of cast and crew for. Nonetheless, I hope that season 5 will be better.

An Open Letter to the 2022 Hugo Finalists, Whoever They May Be

This is an updated repost of this post from last year, which a lot of people found helpful.

Nominations for the 2022 Hugo Awards closed yesterday and the finalists are expected to be announced sometime in April.

Right now, no one except for possibly the Hugo administrators knows who those finalists will be. However, sometime in the next two weeks or so, some of you will receive an e-mail from Chicon 8, informing you that you are a finalist for the 2022 Hugo Award and asking you whether you want to accept the nomination. Some of you will have received such e-mails before, for others it will be the first time.

But whether it’s your first or your twentieth nomination, congratulations! That’s awesome.

As a first time recipient of such an e-mail in 2020, here are a few things I’ve learned:

The e-mail may not look like you think it will. When I got the e-mail from CoNZealand in 2020, the subject line was “CoNZealand Hugo Awards Confidential”. I was exhausted that day and waiting for two important e-mails, so I scanned right past that subject line, because I assumed it was the convention newsletter. I only opened the mail, because none of the two important e-mails had come yet, so I thought I might as well check out the CoNZealand e-mail while I was waiting. Good thing that I did.If you receive an e-mail from Chicon 8, please reply as soon as you can whether you accept the nomination or not. If there are questions with regard to eligibility, answer them as soon as possible. The Hugo administrator and their team work very hard, so don’t make their job any harder than it has to be.The Chicon 8 team will also ask you to keep quiet about your nomination until the official announcement. Please don’t violate this, because you don’t want to steal Chicon’s thunder!The period between the time when the finalists are notified and when the Hugo finalists are officially announced can be weird, because while you know that you’re a finalist, almost nobody else does. I blogged a bit about my experiences last year here. Basically, I kept having the niggling fear that there had been some terrible mistake and that I wasn’t a finalist after all or that I only was a finalist because all twenty people who would have been ahead of me had withdrawn. From talking to other first time finalist, I learned that I wasn’t alone in this. And while I can’t guarantee that terrible mistakes won’t happen, the chance that the wrong person is notified about being a Hugo finalist is extremely small. So relax. You really are a Hugo finalist, even if nobody else knows it yet.You can tell a few people you trust about your nomination as long as you know they won’t blab it all over the internet. Before the official announcement, a handful of people knew I was a Hugo finalist. These include my parents (whose reaction was, “That’s nice,” before turning back to watch a rerun of Midsomer Murders), some folks from Galactic Journey and others in the SFF community, who knew not to say anything before the official announcement, as well as my accountant (because I asked her if buying an evening gown for the Hugo ceremony was tax-deductible – it’s not BTW) and the guy who repaired my patio, because he just happened to be there, when I got the e-mail. Neither the accountant nor the patio guy are SFF fans, so chances of a leak were zero. They both also probably thought I was quite mad.If you are nominated in a fiction category – i.e. short story, novelette, novella, novel, Lodestar or Astounding – or nominated for a non-fiction book or essay in Best Related Work, you should let your editor and/or publisher know that you’re a finalist. They work in the industry and therefore know not to say anything and they may want to prepare some kind of congratulatory tweet, post or other promotion effort. Finally, editors are also happy when one of their authors is nominated.One thing I did not do is tell people about my nomination who might be up in the same category. Because I didn’t know who else was nominated (you don’t before the official announcement) and didn’t want anybody to feel disappointed, because I was a finalist and they were not.Even if you can’t publicly talk about your Hugo nomination just yet, there are still a few things you can do in the meantime. For example, you can update your bio to mention that you’re a Hugo finalist or write a bio, if you don’t have one yet. Important: Don’t upload your updated bio anywhere until the official announcement has been made! In fact, I spent a chunk of the evening after the Hugo finalists had been announced updating my bio everywhere it appears.In fact – and this is important – don’t upload anything that mentions your Hugo nomination anywhere on the internet, until the official announcement has been made. Even if you set a Tweet or blogpost to go live after the announcement has been made, don’t upload it yet. Because mistakes happen, you accidentally hit “publish” rather than “schedule” or a post goes live too early. I had my celebratory blogpost ready to go in Word, but I only uploaded it with links and a few comments added once the announcement had been made.Another thing you can do in the meantime is prepare a media kit, if you haven’t got one already. You can see mine here and there are also plenty of pages around the web that tell you what a media kit is supposed to contain. Important: Get permission to use any photos that you did not take yourself.Another thing you can do is write a press release about your Hugo nomination. It doesn’t matter which category you’re nominated in, whether it’s Best Novel or a fan category. Write a press release anyway. There are plenty of places around the web which tell you how to write a press release. It varies from country to country, so make sure you get the correct format for your country. My press releases from 2020 and 2o21 (in German) are here. Then make a list of the contact info for the relevant newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets in your region or country. Once the nominations have been announced, send your press release as well as the link to your media kit to those media outlets. The press release linked above netted me two in-depth profiles and a bonus article in two different newspapers in 2020 and two more in-depth profiles in 2021, which is much more than I’d hoped for.Consider whether you want to attend Worldcon and the ceremony. And yes, I know it’s difficult, since the covid pandemic is still ongoing and conditions and restrictions are very different in different parts of the world. Nonetheless, get a Worldcon membership, if you haven’t got one already. Like most recent Worldcons, Chicon 8 offers an installment plan, so you don’t have to pay for a full attending membership right now. The also offer a reduced rate for people attending their first ever Worldcon and have several support programs for people of marginalised identities available. You can also start looking for flights, hotels, etc…. If money is an issue, as it’s for many of us, think about crowdfunding your Worldcon trip, as several finalists have done in recent years. However, don’t start your crowdfunding campaign, until after the finalists have been announced.If you want to participate in programming, fill out Chicon’s program participant form, if you haven’t already. Do this as early as possible, so the programming team doesn’t have to find suitable programming for you at the last minute.Finally, start thinking about the Hugo voter packet. If you need to get permission to include certain texts or images, contact the relevant people.

Finally, here are a few observations regarding what happens after the Hugo finalists are announced:

A lot of people will congratulate you. These will be people you expect – friends, peers, etc… – but also people you don’t expect. After the newspaper articles mentioned above came out, I suddenly got congratulations from translation customers, various relatives, neighbours, former classmates and my Dad’s diabetes doctor among others. Enjoy the experience, thank everybody and don’t forget to congratulate your fellow finalists.Some people will also not congratulate you and again, some of these will be people you don’t expect. There are several reasons why someone might not congratulate you and most of them are not malicious. For example, some people might simply not have seen the news yet. Or they may not understand the significance, since not everybody is plugged into the SFF community and knows how important the Hugos are. Of course, there will also be a few people who think that you don’t deserve your nomination. Ignore them!Your fellow Hugo finalists are not your rivals, they are your peers. You’ll probably know some of them already and if not, you’ll quickly get to know them. And yes, only one of you will get to take home the rocket in the end, but all six of you are amazing and in a way, you’re all winners. This also applies across categories. I met a lot of great people in the SFF community and even made new friends, just because we were on the Hugo ballot in the same year.In general, there is a sense of community to siblinghood among Hugo finalists. Whether you’re a bestselling author or a first-time finalist in a fan category, you’re all in this together. There is usually a private group for Hugo finalists to chat, ask questions, share gripes, post photos of Hugo gowns, tiaras and pets, etc…If you’re not part of the Worldcon SFF community and don’t know anybody else on the ballot, don’t worry! You’ll get to know the others soon enough and pretty much everybody in this community is lovely and very welcoming.As a Hugo finalist, you will get plenty of e-mails from Chicon 8 about anything from the Hugo voter packet via the program book to the ceremony itself. Pay attention to those e-mails, send any information requested in time and check your spam folder. You don’t accidentally want to miss something important.Once the Hugo finalists have been announced, there will be people who have opinions about the ballot. Most will be positive or at least fair – I always try to be fair in my own Hugo and Nebula finalist commentaries, even if I don’t care for some of the finalists – but some will be not. There are always people who think that your category or the entire ballot is too male, not male enough, too white, not white enough, too queer, not queer enough, too American, not American enough, too bestselling, not bestselling enough – you get the idea. There will be people who complain that only people no one knows got nominated or that only the usual suspects got nominated. And some of these people won’t even wait 24 hours after the Hugo finalists have been announced to air their opinions – at least they didn’t last year. Some will even tag you, just to make sure you don’t miss their very important opinion. The best thing to do is ignore those people.There will be drama. So far, I’ve never seen a Worldcon that did not have at least some degree of drama and I have been a Worldcon member since 2014. Often, this drama affects the Hugo finalists in some way. Sometimes, the Hugo finalists even band together and try to resolve this drama. How you engages with whatever this year’s drama will be is up to you. However, don’t let it get you down. Drama is normal. At this point, I would be more surprised at a Worldcon without drama than at one which has some degree of drama. And usually, everybody winds up having a great time anyway.

Finally – and this is the most important point – enjoy your experience! You’re a Hugo finalist, i.e. your peers consider you and your work one of the six best in your respective category. That’s amazing, so celebrate!