Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 29

Star Trek Discovery Crosses the “Rubicon”

Star Trek Discovery is back for the last few episodes of season 4. Reviews of previous seasons and episodes may be found here.

Also, is it me or have the episode titles become much shorter of late?

Warning: Spoilers under the cut!

When we last saw the Discovery and her valiant crew, Michael had lost a poker game and a supply of isolynium to Book and Tarka, who want to use the isolynium to build a weapon that will destroy the Dark Matter Anomaly, in complete defiance of Federation policy and decisions. Nor does Book respond to the new information that the DMA is a kind of mining equipment and not a weapon with any response other than, “But it’s still eating planets and killing people, so we must destroy it.”

However, unbeknownst to Book, Michael planted a tracker on the isolynium, allowing the Discovery to track Book and Tarka and stop them before they do even more damage and possibly drag the Federation into a war with the highly technologically advanced Species 10c.

Of course, Michael and the Discovery crew are not exactly neutral with regard to Book. However, the Discovery is also the only Starfleet ship that’s fast enough to go after Book’s ship and its experimental spore drive. So Admiral Vance along a watchdog with the power to override Michael’s and Saru’s commands, should they fail to make the necessary call. And this watchdog is a familiar, namely Commander Nhan, security chief first aboard the Enterprise and then aboard Discovery, as she came into the future.  Nhan abruptly exited the show last season, when she randomly decided to guard the Federation’s seed vault ship after its previous guardians had been killed in a tragic accident.

I liked Nhan quite a bit and she was probably my favourite of the Discovery‘s various security chiefs (okay, I liked Ash Tyler, too, but Ash Tyler wasn’t real) and her exit always felt overly abrupt, so I’m glad to see her back – with a less visible breathing apparatus and heavy gold eye shadow. Michael is also glad to see Nhan back. Besides, Nhan is the ideal choice for this mission, because the Discovery crew know and trust her and because she has emotional connection to Book, but barely knew him.

The Discovery tracks Book, Tarka and the isolynium to a hollowed out planetoid where they’re hiding out. The Discovery cloaks itself and jumps in. Then a cloaked shuttle with Saru, Dr. Culber, Bryce and Rhys (who actually agrees with Book and Tarka, but orders are orders) aboard is sent in to clandestinely dock with Book’s ship, use Michael’s knowsledge of his ship to disable the security systems and take Book and Tarka into custody. In fact, the whole reason Dr. Culber is there is to talk down Book. Nobody seems to think about talking down Tarka. Maybe they were planning to simply stun him, a plan of which I would wholly approve, because Tarka turns even more insufferable in this episode, if that’s possible. And Tarka already was damn insufferable.

Because it turns out that Tarka has upgraded the defence system of Book’s ship – without telling Book about it. And this defence system not only detects the shuttle, but also coats it in some kind of nano-substance, which almost destroys the shuttle and nearly kills Saru, Culber, Rhys and Bryce. To his credit, Book is appalled and actually helps Michael to stall the nano-substance long enough, so the Discovery can beam out Saru, Culber, Rhys and Bryce in the nick of time. Tarka, meanwhile, seems totally unbothered that his defence system almost killed four Starfleet officers. This is the moment where we realise that Tarka isn’t just a jerk, he’s a dangerous sociopath. Unfortunately, neither Book nor the Discovery crew come to this conclusion until it’s too late, as Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido points out.

Now they know that Discovery is on their tail, Book and Tarka jump directly into the center of the DMA to deploy the weapon. Discovery follows. Michael gives a little speech about how they are jumping into the unknown and have no idea what awaits them, only to find that the heart of the DMA looks like an old school cloud tank. It’s also huge, so both Book and Tarka as well as Discovery have problems locating the device at the center of the DMA that powers it and instead encounter each other first.

Now begins a neat cat and mouse game where Michael and Book use their knowledge of each other and each other’s ships to disable the other. The Discovery fires a flare at Book’s ship to knock out his sensors, so he can’t scan for the device powering the DMA. Book retaliates by igniting a hydrogen cloud, but Michael recognises the manoeuvre from their time together as couriers (and I still wish that we had gotten to see more of that) and manages to evade the resulting blast.

At this point, Nhan informs Michael and Saru that Starfleet has found a vulnerability in Book’s ship. Michael is surprised, because she knows of no such vulnerability. However, the vulnerability is not so much in the ship itself, but in the experimental spore drive prototype Tarka stole and installed on board. A torpedo hit in a certain spot will destroy the spore drive and the ship, killing Book and Tarka.

Michael, of course, does not want to kill Book and Tarka and Nhan agrees that this plan is the last resort (though with Starfleet, I assume the reason is reluctance to lose their experimental spore drive prototype rather than concern for Book or even Tarka), but that she is authorised to give the order.

Michael’s plan, meanwhile, involves determining how long the DMA will stay in the area before it moves again. And since they know now that the DMA is a piece of mining equipment, Michael has Stamets and Zora calculate how long it will take for the DMA to extract all boronite from the area and move on. Unfortunately, the calculations involved are very complex and Stamets is also needed to jump.

By now, Discovery has finally located the device powering the DMA (a glowing, spinning polyhedron), but Book and Tarka are hot on their heels. Michael orders the Discovery to put itself between Book’s ship and the device, blocking a clear shot. Hereby, Michael is confident that Book will not fire on Discovery.

There is a tense stand-off. Discovery fires some warning shots at Book and Book fires some warning shots at Discovery. Book’s ship also jumps a few times, hoping for a clear shot, only for Discovery to jump as well. However, while Book will not fire shots aimed to destroy or disable at Discovery, Tarka has no such compulsions and fires at Discovery, taking out their shields. At this point, I was yelling at Book to please knock out Tarka, before the idiot could do any more damage.

Nhan is about the give the order to blow Book and Tarka to smithereens, when Stamets finally has the solution to his math problem. The DMA will remain in the area another week before moving again. This is the information that Michael needed to convince Book.

She orders Rhys to fire the deadly shot, when Nhan says the word, boards a shuttle and flies out to Book’s ship, confident that Book will not fire on her. Once again, no one worries about Tarka or what he might be doing. I have no idea why Michael can’t just hail Book from aboard Discovery and say her piece, but then the solo shuttle missions makes for more drama.

Michael tells Book that the DMA will remain in this uninhabited part of space for another week and that there is no accute risk of the DMA gobbling up another planet in this time. The Federation will use the time to initiate first contact and if there is no response or a hostile response, they can still blow up the DMA. But for now, would Book please stand down and wait just one week?

Book finally agrees to stand down. But once again, no one pays any attention to Tarka. A fatal mistake, since Tarka launches the weapon anyway before Book can stop him. And once launched, the weapon cannot be stopped. All that remains is for Discovery to jump to safety. Book follows, once he’s sure Discovery is safe. The weapon hits its aim and the DMA vanishes. However, no one gets what they want in this episode, not even Tarka. For once the dust has cleared, Tarka realises that the DMA power source he so desperately needs is on the other side of the wormhole created by the DMA and beyond the Galactic Barrier, meaning that Tarka is not going to escape to any other universe soon.

Like Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido, I found myself increasingly frustrated by Michael’s and Book’s complete and utter failure to realises that Tarka is a loose cannon, even though this was apparent at the very least from the moment on that Tarka’s unauthorised modifications of Book’s ship nearly got Saru, Culber, Bryce and Rhys killed. And considering that Tarka nearly blew up Discovery in the name of science back in “The Examples”, it should have been obvious to everybody from the start that Tarka just cannot be trusted. Tarka going rogue and stealing the spore drive prototype might have come as a surprise, but afterwards it should have been obvious to everybody that Tarka is a loose cannon and capable of anything. So it’s a mystery why Michael and Book turn their back on him for just one second.

Worse, Tarka’s destruction of the DMA doesn’t achieve anything, because a Starfleet vessels named the USS Mitchell (likely named after Gary Mitchell, the Enterprise crewmember who had a fatal encounter with the Galactic Barrier in the very first Star Trek episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”) reports that a new DMA has popped into existence at the exact same location as the first one. Species 10c received the message and they are not impressed.

Maybe I shouldn’t find the reappearance of the DMA funny – after all, it is a very dangerous planet-eating anomaly – but I did. Because I could imagine some bored Species 10c technician noticing that their mining device had gone offline and just pressing a button to deploy a new one in utter ignorance of all the drama that we had just watched unfold.

However, this also illustrates the main problem with season 4 of Discovery, namely that the DMA for all the devastation it caused just isn’t all that interesting as a threat. It’s basically an alien space dredge that eats planets, deployed by a species we have neither heard nor seen. And what those aliens want is energy. There’s a clumsy metaphor about fossile fuels and climate change in there, but that doesn’t make the DMA itself any more interesting. Ruon Tarka makes for a much more compelling villain with his combination of single-mindedness and  utter callousness than the DMA.

There is a subplot, too, involving Saru and his ongoing mutual attraction to President T’Rina of Ni’var. Saru gives T’Rina a holo-call, asking for meditation tips, and T’Rina asks him out on a date, which sets Saru all aflutter, since he has no idea if going on a date with someone of a very different culture is a good idea. Saru even approaches Dr. Culber, hoping that Culber will agree that pursuing a relationship with T’Rina is not a good idea. Culber just grins and tells Saru that he’s being an idiot.

I have to admit that the relationship between Saru and T’Rina is one of my favourite things about season 4 of Star Trek Discovery. Saru and T’Rina are so cute together and besides, Saru deserves some happiness. There seemed to be some hints at an eventual relationship between Michael and Saru in season 2, but I like this development much better. Because Michael is a hot mess with terrible luck regarding boyfriends. Meanwhile, Saru deserves stability and happiness that he will never have with Michael. So even if it looks as if Book will be gone by the end of this season, I’m still crossing my fingers for Saru and T’Rina.

All in all, I enjoyed this episode. It was tense, it was fast-paced and the stakes were suitably high, as io9 reviewer James Whitbrook points out. I also enjoyed that violence was only the last resort and that Michael’s plan (which would almost have worked, if not for Tarka) relied instead on her knowledge of Book and his ship. It’s certainly a very Star Trek-like solution and indeed Discovery feels more like Star Trek in its fourth season than it ever has. But while Discovery finally feels like Star Trek, it’s also very middle of the road Star Trek with little of the highs and lows of the earlier season.

Finally, I also can’t help but notice that this entire drama could have been avoided, if Michael and Owosekun had just nerve-pinched and/or punched out Book and Tarka last episode and thrown them in the brig of Discovery. In fact, will someone please punch out Tarka, because he so has it coming.

Volume 7 of The Long List Anthology: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List, edited by David Steffen, is looking for funding – and a bit about Conan

To begin with, I’m over at Galactic Journey again today, talking about Conan the Warrior, the second of the Lancer reprints of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories that revived the character and sent the already smouldering sword and sorcery revival of the 1960s into overdrive.

The Lancer reprints are controversial these days, because series editor L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter tried to force the stories into a questionable chronology, mucked about with the original Howard stories (and not just to remove the occasional bit of egregrious racism either), completed unfinished fragments and inserted their own stories into the series to fill the gaps. All of these complaints have merit, however, you can’t level them against Conan the Warrior, which is pure Howard with De Camp only providing the introduction and the bridging bits. The collection also includes two of the all-time best Conan stories, “Red Nails” and “Beyond the Black River” as well as a lesser story that’s still a lot of fun.

Which brings me to the main part of this post, namely the IndieGoGo campaign for Volume 7 of The Long List Anthology: More Stories from the Hugo Award Nomination List.

Now there is a dedicated section for crowdfunding campaigns in the weekly link round-up at the Speculative Fiction Showcase, but I rarely have dedicated posts about crowdfunding campaigns. In this case, I’m making an exception, partly out of pure self-interest, because I will have a story in this anthology, when it funds. The fact that this story is called “The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” is doubly appropriate. That said, it’s also a great anthology with an amazing line-up of stories and authors that I’m honoured to share a TOC with.

Also, look at the amazing cover art by Elaine Ho:

About Volume 7 of The Long List Anthology:

The Hugo Awards are one of the most prominent awards in speculative fiction publishing.  Nominations are cast by the fans to decide the few stories that end up on the final ballot.  After the Hugo Award ceremony every year, WSFS publishes a longer list of nominated works, works that were loved by many fans who chose to use their votes on this story.  For many years I personally used this longer list of nominated works as a recommended reading list and always found some really great and memorable stories in there.  The purpose of this anthology is to get those stories to more readers by collecting them together in a book for easy perusal.  The anthology is a collection of eclectic tastes, rather than from the tastes of an individual editor, and so has a more varied flavor than a typical “Best Of” anthology.

By contributing to this campaign, you can help get these stories out to more readers and help the writers of the stories as they get a share of the royalties.

This project is not endorsed by nor affiliated with the Hugo awards, WSFS, WorldCon, or any associated entities. The Hugo name is used with permission. Please note that the anthology’s correct name is “The Long List Anthology”, or the full wordy title: “The Long List Anthology: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List.” I note this because it’s commonly referred to, incorrectly, as “The Hugo Long List Anthology”; please use the correct title!

Which Stories Will Be Included?

Short Stories (Base Goal: $2000)

“The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” by Cora Buhlert“This Is New Gehesran Calling” by Rebecca Fraimow“The Ransom of Miss Coraline Connelly” by Alix E. Harrow“50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know” by Ken Liu“A Being Together Amongst Strangers” by Arkady Martine“Sunrise, Sunrise, Sunrise” by Lauren Ring (Astounding Award nomination)“The Eight-Thousanders” by Jason Sanford“AirBody” by Sameem Siddiqui (Astounding Award nomination)“In This, At Least, We Are Alike” by Caitlin Starling (Astounding Award nomination)“My Country is a Ghost” by Eugenia Triantafyllou“Sinew and Steel and What They Told” by Carrie Vaughn“The Salt Witch” by Martha Wells“Open House On Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell (Hugo Finalist)

Newly Added!

“Lone Puppeteer of a Sleeping City” by Arula Ratnakar

Novelettes (Stretch goal for $3500)

“The Bahrain Underground Bazaar” by Nadia Afifi“If You Take My Meaning” by Charlie Jane Anders“On Safari in R’lyeh and Carcosa With Gun and Camera” by Elizabeth Bear“An Important Failure” by Rebecca Campbell“Exile’s End” by Carolyn Ives Gilman“City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat” by Usman T. Malik“Yellow and the Perception of Reality” by Maureen McHugh“Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo” by Catherynne M. Valente“To Sail the Black” by A.C. Wise“A Stick of Clay, In the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential” by Neon YangSo what are you waiting for? Back Volume 7 of The Long List Anthology and get up to 24 excellent SFF short stories and novelettes

Love Through Space and Time 2022 – A Round-up of Indie Valentine’s Day Speculative Fiction

Our monthly round-ups of new speculative fiction and new crime fiction releases by indie authors are a perennially popular feature. Therefore, we now offer you a round-up of our favourite Valentine’s Day science fiction, fantasy and horror by indie authors.

These Valentine’s Day stories cover the broad spectrum of speculative fiction. We have urban fantasy, a lot of paranormal romance, paranormal mysteries, science fiction mysteries, science fiction romance, space opera, space colonisation, horror, alternate history, time travel, dragons, werewolves, wizards, ghosts, demons, aliens, robots, magical greeting card writers, crime-fighting witches, crime-fighting ghosts, Viking ghosts, dinners with demons, grumpy cupids, love potions, Valentine’s Day in space and much more. But one thing unites all of those very different books. They’re all set on or around Valentine’s Day.

As always with my round-up posts, this round-up of the best indie holiday speculative fiction is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Dinner With a Demon: It’s Valentine’s Day After All by Iokasti Argiriou

Apparently it’s Valentine’s day. A day dedicated to love? What in Aphrodite’s name is happening?

Anath – or Leda to Persa as she always refuses to call her by her demonic name – approaches Persa after all this time and she chooses this specific day. Is it a coinsidence? And then, out of the blue, the strangest thing happens. She asks Persa out on a date. A real date.

Ok, it was Persa’s suggestion, actually, but she never thought that Leda would go along with it. Now Persa cannot bow out and…she really hopes that this Valentine dude knows what he’s doing. Please, don’t let him be a sham!

Roses & Tails by Barbara Be:

She is an alien with silver-blue skin and a sexy tail, he is human and sometimes she doesn’t quite understand his customs. Like that strange human event of Valentine’s Day. He has something special planned for that day and it involves Zero G. But maybe he hasn’t quite thought this through. Sex in Zero G has some unique challenges.

This short story has previously been published in 2017 as part of the “Red Hots” anthology, which has been unpublished.

 

Valentine’s Day: A Charlie The Cupid Short Story by Zack Brooks:

Meet Charles Vefflin. A cupid stuck as a drone within a corporate company run by the Fates in Boston, he is doomed to cause people to fall in love with their soulmates for all of eternity. He hates his job and most people of the world. But a job is a job, and he isn’t going to let a little thing like people ruin the few pleasures in his life.

Join Charlie on the worst day of the year, Valentine’s Day, where he must make a young couple fall in love at a most unconventional party. See him deal with the idiocy of his co-workers, the lunacy of humans, and even run into a perverted old god. But, one thing’s for sure, he’ll see the job through. Even if it takes some liquid courage just to get through the night.

Valentine’s day is short story, about 6,500 words or 22 printed pages

Ballroom Blitz by Cora Buhlert:

Anjali and Mikhail go on a Valentine’s Day date. Trouble ensues.

Once, Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov were soldiers on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. They met, fell in love and decided to go on the run together.

Now Anjali and Mikhail are trying to eke out a living on the independent worlds of the galactic rim, while attempting to stay under the radar of those pursuing them.

It’s Valentine’s Day and so Mikhail and Anjali enjoy a well-deserved romantic dinner. But their date is rudely interrupted, when they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a turf war between two rival gangsters.

This is a Valentine’s Day novella of 23200 words or approximately 78 print pages in the “In Love and War” series by Hugo finalist Cora Buhlert, but may be read as a standalone.

Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime by Cora Buhlert:

Kai and Maisie are about the celebrate their first Valentine’s Day on the planet Iago Prime. However, the holiday traditions they established back on Earth such as celebrating Valentine’s Day with a picnic on the beach are impossible to maintain in the hostile environment of their new home. But in spite of the many limitations imposed by living on Iago Prime, Kai pulls out all the stops to give Maisie an unforgettable Valentine’s Day.

This is a science fictional Valentine’s Day story of 2200 words or approx. 10 print pages.

Cupid by Delmeza Carlton:

As a Cupid, Orel has plenty of experience helping other people find love, even if he’s unlucky in that department. But when he ends up covering for another Cupid at a speed dating event for singles in the leadup to Valentine’s Day, he dares to hope.

Can a lonely Cupid find love?

Or will he fall victim to the Cupid curse, too?

 

A Viking Ghost for Valentine’s Day by Jo-Ann Carson:

To feed her three children, Widow Abigail Jenkins takes the only job available in Sunset Cove: night cleaner in the notorious, haunted tea-house. She figures the wild, supernatural rumors about the place are pure fiction. After all, ghosts don’t exist.

Eric Eklund a sexy spirit from Sweden is over a thousand years old. Having missed his chance at Valhalla, the Viking spends his time roaming the world and gambling. That is until he sees Abby whose feisty earthly-spirit turns his ghostly world upside down.

When the two meet sparks fly, but their romance is interrupted by a poltergeist hunting children.

What happens when you mix a naughty, Viking ghost built like a Norse god, a strong woman who suffers no fools and a nasty poltergeist? Answer: another fun, Gambling Ghost story.

A Viking Ghost for Valentine’s is a lighthearted novella filled with love, laughter and just enough ghouliness to thrill and chill you to the bone.

Quill Me Now by Jordan Castillo Price:

What if the words you wrote came true?

Spellcraft isn’t exactly a respectable business, but it does pay the bills. At least, it should. Unfortunately, Dixon Penn failed his Spellcraft initiation. Instead of working in his family’s shop, he’s stuck delivering takeout orders in his uncle’s beat-up Buick.

Winning a Valentine’s Day contest at the largest greeting card company in the tri-state area would be just the thing to get his life back on track—but something at Precious Greetings just doesn’t add up. And despite numerous warnings to quit pestering them about his contest entry, he simply can’t stop himself from coming back again and again.

It doesn’t hurt that the head of security is such a hottie. If Dixon had any common sense, he’d be scared of the big, mysterious, tattooed Russian.

To be fair, no one ever accused him of being too smart….

A Werewolf’s Valentine by Zoe Chant:

Curvy cat shifter McKenzi Enkel gave up on love after one too many heartbreaks. What’s more, she declared war on Valentine’s Day. But then a handsome, whiskey-voiced stranger comes to town.

Sexy singer West, a lone wolf who lost his pack as a child, never stopped searching for his missing family. He sings when he can, fights when he must, and always moves on—until he meets the scorching hot McKenzi in the diner she reluctantly decorated for Valentine’s Day.

In a small town of shifters where anyone can find a refuge, West and McKenzi still feel alone. But as they begin to open their hearts to each other, he can’t make himself leave… and she can’t let him go. With Valentine’s Day approaching, can West and McKenzi forge a new pack… and find a love even they can’t deny?

My Maggie Valentine by Kate Danley:

Valentine’s Day is terrible. Especially when you’re Maggie MacKay and tasked with chaperoning the local high school Valentine’s dance. Join Maggie and Killian on a holiday, short story adventure. Sometimes you wrestle with demons. And sometimes they just want to cuddle…

A part of the Maggie MacKay: Holiday Special short story series. This stands independently from the main Magical Tracker series and can be read at any time and in any order.

WARNING: This adventure contains cussing, brawling, and unladylike behavior. Proceed with caution.

Love Potion Sold Seperately by Nicole DragonBeck:

Maggie Baker can’t think of anyone to ask to wear her corsage at this year’s First Days Celebration. After a visit from her fairy godmother, Maggie concocts her own Prince Charming, but when Charle arrives, things get more complicated than she bargained for.

 

 

 

Vintage Valentine by Cat Gardiner:

Romance and time-travel meet Pride and Prejudice in this utterly romantic modern story. Step back in time to WWII-era for a sweet Valentine’s Day.

What begins as a begrudging visit to Time & Again antique shop turns into so much more than discovering trinkets from the past. The unexpected happens! Love and lessons await Lizzy Bennet when she leaves her mobile device in the future. Travel with her through a portal to timeless romance back in 1943 where she’s looking up into the eyes of one dashing G.I. at U.S.O dance.

An 8,500 word sweet paranormal romance.

The Dragon’s Valentine by C.D. Gorri:

“She’s given up on love, but he’s just begun…”

After five hundred years of servitude, Dragon Shifter, Callius Falk and his three brothers are finally freed from their bonds. Callius has one mission, to find his true mate.

Winifred Castillo spends her nights tending bar at The Thirsty Dog, a local favorite in Maccon City, New Jersey. After her boyfriend skips town with her rent money, she’s sworn off men. For good!

But what’s a Werewolf to do when a dark-haired stranger with golden eyes and rippling muscles claims her as his mate?

A Very Klagan Valentine by Holly Hanzo:

From being jilted at the altar, to being ghosted by a blind date, Mia held onto the hope that one day, she’d finally be the bride and not the bridesmaid. The Elodian invasion of Earth and Mia’s subsequent capture changed everything. Mistaken for a Sudabian, and dropped on Sudabia, a pleasure planet she’s never heard of, Mia finds herself smack in the center of their annual hedonistic mid-winter celebration – and – up for auction.

Klagan Warrior Rylan’s mission takes a turn for the worse after a firefight with a lone Elodian cruiser over a remote planet in the middle of nowhere. His worst nightmare comes true when he’s forced to land on Sudabia. As a virtuous man who doesn’t mix business and pleasure, his only goal was to get off-world, and fast, until he stumbles across the auctions – and the frantic pleas of an unwilling participant in the auctions stirred something within him. Against his better judgement, Rylan rescues Mia from the auction block.

She wants to leave. He can’t let her go.

The Ghost of Valentine Past by Bobbi Holmes:

A romantic weekend at Marlow House Bed and Breakfast turns deadly when Earthbound Spirits founder, Peter Morris, is murdered. Plenty of people had a reason to want the man dead—especially Danielle’s current guests.

But it isn’t Morris’ ghost distracting Danielle on this deadly Valentine’s Day weekend, it’s her late husband Lucas. She has her hands full with suitors coming from all directions—both living and dead—while she tries to figure out if there’s a killer in Marlow House.

 

Ghoul You Be My Valentine? by Olivia Jaymes:

It’s time for another Ravenmist Whodunnit! A tiny Midwestern town with charming covered bridges, quirky residents, delightful antique shops, and more than their share of haunted activity.

Tedi has another packed inn of people for the Ravenmist Valentine’s Day Ball. The evening was a complete success until she and Jack find a dead body on the back patio with a Cupid’s arrow through his heart. There’s no shortage of suspects for his murder either. Jack will have his hands full paring down the list.

And Tedi? She’s staying out of this. No way is she going to be pulled into it. Not after last time. She has her own investigation. She and her friend Missy are trying to find why the town has suddenly been infused with paranormal energy. Ghosts are literally getting up and dancing around. It’s all going well too. That is until the investigation starts to hit just a little bit too close to home.

Hop into your ghostmobile and take a ride with Tedi as she meets a spirit who doesn’t think he’s dead, two ghosts in love, and a hard partying specter who just might have witnessed the murder. It’s a hauntingly good time in the little town of Ravenmist and you’re invited to the party.

Bear Valley Valentine by T.S. Joyce:

Colin Cross is a lone bear shifter living on the outskirts of Bear Valley. He likes his reclusive lifestyle, but when he musters the nerve to talk to the woman he has feelings for, being alone just doesn’t seem like enough anymore. When he finds Hadley on an online dating site, it’s the perfect way to build a relationship with her without dragging her into his dark past. Hadley is human, and humans don’t belong in his world, but a little online flirting never hurt anyone.

Hadley Bennett has had it with dating local townies. Determined to cast her net a little wider, she enters the chaotic world of online dating. When she finally secures a face-to-face date with the elusive Bearman28, it’ll be a Valentine’s Day to remember.

And if Hadley can handle his real identity, they just might find what they’ve both been searching for.

Bear Valley Valentine is a 20,000 word story with heart pounding romance, a thoughtful alpha bear, and spicy Valentine’s Day surprises.

For the Love of Cupidity by Raven Kennedy:

First comes love, then comes mating, then comes the baby and some cupid training.

Cupidville is overrun with new cupid recruits, and it’s up to me to train them in time for Valentine’s Day. Too bad I have four mates who keep insisting that it’s time for me to take a break.

Juggling my role as the cupid boss, being a mate, and handling motherhood isn’t always easy, but it’s sure as hearts worth it. Let’s just hope I can get these cupid flunkies trained in time.

Author’s Note: This is a Heart Hassle novella just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Love Potion, edited by Graceley Knox and D.D. Miers:

A valentines day charity anthology featuring 8 exclusive stories from your favorite bestselling Paranormal and Fantasy romance authors! All proceeds will be donated to Room to Read!

How to Capture a Demon’s Heart – Graceley Knox & D.D. Miers
A Demon’s Plaything (The Elite Guards) – Amelia Hutchins
Deep Blue Sea – Pippa DaCosta
The Hellhound’s Legion: A Kit Davenport Novella – Tate James
The Heart Cantrip: a Family Spells Novella – C.M. Stunich
Eternal Hearts – A Forsaken Gods Series Novella – G. Bailey & Coralee June
A Damsel and a Demigod (The Guild Codex: Spellbound) – Annette Marie
The Fox and the Wolf – Clara Hartley

An Immortal Valentine’s Day by Monica La Porta:

Once a playboy, Alexander Drako is now the happy father of three and eager to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a special party held on Friday night to accommodate his nocturnal vampire friends. Everything is ready except for a small detail. Alexander has forgotten to buy the roses and orchids for his beloved Ravenna. Unable to disappoint her, and accompanied by his loyal friends, Marcus and Samuel, he sets out for Wolf’s Haven, a rehab center for paranormals, hoping to find some flowers left for sale in their greenhouse.

After a honeymoon around the world that lasted half a year, Peter and Ophelia have just landed back in Rome. While he would like to relax in their apartment, Ophelia is eager to see her friends. Most of all, she can’t wait to hug Quintilius, her adoptive father.

Ophelia’s call reaches Quintilius at Wolf’s Haven, where he’s volunteering, and he rejoices at finally seeing her again. However, he isn’t thrilled to see Peter, the man who stole the heart of his little princess. A sudden crisis at the rehab center forces Quintilius to focus his thoughts and energies on looking for Luisa, a girl who’s run away with a dangerous gang member.

By fate’s design, all the friends have reunited at Wolf’s Haven and agreed to help Quintilius in his quest. Will they be able to save the girl and return to their loved ones in time to celebrate Valentine’s Day?

Moonshine Valentine by Tegan Maher:

It’s Valentine’s Day, and Noelle has no idea what to get for Hunter. While she’s getting her hair cut and tossing around gift ideas, Coralee’s long-term boyfriend pops in and declares his undying love via a marriage proposal, breaking rule numero uno of their relationship clause.

He’s only the first to fall, though. When the men of Keyhole Lake start acting like lovesick lunatics, Noelle and Rae have to put their heads together to figure out what happened before the whole town goes loopy in love, or someone ends up in jail.

This story falls in between book 4, Murder and Mayhem, and Book 5, Murder and Marinade, in the Witches of Keyhole Lake Mystery Series.

Heart Attack by Terri Main:

When Smelling Roses, Watch Out for the Thorns

Strange things are happening in Armstrong City right before St. Valentine’s Day. Several women who found roses on their doorstep passed out inexplicably. Carolyn and Mike must figure out how this happened, who is doing it, and why?

A fun little mystery for the holiday of love.

 

Valentines Day: Time Patrol by Bob Mayer:

“The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity—or it will move apart.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What does it take to change history and destroy our reality? Change events on the same date, 14 February, in six different years. The Time Patrol must send an agent back to each day, with just 24 hours for each to defeat the Shadow’s plan to disrupt our time-line, creating a time tsunami and wiping our present out.

Ivar: 1929. Gunmen massacre seven people in the infamous St. Valentines Day Massacre. Al Capone is consolidating his grip on the Outfit in Chicago. But what if it turns out very differently?

Eagle: 1945. President Roosevelt, heading home from the Yalta Conference, stops on the Great Bitter Lake to meet King Idn Saud of Saudi Arabia to discuss a relatively new topic: Arab oil. And a Jewish homeland.

Roland: 1779. Captain Cook, famed explorer of the Pacific, meets his fate in Hawaii.

Scout: 278. Saint Valentine is beheaded near the Milvian Bridge.

Doc: 1945. The Dresden Firebombing. Kurt Vonnegut is in a slaughterhouse as the first bombers appear overheard.

Moms: 1946. The ENIAC computer, programmed by six women, is unveiled to the public. The press thinks the women are simply models.

The mission, as always for the Time Patrol, seems straight-forward: keep history intact. No matter the cost.

But this time, things go very differently than in previous missions and one of the team members must make the ultimate sacrifice.

Rainbow Bouquet, edited by Farah Mendlesohn:

Authors featured are Harry Robertson, Edward Ahern, Victoria Zammit, Erin Horáková, Cheryl Morgan, Sarah Ash, Kathleen Jowitt, Sean Robinson, Garrick Jones and MJ Logue, and the settings vary from a mediaeval monastery to the ‘final frontier’, give or take the odd supernatural realm along the way. Stories of love in the past, present and future – all as fascinating in their variety as love itself.

 

 

My Bloodiest Valentine, edited by K.A. Morse:

Roses are red. So is your blood. It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’ve brought you something good. Abandon the chocolates, forget flowers and wine. Because these authors stories are bloody divine. Demons from Hell or a vampires kiss, this collection of stories you don’t want to miss.

 

 

 

Kelianna by Leah Negron:

What my fellow countrymen do not realize is that the tales are true. From the leprechauns to the fairies, the banshees to the pooka, the merrow to the kelpie, the changelings to the far darrig, they all exist.

There are many more creatures; some of them are good and stand by us in the fight to keep the evil ones at bay. The others, the dark ones, try to destroy everything that is good in the world.

Now there is a new threat, one that I have never seen before. Thankfully, Tiamat sent word through the portals to warn me of what is coming.

It’s time to bring my forces together for the battle of a lifetime. It looks like it’s going to be one hell of a Bloody Valentine’s Day.

Tiamat by Serenity Rayne:

You would think I was living a fairy tale life. I live in my ancestral home high up in the mountains, and I am heir to the Ice Dragon throne. With the standard court drama and Prince’s trying to court me that don’t measure up to the man in my dreams, life can be quite stressful at times. But in the darkness, an old evil lurks, one we thought my mother Aurora had extinguished long ago. Villagers start going missing by my father Klaus’s pack lands, and all signs point to the Strigoi. Time to help mom and get my talons dirty; this will be one bloody Valentines Day.

 

Love Magic by Jesi Lea Ryan:

“The day I met Derrick while playing my violin in the park was magical. Unfortunately, magic and love together don’t always mix.”

Oliver met Derrick while busking in the park, and they hit it off from the start. At first, Derrick’s “mysterious magician” vibe was intriguing, but after two botched dates, Oliver was ready to call it quits.

Fearing he lost his chance with Oliver, Derrick makes a last-ditch effort to win Oliver’s heart with a romantic Valentine’s date. But when love and magic collide, things tend to go awry. Will these two guys make it through the date unscathed?

Validated by Valentine’s by Joynell Schultz:

Ivory has the perfect man, from his microchip processor to his flesh-like exterior.

Ivory hated that she loved her Christmas gift this year. Her sister gave her the perfect humanoid companion, but there’s just one problem: he’ll never be able to say he loves her, no matter how much Ivory falls in love with him.

Was her dream man a present or a curse?

But when Ethan (Ivory’s Dream Droid) looks at her with those sweet blue eyes and secretly earns enough money to enter her in the city-wide bake-off, she realizes she doesn’t care. He’s hers. And that’s the best gift of all.

Ivory’s perfect world falls apart the closer she gets to the bake-off. It starts with a lost entry and Ethan having a few programming malfunctions, then she discovers someone’s deliberately sabotaging her. What started out to be a dream Valentine’s day, begins to turn into a nightmare. A large supportive family, a caring artificial companion, and the best cupcake recipe in the world might not be enough to uncover who’s setting Ivory up to fail.

My Wicked Valentine by Lotta Smith:

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner… Love is in the air and so are the ghosts!

When Rick’s old friend, up-and-coming celeb psychic Brian Powers is accused of murdering an esthetician at a luxe gentlemen-only spa, Mandy’s cozy afternoon at home goes from cookie-baking to crime solving.

With baby Sophie and ghost-pal Jackie in tow, Mandy and Rick take to haunting the spa where the facials are fab and the intrigue is high-end.

Every suspect has a secret, but who’s willing to kill to keep theirs under wraps? [Seaweed wraps, that is.] Find out in this dangerously funny installment of the Manhattan Mystery series.

Dragon’s First Valentine by Emily Martha Sorensen:

There’s a new dragon visiting from Chicago, and she’s green, like Virgil! Unfortunately, this might cause a few small problems nobody anticipated.

As well as a few revelations and surprises.

And all while Rose is trying to figure out what to give her husband for Valentine’s Day.

 

The Dread Arrow by Grigor Weeks:

Dark Space is strange, and so are the hitmen who live there. Strap in sweetheart. Love never hurt so good.

Love and Crime 2022 – A Round-up of Indie Valentine’s Day Mysteries and Crime Fiction

Our monthly round-ups of new speculative fiction and new crime fiction releases by indie authors are a perennially popular feature. Therefore, we now offer you a round-up of our favourite Valentine’s Day mysteries by indie and small press authors.

The holiday mysteries cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have plenty of cozy mysteries, small town mysteries, culinary mysteries, animal mysteries, paranormal mysteries, historical mysteries, jazz age mysteries, police procedurals, crime thrillers, legal thrillers, amateur sleuths, crime-fighting witches, crime-fighting bakers, crime-fighting socialites, crime-fighting ghosts, crime-fighting dogs, masked vigilantes, missing children, kidnappings, jewel thefts, sleazy lawyers, serial killers, assassins and much more. But one thing unites all of those very different books. They’re all set on or around Valentine’s Day.

As always with my round-up posts, this round-up of the best indie holiday mysteries 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:

Death by Baguette: A Valentine’s Day Murder in Paris by Jennifer S. Alderson:

Paris—the city of love, lights … and murder? Join tour guide Lana Hansen as she escorts five couples on an unforgettable Valentine-themed vacation to France! Unfortunately it will be the last trip for one passenger…

Lana Hansen’s future is looking bright. She has money in her bank account, a babysitter for her cat, and even a boyfriend. Regrettably she won’t get to celebrate Valentine’s Day with her new beau, Chad. Instead, she will be leading a lovers-only tour in France. Luckily for Lana, her best friend, Willow, and her partner, Jane, will be joining her.

Things go downhill when Lana’s new boyfriend shows up in Paris for her tour—with his wife. Chad is not the website developer he claimed to be, but a famous restaurant critic whose love of women rivals his passion for food.

After Chad drops dead during a picnic under the Eiffel Tower, a persistent French detective becomes convinced that he was poisoned. And the inspector’s sights are set on several members of the tour—including Lana!

While escorting her group through the cobblestone streets of Montmartre, the grand gardens of Versailles, and the historic Marché des Enfants Rouges market, Lana must figure out who really killed Chad before she has to say bonjour to prison and adieu to her freedom.

Introducing Lana Hansen, tour guide, reluctant amateur sleuth, and star of the Travel Can Be Murder Cozy Mystery Series. Join Lana as she leads tourists and readers to fascinating cities around the globe on intriguing adventures that, unfortunately for Lana, often turn deadly.

Valentine’s Day is Murder by Carolyn Arnold:

Cupid’s arrow may have missed its mark…

Jimmy finally takes a vacation–and a chance on love–only to be abducted. His female companion originally thinks he had cold feet about their relationship, but Sean and Sara know there’s more to it. Jimmy isn’t the type to just up and disappear, let alone leave a lady stranded.

Setting out on their private jet, Sean and Sara reach the tropical paradise of Ocho Rios, Jamaica with sightseeing as the last thing on their minds.

With a gold coin being their initial tie to Jimmy’s kidnapper, Sean and Sara even speculate about the involvement of pirates. Yet as the hours pass, and there’s no word from Jimmy’s captors, Sean and Sara will need to figure out the real motive before it’s too late.

With help from their friend, Adam, back in Albany, the pieces come together and not a moment too soon.

A Valentine for the Silencer by Cora Buhlert:

Valentine’s Day 1938: All Richard Blakemore a.k.a. the masked crimefighter known only as the Silencer wants is to have a romantic dinner with his beautiful fiancée Constance Allen.

But on his way to his date, Richard happens upon a mugging in progress. Can he save the victim and make sure that young Thomas Walden has the chance to propose to his girlfriend? And will he make it to dinner with Constance on time?

This is a short Valentine’s Day story of 7200 words or approx. 24 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.

He never brings me flowers… by Cora Buhlert

He never brings me flowers…

Waiting for your boyfriend to finally come home from work can be hell, especially if it’s your anniversary and you suspect he forgot – again. But does the ringing of the doorbell promise roses and sex and the long overdue proposal or something far more sinister?

Lovers’ Ridge

A foundling, a newborn, abandoned and left to die. But tonight, he will have his revenge on the parents who deserted him. Tonight, they will pay, at the very place where the story once began, at Lovers’ Ridge…

This is a bumper edition containing two short crime stories of 3200 words altogether. Both stories are also available as part of the collection Murder in the Family.

Ballroom Blitz by Cora Buhlert:

Anjali and Mikhail go on a Valentine’s Day date. Trouble ensues.

Once, Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov were soldiers on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. They met, fell in love and decided to go on the run together.

Now Anjali and Mikhail are trying to eke out a living on the independent worlds of the galactic rim, while attempting to stay under the radar of those pursuing them.

It’s Valentine’s Day and so Mikhail and Anjali enjoy a well-deserved romantic dinner. But their date is rudely interrupted, when they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a turf war between two rival gangsters.

This is a Valentine’s Day novella of 23200 words or approximately 78 print pages in the “In Love and War” series by Hugo finalist Cora Buhlert, but may be read as a standalone.

Valentine’s Day, 1951 by Frank W. Butterfield:

Tuesday, February 13, 1951

What does the man who can buy anything get the man who doesn’t want anything?

That’s the mystery Nick Williams is trying to solve.

He’s a small-time private dick in San Francisco with a big-time trust he inherited from a rich uncle during the war.

With the help of his new secretary, Marnie Wilson, Nick is hoping he can come up with something that will let Carter Jones, the fireman he shares a house and a bed with, know how much he really loves him.

With a little luck, and some help from both friends and family, Valentine’s Day of 1951 might just be one they’ll both remember for a long, long time.

Valentine’s Madness: A 1920s Historical Mystery Anthology, edited by Beth Byers:

Welcome to a very flapper Valentine’s Day!

Are you ready for the roaring twenties? For spunky young women crafting their own lives? If so, you’ll love Violet, Julia, Abigail, Evelyn, and Rosemary.

Inside, you’ll find four short Valentine’s day adventures, 1920s style including roses, chocolates, kisses, and cocktails. With stories from The Violet Carlyle Mysteries, the Piccadilly Ladies Club Mysteries, the Abigail Dutcher Mysteries, the Jazz & Gin Cozy Mysteries, and The Lillywhite Mysteries.

Mystery on Valentine’s Day by Beth Byers and Lee Strauss:

The worlds of Ginger Gold and Violet Carlyle collide in this fun Valentine Mystery short story by bestselling authors Lee Strauss and Beth Byers.

While both Ginger and Violet had plans for a romantic evening of dinner and dancing to celebrate Valentine’s Day with their husbands, something goes terribly awry. One by one, female patrons discover that they are missing jewelry.

In this closed room mystery filled with a brigade of colorful characters, Violet and Ginger join forces to put their skills of deduction to work. Can they unveil the culprit and solve the mystery in time for dessert?

Don’t miss this delectable bite-sized tale. Pairs perfectly with a box of chocolate and a comfy chair!

The St. Valentine’s Day Cookie Massacre by Elisabeth Crabtree:

It’s Valentine’s Day in quiet, cozy Hatter’s Cove, Florida and food columnist, Kat Archer, has been assigned the event of the year, the grand opening of Miss Dolly’s Cookie Jar and Sweets Emporium.

What begins as a run of the mill, albeit tasty, assignment turns into something much more dangerous when one of the Cookie Jar’s employees is poisoned.

Now Kat is chasing the biggest story of her life, while trying to catch the eye of her handsome editor and avoid becoming the killer’s next victim.

A cozy novella: approximately 44,000 words

Murder on Valentine’s Day by P. Creeden:

It’s Valentine’s Day and 20-year-old Emma Wright just wants her crush to take notice of her. But Colby Davidson, the K9 search and rescue deputy only thinks of her as a kid sister. How will she get him to take her seriously?

When her veterinarian boss calls her to pick up a cat at a potential crime scene, she finds herself at the house of the richest woman in Ridgeway. Her father—the sheriff—and Colby are there. They both dismiss the untimely death as a heart attack, but Emma finds clues that it might be something more. Did the software billionaire die of natural causes, or was it murder?

The Valentine Mystery by Kathi Daley:

If you love small towns, endearing relationships, food, animals, and a touch of murder, you will love this new mystery series by Kathi Daley, author of the popular Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery Series.

It is Valentine’s Day in White Eagle Montana and Tess and Tilly are busier than ever delivering Valentine Cards along with the daily mail. Of course it wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day in White Eagle without a mystery to solve or a holiday adoption party to prepare for.

When Tess happens upon a vehicle accident where one man dies, she gets pulled into a mystery with roots into the past. With Tony’s help she not only tracks down a killer but she looks into the occurrence of a missing person as well.

Tony is still looking into the case of Tess’s father’s disappearance, meanwhile Tess and Tilly team up with Brady to make sure that every animal shelter resident finds their perfect match in time for Valentine’s Day.

The Case of the Cupid Caper by Kathi Daley:

How is one to start again after losing the one thing that speaks to your heart and fuels your passion?

After a serious accident leaves Calliope Rose Collins unable to continue with the career that has owned her soul for most of her life, she returns to Foxtail Lake, Hollister House, Great Aunt Gracie, and childhood friend, Officer Cass Wylander, where she begins to rebuild her life from the ashes of what she once had.

In book 3 of The Cat in the Attic series – It’s Valentine’s Day and Callie has finally been made a full time reporter for the local newspaper. Her first assignment as a full time reporter is to cover the case of a local cupid, a matchmaker who seems intent on coupling up all the single residents in the area. Things are going well for Callie and her story until one of the men she is sent to interview turns up dead.

A Valentine Murder by Steven Demaree

In this delightful combination of a whodunit mixed with humor, a woman, who has been celebrating her birthday and Valentine’s Day, is rushed to the hospital complaining of stomach pains and nausea. She grabs the doctor and tells him she has been poisoned, but before she can tell him any more, she dies. When Lt. Dekker and Sgt. Murdock investigate, they find out that no one liked her, with the possible exception of her husband.

 

 

Valentine’s Day by Liz Dodwell:

Valentine’s Day, a pet pig and smugglers just don’t go together

It’s happened again, pet-sitter Polly Parrett is embroiled in another mystery. The romantic Valentine’s Day weekend she’s been looking forward to with her number one guy turns into a fiasco. There’s a body of course, characters who may or may not be trusted, danger and snow – lots of snow.

Then something happens that causes the usually mild-mannered Polly to find her inner tigress, and woe betide the person she turns her claws on.

Corridor Man: Valentine by Mark Faricy:

BETTER CHANGE THE LOCKS. BOBBY DID.

Disbarred attorney Bobby Custer continues to use his main skill set; murder, treachery and perversion in an ongoing effort to increase his personal gains.

Ever the charmer, Bobby provides Emily with an unforgettable valentine that up until now she could only dream about . . . or maybe it was a nightmare. Together they forever mark the day with a memorable secret. Psychotic, sociopathic, always charming– and you thought he was here to help.

The Heartless Valentine by Kacey Gene:

Roses are red; violets are blue
Is a lover from the dead here to kill you?

Valentine’s Day. 2020. Middlebridge, Wisconsin. When the quick-witted second grade teacher and amateur sleuth, Jennifer Hunter, receives a gift from a secret admirer on Valentine’s Day, she heartily investigates who her cupid could be. When she opens the box, though, she doesn’t find chocolates; she finds a human heart wrapped in red tissue paper.

And that’s not all. Her admirer has written a note confessing their desire to watch Jennifer die. That’s when Jennifer’s best friend and Middlebridge’s Police Lieutenant, Jake Hollow, steps in.

Jake and Jennifer put their dynamic duo focus on finding Jennifer’s deranged valentine, and that leads them to the recently deceased body of David Bird IV. He looks like an average dead guy except for one fact — his heart has been removed. Jennifer must investigate this heartless valencrime; otherwise, she fears she’ll be the next victim. Yet, her attempt to protect her own heart leads her to a set of love letters that tell the story of broken hearts from the past.

Valentine’s Day. 1910. Salem, Massachusetts. Clay Trunkett, a twenty year old hard-working journalist, is scheduled to hang for assaulting a man. His accuser? David Bird II, son of the wealthiest man in Salem. Clay’s true crime? Falling in love with Meghan White, the woman David has his heart set on marrying.

The love triangle of 1910 holds the clues Jennifer needs to find the heart snatcher of 2020, but with her own crazed valentine delivering threatening messages and bits of heart like they’re candy, Jennifer struggles to piece together this crime of passion from 1910.

And, Jennifer’s own passions get in the way when she discovers that her best friend, Jake, has a girlfriend — one that he’s been hiding from Jennifer for months. Betrayal runs high as masquerade parties, craft sales, murder mystery dinners, and a strange encounter at the local diner all distract Jennifer from her one mission: To find out who’s making her Valentine’s Day the most horrifyingly heart-filled in history. The problem is, Jennifer’s discoveries may end her friendship with Jake, and that’s a heartbreak she can’t take.

This clean cozy mystery will keep reader’s hearts pounding as they flip through love letters from the past and the alternating stories of Jennifer Hunter and Clay Trunkett. Jennifer’s down-to-earth and lovable personality plunges into new territory as she must assess her relationship with Jake and the type of love she wants in her life. She goes on crochet benders; she attends parties where she gets to be someone other than herself; and all the time she’s piecing together a crime that makes this Valentine’s Day anything but sweet.

Valentine by Celina Grace:

A respectable, middle-aged housewife. An ambitious young lawyer. A student burlesque dancer. Three women with nothing in common – except for the fact that someone has sent them a macabre Valentine’s Day gift; a pig’s heart pierced by an arrow.

Is this a case of serious harm intended? Or just a malicious prank? Detective Inspector Olbeck thinks there might be something more sinister behind it but his colleague Detective Sergeant Kate Redman is too busy mourning the departure of her partner Tin to New York to worry too much about the case. Until one of the women receives a death threat…

Valentine is a novella in the best-selling Kate Redman Mystery series by crime writer Celina Grace.

Love Is Murder by Michelle Ann Hollstein:

It’s Valentine’s Day and Aggie is looking forward to her yearly ritual of curling up on the couch in front of the television while eating ice cream. However, this year her friends Betty and Roger, have talked Aggie into spending an evening out on the town. And then, to her surprise, Officer Tom Wood had also asked her out. Wearing a very uncomfortable, slinky, red dress that Betty picked out for her, and a ruby red pocketbook to match, Aggie stumbles into a dangerous Valentine’s Day she’ll never forget.

 

The Ghost of Valentine Past by Bobbi Holmes:

A romantic weekend at Marlow House Bed and Breakfast turns deadly when Earthbound Spirits founder, Peter Morris, is murdered. Plenty of people had a reason to want the man dead—especially Danielle’s current guests.

But it isn’t Morris’ ghost distracting Danielle on this deadly Valentine’s Day weekend, it’s her late husband Lucas. She has her hands full with suitors coming from all directions—both living and dead—while she tries to figure out if there’s a killer in Marlow House.

 

Ghoul You Be My Valentine? by Olivia Jaymes:

It’s time for another Ravenmist Whodunnit! A tiny Midwestern town with charming covered bridges, quirky residents, delightful antique shops, and more than their share of haunted activity.

Tedi has another packed inn of people for the Ravenmist Valentine’s Day Ball. The evening was a complete success until she and Jack find a dead body on the back patio with a Cupid’s arrow through his heart. There’s no shortage of suspects for his murder either. Jack will have his hands full paring down the list.

And Tedi? She’s staying out of this. No way is she going to be pulled into it. Not after last time. She has her own investigation. She and her friend Missy are trying to find why the town has suddenly been infused with paranormal energy. Ghosts are literally getting up and dancing around. It’s all going well too. That is until the investigation starts to hit just a little bit too close to home.

Hop into your ghostmobile and take a ride with Tedi as she meets a spirit who doesn’t think he’s dead, two ghosts in love, and a hard partying specter who just might have witnessed the murder. It’s a hauntingly good time in the little town of Ravenmist and you’re invited to the party.

Valentine’s Day: Kiss of Death by Charlot King:

The quintessentially English Professor Elizabeth Green is not herself, shut in her bedroom she doesn’t even have time for her grandson, Godric, whom she adores. As the director of the student play, Godric, meanwhile, attends a College Valentine’s Banquet with some of his troupe. Soon after, he is one actor down, a body is found.

Meanwhile, Inspector Abley’s messy divorce has brought him alone up to Grantchester, as Sergeant Lemon steps in to lend support. With mystery after mystery building up, will Professor Green open her door to help?

Hugely popular author makes this beautiful historic city of Cambridge, England, leap off the page, with the eccentric Professor of poisons. Join the fast-growing number of readers of these page-turning whodunnits in the tradition of Agatha Christie, Colin Dexter, and grab a murder mystery fuelled by poison in the dark alleys of Cambridge!

Lady Rample and Cupid’s Kiss by Shéa MacLeod:

Just when Lady Rample has given up on love, a former flame reappears, bringing with him all sorts of emotions she thought buried. Unfortunately, that flame comes with one very aggressive and rather angry almost-ex-wife. The ensuing catfight is almost worth the price of admission.

When the ex-wife is found dead in Hyde Park, stabbed with a hatpin in the shape of a heart, the police naturally assume the killer is the husband. Our intrepid heroine is not about to allow her love to go down for a crime he didn’t commit. Unfortunately, proving him innocent may put her own neck on the line.

Never one to shirk from danger, Lady R—with the help of her eccentric Aunt Butty—will need all her wits about her if she’s to solve the crimes of the Cupid Killer.

Enjoy the glitz and glamor of the 1930s with the sixth book in the popular 1930s historical mystery series, Lady Rample Mysteries.

The Venom in the Valentine by Shéa MacLeod:

Viola Roberts is down in the dumps after discovering her boyfriend, Lucas, is snowed in back east. Her best friend, Cheryl, agrees to substitute a girl’s weekend for the romantic Valentine’s Day he had planned. Massages and mani-pedis for the win!

That is, until the hotel guests start receiving venomous Valentines, and one of them ends up dead. In a remote resort on the wild Oregon coast, it’s up to Viola to get to the bottom of things before any more guests fall to the killer’s poison pen.

Moonshine Valentine by Tegan Maher:

It’s Valentine’s Day, and Noelle has no idea what to get for Hunter. While she’s getting her hair cut and tossing around gift ideas, Coralee’s long-term boyfriend pops in and declares his undying love via a marriage proposal, breaking rule numero uno of their relationship clause.

He’s only the first to fall, though. When the men of Keyhole Lake start acting like lovesick lunatics, Noelle and Rae have to put their heads together to figure out what happened before the whole town goes loopy in love, or someone ends up in jail.

This story falls in between book 4, Murder and Mayhem, and Book 5, Murder and Marinade, in the Witches of Keyhole Lake Mystery Series.

Heart Attack by Terri Main:

When Smelling Roses, Watch Out for the Thorns

Strange things are happening in Armstrong City right before St. Valentine’s Day. Several women who found roses on their doorstep passed out inexplicably. Carolyn and Mike must figure out how this happened, who is doing it, and why?

A fun little mystery for the holiday of love.

 

Valentines & Victims by Donna Muse:

After being snowbound for much of the winter, amateur detective duo Geneva Pomolo and Iris Reeves are looking forward to a Valentine’s Day getaway with a few older friends at Bittersweet Lodge, a ski resort in the chilly foothills of southern Indiana. Both women are looking forward to a weekend of dance contests, luaus, roasted pigs, and toboggan scavenger hunts. Tensions mount when one of their friends comes down with a sudden illness. Geneva fears the worst: someone is poisoning the lodge’s guests.

The case takes a deadly swerve when Horace Weatherspoon—millionaire head of a railroad empire—dies in a toboggan accident. The old man had been deathly afraid of toboggans and Geneva knows there is malice at work: one of their fellow guests is a murderer. As Iris and Geneva begin to investigate, they uncover a trail of secrets leading back more than thirty years, and one person will kill again to keep those secrets buried.

Be My Valencrime by Amy M. Reade:

It’s Valentine’s Day in Juniper Junction and love is in the air. Or is that just a dark cloud?
Lilly’s shop assistant, Harry, is about to pop the question to his girlfriend, Alice Davenport. He’s got the ring, he’s planned a romantic dinner, and he’s even thought of a gracious escape if Alice says no.

The only thing missing is…Alice.

Lilly wants to do all she can to help find Alice, even if that means interfering with a police investigation. But as she begins to learn more about Harry’s sweet, unassuming girlfriend, she discovers that Alice is hiding a shocking secret that will complicate everything.

And when Lilly suffers a lapse in judgment, the consequences are swift and painful. Can she pull herself together enough to help her daughter through a tunnel of teenage angst, deal with her mother’s dementia-related wanderings, and still help Harry find his Happily Ever After?

The Valentine’s Day Murders by Kendall Scott:

It has been nine months since Constance Aberfield “retired” from her crime solving ways and she is loving every minute of it. That’s what she is telling herself anyway. Besides, with Valentine’s Day week descending upon the small town of Modest Peak, Constance is flat out too busy to even think of doing anything non-hotel related. Even if she wanted to work a case, she would not have the time.

Constance is so dedicated to her retirement in fact, that when she is alerted to a serial killer known as the St. Valentine Killer, operating in Denver, she refuses to take the case. Even Sheriff Nevil, begging for her help for a change, isn’t enough to get her back in the game. She really is done with that life.

But when the St. Valentine Killer makes his way to Modest Peak, and begins to target people close to Constance, she will have to ask herself if her self-imposed retirement is worth it. This is especially true when it becomes increasingly clear that only she possesses the skills required to put the killer behind bars once and for all.

Sweet Heart by Connie Shelton:

Will there be Valentine wedding bells for Samantha Sweet and Beau Cardwell? (introduced in this mystery series opener Sweet Masterpiece) Sam’s bakery, Sweet’s Sweets is busier than ever this Valentine week, as she struggles to replicate the magical chocolate-making techniques of the enigmatic chocolatier who boosted her winter holiday sales into the stratosphere. However, candy classes take second place to a new mystery, when Sam meets a woman whose missing son’s case seems to have been dropped by the authorities. Marla Fresques learns that she is dying and needs for her son to come home and raise the daughter he left behind. Sam agrees to help, hoping that Sheriff Beau’s inside connections will bring about a quick and happy resolution.

But what about Sam’s and Beau’s own wedding plans? They may be in jeopardy when an entirely new development appears in the form of Beau’s ex-girlfriend who is determined to win him back.

With the familiar mix of mystery, romance and a touch of magic that has enchanted readers of this series, Sweet Hearts draws the reader even further into the captivating world of Samantha Sweet.

My Wicked Valentine by Lotta Smith:

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner… Love is in the air and so are the ghosts!

When Rick’s old friend, up-and-coming celeb psychic Brian Powers is accused of murdering an esthetician at a luxe gentlemen-only spa, Mandy’s cozy afternoon at home goes from cookie-baking to crime solving.

With baby Sophie and ghost-pal Jackie in tow, Mandy and Rick take to haunting the spa where the facials are fab and the intrigue is high-end.

Every suspect has a secret, but who’s willing to kill to keep theirs under wraps? [Seaweed wraps, that is.] Find out in this dangerously funny installment of the Manhattan Mystery series.

A Murderous Valentine by Beverley Watts:

Admiral Charles Shackleford’s retirement isn’t going quite according to plan. Having been instrumental in improving the lives of so many (his words – others might be inclined to call it something slightly different), he’s struggling to reignite the spark in his own love life with the feisty Mabel.

Short on ideas, he decides to gatecrash his much put upon best friend Jimmy Noon’s Valentine idea and ends up in the middle of a murder mystery weekend where real murder is on someone else’s script.

As the weather closes in, the guests are stranded in a hotel harbouring an unknown killer. With no possibility of the police arriving any time soon, the Admiral and Jimmy have no option but to join forces in an attempt to uncover the Murderous Valentine.

The unstoppable duo may be not quite be Holmes and Watson, but can they catch a murderer…?

This humorous cozy mystery is the first in The Admiral Shackleford Mysteries.

The Dread Arrow by Grigor Weeks:

Dark Space is strange, and so are the hitmen who live there. Strap in sweetheart. Love never hurt so good.

 

 

 

 

 

Valentine’s Bizzard Mystery by Linnea West:

When a minor celebrity staying at the Shady Lake Bed and Breakfast dies of an allergic reaction during a blizzard, it doesn’t seem like it could get much worse. But was it really an accident?

Jake Crawford is a D list celebrity who loves to come back to Shady Lake to be the big fish in a small pond. This time, he brought his new wife back to Shady Lake for his honeymoon and they are staying at the bed and breakfast that Tessa Schmidt helps her family run. Jake is kind of a jerk, but then a blizzard hits and he dies of an allergic reaction. It seems like things couldn’t get any worse for a Valentine’s Day weekend. But Tessa is starting to suspect that the allergic reaction isn’t the horrible accident she had assumed.

As the blizzard stretches on and on, secrets keep coming out. It seems like almost everyone has a motive to kill Jake. Can Tessa figure out who wanted to kill Jake Crawford before the killer strikes again?

Star Trek Discovery Goes “All In”

The Book of Boba Fett has barely concluded that Star Trek Discovery returns for the last few episodes of season4. 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 only just determined that the planet-devouring Dark Matter Anomaly, DMA, for short was man-made and controlled by someone outside the Galactic barrier. The Council of the Federation and associated worlds had just voted to attempt to make first contact with the creators of the DMA, Species 10c, when Book and Riesan genius scientist cum massive arsehole Ruon Tarka took off with a spore drive prototype to destroy the DMA. Oops.

The first episode after the holiday break opens with a justifiably pissed President Rillak yelling at Admiral Vance and Michael and demanding to know why no one saw something like this coming. After all, Vance was the one who dug up Tarka and brought him to Starfleet, clearly without doing a background check (a large part of Tarka’s problem is connected to his past as an Emerald Chain slave, something which should have shown up during any background check) or reining in Tarka’s terrible behaviour. Meanwhile, Michael was working and sleeping with Book and yet had no idea that he would go off half-crooked to do something incredibly dangerous and incredibly stupid. Much as I hate to admit it, Rillak is also completely right. Tarka is a massive arsehole and obvious bomb waiting to go off and Book hasn’t been himself since the destruction of Kwejian.

Michael isn’t the only one who beats herself up over not realising that Book was about to go completely off the deep end. Hugh Culber also beats himself up – after all, he was supposed to be Book’s therapist and so he takes his failure to notice what was up with Book personally. Stamets calms him down in a very sweet sequence.

However, in order to destroy the DMA, Book and Tarka need a substance called isolynium, which isn’t easy to find. Rillak orders Vance to keep watch on all known isolynium dealers, while Michael is ordered to keep out of the hunt for Book and Tarka and find out more about Species 10c. Of course, we know that Michael will get involved in the hunt for Book and Tarka anyway. And so Vance shows up aboard Discovery to tell Michael that they both know that Book is too smart to go to any of the usual suspects. However, Michael might just know some unusual suspects. And if she happened to located the AWOL Book and Tarka, while pursuing the mission to find out more about Species 10c, well, that would be a nice bonus.

Meanwhile, Stamets is pursuing the Discovery‘s actual mission, namely find out more about Species 10c. However, Species 10c lives outside the Galactic Barrier, so it’s difficult to get any visuals or scanner results on them, cause the Barrier is in the way. However, Zora, the Discovery‘s newly sentient computer (I loved Stamets’ facial impression, when the computer suddenly talks back), knows of a species called the Stilth which lives close to the Galactic Barrier, is warp-capable and should have data on what’s going on outside the Barrier. There’s only one problem. The Federation has never had any contact at all with the Stilth. The only ones who have are the Emerald Chain and no one wants to ask them for help. However, Michael just happens to know a broker who’ll sell anything for the right price from her time as a courier, working with Book, before Discovery appeared in the 31st century.

Aboard Book’s ship (which still hasn’t got a name), Book is stunned to realise that a) Tarka is still a massive arsehole, and b) that Tarka has no isolynium nor any idea where to get some, though he’s sure Book knows how to procure the stuff. And indeed, Book just happens to know a broker who’ll sell anything for the right price.

Of course, this broker whom Book and Michael happen to know is the same guy, one Haz Mazarro (played by Daniel Cash, one of those actors who’ve been in everything, in heavy make-up), who runs a casino/black market hub on the planet Parathia (that sounds a lot like the tasty Indian flatbread paratha).  Haz is a crook, but a rather nice one (much like cuddly crime boss Boba Fett), who also thinks that Michael and Book – or Right Hook and Glow Worm, as he calls them – make for a really cute couple.

Book and Tarka arrive on Parathia first, bearing latinum, which apparently is still the black market currency of choice in the 31st century. Haz confirms that he has some isolynium, but that Book and Tarka don’t have nearly enough latinum to pay for it, especially since Book still owes Haz money. The fact that Tarka is his usual charming self doesn’t help either. However, if Book and Tarka are willing to do just one little job for him – locate a pesky cheater who has been fleecing the casino – he may reconsider.

Since Parathia is outside Federation territory, Starfleet has no jurisdiction there. So Michael takes a shuttle to the surface, together with Joanne Owosekun. I initially suspected that Michael took along Owosekun, because she happens to know that Haz has a thing for black women with awesome cornrow hairstyles. However, the real reason is that Michael wants to give Owosekun the chance to make up for her freak-out inside the subspace rift in “Stormy Weather”. But whatever the reason, it gives Oyin Oladejo a lot of chance to shine as Owosekun. I’m always happy when the bridge crew is given more to do and Owosekun and Detmer are my favourite bridge crew members.

Since Haz has – probably wisely – banned weapons, communicators and transporters in his casino, Michael and Owosekun have to go in with nothing but their wits and their muscles. I’m surprised that they don’t ditch their Starfleet uniforms for civilians clothes, especially considering how popular Starfleet is on Parathia, namely not at all. Of course, the shuttle could still give the fact that they’re Starfleet away, but then Michael and Owosekun could always claim they stole it.

There is a really neat special effect sequence – the only one in what is a very static set-bound episode – where the shuttle descends on the ocean world of Parathia only to encounter the sort of megafauna that you’d expect to find in Star Wars rather than Star Trek. Michael instructs Owosekun to fly directly into the maw of the giant sea-dragon/sea-serpent, only for the creature to be revealed a holographic illusion hiding Haz’s casino barge. That’s clever and also a very Star Trek type solution.

The rest of the episode takes place almost entirely inside the casino, which has gambling tables, a boxing ring (more on that later), shady backrooms and plenty of alien patrons. In short, it’s Space Las Vegas, a trope that goes back to the Golden Age at the very least. I reviewed a Space Las Vegas story by Manly Wade Wellman called “Gambler’s Asteroid” as a Retro Review back in 2020.

Star Trek does have its share of intergalactic gambling dens – see the Star Trek Picard episode “Stardust City Rag” – but in general, intergalactic gambling dens are more of a Star Wars phenomenon. See Bespin, Canto Bight or Garza Fwip’s late lamented Sanctuary. So my first thought was, “Oh, it’s another episode of Star Trek doing Star Wars.” Except that it’s not. Because the various Star Wars gambling dens are usually of a somewhat higher class and nicer design than Haz’s rather dim and cheap looking casino (the chain mail curtains are a nice touch, though. Maybe Haz’ interior designer is an unemployed Mandalorian armourer). Instead, as Tor.com reviewer Keith R.A. DeCandido correctly points out, “All In” is not Star Trek doing Star Wars, but Star Trek doing the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica.

The comparison is point on, starting with the brown and gold tones of the casino interior, which mirror the colour scheme of the original Galactica uniforms as well as that of the Carillon and Rising Star casinos in the series. Besides, the plot of “All In” – our heroes head to a casino planet in order to acquire a rare element they need to continue their journey/mission and hijinks ensue – mirrors the second half of the Battlestar Galactica pilot, where Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Serena and Cassiopeia head to the casino planet Carillon to acquire the tylium they need to fuel their fleet and continue their journey. In fact, the blinking cheater alien is reminiscent of the insectoid Ovions who inhabit Carillon (and eat humans). Also, I really want to see Carillon’s multi-eyed and multi-mouthed disco singers perform with Star Wars‘ Max Rebo. Whom does Disney need to buy to make that happen?

Haz is happy enough to see Michael and also happy enough to sell her the Stilth survey data. He’d even be happy enough to sell her the isolynium, except that Michael and Owosekun don’t have enough latinum either. This oversight is really inexcusable, for while it makes sense that Tarka won’t have sufficient funds, the Federation should have more than enough to outbid Book and Tarka and take the isolynium off the market. However, Haz graciously offers Michael and Owosekun to win the funds required at his gambling tables.

I assumed that most of the episode would be a cat and mouse game between Michael and Owosekun on the one side and Book and Tarka on the other. But instead, Michael and Book run into each other almost at once. But then, Haz’ casino isn’t very big, likely for budget reasons. Michael implores Book to come back, while he hasn’t done anything unforgiveable yet. However, once he buys the isolynium, all bets are off and the Federation will come after him with everything they’ve got to put him in a nice slave labour prison mine (should the Federation no longer have of those under its control, the Emerald Chain will surely be happy to help out). Book, however, is determined to be a martyr to the cause of destroying the DMA and avenging Kwejian. In fact, Book’s insistence on martyring himself (unlike Tarka who thinks that everybody will forgive him and kiss his feet, once he succeeds) matches Michael’s insistence on bearing the weight of the universe on their shoulder. They actually make a good couple – if they weren’t on different sides, that is. Also – and I know I’ve said this before – but I liked Book much better before he became a Kwejian meatball of grief.

As it is, I was yelling at the screen, “Oh, just nerve-pinch Book, punch out Tarka (or leave him to his fate), pay off Haz and just get the hell out of there, Book and Tarka in tow.” However, that would be too easy a solution and so Micheal and Owosekun try to win the missing latinum first, while Book and Tarka hunt down the cheater, which leads to a pair of amusing scenes. Owosekun, who’s a skilled martial artist, believes that the best way to win the required latinum is to challenge the house champion (who looks like one of the Anacreons from Foundation) in the boxing ring. However, Owosekun loses – or rather, pretends to lose – the first two rounds before taking out the champion in the third, when the stakes have gone up to 48:1. So Michael and Owosekun have got all the latinum they need to buy the star charts and the isolynium.

Meanwhile, Book and Tarka have made out an insectoid alien who uses the blinking sequence of his eyes to signal his partner. However, the alien is remarkably slippery and randomly vanishes. Book eventually figures out that the alien is a changeling, while Tarka figures out how to apprehend him, which they do. The Dominion has certainly fallen on hard times, since we last saw it in Deep Space Nine. So now Michael and Book both have the funds to buy the isolynium. Worse, a third party – two human Emerald Chain underbosses with terrible goth eyeshadow – have entered the bidding war as well.

Michael and Book quickly agree that letting the Emerald Chain have the isolynium would be infinitely worse, so they decide to cooperate against the Emerald Chain for now. And in fact, I wonder what exactly the Emerald Chain wants the isolynium for. Considering that the Emerald Chain representative voted in favour of destroying the DMA during the big council meeting, are the Emerald Chain planning to take matters into their own hands, probably with some help from Tarka’s missing partner/friend?

Haz proposes a game of Leonian Poker, which – as Keith R.A. DeCandido points out – is basically Texas Hold’em with slightly redesigned cards (very slightly redesigned – even using a German deck would have been far more different and alien). Book and Michael really co-operate and keep signalling each other and generally cheating. Haz clearly knows – especially since Book and Michael are really obvious about it – but says nothing. I guess he doesn’t want to sell to the Emerald Chain goons either.

While Michael and Book are playing Poker, Owosekun tries to probe Tarka to find out just what’s in this for him. She does figure out that Tarka is not solely doing this for scientific glory, but that it’s personal for him. However, Tarka won’t tell her about his missing friend/partner. I guess that would be too simple.

Once the Emerald Chain goons are out of the game, Book and Michael face off against each other in one of those supposedly tense Poker sequences, which sadly mean very little, if you don’t play Poker. The cards are laid on the table. Michael has a good hand, but Book’s is better, so he and Tarka depart with the isolynium.

However, all is not lost yet. For starters, Michael still got the star charts that will allow the Discovery a glimpse at Species 10c. Plus – as Michael explains to a justifiably angry Rillak – she knew that Book was the better Poker player and that she couldn’t beat him. So she attached a tracker to the isolynium, so Starfleet can track down Book and Tarka, hopefully before they can build the weapon and destroy the DMA.

Meanwhile, Stamets has analysed the star charts and found something alarming. The star charts show the area where Species 10c should be headquartered. However, they can’t see anything, because Species 10c has surrounded its territory with a giant distortion field that has to consume enormous amounts of energy. As for where the energy comes from, Stamets has analysed the data from the DMA again and realises that wherever the DMA has wreaked havoc, one element is missing, namely boronite. The DMA is not a weapon, it’s a mining device – a dredge – and it’s mining our universe for boronite. And if a dredge can wreak such destruction, how terrible will the weapons of Species 10c be?

I have to admit that the “It’s not a weapon, it’s a dredge” is that most Star Trek like thing about an episode that wasn’t very Star Trek like otherwise. Cause Star Trek tends to go for solutions where the great menace turns out to be just misunderstood. This is also why “Shoot first and ask questions later” is never the correct approach in Star Trek, but the great menace most likely isn’t one.

But even though “All In” was not a typical Star Trek episode and more reminiscent of the original Battlestar Galactica, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. The casino scenes were a lot of fun and it’s great – to quote io9 reviewer James Whitbrook – that Owosekun got something to do beside sit on the bridge. But while I enjoyed seeing Michael and Book work together, I would have vastly preferred to see them work together for good rather than just temporarily. Because Haz is right, Michael and Book do make a good team. Though I fear we won’t get to see that team-up much longer, because Book has officially passed the point of no return.

Also, can I just point out that Michael has terrible luck with boyfriends? First, there was Ash Tyler who not only turned out to be a surgically altered Klingon, but who also killed Hugh Culber (don’t worry, he got better) and had a secret Klingon baby with his Klingon lover. And now there’s Book, who’s charming, nice, good with animals and a great pilot, but who also decided to abscond with the next generation spore drive prototype, is planning to destroy the DMA against Federation orders and may well cause a devastating war in the process. Honestly, with these romantic prospects, Saru may well get lucky, after all. Because Saru clearly has a thing for Michael and he’s nothing, if not dependable.

“The Book of Boba Fett” takes a stand “In the Name of Honor” and finally remembers who its star is

Here is the final episode by episode review of season 1 of The Book of Boba Fett. Reviews of previous episodes may be found here.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut!

After a two episode detour into season 2.5 of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett is finally back in this episode and even gets to kick arse, take names and generally be awesome. As does everybody else. Honestly, this was a really good finale for a rather messy and uneven show.

“In the Name of Honor”, the final episode of season 1, begins with Boba, Fennec and Din Djarin surveying the damage to Graza Fwip’s club The Sanctuary, after the Pykes bombed it at the end of the previous episode. No word on whether Garza, her two Twi’lek servers, one of whom may be trans, and her guests survived, which is a pity. I mean, you don’t hire Jennifer Beals (who has been a Star Wars fan since she was 14 according to this interview in The Guardian) to waste her on a glorified cameo. Besides, Garza was cool. Also, we want to see her dance. After all, there’s a big overlap between the Star Wars and the Flashdance generation. Though at least everybody’s favourite blue jazz musician Max Rebo survived, because he wasn’t in the Club when it blew up.

Boba and Fennec know that the bombing of the Sanctuary was just the Pykes’ opening volley. They will attack in full force, as soon as all their soldiers are in place. Boba wants to retreat to Jabba’s palace, because it is easier to defend. However, the two lead Mods (who actually get names this time around – the white punk girl is Drash and the black boy with the cybernetic eye is Skad) refuse to abandon Mos Espa. For a street gang, they’re remarkably civic-minded. Though the plan to hole up in the ruins of The Sanctuary makes no real sense, , because it guarantees that Mos Espa will be badly damaged in the resulting fight and that random citizens will be killed in the crossfire, which is the opposite of what the Mods claim to want.

Din Djarin tells Boba that the people of Freetown a.k.a. the town formerly known as Mos Pelgo will help out, because Cobb Vanth wants the spice trade gone from Tatooine and has been keeping the Pykes away from his city single-handedly so far, an act which came back to bite him in the backside in the last episode. Boba agrees and promises that he will put an end to the spice trade on Tatooine. Fennec Shand, who remembers that they are actually supposed to be criminals and not heroic frontline fighters in the war against drugs, points out that Jabba made the bulk of his income via the spice trade. However, Boba is determined. “The spice is killing our people,” he says and that without spice controlling their territory will be much easier. Honestly, these are the most civic-minded criminals I’ve ever seen.

AV-Club reviewer Nick Wanserski also points out that Boba Fett and his gang are remarkably wholesome criminals and that Boba appears to aspire to be a civic leader rather than a crime lord. Which is perfectly fine, but why call Boba a crime lord, when he doesn’t actually engage in any crimes? that even though spice has been mentioned since the very first Star Wars film (borrowed wholesale from Dune), we have little to no idea what it does except that it’s a drug and drugs are bad.

And yes, Disney’s insistence on Star Wars and anything else they’re involved with being family-friendly entertainment (TM) is very likely the reason why Boba Fett is the most civic-minded and least criminal crime boss ever, but it’s still an odd storytelling choice. After all, they could have had Boba just straight out swear off crime and decide to become a community organiser to help the people of Tatooine, cause they helped him after his sojourn inside the Sarlacc’s intestines.

Meanwhile, the Pykes are very much not wholesome criminals. And so we get a brief interlude of the Pyke leader (Fishhead?) and Mok Shaiz, the treacherous mayor (actually, ex-mayor) of Mos Espa, conferring in Fishhead-in-chief’s not very impressive heaquarters in Mos Eisley, when the alien gunslinger Cad Bane shows up to report that he dealt with Cobb Vanth and the people of Freetown and that Boba won’t be getting any help from there. During this conversation, Fishhead-in-chief also reveals that it was the Pykes who murdered Boba’s Tusken friends back in episode 3 and that they pinned the crime on the Nikto biker gang. So Boba killed the wrong people, even though the Nikto gang were jerks and bullies and no one is going to mourn them. Oddly enough, the show completely glosses over the fact that its star gunned down a bunch of Niktos for something they didn’t even do.

In her review at The Daily Dot, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw notes that the Pykes are very underwhelming villains, “a drug cartel with no personality”. I’ve made the same point in my review of the previous episode, namely that the Pykes are just dull, useful as muscle and foot soldiers, but not really interesting enough for us to care about them. Neither is Mok Shaiz, for that matter. Cad Bane is a far more interesting villain. However, he only shows up in the penultimate episode and he’s very much a hired killer, who’ll work for anybody, if the price is right (much like Boba Fett used to be).

Meanwhile in The Mandalorian, both Werner Herzog’s unnamed ex-Imperial official and Moff Gideon created an atmosphere of menace, even if they remained in the background for much of the series. The Book of Boba Fett has no comparable character, The Pykes are much like Stormtroopers, cannon fodder without personality. And indeed, I expected either Darth Maul or Emilia Clarke’s character from Solo (both of whom are affiliated with the Pykes) to show up in the finale as the Big Bad behind the Pykes. But no such luck, it’s fish people all the way down.

Cad Bane, who is still the closest thing to an actually menacing villain this show has, shows up outside the Sanctuary to inform Boba that reinforcements from Freetown won’t be coming (BTW, when you google Freetown, the fictional city on Tatooine comes up before the actual capital of Sierra Leone), because he killed Cobb Vanth (he’s wrong on that account, but more on that later). Oh yes, and he also lets Boba know that the Pykes killed his Tusken friends, not the Niktos, which sets Boba off so much that he’s about to engage in a shootout with Cad Bane right there and then, until Fennec talks him down and points out that this is exactly what Bane wants and that Boba is too emotional to deal with Bane. She almost sounds like a Jedi master cautioning an overager padawan there.

Now that they know the people of Freetown won’t be coming, Boba has to win his war against the Pykes with Fennec, Din Djarin, a bunch of streetkids, two Gamorreans and a Wookie. Even Boba knows that those odds are bad and so he tells Din to leave while he still can. Din, however, is not leaving, even though – as he notes with resignation – they’ll probably all get killed. However, he gave Boba his word and so Din will stay and fight until the bitter end, because honour demands it. “You really believe all that bantha shit, don’t you?” Boba asks. “This is the way,” Din replies.

If two seasons of The Mandalorian have shown us anything, it’s that Din is honourable to a fault. However, Din is also depressed at this point. His Mandalorian splinter group has rejected him as being no longer a proper Mandalorian and Grogu, the person Din cares about most, is away at Jedi Academy. At this moment, Din truly doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, because he has nothing left to live for.

Meanwhile in Mos Eisley, Peli Motto receives an unexpected visit by a battered X-Wing. Peli is quite flustered, since her repair business apparently isn’t licenced. It’s also notable that absolutely no one in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett takes the New Republic seriously. To people like Peli, they’re glorified traffic cops, harrassing people over missing licenses.

However, when the X-Wing canopy opens, there is no New Republic officer underneath. Instead, none other than Grogu climbs out of the cockpit, much to the delight of Peli and the viewer. We never get to see a direct resolution to the cliffhanger of the previous episode, where Luke Skywalker asks Grogu to choose between the Mandalorians and the Jedi. Instead, we get the aftermath. Grogu has made his choice and decided that he wants to be a Mandalorian, so Luke has R2-D2 deliver Grogu home to Din, care of Peli Motto. Luke apparently has no desire to see his old stomping grounds in Tatooine again and check up on Camie and Fixer, who are still hanging out at Tochi Station after all. Or – as Gavia Baker-Whitelaw points out – does Luke have no idea that Grogu is gone and has R2 decided to take matters in his own hands? It would certainly fit in with R2, who always had his own agenda and who is the only character aside from Yoda and Obi-Wan who knows everything. Or maybe the production team simply worried that being confronted with Amy Sedaris would break the creepy deep-fake CGI Luke (not even the voice was real) we saw last episode.

Just in case it’s not clear which choice Grogu has made, he’s also wearing the mail shirt that Din had made for him underneath his robe. Peli is clearly happy to see Grogu again and gets him a dish of wiggling worms to eat, because setting off to Mos Espa to return him to his Dad.

Meanwhile in Mos Espa, Fennec assures Boba and Din that their meagre troops are watching every part of the city, so the Pykes can’t sneak up on them. Black Krrsantan is stationed outside city hall, the Mods are patrolling the workers’ quarter and the Frazetta Gamorreans are watching the spaceport. However, things are about to go very wrong. Drash the Mod calls in to report that something feels off, shortly before some swell-headed local gangsters start shooting at the Mods. Simultaneously, the Frazetta Gamorreans and Krrsantan find themselves under attack as well. The local crime gangs, who promised Boba to stay out of his conflict with the Pykes, do not remain true to their word – oh shock and horror – and have sided instead with the Pykes. Considering that Boba is about the disrupt their business by getting out of the spice trade, this betrayal even makes sense from their point of view. Though Boba and Fennec dividing their meagre troops rather than holing up at the Sanctuary together from the start doesn’t make much sense, .

While Boba’s troops are otherwise occupied, the Pykes move in on the Sanctuary. Boba sends Fennec out to rescue the Mods and then head for Mos Eisley to deal with the Fishhead-in-chief. Meanwhile, Krrsantan is seemingly overcome by too many Tradoshans for even a very large and very angry Wookie to handle, while the Frazetta Gamorreans are thrown off a cliff. Rest in Peace, loyal Frazetta Gamorreans, who never even got names. Krrsantan, meanwhile, of course isn’t dead, but shows up again, wounded and flinging Tradoshans and Pykes around like ragdolls.

Mok Shaiz’ annyoing Twi’lek majordomo offers to negotiate on Boba’s behalf, so Boba sends him out with a tablet containing some hastily typed “terms of surrender”. Of course, Boba has no intention of surrendering and so the Twi’lek is only used as a distraction, allowing Boba and Din to put their jetpacks and arsenal to good use against the Pykes. For once in this show, the fight scenes actually are impressive, though the Pykes still aren’t particularly impressive antagonists. Though there are a lot of them and more keep coming.

Just when things look really bad for Boba and Din, who shows up to help them but the people of Freetown in a battered landspeeder piloted by the Weequay bartender. Turns out that Cad Bane’s visit to Freetown had just the opposite effect as intended. Bane killed the marshall and the deputy, so the people of Freetown are furious. After a bit of sniping at each other, the Mods and the people of Freetown (Am I the only one who’s seeing sparks flying between Drash and the cute black Freetown girl?) as well as Krrsantan, Boba and Din have a massive shoot-out in the streets of Mos Espa that takes up most of the episode.

Peli Motto also shows up to join the fun, when she and her droids deliver Grogu to Din. And of course, we get the long awaited reunion between Din and Grogu, which is everything we hoped for. Grogu force-jumps into Din’s arms, shows off his shiny new mail shirt and clearly very much wants Din to take off the helmet, so Grogu can go sure that his Dad is still underneath, but unfortunately the middle of a massive shoot-out is no place for that. Meanwhile, Peli decides to stike up an unlikely friendship (and more?) with the soon to be out of work Twi’lek majordomo.

Both teams also get further reinforcements. The Pykes bring in massive, shielded battle droids, whose shields are almost impossible to get through. In response, Boba takes off to get help. “From where?” Din wants to know, “You’ve run out of friends.” However, Boba still has one ace up his sleeve, namely the Rancor. And so we finally get to see Boba riding the Rancor and its glorious, though sadly Danny Trejo fails to put in an appearance. The Rancor tears into the battle droids, with some help from Din and his darksabre and Grogu, who uses the Force to pull bolts out of droid legs and bring the things crashing to the ground.

The tide turns once more for Boba and his motley crew, when Boba is thrown off the Rancor and the creature – who after all didn’t ask to be dragged into a firefight – goes wild and attacks friends and enemy alike. The Rancor also decides to have some Pyke sushi. Din tries to control the Rancor, but the Rancor only responds to one Mandalorian and that’s Boba. And Boba is too busy having his long delayed showdown with Cad Bane.

It’s clear from the dialogue that there’s a lot of history and bad blood between Boba and Bane, though most of that apparently takes place in the various Star Wars cartoons. And yes, I should probably watch those cartoons eventually, except that there are a lot of them, the animation style really isn’t my thing and my time is limited and there are umpteen things I’d rather watch. So I can only go by what we see in this episode, which hints that Bane apparently not only knows Boba, but also knew his Dad Jango Fett, since he taunts Boba that he has his father’s blood (quite literally since Boba is a clone of Jango) and that he’ll always be a killer, even if he’s trying to reinvent himself. In response, Boba decides that reinventing himself can wait another day and kills Bane with his Tusken gaffi stick.

Meanwhile, the Rancor has decided that now is a really good moment to reenact the climax on King Kong (either version) and climbs the city hall tower. Din still tries to calm him down, alas without success. However, the Rancor decides that he’d really like to know what Mandalorians taste like. Of course, Grogu won’t let anybody hurt his Dad and he’s become a lot better at using the Force. The tiny Grogu waddles up to the big bad Rancor and uses the Force to calm it down and make it fall asleep. And since using the Force is very tiring and Grogu is still a baby, he curls up next to the Rancor for a nap in what must be the cutest scene in this episode.

The remaining Pykes decide that discretion is the better part of valour and make a run for it. Presumably, they mean to return to the hideout of their boss, the Fishhead-in-chief, in Mos Eisley, but no such luck. Because Fennec Shand sneaks into the hideout, kills the Fishhead-in-chief and the treacherous bosses of the Mos Espa crime families and hangs Mok Shaiz, complete with twitching legs, something which is standard for the various westerns this episode draws upon, but remarkably graphic by Star Wars standards, as Nick Wanserski points out. Boba may have decided that he’s not a killer anymore, but Fennec is too practical for that. She may have reinvented herself for the post-imperial world, but she is and will always be a killer. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

After the Pykes have been beaten, Boba and Fennec walk along the streets of Mos Espa, only to find the inhabitants waving and bowing at them and giving them melons. Boba is somewhat bemused by this and also unsure, if this is really what he wants. “Who if not us?” the ever practical Fennec replies.

Meanwhile, Din’s Naboo starfighter is streaking away from Tatooine with Grogu firmly installed in the astromech droid seat. Grogu bangs against the dome with his favourite toy, the knob that is the sole surviving bit of the late lamented the Razorcrest. “No,” Din says, but Grogu just keeps knocking, until Din finally relents. “All right, but only one last time,” he says and flips the booster switch, sending the starfighter into overdrive, much to Grogu’s delight.

There’s a mid credits sequence as well, featuring Cobb Vanth, who’s not dead after all, in Boba’s bacta tank. The cyber-surgeon who operated on Fennec is there as well and getting ready to operate, so I guess Cobb Vanth is about to become a cyborg marshal.

All in all, the was a fun finale to a very uneven show, but – as io9 reviewer James Whitbrook points out – it was also basically one massive shoot-out with very little in the way of character development for the actual protagonists Boba and Fennec, both of whom seem underserved, compared to Din Djarin, Grogu and even supporting characters like Peli Motto.

The storytelling choices seem even more baffling, since the same team was responsible for this show which also made the much better The Mandalorian. We know that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni can tell a Star Wars story, so why did they do such a mediocre job here? In fact, I wonder whether there were behind the scenes issues with this show that we don’t know about, requiring hasty rewrites, which led to the mess we got.

The story they wanted to tell here is clearly the story of Boba Fett’s rise to the benevolent ruler of Tatooine. Which is compelling enough, but I still wonder why they went with the whole “I want to be the baddest crime lord on the planet, except that I don’t deal in drugs or prostitution or slaves or anything bad” angle. Patterning Boba Fett’s rise to ruler of Tatooine after Conan’s rise to King of Aquilonia would have made for a much better model and wouldn’t have led to such baffling choices as making Boba and his gang the most wholesome criminals ever.

By the end of The Book of Boba Fett, Tatooine is probably in as good a place as we’ve ever seen this unexpectedly important backwater planet. And Din and Grogu are back together and off to many wonderful adventures. But I still wonder what exactly the point of this whole show was, since the Din/Grogu plot would have been better handled in season 3 of The Mandalorian and Boba’s own story is pretty flimsy.

Non-Fiction Spotlight: The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War by Camestros Felapton

As promised in the introductory post yesterday, here is the first Non-Fiction spotlight. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here.

I’m starting off the series by interviewing my pal Camestros Felapton about his blog series turned non-fiction book The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War.

So I’m pleased to welcome Camestros to my blog:

Tell us about your book.

Debarkle is partly about the 2015 Sad Puppy campaign in the Hugo Awards…but only partly. It’s a book about the long lead up to those events and looks at how past events in fandom and in wider politics shaped those events. It then goes on to trace the political arc of that story and looks at how the culture wars in the US in particular have deep connections between the Sad Puppy era and bigger events in US politics.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m a British/Australian blogger and I write about science fiction, politics and strange ideas. It can look all disconnected but what I’m trying to explore is how fiction shapes reality.

What prompted you to write your book?

I’d been thinking of a project like this for some time but the January 6, 2021 riots at the US Capitol was a specific impetus. I wanted to talk about how a section of the US population had become entranced by ideas that seemed so sharply at odds with reality. The overlap between the thinking of some of the key figures in the Sad/Rabid Puppy campaigns and issues such as Covid-denial and election-fraud conspiracy theories was substantial. One key personality from that time had become a major promoter of Qanon, another had been an early proponent of anti-covid-lockdown protests and yet another had been an active proponent of election-fraud conspiracy theories. I really wanted to trace the journey that people went through and how the earlier (fairly minor) conflict foreshadowed later events.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters, in particular, read your book?

It is partly a history of fandom but it is also a story of how communities react to internal and external conflicts. I think for people new to the Hugo part of fandom, it can explain a lot of how fandom currently operates. A former Sad Puppy figure said recently that they still have scars from what happened and I think people on all sides still have sore spots from that time. The conflict also has lead to a defensiveness in fandom where people are wary of potential threats in a way that isn’t necessarily healthy.

Debarkle isn’t 100% objective or wholly divorced from my opinion or viewpoint but I’ve tried to make it rich in facts and references and to give a clear sense of what happened and when. I think there are things many communities can learn from the story.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

There was a minor political scandal about the money involved in a book by Newt Gingrich that was published by Tor and Jim Baen, which I didn’t have the time to get into in detail.

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

That boundary between fiction and non-fiction is most obvious in SFF. Of all the many genres and sub-genres, SFF has this complex relationship between what can and cannot be treated as fiction. Consequently, you have this spillage of ideas out into sciences, philosophy, politics from SFF and then back in again

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

Elizabeth Sandifer’s on-going mega-project on the British invasion of comics, The Last War in Albion is a brilliant series and really extends the range of what can be done with creative non-fiction. At the same website, Christine Kelley’s Nowhere & Back Again series which is exploring the locations of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit is really good. They are both at https://www.eruditorumpress.com

The Unofficial Hugo Book Club write really interesting essays on SFF, often looking at how issues like wealth or economic inequality play out in science fiction. It’s hard to pick one specific one but I enjoyed this one http://hugoclub.blogspot.com/2021/10/american-cleon.html

Of great help to me when writing Debarkle was Alec Nevala-Lee’s book Astounding, that looks at the history of John Campbell, Robert Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard and their influence on science fiction. Also Jo Walton’s Informal History of the Hugo Awards is an excellent reference.

I love the multiple series that you are doing on Hugo categories (like this one!). The fanzine spotlight is a great way to look at the big rich variety of work available http://corabuhlert.com/category/fanzine-spotlight/

For news, reviews and general fan things, I often read Nerds of Feather and, of course, File 770.

Now I’m getting to the point where there are too many other great things to mention!

Where can people buy your book?

It is free! You can get it from a range of online bookstores but this link will lead you to the ones that suite you https://books2read.com/u/bzZeME Basically it is all of them except Amazon (who won’t let me give books away for nothing)

Where can people find you?

I’m mainly here https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/ but I’m also on Twitter as @CamestrosF

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

About The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War:

The collected version of all three volumes of Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War. In 2015 a major controversy broke out in the world of science fiction’s most prestigious literary award. Debarkle traces the history of this controversy, examining the roots and consequences of the events.

Free at
Kobo | B&N | Apple | Scribd | Thalia | Vivlio | Angus & Robertson  About Camestros Felapton: 

Camestros Felapton is an extended cosplay of a pair of syllogisms and their adventures in cyberspace. He is also the manager and amanuensis for Timothy the Talking Cat and a finalist for the 2018 Best Fanwriter Hugo Award.

***

Did you publish a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2021 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

Introducing Non-Fiction Spotlights

Last year, I started the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project to highlight the many worthy fanzines, blogs and fancasts are out there.

Originally, that project was intended to coincide with the nomination period for the 2021 Hugo Awards. However, I have been continuing that project, because there are new fanzines, blogs and fancasts springing up all the time plus plenty of existing ones that I missed the first time around. Besides, after the Hugo nominations is before the Hugo nominations.

I also expanded the Spotlights to cover semiprozines, because there are a lot of semiprozines out there doing great work that don’t receive enough attention. The Semiprozine Spotlights never took off like the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlights, simply because semiprozine editors are very busy people, though I hope to run a few more before the Hugo nomination deadline.

That said, I have decided to run yet another Spotlight project, focussing on SFF-related non-fiction. The reason is that SFF-related non-fiction books are not really getting the attention they deserve. The Nebulas and World Fantasy Awards don’t have a non-fiction category, though the Bram Stoker Awards do. But while some specialty awards like the Mythopoeic Awards, the Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards or Tolkien Society Awards have non-fiction categories or even focus on non-fiction, the closest thing to a broad spectrum award for SFF-related non-fiction that we have is the Best Related Work category of the Hugos. And as I’ve been complaining about repeatedly, the Best Related Work category of the Hugos is featuring more and more edge case finalists and seems to be in the process of turning into “Best Fannish Thing” or “Best Response to Whatever Annoyed Us at Last Year’s Worldcon”.

Now the edge case finalists we’ve seen in recent years were worthy projects, born out of a genuine love and passion for SFF, fandom and Worldcon. However, the rise of the “Best Fannish Thing” finalists is crowding out the equally worthy non-fiction works. This is a pity, because not only is non-fiction important for fostering our knowledge and understanding of the genre and its history, it is also very research intensive. And I think that those non-fiction works and their authors deserve recognition.

So I want to shine a spotlight on works of long form non-fiction that came out in 2021. The main focus of this series will be on non-fiction books, whether academic or popular, though I will also feature the occasional documentary or blog series. And indeed the first installment of this series will feature a non-fiction book which started out as a series of blogposts. I am not looking for essays, articles, poems, Twitter threads, virtual cons, podcasts, archives, databases, recommendation lists and similar projects at the moment, no matter how worthy.

Have you published an SFF-related non-fiction book, documentary or series of articles in 2021 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment. If your non-fiction project is coming out in 2022, I’m still happy to feature you, though to avoid confusion, I’ll wait until the 2022 Hugo nomination period is over.

I want to feature as many different non-fiction works as possible and everybody is welcome to participate. However, I reserve the right to refuse to feature something, e.g. if a work (and/or the people behind it) is known for shitposting, harrassment and generally terrible behaviour.

I will post responses as I get them, including potentially controversial answers, unless there are egregiously problematic, e.g. racist, sexist, homophobic, etc… comments, in which case I will contact the interviewee to discuss edits.

Finally, a feature is not an endorsement. Instead, the Non-Fiction Spotlight project is intended as a resource to show potential Hugo nominators and SFF fans in general what’s out there.

The first Non-Fiction Spotlight will go live tomorrow and I hope to have many more.

So check out the great non-fiction works that will be featured and consider nominating your favourites for the 2022 Hugo Awards.

The Book of Boba Fett realises that “From the Desert Comes a Stranger” and gives us yet another episode of The Mandalorian

I am doing episode by episode reviews of The Book of Boba Fett, so here is my take on the penultimate episode, “From the Desert Comes a Stranger”. Reviews of previous episodes may be found here.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut!

At this point, I wonder why this show is called The Book of Boba Fett, since the nominal lead character is barely in it and the show would rather be season 3 of The Mandalorian with a side order of Jedi Academy. Nonetheless, this was a pretty good episode. And indeed, it’s striking that the best episodes so far have been those which barely feature Boba Fett.

“From the Desert Comes a Stranger” opens – no, not with Boba Fett or Din Djarin – but with another familiar character who once wore a suite of Mandalorian armour, namely Cobb Vanth, self-appointed marshal of Mos Pelgo (now Freetown), whom Din and Grogu (and we) met in the premiere episode of season 2 of The Mandalorian. Cobb may have relinquished Boba Fett’s old armour to Din Djarin, but he’s still marshal and still the quickest draw in the West on Tatooine.

Cobb Vance happens upon a spice deal of the Pyke Syndicate on what he considers his territory. He gives the Pykes the choice to depart and he’ll chalk it up to them getting lost and won’t arrest them. The Pykes, however, decide to shoot it out, so Cobb – who is the quickest draw on Tatooine, after all – shoots them except for the one who surrenders. Cobb lets him depart with the money and a message for the Pyke Syndicate to keep the hell out of his territory. He confiscates the spice – as a fine – only to empty the box and let its precious contents blow away into the dune sea. This is the first time we’ve ever seen what spice looks like and it turns out that it looks a lot like sand. Fun fact: Whenever spice was mentioned in the original trilogy, I assumed it was genuine spices, having just learned about the spice trade and how valuable spices were in school. It didn’t dawn on me until much later that this spice was a drug and a Dune references.

Meanwhile, Din Djarin’s shiny Naboo Starfighter is approaching a forest planet that has no name, at least none I can find. This planet is the site of Luke’s new Jedi Academy and Din is here to visit Grogu. Unfortunately, he didn’t call ahead – or if he did, his calls were ignored – so he is only met by R2-D2, who takes him to a place where ant-like droids are building a Jedi temple stone by stone in one of those moments of beautiful weirdness that Star Wars specialises in. Din demands to be taken to see Grogu or at least Luke Skywalker, but R2-D2 just shuts down and the ant droids don’t talk, though they do build a bamboo bench for Din.

The Jedi Academy planet is beautiful with its bamboo forests and lakes, visually reminiscent of the Akira Kurosawa movies we know were one of the inspirations for Star Wars. It also provides a nice visual contrast to Tatooine with its endless sun-bleached deserts.

When someone finally does show up, it’s not Luke but Ahsoka Tano, . This is a moment, where I did a double-take, because first of all, I was stunned that Luke and Ahsoka know each other. Ahsoka even tells Din that she’s an old friend of the Skywalker family, which as Anakin’s former padawan she absolutely is. Though – as Tor.com reviewer Emmet Asher-Perrin points out – I would have liked to see Luke’s reaction to this other bit of important information that Obi-Wan and Yoda withheld from him.  Also, why is Ahsoka at the Jedi Academy anyway, if she told Din Djarin that she wanted nothing to do with the Jedi anymore? Did Luke seek her out? And how, if he had no idea she existed? Did she seek Luke out? What exactly is their relationship? Cause I doubt I’m the only one who sensed a bit of sexual tension there.

If there are answers to those questions, we’ll get them in the planned Ahsoka Tano show, but not here. And so Ahsoka is just here to talk to anxious Dad Din Djarin, since Luke and R2 can’t be bothered. Folks, if you’re going to run a Jedi school, you’ll have to deal with parent visits eventually.

Ahsoka tells Din that she can take him to Grogu, but that she’s not sure it will be good for Grogu, since Grogu already misses Din a lot and seeing him might make things worse. However, she’s willing to deliver Din’s gift – which turns out to be a tiny mail shirt. She also tells Din that there is no safer place for Grogu in the universe than with Luke at the Jedi Academy (yeah well, we all know how that will go) and invites him to watch the training from a distance.

And so Din and we watch as a quite impressive CGI Luke (and he looks much more realistic here than in The Mandalorian season 2 finale) train Grogu. I did enjoy the training sequences, if only because it’s obvious that Luke has no idea what he’s doing and there are no paedogogics classes or books about how to train Jedi either. So Luke does what worked for him, when Obi Wan and Yoda trained him. And so we see Luke meditating with Grogu (who still thinks the best use of the Force is to snatch random frogs to eat), lifting things, carrying around Grogu in a backpack, doing some jumping and balancing exercises and using the training droid ball to train Grogu’s reflexes. Luke also quite openly tells Ahsoka that he doesn’t really think he’s teaching Grogu anything new, but that Grogu is remembering the training he received.

Luke also tries to figure out just where Grogu came from and point blank asks him about Yoda. When it becomes clear that Grogu doesn’t really remember or want to remember anything about his life pre-Mandalorian, Luke accesses his memories and gets the destruction of the Jedi Temple and the execution of Order 66 from Grogu’s POV as a baby in a crib, who watches three Jedi defenders cut down in front of him. How did Grogu get out of the Jedi Temple and away from the massacre? That’s still a mystery.

Din finally takes off, now he’s convinced himself that Grogu is fine and safe. We see a wistful Grogu looking after the ship and you just know that he knows who’s on board. After all, the little fellow probably sensed Din’s presence.

Ahsoka and Luke discuss what to do about Grogu and his attachment to Din Djarin. Ahsoka tells Luke to trust his instincts and so he takes Grogu to the now miraculously completed temple and gives him a choice. He can take the shiny beskar mail shirt, go back to Din Djarin and become a Mandalorian or he can take Yoda’s old lightsabre and become a Jedi. But, so Luke says, he can’t choose both. Luke also cautions Grogu that his lifespan is a lot longer than that of humans and that if he stays, he might never see Din again.

It’s a good thing that Luke gives Grogu a choice, since that’s more than what most other Jedi were given. However, the big questions remains, “Why can’t Grogu be both a Mandalorian and a Jedi?” There would even be a precedent, the Mandalorian Jedi Tarre Vizla, who forged the darksabre. And why can’t Grogu combine the best of both worlds: the Mandalorians’ focus on community, clan and caring for others and the Jedi’s Forcer mastery and desire to protect the whole galaxy? On Twitter, I saw a delightful piece of fan art depicting an adult Grogu in beskar armour, wielding a lightsabre and telling a padawan that no, attachments and emotions are not bad at all, because “this way this is”. This is pretty much how I imagine adult Grogu, the way forward for both Mandalorians and Jedi, who are after all two fanatical cults whose prime objective is to turn children into soldiers. The Mandalorians at least go sure that the children are orphans first.

When we first met Ahsoka in season 2 of The Mandalorian, she seemed to be sceptical about about the various Jedi teachings regarding attachment and the Jedi philosophy in general, but here she spends most of her screentime warning against the dangers of attachment, as AV-Club reviewer Nick Wanserski puts it. Also, it’s depressing that both Ahsoka and Luke seem to have swallowed the Jedi taboo against attachments hook, line and sinker, even though Ahsoka saw how the clash between Jedi ideology and reality destroyed first Anakin and then the whole order, while Luke never really got the “All attachments are bad” messaging from Obi Wan and Yoda in the first place, since that only came in full force with the prequels. And while both Obi Wan and Yoda warn Luke against going off to Bespin to rescue his friends, it’s not because they think friendship is a bad thing, but because they think Luke is not ready. So why do Ahsoka, who turned her back on the Jedi, and Luke, who never even got that particular bit of messaging, suddenly buy into the whole “attachments are bad” stuff?

Especially since both Ahsoka and Luke have plenty of emotions and attachments themselves (but then hypocrisy is the Jedi way). Why is Ahsoka even there, if not because of her attachment to Anakin and through him to his kids? As for Luke, he has plenty of attachments to Leia and Han and Chewie and of course C-3PO and R2-D2. In fact, Luke is so attached to R2 that he keeps the badly battered droid around, even though he lives in a universe that views droids more like vaccuum cleaners than like friends.

I realised as a teenager that the Jedi’s “emotions are bad and the path to the dark side” and the related “attachments are bad and the path to the dark side” ideology was wrong and something to be overcome. The prequels seemed to reinforce that, since the Jedi cause their own downfall by taking way to long to realise what’s up with Anakin. It always seemed to me as if George Lucas knew that the Jedi way didn’t work and showed this quite plainly in the Star Wars movies he made. However, the audience latched on to the Jedi and completely missed the fact that Star Wars actually criticises them.

That said, pretty much every commentary about this episode said – apart from “Why exactly is this show called The Book of Boba Fett, when he’s barely in it?” – “Why does Grogu have to choose? Why can’t he be both?” And indeed, it seems to me as if more and more Star Wars fans are grasping the fact that the Jedi way is not an ideal and was never intended to be. It was a mistake. The big questions now is: Why don’t the characters realise this? Why must Luke and Ahsoka make the same mistakes with the same disastrous results that the old Jedi order made? Indeed, io9‘s James Whitbrook asks the same questions, while The Daily Dot‘s Gavia Baker-Whitelaw calls the way this episode handles Luke Skywalker outright character assassination.

The Book of Boba Fett is not the only piece of recent pop culture that deals with the question if attachments are good or bad and if you need to leave your attachments behind to become a hero. Masters of the Universe: Revelation deals with a similar issue. The second half of the season begins with a flashback showing the Sorceress leaving her partner and newborn daughter, because she believes that she has to relinquish all attachments in order to become the Sorceress. And when things go disastrously wrong, Skeletor gets hold of the power sword and the Sorceress gets herself stabbed to death, she believes that the reason is that she was not strong enough to let go of her daughter and Duncan.

Her daughter Teela, on the other hand, realises that her attachments to her friends and family do not make her weak, but they make her stronger. She accepts the powers and responsibilities of the Sorceress, but refuses to leave her friends behind. The show makes it very clear that Teela made the right choice, whereas the Sorceress made the wrong choice, denying not only herself happiness, but also denying Teela the chance to get to know her mother and Duncan the chance at a happy relationship. Masters of the Universe: Revelation also reinforces that message by making it clear that Adam keeping the fact that he is He-Man from his parents and Teela did not protect them, as was Adam’s intention, but actually made everything worse.

So if Masters of the Universe: Revelation, a cartoon based on a toy line which only came into being because Mattel saw Hasbro having a huge success with the Star Wars toys and wanted a piece of that, can reject the toxic message that attachments are harmful, why can’t Star Wars?

Back to the plot (yes, there still is one): After his visit to Jedi Academy, Din Djarin returns to Tatooine to meet with Boba Fett and his very limited army. We at least see Boba, but we don’t hear him speak, which makes me wonder whether Temuera Morrison fell ill while filming The Book of Boba Fett and had to sit out two episodes. Instead, Fennec does the talking and points out that the Mod kids are good as spies (Sophie Thatcher, the actress who plays the leader of the Mod kids, was in the science fiction film Prospect with Pedro Pascal a.k.a. Din Dharin himself four years ago) and that Black Krrsatan and Din Djarin make for impressive muscle. But the Pykes still have them outnumbered and the other crime families won’t help. What they need are foot soldiers.

Din says that he might know where to find foot soldiers and heads to Mos Pelgo a.k.a. Freetown to see Cobb Vanth. Cobb is happy enough to see Din, but not to eager to involve himself and the rest of Freetown in something he doesn’t consider his fight. Din points out that it will become their fight eventually, because the Pykes won’t give up, until they are controlling all of Tatooine. Cobb promises Din that he will see what he can do and calls for a town meeting.

But before that meeting can take place, the titular stranger comes from the desert. Only that it’s not a stranger at all, but a character named Cad Bane, who previously appeared in the Clone Wars and Bad Batch cartoon series and looks like a grey alien dressed up as an Old West gunslinger. Cad Bane first offers Cobb Vanth twice of what Boba is paying, if he sits out the fight. But Cobb isn’t sitting out anything and so an Old West style shoot-out in a dusty street ensues. And while Cobb may be the fastest draw in the West on Tatooine, Cad Bane is faster. He wounds Cobb and kills Cobb’s deputy, a character who couldn’t be any more marked for death, if he worse a red shirt, as Nick Wanserski points out.

And just so everybody knows that the Pykes mean business, they also plant a bomb in Garza Fwip’s bar/casion/brothel.

This is the penultimate episode of The Book of Boba Fett and the show still has no idea what exactly it’s trying to be. Is it “Boba Fett learns the value of teamwork during his sojourn in the desert”? Is it “Tatooine comes together to kick out the criminals who want to take over the planet”? Is it season 3 of The Mandalorian? Is it the Jedi Academy show? Any of these storylines might have made for compelling television, but jumbled altogether, the result is just a mess.

Also, is it me or are the Pykes rather underwhelming as antagonists? I mean, they’re basically evil fish people. That’s all. And as evil fish people go, they’re not nearly as interesting as the Lovecraftian Deep Ones or Mer-Man’s people from Masters of the Universe. Also, a desert planet is about the worst environment in the universe for evil fish people.

Will Grogu return to Din Djarin? Will Tatooine kick the arse of the Pykes? Will Boba Fett actually get to say a few lines in his own show? I guess we’ll find out next week.

Fancast Spotlight: Octothorpe

Nominations for the 2022 Hugo Awards are open, so I will be continuing the Fanzine and Fancast Spotlights. 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.

Today’s featured fancast is Octothorpe, a podcast focussed on the world of science fiction fandom.

Therefore, I’m pleased to welcome Liz Batty, John Coxon and Alison Scott to my blog today.

Tell us about your podcast or channel

Alison: It was John’s idea! Octothorpe’s tagline is “the podcast of science fiction and science fiction fandom”, We do talk about science fiction a fair amount, but we talk more about fandom—upcoming conventions and the things that fans do—I think that is where our heart is. We also have a very engaged community who write in and tell us what they think about all of these things, and we are very pleased about that.

Who are the people behind your podcast or channel? 

John: I’m John Coxon.

Alison: I’m Alison Scott.

Liz: And I’m Liz Batty.

Why did you decide to start your podcast or channel?

John: I decided to start a podcast, and I recorded a pilot episode of a podcast with Meg Frank back in 2013, which never actually made it. I knew I wanted it to be about fandom and I knew I wanted to be in the style of the Apple tech podcasts that I love; it turned out that Alison also loves those podcasts. So I said to Alison “Do you want to be on a podcast, because you’re quite loud?” I knew I wanted another host, and I wasn’t talking to Liz quite as much as usual because she had moved to Thailand. I thought that since Liz is more sensible than me and Alison she’d be a good moderating influence on the two of us, so I asked her. I think it’s gone very well: I really like talking to Alison and Liz every two weeks, and I really like getting to listen to it again when I edit it. They make me laugh, and I very much enjoy my Sunday mornings when we record.

Alison: I have been wanting to do a podcast ever since the very beginning of podcasts, but it turns out that if you want to do a podcast, you have to find someone who’s daft enough to do the editing for you. Because otherwise podcasts don’t happen, do they? So if you want to run your own podcast the core thing you need is somebody who’s up for doing the editing.

Liz: I didn’t have any desire to be on a podcast, or to start a podcast, or really to do any work around a podcast. But John was asked me “Do you want to do a podcast?” and I said, “Maybe?” And then there was a coronavirus, and now I literally have nothing else that I need to be doing on a Sunday afternoon, so let’s do a podcast! And I am just constantly amazed that we have made it almost 50 episodes, and there appear to be at least ten people actually listening.

What format do you use for your podcast or channel and why did you choose this format?

Alison: We’re an audio podcast you can get in all good podcast apps, and the three of us discuss the news in science fiction fandom fortnightly before talking about science fiction together. John mentioned Apple podcasts earlier, but really the sorts of podcasts I like are podcasts where a bunch of mates get together every so often and chew the fat about things going on in their area of interest. None of the science fiction podcasts I had found were quite doing that. It’s explicitly modelled on a couple of those Apple tech podcasts (ATP and Upgrade), except that unlike those podcasts, there are women on this one.

John: I definitely did not want to be another “white dude” podcast, as I think there are probably enough of those already. One of the things I really loved about the style of podcast Alison describes was how discursive it is, and I think that really ties into old-school fanzine fandom, even down to the letters of comment. That was one of the reasons I thought the format would work in a fannish context.

The fan categories at the Hugos were there at the very beginning, but they are also the categories which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines, fancasts and other fan projects are important?

Alison: I’m a fan of science fiction fandom as much as I am a fan of science fiction. Some of my reading and watching is genre and much of it is not, but the people I choose to spend time with are science fiction fans. It’s the community of fandom that I find so valuable, and it’s that community that generates the fanzines, fan writing, and fancasts. I find SF fans very interesting. That’s why whenever I’m looking at conventions I’m thinking about how we manage all the things that aren’t the programme, because I’m here for the social interactions between fans. This is what is known traditionally as being a “fake fan”, but obviously it’s the most real fandom of all.

John: One of the early fandoms I was in was fanzine fandom, and I think its role in my early fandom is probably why I think it’s important. I wrote a fanzine between 2007 and 2014-ish called Procrastinations which I’ve recently published a new issue of. As fan writing has evolved, I have enjoyed interacting with it.

Liz: I think it is very nice that the Hugo Awards from the start have rewarded fan endeavours alongside the professional ones. I think it’s nice to have them so that people who are not as familiar with fandom and look at the list of Hugo winners might check out some of the fanzines and fancasts. But, I think as long as there is a vibrant community I’m not particularly bothered if they get fewer votes and nominations than other categories. I think it’s nice that they’re there for people but I don’t necessarily worry that there aren’t as many people nominating for Best Fanzine as there are for Best Novel or Best Short Story. I think they are just aiming at a slightly smaller segment of fandom. I just don’t want it to get too low because I do want the categories to continue to be prestigious! And, obviously, I don’t want the categories to attract so few votes that the award isn’t given.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online and fancasts have sprung up. What do you think the future of fan media looks like?

John: I have opinions on this, as, as some people may know. One of the reasons I wanted to do a podcast was because the style of fanzine I quite like—with the focus on fandom—is something that I feel like hasn’t really made the jump to more modern media. This is a problem for me because I enjoy more modern media; I completely respect that there are fanzine fans who are very into their printed materials and PDFs, but I’d quite like some of it to be available in the forms I enjoy. My first fanzine, Procrastinations, was an epub for a while but is now online as a blog (https://procrastinations.co.uk); my second fanzine, Lulzine (https://lulzine.net), is an email newsletter; and my other fan work is this podcast. Email newsletters especially are currently blowing up with sites like Substack; there’s a lot of good fanwriting you can get delivered to you now.

Alison: I think the last 20 years has seen a massive fragmentation of the sort of fan publication I like. Some of the fans who were used to doing paper fanzines have found it tricky to engage with more modern forms. And some of those forms are much more ephemeral than traditional fanzines, so it’s quite nice to have some things that are not so ephemeral. Now people may decide in the future “Why would anybody listen to a podcast from 2021?”, but they might not. Alternatively they might ask, “what were people thinking, what were they saying?” Old-time fanzine fans have a concept of “timebinding”, making things that have a degree of permanence, and I’ve been struggling to find ways to do this these days. I too have an email newsletter, Dante’s Cardigan (subscribe at https://tinyletter.com/AlisonScott), and one of the reasons it hasn’t been as regular as I hoped is that I wanted to put a lot of links in, but after doing two issues I realised that those links start rotting immediately, so you lose the permanence of your fanzine. I’m thinking about what I can do to keep a sense of permanence about the zines that I publish. In the future, in the event anyone cares, I want there to be something there for them to care about.

Liz: Yes, I think I’ve noticed more traditional fanzine fans aren’t embracing those more modern media. But there’s a lot of people on YouTube talking about books (BookTube) and a lot of them have pretty big audiences. There’s definitely an audience out there and I wonder if more and more fanwriters will drift towards that video model. Email newsletters are an extremely throwbacky idea that has come around again, so maybe the next thing is going to be a LiveJournal revival! Or it’ll be a completely different set of media that we haven’t even seen invented yet.

Lastly, are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists, we’d like to recommend?

Some great creators and creations we like a lot and your readers should definitely check out:

Abigail Nussbaum [Asking the Wrong Questions](http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/)
Ansible [Ansible Home/Links](https://news.ansible.uk/)
Banana Wings
Become the Teapot [Become the Teapot](https://becometheteapot.buzzsprout.com/)
Brad W. Foster [Jabberwocky Graphix ~ The Art of Brad W Foster, and more!](https://www.jabberwockygraphix.com/)
Bruce Gillespie
Claire Brialey
Dave Langford [Langford Home Page (Pardon?)](https://ansible.uk/)
España Sheriff [Futuriana – You can’t keep a good blog down](https://espanasheriff.com/)
Fantasy Book Swap [Fantasy Book Swap](https://alibaker68.podbean.com/)
File 770 [File 770 | Mike Glyer’s news of science fiction fandom](http://file770.com/)
Hugo, Girl! [Hugo, Girl!](https://hugogirl.libsyn.com/)
Iain J Clark [iainjclark art – Artwork and ramblings](https://iainjclarkart.com/)
Mark Plummer
Portable Storage [eFanzines.com – Portable Storage](https://efanzines.com/PortableStorage/)
Salon Futura [Salon Futura – Cheryl Morgan’s Fanzine](https://www.salonfutura.net/)
Sara Felix [All the things! – Sara Felix](https://www.sarafelix.com/wp/)
SF Commentary [eFanzines.com – Bruce Gillespie: SF Commentary](https://efanzines.com/SFC/#sfc)
Stitch’s Media Mix [Blog | Stitch’s Media Mix | A critical Stitch.](https://stitchmediamix.com/blog/)
Sue Mason
The Drink Tank [eFanzines.com – The Drink Tank](https://efanzines.com/DrinkTank/)
The Incomparable [The Incomparable – a podcast from The Incomparable](https://www.theincomparable.com/theincomparable/)
This Here… [eFanzines.com – This Here…](https://efanzines.com/ThisHere/)
Transfer Orbit [Transfer Orbit](https://transfer-orbit.ghost.io/)

Where can people find you?

You can listen to Octothorpe in all good podcast players, or from the website at https://octothorpe.podbean.com . We are @octothorpecast on Twitter, and we have a Facebook group where you can come and chat to us or respond to the latest episode at https://www.facebook.com/groups/octothorpecast/ .

Thank you, Alison, John and Liz, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Octothorpe, cause it’s a great podcast.

***

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