Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 64

January 9, 2020

Retro Review: “The Wedge” a.k.a. “The Traders” by Isaac Asimov

[image error]“The Wedge” is a short story by Isaac Asimov, which was first published in the October 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and is therefore eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugos. The magazine version may be found online here. This review is also crossposted to Retro Science Fiction Reviews.

Most readers will probably know the story under its alternate title “The Traders”, which is how it appeared in Foundation, the first book of the eponymous trilogy.

Since “The Wedge” is one of the stories that make up the Foundation trilogy, perhaps a recap is in order, though Asimov, whose 100th birthday we are currently celebrating by remembering his accomplishments and personal faults, never gives us one, neither in the magazine nor in the book version. Still, for anyone who needs a reminder, here is the story so far:

Warning: Spoilers!

The Foundation started out as a group of scientists sent to the planet Terminus on the galactic periphery to compile an encyclopaedia and preserve knowledge at a time when the Galactic Empire was falling apart. However, the true purpose of the Foundation, revealed by psychohistorian Hari Seldon or rather his hologram, is to guide humanity through the dark age following the fall of the Galactic Empire, to reduce the length of that dark age from thirty thousand to a mere thousand years and to establish a second Galactic Empire, all following Seldon’s master plan.

Alas, the Foundation is still just a group of encyclopaedists on a small and poor planet, surrounded by aggressive neighbours who have declared themselves independent from the Empire. However, Terminus has atomic power (Asimov’s word choice) and its neighbours do not. And so Salvor Hardin, mayor of Terminus, creates an artificial religion called Scientism to bring and keep the neighbouring four kingdoms under the control of the Foundation.

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Cover of the Gnome Press edition of Foundation.

All this happened in the first two stories of what would eventually become the Foundation series, published in Astounding some two years prior in 1942. “The Wedge” is chronologically the third and by publication order the fourth Foundation story. It is set some fifty years after the previous story “Bridle and Saddle”. The four kingdoms are now fully under Foundation control thanks to the fake religion, but other planets have caught on to what the Foundation is doing and understandably want nothing to do with them. So the Foundation tries to spread its influence via traders who peddle atomic powered gadgets along the galactic periphery.

One of these traders of Limmar Ponyets (named Lathan Devers in the magazine version, but I will stick with the name most readers will be familiar with in this review) who has a hold full of unsold wares and problems making his quota. A call reaches him in the shower (literally) and a ship pulls alongside to deliver an important message that self-destructs upon reading – twenty-two years before Mission Impossible.

A trader named Eskel Gorov has been arrested on the planet Askone for attempting to sell atomic gadgets there, even though Askone has banned all Foundation traders and gadgets, because using atomic power is against their religious beliefs. Gorov is facing the death penalty for sacrilege and Ponyets is supposed to get him out. An additional complication is that Gorov is not a trader at all, but an agent of the Foundation whose mission it is to introduce atomic powered gadgets to Askone to soften up the local government to Foundation control.

Ponyets has a quite interesting backstory. It is implied that he was not born on Terminus, but in the four kingdoms and initially trained as a priest (and indeed a later story explains that most traders actually hail from the four kingdoms). But representatives of the Foundation recognised his intelligence and brought him to Terminus to be educated there. So, unlike most citizens of Terminus, Ponyets is actually familiar with the scripture and rituals of the Foundation’s fake religion. This knowledge will come in handy on his mission.

Fake religions, which are science in disguise, were a popular trope during the so-called golden age of science fiction. And since fake religion stories predominantly appeared in Astounding, I suspect this was one of Campbell’s pet subjects which he foisted on his writers. The early Foundation stories are probably the best known examples of this trope, but the 1944 Retro Hugo finalist Gather, Darkness by Fritz Leiber is another science as religion story and a most excellent one, too. Now Fritz Leiber actually did train as an Episcopalian priest and left, because he did not feel the vocation, even though the church wanted to keep him. These experiences influenced Gather, Darkness and Leiber’s hilarious 1959 story “Lean Times in Lankhmar”. And in fact I wonder if Leiber, whom Asimov must have known, wasn’t an inspiration for Limmar Ponyets, the failed priest turned Foundation trader.

On Askone, Ponyets meets with the local elders who imply that Gorov may be released, if Ponyets is willing to pay for his freedom. However, the Askonians have no interest in Ponyets’ wares. Instead, they want gold.

Ponyets has no gold – the Foundation had no particular interest in precious metals for their own sake. However, he uses his superior scientific knowledge to rig up a matter transmutator to turn iron into gold, which he demonstrates to the Askonian elders with great theatrical flair. The Askonians may hate atomic power and science in general, but they really love gold, so they are willing to turn a blind eye to where it came from.

Ponyets also exploits tensions inside the council of elders by setting up a private meeting with an ambitious council member named Pherl. Ponyets offers to sell the transmutator to Pherl, so he will have enough gold to finance his rise to power. Pherl knows that the religious taboos of his world are just superstition “for the masses”, but he has to pretend to adhere to them to avoid the gas chamber. Ponyets assures him that no one need ever know that he has the transmutator.

Pherl finally agrees. He purchases the transmutator and Gorov is freed. However, Ponyets has tricked Pherl and installed a camera in the transmutator. He then proceeds to blackmail Pherl by threatening to broadcast footage of Pherl using forbidden technology to the superstitious masses of Askone. This would mean certain death for Pherl, so he is forced to purchase Ponyets’ entire inventory. And so Ponyets not only makes his quota, but has also fulfilled both Gorov’s mission and his own by installing a Foundation friendly leader on Askone.

I first read the Foundation series as a teenager and was blown away by the sheer scale, the twists particularly in the later volumes and also by how the Foundation usually triumphs by using brain over brawn.

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The 1980s Panther edition of “Foundation”, wherein I first encountered this story.

My memories of “The Wedge” were vague – I mainly remembered it as “the one with the gas chamber”, because several characters are threatened with execution by gas chamber, which disturbed my younger self a lot. Upon rereading, the gas chamber references are not nearly as prominent as I remembered. It also turned out that a vivid scene of Gorov being taken to the gas chamber, only seconds from execution, only existed in my mind. This occasionally happens for me with stories I first read as a teen – scenes I remember very clearly don’t exist, because my vivid imagination supplies the details.

As I reread the story, I also remembered Ponyets’ transmutation parlour trick and how much it impressed my younger self. Because I’d learned in chemistry class that it was indeed possible to turn mercury or lead into gold, but that it took a whole lot of power and the resulting gold was unfortunately radioactive (the Foundation has solved the latter problem, but not the former). In fact, radioactive gold was first synthesized from mercury in 1941 in an experiment that Asimov as a graduate student of chemistry would have been familiar with and that may well have inspired this story. The Foundation series is often called hard science fiction, largely because the stories originally appeared in Astounding, even though there is very little in the way of hard science in the series. The transmutation parlour trick in “The Wedge” is probably as close as the Foundation stories come to actual hard science fiction. And my younger self was very pleased to see something I’d heard about in chemistry class pop up in a science fiction story (so pleased that I even told my chemistry teacher about it) and used in such a clever way to trick a bunch of idiots.

The cleverness that pleased my teen self so much is still evident in the story when I reread it as an adult, because Limmar Ponyets is a very clever man who comes up with a very clever scheme to trick the Askonians. There is just one problem. Ponyets may be clever, but he’s also an arsehole and even admits it. After all, he quotes a saying attributed to Salvor Hardin, mayor of Terminus and hero of the first two Foundation stories, “Never let a sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”

It’s a great line, which also serves as the epigraph of the magazine version of the story. But is what Ponyets and the Foundation are doing truly right? My teen self would probably have said yes. After all, the Foundation are the good guys here. They are trying to preserve civilisation and stave off the dark ages, even if I’d have preferred it is the ultimate aim of the Foundation was the creation of a Galactic Republic or Federation rather than an Empire. Still, if the Foundation has to use subterfuge and dirty tricks to fulfil that purpose, then so be it. Never mind that it is hard to feel sorry for the Askonians, because at least the ones we meet are all greedy and pompous idiots. And besides, the Askonians have gas chambers and obviously like to use them. As a matter of fact, Askone would probably be better off under Foundation control. After all, the Foundation has better technology, they are smart and they don’t have gas chambers.

Adult me can see that the Foundation is in the wrong here. Yes, the Askonians may be pompous, greedy and superstitious idiots, but they have made it very clear that they want nothing to do with the Foundation as is their good right (though I still disagree with the gas chamber threats. Just send Gorov back to where he came from and blast him out of the sky, if he comes back). It’s the Foundation which keeps violating the Askonians’ sovereignty and which clearly wants to take over Askone as it took over the four kingdoms. At least with the four kingdoms, the Foundation had the excuse of self-defence, since the four kingdoms were threatening Terminus. With the Askonians, they have no such excuse, because the Askonians are no threat.

No matter how noble the intentions of the Foundation are (and they only are noble, if you believe that Hari Seldon was right. Otherwise, the Foundation becomes a bunch of fanatics taking orders from a hologram), their methods of coercing other planets are wrong. Adult me also cannot ignore how strong the undercurrents of imperialism and colonialism are in the Foundation stories. Because the Foundation uses religion, trade (silly gadgets against various resources they lack) and force to take over other worlds – for their own good, of course – just like any real world coloniser. And just like the USA post-WWII in the real world, the Foundation has absolutely no qualms about meddling with the governments of sovereign nations. There are golden age stories which are critical of colonialism and imperialism – the 1944 Retro Hugo finalist “The Citadel of Lost Ships” by Leigh Brackett is one example – but “The Wedge” is not one of them. The Foundation is always right, at least in the early stories (They are disastrously wrong in “The Mule”), and the narrative doesn’t invite us to question them or their motives.

But it’s not just the uncritical endorsement of imperialism that makes “The Wedge” and the other early Foundation stories feel dated. In fact, these stories were already dated when I first read them as a teen in the late 1980s. And so you’ll find people nonchalantly smoking aboard spaceships and a total lack of women. All five named characters are male and no women appear at all, not even as walk-ons.

But the most glaring issue to me was the uncritical veneration (in the most literal sense of the word) of atomic power in the early Foundation stories. Because when I first read those stories a few years after Chernobyl, nuclear power was viewed as a failed and extremely dangerous technology that needed to be phased out as soon as possible (By 2022, Germany will finally get there). Literally everybody in Germany who wasn’t either completely stupid or a rightwing politician (which was pretty much the same thing) was opposed to nuclear power, so seeing an organisation as smart as the Foundation endorsing it was jarring to say the least.

However, I had developed the habit of checking copyright dates by that point and could see that the Foundation stories were very old and had been published before the first atomic bombs hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I decided to give Asimov a pass, because he couldn’t have known how dangerous nuclear power was. Of course, the dangers of radioactivity were well known even in 1944 – the radium girls lawsuit took place in 1927/28 – and as a graduate student of chemistry, Asimov would certainly have known about the dangers. And to his credit, Asimov made a sharp turn away from nuclear optimism after Hiroshima. Nuclear power is barely mentioned in the post-1945 Foundation stories and by the Galactic Empire stories of the 1950s, Asimov frequently described Earth as a radioactive wasteland.

“The Wedge” is one of the less memorable Foundation stories and coincidentally also the only one where Hari Seldon’s hologram does not appear, since a Foundation agent nearly getting himself killed trying to undermine the society of a neighbouring world apparently does not qualify as a Seldon crisis. “The Wedge” also displays several of Asimov’s trademark weaknesses such as bland characters and clumsy dialogue, though the latter isn’t as noticeable here, because the Askonian elders are supposed to be pompous. This story also shares the unfortunate tendency of Isaac Asimov to let his climactic scenes happen off stage. And so instead of showing us Ponyets confronting Pherl with filmic evidence of the latter committing sacrilege, Asimov just tells us about it by having Ponyets recount the events to Gorov after the fact.

In spite of the story’s obvious weaknesses, the plot of “The Wedge” still holds up seventy-five years later and I enjoyed the story upon rereading. “The Wedge” is still a clever science fiction story – albeit one that comes with a generous helping of the unexamined imperialism and colonialism that afflicts the entire Foundation series.

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Published on January 09, 2020 15:46

January 7, 2020

Retro Review: “Terror Out of Space” by Leigh Brackett

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This scene does not actually appear in the story.

“Terror Out of Space” by Leigh Brackett is a science fiction novelette, which appeared in the summer 1944 issue of Planet Stories and is therefore eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugos. You can find the story online here. This review is also crossposted to Retro Science Fiction Reviews.

Warning: There will be spoilers in the following!

The story starts with the protagonist, an officer of the Tri-Worlds Police, Special Branch called Lundy (no first name given), in a fistful of trouble. He’s flying solo through the clouds of Venus, desperate to deliver his cargo to a destination he will never reach.

Gradually, we learn that a mysterious alien lifeform has crash-landed on Venus and caused a wave of madness. For this mysterious alien lifeform is telepathic and appears to every heterosexual male as the most desirable woman ever. However, no one has ever looked into her eyes and lived to tell the tale. Apparently, the alien has zero interest in heterosexual women or gay people of any gender. Lundy and his partner Jackie Smith have been tasked with capturing one of those alien lifeforms and delivering it to a group of scientists for analysis. They got lucky and managed to apprehend both the creature as well as its latest victim, a man named Farrell.

At the beginning of the story, the creature is locked in a safe aboard Lundy’s ship. Lundy also drugged and strapped down its victim, though not before Farrell managed to knock out Jackie Smith. And so Lundy is flying solo, while Smith is unconscious and Farrell is screaming his lungs out in the hold.

When Farrell falls suspiciously silent, Lundy goes to check on him and finds that the man has torn himself loose from his restraints, the straps cutting his flesh to the bone. The gravely injured Farrell demands that Lundy let the creature out of the strongbox, because “she” is afraid of the dark. Lundy refuses only to find himself looking into the barrel of Jackie Smith’s gun, for Smith has also fallen under the creature’s spell.

The resulting fight causes the craft to crash into the Venusian ocean. Only Lundy survives – Farrell succumbs to his injuries and Smith drowns, an expression of horror frozen on his face. The safe is open, the creature gone.

So Lundy puts on a pressure suit, grabs some meds and oxygen tanks and decides to walk across the Venusian ocean floor to the destination he was trying to reach. This trek across the ocean floor is a highlight of the story. Atmospheric descriptions of alien worlds are one of Leigh Brackett’s great strengths as a writer and she employs it to the fullest here, offering up vivid and nigh psychedelic depictions of the Venusian ocean floor, complete with ruined underwater cities and flesh-eating monster flowers. On the way to one the former, Lundy nearly succumbs to the latter, but just as the flowers are about to devour him, he is rescued by a group of telepathic Venusian kelp people.

The friendly kelp people tell Lundy that they live in a nearby ruined city. The kelp people are all female, because the males abandoned their partners to follow a mysterious women who passed through. Lundy recognises the creature’s handiwork at once. The kelp women ask Lundy for help to rescue their menfolk, because the kelp people are periodically besieged by creatures they call the Others who prey on them. The women know how to keep themselves and their seedlings safe, but the men are so besotted by “her” that they are sitting ducks.

Lundy, being a heroic type, at once promises to help the kelp people. Besides, he sees a chance to finally apprehend the creature, which has caused so much pain and misery. However – and this is something you would never find in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction – Lundy also has doubts whether he is up to the task, whether he will be able to resist the creature, when Jackie Smith, Farrell and the kelp men all succumbed to “her”. Just as Lundy is scared much of the time during his trek across the ocean floor and his pursuit of ‘her”. Nonetheless, he is going to bring “her” in or die trying.

Things come to a head, when Lundy tracks the kelp men and the creature to the heart of the ruined city. He manages to catch the creature inside a net and promptly finds himself assaulted by the kelp men who are desperate to free “her”. But lacking human hands, they cannot. At the same time, the Others – also kelp beings, but vicious, cannibalistic ones – attack. Leigh Brackett is not the first author who comes to mind when thinking of aliens who are truly alien – she was simply more interested in humans than aliens. The kelp people, the creature and the Others are some of the more interesting alien beings in Brackett’s fiction.

Lundy knows that the kelp men are so focussed on freeing the creature from the net that they are easy prey for the Others. So Lundy does the very thing he’d been terrified to do, he telepathically communicates with the creature, telling her that he is the only one who can free her, but that he won’t, unless she lets the kelp men go.

The creature obeys and just in time, too, for the Others are almost upon them. The kelp men escape. Lundy tries to hold off the Others with his blaster and finally hides in one of the ruined houses. He finds himself trapped in a Venusian execution chamber together with the creature, while the Others are swarming outside. Worse, Lundy’s oxygen supply is getting low.

The creature tries to persuade Lundy to let her go, but he lets her know in no uncertain terms that he will never let her go after what she has done to Jackie Smith and Farrell and so many others. Now Lundy – and the reader – finally gets to see “her” in the form of a small, naked and angelically perfect woman. Her eyes, however, remain hidden for now. In many ways, “she” reminded me of the alien angel from Edgar Pangborn’s debut story “Angel’s Egg”, which appeared seven years after “Terror Out of Space”.

Though exhausted and high on stimulants, Lundy still manages to resist “her” and asks the creature at one point why precisely she drives men crazy and eventually kills them. The creature does not understand. The men worship her and it’s nice to be worshipped. Nor does she understand the meaning of death, because in deep space, where her species lives, there is no such thing as death. On Venus, however, the creature is not immortal, because she cannot withstand the gravity. Sooner or later, it is going to crush her.

Once Lundy understands the creature’s motivations, he makes a deal with “her”. Lundy will make sure that everybody knows her story and that she will be remembered and yes, worshipped, as a hero, if she leads the Others away from Lundy and the kelp people into a convenient nearby undersea volcano. The creature agrees because dying while being worshipped and remembered is better than dying in a net and forgotten.

So Lundy lets her go free and she goes off to fulfil her part of the deal. However, Lundy makes one fatal mistake. He asks her to let him look into her eyes. And once he does, he finally understands why Jackie Smith died with an expression of pure horror frozen on his face. Because behind her eyes, there is nothing.

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I first encountered the story in this Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks collection.

“Terror Out of Space” is a fairly uncommon Leigh Brackett story. Her talent at writing action scenes and evocative descriptions of alien landscapes is evident here, but both protagonist and plot are quite unlike Brackett’s usual work. For starters, Leigh Brackett’s protagonists tend to be outsiders and even outlaws, people living on the margins of the future society she depicts. Lundy, on the other hand, is an officer of the Tri-Worlds Police, Special Branch. Interplanetary police officers occasionally show up in Brackett’s stories, but mostly they are faceless antagonists who pursue her outlaw heroes. Lundy is one of only two sympathetic representatives of the official authorities of the solar system I have ever encountered in Leigh Brackett’s fiction. The other is Eric John Stark’s mentor and surrogate father Simon Ashton, who appears briefly at the beginning of “Queen of the Martian Catacombs” in 1948 and less briefly in the Skaith trilogy of the 1970s.

Regarding the plot, “Terror Out of Space” is very much a hunt for an alien monster tale, which is not a type of science fiction story that Leigh Brackett wrote very often. There is something almost Lovecraftian about the idea of a mysterious creature that drives men (and only men) mad. But whereas the creature would have remained unknowable in a Lovecraft story, while the protagonist succumbs to madness, Lundy remains sane long enough to negotiate with the creature and learn about her real motives. “Terror Out of Space” certainly has its share of moments of horror – Farrell, who cuts himself to the bone trying to escape and bleeds to death, the dead Jackie Smith with an expression of nameless horror frozen on his face, the alien plantlife trying to devour Lundy and of course the beautiful woman with nothing where her eyes should be. Nonetheless, “Terror Out of Space” is not a science fiction horror story like John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” or H.P. Lovecraft’s “Color Out of Space”.

It is also unusual for a Golden Age story that the alien creature is not so much evil, but misunderstood and has no idea about the damage she is causing. Just try to imagine what this story would have been like, if it had been published in John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction. For starters, Lundy would never have been allowed to have doubts and fear, even though this sets him apart from the stereotypical square-jawed heroes of the Golden Age. And the creature would have been unambiguously villainous, only to be outsmarted by superior human intelligence. But then, Leigh Brackett had stopped publishing in Astounding by this point, having found a more sympathetic audience for her brand of science fiction in Planet Stories.

Of course, Leigh Brackett, whose penchant for femme fatales is well known, could not resist turning even her very alien antagonist into a femme fatale. And not just any old femme fatale either, but the ultimate femme fatale who literally drives men of any species mad with a single look into her eyes.

When reading “Terror out of Space”, there is never any doubt that this is vintage science fiction. Whether it’s the vivid description of an ocean covered Venus that never was or Lundy’s old-fashioned rocketship, complete with an autopilot named Iron Mike who is a literal robot or the aggressive heterosexuality of the creature, it is always very obvious that we are reading a story that’s seventy-five years old. However, “Terror Out of Space” is also dated in other less obvious ways. For example, the medication Lundy takes along on his long trek across the Venusian ocean floor is a drug called Benzedrine, which left me puzzled, thinking, “But isn’t that the trade name of an allergy medication?”

It turns out that I got the names mixed up (I was thinking of Benadryl, which is indeed an allergy medication) and that Benzedrine was an early amphetamine, which actually was used as a nasal decongestant, before people figured out that it also was a very effective stimulant. In the 1930s to 1950s, Benzedrine was widely used, both by soldiers in WWII as well as by scientists, mathematicians, writers and artists who used it to focus, stay awake and be more productive. And considering the conditions under which pulp fiction writers worked, sometimes cranking out one or two short novels per month, it’s obvious why a stimulant like Benzedrine would be popular. And indeed, Wikipedia has a long list of references to Benzedrine in pop culture.

So a science fiction reader in 1944 would have known what Benzedrine was and what its effects were at once, whereas I – reading the story seventy-five years later – had to look it up. Leigh Brackett also namedrops another drug, Avertin, which Lundy uses to sedate the raging Farrell. I initially assumed Avertin was a made up name, but when I googled it, I found that Avertin is the trade name for an anaesthetic called tribromoethanol, which is still used in veterinary medicine today and which was used for humans in the first half of the twentieth century, before safer substances were developed. So again, a reader in 1944 would likely have known what it was.

The story provides enough context that it is obvious what these drugs do, even if – like me – you have never heard of them. Nonetheless, the takeway here is that a science fiction writer should never assume that something ubiquitous in your day will still be recognised by latter day readers, let alone in whatever future you depict. And indeed, when mentioning medication (which occasionally comes up in the In Love and War stories in particular), I never use real brand names, but either make up a name or just describe what it does.

I’m also very glad that the many references to drug use you can find in science fiction from the Golden Age all the way through the New Wave and beyond went completely over my head, when I read these stories as a teenager (not “Terror Out of Space”, but other stories by Leigh Brackett). Because I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy those stories, if I had realised how drug-soaked many of them were. For back when I read them in the late 1980s, it was a serious topic of debate among my friends whether it was morally acceptable to consume art that had been produced under the influence of drugs. I resolved the issue for myself by declaring that none of my favourites would ever as much as look at drugs – after all, they were science fiction writers and should know better (Yes, I know. I was very naïve) – so the question was moot. When I saw a documentary about Hollywood on TV and some fellow held up a bag of what he claimed was cocaine and said every movie or TV series produced in Hollywood was made by mediocre people under the influence of cocaine, I was utterly crestfallen and depressed, because it that were true, it would mean no more US movies or TV shows ever. In the end, after an avid discussion with friends, we decided that the man in the documentary must have referred to dull Hollywood movies, Wall Street, Fatal Attraction, Terms of Endearment, Basic Instinct and the like, that nobody liked anyway.

Among Leigh Brackett’s extensive oeuvre, “Terror Out of Space” is one of the more obscure stories. It hasn’t been reprinted very often – once in 1959 in an anthology of Venus stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and then not again until 2005 in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks edition Sea Kings of Mars and Other Stories, which is also where I encountered it. But while “Terror Out of Space” is fairly obscure and also atypical for Leigh Brackett, it is nonetheless a fine and entertaining story, featuring some of the more interesting alien creatures of the Golden Age.

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Published on January 07, 2020 15:00

January 6, 2020

Introducing the 1945 Retro Hugo Spreadsheet and Retro Science Fiction Reviews

Anybody who has been following this blog for a while will know that I have been occasionally frustrated with the Retro Hugo Award finalists and winners, because all too often, people seem to be voting and nominating based on name recognition rather than quality and so we see weak works by big names get nominated or even win, while lesser known stories and authors are ignored.

Part of the problem is that while we have excellent crowdsourced recommendation systems for the current year Hugos such as Renay’s Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom or the HugoAward Nominees Wiki, there is nothing of that sort for the Retro Hugos. So I thought, “Why don’t I start an open recommendation spreadsheet for the Retro Hugos?”

I was actually planning to do this last year, but then I caught the flu and was out of commission for much of the nomination period and in the end could barely get my own nominations done in time.

But the idea lingered in the back of my mind and so I decided to create a recommendation spreadsheet for the 1945 Retro Hugo Awards. You can find that spreadsheet here.

If there is a 1944 work of science fiction, fantasy or horror you feel is missing, please add it to the spreadsheet. The more of us contribute, the better. Also, please spread the word about the 1945 Retro Hugo Award spreadsheet. You can use this handy shortlink: http://bit.ly/RetroHugo1945

And if you’re wondering what is eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugo Awards, Paul Fraser of SF Magazines has you covered with this overview of 1945 Retro Hugo eligible fiction, complete with links where to find the works in question.

Another problem with the Retro Hugos is that while there are plenty of reviews for current works out there, which help us to find works we enjoy and may want to nominate, reviews of older SFF, particularly older SFF from a specific year, are much thinner on the ground. So I decided to do my part and review works eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugos at this blog. And if I could persuade others to do the same, we might manage to offer a good overview of eligible works to potential Retro Hugo nominators.

Then I thought, “Why not have a dedicated site for reviews of Retro Hugo eligible works? I could crosspost my own reviews there and link to those of other people.” And this is how Retro Science Fiction Reviews was born.

Right now, there is only an introductory post over there. The first review will go up tomorrow both here and at Retro Science Fiction Reviews.

Of course, I am only one person and obviously cannot review everything that came out in 1944. Not to mention that there are many works and whole fields I don’t know very much about. And like everybody I have my own biases. There are authors and works I just don’t care for.

Therefore, I need your help. Have you reviewed an SFF work that came out in 1944 and is eligible for the 1945 Retro Hugos? Then mail me a link to your review or leave it in the comments. Would you like to review a 1944 work and don’t have a place to post your review? You can also mail me the whole review and I will post it over at Retro Science Fiction Reviews, giving you credit, of course. You can contact me at cora(at)corabuhlert.com.

So let’s work together to improve the Retro Hugos.

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Published on January 06, 2020 18:59

January 5, 2020

First Monday Free Fiction: Shelter

Welcome to the January 2020 edition of First Monday Free Fiction. To recap, inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who posts a free short story every week on her blog, I’ll post a free story on every first Monday of the month. It will remain free to read on this blog for one month, then I’ll take it down and post another story.

[image error]It’s winter in the Northern hemisphere or at least it’s supposed to be, so this month’s free is a wintery tale called “Shelter”, which may be found in the post-apocalyptic collection After the End – Tales of Life After the Apocalypse.

So follow graduate student Ryan, as he trudges across a frozen future Earth in search of…

Shelter

Ryan had been walking for seven days, when he found the ships. They were just sitting there, smokestacks, masts, radar antennae, bridges, even whole decks jutting from the massive ice layer that covered much of the Northern hemisphere.

For decades, humanity had worried about climate change and global warming, engaging alternately in denial and aimless action just for the sake of it. What hardly anybody — well, hardly anybody except for a few scientists to whom no one listened anyway and a few bad disaster movies no one took seriously — had foreseen was that even as the average global temperature steadily rose, parts of the Earth nonetheless got colder. A lot colder.

And so — while humanity was still arguing whether climate change was real — the thermohaline circulation in the oceans gradually slowed and finally shut down altogether. The Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift grew steadily weaker and finally broke off. The Northern hemisphere experienced an increase in severe weather events, super-blizzards and the like, until it was finally left buried under a thick layer of ice that never melted.

All that had started a long time ago and had already been in full swing when Ryan was born, on the battered, but still inhabited South Coast of England. After three winters in a row that lasted from September to May, Ryan’s parents had enough of it all and emigrated, like so many others, to more temperate climes. And so Ryan had grown up in Morocco, until the encroaching ice layer had forced him to relocate even further south, to Senegal, as an adult.

But even though most of the Northern hemisphere and its major population centres were long lost to humanity, people still mounted expeditions into the frozen North, to check if there were any changes, if the ice layer was still growing thicker or perhaps thawing again or if there was anything up there to be salvaged.

As a graduate student at the University of Dakar, Ryan had joined one of those expeditions. These days, an expedition into the frozen North was a rite of passage, something every aspiring academic had to do on the path to doctorate, post-doc work and eventually tenure.

Besides, to be perfectly honest, Ryan had been curious what the home of his first three years on Earth, a home of which he only had vague memories of snow, hail, rain, storms and waves crashing against a grey and grimy shore, looked like today.

Okay, so the South coast of England wasn’t even the destination of the expedition, that was Denmark. But it was close enough for Ryan, especially since Northern Europe was just a featureless ice desert with the occasional very high mountain and the even more occasional very tall building poking through.

There had been thirteen of them at the start of the expedition — and yeah, maybe the fact that thirteen was an unlucky number in Western lore should have warned them. Because after three weeks of normal progress — as normal as progress through an ice desert at subzero temperatures even at the height of summer could be — it had all gone wrong.

Their expedition of thirteen had just passed Frankfurt, a city in Germany or rather what was left of it. For nowadays, what had once been Frankfurt was marked only by the tops of skyscrapers poking out from the ice layer. Apparently, so one of senior professors explained, Frankfurt had once been a financial and business centre, so it had rather a lot of skyscrapers.

But unfortunately, the uneven ground due to the skyscrapers also caused crevasses to form. And one such crevasse had claimed the entire expedition — professors, post-docs, grad students, dogs, snowmobiles, tents, provisions, equipment, com systems, everything — leaving behind only Ryan with a single barely adequate shelter, a rifle with some spare ammunition, provisions to last him maybe a week and no way to call for help, since all the radios and com systems had fallen into the crevasse along with the rest of the expedition.

That left Ryan only with two options. One, lie down and die, and two, go on and try to find provisions, shelter and a way to call for help.

And since Ryan had never been one to give up, he chose option two and went on, alone. He continued to follow the expedition’s original course, at least as far as he could replicate it with only a compass and no functioning GPS to aid him.

He’d never make it to the rendezvous point, of course, not unless he could find extra provisions along the way. But if anybody decided to look for the missing expedition, once they failed to check in, they would do so along the original course, which increased Ryan’s chances of rescue.

But there was no rescue forthcoming, no spotter planes flying past overhead. There was nothing but ice, ice and even more ice. So either no one was bothering to look for the missing expedition or they’d tracked them to their last known location, found the crevasse and deduced that there was no one left to rescue, that all members of the expedition were dead. Either way, Ryan was on his own.

For six days, he trekked across the ice, pulling along a little makeshift sled. Occasionally he came across manmade structures poking out of the ice. The tops of communication towers mostly, since they’d generally been the tallest structures around. But even though Ryan tried to coax some of the antennae back to life, it was to no avail. The com towers and their antennae were long dead.

On the seventh day finally, when the last of his provisions had run out, and Ryan was facing a slow death by starvation, he came upon the ships and a new hope for salvation.

The ships had piled up haphazardly, almost as if they had drifted here, abandoned by their crews to the ice. Though the fact that there were ships suggested that he’d reached what had once been the North Sea coast by now. Not far from the place where he’d been born then, which would make this a fitting place to die.

But Ryan wasn’t dead yet. And if he could find shelter and provisions aboard one of the frozen wrecks, he wouldn’t die for a good while yet. And if he found a radio and managed to coax it to life again, he might even be rescued.

But first things first. And first, Ryan had to decide which wreck to try. He finally selected the biggest one he saw, a gigantic boxlike ship that loomed high above the featureless ice desert. It was the logical choice, really. Better to scale the outer hull above the ice than descend down a smokestack into hell knew what.

So Ryan deployed his gear and began to climb. It was a long and laborious climb, for the vessel’s frozen steel hull was near vertical and jutted a good forty meters out of the ice. There were no windows or portholes either, just smooth featureless steel. The lettering on the vessel’s stern proclaimed her to be the MV Aniara, registered at Stockholm.

Ryan feared that he would have the climb up all the way to the weather deck, but he got lucky and came across a cargo ramp that hadn’t been fully folded up and allowed him to enter.

Inside the vessel it was pitch dark and the descent down the cargo ramp was steep. Once he reached the bottom, Ryan activated his pocket torch.

Inside the belly of the great vessel, he found deck upon deck of cars, antique cars of the kind he’d seen in old movies from before the great freeze. His friend Paul, who was a car buff, would have been delighted. There were trucks, too, and busses, farm and construction equipment and even two bright red fire engines just like the ones in the movies of his youth. What he didn’t find, however, was anything in the way of food.

He even tried breaking into some of the cars — though it pained him to destroy such perfectly preserved antique artefacts — to see if he could scrounge up anything to eat. Alas, the cars were all brand-new, up to that distinctive new vehicle smell still preserved after forty or fifty years trapped in the ice.

Okay, so the Aniara had obviously been a vehicle transporter once, but she still had to have a crew. There hadn’t yet been any fully automatic vessels at the time the Aniara got trapped in the ice. And where there was a crew, there had to be food.

After trudging up nine decks of cars, cars and more cars, Ryan finally reached the weather deck, carrying what seemed to be gigantic wind turbine blades. And at the far end of the weather deck, beyond the blades, loomed the bridge and the crew quarters and sanctuary.

The crew quarters were deserted, though the cabins still had beds and blankets and even the occasional discarded magazine and dead flower pot, suggesting they’d been left in a hurry.

Ryan also found the galley, which — praise the Lord — still held some food. Whatever fresh food there had been was useless, long rotted away in dead freezers that had been intended to preserve it. But there were still dry foods, noodles, rice, beans, as well as cans of vegetables, tuna and corned beef, jars of pickles and jam, bottles of ketchup and Sriracha, orange juice, Coke and beer. Ryan gathered everything edible together and had a feast that night of baked beans and corned beef with a dash of Sriracha, cooked over a fire he’d built from some crates he’d found in the galley, washed down with beer. Sure, the beer had gone stale in the past forty years or so, but it was still beer.

That night, he slept in a real bed for the first time in four weeks, in what had once been the captain’s cabin. In the movies, the captain always got the best cabin, so Ryan figured it had probably been that way in real life as well.

The next day, he went to explore the Aniara’s bridge. Even though the vessel was old, it still had radar and GPS and computers and communications equipment, all long dead unfortunately. Though he did find a handwritten note that the vessel had been en route from Baltimore to Bremerhaven, when she got trapped in the freezing North Sea and had to be abandoned.

Ryan spent an hour or so sitting on the floor of the bridge, lamenting that his last best hope had evaporated to nothing. Sure, he had found some provisions, but he was still stranded in the middle of an icy nowhere with dead communications equipment and no power to coax it back to life again.

For the vessel’s engines were dead, had been dead for decades. On the other hand… he was on a vessel full of cars and trucks. And cars and trucks had batteries. And some of those batteries might still be usable, if he was lucky.

Ryan spent most of the next day pulling ancient batteries from antique cars, batteries that were so much punier than the ones he was used to, for the majority of the cars and trucks and assorted construction equipment aboard the Aniara were still gasoline or diesel powered, which seemed like a colossal waste of resources. But then, if the people of old had been less wasteful, this would still be the port of Bremerhaven rather than an icy desert studded with trapped ships.

Hooking up the batteries to the Aniara’s com system took up most of the next day, but after endless hours of work, the radio finally came to life with a burst of static. Another twenty minutes of fiddling with frequencies and settings, hoping that the batteries would not die on him, and Ryan finally hailed Agadir, northernmost outpost of civilisation in this post-freeze world.

It would still take several days for rescue to arrive, of course. But until then, the Aniara would shelter and feed him just fine.

He’d made it. He was safe at last.

The End

***

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

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Published on January 05, 2020 15:16

January 1, 2020

Happy New Year 2020

First of all, a happy new year to everybody who reads my blog! May 2020 bring you health, happiness and success!

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A potted four-leaf clover and a selection of good luck charm figurines wish you a happy, healthy and successful new year.

Here in Germany, the new year is a little over a day old now and has been mainly cold and foggy so far. I stopped doing the party thing on New Year’s Eve several years ago. These days, I just head out for dinner with my parents, followed by champagne and fireworks at home. Since the Italian restaurant where we used to go for New Year’s Eve closed two years ago, we now go to a local Thai restaurant. It’s always busy on New Year’s Eve, though the patrons are all on the elderly side. I was among the youngest people there (and I’m no spring chicken) except for the staff.

So let’s take a look at the food:

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Tom yum soup

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Crispy chicken with bean sprouts and crispy duck with peanut sauce

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Coconut vegetable curry

The coconut vegetable curry and the peanut sauce dishes (they have several) are always good. I was a bit disappointed by the crispy chicken with bean sprouts – a dish I hadn’t had here before – which was supposed to be spicy, but was just bland.

The dessert, on the other hand, was up to the usual standard.

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Fried banana

After dinner, we went home, whereby the car radio playing party music reminded me that 1990s techno really was the worst kind of pop music ever. I know that disco gets maligned a lot in the US – unfairly, IMO. For while disco may be shallow, the performers were often talented (and the fact that the vast majority of them were either women of colour or gay men of all races has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that disco is maligned in the US. That’s a total coincidence, I’m sure) and a lot of the music is actually very well made, orchestrated and arranged. Take for example, “On the Radio”, written by Giorgio Moroder and sung by Donna Summer, which starts off slow like a power ballad and then suddenly takes off. Or how the instruments kick in one by one in Gloria Gaynor’s version of “Can’t take my eyes off you” (the Boys Town Gang version from 1982 isn’t bad either – just ignore the goofy dancers). Or take the amazing orchestral arrangement of of “Skyhigh” by a band called Jingsaw – even though the video is inaccurate, because there is no way in hell that you can play that song that way with two guitars, a keyboard/organ and a drumset. This – like most disco songs – needs a full orchestra. So in short, there is actually a lot of talent behind many disco songs. Techno, on the other hand, has hardly any redeeming qualities.

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Lucky clover, champagne and glasses

At midnight, we had champagne and then went outside for fireworks. Now welcoming the new year with fireworks has a long tradition in Germany – a tradition that has recently come under fire. Fireworks have long been banned near hospitals, care homes, zoos and buildings with thatched roofs and in recent years, some cities also banned fireworks in areas with historical buildings because of fear of fire and in party zones, because fireworks and crowds of partygoers don’t mix. So far, so uncontroversial.

However, this year some organisations are calling for a complete ban on private fireworks. The initial reasons given were environmental – fireworks release smoke and microparticles, but then other reasons like animal welfare and health and safety were also given. Plus, there is a call – echoed by various charities – that fireworks are a waste of money and that the people should rather donate the money spent on fireworks to charity. One figure that’s often bandied about is that in 2018, 130 million Euros were spent on fireworks in Germany. That sounds like a lot – until you do the calculations and realise that this figure means that every person in Germany spent 1,57 Euros per year on fireworks on average. And 1,57 Euros per person is not a lot of money, especially if you consider that the total figure of 130 million Euros also includes money spent on professional fireworks.

So why are fireworks suddenly so controversial, especially since they are limited to one night of the year – with the occasional firecracker going off a few days before or after? IMO, the underlying reason is just that some people find fireworks annoying, because they are noisy, frivolous and the wrong kind of people (teenagers, immigrants, poor people) are having fun. In recent times, there has been a resurgence of the kind of joyless moralism that dominated the 1980s. And not coincidentally, the “Give to charity rather than buying fireworks” campaign originally also dates from the 1980s. Of course, I find a lot of traditions annoying as well – don’t get me started on Easter fires, which blanket whole areas in smoke at a time of year, when it’s often warm enough that you want to open the windows. But finding something annoying is no reason to ban it. As for the barely veiled racism and classism behind calls for a fireworks ban, the same kind of people who always complain that immigrants are not assimilating are now getting angry when immigrants adopt local traditions.

IMO, a fireworks ban would be a huge mistake, because the people who want to have fireworks will have them. Only that if fireworks are no longer sold in official stores, they will get illegal fireworks via the internet or smuggled in from Eastern Europe. And illegal fireworks are already the reason for the vast majority of fireworks related injuries, which are always cited as an argument for a ban. The legal fireworks sold in stores are safe, unless you are a complete idiot. Plus, the big German fireworks manufacturers like Comet or Weco are actively looking for ways to make fireworks more environmentally friendly. Which doesn’t that some additional regulations wouldn’t help. For example, I would be in favour of banning plastic components, e.g. rocket caps, in fireworks. A law requiring people to pick up the trash after they’ve had a firework or face fines would also be good. But a ban would only be ceding the field to the dirtiest, loudest and most unsafe fireworks out there.

According to a recent poll of questionable provenance, supposedly 57 percent of Germans are in favour of a fireworks ban. I have some issues with this figure, because it does not match my experience at all. In my suburban supermarket, almost every shopping cart contained some fireworks on the morning of New Year’s Eve, including mine. Though I only bought the cheapest set of six rockets for 8.99 Euros at Aldi, which was completely sufficient for my purposes. Meanwhile, in my neighbourhood, the fireworks were as intense as ever, with several neighbours going all out and spending the 1,57 Euros of at least a hundred fireworks haters on lighting up the sky. And yes, there was smoke and a bad smell in the air, made more intense by unfortunate weather conditions. But it’s one night per year.

Finally, the devastating fire at the Krefeld zoo on New Year’s night, which cost the lives of more than thirty animals, including Europe’s oldest gorilla, was caused not by errant fireworks (which are banned near zoos anyway), but by an errant sky lantern, which have been banned in Germany for a while due to their tendency to cause fires. The saddest thing is that I wouldn’t be surprised if the sky lanterns had been intended as a gentler alternative to the suddenly controversial fireworks.

So let’s have some fireworks photos:

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New year’s night fireworks

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This was one of my rockets which exploded into golden sparks.

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Another one of my six rockets is raining golden sparks.

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The night was foggy and the smoke emitted by the fireworks contributed to the fog.

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More foggy fireworks and a street lantern.

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This fireworks battery ignited by my neighbours looks positively otherworldly in the fog.

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Fireworks cast the neighbourhood into a red glow.

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Occasionally, the combination of fireworks and fog had truly surreal, such as this shot of a very Lovecraftian looking tree silhouetted against the fireworks.

Finally, here is a short video compilation of New Year’s Eve fireworks in my neighbourhood:

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Published on January 01, 2020 19:10

December 31, 2019

A handy guide to all SFF-related posts and works of 2019

I never felt comfortable with eligibility posts, but I posted such an overview for the first time in 2016, when someone added my name to the Hugo Nominations Wiki. And since I’ve been doing it for three years now, I decided to make an overview post for 2019 as well.

So if you’re interested in what I write, here is an overview of all SFF related blogposts of 2019, in chronological order, as well as a list of all the SFF fiction I published.

At this blog:

At Galactic Journey:

Building the City of the Future Upon Ruins: A Look at Postwar Architecture in Germany, Europe and the World
Weird Menace and Villainy in the London Fog: The West German Edgar Wallace Movies
The Valley of Creation by Edmond Hamilton in Bad Comic Book Style and Good Comic Book Style (Galactoscope)
The Immortal Supervillain: The Remarakble Forty-Two Year Career of Dr. Mabuse
Leigh Brackett Times Two: The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman (Ace Double M-101)
A Mystery Mastermind Double Feature: The Ringer and The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse
Davy by Edgar Pangborn in Out in Space and Down to Earth (October’s Galactoscope #1)
The State of the Solar Empire: Perry Rhodan in 1964
Message from the Eocene and Three Worlds of Futurity by Margaret St. Clair (Ace Double M-105) in December Galactoscope

Elsewhere:

“Month of Joy: Space Opera and Me” at The Skiffy and Fanty Show.
Introduction to “Of All Possible Worlds” by Rosel George Brown in Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958 – 1963), edited by Gideon Marcus
Interview at the Steamtinkerers Könschnack podcast (in German)
“Aunt Gisela’s Cider-pickled Pumpkin: A Family Recipe from Germany” at The Homepunks.
The Germany part of “Discover The Old Continent: Ninety Remarkable European Speculative Books From The Last Decade” at File 770
I also co-run the Speculative Fiction Showcase , a group blog focussed on indie SFF, and the Indie Crime Scene , a blog focussed on indie mysteries, crime fiction and thrillers.

Fiction (SFF):

The Valley of the Man Vultures (short story)
The Tomb of the Undead Slaves (short story)
The Road of Skeletons (short story)
The Forest of the Hanged (short story)
The Bleak Heath (novelette)
The Cave of the Dragon (short story)
The Night Court (short story)
The Temple of the Snake God (short story)
Mementos and Memories (short story)
Honourable Enemies (short novel)
Christmas after the End of the World (novelette)

Fiction (other genres):

A Valentine for the Silencer (crime novelette)
Santa’s Sticky Fingers (mystery novelette)

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Published on December 31, 2019 20:46

December 30, 2019

Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for December 2019

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

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

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have epic fantasy, urban fantasy, historical fantasy, dark fantasy, paranormal mystery, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, space opera, military science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, Steampunk, lots of holiday books, crime-busting witches, crime-busting cats, crime-busting frogs, demons, the devil himself, ghosts, quests, pirates on the high seas and in space, magical body swaps, Christmas after the end of the world and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Mercy’s Trial by Sever Bronny:

Grasping at a sliver of hope, a group of friends undertake a perilous quest last attempted thousands of years ago . . . a quest to summon dragons.

A ruthless enemy has conquered Augum’s kingdom. Sheltered beneath a protective dome, the Academy of Arcane Arts stands as the sole remaining stronghold.

And Augum and his friends are about to abandon it.

Little does he know escaping will be the easy part, for a harrowing adventure awaits. Along the way, he’ll have to evade an enemy that always seems one step ahead—while dealing with an ally questioning his leadership.

But his greatest challenge?

Learning when to show mercy . . . and when to drive in the sword.

Christmas after the End of the World by Cora Buhlert

It’s Christmas… five months after the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted, blacked out the sun and covered most of the western US in ash.

Thirteen-year-old Natalie, her younger brother Liam, baby Olivia and family dog Bud are among the few still holding out in the evacuation zone.

Day to day survival is hard enough, but Natalie is determined to give Liam and Olivia an unforgettable Christmas… after the end of the world.

And who knows, maybe they’ll even get a true Christmas miracle…

This is a post-apocalyptic holiday novelette of 10000 words or approx. 35 print pages.

Frosted Croakies by Sam Cheever:

’Tis the season for great folly…walawalawalawalala…ribbit.

It’s Christmas time at Croakies. The tree is up. The stockings are hung. And Christmas tunes are turning the atmosphere jolly. After a tumultuous Samhain, I’ve found my chi again and I’m starting to enjoy the season of love and giving.

Yeah. You probably know how this is going to end.

When Sebille suggests I open the bookstore up to a small holiday party, I foolishly agree. How was I supposed to know that the hobgoblin would decide it would be fun to hide everybody’s stuff? Or that we’d be hit with a freak winter storm that confined everybody inside for the duration. Or that a “You’re me but who am I?” spell would be released inside the shop, switching everybody’s identities and creating general chaos and hysteria?

I could probably deal with all that if it weren’t for the fact that my friend, Lea…the one person who could possibly reverse the spell…was ensconced in SB the parrot, with no opposable thumbs for spelling.

And me? Of course, I’m sitting fat and squishy inside Mr. Slimy. Thank goodness Rustin isn’t currently in residence, or it would be really crowded in here.

Who spelled my party? What do a pair of Santa’s elves have to do with it? And why have old enemies suddenly become new friends? I apparently have a little holiday mystery to solve inside Croakies, and I have no idea how I’m going to solve it with everybody mixed up and some of us human.

Have I told you I hate this season?

Ribbit!

Race Across Spacetime by M.D. Cooper:

The Alliance has suffered an unimaginable loss: Tangel is dead.

The crew of the I2 struggles to carry on, dealing with the impending occupation of New Sol and surrender of the Orion Freedom Alliance. But Bob harbors a suspicion, a kernel of hope, and sends the Falconer in search of additional survivors.

Back at Star City, Finaeus and Earnest reel at the news that Tangel died to save her family and people—until they are visited by a mysterious AI from the past who presents them with a way forward.

Now the race is on. Sera chases after a Caretaker ship headed to the galactic core while Finaeus and Earnest travel beyond the galaxy to save a future Bob can no longer see.

Only time will tell if they can forge a new path forward.

Best Friends by Laurann Dohner:

Working together has forged a strong friendship between Melinda York and Mary Muller. So much so, they’re more like sisters. When two men burst into their diner with murder on their minds, Mel doesn’t hesitate to act. She’ll do anything to protect her friend, as well as their New Species customers…especially the one she’s been crushing on for months.

A single act of bravery sparks a series of events that result in Snow getting to know the waitress he’s been obsessively thinking about. He just wants to keep Mel safe. And convince her he’s the male for her.

Mary is the brunt of jokes because of her extreme fear of animals. Phobias aren’t funny. Is she the only one who understands that? When Mel’s actions link them both to New Species, she’d like to hide from those scary men with fangs. That would make her a crappy best friend, though. She’ll try to be brave…right up until the moment she comes face to face with a lion man named Lash. He’ll make her confront her fears in the most unexpected ways possible.

Star Rage by M.R. Forbes:

Events on Naraka leave Grayson exhausted but hopeful. The invaders may not be as unstoppable as he thought, and the entire weight of the Alliance is about to enter the fray. Rejoining the Navy should bring closure to his ordeal and allow him to return to his life as a pilot.

Except his mesh partner is still stranded on a freezing planet.

Except his past refuses to let go of his future.

Except the man he trusted to rally the defenses may have sabotaged them instead.

Humankind is on the verge of extinction, and if Grayson is going to stop it, he’ll have to outmaneuver opposition from every side of the equation.

Otherwise, there will be nothing left.

Angels and Amulets by Nicole Grotepas:

If there’s a way to spoil something, the villains of the 6 Moons will find it.

There’s no rest for the weary. Just when Holly Drake takes a break from searching for more information about her father, a Christmas-related heirloom vanishes. Sure, it’s Christmas on the 6-Moons, but Holly can’t relax. Neither can her team.

Fate forces them to give up their cozy fires, mulled drinks, and holiday feasts to race across the harsh volcanic terrain of the planet Kota to win back the prize before it’s destroyed. If they can’t save the heirloom, the already strained diplomatic relations between humans and the Centau will snap.

If they don’t save Christmas, who will?

Angels and Amulets is a Christmas novella set in the 6 Moons universe.

The Hexorcist by Lily Haper Hart:

Ofelia Archer has a full life … which only gets fuller when a dead body lands in her backyard.

As owner of New Orleans’ premier supernatural speakeasy, Ofelia is always in the thick of things when the witch hits the fan. That’s no exception now … even when the local police start breathing down her neck.

Zach Sully has a colorful background. As a panther shifter, he keeps his true origins secret while walking the colorful streets of the French Quarter keeping law and order. A tourist murder draws him into new and uncharted territory, and a feisty witch is at the center of it.

Sully and Ofelia circle one another … warily … as they both try to solve a mystery that revolves around an outsider who somehow had ties to their little corner of the world. Eventually, they’re going to have to join forces … and it’s not exactly a comfortable meeting of the minds.

Chemistry is one thing. Trust is another. Ofelia and Sully will be forced to get over their inner misgivings and unite if they want to solve the crime … and stay alive in the process.

Welcome to a magical world, where the characters are colorful, the magic is fantastical, and the drinks are poured strong.

It’s Bourbon Street, baby, and you’ll never be the same again.

Well of Magic by B.R. Kingsolver:

I never expected to see a mage battle on national TV.

When the ley lines—the orderly rivers of magical energy that circle the globe—went wild, chaos ensued.

Magic hid in the shadows for hundreds of years, but then a secret order took control of one of the world’s largest religions. Their goal is to rule the world, and the first step is to control the ley lines and magic users.

I didn’t escape the Illuminati just to become a slave to the Knights Magica. If they want me, they’re going to have a fight on their hands.

The Incubus Impasse by Amanda M. Lee:

Charlie Rhodes is at a crossroads in her life. Her big secret is out – at least with the most important person in her life Jack Hanson – and now they have to deal with a whole new reality.

Things are going relatively well when the Legacy Foundation is sent on a mission to Charleston. It seems women are dying under strange circumstances: open windows, no immediate sign of violence, locked doors. The leader of their group is convinced it’s an incubus, and even though he was the chief naysayer before, Jack has no idea what to believe given the reality of his magical girlfriend.

It’s a new world and Charlie is excited to embrace it. Jack wants to keep her close while exploring her abilities. They make a fearsome twosome … although there’s danger at every turn.

It seems Charlie resembles the dead women, and even though local police thought they had nothing in common … it seems they actually did. They were bucking for a reality television show and it appears someone in that business may be a murderer.

Charleston is a new environment and Charlie and Jack are embracing a brand new world. Things are going to be fine … as long as they live to tell the tale.

A murderer is stalking Charleston, death is close, and only Charlie can save the day. She’s going to need those closest to her to do it. Luckily, they’re up for the challenge.

Junkyard Pirate by Jamie MacFarlane:

Knocking at death’s door. Bargaining for a second chance. Seems like a heck of a way to find out about an alien invasion…

Vietnam vet Albert Jenkins is battling a bulging waistline and a passion for drink. So when a towering pile of scrap rocket parts falls and crushes the stubborn curmudgeon, he thinks it’s finally the end. But just as he’s about to take one final breath, a snarky alien parasite offers him a deal: his life in return for sharing his body.

With a little coaxing from his new pop-culture-loving inner resident, AJ’s broken carcass improves so much that even an old flame is impressed. But his bright outlook fizzles when he discovers he’s at ground zero of a galactic conspiracy to strip Earth of precious resources humans don’t even know exist.

Can the unlikely partners join forces and use AJ’s rusty military skills to raise the alarm? Or, will the alien invaders put him down once and for all?

Junkyard Pirate is the first book in an imaginative space opera series. If you like grizzled soldiers, clever twists and turns, and intergalactic tactical pairings, then you’ll love Jamie McFarlane’s fast-paced alien adventure.

Scent of Revenge by Mina Maia:

Tamsin has a score to settle and she isn’t waiting any longer…

An elite combatant and tracker, Tamsin’s life is one built upon the ashes of her former one. However, she has unfinished business, the kind that an oath of revenge won’t let her forget.

It means she has to return to Vectis, a planet where she is considered less than human. Where she left behind a man who has probably forgotten all about her now.

Tamsin must fulfill her destiny, right past wrongs and possibly find closure all at the same time.

SCENT OF REVENGE is a science fiction romance novella with a medium heat level and an MF HEA.

Emperor’s Throne by Shannon Meyer:

Three against one is not the best odds in any fight.

But does she dare gamble on making an enemy into an ally?

There might be no rest for the wicked, but there’s no rest for the exhausted either. We’ve barely survived one fight, and we have another blade at our throats-strike that, three blades.

I can see only one possible chance at surviving the three evils we face, no matter how much I might hate it.

I have to make my peace with one of them and pray that they will help me take down the other two before we turn on each other.

The only question is…who do I trust not only my life but with the life of my family? Because I have all those I love the best at my side.

Maks.

Lila.

Bryce.

Or do I leave them, and take the danger with me to face it all on my own?

One thing is for sure…even if I go down, it’ll be swinging with everything I have.

Charmed, I’m Sure by Christine Pope:

Is their love the perfect Christmas gift…or a curse?

Allan D’Alessandro thought he had his ticket out of Hell secured. Until his alleged “soul mate” bailed, leaving him only three weeks — three weeks — to lose his heart and be loved in return. For real. Or for real he can kiss the Hollywood glamor, the hilltop house, the Tesla roadster goodbye. And say hello to his old job as Asmodeus, object of his fellow demons’ eternal derision.

But there’s that aquamarine-eyed wedding planner who pulled off Lucifer’s nuptials without a hitch. She’s all about romance, right? Wooing her should be a piece of cake. Wedding cake, if he plays his cards right.

Belinda Carson has had to get used to letting men walk out of her life. She has no choice — any man who falls in love with a Carson witch is guaranteed a gruesome fate. So she uses her magic to create perfect weddings…just not her own.

But surely there’s no harm in indulging in a harmless holiday fling with the sandy-haired Hollywood agent whose megawatt smile lights up her world. After New Year’s, they’ll go their separate ways. They’ve agreed. It’s all set.

Except he’s dismantled all her defenses. And this time, her heart isn’t letting go….

The Lady of Kingdoms by Suzannah Rowntree:

Magic made her a warrior.

Justice will make her a legend.

Jerusalem, 1180: A catastrophe destroyed Marta Bessarion’s family and whisked her away from everything she once knew. Now, armed with a magic spear and a burning thirst for justice, Marta vows to protect her new home and family, no matter the cost.

But trouble is brewing in the glittering palaces of Jerusalem…

The young Leper King, Baldwin, is dying. Before he goes, Baldwin must choose a successor…but every choice is a bad one. An innocent child, exploited by stronger men? A crafty cousin who has already tried to snatch the crown? Or his brilliant, passionate sister who is determined to rule – even if it triggers a war?

When enemy armies muster on the kingdom’s borders, Marta charges into battle. But when Baldwin’s choice puts her newfound family at risk, Marta finds herself fighting a new kind of battle – one in which intrigue, deception, and betrayal are the weapons.

To save the kingdom, she’ll need more than a magic spear to destroy its enemies.

She’ll need a saint to save its soul.

[image error] Stemming the Tide by Rosie Scott:

They may have lost their ship and cargo after audaciously challenging the pirates that rule the sea, but Calder Cerberius, Koby Bacia, and their crew of misfits refuse to surrender. The pirate leader’s right-hand man, Cale Woodburn, plans to establish a stranglehold in the wildlands and steal its precious local resource: ferris, the herbal drug shapeshifting beastmen rely on to prevent the agony of transformations from breaking their minds. Calder and Koby’s crew pursue Cale across the seas to regain control of the lucrative ferris trade and save the wildlands from ruin.

Indigenous tribes of beastmen rise up to defend their homeland. Shapeshifters on both sides transform into beasts of the land, sea, and sky to brawl to the death. A run-in with an ancient sea creature of apocalyptic size gives Calder the idea to spark a massive rebellion against the pirates using dangerous and unconventional means, but other mercenaries will only agree to come to his aid once he defeats the deranged Cale Woodburn and restores peace to the wildlands. When Calder finally catches up with Cale, two mentally unstable captains will clash in beast form until only one emerges the victor from a pool of blood.

All I Want for Christmas is Wicked by Lotta Smith:

Trees decorated, stockings full of presents, and another case to crack!

The Rowling family is gearing up for another Merry Christmas, and Mandy has her hands full with holiday prep, but how can she get into the spirit of the season when the victim in her latest case isn’t a ghost?

Twenty years ago, during a Christmas Eve blackout, Kevin Holt, the husband of a rich heiress, lost his memory in a fall down the stairs of their mansion. Now he’s discovered evidence that someone might have been trying to kill him, and all he wants for Christmas is to find out who. Since the resident ghost of the Holt house didn’t witness the attack, Rick and Mandy will have to rely on old fashioned sleuthing (and a little help from Mandy’s paranormal pal Jackie) to find out which of the four suspects is the culprit.

Meanwhile Rick has been saddled with novice investigator Cameron Gibson (call him Ace!) the son of one of USCAB’s wealthiest clients. Ace is trying to catch the creep stalking a New York City fashion model, but despite wanting Mandy to mentor him, one ghostly encounter has him seriously spooked.

A run in with a biker ghost and dancers in danger complicate the case, but the big question on Mandy’s mind is why does little Sophie want a bear trap for Christmas? Find out in this wickedly merry holiday installment of the Paranormal in Manhattan Mystery Series.

Crusade by Glynn Stewart:

A newborn Alliance, forged to stop the destroyers of worlds

A potential ally, with secrets hidden by a thousand lies

A long-doomed star, whose ruins hold a vital answer

Isaac Lestroud, Admiral of the Exilium Space Fleet, has spent the last three years working with Ambassador Amelie Lestroud to build an alliance against the Rogue Matrices, AIs bent on converting every world into a paradise—regardless of whether anyone lives on it.

As Isaac hunts the Rogue that destroyed one of their allies’ homeworlds, Amelie begins negotiations with a potential new ally that could tip the balance. The Governance is a power to rival the human homeworlds the Lestrouds were exiled from—but like those homeworlds, not all is as it seems.

And far from the war, Octavio Catalan leads an expedition into the shattered wreckage of the home system of the Matrices’ builders. Among those dead worlds, he hopes to find the answer to the question that haunts the survivors of that race: why did their AIs go genocidally insane?

The Black Hole by James David Victor:

It turns out pirates might not have been the biggest scourge on the galaxy after all.

The pirate lord Parallax was defeated and his flag ship, the Black Hole, was utterly destroyed. This should have ushered in an era of galactic peace. Instead, a far worse conflict between the Federation Navy and the Byers Clan has torn the galaxy apart. Those that are left must find a way to fight on and save the galaxy from something far worse than space pirates. Can a new batch of hero’s step up and save the galaxy or will the remnants of the pirate lords reassert their control of a galaxy at war?

The Black Hole is the fifth book in the exciting Deep Black space opera. If you like fast-paced space adventure, rogue pirates, and stories more complex than good vs. evil, you are going to love your visit to the Deep Black.

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Published on December 30, 2019 15:05

December 29, 2019

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for December 2019

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

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

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have plenty of cozy mysteries, small town mysteries, animal mysteries, historical mysteries, 1940s mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, humorous thrillers, police procedurals, romantic suspense, noir, private investigators, amateur sleuths, serial killers, kidnappers, missing persons, cold cases, robberies, organised crime, motorcycle gangs, crime-busting witches, crime-busting wedding planners, crime-busting cats, crime-busting frogs, thieving Santas, crime and murder in New Orleans, Charleston, Memphis, Philadelphia, Manhattan, the Bronx, London, Northumberland, the Caribbean and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

A Simple Country Deception by Blythe Baker:

The violent death of a friend plunges Helen Lightholder into another case of danger and deceit as she struggles to unravel the truth behind the grisly killing. With her own past continuing to haunt her, Helen works to uncover the ultimate answer behind the mystery that has plagued her since the beginning.

Return to the quaint – and deadly – village of Brookminster a final time for the dramatic conclusion to Helen’s adventures.

Mustang Sally by Blake Banner:

The cops at the 43rd called it the unsolvable case.

October, 2010, Sally Jones had been stabbed in the heart in her apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, in the Bronx. Her coat was on the back of her chair. Her shoes were beside her bed, her clothes were neatly folded, and she was dead under the sheets.

The killer had removed Sally’s hands and feet and departed, leaving no trace – except the dismembered body.

October, 2019, as the national media focuses on the 43rd’s unbroken record in cold cases, Detective John Stone, head the unit, decides to tackle the case.

But he and Dehan are soon to discover that this is a case like no other: who were the visitors who came to see her before her death? What was their connection with the shadowy Sacred Brotherhood of Christ? And did her brother, Captain Ewan Jones, seek to help her – or murder her? It soon begins to look like this is indeed the case they will never crack.

And what, Dehan wants to know, happened to the Mustang?

[image error] Santa’s Sticky Fingers by Cora Buhlert:

Normally, Detective Inspector Helen Shepherd doesn’t deal with petty crime and pickpockets. But when the Christmas market in Kingston upon Thames is hit by a wave of thefts, Helen and her team are called in to help out.

Harry, a homeless man who always hangs around the market, seems to be the most obvious suspect. But there is also the mysterious man in the black leather jacket some witnesses claim to have seen. Or maybe, the thief can be found much closer to home…

Can Helen and her team crack the case in time for Christmas?

This is a holiday novelette of 7800 words or approx. 26 print pages in the Helen Shepherd Mysteries series, but may be read as a standalone.

Frosted Croakies by Sam Cheever:

’Tis the season for great folly…walawalawalawalala…ribbit.

Yeah. You probably know how this is going to end.

And me? Of course, I’m sitting fat and squishy inside Mr. Slimy. Thank goodness Rustin isn’t currently in residence, or it would be really crowded in here.

Have I told you I hate this season?

Ribbit!

Lady in Red by Stacy Claflin:

She appears only at night. Watching. Waiting…

When local children begin to vanish, Officer Alex Mercer is positive the cases are tied to recent threats against his family—especially since the first girl to go missing is his best friend’s daughter.

It all ties back to Alex. He’s sure of it.

The only solid link to the missing kids is a mysterious woman in a red dress. But that isn’t enough to go on, and Alex has orders to focus on another case. As if that will stop him.

He stumbles upon something so chilling, it finally provides the proof that he was right all along—the kidnappings are part of an elaborate worldwide scheme. And he and his family have landed on the bad guys’ radar.

Alex will stop at nothing to take down the dangerous criminal empire… if they don’t end him first.

In Plain Sight by Adam Croft:

A trail of death. A web of corruption. The ultimate betrayal.

A series of armed robberies on local petrol stations leaves Mildenheath CID chasing their tails. But things are about to get a whole lot worse.

When an elderly woman is killed during an armed raid on her jewellery shop, Knight and Culverhouse realise one of their own is involved — a police officer.

With the future of Mildenheath CID at stake and the lives of their loved ones under threat, time is running out — fast.

As they begin to investigate the web of corruption, they discover just how deep it runs — and how close to home. But are they prepared for the truth?

Jocelyn’s War by Jason Ryan Dale:

There’s a war in the streets. The vicious Ghost Knights biker gang, suddenly flush with cash and guns, is challenging the Mob for control of the city. No one is safe as bodies fall and houses go up in flames.

Danny Rinker is a young Mob soldier, but he’s keeping his distance from the fighting. Encouraged by Jocelyn, his new girlfriend, Danny spends his days in the local bar he finally owns after years of struggling. While his friends are out making names for themselves, Danny finds in the velvety touch of Jocelyn’s lips all the action he’ll ever need.

From a chance encounter, Danny learns a secret that goes to the heart of the Ghost Knights’ newfound power. If he can unravel a twenty-year-old mystery, Danny will be the one who takes the bikers down once and for all.

But Jocelyn is not all she appears. She knows things about this war that her lover can’t even imagine. Danny is about to discover that Jocelyn is a warrior, and even if it breaks her heart, she will carry on her fight to the end.

Claus for Celebration by Laura Durham:

Wedding disasters are one thing. A missing Santa (who is presumed dead) is quite another.

This is no normal holiday season for DC’s top wedding planners. Not only is the weather too warm for their winter wonderland wedding, but their neighborhood’s singing Santa, Kris Kringle Jingle, is missing. On top of that, Annabelle’s engagement party is looming, and someone seems to be sabotaging their wedding plans. Can the Wedding Belles and their colorful crew find Santa, save the wedding, and stop the person who’s trying to make their lives a holly, jolly catastrophe?

Claus for Celebration is the 15th standalone book in the hilarious Annabelle Archer Wedding Planner Mystery series. If you like larger-than-life characters, madcap capers, and an insider’s look at glamorous society weddings, then you’ll love Laura Durham’s award-winning cozy mystery series.

Buy now to cozy up to this funny, festive holiday mystery today!

The Hexorcist by Lily Haper Hart:

Ofelia Archer has a full life … which only gets fuller when a dead body lands in her backyard.

Chemistry is one thing. Trust is another. Ofelia and Sully will be forced to get over their inner misgivings and unite if they want to solve the crime … and stay alive in the process.

Welcome to a magical world, where the characters are colorful, the magic is fantastical, and the drinks are poured strong.

It’s Bourbon Street, baby, and you’ll never be the same again.

The Incubus Impasse by Amanda M. Lee:

Charlie Rhodes is at a crossroads in her life. Her big secret is out – at least with the most important person in her life Jack Hanson – and now they have to deal with a whole new reality.

It’s a new world and Charlie is excited to embrace it. Jack wants to keep her close while exploring her abilities. They make a fearsome twosome … although there’s danger at every turn.

Charleston is a new environment and Charlie and Jack are embracing a brand new world. Things are going to be fine … as long as they live to tell the tale.

A murderer is stalking Charleston, death is close, and only Charlie can save the day. She’s going to need those closest to her to do it. Luckily, they’re up for the challenge.

Golgotha by Guy Portman:

You can’t keep a good sociopath down.

Dyson Devereux is languishing in prison awaiting trial for murder. Languishing wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the irksome inmates, crowded conditions and distinct lack of haute cuisine.

Only Alegra, his sometime paramour and frequent visitor, shares his desire to see him released. The problem is, she wants Dyson freed so they can start a new life together. But all Dyson desires is to get back home to his treasured mementos.

As judgement day draws ever closer, can Dyson keep up appearances long enough to win his freedom? And at what cost? For hell hath no fury like a sociopath scorned.

Golgotha is a funny, fast-paced crime comedy novel, boasting a sardonic and sinister sociopath at its helm.

Ryan’s Christmas by L.J. Ross:

Christmas can be murder…

After a busy year fighting crime, DCI Ryan and his team of murder detectives are enjoying a festive season of goodwill, mulled wine and, in the case of DS Phillips, a stottie cake or two—that is, until a freak snowstorm forces their car off the main road and into the remote heart of Northumberland. Their Christmas spirit is soon tested when they’re forced to find shelter inside England’s most haunted castle, where they’re the uninvited guests at a ‘Candlelit Ghost Hunt’. It’s all fun and games—until one of the guests is murdered. It seems no mortal hand could have committed the crime, so Ryan and Co. must face the spectres living inside the castle walls to uncover the grisly truth, before another ghost joins their number…

Murder and mystery are peppered with romance and humour in this fast-paced crime whodunnit set amidst the spectacular Northumbrian landscape.

All I Want for Christmas is Wicked by Lotta Smith:

Trees decorated, stockings full of presents, and another case to crack!

Chilly Comforts and Disasters by Anne R. Tan:

Raina Sun is newly married and enjoying her role as the police station’s unofficial pastry chef. When her husband bought a dilapidated old house on a steal, they are thrown into a whirlwind of construction activities with well-meaning relatives coming into town, permitting issues, and a dead body behind the drywall of the attic.

With all construction activities at a standstill and her husband working overtime to help with the cash flow, Raina must solve this cold case to get her life back on track. With the help of the geriatric Posse Club, will Raina find this hidden killer after all this time or will she become the next victim?

When Raja Met Vinny by Jack Thompson:

Who says oil and water don’t mix?

Before Vinny, Raja worked solo. His unique connection to people and his intuitive brilliance was all he needed to solve crimes. Having a partner never crossed his mind. When he met Vinny that changed.

The death of a prominent banker takes Oxford-educated private investigator Raja Williams on a case to his home turf, the Caribbean. Vinny Moore, a hipster hacker who got caught with her hand in the government’s cookie jar, is pressed into service helping a CIA task force stop a prolific cocaine smuggling operation in the Caribbean.

When the two cases cross, Raja and Vinny meet with explosive results. They are as different as night and day, but together they form a powerfully effective crime-fighting team.

Dateline Memphis by LynDee Walker:

Crime reporter Nichelle Clarke heads home for the holidays…and learns that crime doesn’t take a day off.

Nichelle detours to Graceland in search of an Elvis Presley souvenir for her mother.

But when a valuable piece of memorabilia goes missing, the historic mansion descends into chaos.

With security swooping in and Graceland on lockdown, Nichelle finds herself shut in with staff, security guards, and Elvis superfans, all in the midst of an unfolding crime. Never one to miss an exclusive scoop, Nichelle whips out her notebook and starts reporting.

Locked behind the famous Graceland gates, Nichelle must work through a long list of suspects with no time to lose. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she finds herself in.

The house of the King offers many clues, but will Nichelle be able to connect the dots in time to save a piece of history…and herself?

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Published on December 29, 2019 15:06

The 2019 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents

It’s almost the end of the year, so it’s time to announce the winner of the coveted (not) 2019 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

Let’s have a bit of background: I have been informally awarding the Darth Vader Parenthood Award since sometime in the 1980s with the earliest awards being retroactive. Over the years, the list of winners migrated from a handwritten page via various computer file formats, updated every year. Last year, I finally decided to make the winners public on the Internet, because what’s an award without some publicity and a ceremony? The list of previous winners (in PDF format) up to 2017 may be found here, BTW, and the 2018 winner was announced here.

In 2017 and 2018, a clear frontrunner emerged early on. 2019 was different, because there were several likely and unlikely candidates.

Warning: Spoilers for several of things including The Rise of Skywalker behind the cut:

Initially, I thought that Thanos, everybody’s least favourite purple murder eggplant, would become the second triple winner after Tywin Lannister. However, since most of Thanos’ appearances in Avengers: Endgame are in the past via time travel, he doesn’t really qualify for this year’s award, especially since the competition is strong.

For a while, it seemed as if Sarek of Vulcan and Amanda Grayson from Star Trek Discovery would finally rise above honourable mention status, which Sarek won in 2017. However, while Sarek and Amanda will never win a Parent of the Year Award (which this year would go to The Mandalorian anyway, about whose adventures and parenting skills I’ll have more to say in the new year), they are inept rather than actively malicious. Which in a year with strong competition just doesn’t cut it.

Another candidate emerged in Dr. George Hodel from Patty Jenkins’ retro crime drama I Am the Night. Now Dr. George Hodel is a horrible parent and horrible person in general. In the show, he raped and impregnated his teenaged daughter and later tried to rape and murder his granddaughter, who also is his daughter. Oh yes, and he also murdered Elizabeth Short a.k.a. the Black Dahlia. That should be enough to qualify anybody for the award. There is only one problem. Dr. George Hodel is not fictional, even though I Am the Night is a fictionalised version of the story of his granddaughter and quite a few things in the show did not happen. And while the real Dr. George Hodel seems to have been a horrible person, the Darth Vader Parenthood Award is still for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

Mrs. Coulter from His Dark Materials would have been another likely candidate, but while she is undoubtedly awful, she is also a previous winner for Philip Pullman’s novels and a TV adaptation of the same story does not requalify her.

Late in the year, an unexpected eleventh hour candidate emerged with Sheev Palpatine. Now Sheev Palpatine was doubly unexpected, because a) we all thought he was dead and b) until recently no one knew that he was a parent. For more about why Sheev Palpatine qualifies, read my postmortem on The Rise of Skywalker and the Star Wars series in general. But while Sheev Palpatine is a horrible person and likely was a horrible parent, he still does not join his former apprentice double winner Anakin Skywalker a.k.a. Darth Vader in the ranks of the winners of the award named after Vader. Why? Because while we strongly suspect that Sheev Palpatine was a horrible parent, we see hardly anything of what he did. So it’s No Award for Sheev Palpatine.

And now we come to our 2019 Honourable Mention, which goes to…

Drumroll

Marilyn Batson

As played by actress Caroline Palmer in the movie Shazam!, Marilyn is the mother of superhero to be Billy Batson a.k.a. Shazam a.k.a. Captain Marvel. Marilyn was only seventeen, when she had Billy. She broke up with his criminal father soon thereafter and was overwhelmed as a teenaged single mother, for which I have sympathy.

However, I have no sympathy for what happened next. For when Billy was about three or four, he was separated from Marilyn at a crowded Christmas market. This isn’t exactly a rare occurrence during the crowded holiday season. And so police officers took care of little Billy and waited for his Mom to pick him up.

But Marilyn never picked up her son and decided that he’d be better of without her. She did not decide to put Billy up for adoption or ask someone for help with her difficult situation, she just dumped him and went her merry way. Billy was not consulted and spends the next ten years running away from foster homes, desperately looking for his mother. He finally finds her living in the same city and seeks her out, only to find that Marilyn not only never looked for him, but that she is still not interested in him and won’t even ask him in. And it is this behaviour that earns her an honourable mention.

And now, we come to the grand prize. The 2019 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fiction Parents goes to…

Drumroll

Ferona Blue

“Ferona Who?” many/most of you will ask, because Ferona is definitely one of the more obscure winners we’ve had.

Ferona is the mother of Jinnifer Blue, protagonist of the space opera novels Blue Shift and Deep Blue by Jane O’Reilly. Ferona is a career politician on an environmentally devastated and socially divided Earth of the future. Over the course of the two novels of the Second Species Trilogy to date (a third is coming next year), Ferona rises from Secretary of Alien Affairs to Earth’s representative in the Galactic Senate via murder, backstabbing and deceit. Ferona is also responsible for conducting illegal medical experiments on poor people and selling humans (again only the poor) as slaves to aliens in return for various favours.

As a parent, Ferona systemically neglected her daughter Jinnifer and subjected her to all sorts of psychological adjustment therapies, which amounted to torture. Jinnifer finally ran away at eighteen to become a space pilot. Ferona explosively re-entered her daughter’s life some twenty years later, by first having her arrested on trumped up charges and dumped aboard a prison ship. And then, when Jinn confronts her mother, Ferona has her own daughter potentially fatally shot and threatens to withhold medical aid to blackmail Jinn’s space pirate lover into surrendering. She also subjects Jinn to potentially fatal genetic manipulation and sells Jinn’s lover off as a slave.

That sort of villainy deserves a reward and so I delcare Ferona Blue the winner of the 2019 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

As for why a character from two books that came out in 2017 and 2018 wins an award in 2019, I was not aware of Jane O’Reilly’s Second Species Trilogy, until I picked up the books on a whim from the dealer’s room at WorldCon this year.

Marilyn Batson declined to pick up her award in person, claiming that she would be late for her shift at a local diner and besides, her current partner would not like it.

Ferona Blue appeared in a striking gown to pick up her award and launched into an acceptance speech to justify her actions, which significantly overran the ninety second limit, so we had to switch off her microphone.

Next year, I will award the 4oth Darth Vader Parenthood Award. Who will win? You’ll find out in this space.

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Published on December 29, 2019 13:19

December 28, 2019

The End of a Saga: The Rise of Skywalker

So the Star Wars saga has finally come to an end of 42 years. Of course, we thought that Star Wars had ended twice before, in 1983 and 2005 respectively. So is The Rise of Skywalker really the end of the Star Wars saga? Most likely not. But it still marks the end of a significant chapter and is very likely the last time we will see the protagonists of the original trilogy.

Spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker and Star Wars in general.

Now the original Star Wars trilogy are my favourite movies of all time and have been, ever since I first watched them as a kid. They remained my favourites when teachers at school berated me for liking “that violent and proto-fascist American trash”. They remained my favourites through university when my fellow students would roll their eyes at my choice and then name whatever movies they thought would make them look enlightened and cultured (My Left Foot is the one I remember clearly, because the person who called it their favourite was so clearly trying to impress the professor). They remained my favourites when some elderly neighbour or relative asks me why I can’t watch “normal movies” like everybody else (apparently, some of the highest grossing movies of all time are not normal).

The original movies do have their share of flaws. There are scenes that go on way too long and others, which are glossed over too quickly. There is a notable lack of racial diversity in the cast – not uncommon for movies in the 1970s/80s – and there is an even more notable lack of women not named Leia, which was uncommon even in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the whole is somehow greater than the sum of their parts and even forty years on, the original trilogy manages to be the rare case of an almost perfect spectacle.

As for the prequel trilogy, I don’t hate them as much as some others do, but I don’t love them either. There are things to like about the prequels. The visuals are gorgeous, they flesh out the Star Wars universe and its politics in a way the original trilogy didn’t, they turn R2-D2 into a much more important character than he originally was (R2 is the only one who knows what’s going on) and the prequels made me like Obi-Wan, a character I didn’t particularly like in the original trilogy, because here was the grumpy grandfather from the 1980 version of Little Lord Fauntleroy (which is a Christmas classic in Germany) being grumpy some more and never softening like in Little Lord Fauntleroy, but basically lying to Luke and everybody else. Of course, Yoda lies as well, but we forgive Yoda, because he is cute.

But in general, where the original trilogy was magic, the prequels are just movies and not all that great ones at that. They are also hampered by the fact that pretty much everybody already had a mental vision of the events depicted in the prequels and the prequels naturally didn’t match any of our visions. The fact that they end on a real downer (whereas the original and sequel trilogy save the downer ending for the middle installment) doesn’t help either. The prequels also change the dynamic of the whole saga. Back when the prequels first came out, I wrote on an earlier version of this blog that while for our generation, the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke’s father was the big shock, for those who’s come after us and would watch the movies in chronological rather then production order, Anakin falling for the dark side would be the big shock, whereas Darth Vader being Luke’s Dad would be something viewers knew all along. And indeed, there is something of a debate whether to show the Star Wars trilogy in chronological or production order to people watching them for the first time, because the decision effects very much how you’ll view the films. Never mind that if you watch the movies in chronological order, you’ll start of with the weakest movies bar Solo (while production order starts out with one of the strongest) and will also get the double whammy of downers with Rogue One following Revenge of the Sith.

As for the sequel trilogy, my feelings are mixed. As movies and entertainment, they are much better than the prequel trilogy, though not quite up to the standards of the originals. But when Disney bought Lucasfilm and the sequel trilogy was first announced, my initial reaction was, “That story has been told. We don’t need any sequels, let alone sequels not written/overseen by the original creator George Lucas.”

I eventually came around and watched the sequel trilogy (and Rogue One) and largely enjoyed them with a few caveats. Viewed purely on their own, the sequels work. They’re highly enjoyable movies with fine actors playing likeable and diverse characters (and characters we like to hate), engaging action and great visuals, telling a suitably epic story. However, when viewed in the context of the whole Star Wars saga, they also undermine the original trilogy and make the victory at the end of Return of the Jedi seem hollow. Because by the end of Return of the Jedi, I at least thought that this universe would be all right, that the rebels would rebuild a democratic system and rebuild it better than before and that the various characters we’d become attached to would live largely happy lives. Okay, so I was a kid when I first watched the movie and naive, but Return of the Jedi still ends on a hopeful note.

The sequels on the other hand tell us that the New Republic never really worked out (and is unceremoniously destroyed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene). Worse, our heroes – the characters we spent three movies rooting for – turned out to be complete and utter failures. Han and Leia’s relationship, one of science fiction’s greatest love stories, didn’t work out, they split up and turned out to be inept parents, too, who lost their kid to the Dark Side. And Luke Skywalker turned out to be a complete and utter failure as a Jedi and a total arse besides, who tried to kill his own nephew, driving him to the Dark Side, and then spent twenty years or so hiding away on a rock in the middle of nowhere, never washing his hair. Oh yes, and he also likely died a virgin, still unhappily in love with his sister. In fact, when I first watched The Last Jedi with my Mom, her reaction to grumpy old Luke was, “What an arsehole!” Honestly, these are awful fates for some of our favourite characters. They lived miserable lives and died miserable deaths – with the possible exception of Leia who was always the most competent one. Even the Expanded/Legends Universe gave these characters more of a shot at happiness.

Considering that all of the original cast except for those actors like Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness who had already been old when the first movie came out were still alive when The Force Awakens was made, I understand the decision to set the movie approx. thirty years after the originals and use the original cast. But from a narrative point of view, The Force Awakens would have worked better, if it had been set one hundred rather than thirty years after Return of the Jedi and Kylo Ren would have been Darth Vader’s great-great-grandson rather than grandson. For example, Simon R. Green deliberately set his second Deathstalker trilogy about two hundred years after the first, starring distant maybe descendants of the original characters, to avoid undermining a series which a) was always more clear-eyed about how revolutions really work out than Star Wars ever was, and b) killed off most of the characters we really cared about in the final book of the original series anyway.

The prequel trilogy shows us how democracies die and slip into tyranny. The original trilogy shows us how tyranny can be beaten and democracy can be restored. And the sequel trilogy essentially shows us that no matter how often you beat tyranny, it will always come back and any victory you win will always be hollow. Oh yes, and the galaxy at large just doesn’t care, as long as they get their pensions/free washing machines/a culturally homogenic state/a sense of safety, no matter how hollow. Which, honestly, is more of a downer message than Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One taken together.

It is also a message that is very fitting for our times. Because let’s face it, Star Wars has always been immensely political, even if the usual suspects try to view it as just wholesome apolitical fun in outer space. This great article by Tom Kreider in the New York Times points out that the original Star Wars trilogy, particularly the movie now known as A New Hope, were very much a product of the 1970s. For starters, Star Wars shares a lot of DNA and visual aesthetics with the dystopian science fiction movies of the early 1970s, Soylent Green, Silent Running, Rollerball, Logan’s Run, Z.P.G. and of course George Lucas’ own THX 1138. All of those movies and others of their ilk were about an individual rising up against an unjust tyrannical, only that in Star Wars that rebellion succeeded better than in the dystopian downers of the early 1970s. Though you can also see the progression of how the science fiction movies of the 1970s became progressively more optimistic as the decade went on. Logan’s Run, which came out a year before Star Wars, is more optimistic than such early 1970s downers like Soylent Green or Z.P.G (and Z.P.G. makes no sense either).

Furthermore, as Tom Kreider points out, Star Wars is influenced by frustrations about the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal and how the America as a beacon of freedom and democracy that George Lucas had been promised as a kid growing up in the 1950s had been nothing but a lie. In fact, this sheer anger of a kid growing up in a desert town in the middle of nowhere, railing at the fact that the country he lives in has been sold to him as the best possible of all systems and yet has so much that’s wrong with it and that he’d change it and make things better, if only he’d manage to get out of that damn desert town first, permeates the original Star Wars trilogy and is so strong that it radiated out to another kid living in the middle of nowhere, though not in the desert, because we didn’t even something as exotic as a desert, a kid who also saw that the wonderful and perfectly democratic country, the best of all possible systems, had its share of flaws and that we could make it better, if only we could get out of that damned small town that wasn’t even a desert first. I very much believe that a large part of Star Wars‘ success is due to this dynamic – that it is a story that spoke to everybody who ever lived in a small town that did not understand them and dared to question a system that teachers and parents said was as good as things were going to get. This is also why attempts to link Star Wars to the Reagan/Thatcher/Kohl era always make me so furious, because those folks where the fucking Empire and Star Wars was not about them, but about how to get rid of them and everything they stood for (though at the time I viewed Helmut Kohl as the hapless Old Republic that didn’t know what happened to it as the Empire took over. I no longer view him that way. He was the fucking Empire and evil all along). It’s also why I once wrote a furious letter to the German public broadcasters telling them to stop referring to Ronald Reagan’s SDI program, pushed – as I later learned – by a coalition of rightwing SF writers including Heinlein, as the “Star Wars program”, because George Lucas, the person who actually created Star Wars, was vehemently opposed to that usage and viewed it as copyright infringement, which they’d bloody know, if they’d actually show the movies on TV. They never responded, BTW. Nonetheless, if you grew up in the 1980s, Star Wars was a promise that came true in the real world. For throughout the second half of the 1980s, tyrannies tumbled, first the really awful ones in Uganda, the Phillippines, Haiti and then the whole bloody Iron Curtain came down. And the Reagans, Thtachers and Kohls of the world would be next and indeed, Reagan and Thatcher were soon out of office, though bloody Helmut Kohl would hang on for another decade. Democracy won, we won and we didn’t even have spaceships or lightsabers.

Of course, it didn’t work out that way. It quickly turned out that the transition to democracy was far from smooth and that getting rid of political oppression in Eastern Europe and elsewhere also liberated a couple of ugly old ghosts we’d rather have kept buried. The US and anybody they could bully into joining in went to war against Iraq in 1991 and would periodically do so again well into the new millennium. The Balkan exploded into violence and two and a half years after the fall of the Wall, a home for refugees was burning in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, set alight by Neonazis who were cheered on by the general population. It was the first notable act in what would soon turn into an orgy of far right violence, concentrated in but not limited to East Germany. Meanwhile, nominally leftwing governments dismantled social security systems all over Europe and beyond. And then came the September 11, 2001 and the so-called war on terror started, complete with increased surveillance for “our own safety”.

The prequel trilogy exploded into this climate. Just as the original trilogy was a child of the Vietnam/Watergate era, the prequels were a child of the Bush era with its war on terror and escalating state surveillance, even though The Phantom Menace actually predated both the election of George W. Bush and September 11, 2001. The prequels show how a series of relatively small events (after all, the prequel trilogy infamously begins with a trade dispute) causes a democratic system to slide into a dictatorship, pushed forwards by hard choices and bad decisions by people with good intentions. Watching the prequel trilogy is watching a tragedy slowly unfold. And indeed, if things had gone only slightly differently, the rise of the Empire might still have been averted until about halfway through Revenge of the Sith. The intense dislike of and distrust for George W. Bush has been somewhat forgotten, because Donald Trump turned out to be so much more awful, but the prequel trilogy very much captures the fears and preoccupations of the Bush era and is as much a work of its time as the original trilogy.

The sequel trilogy, meanwhile, dropped into a world of resurgent far right nationalism, where many of the very countries who ousted undemocratic regimes in the 1980s vote in even worse dictators and large swathes of the population don’t even care, because their pensions are safe and they feel that something is being done about crime and besides, the latest strongman ruler only targets immigrants, LGBTQ people, leftwinger and malcontents anyway. Once more, Star Wars proved itself to be rather prescient, for even though The Force Awakens came out at the tail-end of the Obama era, about half a year before the Brexit referendum and eleven months before the election of Donald Trump, the sequel trilogy is very much a product of the Trump/Brexit/Putin/Bolsonaro/Duterte/Orban/Erdogan/AfD era, where even established democracies are suddenly under threat again by a resurgent far right. It’s no accident that the most recognisable villain of the sequel trilogy is a young, somewhat whiny white man who idolises his war criminal grandfather, is etsranged from his progressive parents and longs for some kind of golden age that never existed. It’s no accident that some of the most unpleasant villains in the entire sequel trilogy are wealthy capitalists who sell weapons to both sides and get rich on the profits and don’t give a flying fart about democracy, because it only hinders their business. Nor is it an accident that the Resistance’s call for aid at the end of The Last Jedi goes unanswered (except by some urchins living in the stables of Canto Bite). The people of the galaxy no longer even care that they are living in a dictatorship, because crime is down, pensions are safe and Snoke is probably handing out free washing machines to the right kind of people. The sequel trilogy shows us that even if you think that you laid the old ghosts (literally, since the main villain of the sequel trilogy is the resurrected main villain of the previous two trilogies) to rest for good, they’ll always come back and don’t even hope that your family/friends/neighbours will support you, because they most likely won’t.

In The Rise of Skywalker, of course, the people of the galaxy still come to the aid of the Resistance in the end, rallied by Lando Calrissian (who – let’s not forget – was a backstabbing villain when first introduced), the Resistance triumphs, though pretty much all of its leaders who knew what they were doing are dead and I can’t really see Poe Dameron as president of the New New Republic, the chief villain has an eleventh hour conversion and sacrifices his life for good (actually handled better in the case of Kylo Ren, probably because Adam Driver is one hell of an actor) and the First Order is destroyed. There also is one Jedi left who can re-establish the Jedi order for the third time. Our heroes hug and celebrate and we’re basically at the same point where we were at the end of Return of the Jedi, which again is no accident, because the sequel trilogy closely mirrors the structure of the original trilogy, much more closely than the prequels did.

There is just one difference. At the end of Return of the Jedi, I at least thought that things would be okay now. It wouldn’t always be smooth sailing, the occasional Thrawn and other Imperial leftover would pop up, but democracy had been restored and our heroes would be happy. Meanwhile, the end of The Rise of Skywalker is very much what the romance community calls a Happy For Now (and not even all that happy, considering no one except for two elderly lesbians gets a romantic happy ending and Rey ends the movie alone on Tatooine) rather than the Happily Ever After we thought we got at the ending of Return of the Jedi.

Actually, the complete lack of any kind of romantic resolution is one of the things that annoys me about The Rise of Skywalker. Because throughout the sequel trilogy there were sparks flying in all directions and between various characters. Rey/Kylo, Rey/Finn, Rose/Finn, Poe/Finn, Poe/Rey, Rey/Poe/Finn, Rose/Poe/Finn, Poe/Zorri, Finn/Jannah, Poe/Billie Lourd’s character and even Kylo/Hux (yes, they supposedly hate each other, but we all know how that often goes) all wouldn’t have been unlikely romantic possibilities. And unlike the original trilogy, the sequel trilogy actually has sufficient characters of any gender to allow for more than the love triangle of the original. But of all the many romantic possibilities teased throughout the three movies, we get absolutely nothing except for some longing looks. Rey continues the tradition of Jedi standing alone at the end of Star Wars trilogies (because that worked so well the last two times – not), while Poe and Finn neither end up with each other nor with someone else. Of course, Rey and Kylo/Ben wouldn’t have been a sustainable pairing, because reformed or not, Kylo/Ben still is a war criminal responsible for death on a massive scale. Not to mention that I would feel very worried about any kid these two might ever have had, because that poor kid would have grown up with that universe’s equivalents of Hitler and Stalin as great-grandparents, which would have knocked even the most mentally stable person (and none of the male Skywalkers have ever been mentally stable) off balance. So yes, Rey/Kylo was never going to happen, but something else could have happened. But as it is, the only person who ends the movie in a happy relationship is Amanda Lawrence’s no-longer-young rebel commander, who gets to kiss her girlfriend/wife in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene that has been touted as the first LGBTQ scene in a Star Wars movie (I guess everybody missed Obi-Wan, even though it’s strongly implied that his character is not straight) and eventually turns out to be something that might have been revolutionary back in Return of the Jedi in 1983, but feels just disappointing now.

As for the future prospects of the universe, by now it is very obvious to me that the Star Wars universe is a terrible place, regardless of which regime is in charge. It was a terrible place during the Old Republic, it became even more terrible during the Empire, it did not markedly improve during the New Republic (as seen in The Mandalorian) and got even worse with the First Order in charge. Except for Coruscant, Naboo, Bespin and Alderaan (and Naboo isn’t perfect, Bespin gets taken over by the Empire and we see next to nothing of Alderaan before it’s blown up), pretty much all planets we see are shitholes beset by crime and corruption (and Bespin is likely beset by crime and corruption, too, considering who runs it) where the locals live a hardscrabble existence. A few non-human worlds like Endor or Kashykk seem to be doing all right with functioning social and political systems, only to be steamrollered by the Empire. Of course, it was always pretty obvious that the Star Wars universe was a horrible place, but during the original trilogy, we were allowed to think that it was better once and will get better again. The prequels, the sequels and the various additional media pretty much destroyed that illusion. The Star Wars universe is a crappy place, always was and always will be. And the Resistance victory at the end of The Rise of Skywalker won’t magically make things better. Rey, Finn and Poe will fail just as Han, Luke and Leia did before them. And in five or ten or twenty years, some new autocratic regime with a fetish for Nazi imagery, headed by a shrivelled hooded leader (maybe even another clone of Palpatine) and his masked and black clad righthand man (or woman) will rear its ugly head and the whole story will begin anew again. And again. And again.

Much as I enjoyed them viewed on their own, the sequel trilogy has turned the Star Wars universe into a depressing place. The Last Jedi at least seemed to hint at a way out of this eternal cycle of republic arises out of tyranny, only to fall to tyranny again, while the Jedi rise, fail and are exterminated, only to rise again. The Last Jedi gave us a glimpse of a shadowy society of villainous capitalists who don’t care about the endless battle between the dark and the light side, as long as they keep fighting and buying weapons. The Last Jedi gave us a maintenance tech heroine and Force users coming out of nowhere instead of from lengthy intertwined Jedi bloodlines (though the overwhelming majority of the Jedi we saw in the prequels probably came from nowhere as well). The Last Jedi even hinted at an end to the endless dark side/light side dichotomy of the Force, when it seems for a moment as if Rey and Kylo, having just killed Snoke and his guards, are about to leave all that crap behind them and movie beyond light and dark side, Jedi and Sith, to build something new. Only then, Kylo decides that he’d rather rule the galaxy and Rey dumps him. And then The Rise of Skywalker pretty much undoes everything The Last Jedi has built up and goes for a far more conventional conclusion. The Jedi Order Rey will rebuild – because you know that she eventually will – will be just as flawed as the first and second versions and will probably fail just as easily.

Now unlike many Star Wars fans, I never particularly liked the Jedi Order as it was. Yes, lightsabers and Force powers are cool. But taking young kids from their parents and then berating them for daring to miss their parents? Telling padawans that they must renounce all feelings, that they don’t have a right to be angry, that they cannot form attachments romantic or otherwise, that they shouldn’t help their friends, even if their friends are being tortured? Sorry, but that’s pretty much the opposite of cool. Never mind that the Jedi are raging hypocrites who constantly break their own rules. Also – and I’m stunned by how many people missed this – the movies themselves have always been highly critical of the Jedi. The point of the entire prequel trilogy is that the old ways of the Jedi don’t work and in fact ushered in the Empire with their utter incompetence (coincidentally, neither does the way of the Mandalorians, even though they at least are not directly responsible for the rise of the Empire). Yes, I had hoped that Luke would do better and jettison a lot of the more overt Jedi idiocies and keep the ideas that were actually good, but in the end he failed just as Yoda, Mace Windu, Obi-Wan and the others had failed. And Luke saying in The Last Jedi that it is time for the Jedi to finally end, because they just don’t work are probably the wisest words he has ever spoken. Just as Yoda’s Jedi Master heart-to-heart with Luke, wherein he tells Luke that “We are what they grow beyond” are probably the truest words Yoda has ever spoken.

So while I had hoped that Luke would do better than his predecessors, in the end I wasn’t that shocked that he didn’t and turned into an unwashed hermit on an island, whose inhabitants at best tolerate him. But then I was never that invested in Luke anyway. I liked him, sure, but he was never my favourite or even second or third favourite Star Wars character. Though for a bunch of fanboys (using the gendered term deliberately here) who grew up wanting to be Jedi and completely missed that the Jedi are pretty much a failure, Luke turning out to be a complete failure as a Jedi feels like a massive betrayal, a rape of their childhood power fantasies (presumably after the prequels raped them first). That’s not to say that there are no issues with The Last Jedi – I have some myself. But the alleged issues most people complain about really aren’t issues and they certainly don’t justify the sheer amount of toxicity and abuse hurled at the movie, the people who worked on it and those who actually liked it.

While I have some sympathy for fanboy complaints about the fate of Luke, I have none for complaints about Rose and Finn, calling them useless characters. For starters, Rose and Finn are far from useless. Yes, Rose is a maintenance tech and Finn spent much of his time cleaning toilets on Starkiller Base, but maintenance techs and toilet cleaners actually are vital. Or how far do you think a Star Destroyed would get without functioning toilets? And in fact, one of the things I loved about The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi is how Finn and later Rose use the knowledge gained in their less than glamorous professions to help the Resistance, disable defence systems, etc… Also, the fact that Finn, Rose and Rey are no one special in The Last Jedi, but just ordinary people trying to get by in a crapsack galaxy, actually sends an important message, namely that you don’t have to have a high midichlorian count or be an ace pilot or an intergalactic princess or the secret love child of a powerful Jedi to make a difference. And in fact, in the past fifteen years or so, our major pop culture franchises have been falling over each other to emphasise that it’s not the superpowers/suit/lightsaber/sonic screwdriver that makes the hero, it’s what lies inside the person. This message lies at the heart of pretty much all Marvel movies, occasionally spelled out in the dialogue, of the better DC movies, of the new Doctor Who, particularly in the early Russell T. Davies seasons, but also in the more recent Jodi Whittaker ones, of Jupiter Ascending, Edge of Tomorrow, the old and new Ghostbusters and the Star Wars sequel trilogy. It’s a great and hopeful message and one that we need to hear and yet it often gets blowback from a certain kind of fan, who need to see themselves as “special” in their fantasies.

The Rise of Skywalker will probably satisfy those fans (if they bother to watch it), because it walks back many of the decisions made in The Last Jedi. Finn is revealed to be Force-sensitive (which he might well be, it’s pretty obvious that the Jedi, even when funcitioning, missed a lot of Force sensitive kids), Rose is sidelined and pretty much written out, turned into just another person standing around in the Resistance headquarters and Rey no longer comes from nowhere, the daughter of scavengers who abandoned her. Instead, she is revealed to be the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine himself. Which might actually have been a great twist, if some kind of groundwork had been laid for it, but it literally comes out of nowhere, just like Palpatine-ex-machina himself.

Also, throughout the entire prequel and original trilogy there was never the slightest hint that Palpatine had a wife or romantic partner or that he had any romantic or sexual interests at all. Palpatine in the original trilogy and the prequels was as celibate as the Jedi were supposed to be. Of course, it is possible that Palpatine had a wife or mistress and that he had a child with her, a child who rejected his father and everything he stood for and ran off to become a scavenger on Yakku and had a kid of his own, Rey. In fact, that’s one hell of a story, but maybe we should have seen at least a little of it. Also, why make Rey’s father the son of Palpatine? Surely, Rey’s mother who is played by Jodie Comer, best known as the assassin Villanelle in Killing Eve would make a much better daughter of Palpatine?

But then it’s bleedingly obvious that Palpatine is only in The Rise of Skywalker, because Rian Johnson killed off Snoke (via Kylo Ren remote igniting Rey’s lightsaber) in The Last Jedi. Which is a moment I liked a lot, especially since Darth Vader waited way too long IMO before finally offing Palpatine (unsuccessfully, as it turns out). But with Snoke dead, The Rise of Skywalker was unfortunately missing a Big Bad and so Palpatine was dug up (literally) and brought back. Never mind that this makes very little sense, because a) Palpatine fell down a shaft on a Death Star that subsequently exploded, and b) if Palpatine was in his fifties or sixties during the prequels (based on actor Ian McDiarmid’s age), he must be over hundred by The Rise of Skywalker and has looked like one hundred fifty since halfway through Revenge of the Sith. As for how Palpatine managed to build an enormous fleet of Star Destroyers equipped with miniaturised Death Star lasers (and the adaptation and miniaturisation of Death Star technology throughout the sequel trilogy is one thing that actually makes sense, because people wouldn’t just ignore a weapon like that) without anybody noticing anything, that’s another unanswered question. Especially since a single Star Destroyer has a crew of 37000 people each, not including Stormtroopers. So Palpatine’s fleet is crewed by millions of people. Where did they all come from and why did no one notice millions of people going missing? Or did Palpatine just clone them? After all, he managed to clone thousands of Stormtroopers without anybody noticing anything either.

It is a testament to the pacing of the movie that you don’t even notice how much of it doesn’t make sense, until the credits have rolled and you sit at home thinking about it all (or arguing about it with friends). But then it is increasingly becoming clear that the main problem with the sequel trilogy is a complete lack of planning. Because the original trilogy and the prequels were – for better or worse – the vision of one person, George Lucas. Whether you like the prequels or not, the prequels and the original trilogy have a consistency that the sequel trilogy lacks. It’s not that George Lucas never changed his mind about how the story should go – by all accounts, he did so quite a lot. But he was still one person overseeing the overall storyline.

The sequel trilogy, on the other hand, seems to have been created very much like a game of round robin. J.J. Abrams delivered a movie, then handed the series over to Rian Johnson, who threw out some characters and several of the plot threads Abrams left dangling (Who are Rey’s parents? Who is Snoke?) and added some characters and dangling plotlines of his own. Then Abrams came back for the third movie, found that Johnson had taken the series in a completely different direction than what Abrams had in mind and had also killed off some key characters and so Abrams attempted to get the story back onto the track Abrams had envisioned. As a result, we get sharp reversals, inconstant characterisation, Admiral Holdo seemingly coming out of nowhere, Rose getting sidelined and Palpatine-ex-machina. That the result works at all suggests that J.J. Abrams is a lot more talented than I ever gave him credit for.

As anybody who has ever tried a round robin writing game can tell you, that’s no way to write a collaborative story. If you want to write a collaborative story, the collaborators first need to hash out at least a rough idea of what will happen in the story, who the important characters are and where they are going. US TV series generally manage this quite well, even though they have multiple writers (whereas European TV series are more likely to have a single writer), because they have a series bible with basic information about the characters and the world as well as someone who calls the shot and keeps the overall storyline in view. Back in the day of the Expanded/Legends Universe, Lucasfilm had an employee whose only job it was to make sure that storylines and characters were consistent over different series and media and that nothing contradicted each other. This employee was hired after a comic and one of the early Expanded Universe novels accidentally gave Han and Leia a different number of children and the respective writers, who weren’t aware of each other, had to scrambled to fix this.

So the mind boggles that the new Star Wars movies – always the jewel in the crown – have no one to fulfil that role. It could have been J.J. Abrams or Rian Johnson or Kathleen Kennedy or someone else altogether, but the sequel trilogy needed someone who had an overview of the whole plot and could have given basic directions such as “Don’t kill these characters – we still need them” to the individual writers and directors. Kathleen Kennnedy gets a lot of crap from the perpetually aggrieved fanboy brigade, but she deserves criticism for badly bungling something as basic as overall story continuity.

Talking of which, the perpetually aggrieved fanboys are conspicuously silent on the subject of The Rise of Skywalker. Most of the criticism of the movie I’ve seen is from people who liked The Last Jedi and are disappointed that The Rise of Skywalker ignored or walks back many decisions made in that movie, or from professional critics. But the howling of the aggrieved fanboys which has accompanied the release of every Star Wars movie from Return of the Jedi on is largely absent this time around. Maybe the aggrieved fanboys have finally made good of their promise and just stopped paying attention to Star Wars (though some of them seem to like The Mandalorian). Which makes J.J. Abrams’ and Disney/Lucasfilm’s decision to cater to the demands of the most toxic part of the fanbase all the more puzzling. And they absolutely tried to cater to that part of the fanbase. How else to explain the fanservicy “Rey is the granddaughter of Palpatine” or the sidelining of Rose Tico, a character the toxic fanboys hated or setting part of the movie on Endor, but barely showing any Ewoks, because some toxic fans still hate the Ewoks thirty-six years later?

Interestingly enough, one area where I have seen aggrieved fanboys weigh in on Star Wars to tell us how much they hate the new movies are indie authors trying to sell books. This phenomenon started at least with the release of The Last Jedi two years ago, if not earlier, namely that indie authors of space opera and military science fiction started to market their books as “like Star Wars, but without all the women, people of colour and political messages we disagree with”. One of the most blatant examples started out as a bogstandard military SF series and then morphed into “a bit like Star Wars, but told from the POV of the Empire with zero introspection or irony”. Now I have no doubt that a lot of indie space opera is in conversation with Star Wars, because most post-1977 space opera is in conversation with Star Wars in general. But “Star Wars sucks these days, so read my books” is a strange marketing ploy, which quickly reappeared once the release of The Rise of Skywalker drew nearer. And so we have an indie author who only a few months before had sworn never again to mentioned any pop culture brands he hates, because they’re not just for white boys anymore, spent several days berating people for still caring about Star Wars, when they could be reading his Christian space opera.

Most of the “Don’t bother with Star Wars – read my books instead, because they have lightsabers, exploding spaceships and white dudes having adventures” brigade are pretty awful people, lesser puppies and the like, which is why I’m not going to link to them. But there are some indie authors criticising Star Wars who are not toxic jerks. One of those is Chris Fox, an indie SFF author who runs a YouTube channel with writing and marketing advice. I usually watch his videos and in his latest one, entitled What Authors Can Learn From Star Wars, Fox airs his personal grievances with the new Star Wars movies. Chris Fox considers himself a Star Wars superfan, who watched all the movies, read all the Expanded/Legends Universe books (and Disney delcaring them non-canonical clearly affected him and many others fans, who eagerly devoured those books) and played most of the videogames and dreamed of being a Jedi and is now deeply disappointed, because the sequel trilogy, particularly The Last Jedi, didn’t deliver what he expects from a Star Wars movie. At one point, he says that The Last Jedi did not give the fans the emotional resonance they craved and declares that Disney has driven away the Star Wars superfans and that what he considers casual fans aren’t good enough.

I don’t want to pick on Chris Fox, who seems to be a decent guy, but I have to disagree with this. Listening to solely self-proclaimed superfans is usually never good idea, because superfans make up only a small part of the audience and catering solely to them will often drive away the regular audience. Never mind that superfans aren’t a monolith. I also consider myself a Star Wars superfan, because those movies have meant a lot to me growing up. However, I clearly don’t crave the same emotional resonance as Chris Fox, because much of The Last Jedi did resonate with me. And indeed, the reason I gave up on the Expanded/Legends Universe after the first six or eight books is because those books didn’t give me what I liked about Star Wars in sufficient quantities. This is actually why I rarely read tie-in fiction or outright fanfiction, because they usually fail to capture what I liked about the source material in the first place. So I may be an unusual fan, since I apparently want something different from the source material than many other fans, but I am a fan nonetheless.

The Star Wars sequel trilogy had the almost impossible task of satisfying multiple generations of Star Wars fans, each of whom value something different about the movies. There are fans of the original trilogy, fans who came in via the prequels (and those who watched the prequels as children and teenagers usually like them much more than older fans), fans who came in via the various cartoons, via the Expanded/Legends Universe, via the new Star Wars books or even the new movies. Satisfying all of these very different groups is close to impossible. All in all, the sequel trilogy did probably as well as it could have done. They delivered three entertaining and enjoyable movies full of likeable characters and great adventures in a galaxy far away. They are far from perfect movies, but then which movies truly are perfect?

Also, there is one issue that has plagued Star Wars movies since Return of the Jedi at least and that is far beyond the control of anybody at Lucasfilm. For most of us were children when we discovered Star Wars (whichever reiteration we first discovered), children awed by the scale and sheer sense of wonder inherent in that universe. And then one day, we’re not children anymore, we have seen many other movies and read many other books and probably know where many of the ideas behind Star Wars came from. And the latest Star Wars movie, whether it’s Return of the Jedi, the prequels or the sequels just doesn’t measure up, because we’re no longer five years old and will never be again and the movies will never be as much magic again. Not to mention that we probably have some idea of how the story was supposed to go in our heads and whatever happens on screen will never match that idea.

The prequels and the sequels are not the stories I imagined. But my version of the story is still there, in my head. Just as the Expanded/Legends Universe books and their version of the story will always be there for those to whom they meant something. But even if the story we got is not the one we envisioned, we can still try to enjoy it for what it is. Viewed that way, The Rise of Skywalker is a fun adventure, not as good as its two predecessors, but enjoyable enough.

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Published on December 28, 2019 19:15

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