Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 7

A Conan by Any Other Name…

In episode 5 of Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Teela and friends visit Preternia a.k.a. Eternia’s equivalent of Valhalla, where fallen heroes and heroines spend eternity riding dinosaurs, going on pretend hunts and telling stories by the side of a campfire in the shadow of one of the most awesome playsets ever produced. As afterlives go, this one is incredibly charming, because it’s basically a six-year-old’s idea of heaven.

Among the fallen heroes inhabiting Preternia is a fellow who basically looks like post-1960s depictions of Conan of Cimmeria to the point that I initially referred to the character as “Conan” in my review. However, this guy’s name is Vikor and he is a Masters of the Universe character, though a rather obscure one. He also had a figure in the Masters of the Universe Classics collector toyline, which I recently got for a good price. Now I have all the Preternian heroes in seven inch scale except for Wun-Dar and I’ll get him eventually, too.

Conan? No, Vikor.

Vikor was based on some very early concept art for what would eventually become Masters of the Universe. You can see the original drawing by Mark Taylor here. In 2011, an action figure based on this concept design was released in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline. The character was named Vikor, because a) Early Concept Art He-Man is a rather dull and stupid name, and b) to turn him into a unique character who could (and did) show up in future Masters of the Universe comics, cartoons, etc…, as Scott Neitlich, Mattel brand manager in charge of the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline explains in this video.

Now Scott Neitlich is somewhat controversial in Masters of the Universe fandom – not without reason, because he tends to be very grumpy and sour grapes about the Masters of the Universe toylines and cartoons that came after his tenure. I think he has been predicting the imminent death of the Masterverse and Origins toylines for two years now and he keeps dissing Masters of the Universe Revelation and Revolution. He’s also got problematic views on gender, though sadly that sort of thing is common in the toy industry – see the aggressive gendering of toys.

That said, the Classics toyline not only kept interest in Masters of the Universe alive, when there were neither cartoons nor comics around, many characters also only ever appeared as toys in the Classics line. That’s why I have been buying Classics figures of late, because that’s the only way to get some of the lesser known characters who will likely never be made again. Besides, they’re really great action figures which would have deserved wider distribution.

Furthermore, a lot of the character, species and place names originate with Scott Neitlich’s character bios and mini-comics for the Classics line and have since been used by the various comics and cartoons that came after. Because whenever you look up what the real name of e.g. Ram-Man, Clamp Champ or Beast-Man is (since they were obviously not born with those names), the Classics bios come up, so later writers used those names. This is also how Vikor, who was recast as “the He-Man of the North”, a former champion of Grayskull, ended up in Masters of the Universe: Revelation, because the writers looked for dead heroes and champions to populate Preternia and came upon Vikor and Wun-Dar, another character who owes his name and backstory to Scott Neitlich.

However, it later turned out that the drawing of the character who would become known as Vikor had nothing to do with Masters of the Universe, after all. According to artist Mark Taylor, who should know, it was instead intended for a never produced Conan toyline and ended up in the Masters of the Universe file by accident. So Vikor doesn’t just happen to look like Conan, he actually is Conan by another name.

But it gets even weirder. Because a later, semi-official Masters of the Universe bio actually borrowed the plot of the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie for Vikor’s backstory. According to this, Vikor’s father was a blacksmith named Vulkar who forged the Sword of Gaz. However, the Great Black Wizard, another never produced concept figure with a cool look and a rather disappointing name (I mean, honestly, they couldn’t do better than Great Black Wizard?), attacked the village, murdered Vikor’s parents and stole the sword. Just like Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian, the Great Black Wizard is also associated with the villainous Snake People of Eternia, who are of course borrowed wholesale from Robert E. Howard’s 1929 novelette “The Shadow Kingdom”, which introduced Kull of Atlantis and the Valusian Serpent Men and is widely considered the first sword and sorcery story.

When I looked up the Great Black Wizard, I found lots of custom figures, so he apparently is popular, though I have to admit that I’d never heard of this guy before today. And if you think that the Great Black Wizard looks a little familiar, that’s because he’s either a time-displaced Skeletor or Keldor according to those semi-official bios.

Vikor, who is described as “an axe-wielding mercenary from the North” here (to quote the Ninth Doctor, “Lots of planets have a North”) goes after the Great Black Wizard to get the sword back. He obviously doesn’t kill the Great Black Wizard, because – duh – Skeletor never stays dead for long. Vikor does get his sword back, though, and goes on to become champion of Grayskull, battling the likes of Draego-Man (a character created for the Classics toyline, who is a very cool but pricy action figure), the Crimson Countess, a vampiric villainess who never had a figure, and Queen Tyrantula, a spider woman villainess who never had a figure either.

Now Masters of the Universe came along at the tail end of the second sword and sorcery boom and borrows heavily from the sword and sorcery genre both visually and with regard to ideas, with some Lovecraft, Tolkien, silver age superhero comic and pulp science fiction influences added. In my review of Masters of the Universe: Revelation, part 1, I wrote:

He-Man is basically a Frank Frazetta Conan cover come to animated life and given a dye job (or John Jakes’ Brak the Barbarian with a haircut), while Teela is C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry (a parallel that Masters of the Universe: Revelation makes very clear) with Red Sonja mixed in. Orko is the less capable relative of Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes from Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. Mer-Man and his mer-people are Lovecraft’s Deep Ones by another name, the Snake Men literally are the Serpent Men from Robert E. Howard’s Kull stories. There are also various Cthulhu inspired things with tentacles. Skeletor is certainly influenced by Howard villains such as Thoth-Amon and Thulsa Doom, who also affects the skull face look. Scareglow, a glow-in-the-dark Skeletor variant which does appear in Masters of the Universe: Revelation, is borrowed from the Floating Skull, a villain in the Conan story “Red Nails”. Though Eternia also borrows a lot from the related sword and planet genre, since the Eternians do have energy weapons and all sorts of impractical but cool vehicles.

There are more pulp SFF influences throughout Masters of the Universe, e.g. He-Man and his friends frequently battled Lovecraftian monsters in the Filmation cartoon, while the Evil Horde are basically horror movie reimagined.

However, Vikor isn’t just obviously influenced by Conan, he basically is Conan by another name. In fact, I now imagine that Conan fell through a portal to Eternia one day – Castle Grayskull is full of portals to other universes and dimensions or maybe he met Gwildor and his cosmic key – possibly pursuing Thoth Amon Thulsa Doom The Great Black Wizard Skeletor, and stayed for a while, battling monsters, bedding maidens and becoming champion of Grayskull, before he returned to the Hyborian Age. And he called himself Vikor for reasons best known to himself. After all, Conan has taken other names such as Amra before. As for why he wound up in Preternia after death, apparently Preternia is for heroic beings from all over the universe. After all, Stonedar is briefly glimpsed in Preternia at the end of Masters of the Universe: Revolution and he never even set foot on Eternia in that version of the story.

But whether he’s Vikor or Conan, he is a cool figure and I’m glad that I got him. Also, expect a new toy photo story about how Conan came to Eternia and became Vikor soon.

An Open Letter to the 2024 Hugo Finalists, Whoever They May Be

This is an updated repost of this post from 2021, this post from 2022 and this post from last year, which a lot of people found helpful. There also a Chinese translation of the 2024 post to be found in issue 14 the Hugo winning fanzine Zero Gravity Newspaper.

Nominations for the 2024 Hugo Awards closed yesterday and the finalists are expected to be announced in a few weeks.

Right now, no one except for possibly the Hugo administrators knows who those finalists will be. And yes, I deliberately posted this so shortly after the Hugo nominations closed that the e-mails won’t have gone out yet and no one knows who the finalists are.

However, sometime in the next two weeks or so, some of you will receive an e-mail from the Glasgow Worldcon, informing you that you are a finalist for the 2024 Hugo Award and asking you whether you want to accept the nomination. Some of you will have received such e-mails before, for others it will be the first time.

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

As a first time recipient of such an e-mail in 2020 as well as a Hugo finalist in 2021 and Hugo winner in 2022, here are a few things I’ve learned:

The e-mail may not look like you think it will. When I got the e-mail from CoNZealand in 2020, the subject line was “CoNZealand Hugo Awards Confidential”. I was exhausted that day and waiting for two important e-mails, so I scanned right past that subject line, because I assumed it was the convention newsletter. I only opened the mail, because none of the two important e-mails had come yet, so I thought I might as well check out the CoNZealand e-mail while I was waiting. Good thing that I did.If you receive an e-mail from the Glasgow Worldcon, please reply as soon as you can whether you accept the nomination or not. If there are questions with regard to eligibility, answer them as soon as possible. The Hugo administrator and their team work very hard, so don’t make their job any harder than it has to be.The Glasgow team will also ask you to keep quiet about your nomination until the official announcement. Please don’t violate this, because you don’t want to steal Glasgow’s thunder!The period between the time when the finalists are notified and when the Hugo finalists are officially announced can be weird, because while you know that you’re a finalist, almost nobody else does. I blogged a bit about my experiences in 2020 here. Basically, I kept having the niggling fear that there had been some terrible mistake and that I wasn’t a finalist after all or that I only was a finalist because all twenty people who would have been ahead of me had withdrawn. From talking to other first time finalists, I learned that I wasn’t alone in this. And while I can’t guarantee that terrible mistakes won’t happen, the chance that the wrong person is notified about being a Hugo finalist is extremely small. So relax. You really are a Hugo finalist, even if nobody else knows it yet.In 2023, it turned out that the Hugo nominations had been massively tampered with by Hugo administration team. However, this was the first time something like that happened and no member of the 2023 team is involved in any way with the 2023 Hugos, so chances of it happening again are minuscle.Do something nice for yourself to celebrate. Have an ice cream, a nice box of chocolates, a glass of champagne, a good beer, a bubble bath, whatever it is that makes you happy. You’re a Hugo finalist, so you damn well deserve to celebrate in private.You can tell a few people you trust about your nomination as long as you know they won’t blab it all over the internet. Before the official announcement, a handful of people knew I was a Hugo finalist. These include my parents (whose reaction was, “That’s nice,” before turning back to watch a rerun of Midsomer Murders), some folks from Galactic Journey and others in the SFF community, who knew not to say anything before the official announcement, as well as my accountant (because I asked her if buying an evening gown for the Hugo ceremony was tax-deductible – it’s not BTW) and the guy who repaired my patio, because he just happened to be there, when I got the e-mail. Neither the accountant nor the patio guy are SFF fans, so chances of a leak were zero. They both also probably thought I was quite mad.If you are nominated in a fiction category – i.e. short story, novelette, novella, novel, Series, Lodestar or Astounding – or nominated for a non-fiction book or essay in Best Related Work, you should let your editor and/or publisher know that you’re a finalist. They work in the industry and therefore know not to say anything and they may want to prepare some kind of congratulatory tweet, post or other promotion effort. Finally, editors are also thrilled when one of their authors is nominated.One thing I did not do is tell people about my nomination who might be up in the same category. Because I didn’t know who else was nominated (you don’t before the official announcement) and didn’t want anybody to feel disappointed, because I was a finalist and they were not.Even if you can’t publicly talk about your Hugo nomination just yet, there are still a few things you can do in the meantime. For example, you can update your bio to mention that you’re a Hugo finalist or write a bio, if you don’t have one yet. Important: Don’t upload your updated bio anywhere until the official announcement has been made! In fact, I spent a chunk of the evening after the Hugo finalists had been announced updating my bio everywhere it appears.In fact – and this is important – don’t upload anything that mentions your Hugo nomination anywhere on the internet, until the official announcement has been made. Even if you set a Tweet or blogpost to go live after the announcement has been made, don’t upload it yet. Because mistakes happen, you accidentally hit “publish” rather than “schedule” or a post goes live too early. I had my celebratory blogpost ready to go in Word, but I only uploaded it with links and a few comments added once the announcement had been made.Another thing you can do in the meantime is prepare a media kit, if you haven’t got one already. You can see mine here and there are also plenty of pages around the web that tell you what a media kit is supposed to contain. Important: Get permission to use any photos that you did not take yourself.Another thing you can do is write a press release about your Hugo nomination. It doesn’t matter which category you’re nominated in, whether it’s Best Novel or a fan category. Write a press release anyway. There are plenty of places around the web which tell you how to write a press release. It varies from country to country, so make sure you get the correct format for your country. My press releases from 2020, 2o21 and 2022 (in German) are here. Then make a list of the contact info for the relevant newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets in your region or country. Once the nominations have been announced, send your press release as well as the link to your media kit to those media outlets. The press release linked above netted me two in-depth profiles and a bonus article in two different newspapers in 2020 and two more in-depth profiles in 2021 as well as an article and an interview in 2022, which is much more than I’d hoped for.Consider whether you want to attend Worldcon and the ceremony. First of all, get a Worldcon membership, if you haven’t got one already. Like most recent Worldcons, Glasgow offers a reduced rate for people attending their first ever Worldcon. You can also start looking for flights, hotels, etc…. If you need to apply for a visa, do so now. If money is an issue, as it’s for many of us, think about crowdfunding your Worldcon trip, as several finalists have done in recent years. However, don’t start your crowdfunding campaign, until after the finalists have been announced.If you want to participate in programming,  sign up at the Glasgow Worldcon website. Do this as early as possible, so the programming team doesn’t have to find suitable programming for you at the last minute.Finally, start thinking about your Hugo voter packet. If you need to get permission to include certain texts or images, contact the relevant people.

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

A lot of people will congratulate you. These will be people you expect – friends, peers, etc… – but also people you don’t expect. After the newspaper articles mentioned above came out, I suddenly got congratulations from translation customers, various relatives, neighbours, former classmates, my plumber and my Dad’s diabetes doctor among others. Enjoy the experience, thank everybody and don’t forget to congratulate your fellow finalists.Some people will also not congratulate you and again, some of these will be people you don’t expect. There are several reasons why someone might not congratulate you and most of them are not malicious. For example, some people might simply not have seen the news yet. Or they may not understand the significance, since not everybody is plugged into the SFF community and knows how important the Hugos are. Of course, there will also be a few people who think that you don’t deserve your nomination. Ignore them!Your fellow Hugo finalists are not your rivals, they are your peers. You’ll probably know some of them already and if not, you’ll quickly get to know them. And yes, only one of you will get to take home the rocket in the end, but all six of you are amazing and in a way, you’re all winners. This also applies across categories. I met a lot of great people in the SFF community and even made new friends, just because we were on the Hugo ballot in the same year.In general, there is a sense of community to siblinghood among Hugo finalists. Whether you’re a bestselling author or a first-time finalist in a fan category, you’re all in this together. There is usually a private group for Hugo finalists to chat, ask questions, share gripes, post photos of Hugo gowns, tiaras and pets, etc…If you’re not part of the Worldcon SFF community and don’t know anybody else on the ballot, don’t worry! You’ll get to know the others soon enough and pretty much everybody in this community is lovely and very welcoming. If you’re a repeat finalist, reach out to the first-timers to make them welcome.As a Hugo finalist, you will get plenty of e-mails from Glasgow about anything from the Hugo voter packet via the program book to the ceremony itself. Pay attention to those e-mails, send any information requested in time and check your spam folder. You don’t accidentally want to miss something important.Once the Hugo finalists have been announced, there will be people who have opinions about the ballot. Most will be positive or at least fair – I always try to be fair in my own Hugo and Nebula finalist commentaries, even if I don’t care for some of the finalists – but some will be not. There are always people who think that your category or the entire ballot is too male, not male enough, too white, not white enough, too queer, not queer enough, too American, not American enough, too bestselling, not bestselling enough – you get the idea. There will be people who complain that only people no one knows got nominated or that only the usual suspects got nominated – and multiple bestsellers and Hugo winners can be “people no one knows”, while first or second time finalists can be “the usual suspects”. Some of these people won’t even wait 24 hours after the Hugo finalists have been announced to air their opinions – at least they didn’t in 2021. Some will even tag you, just to make sure you don’t miss their very important opinions. The best thing to do is ignore those people.A handful of people seem to have made it their life’s mission to mock and harass Hugo finalists. Ignore them and block them on social media and don’t let them get you down. Most of them are just jealous.There will be drama. So far, I’ve never seen a Worldcon that did not have at least some degree of drama and I have been a Worldcon member since 2014. It rarely gets as bad as it did in 2023, but there’s always drama of some kind. Often, this drama affects the Hugo finalists in some way. Sometimes, the Hugo finalists even band together and try to resolve this drama. How you engages with whatever this year’s drama will be is up to you. However, don’t let it get you down. Drama is normal. At this point, I would be more surprised at a Worldcon without drama than at one which has some degree of drama. And usually, everybody winds up having a great time anyway.

So what happens, if you win?

Basically more of the same. Lots of people will congratulate you, most of them with genuine enthusiasm, a few very grudgingly (one in my case, not a fellow finalist) and some not at all.Make sure to have your acceptance speech ready before the ceremony with the names of all the people you want to thank. Check with people how their names are pronounced, if you aren’t sure. Always have a printed paper copy of your speech, because phones can and do break down, run out of juice, fail to have reception or get overloaded with messages at the crucial moment.After you win a Hugo, you should prepare another press release and send it to all the local, regional and national media you can think of. I actually wrote mine at six AM in the morning after the winners had been announced.Don’t forget to update your bio wherever it appears. That includes anthologies or magazines where you’ve been accepted, but which aren’t out yet.Your “market value” (for lack of a better word) does go up with your first nomination, goes up even further with your second and even more, if you win. For example, I got a story acceptance in the mail literally the day after I won. Of course, the story might have been accepted anyway, but the timing was still interesting. I also gained a bunch of new Twitter followers with every nomination and winning a Hugo pushed me over the 3000 follower mark for the first time. You’ll get invited to cons and you’ll notice that your name will start to show up on covers of anthologies or magazines, sometimes with “Hugo winner” attached. However, you’ll still get rejections as well, because even Hugo winners get rejected and that’s perfectly normal.You’ll also find that you have acquired more clout in the SFF community, something which also happens once you get nominated. Use what influence you have in the SFF community for good, to uplift and support others.One thing I noticed is that I would sometimes find myself thinking, “Wait a minute, I have a Hugo and [insert name of vastly more important genre person here] doesn’t? How on Earth did that happen?”That said, certain people will still call you a nobody who barely sells any books or a fake fan or whatever. This literally happened to me approx. a month after I won the Hugo, when I got into an argument about a TV show with the adherents of one of those “We hate everything” outrage clickbait YouTube channels. I pointed out that I really enjoyed the object of their rage du jour and so did many others and was called “not a real fan” in response. When I said, “Dude, I’m the 2022 Hugo winner for Best Fan Writer”, I was told that awards didn’t matter, that I was clearly not a real fan, because I didn’t hate the thing. Best just ignore those people and privately think, “Guess who has a shiny rocket? Hint, it’s not you.”Sometimes, it gets worse than online arguments with idiots. Because as I said above, there are a handful of people who seem to have made it their life’s mission to harass Hugo finalists and winners and will use any excuse, no matter how small, to send their flying monkeys after you. That happened to me, almost to the day a year after I won the Hugo, and I’ve seen it happen to others. Often, not a lot of people will help you and sometimes people you know and actually were friendly with before will join in. The best thing to do is to liberally mute and block harassers and if necessary, break off contact with some folks. On the plus side, you’ll know who your friends are afterwards. Also, never let yourself be silenced, because that’s what these folks want.

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

My Mom, Barbara Buhlert (1942 – 2024)

Once again, this isn’t a post I wanted to write today or any other day. But as some of you may already know, my Mom died February 12, only four and a half months after my Dad.

Mom’s death wasn’t as unexpected and sudden as Dad’s, since she’d been dealing with various health issues since 2017 (and in retrospect, some issues popped up before that) and her condition badly declined in the past two years, starting with hip replacement surgery in 2022. Both diagnosis and surgery were delayed due to the pandemic and she never really recovered, but instead was worse off after the surgery. Before her hip replacement surgery, she’d been able to walk around with a walker inside the hourse, go to the bathroom, etc… Afterwards, she had to use a wheelchair and could only stand for short periods.

Since February 2022, my Mom experienced a succession of hospital stays. I think she’s been in every single Bremen hospital except Bremen-Nord, sometimes more than once. as well as several hospitals in the surrounding small towns and a stay in a physical therapy clinic. Since October 2023 alone, she’s racked up four hospital stays. And with every hospital stay, her condition deteriorated further. She never regained her ability to walk after the hip replacement surgery in 2022. After a succession of hospital stays in early 2023, she lost her ability to stand up for brief periods and had to move into a nursing home, because Dad and I couldn’t care for her at home anymore, in spite of home care nurses coming in every day. And after the latest round of hospital stays this winter, she wasn’t even able to sit in her wheelchair any longer, but instead lay in bed all day. Her eyesight had badly declined as well and I couldn’t even take her to the optician to get new glasses.

Considering that the hospital doctor, who diagnosed Mom was rheumatic vasculitis, told us around this time last year that she would probably die sooner rather than later, Mom held on for longer than expected. That said, the person she once was was long gone by end, though gimmers of her former personality occasionally shone through.

For example, during one of my last visits, I told her about the 2023 Hugo nomination scandal – Mom has been a Hugo voter herself in the not too distant past – and mentioned that several finalists had been disqualified for reasons that were then still unknown. Mom has met Paul Weimer and she’s enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s work in the past, so I wasn’t surprised, when she remembered them. However, she also remembered who R.F. Kuang – whom she only saw once at the virtual 2020 Hugo ceremony, when Kuang won the Astounding Award – was, which surprised the heck out of me. At any rate, she muttered, “That silly little girl” (Mom was very much not impressed with R.F. Kuang’s acceptance speech), when I told her about R.F. Kuang being disqualified, which was probably the last time her former personality came through.

The last time I visited Mom, four days before she died, she barely opened her eyes, when I came into the room.  I didn’t stay very long, because she kept falling asleep. Normally, I would have visited her on the weekend, but I had caught a mild cold (which eventually developed into a fully blown bronchitis), so I stayed at home so as not to infect Mom or anybody else.

Early on Monday morning, I went to the grocery story and had just arrived on the parking lot, when my phone rang and a nurse from the care home told me that they’d found Mom dead in her bed that morning. Apparently, she’d had a mild fever the night before, but nothing indicated that she wouldn’t survive the night. I actually called up her doctor, who also signed the death certificate, what had caused her death in the end and he didn’t really know either beyond “a combination of issues”.

Because Mom had been steadily declining for several years, her death wasn’t as unexpected or shocking as Dad’s, though it still hurts. It also came at a really bad time for me, because I was extremely busy with translation work not to mention sick and had to deal with organising the funeral, cleaning out her room at the nursing home and administrative stuff on top of everything else. I also had to call up various relatives, neighbours and friends, some of whom I had already called about Dad four months, and tried to track down my Mom’s surviving cousins. And unlike Dad, Mom had a lot of cousins. Anyway, I reconnected with a bunch of family members I hadn’t seen in years and in one case never. I also learned that one of my second cousins is a big Star Trek fan and runs a Star Trek cooking channel on YouTube.

There are more photos of Mom than of Dad, including quite a few photos showing her as a kid and teenager. But the older photos are all pre-digital. I also don’t have a lot of very recent ones, because I didn’t want to document her decline. But here is a photo from Christmas 2020, where she was still herself and mostly well:

My Mom at Christmas 2020

And here’s Mom and Dad’s wedding photo from 1965:

Here are my parents at their wedding in 1965. My Mom has a marvelous beehive. The bouquet is quite interesting as well. According to my Mom, the dangling eight-shapes were two small myrtle wreaths, myrtle being the traditional choice for wedding wreaths and bouquets in Germany.

The nursing home where my Mom spent the last year has a memorial corner for inhabitant who have died. This is what it looked like when I cleared out Mom’s room.

Mom’s memorial service was yesterday. The actual funeral is next week, because the cemetery is on the far side of town – the grave is a family grave and has been there since 1913, while the family moved to other parts of town. A lot of the guests are elderly and so I didn’t want them to have to drive all over town. Besides, there was a public transport strike and a “climate strike” protest on the day of the memorial, which actually kept two guests from attending, because they couldn’t make it through the traffic.

The service was lovely and thankfully no surprise funeral crashers showed up to disrupt the proceedings speaking in the voice of Captain Kirk. It was a non-religious service at a funeral chapel. Here in Germany, you can hire speakers for non-religious memorial services and the funeral homes all have chapels.

This is what the chapel looked like. I had asked for donations to charity instead of floral arrangements, because I feel that spending a lot of money on flowers that will only wilt away is a waste. Besides, it looks lovely as it is:

Mom’s memorial service

After the service, there was the traditional post-funeral coffee, cake and sandwiches at a local restaurant. Sometimes, there’s also chicken soup, but I didn’t order that. Because a few people couldn’t attend, we had cake and sandwiches left over. My cousin, who’s headteacher of an elementary school, took the leftover cake to feed her teaching staff and I took the remaining sandwiches and gave them to the neighbours who couldn’t attend due to a covid infection.

This time around, I even remembered to take a photo of the assembled friends and family members. With Dad, I forgot.

I still have to get through the actual funeral next week. Regular blogging will resume eventually. And if I owe you an e-mail, I’m sorry and I’ll get back to you soon.

The 2023 Hugo Nomination Scandal Gets Worse

I already spent thousands of words writing about the 2023 Hugo nomination scandal and frankly I don’t want to deal with this anymore at all. For starters, this is the time when we should be talking about the 2024 Hugo nominations and not still be talking about last year’s longlist. Also, I have plenty of other problems right now and really no time for more Hugo drama.

However, the 2023 Hugo nomination scandal just got a lot worse and this bombshell is so big that it requires its own post.

One of the last bigger updates to my previous Hugo post apart from “Well, the numbers make even less sense now than before” stuff was that 2023 Best Fan Writer winner Chris M. Barkley actually got hold of 2023 Hugo administrator Dave McCarty at the 2024 Capricon convention in Chicago and managed to interview him. The result was 45 minutes of Dave McCarty making excuses and saying basically nothing. There’s also a transcript here, which is just much empty blathering as the audio recording.

However, it turns out that Dave McCarty wasn’t the only member of the 2023 Hugo committee that Chris talked to at Capricon. He also talked to Diane Lacey, another member of the 2023 Hugo committee, who was a lot more forthcoming than McCarty and provided Chris with several internal e-mails from the Hugo committee as well as a spreadsheet regarding elgibility checks, which clearly show that the western members of the Hugo committee pre-emptively flagged works and individuals that might be considered politically problematic in China.

Chris and 2023 Best Fan Writer finalist Jason Sanford analysed the e-mails and compiled this report, which you can read at File 770 or at Jason’s Genre Grapevine column. Head over there and read it and then come back. There’s also some interesting discussions in the comments, including comments from Chinese fans.

The e-mails leaked by Diane Lacey may be found here and the also leaked eligibility check spreadsheet may be found here.

Basically, Diane Lacey and Kat Jones (who, for full disclosure, was Hugo admin when I won in 2022, and with whom I’ve only had positive interactions so far) were in charge of researching the eligibility of potential Hugo finalists. This is nothing new and happens every year. Basically, the Hugo team tracks the top ten or so nominees and preemptively collects contact data and checks their eligibility, e.g. was the books or story actually published in the relevant year. This is the reason why Hugo finalists are normally contacted very quickly after nominations close, because the team already has the contact data and has done preliminary checks.

This year, however, the Hugo team members who check eligibility were also asked to check whether any of the works or individuals had been critical of China or – to quote Dave McCarty – “if the work focuses on China, Taiwan, Tibet or other topics that may be an issue in China”. McCarty also made it clear in that first e-mail that it may be necessary to pull some works and individuals from the ballot, because Chinese law demands it.

So rather than resign, that’s exactly what the Hugo team did – they highlighted potential issues with various nominees. Babel by R.F. Kuang was flagged as potentially problematic, even though the person doing the flagging hadn’t read the book, but only knew it was about China. The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was also flagged for containing Chinese immigrant workers, but unlike Babel was eventually allowed to make the ballot.

The fan writer (and also fanzine, though we don’t have details there) category was flagged as full potentially problematic people, since several nominees had made remarks that might be construed as critical of China or had shared news stories about China or – shock and horror – reviewed books that dealt with Chinese topics. Several people were also flagged for agreeing with Jeannette Ng’s remarks about Hongkong back in 2019. Indeed, the only potential fan writer finalist deemed safe was O.Westin, who writes Twitter microfiction. Bitter Karella’s Twitter microfiction was flagged as potentially problematic. Paul Weimer, who was eventually disqualified, was flagged as having visited Tibet and having extensively shared photos of his visit. However, Paul never visited Tibet at all, but neighbouring Nepal. Meanwhile, Best Novel winner Ursula Vernon a.k.a. T. Kingfisher actually did visit Tibet, but this apparently escaped the notice of the censors.

For the Astounding Award, Xiran Jay Zhao, who was eventually disqualified, Naseem Jamnia, who was allowed to remain on the ballot, and Sue Lyn Tan (who does not appear in the final nomination data) were flagged as potentially problematic. Xiran Jay Zhao and Sue Lyn Tan were flagged for having written about Chinese history and mythology, while Naseem Jamnia was flagged for being non-binary, trans and outspoken about it.

We still don’t know what the problem with that Sandman episode was and why it was disqualified. At this point, it might have been something as simple as a character eating Chinese food in the episode. Because apparently, the only way you were safe from being flagged as a potential issue was never to have mentioned China at all and not to be LGBTQ+ and outspoken about it either.

This is absolutely horrifying and even worse than we thought. I should also probably link to Ada Palmer’s great post about censorship and self-censorship again, because that’s exactly what happened here. It wasn’t that some Chinese government censor waltzed in and struck works and individuals from the Hugo ballot. No, the Hugo team preeemptively identified works and individuals that might upset some hypothetical Chinese government censor. And they also compiled dossiers about potential Hugo finalists and combed their social media feeds for potentially problematic content, which reminds me far more of the Stasi than of a Hugo committee. Camestros Felapton shares his reaction to reading a dossier compiled about himself and his work here.

Worse, the Hugo committee weren’t even very good and consistent about it. Note that Paul was flagged for having visited Tibet, when he never actually did, whereas the Hugo finalist who actually did visit Tibet was not flagged. I freely admit that I haven’t read Babel, but what I’ve read by R.F. Kuang does not strike me as overly critical of China, rather the opposite. Also note that Babel was actually published in China, so actual Chinese government censors clearly don’t view the novel as problematic. And Xiran Jay Zhao is very outspoken politically (currently mostly about Gaza, but since I don’t follow them, I don’t know what they tweeted and tiktoked about in 2022/2023), but they were not flagged for that, but for the fact that their work is based on Chinese history. Meanwhile, the self-censors completely missed that S.B. Divya has been highly critical of China (and actually declined her nomination because of this). They also missed that  John Chu and Richard Man are both members of the Chinese diaspora and John Chu’s Hugo-nominated is a gay superhero story.

There are a couple of other landmines in the report, namely that several Chinese language works were apparently removed for alleged slating before they even made the longlist. Note that Dave McCarty was also the Hugo administrator in 2016, i.e. one of the Puppy years, where slating very definitely took place, and yet found himself unable to remove any of the slate finalists from the ballot. And while I have no idea what We Live in Nanjing by Tianrui Shuofu and the other Chinese novels which appear on the eligibility spreadsheet but not on the ballot, are about, they can’t possibly be worse than such literary gems as “If You Were an Award, My Love” by Juan Tabo and S. Harris or “Safe Space as Rape Room” by Daniel Eness, both of which Dave McCarty allowed to make the ballot in 2016.

Apparently, Dave McCarty also always planned to release the full nomination stats as late as possible, i.e. ninety days after the Hugo winners were announced, in  order to protect that Chinese members of the Hugo team from possible reprisals.

Also note that we still don’t know why the nominations stats that were released make no sense and are riddled with obvious and less obvious errors.

This is utterly infuriating. Everybody who has been following the Hugos and Worldcon for a while knows that there were concerns about the Chengdu Worldcon, including potential censorship issues, from the start. Since those genuine concerns were often also mixed with blatant xenophobia, they were easier to dismiss than they probably should have been. However, one thing that I and others kept pointing out that even if the Chinese members of the Hugo team might bow to political pressure (and note that I absolutely don’t blame any of them for what happened), we should have faith in the western members of the Hugo team to do what’s right, to not bow to political pressure and to refuse to have anything to do with censorship.

However, it turns out that’s exactly what they did. They happily went along with perceived political pressure (because we don’t know, if there was any actual pressure exerted on anybody) and preemptively vetted nominees for potential issues rather than resign in protest and sound the alarm. And yes, Kat Jones eventually did leave the 2023 Hugo team (and was not listed as a member on the Chengdu site) and Diana Lacey eventually sounded the alarm, but this should have happened much sooner. Meanwhile, Dave McCarty and Chengdu co-chair Ben Yalow happily went along with everything.

File 770 also shares these two statements by Kat Jones and Diane Lacey.

Finally, I also want to share this part from Chris and Jason’s report:

This report’s authors attempted to reach out to Chinese genre fans for comment, but did not receive any responses in time to include in this report.

An explanation for what might be happening came from Pablo Vazquez, a traveling genre fan and co-chair of the 12th North American Science Fiction Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Vazquez is also well known for his connections with genre fans around the world.

When Vazquez was asked if he could help connect the authors with any fans in China who might comment for this report, he said “I’m sorry. They do not want to speak to the media even anonymously.”

As Vazquez stated in a follow-up comment, “I have a lot of love for Chinese fandom and my friendships and connections there run deep. That’s a real and vibrant fandom there that is, like us, wanting very little to do with their government being involved in their fandom. They definitely don’t think it’s their government and instead think its corporate interests or, even worse, a fan/pro organization. Honestly, they seem more scared by that than anything else which saddens me to see and despite multiple attempts to get them to share their story they seem really hesitant.”

He elaborated further: “They don’t seem to fear official reprisal (the CPC seems to want to find who’s responsible for embarrassing them on the world stage actually) but rather ostracization from their community or its outright destruction. If I were to hazard a guess, the way we blew up this affair in the international media has now put this fandom in very serious trouble. Previously, it was one of the few major avenues of free speech left in China. Now, after all this, the continuation of that freedom seems highly unlikely.”

Whether there actually was any active political pressure on the local or provincial level or not, it’s obvious that the Chinese Communist Party is clearly not happy that what was supposed to be a good-will propaganda event blew up in their faces and embarassed the country internationally. And while the Chinese government doesn’t particularly care about an SFF con in Chengdu, they clearly do care about being embarassed.

However, what’s most heartbreaking here is that the Chinese fans – who are not to blame for any of this and indeed are as angry as we are – are now at risk of losing SFF fandom as their safe space due to increased poltical attention. Because fandom is often a safe space for those who don’t quite fit into the mainstream, particularly in authoritarian countries. Not just in China, but also e.g. in Eastern Europe pre-1989. We’ve also had several cases in recent years of China cracking down on fandom spaces such as blocking AO3 or a general crackdown on celebrity fandom culture. It’s understandable that Chinese SFF fans now fear that they may be next and I really, really hope that this won’t happen.

This was supposed to be a Worldcon that would bring Chinese and western SFF fans together. But, largely due to the cowardice of several western SMOFs, it became a complete disaster that will harm not only the reputation of Worldcon and the Hugos, but may also harm Chinese SFF fandom who really don’t deserve any of this crap.

Return of the Son of the Bride of the Grimdark Debate

In the early days of this relaunched blog, I wrote several times about the debate about grimdark fantasy, then one of the hottest subgenres on the market, which also attracted its share of criticism both from the left for its sometimes rampant misogyny and violence against women and from the right for soiling the memory of Tolkien and the numinous sanctity of the fantasy genre or some such thing.

Fast forward eleven years and grimdark fantasy is still a thing, but not nearly as dominant as it once was, while cozy fantasy, romantasy, hopepunk and other subgenres are ascendent and we’re debating about other subjects. Yet the grimdark debate just lurched back into the room like the rotting undead corpse that it is.

The necromancer who revived the rotting corpse this time around is one Sebastian Milbank, executive editor at a conservative British magazine called The Critic. Amidst articles about Brexit, the war in Ukraine, why young people should join the Army, cancel culture, gender-critical feminists (a.k.a. TERFs) and other conservative talking points, Milbank wrote this essay complaining about grimdark fantasy, how it’s somehow all Michael Moorcock’s fault and how Tolkien is superior. Found via File 770.

The essay feels as if it time-traveled here from the early 2010s, probably because it did. The examples of grimdark fantasy Milbank gives are the same examples we talked about eleven years ago, namely Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy, Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire trilogy and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and its TV adaptation Game of Thrones. A couple of other TV shows are mentioned as well – Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead – none of which are grimdark fantasy and two of which aren’t even fantasy at all. It’s also notable that all of the authors have long since moved on to other series and that all of the TV shows ended years ago, except for The Walking Dead, which still has new spin-offs coming out. Honestly, has Sebastian Milbank read a single novel or watched a single TV show that came out in the last five years?

In addition to the general grime, darkness and cycnicism, Milbank’s main issue with grimdark fantasy is not the prevalence of sexual violence and violence against women in general in some (and it was never all of them) grimdark works, which was a main point of criticism eleven years ago, but the fact that grimdark fantasy portrays religion negatively. And guess who’s to blame for this sorry state of affairs? Yes, the Left. Nevermind that grimdark fantasy was never a particularly left-leaning subgenre.

Sebastian Milbank then goes into the history of the fantasy genre or rather his idea of what the history of the fantasy genre is. Which unfortunately is completely and utterly wrong. Basically, Milbank assumes that the fantasy genre began with J.R.R. Tolkien. Which is a common misconception, but still wrong.

To be fair, Milbank does briefly go into pre-Tolkien fantasy and mentions E.R. Eddison, G.K. Chesterton (of course) and E. Nesbit, all of whom he classifies as “Edwardian neo-medieval romance”. He completely fails to mention Lord Dunsany who was a lot more influential than any of the writers he does mention, as well as Mervyn Peake, Hope Mirrless, Evangeline Walton and other early twentieth century British writers of what we would now call fantasy.

Milbank also completely ignores pre-WWII American fantasy writing, which flourished in the pages of Weird Tales, Unknown, Strange Stories, Black Cat and short-lived amateur magazines and the motley mix of gothic ghost stories, paranormal investigators, cosmic horror, historical fantasy, sword and sorcery, contemporary fantasy and haunted machinery horror found in their pages. There is no mention of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Robert Bloch, Jack Williamson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Poul Anderson, August Derleth, L. Sprague De Camp, Dorothy Quick, Allison W. Harding, Mary Elizabeth Counselman and many, many others, even though the influence of these works and their writers continues to be felt today. Conan is mentioned once, in the context of an actor dressed up as Conan and wielding Xena’s weapon at San Diego Comic Con.

Another thing that Milbank gets wrong is that Tolkien’s impact was immediate, when it was really much delayed. When The Hobbit came out in 1937, it was viewed as a children’s book. And when The Lord of the Rings came out in 1954/55, it did gain critical acclaim, but little notice among SFF fandom, because it was a pricey hardcover trilogy published in the UK in a field that was dominated by magazines and paperbacks. The reason why no volume of The Lord of the Rings was nominated for a Hugo is that way too few SFF fans even knew the books existed at the time.

It was only when Donald Wollheim (illegally) published The Lord of the Rings in paperback in the US in 1965 that the books found a new appreciative audience and gradually turned into the phenomenon they became. Together with Lancer reprinting Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories from the 1930s in paperback, the fantasy revival that had been simmering since the late 1950s suddenly burst into overdrive and in the next decade most pre-WWII fantasy, both British and American, was reprinted in paperback form after being out of print for thirty or more years and new fantasy novels inspired by older works started to appear.

Nor was the fantasy boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s overly Tolkien-inspired.  If anything, it was a lot more Robert E. Howard inspired, because it was the era of the big sword and sorcery revival as well as of more idiosyncratic works like A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin and The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Tolkien’s work was popular and beloved during this time, but he was just one writer and not yet the titan he would become. Nor was there a distinction between epic or high fantasy on the one hand and sword and sorcery on the other. Tolkien was mentioned in the same breath as Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber or Clark Ashton Smith and discussed a lot in the pages of Amra, the fanzine that served as the water cooler of the burgeoning sword and sorcery community.

Tolkienesque big fat quest fantasy didn’t become a thing until 1977, four years after Tolkien’s death, when The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks was published. And Sword of Shannara was just one book, a Tolkien clone in a sea of Clonans. It was only when it The Sword of Shannara and its sequels became a massive success and the changing economics of the publishing industry favoured longer books that vaguely Tolkienesque big fat quest fantasy started smothering all other strands of fantasy, including sword and sorcery, which had by now turned increasingly repetitive. We cannot blame J.R.R. Tolkien for this development, because he was dead when it happened. We can’t even blame Terry Brooks, because he was just one writer who inadvertedly started a trend. Maybe we can blame Lester and Judi-Lynn Del Rey who published big fat epic quest fantasy by the truckload, because that stuff sold like gangbusters. But they were just giving the public what it wanted at the time.

Big fat quest fantasy started to go stale around the turn of the millennium, as the Wheel of Time was idling on, though the first cracks were apparent as early as the late 1980s when contemporary fantasy, which had been dormant since the 1940s, made a tentative comeback, now renamed urban fantasy. This subgenre would explode in the early 2000s, around the same time as grimdark fantasy, though it attracted little notice at the time, because the writers and readers of urban fantasy were mostly women.

Even darker, grimmer takes on Tolkienesque fantasy were nothing new. Lord Foul’s Bane, the first book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson, came out in 1977, the same year as Sword of Shannara, and already bore many of the hallmarks of what would eventually be called grimdark fantasy such as a cynical and nihilistic and morally dark grey protagonist and a graphic rape scene very early in the first book.

A Game of Thrones, the first volume of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, came out in 1996 and is often viewed as the start of the grimdark trend, though personally I consider it part of a completely different trend which went mostly unnoticed at the time because it played out across different genres and subgenres. Starting in the late 1980s, several multi-volume speculative sagas appeared, which often followed a large cast of characters, often with multiple POVs, over years and decades, focussed on political machinations and occasionally massive battles and featured more graphic sex and violence than was commonly found in SFF at the time. Other examples are the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, the Deathstalker series by Simon R. Green and the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. You could probably throw The Expanse by James S.A. Corey in there as well, though that series also includes other influences. These books are normally not grouped together, because they are in different genres and subgenres, but they have a lot of similarities and were inspired in part by the massive historical sagas of writers like Dorothy Dunnett, Anne Golon, John Jakes (himself a participant in the 1960s fantasy revival) or James Mitchener as well as the so-called bodiceripper historical romances of the 1970s and 1980s, only with added SFF elements.

Anyway, by the turn of the millennium, just as the Lord of the Rings movies were breaking box office records, everybody was thoroughly sick of increasingly pale copies of The Sword of Shannara, which itself was a copy The Lord of the Rings. It was time for something new, so a couple of trends and subgenres emerged. First we had the New Weird, which quickly fizzled out. We had the urban fantasy and paranormal romance boom, which brought fantasy back into a modern day setting and harkened back to the paranormal investigators and contemporary fantasy of the 1930s and 1940s. And from approx. 2008 on, we had what would eventually be called grimdark fantasy, partially inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever and also the first and second sword and sorcery boom and taking its name from the Warhammer 40000 games, but its own thing altogether.

However, Sebastian Milbank does not blame A Song of Ice and Fire or The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever or Warhammer 40000, let alone the glut of extruded big fat fantasy product on bookstore shelves in the late 1990s for the rise of grimdark fantasy. No, he blames Michael Moorcock and Philip Pullman. Milbank writes:

An early foe was Michael Moorcock, whose own writings — full of bitter and murderous anti-heroes, doomed romances and bleak accounts of human nature — essentially set the template for much of the anti-Tolkien strain in fantasy writing.

That description matches Elric of Melniboné – now elgible again for the Hugo Award for Best Series due to the publication of the Elric story “The Folk of the Forest” in New Edge Sword and Sorcery No. 1 (hint, hint) – though Elric is not and never was the anti-Aragorn or anti-Frodo. He is the anti-Conan and the Elric stories and novels (as well as the Corum novels and many others) are sword and sorcery and seminal works of the second sword and sorcery boom at that. They’re not responses to Tolkien but to Robert E. Howard. And yes, Elric has left his mark on the fantasy genre, partly inspiring The Witcher stories and novels by Andrzej Sapkowski (which also heavily draw on East European literature and folklore) and the white-haired incestous Targaryens of A Song of Ice and Fire fame.

However, Milbank never mentions Moorcock’s best known character. Instead, he focusses on Moorcock’s 1978 essay “Epic Pooh”, which does criticise Tolkien along with C.S. Lewis, A.A. Milne and Richard Adams and a certain strain of English fantasy in general. He also focusses the 1966 novel Behold the Man, which heavily and heavy-handedly criticises Christianity and – to be fair – is very much a work of its time and doesn’t hold up very well. I remember that no one at Galactic Journey even wanted to cover that one. Finally, he mentions the Von Bek cycle of the 1980s. These works are of course a tiny fraction of Michael Moorcock’s massive output, but they match Milbank’s stereotypes. And claiming that the creator of Elric and editor of New Worlds was “vigorously chasing literary fashion” is just laughable.

As for Philip Pullman, not only does Pullman not write grimdark fantasy but YA fantasy, the His Dark Materials books are also a response to C.S. Lewis’ Narnia novels and not to Tolkien. Well, at least, he is responding to an Inkling, but the wrong one. I’m also pretty certain that the grimdark fantasy writers of the 2000s and 2010s were not inspired by His Dark Materials and Philip Pullman.

But the weirdest thing about Milbank’s essay are not the wearyingly familiar points he makes – “Fantasy needs more religion and morality. We need don’t need subversion” – but the timing. What on Earth possessed him to write that essay now, when grimdark fantasy is still chugging along, but no longer dominant, while the most exciting developments in fantasy are happening elsewhere? Is this an essay left over from the early 2010s, which he found on his harddrive and decided to publish? It’s certainly possible, especially since the newest works referenced are Captain America: Civil War from 2014 and the TV show The Boys from 2019. Neither of which are grimdark fantasy, but superhero stories or rather subversions thereof. And subversions of superhero tropes are no more new than grimdark fantasy. Alan Moore’s take on Miracleman/Marvelman came out in 1982, Watchmen in 1985.

If Milbank is looking for more hopeful and less cynical fantasy, there are plenty of options and he might enjoy the works of Travis Baldree (though there are lesbians and non-evil orcs), T. Kingfisher or Alix E. Harrow. If he wants religious fantasy, well, there was the Superversive movement which sprang up in the wake of the Sad and Rabid Puppies, though that mostly seems to have fizzled out.

The 2023 Hugo nomination statistics have finally been released – and we have questions

The long-awaited nomination statistics for the 2023 Hugo Awards have finally been published – at the last possible moment according to the WSFS constitution (and at a point when I really don’t have time for Hugo neepery). The voting statistics already came out sometimes in December and it turned out that several finalists won with very large majorities.

The full voting and nomination stats are here and there are several landmines in there, which makes me wonder whether “The Hugo admin was very busy with his day job” is the only reason the stats were delayed for so long.

So let’s delve right in:

The first landmine is lurking in Best Novel, because it turns out that Babel by R.F. Kuang, whose absence from the ballot was very notable, since pretty much everybody expected it to be nominated, started out with the third most nominations, but was knocked out by EPH on the final round (which it shouldn’t have been) and also declared ineligible. Babel was published in the US on September 1, 2022, it didn’t have any prior publication elsewhere and it’s obviously SFF, so how can it be ineligible?

The EPH data is also weird, because Babel doesn’t gain any points throughout, as the other nominees are eliminated, which is extremely unusual. Of course, most of the longlist is made up of Chinese novels, where there may be little overlap with western ballots, but I imagine that at least some of the 115 people who nominated The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler (another likely finalist conspicuous by its absence) or some of the 78 people who nominated A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys (which surprised me a little, though it’s a pleasant surprise) would have also nominated Babel. Also, it would be great if the stats listed at least the authors, because it’s annoying trying to google some of these works.

ETA: Several people have since come forward and stated that they voted for both Babel and The Mountain in the Sea or A Half-Built Garden or all three, so this should be visible in the EPH data.

Also notable by its absence from the longlist is The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin. Now N.K. Jemisin is not just a great writer, she’s also extremely popular with Hugo voters and I find it unlikely that The World We Make got fewer nominations than the more obscure A Half-Built Garden.

Personally, I’m happier with The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the finalist which made the ballot instead of Babel, because I bounced off R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy really hard. But this does not change the fact that Babel was obviously eligible and should have made the ballot. And we really need an explanation why it was declared ineligible.

Another pattern that’s really notable and that we will find throughout the ballot is the sharp drop-off in nominations. The top seven nominees – i.e. the six finalists plus Babel – received between 831 and 767 nominations. This number is much higher than usual, but then we had an influx of Chinese nominators and therefore more nomination ballots. However, the eighth place nominee, a Chinese novel entitled Age of the Godmakers (I couldn’t find out the author or anything else about this one) only got 150 nominations, 617 less than The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. This is a massive drop-off and extremely unusual.

ETA: It’s also been pointed out that in Best Novel and several other categories, the EPH numbers totalled exceed the number of total ballots cast, which should not be possible.

In Best Novella, it turns out that Becky Chambers declined a nomination for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, which was another likely finalist conspicuous by its absence. We also have the sharp drop-off in nominations between place 5, A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow with 615 nominations, and place 6, What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher with 155 nominations. The longlist consists mainly of Chinese novellas as well as High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson and The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia.

In Best Novelette, the eventual winner “The Space Time Painter” got twice as many nominations as the second place finalist. It’s clear that “The Space Time Painter” is a story which really spoke to the Chinese fans nominating, especially since it also referred to a famous Chinese painting. We also have a Chinese novelette called “Color the World” declared ineligible, according to Neil Clarke, because it was published in the wrong year, i.e. it really is ineligible. We also have another case of a nomination declined for “Two Hands Wrapped in Gold” by S.B. Divya, who went public about declining the nomination for political reasons several months ago.

Another oddity is that a story named “Turing Food Court” by Wang Nuonuo, which appeared in English in this anthology of Chinese science fiction, is listed in both tenth and twelfth place on the longlist and would likely have made the ballot, if the nominations had been combined.

ETA: Apparently, the double placement of “Turing Food Court” was a copy and paste error and has been resolved.

In Best Short Story, “On the Razor’s Edge”, a story which I did not particularly care for, was actually leading in nominations, followed by “Rabbit Test” by Samatha Mills, a story which spoke very much to US voters due to the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. We have another story, “Fogong Temple Pagoda” by Hai Ya (also found in this anthology) declared ineligible, which may be another case of prior publication. Though apparently, it was a 2022 publication. “Destiny Delayed” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki was knocked out by EPH in spite of 429 nominations and like Babel gained no points throughout. However, since the longlist is mostly comprised of Chinese stories, where the nominators were likelier to nominate other Chinese stories than a story by a Nigerian author that was published in Asimov’s, this is likelier than what happened with Babel.

In Best Series, we have no nominations declined nor anything declared ineligible, but we have the strongest example of the massive drop-off in nominations on the whole ballot. The six finalist ranks had between 925 and 816 nominations, whereas the seventh placed finalist The Nsibidi Scripts a.k.a. the Akata Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor had only 52 nominations. I’m sorry, but this pattern is so unlikely to have occurred naturally that a meteor strike hitting the convention center during the Hugo ceremony is probably more likely.

I’m also thrilled to see Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock, the longest running SFF series written by a single author (the first story came out in 1961, the last story in 2023, i.e. that’s a whopping 62 years) make the longlist in twelfth place, alas with only 27 nominations. I very much championed Elric, because there are few people alive who deserve a Hugo more the Michael Moorcock and yet never got one. Elric is eligible again in 2024 due to the publication of “The Folks in the Forest” in New Edge Sword and Sorcery No. 1 (in which I have an essay, so I got to share a TOC with Michael Moorcock, so let’s get Michael Moorcock and Elric that long overdue nomination in 2024.

In Best Graphic Story, it’s notable that the eventual winner, the IMO rather unremarkable videogame tie-in comic Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams as well the Dune graphic novel also got the most nominations. These works were on a recommendation list by the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World and are also apparently very popular with Chinese fans. The graphic novel Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Deliquanti, which actually sounds fascinating and would almost certainly have been a better finalist than Cyberpunk 2077 or Dune – again, just missed the ballot.

In Best Related, we have two works declared ineligible. The first is History of Chinese Science Fiction in the 20th Century, which was declared ineligible, because one of the author was on the Hugo committee. This is an absolutely valid reason to declare what was likely a worthy finalist ineligible and also appears to be a first in Hugo history. Another finalist declared ineligible was The Art of Ghosts of Tsushima, a video game related art book, due to prior publication in English. Nothing questionable about this.

We also have the drop-off in this category, though it’s not as huge as elsewhere. But “The Ghosts of Workshops Past” got 176 votes, the next highest place finalist “The Buffalito World Outreach Project” got only 34. This repeated pattern is really very unusual.

Looking further down the longlist, it’s notable that almost every nominee is actually a non-fiction book or sufficiently booklike object such as the 2022 Black Spec Fic Report. I’m also thrilled to see four books I featured as part of my non-fiction spotlight, make the longlist. There will be more non-fiction as well as fanzine and fancast spotlights in the run-up to the 2024 Hugos BTW.

In Best Dramatic Presentation Long, we have more oddities: Seasons 1 of Andor and The Sandman were both declared ineligible, because individual episodes got more votes in short form. This is standard practice and has happened before. It also turns out that Prey, a movie which not only was unexpectedly good but also a likely finalist, would have easily made the ballot, but the team behind the film decline the nomination. As one of the people who nominated Prey, I really would like to know why they declined. Political reasons? But then, Hollywood is actively chasing the big Chinese market, so that’s rather unlikely. And though the Hugos don’t have a lot of clout in Hollywood, I still find it unlikely that filmmakers wouldn’t want one, especially since genre films and TV shows are regularly snubbed at the major film and TV awards, as this recent round of “Let’s shower Oppenheimer, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Succession, The Bear and Beef with awards” proves.

It’s also notable that the longlist has as many complete TV seasons (Ms. Marvel, The Peripheral and Our Flag Means Death, which I fully expected to make the ballot, considering how beloved it is) as movies. I’m also really happy to see Neptune Frost, an Afrofuturist film from Rwanda, for which I co-signed an eligibility extension, just sneak onto the longlist in 15th place.

In Best Dramatic Short, things get odd again, because it turns out that an episode of The Sandman called “The Sound of Her Wings” was declared ineligible. Now season 1 of The Sandman was also declared ineligible in Best Dramatic Presentation Long, because an individual episode got more votes. However, “The Sound of Her Wings” not only was absolutely eligible, since it came out on August 5, 2022, it also got more than enough votes to make the ballot.

We also have an episode of Severance declared ineligible, because the whole season made the ballot in Long Form as well as the music video The Deep declared ineligible due to prior publication. The sharp drop-off between the first three places and place four is also notable here.

In Best Editor Long Form, the first thing that’s striking is that what traditionally is a low nomination category actually got a lot of nominations this year. Lee Harris of Tordotcom got a whopping 433 nominations, which normally would be Best Novel or Best Dramatic Presentation territory. It’s also notable that Carl Engle-Laird of Tordotcom and Priyanka Krishnan of William Morrow were both knocked out by EPH in spite of getting almost a hundred nominations more than Yao Haijun.

There’s nothing overly notable in Best Editor Short except that Jonathan Strahan, Sheila Williams and Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas were all knocked out by EPH. However, this isn’t that unusual, since all three (as well as many of those who made the ballot) are likely to be nominated by the same people.

In Best Professional Artist, we have another nomination declined by Chinese Australian artist Guo Jian. There may be political reasons for this.

There’s nothing overly unusual in Best Semiprozine except that Clarkesworld is actually a prozine and has been for years now. I’m also happy to see my friends of Space Cowboy Books Presents: Simultaneous Times to just edge onto the longlist in 15th place.

In Best Fanzine, it’s notable that the top seven nominees (the six finalists plus Black Nerd Problems) are all very close to each other with more than 200 nominations each, then we get a sharp drop-off to The Full Lid with 55 nominations and then Speculative Fiction in Translation and Runalong the Shelves with 15 nominations each. I’m sorry, but these patterns are super unusual. The last time we saw something like this was during the puppy years and even then it wasn’t this extreme..

In Best Fancast, we also have the massive drop-off between Coode Street Podcast in fourth place with 100 votes to Worldbuilding for Masochists in fifth with 56 and Kalanadi in sixth place with 20. I’m also happy to see my friends of The Skiffy and Fanty Show and If This Goes On, Don’t Panic make the longlist.

Best Fan Writer has another massive landmine, because Paul Weimer had the third highest number of nominations and yet was declared ineligible. This is complete nonsense, because Paul did plenty of fanwriting in 2022 and was obviously eligible. In fact, there are at least three nominees further down the longlist, whose eligiblity would be more in question, since they almost exclusively write for professional publications. And even that doesn’t really matter, since we have seen quite a few fan writer finalists with almost exclusively professional publications in the past few years. Paul has also confirmed that he was never contacted to clarify his eligibility, he simply was declared ineligible. He’s also understandably furious.

Also notable is that my pal Camestros Felapton was knocked out by EPH and that the pen name of finalist Arthur Liu “HeavenDuke” is misspelled as “HeavenDule”.

There are no shocking or unusual developments in Best Fan Artist, which makes it the only not even remotely controversial category on the ballot.

For the Lodestar, In the Serpent’s Wake by Rachel Hartman is actually listed twice, in fifth and seventh place. However, unlike “Turing Food Court” in Best Novelette, Rachel Hartman made the ballot anyway. Nonetheless, after taking three months to prepare the data, how can there still be such errors?

For the Astounding Award finally, we have another finalist randomly declared ineligible, namely Xiran Jay Zhao, who was on their first year of eligibility in 2022, so they should absolutely still have been eligible in 2023. Sunyi Dean also got knocked out by EPH in spite of getting the fifth highest number of votes.

***

This is the most unusual Hugo longlist I’ve ever seen, including the puppy years, and we really, really need some answers here:

Why were Babel, Paul Weimer, Xiran Jay Zhao and that Sandman episode declared ineligible, when they absolutely should have been eligible? Most of the Chinese nominees declared ineligible likely actually were ineligible due to prior publication, at least according to Neil Clarke who recognised several of the titles and authors. Though “Fogong Temple Pagoda” appears to be a 2022 publication, i.e. eligible. We definitely need answers here.

And what’s the reason behind the very strange voting patterns and sharp drop-off between first and fifteenth place nominations? Normally, this sort of pattern indicates slating, but a) EPH was supposed to reduce the impact of slates, and b) we have seen no public evidence of slates apart from a recommendation list (which is not against the rules) by Science Fiction World. And the Science Fiction World list alone does not explain these patterns.

Finally, while occasionally a nominee will fall victim to EPH, we have had several nominees knocked out by EPH, which is extremely unusual. That said, this might be explained by the very different voting patterns of Chinese and Western fans.

Nonetheless, a lot of people are justifiably angry, because these stats are a mess and make no sense at all. The conspiracy theories are already flying fast and furious. Most people seem to suspect tampering in some form.

The seemingly random ineligiblity is believed to be due to the affected nominees being considered politically undesirable in China, especially since two of the affected nominees, R.F. Kuang and Xiran Jay Zhao, are American and Canadian Chinese respectively. However, nothing I have read by R.F. Kuang suggests that she would be overly likely to criticise the Chinese government. Plus, we have other Chinese diaspora finalists on the ballot who were not declared ineligible. Nor does this explain why Paul Weimer or The Sandman or “Fogong Temple Pagoda” were declared ineligible.

ETA: One of Xiran Jay Zhao’s books apparently has an Uyghur main character, which would explain why they might be considered undesirable.

The sharp drop-offs in nomination counts seem to suggest some kind of block voting or slating, except that the phenomenon wasn’t this notable even during the puppy years. Another, nastier theory is a whole swath of nominees were removed from the ballot and their votes redistributed in order to push finalists deemed more acceptable. This also explains the absence of works we would have expected to see on the longlist. However, if this was done, then why weren’t Babel, The Sandman, Paul Weimer and Xiran Jay Zhao removed in the same way?

Anyway, we need an explanation and we need it fast, lest the conspiracy theories get out of hand.

I didn’t vote for Chengdu, but I have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, even as inconsistencies and issues kept piling up, because the way the Chinese fans were treated by some western fans was disgusting.

However, if there was political influence on the Hugo ballot (and note that this is a big “if” at this moment) and if Dave McCarty or Ben Yalow allowed this to happen, then fuck them and fuck Chengdu! I don’t blame any of the Chinese organisers for going along with possible political pressure, because they have to live in China and face genuine risks. But McCarty, Yalow or any other western SMOFs involved should have sounded the alarm or at the very least resigned. The Chinese government has no power over them. So shame on them, if they went along with this. Also shame on them, if they thought that burying the data would mean people wouldn’t notice the problem.

Note that this is all just theory and conjecture at this point. We don’t know for sure what happened. And this is why we need answers and an explanation and we need it now. The people who were randomly declared ineligible needs answers and the finalists who made the ballot or won also need answers, because this is tainting their nominations and wins as well, if they don’t know if they really made the ballot or won organically.

Also, we need changes to the WSFS constitution that a) if a finalist is declared ineligible, an explanation needs to be given (which I assumed already was a requirement, but apparently not). Also finalists where the eligibility is in question should be contacted and given the chance to clarify their eligibility.

ETA: Camestros Felapton also muses about possible changes to the WSFS constitution.

Finally, while I am supportive of Worldcons outside the usual US/UK/Canada/Australia/maybe western Europe corridor, potential bidders need to accept that local politics, preferences and censorship should not influence the Hugo ballot. I don’t care if Uganda or Florida (or Hungary or Russia) get their knickers in a twist about LGBTQ finalists or if Israel gets their knickers in a twist over Palestinian finalists or if a Muslim majority country gets its knickers in a twist over Jewish finalists. Your country’s politics, whatever they are, should not influence the Hugo ballot. Any potential bidder needs to accept this or they can’t host a Worldcon. And yes, I feel sorry for countries with shitty politics and shitty governments (which includes western countries at times), but in this case, I care more about the integrity of the Hugo Awards.

Also, Chengdu has just made it a lot more unlikely for any future non-western or non-traditional bid (mainly Uganda at this point, since Egypt withdrew and the Tel Aviv bid seems to be dead for all intents and purposes) to ever win a Worldcon again. This is also a slap in the face for those of us who defended Chengdu, so thanks a lot.

For more analysis and spirited discussion, see Camestros Felapton’s analysis post and the comments at File 770. There’s also a post on File 770, addressing the many oddity on the longlist.

ETA: Camestros has also posted the questions he sent to the Hugo admin team and did another dive into the data, particularly the sharp drop-off in nominations seen in many categories.

ETA: Heather Rose Jones taks a deep dive into the Hugo nomination data and the unusual vote distribution patterns and compares 2023 to several earlier years.

Cheryl Morgan also weighs in and points out that putting out nomination data which clearly indicate shenangigans may be a way of protesting what happened by making it obvious that something happened. Because if someone falsified the data, they did so very clumsily.

Aidan Moher also weighs in on the Hugo statistics at the new home of Astrolabe.

ETA: Best Fan Writer finalist Arthur Liu weighs in on Twitter and points out several other issues with the nomination data that I hadn’t noticed, not being that familiar with Chinese SFF.

Arthur Liu is also unhappy to realise he made the ballot because Paul Weimer was disqualified. And this is why all this is so infuriating and unfair, not just towards those who were declared ineligible, but also towards those who made the ballot and now question their nominations. And this is something no Hugo finalist deserves.

Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “In Exile”

It’s time for another Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre photo story. The name “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre” was coined by Kevin Beckett at the Whetstone Discord server.

One of the many shocking moments in Masters of the Universe Revelation happened at the end of episode 1 after He-Man has gotten himself (as well as Skeletor) killed, while saving Eternia and the entire universe. Just before getting himself killed, he also reverts to Adam in front of Teela’s eyes, so she finally learns the secret of He-Man’s identity in the worst possible way.

Back at the royal palace, it falls to Duncan to inform the King and Queen that He-Man is dead, because everybody else (Teela, Orko and Cringer) is much too traumatised to even get a word out.

To make matters worse, King Randor still has no idea that his son was He-Man, until Marlena pretty much screams the truth into his face. Whereupon Randor decides to take out his frustration – and the realisation that he was a bad father and that the last thing he said to Adam before he went out to sacrifice himself to protect Eternia and all of the universe was that he’s never been proud of Adam – on Duncan of all people.

So Randor cuts loose, strips Duncan of his rank, banishes him from the palace and threatens to have him executed, should he ever see him again. To twist the knife even further, Randor then orders Duncan’s daughter Teela to personally kick her father out of the palace. This is the moment where Teela snaps, yells at everybody, tears off her headband and quits her post. Duncan, meanwhile, just passively accepts everything with a resigned, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

It’s a shocking moment – and it comes on the heels of another massive shock, since we just saw Adam/He-Man being disintegrated – because Revelation really wants to punch us in the gut. For starters, Duncan isn’t just Randor’s right-hand man and general of the Eternian army. No, Randor and Duncan are friends and have been friends since they were teenagers. They’ve fought side by side and back to back, they share meals and eat at the same table. They’re more than friends, they’re family, something which is even spelled out in the dialogue at the beginning of the episode. So for Randor to lash out at his best friend is shocking, even if he is grieving the loss of his only son.

But Randor doesn’t just lash out at Duncan – which might be understandable, given the circumstances – no, there’s also a nasty streak of cruelty in what he does to Duncan. For starters, no one in Eternia has ever been threatened with execution, neither Skeletor, who is a truly horrible person and kills a shitload of people in Revelation, nor any of his Evil Warriors nor King Hiss and his Snake People nor Hordak (though to be fair, he spends most of his time on Etheria) nor lesser villains like Count Marzo. In fact, Eternia does not appear to have the death penalty, probably because Masters of the Universe was intended for children, so death penalty references would have been unsuitable and disturbing, though that sure as hell did not stop whoever wrote the live-action Disney movie about a heroic dog in which a random kidnapper is threatened with the electric chair “because of the Lindberg baby”, which prompted my kid self to ask my parents some very uncomfortable questions regarding what an electric chair is. After they explained to me what an electric chair was, I said, “But that must hurt terribly.”

Interestingly, there is one death penalty reference in an episode of the Filmation cartoon of all things, where we learn that in darker chapters of Eternia’s past, criminals were executed by exposing them to a fast-growing black monster fungus called the Creeping Horak, which overgrows everything and eventually suffocates its victims. Evil-Lyn manages to get her hands on a sample and throws it into the Royal Palace, almost killing Duncan, Teela, Orko, King Randor and Queen Marlena (as well as a bunch of guards, servants, etc…), until He-Man finds a way to stop it. The idea is very disturbing, particularly for a kids’ cartoon, and I’m surprised that writer Marc Scott Zicree got away with it. That said, it is made very clear that the Creeping Horak is something that was used in Eternia’s past and that modern day Eternians find the practice abhorrent. Now I don’t believe that Randor would actually have made true of his threat and that he would have had his lifelong friend Duncan executed, whether by Creeping Horak or more conventional means. But the threat is bad enough, especially considering it is never once hurled at Skeletor (he’s usually threatened with spending the rest of his life in the royal dungeon). Yet Randor would do that to Duncan of all people.

To make matters even worse, Randor not only strips Duncan off his rank and kicks him out of the palace (and orders Duncan’s own daughter to kick him out, except that Teela refuses), but also forbids him from building any weapons or as much as welding two pieces of metal together on pain of death. Considering Duncan is both a soldier and an inventor and has never been anything else, Randor has not just banished him but also taken away any means of making a living. He’s basically condemned Duncan to either poverty and working illegally or both. And since it’s implied, though never stated outright (except in the Netflix CGI series, where the characters are quite different from their usual versions) that Duncan does not come from a privileged background, but rose through the ranks due to his courage and his skills, this makes Randor’s actions still worse, because he’s basically telling Duncan, “I picked you up from the gutter and I can throw you back any time I feel like it.” Interestingly, Skeletor says something very similar to Evil-Lyn (who is a street kid in this version). He reminds her that he picked her up from the gutter and strongly implies that he can throw her back at any time. Honestly, what Randor does to Duncan, the man who was his best friend for decades, is so staggeringly cruel that I wonder whether Keldor got his cruel streak solely from his mother or whether King Miro contributed some of it.

Now Randor is never a particularly likeable character, because he’s not meant to be. Randor’s purpose in any version of Masters of the Universe is to be the distant and cold parent who doesn’t understand or even see his children for who they are. The portrayal of Randor varies quite a bit over the years. The Randor from the Netflix CGI series is the best father, whereas the Randor from the 2002 series is the best king (and probably the best Randor over all, since he isn’t that terrible of a father either). Meanwhile, Revelation Randor is the worst of the bunch by far.

But one thing that has remained constant is that Randor is always in conflict with Adam, that he is perpetually disappointed and cannot or will not see his son for who he is. This is something that a lot of people can relate to – and indeed part of the reason why Masters of the Universe is so enduringly popular is that we can relate to the characterss and their conflicts, even if we do not have a magical sword that will turn us into a superhero. So Randor’s role is that of the parent who doesn’t see or understand (and who occasionally learns better). Meanwhile, the role of the supportive parent is fulfilled by Duncan in most versions of the story (and by Cringer in the CGI series).

This is also the true reason why Randor lashes out at Duncan. Not because Duncan failed to protect Adam, since no one could have stopped Adam from doing what needed to be done anyway, but because Randor realises that not only was he a complete failure as a father, but that Duncan was more of a father to Adam than Randor ever was. Indeed, it’s notable that Randor lashes out at all the people (in the widest sense of the word) that Adam loved, namely Duncan, Orko and Cringer (and he probably would have turned his anger on Teela eventually, too), which is one hell of a way to honour his son’s memory. It also shows that Randor still doesn’t understand Adam, if he even remotely believes that this is something Adam would have wanted.

It’s also very telling that the usual aggrieved fanboys (and they’re all male) complain about Teela’s actions in Revelation, that she is rude and angry and quits her post in a huff, but that absolutely no one seems to have any problems with Randor’s utterly terrible behaviour. Also, most people seem to forget that Duncan was dealing with a massive amount of guilt himself. After all, he deeply cared about Adam and clearly blames himself for failing to protect him.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation never delves into what happened to Duncan after he was kicked out of the palace. The next time we see him is in episode 3, set several years later, where he is living in exile in a little cottage in the country with Orko (another victim of Randor’s rage) and Roboto and occasionally teaches the local punks some manners. However, I find it hard to believe that Duncan would just sit around in his cottage and occasionally beat up lowlives for several years, cause that’s not who he is. And indeed he sports an impressive arsenal, once Teela enlists his help on her quest.

Issue 2 of the Masterverse comic miniseries by Dark Horse does offer us a glimpse at what Duncan was doing in between episodes 1 and 3 of Masters of the Universe: Revelation. The comic is an anthology series, featuring many different versions of He-Man and his supporting cast, tied to together by a framing story of the Sorceress and Zodac gazing into the multiverse. One of these segments is called “Man-at-Arms For Hire”, written Tim Seeley with art by Victor Santos, and features a disgraced and depressed Duncan working as a hardboiled private detective in a noir style story. And Duncan’s assistant is none other than Evil-Lyn, who we know has a soft spot for him.

The story is very short, only 15 pages, but a lot of fun and I would love to see more of Duncan and Lyn working together, solving crimes. And who knows, maybe I will eventually do a toy photo story inspired by that comic.

But for now, enjoy this story of Duncan and his little found family receiving an unexpected visitor…

In Exile

In Duncan’s workshop in his cabin somewhere in the wilds of Eternia…

“And then I said, ‘With all due respect, Your Majesty – not that I think you’re due any – you can kiss my…”

“Malcolm, please tell me you didn’t tell the King to kiss your arse?”

“Oh, I was very polite. I said butt.”

“Sigh. Malcolm, you’re unbelievable.”

“Why? What’s Randor going to do to me? Kick me out? He’s barely got any Heroic Warriors and Royal Guards left, since almost everybody quit.”

“The King could do much worse than that.”

“What? Chop off my head? I’d like to see him try. I could take Randor when he was just a snot-nosed cadet and I can still take him now.”

“Well, if that isn’t my favourite disgraced weapons master… and his idiotic brother.”

“You didn’t tell me you were expecting a visitor, brother.”

“Because I wasn’t.”

“Malcolm, would you mind doing whatever it is you’re doing when you’re not bothering your brother and leave us alone?”

“Be seeing you, brother. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Come on, Roboto.”

“But Father said…”

“Roboto, sometimes grown-ups want to be left alone to do grown-up things, no matter what they say.”

“Malcolm, Roboto, wait!”

“Why, Duncan, no hello and how are you for an old enemy?”

“What do you want, Lyn? And make it quick, cause I’m busy.”

“That’s so typical of you, Duncan. Always in a hurry, even though you no longer have a job. Won’t you at least offer a girl a drink? No? Then I’ll just take whatever Malcolm’s been having.”

“Come to the point, Lyn.”

“The point is Tri-Klops is up to something.”

“Tri-Klops is always up to something. He was trouble even before he joined up with Keldor.”

“This is different. Tri-Klops and Trap Jaw have taken over Snake Mountain and they’re assembling an army.”

“Not who I would have expected to come out on top in the power struggle to fill the vaccuum left by Skeletor’s… disappearance.”

“You can say ‘death’, you know? Skeletor is dead. Just like… well, you know who.”

“I’m actually surprised you didn’t take over Snake Mountain and what’s left of Skeletor’s army. Of all his lieutenants, you were always the most capable.”

“A compliment, Duncan? How sweet! But I never wanted Snake Mountain or Skeletor’s forces. Do you honestly think I liked being stuck in the dark hemisphere in that grisly old fortress with a bunch of idiots?”

“Then why do you care if Tri-Klops and Trap Jaw have taken it over?”

“If it were just Snake Mountain, I wouldn’t care. Tri-Klops is welcome to that old pile of rocks. But he and Trap Jaw are up to something. They’re gathering an army, they’re kidnapping peasants to bolster their ranks and Tri-Klops… well, I know it sounds weird, but he seems to have found religion and is now serving some kind of goddess called Motherboard. Also, he stole something that belongs to me”

“Again, Lyn, was does that have to do with me?”

“Ahem, Tri-Klops and Trap Jaw are kidnapping people and building up an army to do Horokoth knows what. Once upon a time, that would have been enough to spur you into action.”

“That time is past. Or have you forgotten that I’m banished by royal decree?”

“Once upon a time, that wouldn’t have stopped you. You would have gone out and done what needed to be done, Randor be damned.”

“I could be executed…”

“That never stopped you either. You’ve stared death in the face more times than I can count. And besides, we both know that Randor doesn’t have the guts.”

“Besides, you’ve been violating the King’s decree anyway and are building weapons again.”

“Lyn, I…”

“Don’t worry, Duncan, your secret is safe with me. I won’t rat you out to Randor, if only because I don’t fancy spending the rest of my life in the royal dungeon. So what are you building?”

“It’s a long range high intensity plasma cannon. It fires…”

“That’s a very big gun.”

“Lyn, that’s not…”

“That’s the only big gun I’m interested in right now, Duncan.”

“Lyn, no.”

“Why not? I know you want it, too.”

“It… it’s not right.”

“Why not? Skeletor is dead. He-Man is dead. Randor kicked you out of the palace. Teela has run off to Horokoth knows where. Grayskull, Snake Mountain, none of that matters anymore. What’s stopping us?”

“Man-at-Arms, Man-at-Arms, I tried to make rain to water the garden and it worked – well, sort of.”

“What the…?”

“Sigh. Saved at the last instant.”

“Uhm, am I interrupting anything?”

“Yes.”

“Uhm, hello Evil-Lyn. Long time no see.”

“What are you doing here, imbecile?”

“Ahem, I live here. What are you doing here? You weren’t attacking us, were you?”

“I was consulting Lyn on a matter of… ahem… magic.”

“And you didn’t ask me first? After all, I’m the royal court magician. Well, ex-royal court magician.”

“Well, if you’d rather spend your time with washed-up would-be mages than with me, then so be it. If you change your mind and want to experience some real magical fireworks, you know where to find me. Be seeing you, Duncan.”

“I’m sorry for interrupting you, Man-at-Arms. But I was so excited that my magic works again. Though I’m afraid I flooded the vegetable garden.”

“It’s all right, Orko. In fact, you just saved my life and my honour.”

“Yes, that Evil-Lyn is sure dangerous.”

“Trust me, Orko, you have no idea.”

“Well, Lyn sure left quickly, brother. I must say you used to have more stamina.”

“Father, the vegetable garden is flooded, even though there was no rain forecast.”

“Malcolm, never ever leave me alone with that woman again.”

“Why not, brother? Lyn likes you. She always has. And she has cut all ties with Snake Mountain. Yes, she’s still a thief, but then she’s never been anything else. And besides, what does it matter? You deserve some happiness.”

“Malcolm, just… shut up, please.”

“Blue balls are clearly making grumpy, brother. All the more reason to take up Lyn on her offer.”

“Malcolm…”

“Yes, I’ll shut up.”

“Uhm, Roboto, about the garden…”

***

That’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Photo Story, because there will be more. Especially since I not only got a bunch of new toys, but we also have the new Masters of the Universe: Revolution cartoon coming up (trailer here) soon with Lyn fighting on the side of the good guys and quite possibly more sparks flying between her and Duncan.

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

A handy guide to all SFF-related posts and works of 2023

I never felt particularly 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. Eventually, it paid off, because I was a Hugo finalist for Best Fan Writer in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and won in 2022.

So if you’re interested in what I write, here is an overview of all SFF related blogposts of 2023, in chronological order, as well as a list of all the SFF and other fiction I published.

Because I did so many Fanzine/Fancast/Non-Fiction Spotlight interviews, I separated the Spotlights from the other blogposts. I also separated the Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Toy Photo Stories from the rest of the blogposts.

That said, I have a shiny rocket on my shelf and there are many highly deserving fan writers who have never even been nominated, let alone won. Therefore, I’d like to ask folks to nominate some of those other great folks.

Finally, I know that there are people out there who don’t like me and don’t like what I have to say. That’s okay, no one has to like me and my work. But if you don’t like my work, just don’t read it. There’s no need to send harassment mobs my way.

And if you think you’re going to silence me, think again. Cause it’s not going to work.

At this blog:

The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu are back and have become “The Apostate”Some Comments on the 2022 Nebula Award FinalistsOscars Everywhere All At Once – Some Thoughts on the 2023 Academy Award WinnersRemembering John Jakes (1932 -2023)The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu Visit “The Mines of Mandalore”The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu step aside for “The Convert”The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu delve into the backstory of “The Foundling”The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu deal with “The Pirate”The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu solve a mystery in “Guns For Hire”The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu return to Mandalore and meet “The Spies”An Open Letter to the 2023 Hugo Finalists, Whoever They May BeThe Mandalorian and Baby Grogu Celebrate “The Return”Some Thoughts on the 2022 Nebula Award WinnersCora’s Adventures at Metropol Con in Berlin, Part 1: Pre-Con WanderingsCora’s Adventures at Metropol Con in Berlin, Part 2: The ConSame Old Debate, New Clothes: The Cozy Horror ControversyThe 2023 July Short Story Challenge – Day by DaySome Thoughts on the 2023 Hugo FinalistsFoundation Finds Itself “In the Seldon’s Shadow” at the Start of Season 2Foundation Gets “A Glimpse of Darkness” and Introduces Some Major PlayersFoundation meets “King and Commoner” and swears a lotThe 2023 Dragon Award Finalists: Mostly Good with a OdditiesFoundations Goes “Where the Stars Are Scattered Thinly” and largely treads waterFoundation meets “The Sighted and the Seen” and has nothing whatsoever to do with the booksFoundation explains “Why the Gods Made Wine” and still has next to nothing to do with the booksFoundation Experiences “A Necessary Death”Some Comments on the 2023 Dragon Award WinnersFoundation Discovers “The Last Empress”Foundation travels “Long Ago, Not Far Away” and blows up its own premiseMy Dad, Addy Buhlert (1938 – 2023)Foundation explores “Creation Myths” and ends season 2Some Comments on the 2023 Hugo WinnersA Bouquet of Mixed Links and Two Estranged BrothersThe 2023 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional ParentsThe 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Awardas well as twelve regular editions and four holiday editions of Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month and Indie Crime Fiction of the Month

The Complete Fanzine/Fancast/Semiprozine/Non-Fiction Spotlights:

Semiprozine Spotlight: Wyngraf Magazine of Cozy FantasySemiprozine Spotlight: New Edge Sword and Sorcery MagazineFanzine Spotlight: SMOF NewsFanzine Spotlight: Remembrance of Things Past and FutureFancast Spotlight: ChrononautsSemiprozine Spotlight: Hexagon Speculative Fiction MagazineNon-Fiction Spotlight: Brian W. Aldiss and Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood: A Critical Companion by Paul KincaidNon-Fiction Spotlight: The Life and Art of Dave Cockrum by Glen CadiganNon-Fiction Spotlight: Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West by Aidan MoherNon-Fiction Spotlight: Hither Came Conan, edited by Bob Byrne, Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones and Jason M. WaltzNon-Fiction Spotlight: D20 or Die!: Memories of Old School Role-Playing Games from Today’s Grown-Up Kids, edited by Jim Beard

The Complete Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Toy Photo Stories:

Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Wun-Dar and His Wonderful Dinosaur”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Held Hostage”.Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Cat Fight”.Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “The Prisoner of Castle Grayskull”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Double Feature: “Precious” and “The Broken Sword”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “The Story of Keldor (In His Own Words)”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Adam’s Day Out”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Playing for Dinner”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “The Prisoner of Castle Grayskull Revisited”Two Links and a Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Double Feature: “New Dad” and “Orko Interruptus”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Pride Month Special: “Ambush in the Mystic Mountains”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “Artistic License”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “The Uninvited Guest”Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “The Maiden and the Monster”

At Galactic Journey:

“The Return of the Dynamic Duo: The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber” in Alyx and Company (January 1968 Galactoscope)“Buddha os a Spaceman: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny” and “Looting the Pharaohs: Easy Go by John Lange” in In Distant Lands (March 1968 Galactoscope)In Unquiet Times: The Frankfurt Arson Attacks, the Shooting of Rudi Dutschke and Electronic Labyrinth THX-1138 4EBAdventures for a Dime: Science Fiction and Horror Dime Novels in West Germany“The Long Con: God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake” in Dangerous Visions (Not Those Dangerous Visions!) (September 1968 Galactoscope)The Further Adventures of the Cimmerian: Conan of the Isles by Lin Carter and L. Sprague De Camp and the Lancer Conan Series in General“A King on the Run: The Goblin Tower by L. Sprague De Camp” in Adventure and Eulogies (December Galactoscope)

Elsewhere:

“Between Cynism and Faith” in Asimov’s Foundation and Philosophy: Psychohistory and Its Discontents, edited by Joshua Heter and Josef Thomas Simpson“Cele Goldsmith Lalli – Midwife to the Second Sword and Sorcery Boom” in New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine No. 1: Fall 2023

Podcast appearances:

“Readalong: The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett” in SFFAudio Podcast #715“Readalong: Binary by Michael Crichton” in SFFAudio Podcast #717“Readalong: The Star King by Jack Vance” in SFFAudio Podcast #719“Readalong: Drug of Choice by Michael Crichton” in SFFAudio Podcast #723“Audiobook/Readalong: ‘The Isle of Pirate’s Doom’ by Robert E. Howard” in SFFAudio Podcast #726“A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine, featuring Cora Buhlert” in Hugos There #75“Readalong: Easy Go by Michael Crichton” in SFFAudio Podcast #730“Readalong: The Black Priestess of Varda by Erik Fennel” in SFFAudio Podcast #732“Audiobook/Readalong: ‘The Black Stranger’ by Robert E. Howard” in SFFAudio Podcast #734Season 3, episode 7 of Stars End: A Foundation Podcast“Audiobook/Readalong: ‘Shadows in Zamboula’ by Robert E. Howard” in SFFAudio Podcast #726“Audiobook/Readalong: Space Viking by H. Beam Piper” in SFFAudio Podcast #747“The Golden Age of Science Fiction with Cora Buhlert” in Seldon Crisis, Season 3, Episode 43“Readalong: The Venom Business by Michael Crichton” in SFFAudio Podcast #749“Audiobook/Readalong: Unseen—Unfeared by Francis Stevens” in SFFAudio Podcast #751“Audiobook/Readalong: Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper” in SFFAudio Podcast #754“Readalong: Odds On by Michael Crichton” in SFFAudio Podcast #757“A Conversation about The Beatles ‘Now and Then'” in Light On Light Through“Foundation 2nd Season: Cora Buhlert, Joel McKinnon, and Paul Levinson discuss” in Light On Light Through“Sci-Fi Hall of Fame Stories Discussion Panel #1: “Martian Odessey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum” in Postcards From a Dying World #127“Readalong: Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson” in SFFAudio Podcast #764

Fiction (SFF):

“Homecoming Gift” in Wyngraf Magazine (flash fiction)“Astrocast Flashes: Bug-eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love Them” in Waystation Amateur Magazine of Space Opera (flash fiction, reprint)“Rest My Weary Bones” in Swords and Sorcery Magazine Issue 138, August 2023 (short story)“A Cry on the Battlefield” in The Little Cozy Book: A Cozy Fantasy Flash Fiction Anthology from Wyngraf (flash fiction, reprint)“We need to talk…” in Simultaneous Times Volume 3, edited by Jean-Paul L. Garnier (short story, reprint)

The 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award

While I have been awarding the Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents for 43 years now, the Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award is a new prize that I only introduced in 2020 as a companion piece to the Darth Vader Parenthood Award. The 2020 winner may be found here, the 2021 winner here and the 2022 winner here.

As for why I felt the need to introduce a companion award, depictions of parenthood in popular culture have been undergoing a paradigm shift in the past few years with more positive portrayals of supportive and loving parents and fewer utterly terrible parents. Personally, I believe that this shift is a very good thing, because the reason that I started the Darth Vader Parenthood Award in the first place is because I was annoyed by all the terrible parents in pop culture. For while most real world parents may not be perfect, at least they do their best. Maybe, the conditions that gave rise to the Darth Vader Parenthood Award will eventually cease to exist and we can permanently retire the award.

Warning: Spoilers for lots of things behind the cut!

Therefore, let’s give a big hand to all the good parents in pop culture that we have seen this year. As in the last two years, there were plenty of viable candidates, more than for the Darth Vader Parenthood Award, and selecting the winner was a difficult choice.

So let’s have a brief rundown of the candidates who did not quite make it:

A Marvel character won the 2023 Darth Vader Parenthood Award, but the Marvel Cinematic and TV Universe also continued to yield many positive portrayals of parenthood and indeed the claims that all Marvel heroes have daddy issues no longer hold true, if they ever were. Besides, as I explained yesterday, there is a reason why the Marvel Cinematic and TV Universe focusses so much on parents.

So let’s take a look at the good parents of Marvel.

For some reason, The Marvels is considered the biggest flop of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is unfair, because it’s actually a pretty good film, better than several other recent Marvel offerings. However, The Marvels also marked the return of Kamala Khan’s Pakistani-American parents Yusuf and Muneeba Khan and her brother Aamir and they’re still as lovable and chaotic as ever. And yes, it’s always gratifying to see a positive portrayal of a Muslim family in pop culture, since way too many portrayals of Muslim families in pop culture still serve up the same old hoary clichés of abusive fathers and brothers imprisoning and controlling and sometimes honour-killing their daughters and sisters, while the mothers look on and tacitly approve. Even though we’ve all seen that film (and come to think of it, I’m surprised that the parents of Yasemin didn’t win the 1988 Darth Vader Parenthood Award, but then I clearly disliked Douglas Channing more), seen it several times in fact. Therefore, it’s always good to see loving families who just happen to be Muslim.

The Marvels also delved into the relationship between Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau, since Carol initially was Monica’s honourary aunt and helped Maria parent her (whether there was anything more to the relationship between Carol and Maria remains unsaid) and then buggered off into outer space and only returned when Monica was already an adult and had lost her own mother to cancer. Also, at the end of The Marvels, Monica is reunited with an alternate universe version of her mother, because Multiverses are like that.

Another Marvel parent who debuted in Captain Marvel is the Skrull leader Talos and his daughter G’iah. Talos and G’hia returned in the little seen (and not very good) TV-series Secret Invasion, with the now grown-up G’iah played by Emilia Clarke and estranged from her father.  Their relationship is complicated and then cut short when Talos is killed.

The Ant-Man films have always been among the most family-focussed Marvel offerings. Sadly, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was less focussed on the family banter and interplay, which made the first two Ant-Man films so enjoyable, and more on the Quantum Realm and Kang the Conqueror, who was set to be Marvel‘s next Big Bad, until Kang actor Jonathan Majors was revealed to be a domestic abuser. The movie was also not very good, though it did give us some nice moments between Scott Lang and his now teenaged daughter Cassie as well as Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne and their daughter Hope, just not enough for an award.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 gave us the winner of the 2023 Darth Vader Parenthood Award, but it also gave us Drax and Nebula adopting the genetically modified children the High Evolutionary, undisputed winner of the 2023 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents, created and was about to kill.

Over in the animated corner of the Marvel Multiverse, particularly the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse gave us police officer Jefferson Davis, the unfortunately named (honestly, what were they thinking?) but loving and protective father of Miles Morales.

Finally, in the comic corner of the Marvel Universe (yes, Marvel still published comics) we experienced the until now unheard of phenomenon of a former Darth Vader Parenthood Award winner throwing their hat in the ring for the Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award. Because fairly late in the year, the comic X-Men Blue Origins #1 retconned the parentage of Kurt Wagner a.k.a. Nigthcrawler yet again to reveal that he is the biological child of Raven Darkholme a.k.a. Mystique (which we’ve known since the early 1990s) and Irene Adler a.k.a. Destiny (and yes, it has since been confirmed that she is that Irene Adler, the one who made Sherlock Holmes fall for her, only that Mystique was posing as Holmes). Now the fact that Mystique is bisexual and has been in a longterm relationship with Destiny is not exactly news either, since it has been strongly implied since the 1980s that these two were a couple (and they even had an adopted kid in Rogue), only that the censorship standards of the time meant that the writers couldn’t straight up say it. After all, we knew that Northstar was gay long since before it was officially confirmed, too. Anyway, Kurt has two Mommies and Mystique is not just his mother but also his biological father, since she is a shapshifter after all, which is new. As for why Kurt takes after Mystique rather than Irene, well, Mystique wanted a baby who looks like her. Plus, Kurt and Mystique get along really well these days, which is a far cry from the shitty behaviour towards Kurt and Graydon Creed (remember him?) that earned her a Darth Vader Parenthood Award back in 1994.

As their names are called out, the various Marvel character around the auditorium cheer and stand up. Mystique and Kurt are present as well, sitting next to each other and clearly enjoying themselves. Kurt is wearing a tuxedo and Mystique is wearing a stunning white evening gown.

Yes, these are my nigh thirty years old ToyBiz figures. Never had the Marvel Legends version and they’re ridiculously expensive by now. Unfortunately, they don’t scale with any version of Keldor I have.

Keldor, who’s still here, since he got drunk with Tyrion Lannister after yesterday’s ceremony and hasn’t yet made it back to Eternia, leaves Tyrion to his ale and sits down next to Mystique and Kurt.

“Excuse me for interrupting, but up to now I had no idea that there were Gar on Earth.”

“Well, I have no idea what a Gar is. My son and I are mutants. Is that what they call people like us where you’re from?”

“A feared and hated minority, mistrusted for merely existing. ‘Gar’ is one of the nicer things they call us.”

“Oh, believe me, I know all about being a feared and hated and mistrusted minority on my world. And you and I, my new friend, should talk. In private, if you take my meaning…”

Mystique gives him a look that’s pure invitation. Keldor smiles in return and we’re pretty sure Evil-Lyn won’t like this. Neither does Kurt, since he tugs on Mystique’s gown.

“Listen, I’ve only just come to terms with the fact that you’re my mother as well as my father. I’ve accepted that you felt the need to give me away and abandon. I’ve accepted that you never felt the need to give Rogue away. Heavens, I’ve accepted that you’ve slept with half the people in this room…”

Mystique looks around the room. “Oh, my sweet summer child, it’s considerably more than that*.”

Kurt blushes furiously, though we have no idea how that’s even possible, considering he’s blue.

“And now go and play with your friends, Kurt, my dear, and let me and – excuse me, what was your name again?”

“Keldor of the House of Miro, soon to be High King of Eternia.”

“It’s a pleasure. I am Raven Darkholme, sometimes of the House of M and sometimes of the House of X, but mostly my own.”

They smile at each other and get up. Mystique waves at Kurt.

“Have fun, Kurt. Mommy will be busy for a few hours.”

As Mystique and Keldor leave together, Tyrion finally wakes from his slumber and notices that his drinking companion is gone. He waves at Kurt.

“Hey, blue fellow there, want to share a cup of ale with me?”

Kurt sighs. “I could sure use one. Parents…”

“Tell me about it, pal.”

***

After that unexpected interlude of cross-universe interaction, let’s take a look at the DC side of things. DC had several movies out this year as well, though most of them flopped and no one seems to have liked them much. That said, we did have some good parents figures in the DC Cinematic Universe.

Billy Batson and his loveable and chaotic foster family, all of them with superpowers of their own, returned in Shazam: Fury of the Gods, a movie that sadly sank without a trace. Another DC movie that sank without a trace, even less deserved than Shazam: Fury of the Gods, was Blue Beetle, which gave us Jaime Reyes delightful and loving family with parents Rocio and Alberto (who sadly does not survive the film – RIP), grandmother Nana and sister Milagro.

The Flash focussed a lot on Barry Allen breaking the Multiverse (yeah, he tends to do that) in order to save the life of his mother Nora and save his father Henry from being wrongfully imprisoned. Now I couldn’t be bothered to watch The Flash, but Henry and Nora are usually portrayed as loving parents.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom reintroduced us to Jason Momoa’s take on Arthur Curry a.k.a. Aquaman who has married Mera and is now father of a little boy named Arthur Jr. The kidnapping of Arthur Jr. and Arthur Sr.’s quest to rescue his son are what sets the plot in motion.

Over in the animated corner of the DC Universe, My Adventures With Superman not only gave us a delightful fresh new take on Clark, Lois and Jimmy, but also reintroduced us to the very characters this award is named for, Jonathan and Martha Kent. And yes, they’re great parents as always. We also get an ambiguous take on General Sam Lane, who has a difficult relationship with his daughter Lois and makes Martha Kent angry, as well as a version of Jor-El who seems to be gunning for the Darth Vader Parenthood Award in a surprising development.

Let’s move away from the DC Universe and visit the Star Trek Universe. Star Trek Picard has featured on the longlist for the Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award since its inception, but 2023 was the year that Jean-Luc Picard finally became a father himself, when it was revealed that Beverly Crusher had born his son Jack twentysomething years before, something that Jean-Luc was utterly unaware of. Star Trek Picard turning into The Starfleet Captain’s Secret Baby was certainly unexpected, though in the end Jean-Luc Picard did not win the award against stiff competition.

Over in the Star Wars Universe, Ahsoka gave us the live action debut of Hera Syndulla, Rebellion/New Republic and loving single mom of Jacen, the result of a relationship with the Jedi knigth Kanan Jarrus. Yeah, we always knew Anakin wasn’t the only Jedi who ignored the celibacy oath.

Our inaugural winner in 2020, Din Djarin from The Mandalorian also returned in 2023 and not only continued to be a great Dad to Grogu, but also finally formally adopted Grogu to the Armourer’s exasperated “THIS is a the way”, so Din and Grogu are now officially a family as well.

Din is sitting in the front row in full beskar armour with Grogu on his lap. When their names are mentioned, Grogu waves to the audience.

And I would have been happy to award Din again, except that he already had his bite of the pie (quite literally) back in 2020 and there are so many other deserving parents that I don’t want to double dip.

Upon hearing that there will be no pie this year, Grogu’s ear droop.

Which brings us to the 2023 runner-up, a candidate who emerged very early in the year and remained in the lead for a long time. Indeed, it was a head to head race and a very narrow win. So the runner-up for the 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award is…

Drumroll

Joel Miller

Portrayed by Pedro Pascal in the TV series The Last of Us and Troy Baker in the eponymous video game, Joel is the single father of teenager Sarah, when an outbreak of the fungal cordyceps infection causes the zombie apocalypse and a nigh complete breakdown of civilisation. Sarah is killed during the initial outbreak, shot dead by a soldier who mistakes Joel and Sarah for infected, and Joel becomes an embittered survivor and smuggler in a brave and ugly new world.

Fast forward twenty years, when Joel, who has closed himself off against all emotions, suddenly finds himself in charge of ferrying teenager Ellie, who happens to be immune against cordyceps, across a post-apocalyptic America. Joel initially tries to keep his distance, but eventually bonds with Ellie and adopts her as his own. And when he finds out why the rebel group Fireflies really wants Ellie, well let’s just say it doesn’t end well for the Fireflies, because Joel will do everything to protect his girl.

That sort of paternal dedication in the face of the harshest circumstances imaginable deserves an award and therefore, I am proud to declare Joel Miller the runner-up for the 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award.

Applause

As applause erupts in auditorium, Ellie hugs Joel and jumps up and down in her seat, cheering. Joel is a little befuddled by events, until Ellie pushed him towards the stage.

So Joel mounts the stage, clad in jeans, boots, a flannel shirt and fur-lined leather jacket. Ellie is wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and a hoodie, because a post-apocalyptic world doesn’t offer too many options for clothes shopping.

As Joel ascends to the stage, Grogu starts pointing at him and yelling, “Da, da, da”, much to Din Djain’s confusion.

After being presented with Martha Kent’s famous apple pie, Joel delivers the following acceptance speech:

Uhm, thank you. I… I’m not quite sure what I’m even doing here.

Yes, I’m a Dad and I protect my kid, cause that’s what Dads do. I don’t think there’s anything special, let alone award-worthy about that. I’m just a Dad, doing what a Dad does.

And yes, I failed my Sarah and lost her. But then the universe sent me Ellie and gave me a second chance and for that I’m so grateful.

As for the Fireflies, FEDRA and anybody else who wants Ellie, if you want my girl, you have to go through me first, Cause if we have to sacrifice even one kid to save the world, then maybe the world is not worth saving.

Thank you.

Joel accepts the pie from Martha Kent and eyes it sceptically. “Are you sure there’s no cordyceps contamination in there, ma’am. Cause I have a kid and don’t want to endanger her.”

“Young man, I have no idea what a cordyceps is, but I can assure you that this pie is made only with the best purest wheat, eggs, butter, milk and apples from the Kent family farm in Kansas.”

At this moment, Ellie spots the pie and helps herself to a slice. “Mmm, pie.”

Joel sighs. “Well, never mind.”

At this point, Din Djarin and a very excited Grogu walk up to Joel, Ellie and Martha. Grogu is still exclaiming “Da, da, da”, while looking from Din to Joel and back again, very confused.

Din turns to Joel. “Do I know you from somewhere? Cause you look familiar.”

“I don’t know. Maybe from the Boston QZ. Or maybe from…” Joel looks over his shoulder. “…the Fireflies. Or did we meet back in Austin before the evacuation?”

“I have never been to any of those places”, Din says solemnly, “Have you ever been to Nevarro?”

“Is that in Texas? Cause I don’t think so. I like your armour by the way. I’m sure it offers excellent protection against zombie bites.”

“My people never take off their armour, cause this is the way.”

While their Dads are talking, Ellie is digging into the pie and Grogu is helping himself to a slice as well by levitating it into his mouth, which catches the attention of Ellie, who exclaims, “Aren’t you the cutest little thing? Can I hold him?”

Din nods. “Just don’t drop him.”

“And don’t let him bite you”, Joel adds.

Ellie cuddles Grogu, while Din turns to Joel. “So yours is a foundling, too. She seems like a good child.”

Joel nods. “Yes, I found her and kept her. She’s mine now.”

Din nods approvingly. “This is the way.”

***

After this heartwarming reuniong of loving father played by Pedro Pascal, let’s get on to the  main event, the winner of the 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award.

I have to say that this is one winner who utterly surprised, because if you would have told me last year that this particular character would win the 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award, I would have thought you were crazy.

But occasionally, a piece of pop culture really surprises you and a winner emerges from the left field.

Therefore, I am pleased to present the 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award to…

Drumroll

Master Splinter

As voiced by Jackie Chan in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and by a succession of other voice actors before him, Splinter is a rat living a lonely and friendless life in the sewers of New York City.

One day, Splinter’s lonely existence is interrupted when he finds four baby turtles in the sewer. Since those baby turtles are the only beings who ever showed Splinter any affection, Splinter decides to adopt them. At the same time, Spinter and his kids also come into contact with mutagenic ooze, which anthropomorphises them.

Over the next fifteen years, Splinter becomes an affectionate father to his four sons whom he names Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphael. He raises them in his sewer home, teaches his boys martial arts and introduces them to the joys of pizza, while keeping them safe from a world that isn’t always too friendly inclined towards anthropomorphic mutant rats and turtles.

I have to admit that I never was a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan. The original cartoon came out just a little too late for me to be all into it, though I did watch it, and I never saw the comics at all. By the time, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon came out, I was a teenager myself and not onyl thought that funny animal cartoons were “for little kids”, but had also discovered the X-Men comics, which the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were created to parody.

So I spent the next 35 years ignoring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a franchise that exists, but that I have little interest in. Until I chanced to see the trailer for Mutant Mayhem and thought, “This actually looks really good.” And then I watched the actual film and found it a delightful fresh take on the characters.

Mutant Mayhem leans into the family aspect of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a way that few versions of the story have done, at least not that I’m aware of. And Jackie Chan’s performance as the loving but grumpy Dad Splinter was a stand-out.

So to my own surprise, I’m thrilled to name Master Splinter the winner of the 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award.

Applause 

Splinter receives hugs from Leo, Ralph, Mickey and Donnie, before he mounts the stage, clad in his familiar pink vest and leaning on his sword cane.

He blinks at the audience from behind his thick glasses, sniffs and delivers the following speech.

Humans. There’s a lot of humans here tonight and I don’t like humans…

He squints and his gaze settles on 2022 runner-up Cringer of the Tiger Tribe.

There’s also a cat and I don’t like cats, cause cats and rats are natural enemies…

His gaze falls upon Grogu.

And then there’s that little green critter and I have no idea what that even is. And…

Splinter’s gaze falls on Kurt Wagner, who’s getting drunk with Tyrion Lannister, and on Keldor and Mystique, who are getting very cozy with each other.

…there are blue people, too, and I have no idea what those are either.

Anyway, that has been my life for as long as I can remember. Hiding in the sewers, far from the light and living on what the humans throw away. And humans throw away a lot of things, cause humans are stupid. They throw away art books, video tapes of the master Jackie Chan, pizza. But the very best thing that the humans ever threw away were my four boys, Leo, Donnie, Mickey and Ralph…

The four turtle brothers gaze adoringly at their Dad.

Humans did not want you, because humans are stupid. But the four of you are the best thing that ever happened to me. Before I found you, I was alone, but you completely me. Together, we became a family.

But there comes a time, when a father needs to let his sons swim or rather fly. You were curious about the world outside our sewer and eventually I knew I had to let you go and explore the world. I taught you all you need to survive up there, so go an thrive, my boys. Go and be heroes.

And humans, don’t you dare harm my boys or you’ll answer to me. Thank you.

Splinter is presented with a pie by Martha Kent and before he can as much as say “thank you”, Leo, Mickey, Ralph and Donnie storm the stage to hug him, but they are soon distracted by the pie.

“Wow, this is like… sweet pizza.”

They heartily dig into the pie and start to demolish it, while Splinter sighs.

Master Splinter and his boys and the pie.

The 2021 winner Duncan a.k.a. Man-at-Arms walks up to Splinter and says, “I recently had the honour to meet your boys and fight alongside them**. They’re very good lads. You must be very proud.”

Splinter squints at him from behind his glasses. “Ah yes, Duncan. The boys told me all about you. And about your daughter… Teela, isn’t it?  Mickey and Ralph were very impressed by her.”

Duncan smiles. “She does tend to have that effect.”

They are interrupted by Cringer – and note that this is the older, wiser Cringer from the CGI He-Man animated series – who nuzzles Duncan in the side and exclaims, “Duncan, is that really you?”

“Cringer?!”

“So that’s what you’ll grow up into. Impressive.”

“What do you mean, ‘will grow up into’? So you haven’t always known me as an adult?”

Cringer shakes his head. “No, in my universe, you’re sixteen years old.”

Duncan presses his palm against his forehead. “In that case, I sincerely apologise for everything.”

Both pies are gone by now, having fed Ellie, Grogu and four very hungry turtle brothers, so Martha Kent, clad in her Sunday Best, walks up to Splinter, Duncan, Cringer, Joel and Din with a spare pie.

“Young people are always so hungry. Just like my, Clarke. So here, gentlemen, have a spare pie to enjoy.”

Duncan takes a slice, followed by a slightly sceptical Splinter and Joel, while Din places a slice in his bag.

Meanwhile, Leo, Ralph, Donnie and Mickey have started chatting up Ellie and they clearly have a lot to talk about.

***

And that’s it for the 2023 Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award. Who’ll win next year? You’ll find out in this space.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just gave them an award and wrote acceptance speeches for them. All characters and properties are copyright and trademark their respective owners.

*Yes, in my head Mystique is still the 1980s and 1990s version who slept with half the Marvel Universe of any gender. Live with it.

**In the Turtles of Grayskull crossover between Masters of the Universe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The 2023 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) 2022 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 to various computer file formats, updated every year. Eventually, I 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, the 2019 winner, the 2020 winner, the 2021 winner and the 2022 winner were announced right here on this blog.

Warning: Spoilers for several things behind the cut!

But before we get to the awards, let’s talk a bit about the portrayal of parents and parent figures in popular culture in general.

I started this award, because I noticed a pattern that there were a lot of terrible parents in popular culture and I started the companion award, the Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award (2023 winners to be announced tomorrow), because I noticed that there were also a lot of really good and examplary parents in popular culture.

Looking through the last of past winners, runners-up and honourable mentions for both awards, it’s notable that a lot of them originate in media that was originally aimed at young people, even if later spin-offs were not. Part of this is simply due to what I was watching and reading at the time, cause if I don’t know about a character’s existence, I can’t give them an award. But it’s also true that media aimed at young people features a lot more parent figures both good and bad, dead and alive, absent and present.

Of course, parents are far more important in the lives of young people than they are for older people, so it makes sense that we see more parent figures in media aimed at young people. These characters serve a multiple purpose. The bad, but not completely terrible parents show kids that they’re not the only ones who are having trouble with their parents, but that their heroes are facing the same issues. Okay, so your parents won’t see you for who you truly are, but are constantly disappointed that you are not what they want you to be. Guess what, He-Man has the same problem.

The cartoonishly evil parents, meanwhile, show kids that no matter how bad their relationship with their parents may be, at least their parents are not Darth Vader and don’t blow up entire star systems. But these characters also serve another purpose, namely to show kids that they need not be defined by who their parents are. They can be different, they can be more. Luke Skywalker could grow up to become a Jedi knight, even though his biological father did his utmost to exterminate them. Adora could overcome a lifetime of gaslighting to become She-Ra, the heroine she was always meant to be. Particularly to kids growing up in less than ideal circumstances, these are very powerful messages.

The good parents, meanwhile, serve as role models, to show what a good and loving parent looks like. Again, this is particularly important for kids who may not have a good parent or even any parent at all in their lives. But even for kids from happy families, seeing good parents in the media they consume reinforces and confirms what a good parent is.

That’s also why I always roles my eyes so very hard, whenever someone complains that Marvel movies or Star Wars films or whatever are just about characters with daddy issues. Well, considering the original target audience, that’s only to be expected. Also, if you never need to see a favourite character go through issues with their parents and come out stronger on the other side, good for you. Because there are many people who weren’t so lucky and who needed to see those stories, see them told over and over again.

Of course, particularly the Darth Vader Parenthood Award has also had several winners who originate from works that were never aimed at kids and young people in the first place, particularly the various soap opera characters who won several times during the early years. Interestingly enough, those characters – Blake Carrington, Hans Beimer, Dr. Ludwig Dressler, Chase Gioberti – were usually not supposed to be evil. In fact, the audience, a then middle-aged audience of so-called Boomers and the WWII generation, was probably supposed to sympathise with them. Viewers were supposed to sympathise with poor Blake Carrington whose son and heir had the gall to be gay and whose daughter was not willing to be married off to some guy, so Blake could get his oil wells. We were supposed to sympathise with Hans Beimer whose kids didn’t want to participate in his terrible holiday music sessions and whose daughter wanted to have an independent life and date whoever she pleases. We were supposed to sympathise with Dr. Ludwig Dressler who kicked his drug-addicted son out of the house – after treating him to terribly for years that he took to drugs in the first place. However, while these characters were not supposed to be villains, they sure as hell seemed like villains to me who was forced to watch that stuff, because my parents did. And coincidentally, Joachim Luger, the actor who played Hans Beimer, reported that he got a lot of blowback from viewers, particularly for a storyline where Hans dumped his wife and mother of his kids in order to start an affair with a neighbour and have even more kids with her.

But enough about parent figures in general and why they matter. Let’s get to the actual awards, starting with the  2023 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents. I originally created the Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award as an anaologue to the Retro Hugos in 2020 to honour terrible parents who either did their villainous parenting before the award was a thing or who were overlooked in the past for unfathomable reasons.

Though the reason our 2023 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award winners was originally overlooked is that I simply wasn’t aware of the character or at least not of the fact that they were a bad parent at the time. This winner will probably also be a little controversial, for while he has usually been portrayed as a decent person, his parenting decisions and his tendency to favour one of his kids over the other also caused untold harm – not just to his family, but to an entire planet.

That sort of shitty parenting deserves an award, therefore I’m thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2023 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents is…

Drumroll

Miro of the House of Niros, High King of Eternia

Some of you may now be asking, “Who?”, while others may be wondering “Why?” Like I said, this winner will probably be a little controversial.

So who is King Miro? Well, he is the father of 2021 honourable mention King Randor of Eternia and grandfather of Adam and Adora. He first appeared in the He-Man episode “Search for the Past”, where we learn that King Miro went abruptly missing many years earlier. When Randor comes across a bracelet that used to belong to Miro, he goes in search of his father and finds him still alive, but imprisoned by a villainess called the Enchantress.

Miro appeared again in the She-Ra episode “King Miro’s Journey” where he and Adam travel to Etheria to meet Miro’s granddaughter Adora and lend a hand to the Great Rebellion.

The two Filmation episodes portray King Miro as a loving father and grandfather and indeed, the moral sements of both episodes stress the importance of family and grandparents. So how on Earth did King Miro manage to win himself a Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award?

Well, for that we have to look at the 2002 He-Man series. Miro himself only appears in that series in a single episode in a flashback scene, rebranded as Captain Miro of the Royal Guard, and he only has a single line of dialogue, ordering his troops to attack. However, Miro wasn’t the only character to be rebranded for that show. The show also established that the villain Skeletor had once been Keldor, King Randor’s older half-brother and Miro’s first-born son. Which means that Skeletor not only has a very good reason for wanting to conquer Eternia, he’s also in the right, because he rather than Randor should have been king.

There are at least two versions of how Keldor came to be born. The most common one is that Miro crashlanded his Windraider on the island of Anwat Gar and was rescued by a local woman named Saryn (who has an interesting and murderous backstory of her own). Saryn nursed Miro back to health, one thing led to another and they had a child, Keldor. Eventually, Miro left Anwat Gar and left Saryn behind, though he took his son with him to raise him in the royal palace. Then Miro married a more acceptable human women (the blue-skinned Gar are not very well regarded on Eternia) and had Randor as well as at least two other children (we meet an uncle and three cousins of Adam’s in the Filmation cartoon).

The conflict started when Miro quite blatantly favoured Randor over his first-born Keldor and made it clear that Randor should be king and Keldor could serve as an advisor to his brother. Keldor was obviously not happy about this. Things came to a head when Miro vanished, Randor became king and Keldor wound up (supposedly accidentally) killing Randor’s mother and his stepmother, whereupon Randor banished Keldor from the royal palace and Keldor swore revenge, which culminated in a massive battle and in Keldor hurling a vial of acid at his brother, only for it to backfire and burning off Keldor’s face, turning him into the skull-faced villain we all know in love.

So in short, all the terrible things Skeletor did, including the shitload of characters both named and unnamed he murdered in Masters of the Universe: Revelation, are all down to King Miro, first because he could not keep his dick to himself and then because he would not stand by Saryn and Keldor, because – gasp – they were blue.

Such shitty parenting deserves an award and therefore King Miro is the winner of the 2023 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

Applause

Applause errupts around the auditorium. Only the actual 2002 winner Gloria DeLauter from Chesapeake Blue by Nora Roberts (always one of the weaker winners) as well as 1985 winner Hans Beimer boo. And honestly, we wonder why Hans Beimer keeps attending these ceremonies.

Unfortunately, King Miro was not able to accept his award in person – either due to being imprisoned in the tower of the Enchantress or being stuck in the hellish dimension of Despondos – so his son Prince Keldor accepted on his behalf. And yes, he showed up as Keldor, clad in his familiar armour and flowing cape, that shows off his light-blue Gar skin.

Keldor kissed Evil-Lyn, who’s sitting next to him, clad in a gorgeous purple gown. Then he mounted the stage and accepted the award, an ugly vase, and gave the following speech.

Prince Keldor accepts the Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award on behalf of his father, King Miro.

Oh, were you expecting someone else? My shitty brother Randy perhaps? Well, I’ll have to disappoint you then, cause it’s just me, Keldor, the black or rather the blue sheep of the royal family.

Believe me, I’m so glad that someone finally realised what a shitty parent my father really was. Cause it’s always “King Miro the good, King Miro the kind, King Miro the gentle.”

But was he ever good or kind to me? No. For as long as I could remember, I was always the outcast, the other, the blueskin, the royal by-blow whose mother was not good enough to marry.

In the front row, Evil-Lyn rolls her eyes. “Oh please, not the lecture about the poor oppressed Gar again.”

My father and my brother Randor were always all about the laws of Eternia, fighting battle after battle to uphold them and to vanquish the likes of Prahvus or Count Marzo who’d flaunt our laws and tried to take the planet over for themselves. But guess which law they were always only too happy to ignore. Yes, the one that says the first-born son shall be king. First-born. That’s me, not Randor.

Could Father not at least have given me Dyperia, if he wouldn’t let me have Eternos? But no, he had to give Dyperia to my brother Stefen, who’s so bland and boring that Father forgets he exists half the time and so does everybody else.

What makes the whole thing even more aggravating is that Randor never even wanted to be king in the first place. He was perfectly happy being Captain of the Royal Guard and sleeping in the barracks with his men… – well, not that way, though it would explain a lot. And it’s not as if I would have kicked Randor out of the palace, because I am not him. He could have been my general, my Man-at-Arms and he probably would have been pretty good at it.

But no, Randor decided that he wanted it all. He took the crown and banished me, his own brother. And yes, there was that unfortunately thing about my stepmother, but as I told him, it was an accident. Why did that damned woman, who never had a kind word for me anyway, have to run into my swords?

Anyway, let me take this opportunity to say, Father, wherever you are, I hope it’s some form of hell, because you deserve no less. And Randor, don’t get to complacent, because I’, coming for you and I’m coming to take back what’s mine.

Keldor briefly frowns at the ugly vase.

Now what am I supposed to do with this… this thing?

“Target practice!” Tyrion Lannister yells in the front row, but no one pays him any heed. “It’s a joke, you know? Our parents were terrible people and in the end, all we get is an ugly vase or three.”

I guess I shall put it in my private chambers in Snake Mountain, as a daily reminded of what my dear father and dear brother did to me.

“Can I interest you in a vial of acid, perhaps? Guaranteed to take care of pesky younger brothers.”
“Keldor, I’m not sure about this…”
“Shut up, Lyn, and let the men talk.”

As he leaves the stage, the 2022 Retro Darth Vader Parenthood Award winner Hordak sidles up to him.

“Good speech, my former apprentice.”

“Get lost, Hordak. I got what I needed from you and I’m not going to help free you from Despondos. Say hello to my dear Dad, if you see him.”

“So you don’t want the perfect weapon to deal with your wayward brother once and for all? Cause here I have a vial of acid that melts the flesh of everything it touches, including Randor. If you want a demonstration, we could try it out on that Beimer fellow over there.”

Keldor’s interest is piqued.

“Really? And you’re just giving this to me out of the goodness of your heart, I guess.”

“Consider it a gift to the future ruler of Eternia. And now farewell, my former apprentice. We shall meet again.”

Excuse me, gentlemen, but there will be no villainy plotted at the awards ceremony. It’s one of the rules.

***

Anyway, now that the Retro Award is out of the way, let’s get to the main event, namely the 2023 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents.

As I’ve noted in previous years, every year there seem to be fewer and fewer Darth Vader Parenthood Award candidates and more and more candidates for the Jonathan and Martha Kent Fictional Parent of the Year Award, which will be handed out tomorrow.

Another trend I’ve noticed last year is that we increasingly see fictional parents who are neither cartoonishly evil nor saintly good, but who are just people who clearly care for their kids and yet mess up anyway and drive them away.

One example of a fictional parent who is not good but not really evil either is Elora’s Danan’s absentee Dad from Reservation Dogs. Elora learned early in season 3 that her biological father was not dead, as she had believed, but still alive and also a white guy with the very white guy name Rick Miller. In the penultimate episode of the season, Elora finally meets her father and he turns out to be not really a bad person (plus, he’s played by Ethan Hawke), but just someone who was overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for a kid and ran away. He tries to bond with Elora – who only wants him to sign some papers for her college application – and even introduces her to her three half-siblings. Rick Miller is certainly not a good father, but Darth Vader he’s not.

Another example of a someone who’s not a good parents, but also not terrible enough to win an award is Hera Caine from the comic mini-series Masters of the Universe: Forge of Destiny by Tim Seeley and Eddie Nunez (detailed review coming in the new year). Hera Caine is the leader of the reclusive Eternian island nation of Anwat Gar – yes, them again – and mother of a teenaged son called Dash Shel.  Dash and his mother don’t get along at all. Hera Caine basically wants to be left alone and keep her technologically advanced island enclave separate from the rest of Eternia. Dash, meanwhile, wants to connect with the rest of Eternia. Dash is also an artist, while Hera is an engineer – a conflict that many artistically inclined kids from non-artistic backgrounds can sympathise with.

So Dash decides to rebel by forming a minstral revival troupe with a couple of friends. Yes really, all the poor kid does is want to be an acrobat. Hera finds all this terribly embarassing and basically kicks Dash and friends out of her quarters. She also tells Dash that she wants an heir less embarassing than Prince Adam to present during her upcoming summit with King Randor. Which is just painful, especially since Adam is no more embarassing than Dash, they just happen to be different from their parents.

Hera’s rejection makes Dash vulnerable to manipulation by the Evil Forces of Skeletor. He lets himself be persuaded into stealing a magical element from the royal vaults with his friends to prove that they’re more than just circus freaks, only to find himself on the receiving end of the Evil Forces of Skeletor.

“I had absolutely nothing to do with this,” Evil-Lyn declares from the front row and we think she does protest a bit too much.

“Me neither”, Keldor adds and turns to Evil-Lyn. “Uhm, Lyn, what is she talking about?”

Dash’s friends are killed, Dash survives and is grievously injured. And due to more manipulation by the Evil Forces of Skeletor, Hera Caine is led to believe that Prince Adam is responsible for the attack on her son, so rather than maybe ask Randor what actually happened, which could have cleared up the whole thing, Hera Caine declares war on Eternos, sends her forces after Randor and Adam and scorches the villages of a completely innocent tribe of panther people in the process. Oh yes, and she forms an alliance with Skeletor, too.

“And you people wonder why no one likes the Gar,” Evil-Lyn whispers in the front row, “Maybe it’s because most of you are arseholes.” Keldor glares at her.

However, Hera Caine does not win the award this year, a) because she learns better, though she was still willing to start a war over something she pushed her son to get himself involved with, and b) there was someone a lot worse.

So let’s get to our 2023 winner of the Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents. This year, a clear frontrunner emerged early on and remained in the lead until the very end. So the winner of the 2022 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents is none other than…

Drumroll

The High Evolutionary

As played by actor Chukwudi Iwuji in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, the High Evolutionary is obsessed with creating the perfect society via genetical engineering. His initial test subjects were several animals, including future Guardian Rocket Raccoon, as well as the otter Lylla, the rabbit Floor and the walrus Teefs.

The High Evolutionary’s experiments are extremely painful for his test subjects, which is bad enough (and yes, though otherwise light-hearted, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 is at heart a film about terrible animal cruelty). However, when the results of his experiments don’t match whatever high-minded ideas of the perfect world he has, the High Evolultionary tends to kill them and bombs the Counter-Earth, where his genetically engineered creations live, too. He does this more than once.

If all this wasn’t terrible enough, the High Evolutionary also wanted to vivisect Rocket to harvest his brain, equipped Rocket with a kill switch and he murdered Rocket’s friends Lylla, Floor and Teefs. What is more, the High Evolutionary also murders his own henchbeings, when they mutiny against him.

By the time the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Ravagers finally shut down his operations, the High Evolutionary had graduated to experimenting on human children, all of whom as well as more genetically engineered animals were rescued and adopted by the Guardians and will hopefully have happy and productive lives far away from their abusive creator.

That sort of villainy deserves an award and therefore I name the High Evolutionary the winner of the 2023 Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Terrible Fictional Parents.

Applause

Amazing, the High Evolutionary actually survived Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, since Rocket is a better person than his creator would ever be. Therefore, he was present to accept his award in person.

He ascended the stage, clad in his familiar purplish-blue armour, and delivered the following speech.

Thank you. It is so gratifying that my great work is finally being honoured.

Deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s so tiny and yet the stuff that all life is made of. And I can change and rewrite it like a composer, an artist. I can improve nature, make it better, make it perfect.

And I ask you, dear audience, what can be so wrong about the pursuit of perfection? Isn’t that what we all crave? Perfection?

Yes, occasionally my test subjects get hurt in the pursuit of perfection. And sometimes I am forced to euthanise them. But how does the saying go? You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. And you can’t have perfection without wasting a few test subjects.

As for those accursed Guardians who interrupted my experiments, you can keep the children and the animals. I was going to destroy them anyway, because they were not perfect. But you cannot stop me in my eternal quest for perfection, the ultimate perfection.

Thank you very much.

The High Evolutionary descends the stage, blowing kisses to the audience, while clutching his ugly vase to his chest. As soon as he sits down again, the 2022 Darth Vader Parenthood Award winner Dr. Adam Soong sidles up to him.

“I hear you’re a geneticist and underappreciated genius. So am I. And I think, my friend, we need to talk. For together, we can create the genetically perfect human being. Or raccoon, if that’s what you prefer.”

“The raccoon was only an early test subject. Completely disposable, until he decided to run out on me and play at being a hero. So, where do you source your test subjects?”

“Daughters, my friend. I made 23 of them and the last one actually survived into adulthood, though that ungrateful bitch ran out on me and deleted my files, too. But let me tell you about my latest project, codenamed Khan…”

Okay, it seems there’s more villainous plotting going on there, so it’s time to call it quits for tonight.

***

And that’s it for the 2022 Darth Vader Parenthood Award. The companion prize, the Jonathan and Martha Kent Award for the Fictional Parent of the Year will be handed out tomorrow.

Who will win next year? You’ll find out in this space.

***

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just gave them an award and wrote an acceptance speech for them. All characters and properties are copyright and trademark their respective owners.