Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 73

Star Trek Discovery Uncovers a Conspiracy in “Project Daedalus”

Today’s Star Trek Discovery review will be somewhat abbreviated, because I’m still pretty sick and showing very little sign of improvement. For my takes on previous episode of Star Trek Discovery, go here BTW. And if you want some insight into the costume design of Star Trek Discovery and the ideas behind it, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw has a great interview with Discovery costume designer Gersha Phillips at The Daily Dot.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut!

“Project Daedalus”, the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery, starts off with Admiral Cornwell (maybe we should start calling her Admiral Exposition, because her main function seems to be to deliver exposition) showing up aboard the Discovery, barely noticing Spock (who’s still wanted for murder, after all), to inform Pike that something is seriously wrong with Section 31, Starfleet’s black ops division. My reaction to this was laughter, followed by a coughing attack, because – duh – she’s only noticing that now. Cause something has been very wrong with Section 31 from the moment they were introduced on. And at Discovery‘s point in the timeline, one thing that is definitely very wrong with Section 31 is that Mirror Georgiou is in the process of taking it over and turning it into hell knows what.

Admiral Cornwell also reveals that Starfleet has outsourced its tactical decision making to a super-advanced AI named Control, which is conveniently housed at Section 31’s headquarters. Apparently, this seemed like a good idea at the time, cause hey, what can possibly go wrong? But now something has gone wrong and so Admiral Cornwell asks Pike to fly the Discovery directly to Section 31’s headquarters at an abandoned prison colony (more evidence of the not very enlightened justice system of the Federation), because when you fear your black ops division has gone even further off course than usual and that your decision making super-AI seems to have gone rogue as well, the best thing to do is obviously to barge right in with a starship.

Once the Discovery reaches the Section 31 HQ, after an exciting trip through a space minefield, a landing party consisting of Michael, the new female security chief who is apparently named Commander Nhan and Lieutenant Airiam, the cyborg crewmember who unbeknowst to everybody was possessed by some kind of malevolent computer virus from the future two episodes ago and has been sabotaging the ship since then, beam down and find the Section 31 HQ deserted, all personnel dead (my heart bleeds for them… – not) and Control gone rogue. Oh yes, and the communications received from Section 31 personnel on the base were all holographic fakes.

Now the fact that the true villain is not the shadowy Section 31, but the rogue AI Control is probably supposed to be a shocking twist(TM), but it doesn’t actually shock anybody, because it was so bleedingly obvious where this story was headed, as soon as Admiral Cornwell announced, “Oh, and by the way, we outsourced all our decision making to a highly advanced AI, which seemed like a really good idea at the time.” I mean, have Admiral Cornwell and the rest of the Starfleet leadership have ever seen Star Trek, which had plenty of “civilisation controlling computer goes rogue and has to be destroyed” episodes even during the Original Series such as “The Return of the Archons” and “A Taste of Armageddon”. Not to mention Terminator, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, Logan’s Run, the Imperial Radch trilogy, all of which apparently don’t exist in the Star Trek universe.

No sooner have Michael and Nhan discovered the not-so-shocking truth, that Airiam finally reveals her true colours. Because the mutated space probe from the future that infected her is also linked to Control (of course, it is) as is the future of an extinction war between artificial intelligences and organic lifeforms that the Red Angel is trying to warn Spock and everybody else about. Torn between her human and cyborg bits, Airiam attacks Michael and Nhan and pretty much wipes the floor with them. In fact, it almost seems as if she’s killed Nhan for a moment, but once more Nhan proves herself to be the redshirt who lives.

Inbetween attacking Michael and Nhan, Airiam’s human half occasionally regains enough control to beg them to kill her, because she does not want to live on as Control’s plaything. Pike reluctantly orders Michael to do it, but Michael can’t, because she doesn’t want to be responsible for the death of yet another crewmate. Nhan, however, can and blows Airiam out of the airlock, while Tilly distracts her with a replay of a happy memory. With her last words, Airiam tells Michael that everything is connected to her, for of course it is, and that the Discovery must find Project Daedalus, just in case you’d wondered about that episode title.

And just like that, Lieutenant Airiam, who has been in most, if not all episodes of Star Trek Discovery so far, is gone. To lose a longstanding regular character should at the very least give you misty eyes, but Airiam’s tragic death falls tragically flat, because Airiam was barely a character. For most of her tenure on the show, Airiam was a cool make-up effect, a background extra. In many scenes, you could have replaced her with a crashtest dummy and it wouldn’t have changed anything. And in fact, the actress who plays Airiam was replaced – Sarah Mitich played her in season 1, while Hannah Cheeseman plays her in season 2 – and hardly anybody noticed.

“Project Daedalus” struggles to give Airiam a bit more character and backstory. And so we learn that she was once a regular issue human being who was caught in a shuttle crash (dangerous things, these shuttles. They seem to crash all the time). The shuttle crash killed her husband and left Airiam so severely injured that Starfleet rebuilt her as their own version of the Six-Million-Dollar Man. The episode conveniently ignores the ethics of this – is it okay to turn a human being into something not very human, presumably without their consent, to save their life? And so Airiam just exists. We learn that her memory capacity is limited and that she must regularly delete or download memories to make room for new ones (which is how Tilly is able to distract Airiam with happy memories). We also learn that Airiam is friends with Tilly (well, who isn’t friends with Tilly, considering Tilly is the most sociable and friendly person around) and fellow cyborg Detmer. Talking of which, as Gavia Baker-Whitelaw points out in her review, Star Trek Discovery has a lot more female regulars than Star Trek shows used to have and regularly passes the Bechdel test with flying colours.

There is some nice character work here and Hannah Cheeseman does her best to make Airiam an actual person rather than just a make-up effect, but nonetheless it’s too little too late. Star Trek Discovery has taken steps to flesh out the bridge crew in season 2 and so far Joanne Owosekun (black woman with cornrows), Kayla Detmer (red-haired cyborg pilot) and now Lieutenant Airiam have gotten their moment in the spotlight, though Rhys (cute Asian guy) and Bryce (cute black guy) are still little more than background extras. And fleshing out a character only when you’re about to off them is an ancient cliché that we should really grow beyond. As Camestros Felapton points out, the rest of the bridge crew now live in mortal fear of suddenly gaining backstories. As it is, the tragic demise of Airiam makes me wonder whether the production team didn’t want to get rid of her, because effects make-up is expensive and the character is expendable.

All in all, “Project Daedalus” is full of nice character moments, which elevate the episode above its mundane and ultimately predictable plot. There is a lovely scene of Michael and Spock playing a game of three-dimensional chess, while engaging in some prime sibling squabbling. Spock rightfully calls Michael out on her martyr complex and tells her that not everything that goes wrong in the universe is automatically her fault. He also points out that Michael’s presence on Vulcan wasn’t what sicced the logic extremists on Sarek – the presence of Spock and Amanda was enough for that. And talking of Vulcan logic extremists, it seems one of them, Patar (or P’tah, since no one seems to know how the character’s name is spelled), is now a Starfleet Admiral in charge of Section 31. Since putting an alien extremist with ties to a known terrorist organisation in charge of your not-so-secret black ops division obviously also seemed like a good idea at the time.

Another nice moment is Stamets taking Spock aside to tell him that Michael loves him and has risked everything to help him and that he should maybe show some fucking gratitude. Spock, in turn, deduces what’s going on with Stamets and Dr. Culber and tells Stamets that Culber needs some time to process his emotions following his death and resurrection and that Stamets should give him that space. Mr. Spock, relationship counsellor. Now that’s not a role I had ever imagined for him.

Meanwhile, Saru figures out that Spock is innocent and that the evidence against him was faked with the same holographic techniques Control is using to fake messages from dead Section 31 personnel. It’s also quite obvious that Saru is doing this for Michael rather than for Spock, whom he barely knows. Ash Tyler, meanwhile, is still locked in the brig and so doesn’t even get to meet his sort-of brother-in-law Spock. I just hope someone remembered to bring him food.

Finally, Christopher Pike royally tears into Admiral Cornwell about Section 31 and how they are undermining Starfleet ideals and how all this isn’t what he signed up for and that he won’t stand for it. It’s a great moment and it made me love Pike, a character I was originally very ambivalent about, even more. It’s a pity Discovery cannot keep Pike beyond this season, because he’s great. He also seems determined to consistently channel not the blank slate he was named after, but Commander Cliff Alastair MacLane, greatest starship commander of them all. Because MacLane also yelled at unsympathetic and morally compromised superiors a lot.

Once again – and I know I say this almost every week – “Project Daedalus” is not exactly a bad episode of Star Trek Discovery. It zips along, there’s plenty of action, some nice character moments, a not-so-shocking twist(TM) and even a tragic death. The only problem is that the whole plot about the all-powerful AI gone rogue is such an ancient chestnut that even the Original Series only used it as the threat of week.

More and more, it also becomes clear that what makes Star Trek Discovery is the characters. Yes, the space action and occasional moral lessons (hey, it’s Star Trek) are a lot of fun, but what really keeps me watching, even when I’m sick and have to switch on subtitles, so I can understand the dialogue, because a ear infection took out most of my hearing, is that I want to know what happens to Michael, Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Culber, Ash, Pike, Spock, Nhan, Detmer, Owosekun, Airiam, Rhys, Bryce and all the rest.

Of course, the characters are what has kept Star Trek running for 53 years now and my least favourite Star Trek shows are inevitably the ones where I cannot remember the characters’ names. In that regard at least, Star Trek Discovery is on the right track.

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Star Trek Discovery revisits Star Trek’s origins yet again in “If Memory Serves”

If the main problem of season 1 of Star Trek Discovery was that it often seemed to forget that it was supposed to be Star Trek and not Game of Thrones in space, the main problem of season 2 is that it relies too much on Star Trek nostalgia, particularly Original Series nostalgia (my thoughts on previous episodes of Star Trek Discovery can be found here, BTW). Sometimes, this works well – for example, I was highly skeptical of bringing in Christopher Pike, but Anson Mount has given Pike characterisation and charisma that Jeffrey Hunter’s blank slate was missing in his two and a half appearances in the original series. At other times, Star Trek Discovery seems to check off locations and characters of the Original Series just to show that they’ve been there. “If Memory Serves” is an example of the latter.

Warning: Spoilers under the cut!

Last week’s Star Trek Discovery ended with Michael and the still largely catatonic Spock taking off to visit Talos IV, the planet where Star Trek began all those year’s ago in the unaired Original Series pilot “The Cage”. And just in case you’ve forgotten where you’ve heard the name Talos IV before or had mistaken the planet for the eponymous (but without Roman numerals) villain from Captain Marvel, Star Trek Discovery‘s handy “Previously on…” recap shows some clips from “The Cage”, complete with vintage Star Trek logo. It’s nicely done and the cut from Jeffrey Hunter’s Pike on the bridge of the Enterprise to Anson Mount’s Pike on the bridge of the Discovery works particularly well.

As for why Spock wants to go to Talos IV, it turns out that he believes that the telepathic Talosians can put his mind back together after contact with the Red Angel (more on that later) shattered it. On Talos IV, Spock and Michael meet another call-back to “The Cage”, Vina, a disfigured human crash victim who lives on Talos IV after the Talosians saved her life and put her back together wrong. Vina and via her the Talosians explain to Michael that Spock’s mind was damaged by a mind meld attempt with the Red Angel who is a time traveller. Now it was clear that Vina still had to be on Talos IV, since that’s where she was in “The Cage” and that’s where she will still be in “The Menagerie” several years in the future. And the make-up and costume design team did a great job in making actress Melissa George look like 1960s Vina, just as the whole production design team did a great job of making Talos IV and the Talosians look like updated versions of the planet we first saw in “The Cage”. Nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder why Vina needs to be in this episode at all, except to provide some nostalgic fan service and cause Pike to get misty-eyed, when he suddenly gets a call from her, since he and Vina had a brief affair during the events of “The Cage”. Now maybe it’s just me, but I never got any sense of a grand star-crossed romance between Pike and Vina. To me, she always was just another mini-skirted planet girl of the sort that Kirk would seduce every other week or so. Of course, due to his short tenure, we never saw Pike seducing mini-skirted planet girls with the same abandon as Kirk did and Vina featured prominently in his two and a half appearances in the original series. Nonetheless, I don’t quite see the point of her presence here.

The Talosians are willing to help to help Spock, but – being the same dome-headed arseholes they’ve always been – they demand a price. For those who’ve forgotten, the Talosians are psychic vampires, too (though at least back in “The Cage”, strong emotions like anger hurt them), so they want to see Michael’s memories of just what caused the rift between her and Spock. And Michael, being worried sick about her adoptive brother, complies and we finally see just what it was that drove Michael and Spock apart. Yes, “If Memory Serves” finally gives us some answers to some of the overarching mysteries of this season. Too bad, that those answers usually don’t justify the build-up.

So basically, what happened was that a teenaged Michael tried to run away from home, both because Sarek’s family was being targeted by Vulcan logic extremists (who are still the most ridiculous terrorist group ever – they love logic so much that they’re willing to engage in completely illogical violence to protect it) and because Sarek and Amanda are pretty crappy parents. Little Spock, having decided that his parents are awful and that he’d rather stick with his adoptive sister, tries to tag along, but Michael doesn’t want him to go with her for his own good. So she calls him names. Okay, so some of the things Michael says are pretty mean – she calls Spock a half-breed and freak of nature who isn’t worth bothering with and says that he can’t possible love her, because he’s not human enough to feel love – but that doesn’t change the fact that Michael’s big dark secret and the cause of her approximately two decades long rift with Spock is basically a childhood squabble among siblings. And yes, I understand that little Spock felt hurt by Michael’s harsh words, but to be still angry about something like that after two decades does seem a little silly and also not at all logical. Never mind that adult Spock understands exactly why Michael did what she did, but still decides to be pissed about it, which seems remarkably petty of him.

And talking of Spock, “If Memory Serves” is the first episode where we actually get to see Spock in full mental capacity (well, sort of), after Star Trek Discovery has teased his imminent arrival all season long. Oh yes, and Spock did not really kill those three doctors (as if there was ever any doubt) – Section 31 did to set him up and get their hands on him. Now Ethan Peck (grandson of Gregory) does his best to channel Leonard Nimoy and definitely has chemistry with Sonequa Martin-Green (and I loved Michael’s jab about Spock’s silly hipster beard). However, he is no Leonard Nimoy, but then who is? And while we only see Spock and Pike together aboard the Discovery for a brief scene towards the end, that scene nonetheless hinted at the deep friendship and loyalty that would cause Spock to risk his life to help Pike in “The Menagerie”. Oh, and while a warning that “This planet is quarantined” flashed on the computer screen of Spock and Michael’s shuttle, there is no mentioned that breaking this quarantine is punishable by death. So either, they have retconned that fact (well, it was always somewhat ridiculous that an advanced society like the Federation would not just retain the death penalty, but deploy it for something as comparatively minor as visiting the planet of the jerky domeheads) or something will happen in the final few episodes of the season to change that.

Oh yes, and about the Red Angel – yes, this episode really does give us answers – it turns out that the Red Angel is not just a time traveller, but also that they are trying to warn Starfleet and the Federation of an imminent threat that will wipe out the entire Federation, a threat that looks uncannily like the mutatated future space probe that menaced Pike and Ash Tyler in last week’s episode. As threats go, this one is pretty hollow, because we obviously know that the Federation won’t be wiped out and will be around for another two hundred years at the very least. Never mind that the idea of rogue planetkiller weapons and malevolent mutated probes isn’t exactly new to Star Trek – also see V’ger, Nomad and the Doomsday Machine. Nonetheless, the development is intriguing enough to pique my curiosity.

Meanwhile, back aboard the Discovery, Dr. Hugh Culber is handling his resurrection not at all well. The fact that Stamets desperately tries to pretend that everything is normal, when it most definitely isn’t, doesn’t help either. And since the Discovery doesn’t seem to have a therapist on board, counsellors only coming in during the Next Generation era, as Gavia Baker-Whitelaw points out, Hugh Culber is left pretty much alone with the trauma of being murdered, spending several months inside the magic mushroom network and then being resurrected in a brand-new body that just feels wrong. And so Culber breaks up with Stamets in a heartbreaking scene and then goes to find Ash Tyler, who killed him in an outbreak of Voqness, to beat the shit out of him in the mess hall. Ash’s responds with remarkable restraint – he basically defends himself and nothing more – even though I’m pretty sure that even without being a Klingon surgically altered to look human, former security chief and current Section 31 agent Ash Tyler could beat Culber, a non-combatant and member of the medical corps, easily. For that matter, I’m surprised that Culber can remember what happened during his death and who killed him at all, considering it was a surprise attack that Culber had no way of seeing coming. But then, this whole mess with Culber, Stamets and Ash is mainly due to season 1’s addiction to stupid “shocking plot twists(TM)” anyway.

Several other members of the crew want to break up the fight, but Saru stops them and claims that the fight if necessary for Ash and Culber to get their hostility out of their system. Pike isn’t at all happy with this – he doesn’t want his officers to fight in the mess hall – and points out that Saru would have reacted very differently before his threat ganglia fell off and he lost his ever-present fear. Talking of which, I’m not sure I like this new fearless Saru – and I had only just come to like him after spending much of season 1 disliking him.

But there is more trouble brewing aboard the Discovery, for when the ship tries to use the magic mushroom drive (which they were never supposed to use again about five different times), they find that it has been sabotaged and will not work. Now to everybody who has seen the previous episodes it’s pretty obvious that the culprit is Lieutenant Airiam, the cyborg crewmember who was infected with some kind of virus by the mutated space probe – you know, the one that is going to wipe out the Federation, if the Red Angel is to be believed. But Pike immediately blames Ash Tyler for the sabotage, because once a double agent, always a double agent, and has him confined to the brig. It certainly seems as if Ash Tyler has inherited Michael’s position of “everything that ever happened is his fault”. Now I didn’t like everybody blaming Michael for everything in season 1 and I don’t like everybody blaming Ash for everything in season 2, especially since the Discovery crew treated Ash pretty well in the last few episodes of season 1, even though he actually had done a lot to make them distrust him, unlike Michael. I’m also getting the impression that the Discovery production team really don’t know what to do with Ash, which is why his characterisation is all over the place this season.

The episode ends when the Discovery finally reaches Talos IV to pick up Spock and Michael. And rather than hand Spock over to Section 31, who still want to dissect his brain, Pike – once more passing the “What would Commander MacLane do?” test – decides to take the Discovery on the run, Section 31 hot on their heels.

Once more – and I feel I’m repeating myself here – “If Memory Serves” is not a bad episode of Star Trek Discovery. And my not-so-positive view of the episode may be coloured by the fact that I was pretty ill, when I watched it. But while it’s good to finally get some answers to the questions Discovery has been teasing us with all season long, the answers themselves are underwhelming. Spock and Michael’s fall-out was merely due to a sibling spat and the Red Angel is trying to prevent an armageddon that we know won’t happen anyway.

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Masks and Murder – A Round-up of Indie Mardi Gras Mysteries

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

The holiday mysteries cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, hardboiled mysteries, small town mysteries, big city mysteries, paranormal mysteries, historical mysteries, crime thrillers, legal thrillers, psychological thrillers, paranormal thrillers, private investigators, amateur sleuths, ghost whisperers, crime-busting nuns, crime-busting beauty queens, lawyers, serial killers, missing children, missing mothers, missing masks, faked suicides, cursed doubloons, poisoned king cakes and much more. But one thing unites all of those very different books. They’re all set on or around Mardi Gras.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Krewe of Souls by Elaine Calloway:

Mardi Gras, Mayhem, and Murder…

Tristan Pleasance is a ghost whisperer extraordinaire, but talking to his living father is another story. Family conflict prompts Tristan to bolt from his lifelong home in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to make a new life in New Orleans. But six months later, a family tragedy forces him to return home and he is thrust into a murder investigation where his past and future will collide.

Grace Lansing is a New Orleans columnist who yearns to write feature articles rather than puff pieces. To prove herself to her editor, she travels to the quaint town of St. Francisville to research their big Mardi Gras Krewe competition. But what seems an innocent cultural practice quickly turns into a web of intrigue—and getting too close to the handsome Tristan puts her in danger of becoming collateral damage.

Together, Tristan and Grace must find out who is responsible for the murders—before the Krewe of Souls is trapped forever.

The Secret of the Other Mother by Laura Cayouette:

It’s late 2009 and the Saints are undefeated on their way to the Super Bowl. Fresh off the Los Angeles red carpet of the movie she produced and starred in, vivacious Charlotte Reade heads to her family home in New Orleans for the funeral of Sassy, the woman who helped raise her mother.

When Sassy’s “adopted” twin daughters ask brainy and tenacious Charlotte to help them find their birth mother, she heads down a path that starts in a laundromat in the 1950’s and winds through costume experts and a burlesque tour before landing her on the infamous Bourbon Street.

Along the way, Charlotte reconnects to her own family history, uncovering clues to a family secret and the ghost who’s said to protect it. As her funeral trip extends through the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, Charlotte struggles with her dedication to the career she worked so hard for and the intoxicating draw of the culture, romance and soul of the city she’s always wanted to call home.

Sinister by Jana DeLeon:

Street kids are disappearing, but how do you report that to the police when, from their standpoint, the missing people didn’t exist to begin with? Hustle is certain that something bad has happened to his friend Jinx, and the only person he can turn to for help is private investigator Shaye Archer. Because Hustle helped the young PI while she was investigating her first case, Shaye has already formed an opinion as to his character and believes he’s telling the truth. As she digs deeper into Jinx’s disappearance, she discovers that Hustle’s friend isn’t the only one missing. As a frightening pattern emerges, Shaye wonders if she can find the missing kids…before it’s too late.

Ms. America and the Naughtiness in New Orleans by Diane Dempsey:

Who better than Ms. America Happy Pennington to grace Mardi Gras festivities in never-say-die New Orleans? She packs good looks, party moves, and sleuthing smarts—which come in handy when the king for an elite old-line krewe is bumped off during a Carnival parade.

All too soon Happy learns the centuries-old French Quarter is not all jazz, Creole cuisine, and cocktails: evil lurks there, too, even amid the pageantry of the Big Easy’s most gleeful season. Yet no ghost, vampire or even voodoo spirit will keep our scrappy beauty queen from nabbing the killer—not when the stakes are sky-high for someone near and dear to her heart.

Find out why readers call the Beauty Queen Mysteries “super-fun reads” they can’t put down until the last page is turned …

Mardi Gras Murder, edited by Sarah E. Glenn:

Thirteen tales of crime set during the bacchanalia that is Mardi Gras. Featuring stories from Harriette Sackler, Marian Allen, Debra H. Goldstein and Nathan Pettigrew. The mayhem of Mardi Gras is served with a healthy dose of Cajun dishes and an unhealthy number of deaths. Dig into Bourbon Street Lucifer, Voodoo Honeymoon, a dish of Red Beans and Ricin, and other deadly treats.

 

 

The Mardi Gras Murder by Jackie Griffey:

Like bananas, Sheriff Cas Larkin’s troubles are ripening in bunches.

A fully dressed woman is found drowned in the lake. He has a citizen no one can find, but hasn’t been reported as missing and all of her known acquaintances are standing in the way of Cas’s investigation. Then Judge Carpenter’s fiancée lands in jail, accused of a bloody murder way down yonder in New Orleans!

Now Cas must pick up the pace and connect the dots… before he goes bananas himself.

Murder at the Mardi Gras by V. Hurst:

The Bryans and the Flannerys from ‘Murder at the JC’ and ‘Murder on the Cruise Ship’ take a vacation in New Orleans during Mardi Gras Season. They are soon recruited by their old friend FBI Special Agent Don Hobbs to search for a serial killer who murders a young woman each Mardi Gras for her kidneys. Clues lead the foursome to the killer and to a huge twist at the end of the story.

 

 

Murder at the Mardi Gras by Linda P. Kozar:

When an esteemed professor of Louisiana history is found face down in a King Cake, young detective Annie Fournier suspects foul play and begins an investigation to find the person responsible. Her partner has little patience for Annie’s inexperience or gender and seems to enjoy mocking her at every opportunity. And to top that off, the crazy melee of Mardi Gras seems to hamper their progress at every turn. Will they weigh in on the identity of the murderer before Fat Tuesday ends, and will Annie prove that she has what it takes to be a detective?

Krewe by Jayson Livingston:

My name is Eugene Doyle Babineaux, Krewe to my friends. I’m a private investigator in Sacramento, California. My life is unassuming, and I like it that way. Things changed when I received a call from my brother. My mom was dead–suicide, he says. I didn’t believe it for a minute. So, I returned home to New Iberia, a small town in southern Louisiana, to look into Mom’s death. Once there, I reunited with old friends and foes alike. It seemed there were nefarious forces who did not want me poking around into Mom’s death. Rich people who keep company with bad people and who would stop at nothing to keep their plans hidden. What do Mardi Gras krewes, sugarcane production, and mob enforcers have to do with my mom’s death? I was about to find out, and things would never be the same.

Voodoo Dreams by Alana Lorens:

When her big trial goes bad, corporate attorney Brianna Ward can’t wait to get out of Pittsburgh. The Big Easy seems like the perfect place to rest, relax, and forget about the legal business. Too bad an obnoxious–but handsome–lawyer from a rival firm is checking into the same bed and breakfast.

Attorney Evan Farrell has Mardi Gras vacation plans too. When he encounters fiery and attractive Brianna, however, he puts the Bourbon Street party on hold. He’d much rather devote himself to her–especially when a mysterious riddle appears in her bag, seeming to threaten danger.

Strangely compelled to follow the riddle’s clues, Brianna is pulled deeper into the twisted schemes of a voodoo priest bent on revenge. To escape his poisonous web, she must work with Evan to solve the curse. But is the growing love they feel for each other real? Or just a voodoo dream?

A Masquerade of Saints by Nicole Loughan:

In the third installment in the best-selling Saints Mystery Series small town Cajun, Fanchon, finds herself in some hot water, along with a few nasty crayfish. The heat gets turned up when she receives an invitation to join New Orleans high society. She’s ready to party until she receives a puzzling message from her favorite psychic to stay alert and wash her hands all night. When the warning seems all but forgotten the phone rings and Fanchon learns she should have been more careful. This adventure takes Fanchon from the bayou to the top of the floats at Mardi Gras with new characters and old friends to help along the way.

The Gay Mardi Gras Murders by Sylvia Massara:

Mia Ferrari, smartarse, older chick, super sleuth, is back in her 2nd murder mystery and this time, she is up to her neck in drag queens, a rare diamond with a curse and murder most foul against the backdrop of Sydney’s world famous Gay Mardi Gras.

A female impersonator is found dead in her hotel suite bathtub and a rare diamond worth twenty million dollars is gone. The Gay Mardi Gras is fast approaching and Mia Ferrari, senior duty manager of the exclusive Rourke International Hotel Sydney, has to juggle a bunch of drag queens, a number of fabulously handsome gay men, a transsexual with a dark mystery, a young cop with sex on his mind, a close friend from the UK who is having marital problems and a mounting body count.

As Mia pits her investigative skills against her archenemy, Detective Sergeant Phil Smythe to solve the case, she not only becomes embroiled in the life of the people around her, but it looks like she is the next target for a serial killer with a grudge against gay men.

Mardi Gras Madness by Ken Mask:

While trying to free a lawyer friend convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, New Orleans private investigator Luke Jacobs is drawn into an international web of real estate fraud, pharmaceutical corporation misdealing and murder. Mardi Gras may have to be put on hold.

 

 

 

Mardi Gras Gris Gris by A.C. Mason:

Susan Foret is thrust into a murder scene when one of the town’s wealthiest citizens dies near her as the local Krewe’s parade is ending. A gris-gris bag containing tarot cards and several other fetish items is left dangling from the knife in his chest.

 

 

 

The Krewe by Seth Pevey:

Living up to the family name comes with a price.

When Felix is told his big brother committed suicide by throwing himself under a train, his gut screams foul play. But as the Mardi Gras season descends on the Big Easy, no one is interested in the conspiracy theories of a drug-addled rich kid.

Except, perhaps, one Carnival organization in particular…

A krewe that hasn’t been heard from in decades.

Felix will need the help of a police detective long past his prime, the family’s honor-obsessed butler, and a massive pork fortune, all in order to find justice for his big brother.

His name, his family, and his very life may hang in the balance.

Burgundy Doubloons by T.J. Spencer Jacques:

You caught a doubloon at a Mardi Gras Parade – that was a bad thing.

Trent McGowan is going home. Home to his ailing mother. Home to the city of his childhood. Home to New Orleans. As Trent deals with the peculiar circumstances surrounding his mother’s illness, his family gets swept up in the excitement of Mardi Gras and all of the festivities of that intoxicating day. The jubilant crowds, breathtaking carnival floats, and oh yes, the throws! His youngest daughter Zoe catches one of those throws, a sparkling red doubloon, and that is where the story ends and begins.

Burgundy Doubloons is more than just a suspense thriller, it is everything that makes New Orleans the party capital of the world: only bloodier and darker.

For those who love a parade, Burgundy Doubloon answers a terrifying question: What if your child simultaneously caught a bead, and a murderous spirit? In this heart-palpating novel, you will meet the entire McGowan family, and the people determined to destroy them.

Finally, a paranormal thriller that takes place in New Orleans – as told by a native son who knows where the bodies are buried.

The Mysterious Masks of Mardi Gras by Connie Trapp:

A 2.5 million dollar Harlequin Mask has been stolen right under everyone’s noses!

It was never out of sight—how could this have happened? The auction was invitation-only, which means only one thing: the thief is among them.

The New Orleans police are on the case, the room where the auction was being held is in lockdown, and no one can leave—not even the Mayor and his wife. Everyone there is a high roller and everyone there is a suspect.

Yet before the police can even begin their investigation, they already have their sights set on a prime suspect…the insider responsible for the distraction that allowed the thief to steal the mask without anyone even noticing. One Jane Dough, of Little Rock…

How in the world did JD get herself into this mess? Follow along as JD struggles to prove her innocence and uncover the real thief…

Mardi Gras Marathon Murders by Diane L. Twilley:

Mardi Gras has come to Galveston Texas, and with it the excitement of a new event, the first ever Mardi Gras Marathon. Gina Malloy, a young journalist, is very involved in the planning of the event. When she enlists the help of her aunt, Sister Catherine Malloy, she is delighted to discover that Sister Catherine’s friend, Martin Iberson, is the agent of one of the big stars of marathon events, Billy Champion. Gina is eager to meet Martin Iberson and his family, and perhaps get a chance to meet and interview Billy Champion.

All goes well, until evil shows its face, and two of the marathon runners are killed. With the help of their friend, police lieutenant Richard Tierney, the nun and her niece embark on the task of finding out who murdered the runners, and as things progress, they find their lives in danger as well. But from whom? And why?

Things become even more somber as they realize that the culprit could be someone they know. Eventually Sister Catherine deduces that to solve the murders she must understand the character of the killer, and she finally comes up with the shocking solution to the Mardi Gras murders.

The Mardi Gras Two Step by Barry M. Vass:

A series of young girls, strippers, are found mutilated and abandoned in the streets and byways of the French Quarter in early 1972. As more bodies turn up, at first in the Mississippi River, and then across the river in Algiers, the detectives assigned to the case are baffled: what sort of deviant could be responsible for such horrific behavior? And then, as the chaos of Mardi Gras crashes in like a wave around them, they begin to suspect that the killer they’re looking for might not even be human…

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Masks and Magic – A Round-up of Indie Mardi Speculative Fiction

Our monthly round-ups of new speculative fiction and new crime fiction releases by indie authors are a perennially popular feature. Therefore, we now offer you a round-up of our favourite Mardi Gras speculative fiction by indie authors.

These Mardi Gras stories cover the broad spectrum of speculative fiction. We have a lot of urban fantasy, horror and paranormal mysteries, but also historical fantasy, dark fantasy, religious fantasy and even science fiction. There are angels, demons, Lucifer himself, dragons, ghosts, ghost whisperers, vampires, monsters, zombies, voodoo, cursed doubloons, human sacrifices, space cruises, precognition and much more. But one thing unites all of those very different books. They’re all set on or around Mardi Gras.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Southern Monsters by Cora Buhlert

Three tales of monsters and terror in the Louisiana bayous.

When a young bride goes missing on her wedding day in Acadiana, the locals blame the Terror, the legendary monster that stalks the Crimson Bayou.

Remy Theriault does not believe in the Terror and he’s pretty sure the bride has done a runner. But the groom is his cousin and family is family. So Remy goes out to look for the runaway bride, only to find that sometimes, the old legends are true…

When their car crashes into the bayou on a dark Louisiana night, the swamp creature known only as Big Puffball might just be one family’s salvation…

When fishing boats go missing on the Mississippi River Delta, few people link these disappearances to the mysterious light that lit up the Louisiana sky only weeks before. But an astronomer from Tulane University makes the connection and discovers the horror that is the sphere that ate the Mississippi delta.

This is a collection of three short horror stories of 7700 words or approximately 27 print pages altogether.

Krewe of Souls by Elaine Calloway:

Mardi Gras, Mayhem, and Murder…

Tristan Pleasance is a ghost whisperer extraordinaire, but talking to his living father is another story. Family conflict prompts Tristan to bolt from his lifelong home in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to make a new life in New Orleans. But six months later, a family tragedy forces him to return home and he is thrust into a murder investigation where his past and future will collide.

Grace Lansing is a New Orleans columnist who yearns to write feature articles rather than puff pieces. To prove herself to her editor, she travels to the quaint town of St. Francisville to research their big Mardi Gras Krewe competition. But what seems an innocent cultural practice quickly turns into a web of intrigue—and getting too close to the handsome Tristan puts her in danger of becoming collateral damage.

Together, Tristan and Grace must find out who is responsible for the murders—before the Krewe of Souls is trapped forever.

Mardi Gras Maiden by Michael Dreysher Sr.

New Orleans 1854: A young woman, driven by curiosity sneaks into a brothel and stumbles into a Mardi Gras masquerade. She discovers that the ball is in reality an erotic ritual paying homage to Lucifer, the Great Prince of Evil and she is the guest of honor. The Archangel Gabriel sends four warriors from a dying world to rescue her but they arrive too late; the cult has slaughtered the girl, offering her as a sacrifice to Lucifer.

Rural Pennsylvania 1954: The same cult takes control of an entire town when their High Priestess seduces the land baron who owns it. They engineer a series of extramarital affairs among the residents which culminates in ritual debauchery. Gabriel has his avengers return to Earth with orders to wipe out the cult but Heaven has a dark side. A rogue spirit with an agenda of its own plans to kill these out-world warriors and the archangel’s champions find themselves defenseless in the center of a titanic struggle between two opposing forces from the Kingdom of Heaven.

Carnival in Sorgenbach by Raymund Eich:

Hans returned from the Great War, haunted. Not only by the horrors of the trenches, but haunted by visions of a more terrifying war to come. Would the parties and parades of Carnival 1919 offer him love and hope? Or doom him and his country to the devastation he foresaw?

 

 

 

Death Dealer by Graylin Fox:

My name is Cimmerian. I’m a dragon shifter living in New Orleans. Someone is screwing up my pre-Mardi Gras plans by leaving mutilated human bodies all over town. I have to find out whether or not a demon is behind this. If so, are they building a human to animate with demon magic? If not, we have a human serial killer just in time for the town to flood with tourists.

Things were so much quieter on vacation.

Damn, I’m glad to be back at work.

Voodoo Dreams by Alana Lorens:

When her big trial goes bad, corporate attorney Brianna Ward can’t wait to get out of Pittsburgh. The Big Easy seems like the perfect place to rest, relax, and forget about the legal business. Too bad an obnoxious–but handsome–lawyer from a rival firm is checking into the same bed and breakfast.

Attorney Evan Farrell has Mardi Gras vacation plans too. When he encounters fiery and attractive Brianna, however, he puts the Bourbon Street party on hold. He’d much rather devote himself to her–especially when a mysterious riddle appears in her bag, seeming to threaten danger.

Strangely compelled to follow the riddle’s clues, Brianna is pulled deeper into the twisted schemes of a voodoo priest bent on revenge. To escape his poisonous web, she must work with Evan to solve the curse. But is the growing love they feel for each other real? Or just a voodoo dream?

Battlefield Z: Mardi Gras Zombies by Chris Lowry:

He found them!

Two of his three children are alive and now that he’s found them he won’t let them out of his sight.

It’s time to find his youngest daughter.

The last he knew she was heading to a refugee camp with her Mom and step-dad. He’s got a map of the camps back at Fort Jasper waiting.

All he has to do is keep his kids safe as they search for answers and a trip back to Alabama. The safest route floats them down the river. It keeps the Z at bay, but delivers them straight into a fortress that feels like paradise.

He has a choice. Hide behind the walls with two thirds of his heart and let the world burn or take a chance and continue the hunt.

An easy job if it weren’t for all the damn zombies.

The Outer-Universe Cruise Ship Mardi Gras by E. Miguel:

Space, there is a lot of it. Like really, a lot. As much space as there is though, it also happens to be very crowded. It is for this exact reason the Outer-Universe Cruise Ship Mardis Gras was created. While other cruises throughout the universe offer excitement and adventure, the Mardis Gras offers the mundane for those vacationers that are allergic to such excitement and adventure. The ship’s only constant inconstant is a Mardis Gras party held every other day.

Unfortunately for two passengers on the ship, this week’s cruise offers more than they signed up for. Escape pods, a slumbering Old God, and a Voodoo priestess robot all happen to show up on the unplanned itinerary this week.

Nocturne by Irene Preston and Liv Rancourt

It’s Mardi Gras, cher, but this year le bon temps kick off with murder…

For generations, the White Monks have treated the vampire Thaddeus Dupont as a weapon in their battle against demons. However, when a prominent matron drops dead at a party, Thaddeus and his lover Sarasija are asked to find her killer. Their investigation leads them to an old southern family with connections everywhere: Louisiana politics, big business, the Church, and an organization just as secret as the White Monks.

Meanwhile, an esoteric text containing spells for demon-summoning has disappeared, Thaddeus is losing control of le monstre, and Sara is troubled by disturbing dreams. These nightmares could be a side-effect of dating a vampire, or they could be a remnant of his brush with evil. As the nights wear on, Sara fears they are a manifestation of something darker – a secret that could destroy his relationship with Thaddeus.

Krewe of Hecate by Sim Shattuck:

A group of Mardi Gras wizards descend to the Underworld and capture the goddess Hecate so that they can display her during Carnival. But they didn’t understand that having the goddess of the Uncanny upon the face of the Earth would do to three unlucky New Orleans residents.

 

 

 

Burgundy Doubloons by T.J. Spencer Jacques:

You caught a doubloon at a Mardi Gras Parade – that was a bad thing.

Trent McGowan is going home. Home to his ailing mother. Home to the city of his childhood. Home to New Orleans. As Trent deals with the peculiar circumstances surrounding his mother’s illness, his family gets swept up in the excitement of Mardi Gras and all of the festivities of that intoxicating day. The jubilant crowds, breathtaking carnival floats, and oh yes, the throws! His youngest daughter Zoe catches one of those throws, a sparkling red doubloon, and that is where the story ends and begins.

Burgundy Doubloons is more than just a suspense thriller, it is everything that makes New Orleans the party capital of the world: only bloodier and darker.

For those who love a parade, Burgundy Doubloon answers a terrifying question: What if your child simultaneously caught a bead, and a murderous spirit? In this heart-palpating novel, you will meet the entire McGowan family, and the people determined to destroy them.

Finally, a paranormal thriller that takes place in New Orleans – as told by a native son who knows where the bodies are buried.

Razor Valentine by Roland Yeomans:

MARDI GRAS … MAGIC … MURDER

In 1947 New Orleans THREE KINGS DAY marks the start of the official Carnival Season. Carnival, coming from the Latin words, carne vale, meaning “farewell to the flesh.”

Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte, Our Lady of Holy Death, is stalking the French Quarter streets killing apparently at random. What does the psychotic actress, Irene Dupré, know of this entity and what lies behind the murders? She remains silent, only smiling. Santa Muerte’s strange acolyte lurks in the shadows watching, waiting. Waiting for what?

Frank Capra is filming a historical fantasy in the city with Jimmy Stewart, Cesar Romero, and the enigmatic Irene Dupré. Former O.S.S. operative, now the film’s Prop Master, Lucas, finds himself in the middle of the mystery with more questions than answers.

His lost love back from the dead, Ingrid Durtz, and his best friend, Mitchell Mack, are at a loss on how to stay alive, much less catch a supernatural killer.

Then, there is Lucas’ former O.S.S. team mate, Father Darael, whose gift of a Seraph Blade is literally a two-edged blessing. You see, Darael is a Seraphim Provocateur. And Lucas is unsure whose side he is really on, the Celestial or the Fallen?

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First Monday Free Fiction: Big Puffball

This post is something of an experiment, inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who posts a free short story every week on her blog. I like the idea. However, I don’t have nearly as many stories as Kris, so I’ll post a free story on every first Monday of the month. It will remain free to read on this blog for exactly one month, then I’ll take it down and post another story.

[image error]And because today is Rose Monday, the day before Fat Tuesday a.k.a. Mardi Gras, what better way to celebrate than with a Mardi Gras story.

And so I give you “Big Puffball”, a tale of a friendly swap monster with a taste for shiny things that may also be found in the collection Southern Monsters, available at fine e-book retailers everywhere:

 

 

 

Big Puffball

by Cora Buhlert

All right, so listen up, cause this — like — really happened. I should know, cause I was there. I looked into the eye of the swamp monster and lived to tell the tale. And if you buy me a beer, I’ll tell you all about it.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Swamp monster stories are dime a dozen here in bayou country. Pretty much everybody here in the bayous claims to have seen a ghost or a vampire or a swamp monster and most of the time, the so-called “monster” is no scarier than an alligator. Though alligators can be pretty fucking scary, if you ask me.

But my story is different. Because it’s one hundred percent totally true, cross my heart and wish to die and all that jazz. And for only the price of a beer, you get to hear it.

Okay, so it happened a long time ago, more than thirty years now, when I was but a little boy. It was February, Mardi Gras time, and me, my Mama and Papa and my sister Cally had gone to New Orleans to watch the parades. And now we were on our way home, Papa behind the wheel of our Pontiac Le Mans, Mama in the passenger seat and me and Cally on the backseat, counting our doubloons and beads. I was seven and Cally was five, both of us totally carefree, like children will be.

I still don’t know quite how it happened. One moment, we were happily chattering on the backseat, while Mama and Papa were quietly talking among themselves on the front seat. The radio was playing Zydeco music and the car was cruising along a dark backroad in bayou country, the headlights the only illumination. The next moment, there was a shadow, sharply outlined by the headlights, as something crossed the road.

I never knew what it was, a possum maybe or a raccoon or maybe something bigger. All I remember is that Mama screamed and Papa pulled the wheel around. The Pontiac swerved, avoiding the thing on the road. But Papa couldn’t get it under control again, so the car careened off the road, down a slope and right into the Bayou Marron.

Cally and I were wearing our seatbelts, which probably saved our lives. But nonetheless I was thrown forward and knocked my head against the back of the driver’s seat. I was out for a few seconds and when I came to again, our car was gradually sinking into the brackish water of the Bayou Marron.

Already water was seeping into the footwell, muddy and icy cold. On the backseat next to me, Cally had pulled her knees up to her chin to escape the water. In the front seat, Mama and Papa were rattling on the doors, but it was to no avail. The doors were jammed.

“We’ve got to open a window,” Papa said.

“No. The water will get in and we’ll drown,” Mama countered.

While they were arguing, I loosened my seatbelt and tried opening the backdoor, but it was as jammed as the front doors. Then I tried rolling down the window, but the mechanism wouldn’t work. Beside me, Cally was crying.

In the front, the water was already up to Mama and Papa’s waists and it was still rising further. And the doors still wouldn’t open and neither would the windows.

We were going to die here, I realised. We were all going to drown and they probably wouldn’t even find our car except by chance. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, we’d just vanished, the whole family, all of us. Cause these things sometimes happen here in bayou country.

The headlights were still working, but they were underwater now, their light eerily muted by the muddy water. Around us, it was pitch dark. I couldn’t even see the road anymore, let alone make out anything of our surroundings.

And then I saw it. We all did. A pair of eyes as big as dinner plates staring at us from the undergrowth.

The eyes peered at us intently. There was a nose, too, apelike and easily the size of the steering wheel. Coarse and bristly hair of the same muddy brown colour as the water. And a mouth big enough to swallow a grown man whole.

The creature came closer, as if to sniff at the car and at us. We froze in terror, because if drowning in a submerged car was a horrible fate, then getting eaten by one of the legendary swamp monsters that stalk the bayou was even worse.

For a long moment, the creature just stared at us and we stared back. I could see it better now that my eyes had adjusted to the gloom. It was huge, easily the size of a truck, a fat blob of coarse brown fur with an apelike face. It seemed curious, but not hostile, like a child investigating a new toy. Only that this particular toy was alive.

Because the creature did not seem hostile, I gave it a tentative smile. The thing smiled back, stretching its mouth as wide as the bumper as our car.

Then it suddenly reached out for us. Its hands were still big, a single finger easily as long as Cally was tall, but for a creature of this size they sill seemed strangely spindly and puny. Before we knew what was happening, it gripped the sides of the car and lifted it clean out of the bayou.

We screamed, all of us. The stress of first surviving a near accident, then ending up sinking into the swamp and finally getting rescued by a bona-fide swamp monster was getting to every single one of us and screaming seemed like the best way to release it.

If the creature was bothered by our screams, it gave no indication of it. It simply lifted us out of the bayou and set us back onto the road.

Once the Pontiac was out of the bayou, the water started receding, slurping out of the car. The window suddenly worked again as well and I managed to scroll it down and look our saviour right into the eye. The creature smelled a little bit ripe — living in a swamp will do that to you — but otherwise it seemed perfectly friendly.

Besides, it had saved all our lives, so I wanted to thank it. I just didn’t know how.

Just then, I noticed something gleaming in the footwell of our car. It was a pile of Mardi Gras doubloons that had been thrown to the floor during the crash. And now, with the water receding, the doubloons were emerging again. So I bent down to scoop up the doubloons, almost my entire stash and Cally’s. I struck my hands out of the open window and poured the doubloons into the creature’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you,” I said, “Thanks for saving us.”

The creature regarding the doubloons, its eyes lighting up with joy. It gave us another smile, big and gap-toothed, and then it was gone, returned to the Bayou Marron whence it came.

Papa tried to start the car, but the crash and the water had killed our engine. So he told Mama and us to stay in the car and lock the doors, while he went for help. He walked all the way to Amelia, where he found a gas station that was still open and had a tow truck.

When we told the tow truck driver about our encounter in the bayou, he nodded knowingly and said, “Well, that’s Big Puffball for you.”

“Big Puffball?” Papa asked.

“That’s what we call the creature ‘round here. He’s been living in these here swamps for as long as anybody can remember. He’s big, but perfectly harmless. Has a taste for shiny things, though. The headlights and the chromium grille of the car probably attracted him, lucky for you.”

“I gave him all my doubloons,” I said, “And Cally’s too.”

“That was nice of you, boy. Big Puffball will like that. Like I said, he likes shiny things.”

And that, my friends, is how I looked into the eye of the creature that lives in the swamps of the Bayou Marron and lived to tell the tale.

Ever since that night more than thirty years ago now, I’ve often driven past the spot where the accident happened. Sometimes I stop and get out of the car to leave a gift, something pretty and shiny, because Big Puffball, he likes shiny things.

I’ve never seen the creature again since that night. But the shiny things I leave, they’re always gone the next time I pass by.

Cause Big Puffball, he likes shiny things.

The End

I hope you enjoyed this first installment of First Monday Free Fiction. Check back next month, when there will be a new free story available.

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Star Trek Discovery Visits Vulcan in “Light and Shadow”

Even though the Nebula Award debate has dominated the past two days, there also was a new episode of Star Trek Discovery last night. And if you want to see my posts about previous episodes of Star Trek Discovery, go here.

Warning: Spoilers under the cut!

“Light and Shadow” starts where the previous episode, “A Sound of Thunder” left off, with Michael setting off for Vulcan to continue the search for Spock, while the Discovery is still in orbit around Saru’s homeworld Kaminar, just in case the Red Angel decides to drop by. Oh, and in case you’re wondering whether the fall-out of Saru and the Discovery violating the Prime Directive in a massive way by forcibly kickstarting the evolution of an entire race and likely thrusting them into a war with their former oppressors they’re not at all prepared for is at all addressed, the answer is “no”. Not even Saru seems to pay any mind to what is happening to his fellow Kelpians. It’s almost as if the previous episode never happened.

The Discovery does not find the Red Angel, but instead it finds a time rift. Or rather a time rift finds the Discovery and starts warping time, endangering the ship. Pike decides to investigate the rift by sending in a probe and – when the probe doesn’t come back – he decides to fly in himself in a shuttle together with Ash Tyler, who is now back aboard Discovery as a Section 31 liaison officer. Not that Pike really wants Ash around – he dislikes Section 31 and doesn’t trust Ash, not entirely without reason, because Ash did after Hugh Culber in a fit of Klingon rage all kill, even if he was literally not himself at the time.

Two crewmembers who don’t like each other get into a shuttle together to investigate a cosmic anomaly. What can possibly go wrong? The answer is everything, because “two characters at odds with each other are trapped in a shuttle in a dangerous situation” is a very classic Star Trek plot. And so the shuttle with Ash and Pike aboard gets sucked into the rift – largely due to the fact Pike and Ash can’t stop arguing about how to pilot the damned thing. Maybe Pike should just have let Ash fly – after all, it was established last season that whatever else Ash is, he’s certainly something of an ace pilot.

The entire plotline of Pike and Ash trapped together in a shuttle in a time rift only exists to get the two to talk through their issues. One could have locked the two up in a cabin aboard the Discovery together and have had the exact same result, though without the cool special effect of the Discovery‘s probe time-warped into some kind of monstruous tentacled thing that tries to destroy the shuttle and the Discovery (shades of Nomad and V’ger there).

Basically, Pike dislikes Ash, because he views him as a representative of Section 31. And Pike believes that Section 31 violates the Starfleet ideals he holds so dear. Luckily, Pike sat out season 1 of Star Trek Discovery with the Enterprise somewhere at the other end of the quadrant or he might have gotten his illusions about Starfleet and its vaunted ideals shattered much sooner.

Ash, meanwhile, seems to have taken a crash course in shitty internet arguments and accuses Pike of being racist towards him, because he’s Klingon. And besides, Pike is only pissed that he got to sit out the entire war with the Klingons and now wants to take out his frustrations on Ash, not to mention compensate for his feeling useless during the war by going on dangerous missions by himself rather than sending the nearest redshirt. Ash isn’t wrong, at least on the last bit, but it’s still a dickhead response. I very much want the Ash Tyler we got for a few episodes in season 1, before he turned into Voq and murdered Hugh Culber, back. Because I really liked that Ash Tyler. This latest reiteration of Ash, however, is just a jerk (though he has great hair and fabulous beard) and can just as well piss off back to Section 31 or L’Rell or wherever. Though it’s certainly interesting that Ash starts speaking Klingon in times of stress. Also, am I the only person who remembers, let alone cares about Ash’s Klingon secret baby? Because Ash sure as hell doesn’t.

Not that Star Trek hasn’t gotten a lot of mileage out of “two people who dislike each other are trapped together in a dangerous situation that may or may not involve a shuttle and come to a grudging respect for each other” over the years. Besides, Anson Mount (and I was sceptical, when Mount’s casting was announced, because he didn’t really covince me as non-speaking Black Bolt in Inhumans and an equally non-speaking assassin in Hawaii Five-Oh) and Shazad Latif do a fine job and and the conversation between Ash and Pike could have been really good, if it hadn’t been so rushed, because “Light and Shadow” has to divide its fairly short run-time between this plotline and Michael’s adventures back on Vulcan. I’m still not sure which of those two plots is “light” and which is “shadow”, by the way, though Camestros Felapton believes that the time rift plot is “light” and the Michael on Vulcan plot is “shadow”. But as it is, Pike and Ash trade a few barbs, before they are attacked by the probe turned techno-tentacle monster (honestly, what is it with transformed space probes in Star Trek?) and have work together to survive and of course bond over the shared danger. Not that I mind this at all, but the bonding does come a bit too abruptly. Ditching the Michael plot for one week (or stretching it out) and focussing on this one would have made for a better episode.

Meanwhile, the Discovery is trying hard to rescue Pike and Ash, but the temporal rift makes beaming them out impossible, as temporal rifts are want to do. So Stamets beams in (and as Zack Handlen points out in his review, how come that Stamets can be beamed in, but Ash and Pike cannot be beamed out?) and uses his tardigrade and magic mushroom drive derived mad navigation skills and unique sensitivity to temporal anomalies (first demonstrated in the fine time loop episode last season) to rescue them. And just in case you’re wondering how Stamets feels about rescuing the man/Klingon who was responsible for the death of his life partner (though Dr. Culber got better), well, you’ll be left wondering, because the episode doesn’t address this either. For that matter, if you’re wondering how Hugh Culber is coping with being killed, spending months trapped in the magic mushroom dimension and then being resurrected in a brand new body – well, keep wondering, because “Light and Shadow” sure as hell doesn’t let us know.

And so Ash and Pike are rescued in the nick of time before the time rift explodes (and if you’re wondering how this affects Kaminar and the poor Kelpians who already have enough crap to deal with without an exploding temporal anomaly in their orbit, well, keep wondering). However, the freaky time-warp morphed probe has infected the shuttle’s computer, which infects the Discovery‘s computer, fire walls apparently being unknown in the future, which in turn infects Lieutenant Airiam. Yes, right, the cybernetic member of the bridge crew who looks a little like a crashtest dummy. Not that I mind seeing Airiam getting more to do – she’s a potentially interesting character. But I have a strong suspicion where this particular plotline will be going (can you say Borg?) and I don’t like it at all. Airiam deserves better. Not to mention that The Orville just did their version of the Borg plot and did it really well, too.

Meanwhile, back on Vulcan, Michael shows up at her foster parents’ home in search of Spock (and I really like the interpretation of the classic Star Trek miniskirt Michael wears throughout the Vulcan scenes). Why she thinks he might be there is anybody’s guess, since it doesn’t really make sense for someone wanted for murder (long story) to hide in the first place anybody would look for him. However, this time Michael does get lucky, because Spock is indeed on Vulcan.

Yes, folks, we finally found Spock!

But don’t get your hopes up yet, because it’s complicated. Because while Sarek is telepathically scanning for Spock, Amanda has him hidden away in a shielded cave/shrine nearby. However, she worries that Sarek will hand Spock over to the oh-so-merciful Federation authorities, so she doesn’t tell him. But once Michael arrives, Amanda takes her to see Spock, because she’s at her wits’ end. For it turns out that Spock has a nervous breakdown and is completely catatonic muttering a seemingly random string of numbers over and over again. He even scribbles the numbers onto the walls along with drawings of the Red Angel. Michael spontaneously hugs her long lost brother, but he doesn’t even notice her.

However, Sarek has followed Amanda and Michael and walks in on them, which leads to an epic standoff in which Amanda tells Sarek that she is her own person and that he doesn’t get to tell her what to do. But in the end, Sarek persuades Michael and Amanda to hand Spock over to the Federation authorities, because Spock is clearly not well. And besides, if they are caught harbouring a fugitive and potential murderer, Michael may have to go back to prison, too, and Sarek won’t loose both his children in one day (oh, so now he cares. Also what about his third child, the still unseen and mentioned Sybok?).

Okay, so that last bit shows that Sarek does have more emotions than your average Vulcan and that he maybe does care for his kids, but he still seems to be gunning for that Darth Vader Parenthood Award with the desperation of a very sad and rabid puppy. Also, while I have never had any problems understanding why Sarek married Amanda, I honestly wonder why Amanda puts up with Sarek. Cause in her shoes, I would have grabbed the children and legged it back to Earth years ago. Though I finally understand why Spock never mentions any member of his family, unless they unexpectedly show up and he has no other choice. Because honestly, those people are fucked up.

So Michael and Sarek contact Section 31, because handing a catatonic family member over to Starfleet’s amoral black ops division (so black ops that they have black badges and always wear black) is obviously a great idea. Leland, i.e. the guy who occasionally stands next to Philippa Georgiou in the Section 31 scenes and apparently was friends with Pike back at the academy, assures Michael that Spock will be treated well and not harmed. But then Philippa Georgiou suddenly appears in her typical deus-ex-machine way (maybe I should start referring to her as Georgiou-ex-machina) and tells Michael that Leland plans to basically vivisect Spock’s brain (now that is a call back to an episode I never expected to see referenced ever again). Oh yes, and just in case Michael is still inclined to doubt Georgiou-ex-machina (who is after all a homicidal, Saru-eating tyrant from a parallel universe), Georgiou also reveals that Leland was involved in the death of Michael’s parents (huh? I though that was the Klingons).

Is she telling the truth? Who knows? On the one hand, Philippa Georgiou seems to be fond of Michael in any universe, on the other hand she also wants to oust Leland to gain control of Section 31 for herself. At any rate, she persuades Michael to grab Spock and run, which leads to a beautiful, if staged fight between Michael and Georgiou. Yes, “Light and Shadow” has a Michelle Yeoh fight scene, which is always worth watching. Though Leland should figure out that the escape was staged soon enough, if only because there is no universe in which Michelle Yeoh loses a fight to anybody.

The episode ends with Michael and a still catatonic Spock on the run once more. However, Michael finally figures out the significance of the numbers Spock is mumbling over and over again. Because it turns out that Spock has a dyslexia like learning disability (which made his childhood on Vulcan even more hell than usual) and has reversed the numbers. And once Michael enters the numbers, which turn out to be coordinates, in the proper order into the computer, out pops Talos IV – yes, the planet featured in the unaired pilot “The Cage” and the original series episode “The Menagerie” – you know, the one place in the universe you’re not supposed to visit on pain of death, courtesy of the Federation’s massively fucked up justice system. So much for Sarek’s worries that Michael will have to go back to prison, cause now she’s setting herself (and Spock, for that matter) up for execution.

I guess we should be excited about the return to Talos IV, especially since Pike, the Star Trek character most associated with that planet, will likely be along for the journey as well. However, I can’t muster that much excitement for a trip to Talos IV. For starters, I never found Talos IV all that interesting. The fact that landing there is punishable by death is literally the most interesting thing about that place, more interesting than the planet itself. Besides, the three episodes featuring the planet may be famous, but they aren’t all that good. I mean, the Talosians manipulate people and let them see illusions to lure them into their cosmic zoo. That’s an old SF chestnut and one that should never have gone beyond a single episode. Not to mention that the return to Talos IV seems like just another gratuitous reference to the original series, in a show that is already full of them. Besides, everything being connected to Spock and the Enterprise also makes Discovery feel claustrophobic. Yes, Discovery is a prequel, but must they remind us of that fact at every turn? Why not tell more stories that are uniquely Discovery stories (even if they involve magic mushroom weirdness) rather than rehashes of old episodes?

What is more, after all the teasing, the return of Spock feels anticlimactic, because the mumbling catatonic Spock is more plot device than person in this episode. I mean, Spock is literally a walking numbers station who only exists to deliver the next plot coupon. Both the character and actor Ethan Peck (grandson of Gregory) deserve better.

Once more, I make the episode sound worth than it actually was. Because in what is rapidly becoming a pattern with season 2 of Star Trek Discovery, this episode was perfectly enjoyable (and the cast is always a joy to watch), but then falls apart, once you start to think about it. It also continues Discovery’s infuriating habit, carried over from season 1, to forget entire plotlines for episodes on end or drop them altogether (what exactly became of the glowing blue energy beings that brainwashed Saru in season 1 or for that matter the prison shuttle pilot Camestros Felapton always wondered about?).

Still, I guess next episode we return to Talos IV once more, whether we (and Spock and Pike and everybody aboard the Discovery) want to or not.

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The Latest Developments Regarding the 2018 Nebula Award Finalists

I promise you that the regularly scheduled Star Trek Discovery review is coming, especially since they have finally found Spock (spoiler white-out). But for now, there have been some new developments on the Nebula front. For those following along at home, my previous posts on this year’s Nebula Award mini-drama may be found here and here. The second one went viral after N.K. Jemisin shared it on Twitter. I’ll also repeat some of the ETAs from my last post, for those who haven’t seen them yet.

To recap, this year’s Nebula ballot contained an unusual number of indie finalists (six in all fiction categories except for Best Novel), which in itself wouldn’t be that surprising, since the SFWA opened its membership to indie writers some time ago. A bit more surprising was that five of those six finalists were action heavy space opera or straight military SF of the “pew pew” type, i.e. not the sort of works that the Nebula electorate normally goes for. And upon closer examination, it turned out that all of the six indie finalists are members of a group called 20Booksto50K (for more explanation, see the previous posts). Camestros Felapton dug into the group and unearthed a recommendation list that is in the grey area to a slate.

Camestros Felapton dug in further and noticed that four of the six indie finalists were either published by or otherwise connected to LMBPN Publishing, a publishing company operated by Michael Anderle and Craig Martelle, who also founded and run the 20Booksto50K group, and that several other works and authors listed on the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate were also connected to LMBPN Publishing. Richard Fox, indie writer and Nebula finalist in the best short story category, also showed up in the comments to make a spectacle of himself, determined to fill every square on the SFF awards slate bingo card.

Camestros Felapton has also taken it upon himself to review all five Nebula finalists for best short story. So far, he has reviewed “Interview for the End of the World” by Rhett C. Bruno (who behaves graciously in the comments and clarifies some points regarding his story), “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by Phenderson Djèlí Clark (where a fan of Richard Fox’s shows up in the comments to explain how he really does not like that story for its unusual narrative structure) and “Going Dark” by Richard Fox.

And talking of Richard Fox, at Bounding into Comics, John F. Trent interviews Richard Fox. The interview is mostly about his books and his comic work, but Fox talks a bit about his Nebula nomination and gripes about traditional publishing and sensitivity readers.

On the front of authors and their fans behaving badly, Annie Bellet, an indie writer who found herself a Hugo finalist due to the Sad and Rabid Puppy slates in 2015 and withdrew, once she found out how her nomination had come about, spoke out strongly against the tactics used by 20Booksto50K. Today, she shared this piece of hate mail from fans/friends of Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, a finalist in the novelette category together with R.R. Virdi.

Yudhanjaya came at my calling out of the slate from a positition of condescending arrogance, engaged with me, and I blocked him. At no point did I say his work was shit or name him at all.

This is uncool and I hope he fixes it by apologizing to me and telling his friends to stop

— Annie Bellet (@anniebellet) March 1, 2019

Stuff like this is just rude and awful. And everybody who has actually read Annie Bellet’s Twitter exchange with Yudhanjaya Wijeratne will see that only one party comes off badly in that exchange and that’s not Annie Bellet.

ETA: Though Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and Annie Bellet seem to have come to an understanding now, as this Twitter thread shows, once Annie Bellet clarified that she was not accusing Wijeratne and his co-author of cheating (which I never read that way, but then I wasn’t the target) and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne read about Annie Bellet’s experiences as a Sad/Rabid Puppy slate nominee.

ETA2: Meanwhile at Facebook, Mary Anne Mohanraj claims that there was a racist element to the complaints about the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate, at least regarding the nomination for Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and his co-author R.R. Virdi. Or at least, it was viewed that way in Sri Lanka, from where both Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and Mary Anne Mohanraj hail. She also explains the background of the situation for Sri Lankan writers. Found via File 770, where Mike Glyer also quotes from a good response by N.K. Jemisin refuting Mary Anne Mohanraj’s racism accusations (which I can’t seem to link to, not being a Facebook member).

Now I can’t speak for anybody else, but I for one have zero problem with Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and his co-author R.R. Virdi being writers of colour and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne being a writer from Sri Lanka. In fact, when I first saw the 2018 Nebula shortlist, their nomination didn’t stand out to me, unlike the ones for Jonathan P. Brazee, Richard Fox and Rhett C. Bruno, whose names I recognised as indie writers who write the sort of work the Nebula electorate doesn’t normally go for. However, I didn’t recognise the name of the anthology Expanding Universe as a 20Booksto50K anthology – in fact, I got it mixed up with a Strange Horizons offshoot mag called Expanded Horizons, where writers of colour and South Asian writers wouldn’t seem out of place at all. And while a nomination for that magazine would have been a surprise, it wouldn’t have been that much of one. It was only when I googled Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and R.R. Virdi, because I did not want to accidentally misgender them in my post, that the Dragon Award nominations of R.R. Virdi as well as the anthology with a very indie military SF cover and Craig Martelle listed as the editor popped up. And that’s when I got a little curious.

As for Annie Bellet’s tweets, I did not see them as singling out any of the 20Booksto50K finalists as unworthy. And though Annie Bellet’s tweets were sweary, I saw them as being directed at the slaters and not the slatees, because Annie Bellet after all knows what it’s like to be slated without your knowledge and against your will, though it’s understandable if any of the slatees read that differently. I also have sympathy for Yudhanjaya Wijeratne (and R.R. Virdi, for that matter), since it seems that they did not know why the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate was problematic. However, Wijeratne did not react well to Annie Bellet’s tweets, though he isn’t the worst behaved author in this kerfuffle by a mile. Never mind that six of the seven authors from the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate are Americans and five are white (and several of the other Nebula finalists are writers of colour and/or international writers), so you really can’t say that Wijeratne was singled out for racist reasons.

ETA3: Yudhanjaya Wijeratne shares his own view of his Nebula nomination and the aftermath.

Not everybody is happy to find themselves on the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate, especially since it appears that many authors were not asked. For example, World Weaver Press, a small press one of whose books, The Continuum by Wendy Nikel, was on the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate, point out that they have no idea how the book got onto the last and renounce slating tactics.

Finally, for those who are confused what is and is not considered acceptable in putting your work forwards for awards consideration, Jim C. Hines has posted a handy overview about how to get nominated for a Hugo or Nebula Award and what is and isn’t okay.

Then today, Jonathan P. Brazee, whose novella “Fire Ant” was a 2018 Nebula finalist, posted a statement at File 770. A statement by the SFWA about the issue may also be found in the same post. I encourage you to go over there and read the whole statement, because it’s well worth it. But in short, Jonathan Brazee apologises and takes full responsibility for asterisks and wink-wink nudge-nudge remarks that pushed an initially unproblematic recommended reading list into problematic territory. He also states that neither the people on the list nor the 20Booksto50K group had anything to do with it and that the mistake was his alone. Finally, Jonathan P. Brazee also offers to withdraw his nominated novella Fire Ant from consideration. It’s a classy thing to do and if every writer on the 20Booksto50K list had behaved with as much class and grace as Mr. Brazee, this situation would never have escalated as it did.

The SFWA statement confirms that SFWA is aware of the issues and that they are investigating what can be done to make the Nebula ballot more proof against slating and logrolling, regardless the intention behind it. SFWA also repeats that they want to represent all writers of science fiction and fantasy, whether indies, hybrids or traditionally published. Finally, they ask everybody to give all Nebula finalists their due consideration, regardless how and where they were published. It’s another classy response.

In the comments on the File 770 post, Camestros Felapton also shares the gist of a statement by Craig Martelle posted to the 20Booksto50K group, which is only visible to group and Facebook members. He still has no idea why people are upset – after all, he only wants to help indie authors – and feels denigrated, even though Martelle was only tangentially mentioned in the debate.

I really hope that this is the last Nebula post I have to write until the winners are announced later this year.

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Some Reactions to the 2018 Nebula Award Finalists

Now that about a week has passed since the 2018 Nebula Award finalists have been announced, more reaction posts are coming in. I’ve already linked to some of those as ETAs in my previous Nebula post, but I’m going to post them here again for those who may not have seen them before.

One of the most notable developments is the number of indie works (six altogether in every fiction category except for best novel) on the 2018 Nebula shortlist. Now this isn’t all that astonishing in itself, because SFWA opened up membership to indie authors a few years ago and with more indie members, the number of indie works nominated could also be expected to go up.

What is surprising, however, is that the five of the six indie finalists are very different from the other finalists in style, subgenre, etc… They’re all either military leaning space opera or outright military SF of the “Pew pew” type, which isn’t traditionally something the Nebula electorate tends to go for, though there are exceptions, e.g. Charles E. Gannon and Jack McDevitt who got several nominations for military and action adventure science fiction a few years ago. Furthermore, all six nominated indie authors (one story had two authors) plus one hybrid author are members of a Facebook group for indie authors called 20Booksto50K. In my last Nebula post, I explained a bit about what the group is all about. I’ll just repost the relevant paragraph here rather than repeat the whole thing:

For those who don’t know, 20Booksto50K started out as a Facebook group for business minded indie writers (the name implies that 20 books should bring you an income of 50000 USD), but by now they are also holding regular writers’ conferences. 20Booksto50K is a huge group – I think they have twenty thousand members or something – and because of their business focus, a lot of financially successful indie writers, i.e. the ones also most likely to join SFWA, are members. Plus, many of the early members including the founder were SFF writers, though they’ve since branched out to cover other genres. I’ve never been a member, largely because I don’t do Facebook, but I know some members and have seen videos of their conferences, so I’m familiar with the ideas behind the whole thing, which is basically “write fast, publish fast and create a ‘minimum viable product’ in highly commercial genres”. I’ve also read their manifesto, which may be found here. 20Booksto50K also encourages collaboration between authors and I wouldn’t be surprised the some of the indie anthologies, where the nominated stories were published, grew out of this or similar groups. What is surprising, however, is that several writers affiliated with 20Booksto50K hit the Nebula shortlist this yar, since critical acclaim and awards recognition is not really a main aim of this group. Though I guess they’re happy enough to take the publicity boost it brings.

After I made my Nebula post, Camestros Felapton dug a bit into the 20Booksto50K group and unearthed a “not a slate” reading list and dug up an earlier “not a slate” reading list, which confirms that there was an organised campaign going on. Camestros Felapton has also taken it upon himself to read and review all the Nebula short story finalists, starting with “Interview for the End of the World” by Rhett C. Bruno.

Some of the more unexpected finalists on this year’s Nebula ballot did not go unnoticed elsewhere either:

At nerds of a feather, Adri Joy and Joe Sherry discuss the 2018 Nebula finalists, compare the shortlist to their predictions and also briefly address the number of indie works on the ballot and the 20Booksto50K connection. And at Dreaming About Other Worlds, Aaron Pound weighs in on the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate issue and how it causes him to question even nominations that were likely come by honestly. Meanwhile, Nicholas Whyte analyses the Goodreads and Library Thing ratings of several Nebula nominees and finds that the 20Booksto50K finalists have a much lower rating count than the traditionally published finalists. There also is a thread at the printSF subreddit about the Nebulas, in which the number of indie finalists comes up and some of the nominated authors weigh in.

Nonetheless, things were fairly quiet for a few days, though there is a lively discussion going on in the comments at Cam’s second Nebula post, largely because two of the indie finalists showed up to point out that the quality of the story should matter more than the publisher name in the front matter (a point I agree with) and that they are writing quality fiction that readers love (again, not something I can really disagree with, because quality is subjective to a certain degree and I’m sure their readers enjoy their stories). However, once regular commenters asked some uncomfortable questions, both authors quickly got huffy. One flounced, the other stuck around to complain about virtue signalling and how no one cared about the quality of his story. Which really is not a good look at all.

Then yesterday, Annie Bellet called out 20Booksto50K on Twitter for slating the Nebulas. The Twitter thread starts here. For those who don’t know or remember, Annie Bellet is an indie author who found herself nominated for a Hugo via the Sad/Rabid Puppies slate back in 2015 and was classy enough to withdraw her story from consideration when the way it had gotten nominated became clear, only to find herself attacked by the Puppies who nominated her in the first place. Also on Twitter, Marko Kloos who found himself on the 2015 Sad/Rabid Puppies slate and withdrew weighs in as well and points out that slates are a really bad idea for all involved. So in short, if anybody knows how harmful slates, no matter what you call them, can be, it’s Annie Bellet and Marko Kloos, because they were victims of slating tactics back in 2015.

At File 770, Mike Glyer links to Annie Bellet’s comments as well as to various responses from Marko Kloos, Marshall Ryan Maresca and J.A. Sutherland, all of whom are critical of the behaviour of the 20Booksto50K group. J.A. Sutherland also points out that the 20Booksto50K list started as a simple recommendation and eligibility list, which no one would have had any problems with, and then morphed into something quite different. His comments are not linked at File 770, but Jim C. Hines also weighs in regarding the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate on Twitter.

ETA: World Weaver Press, a small press one of whose books, The Continuum by Wendy Nikel, was on the 20Booksto50K not-a-slate, point out that they have no idea how the book got onto the last and renounce slating tactics.

Mike Glyer also links to responses from 20Booksto50K members, such as Twitter replies by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, one of the 2018 Nebula finalists affiliated with 20Booksto50K, to Annie Bellet and J.A. Sutherland. Wijeratne seems to have been unaware of the recent history of the SFF field and why slates are considered such a bad thing. Nonetheless, he comes across as rather condescending in his responses to Annie Bellet and others, which does not help his case at all. Annie Bellet also has a follow-up thread pointing out that she does feel for those who ended up on the 20Booksto50K “not a slate” without understanding why that would be viewed as problematic, but that they should maybe do their homework before snapping at people.

Another response Mike Glyer links to is this Facebook post by Michael Cooper a.k.a. M.D. Cooper, which feels very much as if we fell into a time warp. Cooper declares that he feels that there aren’t enough indie books nominated for the Nebula Awards, because after all indie books dominate the SFF charts at Amazon. And if something sells well, it should also be nominated for awards. Besides, he doesn’t understand why people have problems with the “minimal viable product” principle, since pretty much every piece of software is released along the same principles (yeah, but books are not software and besides, I hate getting buggy software which needs constant updates, too). And anyway, what’s wrong with promoting yourself and supporting your friends – after all, traditional publishing does it, too. Besides, those traditional publishing folks are just angry and scared, because indies are taking over the market, and so they behave like elitist gatekeepers. In the comments, you also get people bragging that they only read indie books and stories (well, that’s their choice, though they’re missing a lot of good work), that indie books and stories are fresher and more exciting than traditionally published works (that’s a matter of taste), that the dreaded Social Justice Warriors are striking again. Craig Martelle, who runs the 20Booksto50K group, even threatens those who criticise the group with lawsuits.

We’ve heard all of those points except for the software comparison a hundred times before and we’ve discussed them ad infinitum back at the height of the puppy wars in 2015 and reiterated them several times since. So here is just a short summary:

Just because a book sells a lot of copies does not automatically make it award-worthy. Not to mention that the Kindle store bestseller list is so distorted by KU borrows being treated as sales to be pretty much worthless as a gauge for wider sales. So indies dominating the Amazon charts says very little about the wider market, especially since the traditionally published finalists probably get a significant part of their sales in print and at vendors that are not Amazon.

Besides, the sort of people who nominate and vote for awards, whether it’s SFWA members nominating and voting for the Nebulas or WorldCon members nominating and voting for the Hugos, have different criteria for judging a book than the voracious Kindle Unlimited “whale readers” to use 20Booksto50K jargon (though I have no idea why they used “whale” as an analogy for extremely voracious readers, because while whales are big, they aren’t particularly voracious). Most “whale readers” looks for a good time and a predictable experience. However, award voters/nominator normally look for something beyond merely a good read, when considering what to nominate and vote for. Every voter and nominator has individual criteria, but innovation and putting a new spin on a familiar trope tend to be valued, as does literary quality. And yes, entertainment value plays a role, too – after all, no one reads to be bored. But when faced with the choice between a story that was entertaining, but offered nothing new whatsoever, and one which offers new ideas or does something interesting and new with familiar tropes, most Hugo and Nebula voters will go for the latter. J.A. Sutherland also points this out in this Twitter thread. Hence, “But the book sold a lot of copies and I’m a six or seven figure author” are irrelevant to most Hugo and Nebula nominators.

Also, unlike the Dragons, the Hugos and the Nebulas are not promotional awards, but are considered a guide to notable works in the field. A lot of people use the Locus and Nebula recommended reading lists as well as the Hugo and Nebula shortlists as guides to find books and stories to read. Hugo and Nebula shortlists are discussed and analysed and reviewed and any unexpected finalist – a book/author many fans have never heard of or a genre/subgenre that normally doesn’t get nominated – gets an extra dose of attention. Also, we’re talking of people here who do data analysis for fun. Unusual patterns will be noticed and investigated, because that’s what SFF fans do.

As for “But traditionally published authors do it, too, and what about all those recommendation lists on the internet?”, the SFF community traditionally views self-promotion and canvassing for awards as tres gauche. The Dragon Awards encourage canvassing for votes, but other genre awards don’t. Now the Nebulas apparently had a problem with logrolling and tit for tat votes in the past, but rule changes in 2009/2010 fixed that problem, as these posts from John Scalzi and Jason Sanford explain. In the Hugos it has always been taboo and Hugo voters tend to react to any hint of manipulation with a swift “no award”, whether it’s the Scientologists or the Sad and Rabid Puppies doing it. As for self-promotion, back in 2013, there was a huge debate if eligibility posts, which are pretty much standard by now, were not a step too far.  And many of the recommendation lists and sites you see now such as the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom, the Hugo Wikia or Rocket Stack Rank came about as a direct result of the Sad and Rabid Puppy campaigns. Also, the wound left by the Puppy Wars of 2014-2017 is still raw, so reactions to any hint of slating are stronger than they might have been before 2015.

As a rule of thumb, “here is what I did last year that’s eligible, check it out” or “here are some great novels, stories, films, etc… I loved” or crowdsourced lists of eligible works are okay. It becomes problematic when a list tells people what to vote for, either directly or implied, rather than just encourage them to check something out and vote for what they love, when a list only has as many items as there are finalist slots (this was a huge part of the problem with the puppy slates) or when there is some kind of political intent involved, whether it’s “Promote conservative SFF”, “Promote leftwing SFF”, “Vote indie”, “Vote publisher X”, “Promote LGBT SFF”, etc… The 20Booksto50K list is definitely in a grey area here, because while it apparently started out as a simply recommendation and eligiblity list, the asterisks and the “Promote indies” message are problematic. It’s not against the rules, but then what the Puppies did wasn’t against the rules either.

As for claiming that those who criticise the 20Booksto50K list are traditional gatekeepers who hate indies – oh please! Annie Bellet is an indie writer, a very successful one at that, and she is one of those who worked to open SFWA for indies. Marko Kloos started out as an indie, before he was picked up by 47North. J.A. Sutherland is an indie writer. Camestros Felapton is an indie writer or rather his cat is. I am an indie writer and have been promoting indie books here and at the Speculative Fiction Showcase and the Indie Crime Scene for years. Accusing us of hating indies is just flat out ridiculous.

As for the whole “indie versus traditional” rhetoric, honestly, that debate is so 2012. The stigma against self-publishing has long since evaporated. Can’t we move on and accept that indies, traditionally published authors and hybrids are all part of the same genre? The Nebulas aren’t hostile to indie works – the 2014 Best Novel finalist The Red: First Light by Linda Nagata was self-published, at a time when SFWA wasn’t even open to indie writers yet. The Hugos aren’t hostile to indie works  – the novelette “In Sea-Salt Tears” by Seanan McGuire in 2013 was the first self-published finalist and there have been several since.

Besides, most people were initially willing to give 20Booksto50K the benefit of a doubt. The reaction was mostly along the lines of, “Well, they’re new and don’t know the culture and etiquette. They’ll learn and maybe some of the stories are good.” But the huffy responses from some 20Booksto50K Nebula finalists and other members of the group (Lawsuits? Really?) have destroyed a lot of good will, not just towards this group, but also towards indie writers in general. And I really doubt that was the intent.

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Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for February 2019

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

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

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have epic fantasy, urban fantasy, historical fantasy, portal fantasy, Asian fantasy, funny fantasy, sword and sorcery, paranormal romance, paranormal mystery, space opera, military science fiction, science fiction romance, dystopian fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, horror, steampunk, hopepunk (yes, I’m using that term. Get over it), satire, witches, wizards, ghosts, valkyries, goblins, dark lords, assassins, prison breaks, outcast marines, space pirates, superheroes, space battles, undead slaves, the second coming and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

War Begins by Odette C. Bell:

Diana had a troubled past. The kind where her family were brutally murdered right in front of her eyes. It’s changed the course of her future – but it will change more. An ancient race left a gift inside her mind, and it is time for it to rise.

…

Sampson is a psychic soldier – one of the Coalition’s best. When he’s sent to the Academy to spy on students, he has no clue he’ll be drawn toward Diana and into the final fight for the Milky Way.

…

War Begins is a four-part action adventure space opera sure to please fans of Odette C. Bell’s Axira. This series is complete, and all four books are currently available.

The Valley of the Man Vultures by Richard Blakemore and Cora Buhlert

On his way to Krysh, a city of fabled riches, the sellsword Thurvok must first pass through the Valley of the Accursed Blood.

Traditionally, those travelling to Krysh make offerings at the temple at the entrance of the valley in exchange for protection on their journey. But Thurvok scoffs at such superstition and decides to continue his journey without any divine protection. His refusal to make an offering infuriates the temple priest Alberon who promptly curses Thurvok.

Thurvok is not much bothered by this – he does not believe in curses. However, the valley holds dangers that don’t particularly care whether Thurvok believes in them or not.

This is a short story of 4400 words or 15 print pages in the Thurvok sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

The Tomb of the Undead Slaves by Richard Blakemore and Cora Buhlert

The sellsword Thurvok and his friend and companion Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, venture into the Rusted Desert to seek the tomb of the ancient king Chagurdai and the legendary treasure supposedly hidden there.

But once Thurvok and Meldom venture into the tomb, they find that a treasure is not all that’s buried there.

This is a short story of 4100 words or 13 print pages in the Tales of Thurvok sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

The Road of Skeletons by Richard Blakemore and Cora Buhlert

On their way to the northern city of Khon Orzad, Thurvok, the sellsword, and his friend Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, travel along a road lined with the skeletons of executed heretics.

It’s a grim path that becomes even grimmer when Thurvok and Meldom come upon a blindfolded woman who is still very much alive tied to a stake by the side of the road.

Should they continue their journey or rescue the woman and risk the wrath of the priest kings of Khon Orzad…

This is a short story of 5500 words or 20 print pages in the Thurvok sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

Insight by Teyla Branton:

Welcome to the CORE: Commonwealth Objective for Reform and Efficiency

Detective Reese Parker is a survivor. Having left behind a violent past in Welfare Colony 6, she is now a sketch artist and detective with the New York Enforcer Division. Her entire focus is maintaining peace and order among the CORE’s remaining two million residents, to make certain their society never faces another economic and nuclear Breakdown.

She must also keep her secret. Because she never wants to be sent back to Colony 6.

With constant Teev surveillance and rigid control in the CORE’s most heavily populated state, Reese’s job mostly consists of tracing small-time juke pushers or sending rebellious students to reconditioning. She doesn’t have to face demented fringers that encroach upon the Core like her counterparts in Dallastar do, or patrol the northern borders where radiation-crazed animals attack unwary travelers. She’s content with being the most accurate sketch artist in the CORE.

But when one of her sketches puts her up against a human monster bigger than anything else that threatens the CORE, it’s a fight she might not survive.

Collision: Stories by J.S. Breukelaar:

A collection of twelve of J.S. Breukelaar’s darkest, finest stories with four new works, including the uncanny new novella “Ripples on a Blank Shore.” Introduction by award-winning author, Angela Slatter. Relish the gothic strangeness of “Union Falls,” the alien horror of “Rogues Bay 3013,” the heartbreaking dystopia of “Glow,” the weird mythos of “Ava Rune,” and others. This collection from the author of American Monster and the internationally acclaimed and Aurealis Award finalist, Aletheia, announces a new and powerful voice in fantastical fiction.

Assassin’s Bond by Lindsay Buroker:

Yanko and his friends must escape a Turgonian prison and find passage back home before their enemies claim an advantage that could change the world. And not for the good of the Nurian people.

But even more trouble awaits at home. Civil war has broken out, Yanko’s family is in danger, and the man who sent him on his mission has disappeared.

If Yanko can’t find Prince Zirabo, he’ll forever remain a criminal and be hunted down by his own people. Worse, his only chance to survive and redeem his honor may be to rely on the one person who’s been trying to kill him since his adventure began.

Quill Me Now by Jordan Castillo Price:

What if the words you wrote came true?

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

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

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

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

Unleashed Valkyrie by Stacy Claflin:

When two worlds collide, who will remain standing?

Soleil wants nothing more than to live with her family, free from the rules governing her kind. But with Valhalla on the brink of civil war, even retired valkyries are called back to service. Even though she’s a master at skirting the rules, there’s no avoiding her destiny this time. Especially since she’s accidentally volunteered to lead Valhalla’s opposition on Earth—and with two of her least favorite valkyries, no less.

As though a war with traditional valkyries isn’t enough, there’s been a resurgence of hunters. Even the help of the supernaturals on Earth may not be enough to assure victory. Not when she’s fighting a war on two fronts. There’s one supernatural who might be strong enough to turn the tide, but she’d never ask. She’s also not strong enough to keep him from entering the fray.

The fate of two worlds hang in the balance. Soleil wants nothing more than to flee with her family, but she’s honor-bound to stay and fight. The question is, how will the war end? With her people free? With two worlds destroyed? Or will she even survive to witness the outcome?

Murder in Downfell Manor by E.M. Cooper:

Eleanor Blakely hails from a long line of talented witches, yet after failing to graduate from the Fanglewick School of Magic her prospects look grim. An apprenticeship at the Wandermere Observatory in the Department of Astronomical Predictions offers her a second chance to gain registration as a magic practitioner, but after falling asleep on the job, missing the planetary alignment in the newly discovered Merlin constellation and mistaking a dragon weyr flying over Wandermere for the Cazilla comet shower, she’s booted out. In the Old World, a magically unlicensed adult witch sits just above humans and troublesome teenage goblins on the scale of social worthiness, well below the most ordinary elves, witches and wizards. Unable to practise magic and in her mid-twenties, Eleanor endures work as a transfer officer, supervising humans on the wards of Silverwing Hospital. Her team transports witches and wizards suffering a fatal affliction, known as magic madness or magdolor, to St Blightus, an asylum in the south. In the midst of a transfer, a murder changes everything, forcing her to flee across dimensions to Earth with an amnesiac wizard. Pursued by ruthless elves, she takes refuge in Downfell Manor, where her grandmother, Lucinda and her strange cat, Bella reside. Murder and mayhem follow Eleanor and Artemis, their paths inevitably crossing those of a non-magical wizard, Detective Finley Quiveridge.

The Dark Lord Bert by Chris Fox:

How does a 1-hit-point goblin become the Dark Lord?

By accident. Bert is a tiny goblin with big dreams. He follows adventurers, and loots the copper they leave behind when they take the real loot. One day, Bert hopes, he’ll have enough copper to buy a warg, and finally promote from a 1-HP critter to a Warg Rider.

Kit is a typical gamer hoping to enjoy a good story, but her friends are more interested in rules, loot and experience. Kit’s friends Crotchshot, Brakestuff, and the White Necromancer rampage their way across the land desperately seeking the Dark Lord trope, which gives the wielder the power to reshape the world.

When Bert accidentally steals the trope, Kit is forced to make a choice. Should she help her friends, or help a new Dark Lord rise to power?

The world will never be the same. Get ready for The Dark Lord Bert.

Emerald Fire by Donna Maree Hanson:

A book of manners, magic and mayhem

After Edward and Jemima’s honeymoon is cut short by a severed head landing in their marriage bed, they must away to London to devise a way to defeat the ravenous beast, Geneck and Jemima must be the bait.

Newspaper headlines reveal carnage in London streets and the police and the secret brotherhood of magicians are pounding at the door, demanding answers from Edward.

Joined by Fulton, Edward and Jemima begin to scour the dark places of London: sewers and newly-constructed underground railway tunnels. Their only chance is to find Geneck’s lair and end him in daylight, when he is weak. But the monster’s minions protect him and the road to safety is not clear.

When Jemima is taken, Edward is beside himself. Who has taken her and how is he going to get her back? Deeper into magic he must go, and Milly and Aunt Prudence join in the fight to rid the world of Geneck. But will that be enough?

Replication by Kevin Hardman:

Having saved the distant world of Caeles and its interstellar empire – not to mention the life of its ruler, Queen Dornoccia – Jim (aka Kid Sensation), returns to Earth with two notable prizes. The first is his long-missing grandmother, the alien princess Indigo. The other is Queen Dornoccia’s great-great-granddaughter, Myshtal, who is a princess in her own right and a budding superhero. And thanks to the machinations of the queen, she’s also Jim’s titular fiancée, a fact that puts something of a damper on Jim’s relationship with his girlfriend, Electra. It also doesn’t help that Myshtal is breathtakingly beautiful, personable, and witty – and lives under the same roof as Jim.

As if his life wasn’t complicated enough, Jim suddenly finds his world invaded by a doppelganger – an unknown individual who looks so much like him that he is even able to fool those in Jim’s inner circle. Even more disturbing, he also mimics Jim’s incredible slate of super powers.

Framed for crimes he didn’t commit, Jim is forced to seek out his lookalike in order to prove his innocence. However, as the depth of his double’s malevolent plans are revealed, Jim realizes that there is far more at stake than simply clearing his name. Now Jim faces the formidable task of attempting to stop an adversary who not only looks and thinks as he does, but also seems to match him power for power.

Fahrenheit’s Ghost by Trish Heinrich:

A weapon of mass destruction in the whisper of a child

When a savage crime boss attacks her family, Colleen vows to do whatever it takes to protect them. Even if it means stealing a superpowered person from a sadistic millionaire.

A top government agent, Karen has lied and killed in the name of justice. Kidnapping, then, isn’t a stretch. Especially if it’s someone who threatens the country she’s vowed to protect.

But when Colleen and Karen discover that the person they’ve been sent to capture is a child, they find themselves on the run from ruthless men who will stop at nothing to control the horrifying powers within the innocent girl.

Fahrenheit’s Ghost is the first, thrilling book in the new superhero series, The Vigilantes: The Pandora Project. If you like powerful heroes, nonstop action and a touch of romance then you’ll love this superpowered story.

The Ghost Who Says I Do by Bobbi Holmes:

A Valentine’s Day Wedding at Marlow House?

Love is in the air—along with secrets—some are deadlier than others.

Will secrets from Clint Marlow’s past come back to haunt Walt and Danielle?

 

 

Ghoul You Be My Valentine? by Olivia Jaymes:

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

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

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

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

The Spoils of War by Ethan Johnson:

Be careful what you search for…

After a successful tactical strike against The Thirteen, Ana Lode searches the city for her fellow rookie officer Sloan, who languishes in a secret detention facility.

This causes friction between Ana and the mysterious Klark, who insists on her undivided attention in the struggle to free the city from the iron grip of The Thirteen.

When Diane Pembrook leads a strike team to their remote hideout, Ana is forced to choose between her loyalty to Klark and her vow to save Sloan. What — and who — is she willing to sacrifice in the name of justice?

For the Love of Cupidity by Raven Kennedy:

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Capture a Demon’s Heart – Graceley Knox & D.D. Miers

A Demon’s Plaything (The Elite Guards) – Amelia Hutchins

Deep Blue Sea – Pippa DaCosta

The Hellhound’s Legion: A Kit Davenport Novella – Tate James

The Heart Cantrip: a Family Spells Novella – C.M. Stunich

Eternal Hearts – A Forsaken Gods Series Novella – G. Bailey & Coralee June

A Damsel and a Demigod (The Guild Codex: Spellbound) – Annette Marie

The Fox and the Wolf – Clara Hartley

Freaky Witches by Amanda M. Lee:

Mystic Caravan Circus is heading for the Midwest … and their first stop is Michigan. Hemlock Cove to be exact.

Poet Parker is looking forward to what she believes will be a quiet time. Hemlock Cove isn’t big, after all, and Mystic Caravan is essentially serving as the centerpiece for a paranormal festival in a town where everyone pretends to be witches.

There’s just one problem … real witches are afoot, and they’re unbelievably powerful.

When a body drops close to the circus grounds, Poet finds herself facing off with local law enforcement, the town’s only reporter, and an elderly witch who is set in her ways … and knows exactly how she’s going to do things no matter who agrees with her or not.

Yes, Poet is about to interact with the Winchester witches, and who comes out on top is anybody’s guess. The only thing both factions know is that they have to work together to uncover a killer and keep their true natures under wraps. That’s easier said than done, especially when Nellie and Aunt Tillie join forces and decided to take control of the situation.

It’s a battle for supremacy, with Mystic Caravan in one corner and the Wicked Witches of the Midwest in the other. Both sides are going to come out swinging … and cursing.

Place your bets.

Two Witches and a Whiskey by Annette Marie:

Three months ago, I landed a job as a bartender. But not at a bar–at a guild. Yeah, the magic kind.

I’m not a badass mage like my three smokin’ hot best friends. I’m not a sorcerer or an alchemist, or even a wussy witch. I’m just a human, slinging drinks like a pro and keeping my non-magical nose out of mythic business. Seriously, I know my limits.

So why am I currently standing in a black-magic ritual circle across from a fae lord?

Somewhere behind me, my three mage friends are battling for their lives. Somewhere near my feet is the rogue witch I just knocked out with a stolen spell. And I have about five seconds to convince this very angry sea god not to shmoosh me like a bug.

I’m pretty sure this wasn’t in the job description.

Rainbow Bouquet, edited by Farah Mendlesohn:

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

 

 

Liars Called by Stephan Morse:

Abandoned by his father, too proud to ask his brother for help, and lured by the promise of money, Lance gets on a bus that mysteriously appears outside his house in the middle of the night.

It brings him and others to a dream-like land where anything can be bought and sold, even magic. When he returns home, he finds his family has changed, the world has moved on, and monsters from faerie tales overrun the town.

Survival is paramount—but everything has a price.

Revenge by Nathan Hystad:

The Rift has opened.

The aliens invaded.

The Eureka is on the other side.

Flint, Wren, and Ace, along with Charles, are now members of the Eureka, a state-of-the-art vessel heading for a world in the far reaches of a new galaxy. Sixty years ago a colony ship was sent there, along with someone close to their benefactor.

But when they arrive, they find getting to the surface isn’t as easy as they thought. With a crash landing, and news that shocks the entire crew, they must collectively find a way to get the Pilgrim off-planet, and into the fight against the Watchers.

One of the crew leaves from orbit, spelling betrayal, and the others know time is against them. They must create a virus and bring it to the enemy’s home world, but not everything is as it seems.

Join our heroes as they fight for the future, knowing an all-out war awaits them back home, on the other side of the Rift.

Ghostly Hunt by K.E. O’Connor:

Murder by crossbow. A haunted house used for ghost hunting, and an unloved iguana waiting for his soul mate!

When Lorna Shadow takes on a short term job at Applebank Manor, she gets the shock of her life. It turns out she’s in charge of setting up romantic weekends full of ghost hunting!

When a recent murder comes to light and the ghost asks for help, Lorna’s drawn into the mystery, alongside Helen and Flipper.

As the mystery deepens, the house ghosts cause Lorna problems, while Helen has to get to grips with a broken stove and a giant iguana. Then another crossbow murder takes place.

With the police closing in on the wrong suspect, Lorna must move fast. Can she stop the killer before they strike again and save an innocent man? And will Helen help a lonely iguana find his forever home?

There will be ghosts, humor, romance, treats, and a murder (or two) to solve in this new cozy ghost mystery.

Dimension Thieves by Misty Provencher:

The world is a much smaller place since the President droned the lower classes, making them mindless servants. Free will, granted to the elite, is in jeopardy of extinction.

Force Steele, son of a high-ranking advisor, has dedicated himself to eradicating mass droning, but now that the President destroyed the machine that could reverse the program, there is no way in Force’s world to replace the one-of-a-kind gears.

In this gripping serial, Force partners with a shifty mechanic and a sketchy crew to retrieve the gears. They must travel across lateral dimensions, often stealing the materials they need—even from themselves—to fix their dwindling world.

Digital Assassin by Jaxon Reed:

New technology allowed humans to reach for the stars. Now technology has led to war.

Opposing AI systems battle in a monumental struggle for control of the galaxy. But one planet remains a refuge of independent thought. Lute is home to pirates, harboring ruthless companies of warships hunting for prey.

The pirates are offered the spoils of war, for a price. Captain Christopher Raleigh leads his crew in an effort to snag a lucrative transport on the opposing side. Along with the ship, he snares the Tetrarch’s daughter and several hundred indentured servants.

But not all are who they seem. As the bodies pile up, Raleigh has to figure out who is telling the truth and decide if the spoils of war are truly worth it.

Power and Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts:

Aufleur is a city of honey cakes, decadent ritual… and a secret war fought by an army of beautiful monsters. The Creature Court die and bleed to keep the daylight folk safe, but no one even knows they exist.

Who will be the new Power and Majesty of the Creature Court: a man who was broken and exiled from their world, or the woman who knows nothing of their ways? Neither of them wants to rule, but Ashiol is determined to train Velody to take his place, so that he can finally escape his destiny.

 

Drone by Kyle Alexander Romines:

After the emergence of the destructive, godlike Titans, the world is more dangerous than ever.

When drone pilot David Hunter is recruited to join a top-secret military program, he learns the government has captured the Titan Prometheus. Once considered a hero by many, Prometheus is now an empty shell, retrofitted with technology to serve as a new kind of drone–and it’s David’s task to use the Titan’s powers on the government’s behalf.

David has his own reasons to distrust Titans, but when he discovers some vestiges of Prometheus’ consciousness remain, it sets in motion a course of events that will cause him to learn what it means to be a hero.

Love Magic by Jesi Lea Ryan:

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

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

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

Winterbloom by Jessica Rydill:

Sophie Vasilyevich is a teenager growing up in Anglond, the child of exiles. Sometimes grass springs up where she walks, and her future holds an unusual fate: she is going to be kidnapped when she is sixteen, and no one can stop it.

Taken between worlds to the city of Bath in 1920’s England, Sophie meets a young man called James Carnwallis, once a pilot in the Great War. But even as she falls in love, she learns more about the forces at work – and her fate in their plans.

As an alliance of shamans, ghosts and gods assembles in a desperate attempt to recover Sophie and prevent the destruction of their worlds, they find that their only hope may lie in Sophie’s gift, and in the Greenwood: a power older than time itself.

My Wicked Valentine by Lotta Smith:

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

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

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

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

Noble’s Honor by Glynn Stewart:

Vassal of the Queen of the Fae

Noble of the Wild Hunt

Child of the Horned King.

Bait.

Jason Kilkenny has learned his full heritage and the nature of the bloodline that runs in his veins. One quarter mortal, he is also the child of a Power, the Horned King of the Wild Hunt of the Fae.

But his father is dead, murdered in a fae civil war that ended before Jason was born. It ended because of a powerful spell the Horned King cast, trading his life to deny the Masked Lords the weapon they needed to kill the Fae Powers.

Now, Jason gathers allies and resources in his new home of Calgary. The Fae Masked Lords are hunting him, but he has what they want and they have to come to him. The Fae Powers have prepared a trap for their long-hidden enemies, with Jason as both bait and ambush.It’s a clever plan—but no plan survives contact with the enemy!

Ruined Worlds by Jeff Tanyard:

Jerry Harper is back on Homestead recovering from his ordeal. The galactic political situation is deteriorating, and it looks like war between the Agrarian Commonwealth and the Reliant Mentarchy is inevitable. Jerry’s ordered to report in, and the military puts him back into action. He’s a spaceborne Rifleman once again.

The last hopes for peace are dashed. War is declared! Jerry and his men begin their first war patrol. But the Mentarch hits fast and hard, and its atrocities leave the Commonwealth reeling. Jerry’s electrokinesis is Homestead’s not-so-secret weapon, but he’s still just one man. He can’t be everywhere at once, and the defeats start to mount.

The Commonwealth desperately needs a victory, something to boost morale. Jerry knows his ability is powerful enough to swing a battle. But he still has orders to follow, and his options are limited. If he can’t find a way to help turn the tide soon, it might never happen. Because the Mentarch is relentless, and it’s determined to reduce the Commonwealth to a collection of ruined worlds.

Seeds of Change by Willow Thomson:

Jey is an introverted, intuitive healer with nothing left to lose. All her healing skill couldn’t save her mother from a virulent manmade virus. The heat index of 2071 Earth has reached crippling levels. Jey is barely coping—until she stumbles upon an opportunity to join the crew of Two by Two, the first colony ship set to launch from the ailing Earth.

The mission—to create an idealistic artisan colony on an unexplored exoplanet—fits right in with Jey’s dreams. Her friendship with a clairvoyant child onboard the ship, her growing empathic abilities, and her bumbling attempts at love bring her hope.

But when a rival corporation sabotages the ship, and their target planet is a blasted wasteland, Jey finds herself at the center of the conflict.

Can she set aside her old self destructive patterns? Can she take a leap into a new way of being—and seeing to save her colony? Join Jey and her shipmates on the journey to Aride to find out.

Seeds of Change is a soft science fiction novel with a splash of metaphysics and magic. It is a coming of age story with big themes, small pleasures, and an ensemble cast of characters living in a world you won’t want to leave.

Outcasts of the Earth by James David Victor:

Criminals. Murderers. Thieves. That’s what makes the Outcast Marines special. And expendable.

The Outcast Marines are the worst of the worst. If you’re conscripted, you will likely spend the rest of your days going on desperate missions that no one else can, or will, do. That’s an option Solomon, Jezzie, Malady, and the other Outcasts gladly took, though, because the alternative was certain death on a remote prison moon. And that’s a good thing, because sometimes it takes some truly bad guys to save the day.

Outcasts of Earth is the first book in the Outcast Marines series. If you like gritty science fiction with “heroes” who are anything but, the Outcast Marines will suck you into their battle to save humanity, from itself and the rest of the galaxy.

Download Outcasts of Earth and see how the “bad guys” save humanity in the 23rd century!

The Sword of the Kaigen by M.L. Wang

On a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.’

Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies.

Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.

When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores?

Second Coming by A.E. Williams

What Will Jesus Do?

After being crucified for Mankind’s sins, Jesus Christ and his half-brother, Lucifer, pass the time before His Resurrection playing cards in Hades.

They discuss the Plan of God, which they realize is another scheme intended to push Judgement Day thousands of years into the future.

After a heated exchange, Jesus gambles a billion souls that, by repeating the wager that Lucifer and God undertook regarding Job several thousand years prior, Mankind will prove His argument.

Lucifer agrees, and the next day, Jesus rises.

But, as the years go by, Jesus realizes that Lucifer may have stacked the deck in his favor!

He publishes his parables and morality tales under various pseudonyms.

He uses His knowledge of The List, composed by His Father, to guide His readers to the Truth.

In the current day, He now lives on his yacht, the Virgin Mary, in the Red Sea.

As His wager with Lucifer draws to a close, Signs of the Apocalypse portend that the Time of Revelations is at hand!

What will He do to save the human race from itself?

Send to Kindle

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for February 2019

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

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

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have plenty of cozy mysteries, small town mysteries, craft mysteries, animal mysteries, hardboiled mysteries, historical mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, action thrillers, historical thrillers, pulp thrillers, science fiction thrillers, police procedurals, private investigators, amateur sleuths, serial killers, assassins, vigilantes, CIA agents, dead people who got better, cold cases, crime-busting witches, crime-busting ghosts, overweight detectives, murder on the seaside and ski lodges, in country manors and libraries, in big cities and small towns, in Upstate New York, the Missouri backwoods, New York City, Australia, London and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Dying for an Education by Stacey Alabaster:

Alyson has headed off to university to explore higher education, leaving Claire back in Eden Bay for an adventure of her own. When a professor turns up dead, Alyson must find a killer before her potential education gets the best of her. Can Alyson and Claire survive their separate adventures and bring a killer to justice?

Dying for an Education is the tenth book in the Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery series, a fast-paced cozy mystery with an authentic Australian flair. If you quirky characters and unexpected twists, you’re going to love the Alyson and Claire.

Bridge to Burn by Rachel Amphlett:

When a mummified body is found in a renovated building, the gruesome discovery leads Detective Kay Hunter and her team into a complex murder investigation.

The subsequent police inquiry exposes corruption, lies and organised crime within the tight-knit community – and Kay’s determination to seek justice for the young murder victim could ruin the reputations of men who will do anything to protect their business interests.

But as Kay closes in on the killer, tragedy strikes closer to home in an event that will send a shockwave through her personal life and make her question everything she values.

Can Kay keep her private and professional life under control while she tries to unravel one of the strangest murder cases of her career?

She’ll Stitch You Up by B.K. Baxter:

After her generous, and unintentional, donation for splinter-free park benches, Velma Harmon gets invited to a charity dinner hosted by the Beautification Committee of Bliss at the home of Everett Gaines, one of the wealthiest widowers in town. With no interest in going, she hopes to find adventure elsewhere, much to the dismay of Ethel and Chief Rayne. Ethel has always wanted to see Gaines Manor up close, and Chief Rayne just wants Velma to enjoy her retirement and stay out of trouble.

When Ethel begs her to go to the event in hopes of finding herself a man, Velma reluctantly agrees. But when a heavy storm takes out a tree and a bridge, Velma finds herself trapped in Gaines Manor with two dead bodies, one handsome mailman, and a vicious killer. Who said nothing exciting ever happens in Bliss, Texas?

A Valentine for the Silencer by Cora Buhlert:

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

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

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

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

Welcome to a very flapper Valentine’s Day!

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

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

Winter Frost by Lauren Carr:

It all started with a chance encounter in the city with Blair, his late wife.

Chris Matheson and the Geezer Squad, working under the guise of a book club, dig into the events surrounding his late wife’s supposed death halfway around the globe. A state department employee shoots himself in the back three times. A CIA operative goes missing. A woman is targeted by an international assassin three years after being declared dead in a terrorist attack overseas.

Nothing is as it seems.

In his most personal cold case, Chris fights to uncover why the state department told him that Blair, the mother of his children, had been killed when she was alive. What had she uncovered that has made her a target? Who terrified her so much that she had gone into hiding and why are they now after him?

Killer Blow by M.A. Comley:

A hunter on the prowl…

On the scent of his next victim.

DI Sara Ramsey has to dig deep to find an evil suspect who gets a thrill out of chasing victims to their deaths.

The murderer is smart, inventing new methods of tracking down his victims. Just as the inspector senses she’s closing in on the culprit, they change their MO, undoing all her hard work.

The media is striking fear into the residents. Can Sara set aside her personal problems and prevent the killing spree causing havoc on her patch?

Murder in Downfell Manor by E.M. Cooper:

Eleanor Blakely hails from a long line of talented witches, yet after failing to graduate from the Fanglewick School of Magic her prospects look grim. An apprenticeship at the Wandermere Observatory in the Department of Astronomical Predictions offers her a second chance to gain registration as a magic practitioner, but after falling asleep on the job, missing the planetary alignment in the newly discovered Merlin constellation and mistaking a dragon weyr flying over Wandermere for the Cazilla comet shower, she’s booted out. In the Old World, a magically unlicensed adult witch sits just above humans and troublesome teenage goblins on the scale of social worthiness, well below the most ordinary elves, witches and wizards. Unable to practise magic and in her mid-twenties, Eleanor endures work as a transfer officer, supervising humans on the wards of Silverwing Hospital. Her team transports witches and wizards suffering a fatal affliction, known as magic madness or magdolor, to St Blightus, an asylum in the south. In the midst of a transfer, a murder changes everything, forcing her to flee across dimensions to Earth with an amnesiac wizard. Pursued by ruthless elves, she takes refuge in Downfell Manor, where her grandmother, Lucinda and her strange cat, Bella reside. Murder and mayhem follow Eleanor and Artemis, their paths inevitably crossing those of a non-magical wizard, Detective Finley Quiveridge.

The Girl in the Woods by Chris Culver:

A volunteer found the body while searching the Missouri backwoods for a pair of missing teenagers. The victim was murdered and dumped at a camp site deep in the woods.

It’s tornado season in central Missouri. The air is still. The sky is dark green. There’s a wall cloud to the west.

A nasty storm is coming…

Detective Joe Court knows her team shouldn’t be out there, but they need to collect the evidence before it’s destroyed.

Little does Joe know, that storm should be the least of her concerns…

Letters in the Library by Kathi Daley:

A heartwarming cozy mystery series about losing everything, taking a chance, and starting again.

After suffering a personal tragedy Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos. What Abby thought she needed was alone time to heal. What she ended up with was, an inn she never knew she wanted, a cat she couldn’t seem to convince to leave, and a new family she’d never be able to live without.

In book 2 of the series, Abby finds a bundle of letters which had been written in 1954 in the wall of the library after Lonnie tears it down as part of the remodel. Intrigued by the secret revealed in the letters, Abby and Georgia set out to find the rest of the story.

Meanwhile, Chief Colt Wilder uncovers a new clue relating to the death of a local girl the previous summer. In spite of her vow to focus her time on her writing, Abby finds herself pulled into the tangled web of half truths that may tell a different story than was first believed true.

Join Abby, Georgia, Rufus, and Ramos, as they continue with the remodel on the old mansion, prepare for a busy summer season, and continue to find a new meaning for their lives in the charming small town of Holiday Bay.

North Country Girl by Anthony DeCastro:

Voices from the past are best left there.

Myrtle Beach PI Fuzzy Koella knows this better than anyone.

But when his old teammate Jo Jo Bigtree calls about a young vagabond accused of murdering a nun, Fuzzy doesn’t heed that advice.

In the frigid landscape of Upstate New York, Fuzzy finds a town with a penchant for violence and dark secrets. An abusive high school hockey coach. A Voodoo doctor. A corrupt Tribal Sheriff. Even his own friend and the good Sister, herself.

As the temperature drops and the body count rises, Fuzzy questions the wisdom of sticking around to catch another bullet. Or worse, freezing to death. But a scared kid sits in jail that nobody seems to care about except Fuzzy.

Fuzzy Koella returns in his second, exciting adventure. If you love witty detective novels with a dose of hard-boiled action, you won’t want to miss North Country Girl.

The Fat Detective in Love by Christian Hayes:

Eugene Blake Is Back

When Eugene fills out an online dating profile he does not expect it to lead to his next case.

But his search for love triggers a mystery involving a glamorous (straight-to-video) movie actress, a shadowy society known as The Brotherhood of Broken Hearts and a fictitious 1940s New York detective. Oh, and he might just fall in love along the way.

This all means that Eugene is forced to put on his raincoat and head out into the rain-soaked city again.

Captivating, inventive and mysterious, The Fat Detective in Love is the second exciting book in the Eugene Blake trilogy by London novelist Christian Hayes.

Read now to find how Eugene’s journey as the most under-qualified detective in London continues…

The Ghost Who Says I Do by Bobbi Holmes:

A Valentine’s Day Wedding at Marlow House?

Love is in the air—along with secrets—some are deadlier than others.

Will secrets from Clint Marlow’s past come back to haunt Walt and Danielle?

 

 

A Book of Truths by Ty Hutchinson:

She’s feisty. She’s fearless. She’s fifteen. Meet Mui, the assassin’s daughter.

When a book filled with cryptic handwriting falls into Mui’s possession, she thinks nothing of the scribbling—until she learns the writings are hidden messages, and one is connected to her past.

But Mui’s not the only one interested in deciphering the symbols. Someone is killing anyone with knowledge of that information. Will Mui fall victim while figuring out her connection to the book?

A Book of Truths is the first installment in a gripping series about a mother-and-daughter assassin duo.

Ghoul You Be My Valentine? by Olivia Jaymes:

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

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

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

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

The Spoils of War by Ethan Johnson:

Be careful what you search for…

After a successful tactical strike against The Thirteen, Ana Lode searches the city for her fellow rookie officer Sloan, who languishes in a secret detention facility.

This causes friction between Ana and the mysterious Klark, who insists on her undivided attention in the struggle to free the city from the iron grip of The Thirteen.

When Diane Pembrook leads a strike team to their remote hideout, Ana is forced to choose between her loyalty to Klark and her vow to save Sloan. What — and who — is she willing to sacrifice in the name of justice?

Freaky Witches by Amanda M. Lee:

Mystic Caravan Circus is heading for the Midwest … and their first stop is Michigan. Hemlock Cove to be exact.

Poet Parker is looking forward to what she believes will be a quiet time. Hemlock Cove isn’t big, after all, and Mystic Caravan is essentially serving as the centerpiece for a paranormal festival in a town where everyone pretends to be witches.

There’s just one problem … real witches are afoot, and they’re unbelievably powerful.

When a body drops close to the circus grounds, Poet finds herself facing off with local law enforcement, the town’s only reporter, and an elderly witch who is set in her ways … and knows exactly how she’s going to do things no matter who agrees with her or not.

Yes, Poet is about to interact with the Winchester witches, and who comes out on top is anybody’s guess. The only thing both factions know is that they have to work together to uncover a killer and keep their true natures under wraps. That’s easier said than done, especially when Nellie and Aunt Tillie join forces and decided to take control of the situation.

It’s a battle for supremacy, with Mystic Caravan in one corner and the Wicked Witches of the Midwest in the other. Both sides are going to come out swinging … and cursing.

Place your bets.

Lady Rample and Cupid’s Kiss by Shéa MacLeod:

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

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

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

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

Arsenic in the Azaleas by Dale Mayer:

Riches to rags. … Controlling to chaos. … But murder … seriously?

After her ex-husband leaves her high and dry, former socialite Doreen Montgomery’s chance at a new life comes in the form of her grandmother, Nan’s, dilapidated old house in picturesque Kelowna … and the added job of caring for the animals Nan couldn’t take into assisted living with her: Thaddeus, the loquacious African gray parrot with a ripe vocabulary, and his buddy, Goliath, a monster-size cat with an equally monstrous attitude.

It’s the new start Doreen and her beloved basset hound, Mugs, desperately need. But, just as things start to look up for Doreen, Goliath the cat and Mugs the dog find a human finger in Nan’s overrun garden.

And not just a finger. Once the police start digging, the rest of the body turns up and turns out to be connected to an old unsolved crime.

With her grandmother as the prime suspect, Doreen soon finds herself stumbling over clues and getting on Corporal Mack Moreau’s last nerve, as she does her best to prove her beloved Nan innocent of murder.

Ghostly Hunt by K.E. O’Connor:

Murder by crossbow. A haunted house used for ghost hunting, and an unloved iguana waiting for his soul mate!

When Lorna Shadow takes on a short term job at Applebank Manor, she gets the shock of her life. It turns out she’s in charge of setting up romantic weekends full of ghost hunting!

When a recent murder comes to light and the ghost asks for help, Lorna’s drawn into the mystery, alongside Helen and Flipper.

As the mystery deepens, the house ghosts cause Lorna problems, while Helen has to get to grips with a broken stove and a giant iguana. Then another crossbow murder takes place.

With the police closing in on the wrong suspect, Lorna must move fast. Can she stop the killer before they strike again and save an innocent man? And will Helen help a lonely iguana find his forever home?

There will be ghosts, humor, romance, treats, and a murder (or two) to solve in this new cozy ghost mystery.

The Forgotten Mother by M.L. Rose:

When a famous film director is brutally killed in his home, Detective Arla Baker is called in to investigate. This killer is sadistic, insanely clever, and somehow able to stay one step ahead of the police. As Arla pulls the clues out, disturbing secrets emerge from the glittering glamour of London’s film studios. This director had secrets that an entire industry would kill to keep quiet…

Arla’s own love life is heating up. But before she knows it, the man in her life is threatened by this killer, and he will not stop till he meets his goal. For some reason, the killer wants Arla.

He’s watching her.

Waiting for her.

He will destroy everyone around her till he has Arla in his grasp…

My Wicked Valentine by Lotta Smith:

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

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

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

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

Valentine’s Bizzard Mystery by Linnea West:

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

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

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

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