Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 74

Some Comments on the 2019 Academy Award Winners

So the winners of the 2019 Academy Awards were announced last night with the usual pomp and circumstance and gorgeous gowns, but without the usual host, since the guy they picked disqualified himself due to homophobic remarks and bad behaviour. Not that the host was missed, at least not by me, we simply had the presenters making the more or less funny jokes. And without the lengthy opening monologue and jokey interludes, the ceremony went a lot quicker than usual. But then, I’m probably the odd Oscar viewer who would be perfectly happy if the ceremony was just the announcement of the winners, the thank you speeches and the “In Memoriam” segment with none of the other stuff. In talking of the “In Memoriam” segment, there were again some very notable omissions, though at least they included Stan Lee and Bruno Ganz.

I already weighed in on the very lacklustre finalists here. Compared to what might have been, the 2019 Oscars were actually pretty good. With one exception: The 2019 Oscar for Best Picture went to Green Book, a movie absolutely no one except for the Academy in its infinite wisdom seemed to like. Thus, Green Book joins the ranks of the “What the hell were they thinking?” Oscar winners along with the likes of Crash, Argo, Spotlight, The King’s Speech, Driving Miss Daisy (Hell, Green Book is basically “Driving Dr. Donald Shirley”), Oliver, The Hurt Locker, Chicago, The Greatest Show on Earth, etc…Some people would also include The Artist in this list, but I quite liked the film and IMO it’s one of the better Best Picture winners of the past ten years.

The critics agree as well. At The Guardian, Catherine Shoard declares that the Best Picture win for Green Book undermined an otherwise fine and diverse Oscar night. Also at The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw claims that even the highly deserved wins for Olivia Colman, Spike Lee and Alfonso Cuarón cannot erase the sting of mediocre films like Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody winning big. And at Der Spiegel, Andreas Borcholte agrees that Green Book was the wrong winner and that pretty much every other movie would have been better, even Bohemian Rhapsody.

When I talked about the backlash against Green Book with a friend today, they said, “But why? It sounds like a pretty interesting film and it’s even based on a true story. Besides, racism in the US is an important subject and everybody wanted more diversity at the Oscars, so why does no one like that movie?”

And that exactly is the problem. Because there is a good story hidden inside Green Book, it’s just not the story the movie chose to tell. Dr. Donald Shirley seems to have been a fascinating man, who was completely misrepresented in the film to the point that his family was furious. The history of the real Green Book is fascinating as well and will soon become the subject of a documentary film. And if you want to see what a Green Book looks like, the digital collection of the New York Public Library has the 1950 edition online.

But what Green Book did is take all this fascinating and little known (at least to me – it may be different for Americans) history and turns it into a mediocre and old-fashioned movie that is elevated by the performance of its stars. And note that absolutely no one has a problem with Mahershala Ali winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Dr. Donald Shirley (though many, including me, feel that Mahershala Ali should have been nominated for Best Actor rather than Best Supporting Actor). What has so many people upset is the movie itself as well as the behaviour of everybody else involved except for Mahershala Ali and Linda Candellini. Basically, the screenwriter – the son of the real life driver of Dr. Donald Shirley – has been accused of misrepresenting his subject and of making islamophobic remarks (which is particularly dicey because Mahershala Ali is Muslim), the director has been accused of sexual misconduct and co-star Viggo Mortensen uttered the N-word in an interview. Yasmin Jeffery sums up the controversy about Green Book at ABC News.

The problems were also made apparent in the thank you speeches of the production team, after Green Book won Best Picture. There was no mention of Dr. Donald Shirley or of Victor Hugo Green, who created the real life Green Book. Instead, someone – director, screenwriter, producer, I’m not sure, a white guy at any rate – said that the film started ith Viggo (Mortensen) and that without him there wouldn’t have been a film. The guy finally remembered that there were other actors in the film and briefly thanked Mahershala Ali and Linda Candellini, before starting to gush about Viggo Mortensen again. Which explains not just where the makers of Green Book are coming from, but also why so many people are upset.

Especially since there were two excellent movies with black stars – my personal favourites Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman – nominated this year as well as another excellent movie with a black cast – If Beale Street Could Talk – that wasn’t even nominated. Though all three got to take home Oscars as well. Regina King won Best Supporting Actress for If Beale Street Could Talk, Spike Lee finally won a long overdue Oscar for the Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman, though he lost Best Director to Alfonso Cuarón.

And Black Panther walked home with three highly deserved Oscars for Best Production Design for Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart, Best Costume Design for Ruth E. Carter and Best Original Score for Ludwig Goransson, the first Oscars for a Marvel movie ever. Even better is that costume designer Ruth E. Carter and production designer Hannah Beachler were the first black women ever to win in their respective categories and two of only three black women to ever win Oscars for anything other than acting. So let’s give them a hearty “Wakanda Forever!” Superhero movies also scored another highly deserved Oscar, when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won Best Animated Feature, beating out the latest offering from Pixar who have been dominating this category since its inception.

Now there have long been plenty of superheroes (or rather the actors who play them) present at the Oscars – this year, I spotted Nick Fury, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Ant-Man, Aquaman, Black Panther, Shuri, Okoye, Queen Ramonda, Eric Killmonger, Valkyrie, Aleta Ogord, Rocket Raccoon or rather his voice, a very pregnant Jessica Jones, Nova Prime, Batman and Lois Lane (who disturbingly seem to have morphed into Dick and Lynn Cheney) and Laura Barton (who, we’re happy to see, seems to have survived the Thanos snap, though she had the bad judgement to take a role in Green Book) and probably others I have forgotten. But even though superheroes are welcome as presenters (and in the case of Hugh Jackman a.k.a. Wolverine as host), so far they haven’t been welcome as Oscar nominees and winners. That is finally changing, even though the wins for Black Panther were only in technical categories (but in technical categories that are not special effects – which bafflingly went to First Man – and make-up, which equally bafflingly went to Vice).

But in spite of the disappointing Best Picture winner, there are several encouraging signs that the Oscars are changing for the better. For starters, both presenters and winners were a lot more diverse this year. Three of the four acting awards went to people of colour with two Muslim men, Mahershala Ali and Rami Malek respectively, winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Mahershala Ali is also only the second actor of colour ever to win two Oscars – the other is Denzel Washington. What even more encouraging is that the various “behind the camera” categories, which used to be dominated by white guys in tuxedos, have also become a lot more diverse. The team which won for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse included two men of colour and a woman, Best Animated Short and Best Documentary Short both went to women director teams, including at least one woman of colour (and Best Documentary Short was won by a film about menstruation), while Best Documentary Feature was won by a man and woman of colour. Okay, so it was a mountaineering film, but then my complete and utter lack of interest in the mountaineering film genre doesn’t mean that everybody shares it. And since short films are a training ground for future feature film directors, wins for women and people of colour in those categories mean that things are gradually changing, even if we still have to roll our eyes at the likes of Green Book and Bohemian Rhaspody. Never mind that 2019 marks the second Best Director win in a row for a Mexican director, after Guillermo del Toro winning last year. Finally, we also got several people, both presenters and winners, speaking Spanish on stage

Talking of Bohemian Rhapsody, in the end it took home four Oscars, one more than Black Panther and Green Book (which also took Best Original Screenplay in addition to Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor). In addition to Rami Malek winning Best Actor, a choice no one quibbles with, even if they don’t much care for the movie itself, Bohemian Rhapsody also won Oscars for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing (which it probably deserved) and Film Editing, where I’m not so sure. And having Mike Myers and Dana Carvey a.k.a. Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World introduce the film was a nice touch.

The highly touted fourth reiteration of A Star Is Born only got to take home one Oscar in the end, the award for Best Original Song. And though I still believe that the film is completely superfluous, because the story has already been told four fucking times (honestly, the whole “based on the 1976 motion picture, based on the 1954 motion picture, based on the 1937 motion picture” citation, when the screenplay nominees were called out, was ridiculous) and the sole surviving previous born star, Barbara Streisand, was even on stage as a presenter, I do feel that Lady Gaga’s win for Best Original Song was deserved, because it is a nice song and the live performance she and Bradley Cooper gave was great. Though personally, I would have preferred the sweet little country song from The Ballad of Buster Scraggs to win.

The equally highly touted and equally superfluous Vice a.k.a. “Let us contemplate the American navel – again” only went home with a single Oscar for Best Make-up. Considering that the various acting nominations for Vice seemed to be of the “confusing make-up and rubber suits (unless worn by Doug Jones, that is) with acting” sort, I guess it probably deserved that award. Though I for one found this year’s Best Make-up finalists very lacklustre anyway.

The also very highly touted The Favourite got to go home with one Oscar as well, the Best Actress Award for Olivia Colman. Now I like Olivia Colman a lot and she was actually my favourite in this category, though like everybody else, I expected Glenn Close to win. Olivia Colman also delivered a charming thank you speech, probably the best of the evening along with Spike Lee’s very political speech.

And then there was the last highly touted film, namely Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, which took home three Oscars for Best Foreign Language Picture, Best Cinematography and Best Director. Now Roma is one film where I deviate from what appears to be the majority opinion, because I find it massively overrated. In fact, I find the outpouring of love for Roma utterly baffling. I guess Hollywood occasionally needs the reminder that their domestic servants are indeed human beings. I also have issues with the whole concept of domestic service (long story, but I had a brief brush with the previously to me totally unknown concept at the age of 10, which has clouded my views ever since), which influences my view of Roma. As for its three Oscars, it probably deserved Best Cinematography, because the movie is beautifully shot. For Best Director, I would have preferred Spike Lee and Yorgos Lanthimos, but I can live with Alfonso Cuarón.

As for Best Foreign Language Picture, both Capernaum and Shoplifters are vastly better, but Hollywood isn’t interested in stories about street kids and refugees. And the win for Roma at least means that the dreadful German nominee Werk ohne Autor, which is inexplicably known as Never Look Away in the US, got to go home empty-handed. Because we already had a bio pic denounced by its subject winning Best Picture, so we don’t need another bio pic vehemently denounced by its subject winning Best Foreign Language Picture. The real story of Gerhard Richter and his aunt Marianne Schönfelder may be found here BTW (trigger warning for discussion of Nazis murdering disabled people). And besides, Alfonso Cuarón snagging two Oscars (Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography) from under the nose of Werk ohne Autor is payback of sorts for director Floriam Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others robbing Guillermo del Toro’s vastly superior Pan’s Labyrinth of its deserved Oscar.

Initially, I thought that I wouldn’t have had an issue with Werk ohne Autor winning Best Cinematography. But the cinematographer is at least party responsible for the creepy sexualised scene of attractive young women in silky underwear getting gassed to death by evil Nazi doctors, so I’m glad he didn’t win.

And as was only to be expected, the German cultural press completely failed to notice that one of the Best Picture nominees, Black Panther, has a German castmember, Ugandan German actress Florence Kasumba, who plays Ayo, second in command of the Dora Milaje. Florence Kasumba has just been cast as a regular in the long-running German crime drama Tatort opposite Maria Furtwängler Burda, which makes me want a crossover now.

So let’s talk fashion. There were a lot of gorgeous gowns and tuxedos seen on the red carpet and on stage. A selection may be found here, though they have forgotten Michelle Yeoh’s gorgeous gown, which is truly worthy of an Empress of the Universe (though Philippa the Merciless seems to prefer black leather). Pink seems to be making a comeback and several women were wearing what appeared to be variations of Jodie Comer’s pink fluffy gown from Killing Eve. Sometimes it works (Kacey Musgraves, Gemma Chan), sometimes it doesn’t (Maya Rudolph, whose dress looked as if it had been made from her grandma’s curtains). Nowadays, movies and TV shows rarely start fashion trends like the Letty Lynton gown, worn by Joan Crawford in an otherwise forgettable movie, did in the 1930s or the wardrobe worn by the stars of Dynasty did in the 1980s, so it’s interesting when one does. And do I detect the lingering influence of the Letty Lynton gown in the Killing Eve gown?

There were a few examples of “what the hell were they thinking?” fashion. I’ve already mentioned the curtain gown. The red latex gown worn by Rachel Weisz is another example. It’s not a bad gown at all, but what’s with the red latex bib? Okay, so if she accidentally pours a drink on herself at the after-party, she can just wash it off, but it’s still a very strange look. And while I applaud several male actors and presenters going for something different than the standard black tuxedo (as Helen Mirren said about her and Jason Momoa’s attire, “This proves that a middle aged English woman and a Hawaiian god can both wear pink), the camouflage shorts worn by Pharrell Williams made me wish for the boring tuxedos.

But the best outfit of the Oscar night was the tuxedo gown worn by a gentleman named Billy Porter, whom I admit I have never heard of before I saw him on the red carpet. It starts as a normal black tuxedo and then flares out into a ball gown at the waist. Absolutely gorgeous and yet another sign that the Oscars are changing.

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Introducing Thurvok and the Return of Richard Blakemore

Yes, this is a new release post, though one with a little difference. Because I’m not just announcing my own new release (okay, so I am), but that of Richard Blakemore.

Those of you who’ve been following my writing will probably recognise the name Richard Blakemore as the protagonist of the Silencer series, who is a pulp fiction writer in the 1930s – when he’s not fighting crime as the Silencer that is.

The Silencer series focusses on Richard’s crimefighting exploits — we only get brief glimpses of his writing, most notably in Fact or Fiction. However, I have always wondered just what Richard’s writing was like, especially since it is established throughout the series that The Silencer wasn’t all he wrote.

In the Silencer story Mean Streets and Dead Alleys, there is a brief scene where Richard purchases the January 1936 issue of Weird Tales and is pleased to find a new instalment of a Conan serial by Robert E. Howard, a Jirel of Joiry novelette by C.L. Moore, a Jules de Grandin novelette by Seabury Quinn as well as one of Margaret Brundage’s famous covers. He also muses that he would like to take a stab at writing something like that one day. This throwaway scene got me thinking, “What if Richard actually did write a sword and sorcery series for Jake Levonsky?”

Not that he would have used that term, of course, since the genre monicker “sword and sorcery” was only coined by Fritz Leiber in 1961. And just in case you’re wondering why Richard never acknowledges Fritz Leiber as an influence (though he was certainly one of mine), that’s because Leiber didn’t start publishing his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories until 1939, i.e. after Richard started writing the Thurvok stories.

Fast forward a couple of years to the 2018 July short story challenge, where the aim is to write a story per day during the month of July. Finding inspiration for 31 stories isn’t that easy, so I have a folder full of evocative images – photos, cover art, paintings, vintage illustrations and SFF concept art – on my harddrive which I flip through to see if any image sparks an idea. And one day, this painting by Michael Macrae entitled “Hot Dirt” did and I found myself writing a sword and sorcery story about a wandering sellsword named Thurvok who meets monsters in a desert valley. I was quite happy with the result and so I thought, “What if this is Richard Blakemore’s lost sword and sorcery adventure?”

Somehow, my mind kept returning to Thurvok and kept latching onto images and ideas that evoked sword and sorcery tales. And so, by the end of July, I had written four more stories featuring Thurvok and the motley crew of companions he picks up on his travels. Did I channel Richard Blakemore, while I was writing the Thurvok stories? I don’t know. All I know is that they were written under extreme conditions in the space of about a week, the hottest week of the year at that, and that they are quite different from my usual work. And so the idea to have a bit of metafictional fun and pass off the Thurvok stories as the work of Richard Blakemore, 1930s pulp writer and crimefighter, was born.

Hence, I decided to credit the story to Richard and pass myself off as the editor who rediscovered him. I wrote an introduction and an afterword. I also created a blog, a Twitter account and an Amazon author page for Richard and filled out a Smashwords interview in his persona, all of which was quite fun. In case you’re wondering about the author photo, it’s from a 1941 Sears catalogue.

And if you want to know how and why Richard created Thurvok, he tells his version of the story in his own words at his blog.

The first two Thurvok stories are available at all the usual e-book retailers now. There is a third coming, that will have to wait until the next announcement, even though it is already available at some retailers. And if you miss the Silencer – well, he has another adventure coming up as well.

But for now, prepare to meet Thurvok, the sellsword, and his friend Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, in…

The Valley of the Man Vultures

On his way to Krysh, a city of fabled riches, Thurvok, the sellsword, 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.

More information.

Length: 4400 words

List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP

Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, Playster, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.

The Tomb of the Undead Slaves

Thurvok, the sellsword, 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 Thurvok sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

 

More information.

Length: 4100 words

List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP

Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, Playster, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.

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Star Trek Discovery delivers a Saru centric episode with “The Sound of Thunder”

For the second time in season 2, Star Trek Discovery focusses on fan favourite character Saru. But while the last Saru centric episode was a triumph, this one was much less so. For my comments on previous episodes of Star Trek Discovery, go here.

But before we return to our regularly scheduled Star Trek Discovery review, I’d first like to point out that there is a big 99 cent/pence sale of romance and/or crime noir e-books going on at Double-Cross Lit. Lots of books and even box sets in two different genres on offer, including two of mine.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut!

To catch up, two episodes ago, Saru appeared to be dying, but then abruptly got better (this happens quite often in Star Trek in general and Discovery in particular), when his threat ganglia suddenly shrivelled and fell off (and were replaced by some very cool shooters, as revealed in this episode). Even more amazingly, Saru was finally free of the constant fear which had dominated his life so far. The miraculous recovery Saru experienced was largely ignored during the last episode in favour of focussing on the miraculous recovery of Dr. Culber who’s very much not dead anymore.

“The Sound of Thunder” picks up that thread again, when by some miraculous coincidence, another Red Angel signal appears directly on top of Saru’s home planet Kaminar, last seen in the Short Treks mini-episode “The Brightest Star”. Saru is understandably eager to return to his people and share what he has learned about himself and the physiology of the Kelpians, but Pike puts a damper on his enthusiasm and declares that investigating the Red Angel takes precedence over Saru’s wish to share his newfound insight with his people. The newly fearless Saru isn’t at all happy about this, but in the end Michael manages to persuade Pike to allow Saru to accompany her to the planet. Actuallly, sending Saru to Kaminar makes a lot more sense than sending Michael, because let’s not forget that the Kelpians are a pre-warp civilisation and so sending visibly alien Starfleet personnel to the surface without any disguises or precautions should be a huge no-no due to the Prime Directive/General Order No. 1. Not that anybody cares, because the Prime Directive has been suspended for the duration of this episode. At least, that’s what it feels like, because everybody seems to have completely forgotten that there even is such a thing as the Prime Directive and violates it at every turn. That said, Pike briefly brings up the Prime Directive, but his objections are quickly forgotten by everybody, including Pike himself.

Now I’m not a huge fan of the Prime Directive or more exactly its overly strict application by Starfleet (must I really bring up “Homeward” again?). I also suspect that the Second Doctor’s speech to the Time Lords at the end of The War Games, in which he calls their non-interference policy cowardly, is a response to Star Trek and the Prime Directive/General Order No. 1. So for me to watch a Star Trek show and yell at the screen, “Uhm, what about the Prime Directive?” really is something. Yet I did yell “Hey, have you forgotten the fucking Prime Directive?” at the screen a lot while watching “The Sound of Thunder”. Not that the plight of the Kelpians wouldn’t be an excellent reason to bend the Prime Directive a little, especially since the Ba’ul, the species that preys on them, because Kelpians are delicious, are real arseholes. But the way, Saru, Michael, Pike and everybody else try to help the Kelpians really isn’t the way to do it.

But first, Saru and Michael beam down to Kaminar and Saru promptly goes in search of his sister Siranna in one of many violations of the Prime Directive in this episode. Not that I cannot understand Saru’s desire to see his sister again and if paying a visit to Siranna would have been all the Prime Directive violation “The Sound of Thunder” engages in, I wouldn’t have minded. Besides, I liked Saru’s reunion with his sister (who up to now thought he was dead and doesn’t even recognise him at first) and the whole “bringing your girl/boyfriend home to meet the family” vibe of Saru showing up with the very obviously alien Michael in tow was cute. Even Siranna’s anger, once she realises that Saru only came home to ask about the Red Angel, is fully understandable. And of course, Saru can’t resist telling Siranna everything he’s learned about his physiology and that the supposedly final stage of their lives isn’t actually final, which once again is understandable.

However, the family reunion is cut short when the Ba’ul show up, furious that Saru is back and has blown their secret. Siranna tells Saru and Michael to leave, which they do by beaming back aboard the Discovery, leaving the Kelpian village defenceless and Siranna to be taken prisoner. The Ba’ul, still furious that they did not get their hands on Saru, comm the Discovery and demand that they hand Saru over or the Ba’ul will destroy his home village. Pike, unsuprisingly, tells the (still unseen) Ba’ul to fuck off, because he’s not handing over any crewmembers to hostile alien species. Saru, however, decides to go against Pike and ignore direct orders once again, which – if you remember season 1 (not that the writers do) – is a very bad thing indeed, which will get you locked up in a Federation prison mine for life, at least, if you’re Michael Burnham. If you’re Saru, however, nothing at all happens to you. And so Saru gives himself up to the Ba’ul and finds himself imrpisoned aboard a Ba’ul ship along with his sister.

Now we also finally get to see a Ba’ul and they’re not fearless evolved Kelpians, as many had assumed, but a completely different species, a creepy tentacles dripping black thing, which is reminiscent of Venom and the alien symbiote and also bears a striking resemblance (given 30 years of special effects development) to the black tar-like creature that killed Tasha Yar in the Next Generation episode “Skin of Evil”. There is a tense exchange between the Ba’ul and the newly defiant Saru (“I am Commander Saru”, he tells them), during which the truth about the situation on Kaminar is finally revealed, just as Michael, Tilly and Airiam (who finally gets something to do) comb through the data delivered by the alien infodump sphere two episodes ago to come to the same conclusion, because a reveal is always better, when it is revealed twice.

Basically, many millennia ago, the Kelpians were the dominant predator species on Kaminar and the Ba’ul were the prey. But somehow, the Ba’ul managed to turn the table on the Kelpians and stunted their development, so they remain in their docile state. Furthermore, the Ba’ul persuaded the Kelpians that they’re dying, when they start to show signs of evolving, and convinced them to subject themselves to a ritual culling before they can evolve. And besides, Kelpians are really, really tasty apparently. Personally, I would have preferred it if it had turned out that the Ba’ul were evolved Kelpians and that Kelpians become kind of arseholes, once they evolve (which they do, at least if Saru is any indication). But this whole plotline about dominant predator and subservient prey species that can switch places makes little biological sense (but then nothing about the Kelpians makes any biological sense – sorry, Saru) and is also a really old science fiction chestnut that goes back all the way to the Eloi and Morlock from H.G. Wells’ Time Machine and was also done better by Planet of the Apes, when the original Star Trek was still on the air.

Never mind that I find it strange that a show as focussed on peaceful coexistence and cooperation between very different species as Star Trek nonetheless cannot imagine two species coexisting on the same planet in any other way than one species dominating the other. Also see the Enterprise episode “Dear Doctor”, another “Sorry, your species is dying, but the Prime Directive commands us to behave like arseholes” episode, of which “The Sound of Thunder” is a little reminiscent. The Bajoran/Cardassian conflict seems to be another variation of this, though the Cardassians were an invader species that subjugated the native Bajorans. Though this is a trend going back all the way to the Original Series with what has to be one of the worst well-intentioned, but dreadfully executed Star Trek episodes of all time, namely “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” a.k.a. the one with the half white, half black people. Honestly, this one is so bad that even The Orville, which seems to have made it its mission to take Star Trek plots gone dreadfully wrong and try to improve them, hasn’t touched it yet. Okay, so it’s never made clear whether Bele and Lokai are different species or more likely different races of the same species. But the point is that Star Trek has real problems imagining more than one advanced species living in peace on the same planet. Even Star Wars manages to be more enlightened than this, since many planets in the Star Wars universe (Tattooine and Naboo are the most obvious ones) have more than one sentient native species plus human colonies, which seem to get along with each other much better than species living in equivalent situations in Star Trek.

But even though I would have preferred a different explanation for the Kelpian/Ba’ul conflict, the one we got nonetheless has potential. After all, the Discovery crew has to juggle the plight of the Kelpians with the (sort of understandable) worries of the Ba’ul what the Kelpians might do to them, if they’re allowed to evolve. It’s an interesting ethical dilemma of the sort in which Star Trek specialises or at least used to specialise in, before Discovery threw much of that out. And there are several potential solutions I can see such as Pike and Saru persuading the Ba’ul to let the Kelpians evolve naturally and convincing them that no matter what happened millennia ago, the Kelpians no longer pose a threat. Or, if the Ba’ul insist on being arseholes about it, Siranna could have returned to her people to spread the message that what they believe is the end really isn’t. Since she already is the village priestess, she would be ideally positioned to serve as a leader/liberator for her people and it would give this promising character a lot more to do.

So what does the Discovery crew do? None of that. Aboard the Ba’ul ship, Saru breaks free from his bonds and displays his newfound badassitude by swatting some Ba’ul drones around. Meanwhile, Pike, Michael, Saru and the rest of the Discovery crew have the brilliant idea to use the signal from the infodump sphere which triggered Saru’s transformation in the first place and transmit it to the entire planet to trigger the transformation of every single Kelpian. Without asking for permission or even informing the Kelpians (who will naturally believe they are dying) what is happening to them. And this is the moment where I yelled at the screen, “Prime Directive? Ever heard of it? Cause you’re just violating it in a really big way.”

The Ba’ul are not at all pleased that Saru and the Discovery have triggered the Kelpians’ transformation and plan to use their monitoring stations in every Kelpian village to wipe the Kelpians out to the shocked reactions of Pike, Michael and the rest of the Discovery crew. Honestly, what did they think would happen? Did they think the Ba’ul would just let the Kelpians evolve after they’ve spent millennia trying to prevent just that? And for a moment, I thought, “Okay, that’s it. The Ba’ul will wipe out the Kelpians, which not only explains why we’ve never seen them before, but will also give Saru, Michael, Pike and everybody else aboard the Discovery finally a real reason to feel guilty.

But the consequences of the Discovery crew’s meddling with Kelpian biology never come to bear, because the Red Angel just shows up deus-ex-machine like to shut the Ba’ul’s monitors/genocide machines down. Which is a massive cop-out. Not to mention that the fundamental conflict still exists. The Kelpians – those who survived the transformation, since I suspect many will have committed suicide just like Saru planned to, when he thought he was dying – suddenly find themselves thrust into a planetwide conflict with an opponent who is technologically much more advanced and who hates their guts. But that’s not the Discovery‘s problem, since they bugger off at the end of the episode to continue their search for Spock and/or the Red Angel, leaving the Kelpians and Ba’ul to their fate.

As for where they’re going, Michael at least has decided that she must return to Vulcan, because Saru’s homecoming and his reunion with his sister has suddenly reminded her that she has a brother – as if we and Michael were in danger of forgetting, considering that Michael has reminded us every episode so far that she has a brother named Spock who has gone missing. What she hopes to find on Vulcan is anybody’s guess, especially since it’s unlikely that Spock went there, considering that he’s on the run and wanted for murder (a misunderstanding, obviously) and Vulcan is the most obvious place to look for him.

And just so we don’t forget that the mystery of the Red Angel is the overarching plot of this season, there are several conversations between Pike, Michael and the newly assigned Section 31 liaison Ash Tyler about the nature of the Red Angel. Pike in his typical good old-fashioned Star Trek optimism believes that the Red Angel is benevolent, since so far it has always led them to situations where sentient beings need help. Ash Tyler in some typical Section 31 cynism (which doesn’t really fit how the character has been presented in season 1) believes that the Red Angel is hostile, because… well, I guess it’s either his job or his resurgent Klingon nature to assume every unknown phenomenon is automatically hostile. Michael, meanwhile, believes that they need more information.

Talking of Ash Tyler, he’s obviously back and sporting an impressive hairstyle and beard, but unfortunately he seems to have had another personality transplant between seasons 1 and 2 (but then, Ash/Voq tends to have a lot of personality transplants) and is pretty much just the mouthpiece for Secion 31 now – when he’s not standing around in the background glowering, that is (and Ash Tyler stands around in the background a lot. Honestly, he’s in almost every shot of the Discovery bridge, glaring at the scenery). This is a pity, because I liked the vulnerable nice guy pre-Voq reveal Ash Tyler from season 1 a whole lot. Though it seems we won’t get that character back. And while I like Shazad Latif and wish Discovery had done better by him, I don’t particularly like this iteration of Ash Tyler. For all I care, he can fuck off back to Section 31 or back to Qo’noS. As for Section 31, I know that a lot of Star Trek fans love the concept, though I never was a fan, probably because Deep Space 9 was my least favourite Star Trek. Not that I’m surprised that Starfleet would have something like Section 31, it’s long been obvious to me that the Federation is not as utopian as it likes to pretend. But if you must have Section 31, they’re best used sparingly rather than having them show up as a walking talking point in every second scene.

And regarding suddenly personality changes, I’m still not sure how I feel about the new badass Saru either. Now I didn’t particularly like Saru for the first half of season 1, because he behaved very much like a passive aggressive arsehole much of the time (which has nothing to do with Doug Jones’ performance, which has been excellent from his very first scene on). I came to like Saru better as the series progressed and by the end of season 1, Saru had blossomed into a great character. But the newly evolved and fearless Saru has also regressed into something of an arsehole. Though maybe we should be surprised, considering that Saru also turned into an arsehole when he temporarily lost his ever-present fear last season.  Though I really hope Saru comes to terms with himself and returns to his usual self, if a bit more confident.

Finally, Discovery also briefly checks in with the third crewmember who has undergone a massive change recently, namely Dr. Culber who was rescued from the magic mushroom universe and resurrected in a completely new body based on the DNA blueprints of the original. However, the body is brand-new, and it is missing scars and other reminders of Hugh Culber’s life and he clearly isn’t at all sure how he feels about that yet, even though Stamets is just happy to have his partner/husband back and the Discovery‘s other doctor (whose name I can never remember) just shrugs off any of Culber’s concerns and tells him to be happy about having a brand-new, perfectly healthy body.  How will this play out? We’ll have to wait, I guess. Though I hope that Hugh Culber’s death and resurrection trauma isn’t glossed over the way Ash Tyler’s Klingon prison rape trauma was.

I guess I make this episode sound worse than it is (though except for Gavia Baker-Whitelaw at the Daily Dot, no one really liked it). Because the truth is that as with much of Discovery, “The Sound of Thunder” was perfectly enjoyable to watch (and Doug Jones is always excellent, of course), only to promptly fall apart, once you think about it, as Camestros Felapton points out in his review. And neither Kelpian biology nor the Ba’ul nor the whole planet of Kaminar make any real sense and evolution doesn’t work that way either. But then, Star Trek has always had a bad track record on biology.

Next episode, we will be visiting Vulcan and might even actually get to see Spock, unless the powers that be decide to engage in some more Spock-teasing.

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Some Thoughts on the 2018 Nebula Award Finalists

The finalists for the 2018 Nebula Awards have been announced today, as have the finalists for the 2018 Aurealis Award and the finalists for the 2018 BSFA Awards were announced a few days ago. If you want to read the 2018 Nebula Award finalists, at The Verge, Andrew Liptak has compiled a list where to find the 2018 Nebula Award finalists online for free.

So let’s take a look at the different categories:

Best Novel

The six finalists in the best novel category are all fine choices. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse, The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang and Witchmark by C.L. Polk are all debut novels that got a lot of buzz last year, plus Rebecca Roanhorse won the Nebula, Hugo and Campbell Award for her short story “Welcome to You Authentic Indian Experience (TM)” last year. Sam J. Miller, author of Blackfish City, is an excellent short fiction writer and won the Andre Norton Award last year for The Art of Starving. Mary Robinette Kowal, who is nominated for The Calculating Stars, a novel in her Lady Astronaut series, is a fine and popular author and will probably be the new president of the SFWA soon. Naomi Novik is another longterm Hugo and Nebula favourite (and a previous Nebula winner for Uprooted), though I haven’t read this year’s finalist Spinning Silver yet, because I don’t much care for fairytale retellings.

There is surprisingly little overlap between this year’s Nebula finalists and my personal Hugo picks (though I haven’t yet finalised my ballot) in this category, but then I have only read one of the Nebula finalists, namely Trail of Lightning, which I enjoyed a whole lot. Two more are on my “Check this out sometime” list and the remaining three are books I passed on, usually because the theme, blurb or subgenre is something that does not interest me. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be sad if the Hugo best novel shortlist looked like the Nebula shortlist this year.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 3 writers of colour, at least one LGBT writer.

Best Novella:

Again, this is a very good and not overly surprising shortlist. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells is part of the hugely popular Murderbot series and a sequel to last year’s Nebula and Hugo winner in this category. Though I’m a bit surprised that the Nebula voters went for this particular Murderbot novella rather than Exit Strategy or Rogue Protocol. The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard is a lovely Sherlock Holmes variation and part of her Xuya Universe. The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark is a great Steampunky alternate history novella set in New Orleans, i.e. pretty much the sort of thing I’m guaranteed to enjoy. Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield is a cool Steampunky time travel novella with a highwoman protagonist from a fairly new author. Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson is a post-apocalyptic tale cum time travel novella that made quite a splash last year. What is more, Kelly Robson won the Nebula Award for best novelette last year. The only finalist that is a bit out of the left field is Fire Ant by Jonathan P. Brazee, a self-published military science fiction novella. But then, Jonathan P. Brazee is a popular indie SF author and all around good guy by all accounts and was a finalist in the novelette category last year, so his nomination isn’t that surprising.

In this category, the overlap with my personal Hugo longlist is fairly high, because three and a half of the Nebula novella finalists also appear on my personal Hugo longlist. The half is because I’m planning to nominate a different Murderbot novella. And those that are concerned about Tor.com’s domination in the novella categories at the Hugos and Nebulas will be pleased that only four of the six best novella finalists are Tor.com novellas. One was published by Subteranean Press, another is self-published.

Diversity count: 4 women, 2 men, 2 writers of colour, at least one LGBT writer, 2 international writers, 1 indie writer.

Best Novelette:

This is where it gets a little strange, because there are quite a few “Huh?” finalists in this category that at least were not on my radar at all. But let’s start with a finalist that’s not only on my radar, but will almost certainly make my Hugo ballot, namely The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander, an alternate history novelette about elephants, radium girls and the general shittiness of human beings. Brooke Bolander writes great and hard-hitting short fiction and has been nominated for both the Hugos and Nebulas before. She’s also one of those authors I inevitably check out, whenever their name shows up in a table of contents. “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” by Tina Connolly is a fine fantasy novelette and also on my personal Hugo longlist. “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births” by José Pablo Iriarte did briefly surface on my radar, since the evocative title rang a bell. Besides, it was published in Lightspeed, which I normally check out. Though I haven’t read this particular story, at least not as far as I recall. “An Agent of Utopia” by Andy Duncan was the lead story in the eponymous collection, which got some attention last year, though again I haven’t read it. “The Rule of Three” by Lawrence M. Schoen is another story I haven’t read. It was published in Future Science Fiction Digest, a newish magazine I’m not familiar with either. It publishes a lot of international writers, which is always good, and seems to be published in conjunction with a Chinese science fiction group called the Future Affairs Administration. But though the venue is a tad obscure, Lawrence M. Schoen isn’t exactly a surprising Nebula finalist, since he has been nominated several times before. The most surprising (at least to me) finalist in this category is “Messenger” by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and R.R. Virdi, a military science fiction story which was published in an anthology called Expanding Universe Vol. 4, which was edited by popular indie science fiction author Craig Martelle. R.R. Virdi also was a two times finalist for the Dragon Award, an award which I hadn’t expected to have much overlap with the Nebulas.

By the way, if you’re wondering whatever happened to the Dragon Awards, Camestros Felapton posted about the latest progress or lack thereof on his blog.

Diversity count: 2 women, 5 men (which will hopefully appease those folks worried about men being crowded out of the major science fiction awards), 3 writers of colour, 1 international writer, 2 indie writers.

Best Short Story

This is another category where several finalists were not on my radar at all. Let’s start with the ones that were: “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compensium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow is a lovely fantasy story, which is also on my personal Hugo longlist. Sarah Pinsker is a fine writer whose stories frequently show up on awards shortlists, though I haven’t yet read her nominated story “The Court Magician”. A.T. Greenblatt’s name has been popping up in various science fiction magazines last year, though again I haven’t read her nominated story “And Yet”. It seems to lean towards horror, which is not exactly a common genre for the Nebulas. I also haven’t read “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by Phenderson Djèlí Clark, though it has one of the coolest titles I’ve seen in a long time. The two remaining finalists are “Interview for the End of the World” by Rhett C. Bruno and “Going Dark” by Richard Fox. Rhett C. Bruno and Richard Fox are both popular indie science fiction authors. Fox writes military SF and is a Dragon Award winner (hmm, more overlap), while Bruno writes both science fiction and fantasy. The Nebula nominated stories were both published in indie science fiction anthologies, namely the science fiction anthology Bridge Across the Stars (Bruno) and the military SF anthology Backblast Area Clear (Fox).

Diversity count: 3 women, 2 men, 1 writer of colour, 2 indie writers.

Game Writing

This is a brand-new category and one I cannot say much about, because I don’t do games. I was a bit surprised to see Bandersnatch, the interactive installment of Charlie Brooker’s anthology series Black Mirror here, because I would have put it under dramatic presentation (and that’s where it will go for the Hugos, if it makes the ballot). God of War is a popular video game. The remaining three finalists all come from Choice of Games, which is apparently a videogame company specialising in interactive fiction. Kate Heartfield, who is also nominated in the novella category, makes a second appearance here and Natalia Theodoridou is a name which pops up in the various genre magazines on occasion.

Diversity Count: 3 women, 6 men, though five of those six men are nominated for the same video game. At least 3 international writers, maybe more.

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

This is another weird shortlist, but not because the finalists weren’t on my radar – they were – but because I didn’t expect many of those works to be nominated. Black Panther is probably the least surprising finalist, because it’s a great film and one of the highest grossing movies of all time that deserves to win all the awards. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is another unsurprising finalist, because it’s a well-made and extremely popular film that has already won a Golden Globe and been nominated for various other awards. Sorry To Bother You is an satirical science fiction indie movie, which got quite a bit of attention last year, though I didn’t expect that it would make the Nebula shortlist. A Quiet Place is part of the current wave of popular horror movies that are a bit more cerebral than your usual zombie or slasher film. It also had an interesting gimmick – you have to be quiet or the monsters will get you. It’s probably not a bad film, though I haven’t seen it, because horror isn’t my genre and because I really don’t like John Krasinski. Again, I didn’t expect this to get a nomination. If a new wave horror movie got a nomination this year, my money would have been on Bird Box rather than this. Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe and Chuck Lightning is a beautiful music video and the first song/music video to be nominated for a Nebula Award, as far as I know. It’s also certainly a deserving nominee, though given the recent trend towards music videos and albums popping up on the Hugo and now Nebula shortlist with increased frequency, I wonder whether it’s not time to create a music category. The last finalist in this category is yet another episode of The Good Place, that unwatchable but inexplicably popular afterlife comedy, which was nominated for a Nebula and won a Hugo last year. I have already expressed my intense dislike for The Good Place at length and I have really no idea why this blasted show is so popular, when there are so many other great SFF shows out there.

Talking of which, Avengers: Infinity War is really notable by its absence. Ditto for Annihilation, which was probably hampered by coming out very early in the year. It’s also notable that no TV show except for the bloody Good Place made it, even though there are so many great SFF TV shows these days. But there is no Handmaid’s Tale, no Expanse, no Outlander, no Star Trek Discovery, none of sadly cancelled Marvel Netflix shows, none of the various DC superhero shows, no Doctor Who, no Hard Sun, no Altered Carbon, etc… Yes, I know that my tastes in SFF movies and TV shows is really out of whack with the majority of the Hugo and Nebula electorate, but this is nonetheless a strange shortlist.

No diversity count, it takes too many people to make movies.

Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Book

Compared to the previous category, this shortlist is largely unsurprising. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi is a hugely successful book that was probably the YA debut of 2018. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman and Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword by Henry Lien are also highly popular YA novels that got a lot of buzz last year. And Roshani Chokshi is another extremely popular YA author, though I must have missed her nominated novel Aru Shah and the End of Time. Meanwhile, the last finalist, A Light in the Dark by A.K. DuBoff, is one I’ve never heard of. Some research revealed that it’s a space opera/military SF novel and apparently another indie book. This is very surprising, because YA fiction is still very much dominated by traditional publishing.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 4 writers of colour, 1 indie writer.

Thoughts and Musings

This year’s Nebula Award shortlist is a mix of the expected and the surprising. Once again, it’s a fine and diverse shortlist.

One notable trend is that there is a lot of alternate history on this shortlist (I count at least six alternate history nominees, maybe more), which is pretty surprising, because alternate history is normally a fairly small subgenre. We also have stories about articial intelligence and fairy tale retellings on the shortlist, though fewer than in previous years. Smaller trends seem to be historical fantasy tales, which bleed into alternate history, and time travel stories.

The split between science fiction and fantasy is fairly even. Fantasy is mainly secondary world fantasy and historical fantasy. I saw very little in the way of urban or contemporary fantasy, which isn’t unexpected for the Nebulas. Science fiction seems to be split between near future post-apocalyptic and dystopian SF on the one hand and space opera and military science fiction on the other. However, what’s really notable is that with the exception of Aliette de Bodard’s The Tea Master and the Detective, all space opera and military SF finalists are works by indie writers.

Which brings us to the other notable trend on this year’s Nebula shortlist, namely the surprising amount of indie writers nominated. There are six indie writers and five indie books/stories nominated for Nebula Awards this year, which is a lot more than we’ve seen before. Now the SFWA opened membership to self-published writers a few years ago, so it was only to be expected that we would start to see more indie books on the Nebula shortlist (disclaimer: I’m not an SFWA member).

I also guess another disclaimer is in order: I don’t hate indie authors. I’m one myself, for heaven’t sake. I also promote a lot of indie books, both on this blog and over at the Speculative Fiction Showcase and the Indie Crime Scene. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I included Jonathan P. Brazee’s nominated novella Fire Ant in one of my new release round-ups last year – at any rate, the title rings a bell.

Because what’s really notable is how different the five indie finalists are from the rest of the finalists. For starters, the indie finalists are all space opera with strong military leanings or outright military science fiction. Again, this isn’t too surprising, since a whole lot of indie SFF writers, including the massively successful ones who are most likely to be SFWA members (there is a minimum income threshold for SFWA eligibility), write space opera and military SF. Furthermore, most (five of six – I’m not sure about Rhett C. Bruno) of the indie Nebula finalists are affiliated with the 20Booksto50K group founded by Michael Anderle. 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 and publish fast in highly commercial genres”. 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.

So is the relatively high number of Nebula nominations for indie writers this year the result of changing SFWA demographics? Is it that action heavy space opera and military SF appeals to parts of the SFWA membership that doesn’t see its tastes reflected as well in traditionally published works? After all, action heavy space opera and military SF has been present on the Nebula shortlist before, e.g. Jonathan P. Brazee’s Nebula nominated novelette last year or the various Charles E. Gannon and Jack McDevitt books nominated a while ago?

Anyway, it’s certainly an interesting development.

So far, there aren’t a lot of reaction posts (well, it’s early), but here are some I’ve found: Beth Elderkin has a brief write-up at io9, which focusses mainly on the finalists in the media and gaming categories. At the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, Joel Cunningham lists the finalists and offers a short write-up of the six best novel finalists. Abd The Ottawa Citizen has a lovely write-up about the two Nebula nominations for Kate Heartfield, who used to be the editor of their editorial pages.

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Spock is still missing, but Star Trek Discovery offers the return of other familiar faces in “Saints of Imperfection”

Nomen certainly est omen with the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery, because “Saints of Imperfection” very much highlights the many flaws of the show, all of them carry overs from the mess that was season 1. Furthermore, season 2 also seems to establish the pattern of one good episode alternating with a not so good one. So after last week’s excellent “An Obol for Charon”, we now get the very messy and imperfect “Saints of Imperfection”. For my takes on previous episodes, go here BTW.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut!

“Saints of Imperfection” opens where “An Obol for Charon” left off, with the Discovery still searching for Spock and Sylvia Tilly missing and presumed dead. Okay, so we and Stamets know that Tilly isn’t really dead, but everybody else is mourning her and Michael delivers a heartfelt eulogy for her first (and for a long time only) friend aboard the Discovery. It’s a lovely speech, but as Zack Handlen points out, it’s also a little much after Michael’s tearjerking reaction to Saru’s “death” (don’t worry, he got better) only last episode, especially since we know that Tilly isn’t really dead, but was kidnapped into the magic mushroom drive instead. But then Star Trek Discovery seems determined to give our tear ducts a workout to the point of feeling manipulative. Now I’m not much of a movie cryer, though science fiction and fantasy films tend to affect me more than traditional movie tearjerkers such as Love Story, Titanic, My Girl, Terms of Endearment, The Champ, Doctor Zhivago, etc…, all of which mostly just annoy the crap out of me. But even in the science fiction and fantasy genre, Star Trek isn’t normally something that makes me cry (not even Wrath of Khan, probably because I saw it after some of the latter movies, so I knew that Spock gets better), unlike e.g. Star Wars, which has a few moments which get me every single time, or the various Marvel movies. Therefore, the experience of getting misty-eyed at a Star Trek of all things show is both new and ever so slightly annoying to me, since I don’t think I cried at Star Trek since some episodes of the original series I saw as a very young girl. “Spectre of the Gun” stands out, because they kill Chekhov (don’t worry, he gets better, too) and he was my favourite.

But before launching into the inevitable search for Tilly, the Discovery crew is still busily searching for our other missing person, Spock, who is on the run after first checking himself into a psychiatric hospital because of recurring nightmares and then escaping and supposedly murdering three doctors in the process (The Spock we know would probably say, “This is illogical”, because it is). This time around, the Discovery actually manage to track down the shuttle Spock stole. But when the shuttle is brought aboard, the person who emerges is not Spock, but Empress Philippa the Merciless in her cool Section 31 leather outfit. What is Philippa Georgiou doing aboard Spock’s shuttle? Supposedly, Section 31 were also tracking Spock, only to find the shuttle empty and Philippa Georgiou just stayed aboard, because… Honestly, don’t ask, because this doesn’t really make any sense.

In a review of season 4 of Outlander, someone said about the fan favourite character of Lord John Grey, “He just pops up wherever the plot requires him to be”, which in the case of Outlander means Scotland, Jamaica and North Carolina, specifically Fraser’s Ridge and River Run. Philippa Georgiou or rather the evil mirror universe version is very much the Lord John Grey of Star Trek Discovery (even though she’s very much the opposite of the steadfastly noble Lord John in every other way) – she pops up wherever and whenever the plot requires her to, regardless whether this makes sense or not. And though it makes zero sense for Philippa Georgiou to show up in Spock’s shuttle, the plot requires her to pay a visit to the Discovery, so here she is. Coincidentally, Michael staring expectantly at transporters or shuttle ramps, waiting for Spock to show up, only to get someone else (Pike, Amanda, Mirror Georgiou) is something of a running gag this season. And as Camestros Felapton points out in his review, this constant Spock teasing is getting ridiculous at this point.

Unfortunately, Mirror Georgiou – though as far as everybody else is concerned she is the real Philippa Georgiou (even if Pike seems to sense that something is off about her and asks Michael about that) – has no idea where Spock is either. And indeed her reason popping up this time is not to facilitate the search for Spock, but to reintroduce another familiar face from season 1. Cause it turns out that Starfleet has detected tachyon emissions near the Red Angel signal bursts, which worries them so much that they have assigned Section 31 to cooperate with the Discovery on tracking down the Red Angel bursts and locating Spock – not because he supposedly killed three people, but because Starfleet would really like to know what Spock knows about the Red Angel. The Starfleet orders are delivered by another familiar face, by the way, namely Admiral Cornwell, Gabriel Lorca’s ex and surprisingly genocide-happy Starfleet admiral. Why would Starfleet assign its Black Ops division to investigating the sort of cosmic phenomenon that its regular exploratory vessels normally deal with? Who cares? None of this makes any sense whatsoever.

Because Philippa Georgiou is too busy strutting around her Section 31 ship, looking sexy in black leather, and her commanding officer Leland (yes, he actually has a name) is too busy looking pained and having some tense conversations with Pike (apparently, they went to the Academy together or something), the Section 31 liaison assigned to the Discovery is none other than Ash Tyler, Michael’s on/off lover, who is also a surgically altered Klingon formerly named Voq and single Dad of a Klingon baby currently being raised by monks. Yes, the entire subplot of Philippa Georgiou popping up in Spock’s shuttle served the sole purpose of bringing back Ash Tyler. Though except for Michael, no one is happy to see Ash and Pike doesn’t want him on the ship at all. But then, Ash used to be a double agent, albeit an unwitting one, and he did kill Dr. Culber in an outbreak of Voqness in one of the dumbest plot twists in a season full of dumb plot twists. Plus, the fact that no one except Michael wants Ash aboard gives Shazad Latif the chance to look tortured some more. Actually, the fact that both of them are terribly tortured characters is maybe why Michael and Ash make such a good couple. Though I suspect hanging out with them will get very depressing very fast.

But for now, tense conversations and moral dilemmas regarding the ethics of working with Section 31 have to wait, because there is still the missing Tilly to recover. Stamets manages to convince Michael that Tilly is not dead. Together, they investigate the pod in which “May”, the spore ghost, wrapped Tilly and find that it is a transporter of sorts and deduce that Tilly must have been abducted into the magic mushroom network. They decide to go after her and since Pike is the sort of Starfleet captain who actually takes Starfleet’s supposed ethics seriously, he goes along with Stamets and Michael’s plan to use the Discovery‘s magic mushroom drive to teleport them into the spore network in a manouevre that is very much like the one that killed off the entire crew of the Discovery‘s sister ship way back in episode 3 of season 1. However, if Stamets theorises that if they crash the Discovery only halfway into the magical mushroom dimension, they have an hour to rescue Tilly before the ship is eaten by the fungus spores. It’s an insane plan, but Tilly is in danger and – so Pike announced to the whole ship over the intercom – Starfleet never abandons anybody to their fate. This is probably also why Pike is so very pissed off when it turns out that the cloaked Section 31 ship has been hanging around and watching all the time without helping the Discovery.

Meanwhile, Tilly and her new spore ghost friend May are exploring the magical mushroom world. It turns out that May is really an alien being and citizen of a civilisation inside the spore network (according to Keith R.A. DeCandido, May’s people are called the jahSepp). However, the jahSepp are in trouble, because a monster is attacking the spore network and endangering their civilisation. Tilly, being another Starfleet officer who actually takes the stated ethics of her organisation seriously, promises to help, as do Michael and Stamets, once they crash into the mushroom world and are reunited with Tilly.

So the monster hunt is on. And once more, there are some parallels to episode 3 of season 1, where a Discovery away team including Michael and Stamets embarked on a monster hunt aboard a Starfleet vessel half eaten by fungus spores and found not a monster precisely, but the tardigrade. The monster threatening the jahSepp is no more a monster than the tardigrade was one. However, “Saints of Imperfection” gives us not the return of the tardigrade, but the return of Dr. Hugh Culber, Stamets’ husband/life partner (most reviewers seem to assume they’re married, but I don’t recall any official confirmation in the show itself). For those who missed season 1, Dr. Culber was murdered by Ash Tyler in an outbreak of Klingon rage and later reappeared as a sort of ghostly guide to lead Stamets home, when he was lost inside the magical mushroom network, something which happens with alarming frequency in Star Trek Discovery.

Stamets initially assumed that his encounter with Dr. Culber in the magical mushroom world was only a hallucination. Now however, it turns out that Hugh Culber’s spirit/soul/whatever you want to call it was sucked into the magical mushroom world, because Stamets was still connected to the spore drive when he discovered Culber’s dead body and so his overwhelming grief transported Culber into the mushroom world. Here, he found himself under attack by fungus spores attempting to digest him and fought back, somehow accidentally infecting his environment and endangering the jahSepp. Okay, so none of this makes any sense, but then this isn’t the first or even the worst example of Star Trek dishing up complete and utter nonsense to bring back a beloved character (The Search for Spock – the movie, that is – anyone?). And the reunion between Stamets and a desperate and traumatised (not to mention somewhat grubby and unshaven) Culber is so sweet and so well played by Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz that you honestly don’t care that the way they got there makes zero sense. Besides, the “monster” which turns out to be just a misunderstood alien life form is a classic Star Trek plot.

There is one more roadblock to the long awaited return of Dr. Hugh Culber, because it turns out that unlike Stamets, Michael and Tilly, Culber can’t leave the magical mushroom world. However, May has a solution and proposes using the pod, via which she abducted Tilly to reconstruct Culber’s body. Unfortunately, this means that May has to remain behind in the magical mushroom world forever, which leads to a tearful good-bye from Tilly, who by now considers May her friend, even though she’s an alien mushroom creature. And then Stamets finally gets to hold the reconstructed body of the love of his life in his arms again. Of course, Culber is very likely deeply traumatised by everything that happened to him. And knowing that the man who killed him the first time around is back on the ship probably doesn’t help either. But that’s a problem for another episode, cause for now we have one of the best couples in all of Star Trek (two, if you include Michael and Ash) finally reunited and there’s not a dry eye in the house.

“Saints of Imperfection” is not actually a bad episode of Star Trek Discovery, just a very imperfect one. And indeed, I enjoyed myself quite a bit while watching it. It’s the sort of story that should not work, but somehow does, largely due to the excellent performances of Discovery‘s cast, particularly Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz. The problem is just that once you start to think about this episode – e.g. for writing a review/recap/long ramble about it – everything falls apart and you realise that most of the events in “Saints of Imperfection” – from Philippa Georgiou’s deus ex machina’s like reappearance to Hugh Culber’s resurrection via magical mushrooms – make no sense at all and basically only happen to patch up yet more of the mistakes made in season 1.

James Whitbrook points out that this episode is all about love – love between partners, love between friends, hell, even love between siblings, for Michael is still searching for her lost brother – and even aired on Valentine’s Day. Now Star Trek is not really an emotional franchise and love is not an emotion any Star Trek has much dealt with and if Star Trek did venture into the realm of romance on occasion, it usually didn’t do so very convincingly. But as someone who likes a side order of romance with my science fiction, I’m happy for Star Trek Discovery to deliver all the feels. Though maybe hold off on the magical mushrooms next time, okay?

I’m not entirely sure why the episode is called “Saints of Imperfection”, though the title is very much a mission statement for the entire show. Because Star Trek Discovery is a very imperfect show, whose frustrating flaws are papered over by great characters and an excellent cast, a dollop of emotion and a hearty dose of sheer weirdness. In fact, what most distinguishes Discovery from other Star Trek shows is that it’s often imperfect, very emotional and very weird.

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

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

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

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

Roses & Tails by Barbara Be:

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

[image error] Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime by Cora Buhlert:

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

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

Quill Me Now by Jordan Castillo Price:

What if the words you wrote came true?

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

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

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

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

A Werewolf’s Valentine by Zoe Chant:

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

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

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

My Maggie Valentine by Kate Danley:

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

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

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

Vintage Valentine by Cat Gardiner:

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

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

An 8,500 word sweet paranormal romance.

The Dragon’s Valentine by C.D. Gorri:

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

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

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

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

The Ghost of Valentine Past by Bobbi Holmes:

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

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

 

Ghoul You Be My Valentine? by Olivia Jaymes:

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

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

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

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

Bear Valley Valentine by T.S. Joyce:

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

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

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

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

For the Love of Cupidity by Raven Kennedy:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deep Blue Sea – Pippa DaCosta

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

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

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

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

The Fox and the Wolf – Clara Hartley

Moonshine Valentine by Tegan Maher:

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

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

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

Heart Attack by Terri Main:

When Smelling Roses, Watch Out for the Thorns

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

A fun little mystery for the holiday of love.

 

Valentines Day: Time Patrol by Bob Mayer:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rainbow Bouquet, edited by Farah Mendlesohn:

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

 

Love Magic by Jesi Lea Ryan:

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

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

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

Validated by Valentine’s by Joynell Schultz:

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

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

Was her dream man a present or a curse?

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

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

My Wicked Valentine by Lotta Smith:

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

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

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

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

Dragon’s First Valentine by Emily Martha Sorensen:

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

As well as a few revelations and surprises.

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

 

The Dread Arrow by Grigor Weeks:

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Valentine’s Day is Murder by Carolyn Arnold:

Cupid’s arrow may have missed its mark…

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

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

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

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

A Valentine for the Silencer by Cora Buhlert:

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

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

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

He never brings me flowers… by Cora Buhlert

He never brings me flowers…

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

Lovers’ Ridge

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

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

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.

Murder on Valentine’s Day by P. Creeden:

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

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

The Valentine Mystery by Kathi Daley:

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

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

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

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

A Valentine Murder by Steven Demaree

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

 

 

Corridor Man: Valentine by Mark Faricy:

BETTER CHANGE THE LOCKS. BOBBY DID.

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

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

Valentine by Celina Grace:

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

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

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

The Ghost of Valentine Past by Bobbi Holmes:

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

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

 

Ghoul You Be My Valentine? by Olivia Jaymes:

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

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

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

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

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.

Moonshine Valentine by Tegan Maher:

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

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

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

Heart Attack by Terri Main:

When Smelling Roses, Watch Out for the Thorns

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

A fun little mystery for the holiday of love.

 

Sweet Heart by Connie Shelton:

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

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

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

My Wicked Valentine by Lotta Smith:

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

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

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

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

The Dread Arrow by Grigor Weeks:

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

 

 

 

 

 

Valentine’s Bizzard Mystery by Linnea West:

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

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

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

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Star Trek Discovery pays “An Obol to Charon” and gets back on form

After last week’s messy return to much of what made season 1 so annoying, Star Trek Discovery comes roaring back with “An Obol to Charon”. For my take on previous Star Trek Discovery episodes, go here.

“An Obol to Charon” features yet another reiteration of two classic Star Trek tropes, namely the encounter with a threatening cosmic phenomenon (or is it?) and “everything on the entire ship is breaking down and the crew must make do without tech”. However, though the basic tropes are well worn, “An Obol to Charon” manages to do something original with them and also uses them to develop and illuminate the relationships between the characters.

Warning! Spoilers behind the cut!

The episode opens with the Discovery still hunting for Spock, who is on the run after breaking out of a mental hospital and killing three doctors in the process – or so Starfleet claims. Number One, Pike’s first officer aboard the Enterprise (who is now played by Rebecca Romijn, but still hasn’t acquired an actual name), shows up to give Pike an update about Spock and his last known whereabouts in exchange for a cheeseburger. The Discovery immediately sets off in pursuit, but instead of Spock (whom I suspect we won’t see until the season finale, given the pace at which the search for him is progressing), the Discovery finds – surprise – a mysterious cosmic phenomenon (TM). Though this mysterious cosmic phenomenon (TM) is not the Red Angel whom the Discovery has been chasing these past few episodes, but a gigantic glowing orb, which pulls the Discovery out of warp speed and then infects the ship with a virus that causes every single system on board to break down.

Now massive shipwide system failures are nothing new for Star Trek – Starfleet vessels seem to experience them about as often as they encounter mysterious cosmic phenomena (TM) with holodecks particularly prone to malfunctioning. What sets this massive shipwide failure apart from others we’ve seen during 53 years of Star Trek history, is that the virus transmitted by the glowing orb mainly attacks the Discovery‘s communication system. First of all, the automatic doors get jammed, trapping Starfleet personnel in their respective sections of the ship. Then, the universal translator goes completely haywire and starts translating everybody’s words into random languages, making communication impossible and linguists’ hearts leap with joy. By the way, the implication that the Discovery crew (and presumably every other Starfleet crew we’ve ever seen) are really speaking a multitude of languages and we only hear them speaking in English (or German or whatever), because that’s what the universal translator spits out for us, is certainly interesting.

Since the Federation has universal translators, language learning isn’t really a priority for Starfleet personnel. And hence they rely on the universal translator so completely that they are utterly lost without it. But luckily, one Discovery crewmember has made language learning a priority and that’s Saru who speaks 94 languages and is pretty much the only one on board who is able to translate the dialogues between the various crewmembers.

Unfortunately, Saru isn’t feeling well. Initially, he believes he caught a cold from the sniffling alien crewmember (apparently the character’s name is Linus and his species has six sinuses) last seen in the first episode of season 2. But it quickly turns out that Saru has caught something much worse and is actually dying.

Here “An Obol for Charon” not just lives up to its title, which is a reference to the coin with which you pay Charon the ferryman when he takes you across the river Styx into the Greek underworld, it also hearkens back to a Saru focussed Short Treks mini-episode named “The Brightest Star”. Now I haven’t seen the Short Treks mini-episodes, because they are not easy to watch outside the US. But apparently “The Brightest Star” delves a bit into the biology of Saru’s species, the Kelpians. We’ve been told before that Kelpians are considered livestock, basically alien cows or pigs, and are farmed by an advanced alien race called the Ba’ul. When a Kelpian approaches the end of their life, they exhibit symptoms similar to Saru’s. Then they are either harvested – and presumably eaten (and honestly, what is it with this weird “Let’s eat Saru” obsession in Star Trek Discovery?) – by the Ba’ul or they go inevitably mad.

However, there are no Ba’ul handy to harvest Saru and the only other Kelpian eater we know of, the evil mirror universe Philippa Georgiou, is too busy strutting around her Section 31 ship in sexy black leather outfits and seducing Ash Tyler (Come on, you know that she will do that) to drop by and relieve Saru of his suffering. Therefore, Saru asks Michael to euthanise him, when the time comes. He also asks her to catalog his personal journals and deliver them to his sister and the rest of his people, so they can learn about his adventures one day. Cause it turns out that the Kelpians are a pre-warp civilisation (and you can bet the Ba’ul will make very sure they remain so – after all, they don’t want their cattle to go travelling around the galaxy) and Saru is the only one who managed to make contact with Starfleet, which also explains why we have never seen any Kelpians before.

But Saru is a trooper and so he keeps on trying to solve the puzzle of the mysterious glowing orb that has thoroughly messed up the Discovery up to the moment of his death. Saru’s dying wish to pass on his history and what he has learned as the only Kelpian ever to travel the stars finally puts Michael and Saru on the right trail, namely that the glowing orb is dying as well and just wants to pass on its knowledge to the nearest intelligence, which just happens to be the passing Discovery. Together, Michael and Saru persuade Pike to lower the shields and just let the orb finish its broadcast. So the orb uploads all its accumulated data (which conveniently also includes the location of Spock’s shuttle, since even glowy alien orbs know that Spock is of prime importance) into the Discovery‘s computer system and the shipwide systems malfunctions just cease and everyhing goes back to normal. As solutions to massive shipwide systems failures go, it’s a little too convenient, but than “An Obol for Charon” isn’t really about engineering problems aboard the Discovery.

Instead, “An Obol for Charon” is the Saru centric episode we’ve been waiting for since the start of season 2, if not since season 1. Because just as the Discovery‘s system failure is repaired, Saru’s final moment seems to have come. Together, Pike and Michael help the weakened Saru to his quarters (he sleeps on a bed of moss), where Michael holds his hand, tells Saru that he is like a brother to her and shares a tearful good-bye. Now this sudden closeness between Michael and Saru comes as something of a surprise, because for much of season 1, Saru and Michael didn’t seem to get along very well at all. And indeed, Saru’s constant passive aggressive behaviour towards Michael was a large part of the reason why I did not much like the character well past the halfpoint of season 1. But then, families do tend to quarrel and we also know that Michael is massively traumatised and comes from a messed up family background, because Sarek and Amanda are crappy parents. Coincidentally, the fact that Michael views Saru as her brother, even though the two of them were at odds for most of season 1, also reveals a lot about her relationship to Spock.

And besides, who cares that the sudden closeness between Saru and Michael doesn’t quite match what we’ve seen in season 1, when Saru’s dying scene is so beautifully acted by Doug Jones (who really should have gotten an Oscar nomination, if not an Oscar for The Shape of Water. And while you’re at it, give him an Emmy nomination for Star Trek Discovery) and Sonequa Martin-Green. Yes, it’s emotionally manipulative as hell and Doug Jones and Sonequa Martin-Green really gives those old tear ducts a good squeeze, but it’s also a great scene. And since Discovery has killed off series regulars before – Lorca, Dr. Culber, the real Philippa Georgiou, that annoying woman security chief who got eaten by the Tardigrade, Connor, the crewman who gets killed twice in two different universes – I was a bit worried that Saru might really die, especially since Doug Jones is very much in demand following the success of The Shape of Water.

But in true Star Trek manner – though I didn’t realise this as a kid and was worried and heartbroken every time Spock, Kirk, Bones, Scotty, Chekhov, Sulu, Uhura, etc… were in mortal peril (though Zack Handlen is mistaken, because a series regular – Tasha Yar – does die for good in The Next Generation) – Saru gets better. And so Michael grabs a knife and prepares to cut off Saru’s threat ganglia, which is apparently how you kill Kelpians (well, according to Evil Mirror Georgiou, the ganglia are the best part). However, just before Michael can make the fatal cut, the threat ganglia suddenly shrivel and fall off and Saru magically gets better. Plus, his constant sense of fear has vanished along with his threat ganglia and Saru is literally a new person, the first ever Kelpian to survive the terminal phase of his life and remain sane.

Okay, so Kelpian biology doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then Star Trek has never been all that great with regard to biology. And besides, the most damning implication of Saru’s miraculous recovery from near death is that the Ba’ul have been lying to the Kelpians all that time – quel surprise – to keep their livestock calm, as they willingly go to their slaughter, which puts the Ba’ul near the top of my personal “worst Star Trek villains” list. Of course, the Prime Directive – pardon, General Order One – forbids Starfleet from doing anything about the Ba’ul’s exploitation of the Kelpians, but you can bet that Saru doesn’t give a damn about the Prime Directive in this case, especially not now that his everpresent fear is gone. So the question is, will Michael, habitual Starfleet mutineer, back him up? What about Stamets, Tilly, Pike?

However, that’s a question for another episode (though hopefully one that will be answered this season), because for now the Discovery is still engaged in the search for Spock (too bad that title is already taken) and after almost losing Saru, Michael is now more determined than ever to rescue her other non-biological alien brother. Besides, another crewmember goes missing as well in this episode’s B-plot. Because even though there is a lot happening in “An Obol for Charon”, the episode still finds time for a B-plot or rather the same B-plot Discovery has had for the past three episodes, namely Tilly’s ghostly encounter with May, the fungus spore ghost.

When the glowing orb causes the Discovery to malfunction, Stamets and Tilly find themselves trapped in the engineering section together with Jet Reno, the chief engineer of the USS Hiawatha, whom the Discovery rescued in the first episode of season 2. With the Hiawatha destroyed, Jet Reno apparently was transferred aboard the Discovery and works in engineering. This puts her on collision course with Stamets and the two of them do not get along with each other at all. Of course, I have the strong impression that Stamets does not get along with new people of any kind – see his early interactions with Michael – and now he has also lost his anchor Dr. Culber, too. And Jet Reno doesn’t really strike me as a people person either. Nonetheless, the sniping between Stamets and Reno is a delight, not least because Anthony Rapp and Tig Notaro are so very good in their roles. And yes, Jet Reno makes the obvious magic mushroom joke.

But the situation quickly gets serious, when “May”, the malevolent (or is she?) fungus spore ghost uses the chaos caused by the systems malfunctions to break out of stasis and attach herself to Tilly once more. Via the possessed Tilly, “May” tells Stamets that she is an emissary from a civilisation existing inside the spore network. However, each time the Discovery uses its spore drive, part of that spore network is destroyed, putting “May’s” civilisation at risk. This poses a massive dilemma to Stamets, because obviously it would be massively unethical, not to mention a violation of the Prime Directive/General Order One to continue using the spore drive. However, for the time being Stamets has a more pressing problem, because “May” is putting Tilly’s health and life at risk. Yes, Discovery doesn’t just give us one regular about the die this episode – no, it gives us two.

Saving Tilly requires Stamets to engage in some emergency trepanning with a power drill. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it leads to a sweet scene, where Tilly tells Stamets about her favourite song (“Space Oddity” by David Bowie) and Stamets sings it together with her. It’s truly a lovely moment and also gives Anthony Rapp the chance to show off his Broadway honed singing skills. Since Stamets is something of a genius, his emergency brain surgery succeeds and Tilly is safe… for now. Because at the end of the episode, “May” distracts Stamets and Reno by getting them high on mushroom spores, wraps Tilly in some kind of cocoon and apparently abducts her into the spore network. So the search for Spock must be interrupted in favour of the search for Tilly.

I strongly suspect that the Tilly and May, the fungus ghost, subplot, only exists to tie up one of the more annoying loose ends from season 1, namely the mystical magical mushroom drive, which has never been seen in Star Trek before or since, and to exorcise the last remains of the mess former showrunner Bryan Fuller left behind when he walked away/was fired from Star Trek Discovery after two episodes. And like pretty much anything connected to the magic mushroom drive, the Tilly/May/Stamets subplot is a mess. Nonetheless, the scenes of Tilly, Stamets and Reno trapped together and getting high, while singing David Bowie songs and performing emergency brain surgery with power tools (which is freakier and trippier than anything the Original Series dished up during the actual 1960s) are a joy to watch, because the actors are just so very good.

I’ve said before that Discovery‘s great strength are its characters and its stellar cast. And this episode used them to their best effect, which makes it the strongest season 2 episode (Camestros Felapton also ranks it accordingly) and one of the strongest episodes altogether. Every character got their moment – even supporting characters like Jet Reno (more of her, please), Number One (more of her as well, please) and Linus, the sneezing alien (more of him, too) got the chance to shine. It alsmost seems as if Star Trek Discovery finally knows what it wants to be, namely a character driven show, which takes classic Star Trek tropes and infuses them with a dose of psychedelic weirdness.

And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a show I’m very happy to watch.

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In Memoriam Václav Vorlíček

Czech film director Václav Vorlíček died today aged 88.

You may never have heard Václav Vorlíček’s name until today, but if you were a kid in Eastern and/or Western Europe in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, you have almost certainly watched his films at some point. Because Václav Vorlíček was the man behind many of those Czech fairytale movies that were afternoon television staples for children all over Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Because – uncommon for the time – Vorlíček’s films crossed the iron curtain and entertained children on both sides.

His best known movie is Tři oříšky pro Popelku a.k.a. Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel a.k.a. Three Wishes for Cinderella from 1973. Forty-five years later it’s a beloved classic that is on Czech and German TV every Christmas, even though Three Wishes for Cinderella was never intended as a holiday movie and the snowy Saxonian landscapes around Moritzburg castle near Dresden (my grandmother hailed from there) were just a lucky coincidence, because it started to snow as Vorlíček and his team were shooting. Nonetheless, it’s a truly magical movie and a surprisingly feminist take on the Cinderella story, featuring a crossdressing Cinderella.

If Three Wishes for Cinderella were the only movie Václav Vorlíček had made, he would still be remembered. But he did so much more. Fairytale films were his forte and his oevre includes such classics of the genre as Das Mädchen auf dem Besenstiel (The Girl on the Broomstick)*, an early take on the magical school trope and the film that first introduced me to the trope, Wie man Dornröschen wachküsst (How to Kiss Sleeping Beauty Awake) and Der Prinz und der Abendstern (The Prince and the Evening Star). But he also made a lot of comedies, often with fantasy and science fiction elements, and even a James Bond parody called The End of Agent W4C.

Václav Vorlíček particularly liked stories in which the world of stories and fairytales collides with the “real world”, i.e. Communist Czecheslovakia of the 1970s, usually with hilarious results. In Who Wants to Kill Jessie?, a comic book character invades the real world, while in How To Drown Dr. Mracek, the Lawyer the last seven watermen of Bohemia try to survive in 1970s Czecheslovakia. In The Girl on the Broomstick, a sassy young witch flunks magic school and finds herself banished to the world of humans, as the clip below of Saxana the witch trying to impress her human teachers with magic spells shows. And who never dreamed of turning their teachers into rabbits?

But my favourite among Vorlíček’s works and one of the most delightful things you’ll ever see is the 1979 TV series Arabela a.k.a. Die Märchenbraut a.k.a. The Fairytale Bride. Once again it’s a story where the real world and the fairytale world collide into utter chaos, when the evil wizard Rumburak takes on the appearance of Karl Majer, a typical everyman who tells fairytales on Czech TV. Rumburak as Majer thoroughly messes up the fairytales, which in turn plunges the fairytale realm into utter chaos. The king of the fairytale realm sends his two daughters as emissaries to set Majer (who still has no idea what is happening) straight, only for the younger daughter Arabela promptly to fall in love with Majer’s son Peter. Things get even more chaotic from there on, as Karl Majer gets turned into a dachhound, the exiled king of fairyland is forced to work in a factory, Arabela’s older sister Xenia decides to inject a bit of Socialist realism (trash, factory jobs for everyone, housing estates) into fairyland and the seven dwarves discover what a flush toilet is good for. Unfortunately, they mistake it for a waterslide. We also encounter adult fairyland, which is inhabited by fictional heroes such as Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes and ruled over by Fantomas, the classic villain/antihero of French literature. A highlight is Peter and Arabela’s wedding, where the bride has unfortunately been turned into a goat and the groom into a grandfather clock by Rumburak. The registrar refuses to perform the ceremony, but is then forced by Fantomas at gunpoint to marry them anyway, because “if they love each other, what does it matter.”

I’m not sure if the wedding scene is intended as an argument for same sex marriage, though I have always taken it as one and have been known to quote Fantomas’ line from Arabela to opponents. Though rewatching Arabela as an adult, it’s striking how much satire and sly criticism Vorlíček managed to slip into this and his other works and that barely ten years after the suppression of the so-called Prague spring and around the time of the Charter 77. I suspect that Vorlíček got away with so much, because he made films and TV shows for children, so the censors didn’t pay close attention.

If you want to see Arabela, the whole series is online, but only in Czech alas. Unlike other Czech fairytale films of the era, Arabela never had an English language release, likely because of rights issues. Vorlíček’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves not only look like Disney’s, they even sing “Hi Ho, Hi Ho”, though Disney’s dwarves never mistook a toilet for a waterslide. And characters like Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Fantomas (who looks eerily like Jean Marais’ 1960s take on the character) were still trademarked as well. But if you want to catch a glimpse of what the show was like, here is a clip featuring a messed up version of Sleeping Beauty where the prince robs the sleeping princess instead of waking her up with a kiss.

Indeed, Vorlíček’s fairytale films pretty much ruined the ongoing renaissance of fairytale retellings in the English speaking world for me, because whenever I try to read the latest updated, feminist fairytale retelling, I realise that Václav Vorlíček did something similar forty years ago and that he did it better.

Václav Vorlíček’s genius was recognised in his native country and the Karlovy Vary film festival gave him a lifetime achievement award only last year and his wonderful films will continue to entertain children all over Europe. Unfortunately, Vorlíček is not nearly as well known in the English speaking world, which is why I had to write this piece about his passing, since the only English language obituary I could find was the brief article from Radio Prague’s English language site. This is a true pity, because he was one of the great fantasy directors of all time and deserves to be remembered.

So rest in peace, Václav Vorlíček, and thanks for all the stories that brightened up mine and so many other childhoods.

*I’m not listing the original Czech titles from here on, because the Czech language has too many characters that require HTML handcoding – sorry.

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A Science Fiction Promo and Richard Blakemore blogs

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Today, I have two brief announcements to make. The first is an announcement for a science fiction cross promo at StoryOrigins.

What is StoryOrigins, you ask. StoryOrigins is a new service for free e-book giveaways. One of those is the Blast off with Sci Fi giveaway organised by C. Gockel.

You can get 18 science fiction e-books for free, including one of mine, if you enter your e-mail address and sign up for the respective authors’ newsletters. Just click the link below:

Blast off with Sci Fi

February 1 to March 17, 2019

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In other news, Richard Blakemore, protagonist of the Silencer series, has started blogging.

How can he blog, when he’s fictional and lives in the 1930s, long before computers and blogs were a thing? Well, that’s the magic of the Internet.

You can find Richard’s blog here. So far, there isn’t a lot of content over there, just a brief introductory post as well as a repost of a “Meet My Character” feature about Richard I did in 2015, with some asides and comments from Richard himself (he wishes to make it very clear that he is not the Silencer). But there is more coming, since Richard just dipped his toes into the sword and sorcery waters.

Coincidentally, Richard Blakemore has also acquired an Amazon Author Central page, which was a lot more difficult to set up than I assumed, as well as a Books2Read page, which was a bit easier to set up.

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