Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 8

A Bouquet of Mixed Links and Two Estranged Brothers

There will be more new posts here eventually, but I’m still very busy with work, estate stuff and a sick mother in hospital, so there’s not a lot of blogging right now. However, I got some new toys and have some Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre toy photo stories in the works.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy elsewhere, so here are some links where you could find me of late:

At Galactic Journey, I delve further into the Lancer Conan series, particularly into what were then the last three volumes, chronicling Conan’s later career as King of Aquilonia and beyond. Actually, I was just supposed to cover Conan of the Isles, still the chronologically final Conan story, by L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter, but I also did The Hour of the Dragon a.k.a. Conan the Conqueror by Robert E. Howard, because it’s just so damned good, and The Return of Conan a.k.a. Conan the Avenger by Björn Nyberg and L. Sprague De Camp, which is basically fanfiction, but bridges the gap between The Hour of the Dragon and Conan of the Isles. There was a further volume by De Camp and Carter called Conan of Aquilonia, which does show us Conan and his teenaged son Conn, but that doesn’t come out until 1977.

There’s also a segment about the latest protests and legal battles of 1968, which gives us the proto-RAF being the raging arseholes that they were, a reminder that Horst Mahler wasn’t always a terrible person (and honestly, nothing short of “replaced by an android or a pod person” can explain Horst Mahler’s 180 degree political turnabout) and of course Beate Klarsfeld’s legendary exercise in Nazi punching, when she slapped ex-Nazi and then West German chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Until very recently, Kiesinger was considered the worst chancellor postwar Germany ever had, though Olaf Scholz seems intent to give him a run for his money. Though at least Olaf Scholz is not a Nazi. He’s just incompetent and possibly a fraud. As for Beate Klarsfeld, she’s still alive at 84 and a really awesome woman and I still think it’s a pity that she did not get to be German president, because she would have been a much better choice than Joachim Gauck.

In Germany, the year 1968 is permanently associated with student protests and the counter culture. The veterans (or would-be veterans) of those protests were my teachers and they kept on raving how awesome 1968 was and how it was the year of miracles. As a result, part of me always wished I could have been alive and conscious then and experience the protests and the general. But revisiting 1968 for Galactic Journey, it suddenly doesn’t look nearly as great.  For starters, a lot of the big protests actually happened the year before, most of the protests involved a lot of violence, usually on the side of the police, but also on the side of the protesters, and a lot of the big names of the 1968 counter culture were actually arseholes. Which shouldn’t have surprised me, considering many of my teachers, but it still did.

I also was on the Light On Light Through podcast with host Paul Levinson and Joel McKinnon of the Seldon Crisis podcast. In the main episode, we talk about season 2 of the Foundation TV-show, since we’re all big fans of the books. However, there’s also a second episode taken from the pre-chat where we talk about the new (and possibly final) Beatles song “Now and Then” and also talk about the Beatles’ adventures in Hamburg St. Pauli.

Going back another thirty years in time from the 1960s to the 1930s, I was also on the Postcards from a Dying World podcast with host David Agranoff and Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories. We discuss the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame anthology from 1970, edited by Robert Silverberg, which collected the best science fiction stories published before the inception of the Nebula Awards in 1965, as voted upon by the members of the then newly formed SFWA, and in particular the first story, “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum, originally published in 1934. The audio only version is here, while the video version is here.

Finally, since I promised you new toys and stories, enjoy this sneak peak featuring Whiplash and his estranged brother Ceratus, leader of the Caligars, i.e. the alligator people living in the caves of Subternia. Whiplash has been a Masters of the Universe mainstay since the 1980s, but his brother Ceratus only appeared in a few episodes of the 2002 cartoon. However, they actually made a figure of him in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline and was lucky enough to get him.

Ceratus, leader of the Caligars, poses for an official portrait. Unfortunately, it was not possible to persaude him to smile for the camera.

Meanwhile, his wayward brother Whiplash is exploring the caves of Subternia.

Ceratus confronts Whiplash.

You dare show your face in Subternia again, traitor?

Hi, brother. Missed you, too. Well, not really.

You’re a disgrace to our people, Torrant. And what are you wearing?

Uhm, armour.

We are Caligars. We do not need armour. And you look ridiculous.

Well, I think it looks cool and menacing.

It’s purple. Bright purple.

Says the guy who’s wearing earrings. And a nose ring.

My rings are my badge of office as leader of our people. And what’s your excuse?

Yeah, rub it in that you got to become king and not me. Jerk.

Oh, cursed be the day our mother laid the egg that hatched you. And now get out of my sight and run back to Skeletor.

***

That’s it for now. I hope to have more for you soon, once life calms down a little.

Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: The Maiden and the Monster

We still don’t have any Hugo voting and nomination statistics – more than a week after the winners were announced. And apparently we’re not getting them until January. However, merely asking when the stats can be expected is apparently an aggressive act against hardworking Worldcon volunteers now, so instead of digging into the Hugo stats, I’m posting another Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre photo story. The name “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre” was coined by Kevin Beckett at the Whetstone Discord server.

It’s been a while since I did one of these, because I’ve been busy with other things and also not really in the mood. However, I got a couple of new toys, so of course took some pictures of them.

Today’s story takes place in one of the less explored corners of the He-Man universe or rather multiverse, namely in the world of The New Adventures of He-Man. If you’ve never heard of The New Adventures of He-Man, you are forgiven, because a lot of people haven’t and many of those who have would rather forget its existence.

So what is The New Adventures of He-Man? It’s a sequel to the Filmation cartoon, which ran for a single season in 1990/1991. The New Adventures of He-Man cartoon and the related toyline are often considered the red-headed stepchild of Masters of the Universe. Both were widely disliked back in the day and even today, many fans consider New Adventures their least favourite incarnation of He-Man.

As for why New Adventures was so disliked, the main problem was that both cartoon and toyline ditched not only the familiar setting of Eternia but also all of the established characters except for He-Man and Skeletor, introducing a whole new setting as well as a new supporting cast instead. The premise is that the Galactic Guardians (later called the Galactic Protectors, after Marvel called dibs on the name), a bunch of warriors from the planet Primus arrive on Eternia to enlist He-Man’s aid in their war against their sworn enemies, the Evil Mutants. Since He-Man would never deny anybody who’s in need of his help, he goes along to Primus. Upon learning that there is a whole universe of inhabited worlds out there, Skeletor decides that he is no longer content with trying and failing to conquer Eternia. No, he will try (and fail) to conquer the entire universe now, starting with Primus. And so Skeletor follows He-Man to Primus like the obsessed stalker that he is and allies himself with the Evil Mutants.

After the original Masters of the Universe line folded back in 1987, Mattel clearly wanted to do something different when resurrecting their former cash cow. Instead of the sword and sorcery/sword and planet setting and designs of the original Masters of the Universe, they decided to go with a more science fictional setting and theme this time around, probably because sword and sorcery had collapsed as a literary and filmic genre in the meantime, while science fiction was still going strong in the afterglow of Star Wars and the resurgence of Star Trek.

The more science fictional direction might have worked, but Mattel also decided to jettison all of the established characters except for He-Man and Skeletor, which is probably what doomed the cartoon. At any rate, I remember coming across the cartoon on TV sometime in the early 1990s and thinking, “Oh, there’s a new He-Man show. Cool.” And then I started watching and thought, “Where’s Teela? Where’s Cringer? Where’s Duncan? Where’s Orko? Where are the Evil Warriors? And who are all of these people?” The original plan for what became The New Adventures of He-Man was to focus on the children of He-Man and Skeletor and send them into space, which might have worked better.

The fact that western animation was changing – the groundbreaking Batman: The Animated Series, created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, both of whom had worked on the He-Man mini-comics in the 1980s, came out only a year later – didn’t help either. The New Adventures of He-Man already looked dated, while the show was still airing. Even today, it looks more dated than the earlier Filmation cartoon.

The New Adventures of He-Man toyline had an additional problem, namely that the figures didn’t match the original toyline in scale and style, but were smaller and lighter, which meant that Masters of the Universe and New Adventures characters couldn’t interact with each other. And since there were only two or three years between the end of the original toyline and the start of the New Adventures line, the original toys were still around in toy chests and playrooms and were also easy to find at flea markets and garage sales. Some smaller shops might even still have had a few leftover Masters of the Universe figures in stock – I remember seeing leftover Star Wars figures in some stores as late as 1988/89.

Both cartoon and toyline sank without leaving much of a ripple and were quickly forgotten. In recent years, The New Adventures of He-Man have been reclaimed somewhat. Both the Masters of the Universe Classics and Masterverse collector toylines have integrated New Adventures characters – this time in scale with the other characters, so they can interact with each other. The New Adventures characters have also appeared in a couple of comics, including the Masters of the Multiverse mini-series by Tim Seeley and Dan Fraga, which brought all the different incarnations of He-Man together.

Since there now are New Adventures figures that are in scale with the other figures, a few of them have found their way into my collection. And yes, if you’d told me thirty years ago that I’d ever be excited about action figures based on The New Adventures of He-Man to the point of resorting to eBay to purchase figures that are hard to find in Europe, I’d have thought you were crazy.

In retrospect, the designs for the various Evil Mutants are actually interesting and highly reminiscent of the bug-eyed monsters that used to grace the covers of the less respectable science fiction pulp magazines. Alas, their heroic counterparts the Galactic Protectors are quite bland and much less memorable than the Heroic Warriors of Eternia. The more cybernetic redesign for Skeletor is also pretty good (I have the New Adventures Skeletor on order, but he hasn’t arrived yet) and I like the snarky, sarcastic way Skeletor is portrayed in the cartoon.

The New Adventures He-Man, on the other hand, is very much a product of his time. In order to be suitably attired for space adventures, He-Man has finally ditched his furry loincloth for tight blue pants, though he still doesn’t quite recognise the purpose of either a shirt or armour (though there have been various He-Man figures wearing armour from the original toyline on). The Power Sword has been redesigned to look more like a lightsaber and He-Man has also got a forcefield shield to go with it. But the most early 1990s thing about this incarnation of He-Man is that he wears a ponytail.

“I have the Power… in space! And pants!”

The Masterverse New Adventures He-Man shows off his forcefield shield and his ponytail.

But while the He-Man redesign looks all right for a late 1980s/early 1990s space hero, his Adam incarnation – yes, He-Man maintained his civilian identity on Primus – looks absolutely terrible. People may joke about the bright pink vest and Prince Valiant style pageboy cut that the Filmation Adam wears, but that’s nothing against New Adventures Adam who dresses in a kind of pseudo-Roman toga that looks like a bedsheet and who wears his blonde hair in pigtails with a red headband. Honestly, I wonder what whoever came up with that design was smoking.

So far, only three New Adventures characters have appeared in the Masterverse toyline, the He-Man seen above, Skeletor, who hasn’t been delivered yet, and one of the Evil Mutants, a character named Slush Head. And actually it was Slush Head, who prompted me to get the New Adventures He-Man and Skeletor, because the figure looked just so cool – like a bug-eyed monster who stepped straight out of the cover of a golden age science fiction magazine. But see for yourself:

Doesn’t he look awesome? Vintage pulp science fiction, fantasy and horror has always been a big influence on the various incarnations of Masters of the Universe. Lovecraftian horrors frequently pop up in the Filmation cartoon, the Valusian Serpent Men from Robert E. Howard’s 1929 novella “The Shadow Kingdom” have become a entire faction of villains in the Masters of the Universe world and Hordak not only looks like Nosferatu, but the members of the Evil Horde are taken straight from vintage horror films. And the Evil Mutants from The New Adventures of He-Man are bug-eyed monsters, though few of them loom as cool as obvious as Slush Head.

So now I had a hero – New Adventures He-Man – and a bug-eyed monster, so what’s missing is a damsel in distress. Teela really isn’t the type for that, but luckily, I found Mara, one of the few female characters from the New Adventures of He-Man cartoon to get a figure in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline (or indeed any toyline), for a really good price, so I decided to use her as a damsel in distress. Though Mara is actually quite formidable in the cartoon itself – one of the great things about Masters of the Universe and its various spin-offs is that there are a lot of strong women. Mara also appeared in the recent She-Ra and the Princesses of Power cartoon as a former wielder of the Sword of Protection.

So let’s see what happens when Mara meets Slush Head…

The Maiden and the Monster

Primus, the island of Titus:

I bought an RGB light, hence the slight green glow.

“Master Sebrian, the Galactic Protectors, even He-Man, they all think I’m just a weak girl who needs constant protecting. Even though I’ve had combat and pilot training just like the guys. But at least they let me go on patrol on my own. And maybe one day, they’ll even give me a real combat mission…”

“Scout out the Titus Observatory, Skeletor said. Spy on the Galactic Protectors and find out their weaknesses, Skeletor said. Screw Skeletor. And screw Flogg. It’s cold, it’s windy, I’m tired and I want to go home to my swamp. If Skeletor wants the observatory scouted out, then why doesn’t he do it himself… – Oh crap, a patrol! I’d better hide.”

“No, not a patrol. Just that girl. What’s her name again? Mira – no, Mara. She is pretty though. Real pretty. Hmm, what if I take her prisoner? If we hold the girl hostage, then we can force the Galactic Protectors and that accursed He-Man to surrender to us. Yes, that’s a good plan. Skeletor and Flogg will be so pleased.”

“Halt, girl. Lay down your weapons and surrender. Cause you’re now the prisoner of Slush Head.”

“Get away from me, you mutant terror. I’m armed and I can defend myself.”

“Is that so? My tentacles and my laser rifle will deal with your weapons.”

ZAP!

“Ahhh!”

“There, that’s better. And now hands up or I’ll be forced to stun you.”

“Don’t think you’ll get away with this, monster. He-Man will…”

“Oh, I bet He-Man will come to rescue you. In fact, I’m hoping he will.”

“You… you want to use me as bait for He-Man?”

“Got it in one, girl. You’re smart.”

It’s the classic pulp science fiction cover scene: The bug-eyed monster has grabbed the intergalactic maiden.

“And now come, my pretty. There’s a nice cozy cell waiting for you on Nordor.”

“No, let me go, you monster! Let me go!”

“Are you trying to hit me with your little fists? Cause that tickles.”

“Let me go!”

“You should be nicer to me, girl. Cause maybe Skeletor will let me keep you, once we’ve defeated He-Man and the Galactic Protectors.”

“Nooo!”

He-Man’s companion is not actually Flipshot, but the space armour that came with the Vykron figure.

“Put her down, monster.”

“Oh, speak of the devil. It’s He-Man. And Flipshot. If you want the girl back, lay down your weapons and surrender.”

“Take that, monster!”

“Owwwwww!”

Yup, Mara just kneed Slush Head in the groin.

“Owww! Not fair.”

“You’re one to talk about fairness, Slush Head. And now step away from Mara and take on someone your own size.”

“I’ll get you, He-Man, I will. And then I’ll drag you to Skeletor by your ponytail. And now feel the power of my laser axe.”

HACK! SLASH! SLAM!

“Mara, my love, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Icarius. Just a little shaken. Can.. can you hold me?”

“Of course. Just never do this to me again.”

Smooch.

“Game’s over, Slush Head. I should send you to the Prison Moon, but I’ll be lenient this time. Skeletor and Flogg are using you. So leave them, go back to your swamp and never bother me or my friends again. Cause the next time I see you, I swear I’ll send you to the Prison Moon.”

“You may have bested me this time, He-Man. But I swear, the next time it’s you and your friends who’ll be taking a one way trip to the Prison Moon or maybe the slave mines of Denebria.”

“Was it wise to let him go, He-Man?”

“Probably not. But I have a feeling that Slush Head isn’t evil, but has just fallen under the influence of Skeletor and Flogg. Maybe he will listen and return to his swamp.”

“I hope you’re right. Cause misguided or not, Slush Head is one very dangerous individual.”

“If he causes trouble again, we’ll be here to deal with him.”

“He-Man, Icarius, I… I’m sorry for going off on my own. I thought I could handle any threat. But it seems I was wrong.”

“You did handle Slush Head, Mara. But you still shouldn’t go on patrol on your own. None of us should.”

“Good idea, He-Man. From now on, we’ll only go in patrol in pairs of two.”

“And I herewith volunteer to be your partner, Icarius. Only if you’ll have me, of course.”

“It will be an honour and a pleasure, Mara.”

“I bet. After all, back on Eternia, Teela and I used to go on patrol together all the time.”

***

Icarius a.k.a. Flipshot is a character from the New Adventures of He-Man and member of the Galactic Protectors. He’s a flying ace with a jetpack and a space helmet and he actually did have a toy in the Masters of the Universe Classics line, though I don’t own it.

So who is the figure I used in this story then, if not Flipshot? Well, it’s a cheap Masterverse He-Man kitted out with the space armour, helmet and jetpack that came with the exclusive Vykron figure, who is based on a very early prototype, when what eventually became He-Man was planned to be a kind of male Barbie with different outfits. Hence, Vykron comes with three different outfits – Barbarian warrior, space ace and Eagle tank warrior – so I bought two really cheap He-Man figures and gave them the spare armour.

Here are the three different looks of Vykron. The Barbarian warrior in the middle is the actual Vykron figure, while his space armour and Eagle tank armour are modelled by two standard Masterverse He-Man figures I got on clearance.

The space armour looks like something out of New Adventures, therefore I decided to make the guy in the space armour one of the Galactic Protectors, so my New Adventures He-Man would have a pal in his fight against Skeletor and the Evil Mutants. Plus, this gives Mara a love interest, because He-Man belongs with Teela. As for Tank Head, I’ll probably use him as a Special Forces Royal Guardsman wearing special armour designed by Duncan.

And that’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Photo Story, because there will be more.

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

Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for October 2023

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

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

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have epic fantasy, portal fantasy, historical fantasy, sword and sorcery, paranormal romance, paranormal mystery, space opera, military science fiction, science fiction poetry, Steampunk, cosmic horror, wizards, gnomes, zombies, sea serpents, ancient evils, starships, space marines, mercenaries, gladiators, warrior princesses, crime-busting witches, jaunts through the Multiverse and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Josh & Sen Save the Multiverse by D.P. Behling:

Josh Tanner, was trying to fix his life and get back to his four-year-old daughter Sophie. Then he was pulled into the multidimensional world of the Immortals simply by being the last person on the elevator after lunch . . . and carrying a briefcase!

Senyak Marztanak needs to reacquire his immortality and his place on his family’s ruling seat. Both having been stripped away when he failed his grandfather’s trial.

Now, after being bonded through karma, Josh and Sen are forced to rise together through the levels of mortal cultivation to reach transcendence.

In a new and fully developed sci/fi-fantasy universe. Chock full of multiethnic mythology, ageless powers, saviors and treacherous villains. Josh & Sen Save the Multiverse tells the tale of two unlikely heroes pushed together by the fates, karma, and the most powerful immortals in existence. Through hilarious and life-threatening adventures, they form bonds of friendship and brotherhood. All while having to rely on each other’s unique qualities to survive eight iterations away from their universe of origin.

Follow Josh and Sen as they grow, fight, live, laugh, love and cry. They don’t know it yet . . . But for each to get home they will not only have to save their own lives . . . but the entire Multiverse!

Federation Marine: Recruit by Jonathan P. Brazee:

What would you do to change your life? How far would you go? How hard would you fight?

Rather than work his bones into dust toiling away on a barren world, Ryck Lysander chooses to enlist in the Federation Marine Corps.

But as he quickly finds out, this path isn’t just a job. . . it’s a calling. . . and not everyone is suited to wear the uniform.

Like millions before him, Ryck will need to develop discipline, endurance, and strength as he’s pushed to the very limit of what he can do, all to earn his ticket off a baren world and into the stars.

But the price of failure won’t just mean going home to work the dirt fields. . . it could cost him his very life.

The time to stand is now, and Ryck will need every ounce of willpower to become what the galaxy needs. . .

He must become a Federation Marine.

Omega Force: Dead Reckoning by Joshua Dalzelle:

Mercenary life is hard.

No home. No family. Always looking over your shoulder, likely for the rest of your life.

When you find a crew that you can trust, you do anything for them. Jason Burke has a crew like that. He would kill for them… and he would die for them. Right now, they need his help and it will take all of his cunning and skill to bring them home safely. He is alone, without his powerful ship, the Phoenix, and the criminal cartels he’s going up against are some of the most ruthless in the galaxy.

For Captain Burke it’s all or nothing: bring his friends home safe… or die trying.

A Vengeful Realm by Tim Facciola:

Peace bought by blood seldom lasts, for vengeance knows no end. The same is true for mortals and Gods alike. Decades, centuries, eras may pass, but the cycle remains. As war and revolution rise again, Zephyrus finds himself at the center of it all. Chosen by the Gods, hailed as a prophet of liberation, and forged as a weapon to break the kingdom and restore balance to the realm, hope rests squarely on his shoulders.

If only he could remember…

Enslaved as a gladiator and thrust into a prince’s game of espionage, Zephyrus has only two clues to help unlock his shattered past: a prophecy foretelling destruction, and a letter to the enemy king, promising peace. Now Zephyrus must survive the dangers of the gladiatorial arena, the cunning fury of the Prince’s enemies, and the Gods’ torment if he is to find the truth of his identity and fulfill his fate. But to have any hope of breaking the cycle, first he must secure his freedom—and not just from his slavers.

Within this vengeful realm, a queen protecting her kingdom, a prince defending his father, and a gladiator slave haunted by a prophecy each contend for their own brand of freedom. But the Gods have an agenda of their own, and they’ll use any vessel—patrician, plebeian, or slave—to see it done.

The scales must be balanced. By peace. Or by blood.

Achy Breaky Hex by Lily Harper Hart:

Hannah Hickok has a lot on her mind.

She’s engaged, with a wedding around the corner.

She and her husband-to-be Cooper Wyatt are building a house near the cosplay western town she inherited from her late grandmother.

And she’s gearing up for a fight with the witch who wants to steal her magic and kill her.

All of that falls by the wayside when Hannah realizes that people are starting to develop magical crushes…and the outcome is ugly when the fighting begins.

First up is local Sheriff James Boone’s teenage daughter. She’s overwhelmed by a spell when her latest crush’s attention is on the line.

Then the women at the bakery, all sisters, start fighting over the same man.

Then Cooper decides to come to blows for Hannah’s honor and it almost results in someone’s death.

Hannah is understandably confused. The only thing she knows without question is that there’s witchy magic afoot. Where is it coming from, though?

Hannah’s life is leading toward a specific fight. This fight, however, needs to be won before she can look to the future. Unfortunately for Hannah, the odds of winning are long.

There’s no evading the fight. So, here it comes.

Perilous Potions by Amanda M. Lee:

Luna Thorn sprang into being in the middle of the night in a downtown Detroit park years ago. She had no memory of her past and no idea what the future would hold for her. The only thing she possessed was magic…and the determination to win at all costs.

She’s finally about to get the answers she’s been looking for .

There are zombies popping up on Detroit’s mean inner city streets. They’re not normal zombies, however. They move fast and don’t go down under the usual methods. They have a mission, though, and the only thing that stops them is death.

Luna knows someone is controlling them, but who? She’s determined to find answers on her own, but the people who know her best and love her most refuse to let her fight this battle without backup.

Luna has been a loner for as long as she can remember, but her blood is running hot these days after joining with a phoenix, and news that she’s a traveler—a being that can jump through time—has her second-guessing every decision she’s ever made.

Detroit is about to be rocked by death and destruction. The question is, will Luna be the saint protecting it or the sinner bringing it down?

Things are about to change for everybody, and it’s impossible to know who will rise from the ashes.

The fight between good and evil, the past and the present, is on, and Luna will be right in the middle of it for better or worse.

The world is about to burn.

As the Cookie Crumbles by Amanda M. Lee:

Christmas is right around the corner, and Stormy Morgan is ready to celebrate for the first time in years. She’s been dreaming of one thing…Shadow Hills’ infamous Christmas festival.

There’s just one little problem.

When helping her new friend Easton pick out clothes in the thrift store, Stormy discovers the owner is missing. What’s worse, it looks as if there was a struggle in the back room. What happened to the married mother of one?

Stormy gets her boyfriend Hunter Ryan involved and they start searching. The only thing they can ascertain with any certainty is that there’s a hint of magic pulsing around the town, and maybe it has something to do with the disappearance.

Stormy has her hands full with gnome shifters and her old high school nemesis, so a missing person’s case isn’t something she’s looking forward to. She has no choice but to dig, though. Her conscious won’t allow the alternative.

Stormy might be new at the magic contest, but she understands winning. When another person disappears, she realizes she’s playing the wrong game.

In a world where fire rules, cold is about to claim them all. Can Stormy win? She’s about to find out. Come along for the ride.

The Horror at Pleasant Brook by Kevin Lucia:

At the edge of the Adirondacks, an ancient malevolence descends upon the quiet town of Pleasant Brook, setting the stage for a chilling battle between the forgotten and an unstoppable evil.

Standing resolutely in its shadow is an unlikely alliance—the remnants, the forgotten, the outcasts, and the underestimated. As the malevolence swells, they emerge as the town’s last bastion of defense, its only hope against an ancient, remorseless force that brooks no resistance.

Yet, how can they hope to prevail against a power so ancient, so pitiless, so inexorable? The town of Pleasant Brook becomes the battleground for a confrontation between humanity’s resilience and an evil beyond imagination.

“Kevin Lucia paints in blood and dances in the viscera in a terrorized small town. Chilling and non-stop, horrifying in the best kind of way. Forget Halloween movies and pick up The Horror at Pleasant Brook instead.” —NYT bestselling author Tosca Lee

Prepare for a chilling journey into the heart of darkness with this horror novel that will grip fans of Stephen King, and Robert R. McCammon. Delve into a world of creeping dread, small-town enigmas, and suspense-laden horror that will keep you riveted from the very first page.

Discover the sinister secrets of The Horror at Pleasant Brook, a gripping addition to the pantheon of horror books and novels. Dive into the depths of horror fiction that will haunt your nightmares and captivate fans of horror and suspense books.

Bringer of the Scourge by M. Daniel McDowell:

When the end of ages comes for the empire, the princess must rescue herself.

An army of three brittle allegiances aims for the throne of Derebor, laying siege to the castle Talorr, where Vierrelyne, the last living daughter of the tyrant king, waits locked in a tower cell for the prophesied apocalypse that only she can prevent.

To escape the castle with the aid of her closest counsel, she takes a formidable ancient weapon from her family crypt: a holy suit of armor and a diadem infused with the soul of a demon prince. With this power, Vierrelyne is unstoppable, but its presence is corrosive.

Vierrelyne is haunted by what it means for her to tame the power she has been given, and by what means she might conquer the Bringer of the Scourge. For, if the prophecy she dreads is true, the weapons she wields might destroy everything she holds dear.

A (Non) Comprehensive Guide to Sea Serpents by A.J. Sherwood:

Two new apprentices. One charming engineer. A potential battle with both sea serpents and evil sorcerers.

When Sorcerer Adrien Danvers takes on a job that leads him into the slums of England, he never imagined he’d end up with not one, but two apprentices. Despite his doubts in himself, he’s the only chance the two pre-teens have to escape their hellish life.

When Sir Hugh Quartermain contracts him to deal with the mysterious circumstances surrounding his home on the Isle of Man, Adrien finds the more time they spend together, the more his walls come down around the beguiling engineer–an unusual occurrence and a terrifying prospect.

But as it turns out, this case is about to take a turn–a battle with both beast and man, the ultimate test of Adrien’s willingness to accept help. When he does, Hugh proves to be a fierce protector and friend, more so than Adrien could’ve ever bargained for, and he finds himself longing for something he shouldn’t.

Falling for his new friend is not a complication Adrien needs. (His matchmaking apprentices disagree.)

How To Navigate Our Universe by Mary Soon Lee:

How to Be a Star

Gravitationally collapse a nebula.
Fuse hydrogen into helium.
If desired, explode.

How-to astronomy poetry to answer vexing questions such as How to Surprise Saturn, How to Blush Like Betelgeuse, and How to Survive a Black Hole.

“Unraveling meaning from partial glimpses of the universe has preoccupied astronomers for thousands of years. Mary Soon Lee’s remarkable collection of poetry traces this journey, capturing the wonder of the celestial bodies that comprise our universe, the elegance of the rules that guide its evolution and the humanity of those who search to better our understanding.”
—Andy Connolly, Professor of Astronomy, University of Washington

Mary Soon Lee is a Grand Master of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and has won the Rhysling Award, the Elgin Award, and the AnLab Readers’ Award. Her work has appeared in Science, American Scholar, Spillway, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. This is her second collection of science poetry, following on from Elemental Haiku: Poems to honor the periodic table three lines at a time. Born and raised in London, she now lives in Pittsburgh.

Raven’s Flag by Glynn Stewart:

In times of peace, alliances wither and are forgotten.
In times of war, honor must reforge them in fire and steel!

The United Planets Alliance fought the Kenmiri Empire with a hundred allies at their side. Bound in common cause until genocide broke the Kenmiri—and Kenmiri schemes broke the alliance in turn—those one-time allies still left deep debts of blood and friendship behind.

Still, the UPA has forged ahead in the post-Kenmiri times, weaving new economic and military alliances despite their more limited reach. The last thing they are expecting is for a soldier of the Londu, one of those half-forgotten allies, to arrive in Sol itself and ask for help.

An unknown alien force, armed with weapons thought unique to humanity, has assaulted the Londu people. To honor debts and promises alike, Rear Admiral Henry Wong and Ambassador Sylvia Todorovich find themselves called to take a fleet farther than any human ship has gone in half a decade—and challenge an enemy they know nothing about.

If the Londu are even still there when they arrive…

The Beacon by James David Victor:

The fourth book in the epic Sentinels sci-fi adventure from Amazon All-Star author James David Victor.

The Beacon is the fourth book in the Sentinels series. If you like sci-fi adventures, space battles with complex alien invaders, and unexpected twists in humanities exploration of the stars, this could be your new favorite series.

Download The Beacon and see what happens next in this epic space adventure!

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for October 2023

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

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

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, culinary mysteries, historical mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, psychological thrillers, action thrillers, adventure thrillers, police procedurals, police officers, FBI agents, amateur sleuths, spies, assassins, stalkers, missing persons, rockstars, vigilante justice, hidden treasures, heists, murdered viscounts, stolen Fabergé eggs, the Russian mob, crime-busting witches, crime-busting socialites, murder and mayhem in London, Bordeaux, the Florida Keys, Detroit,  Mexico and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Murder With Madness by Blythe Baker:

Sylvia and Miles travel to London to investigate the murder of Miles’ late wife. At last, Miles is about to solve the crime that has haunted him for so long. There’s just one problem. The killer is dangerous and cunning.

With Miles tracking down leads in the city, can Sylvia uncover the truth during a deadly weekend in the English countryside? Or will the killer strike again one final, terrible time?

 

Wood’s Reward by Steven Becker:

In “Wood’s Reward,” Mac and Wood find themselves confronted with the troublesome job of repairing a bridge piling supporting one of the iconic bridges spanning the Florida Keys. In the process they discover something unexpected—a cache of silver coins and bars embedded in coral. The pair, along with their archeologist friend Ned, soon realizes the immense historical significance of their discovery—the coins date back to the Civil War.

But their joy quickly turns to apprehension as they realize they are not the only ones interested in the treasure. The project engineer, a fellow treasure hunter with questionable motives, becomes a formidable obstacle in their path. And if that wasn’t enough, they find themselves at odds with the sheriff, who appears to be running a protection scam, further complicating their pursuit of the truth.

Just when Mac and Wood think they have reached an impasse, fate intervenes in the most unexpected way. A chance discovery of an old chest resting on the seafloor leads them to a remarkable journal written by the renowned Key West wrecker, John Geiger. Within its pages lies the captivating history of the silver, tracing it back to a legendary pirate chase and another shipwreck resting on the treacherous reef.

As they delve deeper into Geiger’s journal, Mac and Wood find themselves caught in a web of perilous diving expeditions, heart-pounding boat chases, and a race against time to unravel the truth before they become the next victims. With each page, the tension builds, and the lines between friend and foe become increasingly blurred.

Betrayed by the Truth by Daniella Bernett:

An inconvenient alibi…a priceless treasure…an MI6 mole It’s a lethal cocktail Journalist Emmeline Kirby and her jewel thief/ insurance investigator husband Gregory Longdon become targets after a desperate stranger asks them to deliver a fortune in rare red diamonds to hotelier Alexander Colefax. Before they can ask any questions, the man is killed. Driven by dark secrets, Colefax is willing to flirt with treason if it means getting what he wants. His coterie included the son of a Kremlin elite and a Russian mafia boss. When a man’s only loyalty is to money, his enemies become twice as ruthless. After Colefax is bludgeoned to death, Emmeline and Gregory discover that his dangerous games involved not only diamonds, but a stolen Fabergé egg that has vanished and a spy named Snowdrop. The trail of lies and revenge leads to Switzerland, where a treacherous double-cross could cost Emmeline and Gregory their lives.

A Burger To Die For by Beth Byers and Ann Warren:

When Sam and Mia pick up their troublesome grandpa, and road-trip for an award-winning burger, they expect to find too much food, loud music, wind in their hair, and the likelihood of adding a pound or two. They don’t expect to find a dead body.

They’re quickly forced to dive into solving the crime to dig themselves out of trouble. Turns out, they’re rather good at cyber-stalking everyone who crosses their path, googling Miranda rights, and infuriating both police officers and private detectives.

Soon they’re having the time of their lives. The only question remaining is: will they survive the trouble they’ve found themselves in? Or have they had their last laugh?

Don’t Trust Her by Stacy Claflin:

Am I losing my mind, or does someone want me to think I am?

After a traumatic childhood shadowed by an institutionalized brother, I’ve finally created a picture-perfect life with my doting husband and four beautiful children. But behind the white picket fence, darkness looms.

Strangers claim to see me in places I wasn’t, doing things I would never do. Can I even trust my own mind with a family history of mental instability? As I race for answers, my life spirals out of control.

I suspect someone is plotting to steal my very identity. Then a shocking family secret points to a cruel deception that could shatter everything I know.

Who is behind this relentless game of deceit? The truth could destroy all I’ve built.

I must confront the sinister forces threatening my family, whatever the cost might be… even if it means my sanity.

Or my life itself.

Lie in Wait by Stacy Claflin:

The party was supposed to be all in good fun…until a killer showed up uninvited.

Halloween has been Ariana’s favorite holiday since she was little, and this year is no different. As she plans a huge neighborhood bash, things take a drastic turn when her friend Bella shows up, scared for her life.

Ariana and Damon never turn away someone in trouble, but this time it might put them in harm’s way. They do their best to keep Bella hidden, but the unhinged murderer won’t give up his search. And he’s getting closer.

Bella promised she would stay away from the Halloween party, but the festivities prove too much of a temptation. Surely nobody would recognize her if she wore a mask… Except the killer would know her anywhere, in any disguise.

Will Ariana and Damon be able to protect their friend and save their own lives?

Achy Breaky Hex by Lily Harper Hart:

Hannah Hickok has a lot on her mind.

She’s engaged, with a wedding around the corner.

She and her husband-to-be Cooper Wyatt are building a house near the cosplay western town she inherited from her late grandmother.

And she’s gearing up for a fight with the witch who wants to steal her magic and kill her.

All of that falls by the wayside when Hannah realizes that people are starting to develop magical crushes…and the outcome is ugly when the fighting begins.

First up is local Sheriff James Boone’s teenage daughter. She’s overwhelmed by a spell when her latest crush’s attention is on the line.

Then the women at the bakery, all sisters, start fighting over the same man.

Then Cooper decides to come to blows for Hannah’s honor and it almost results in someone’s death.

Hannah is understandably confused. The only thing she knows without question is that there’s witchy magic afoot. Where is it coming from, though?

Hannah’s life is leading toward a specific fight. This fight, however, needs to be won before she can look to the future. Unfortunately for Hannah, the odds of winning are long.

There’s no evading the fight. So, here it comes.

What I Know About July by Kat Hausler:

Simon Kemper is on the up and up– he’ s out of rehab, and his band is gaining moderate success around Berlin. But out of the corner of his eye and over his shoulder, he’ s always aware of her. The stalker. She’ s at every show, no matter what city. She sends hundreds of postcards to his label. Worst of all, she acts like she knows him. Like she owns him. When the stalker disappears at one of his shows, Simon is the prime suspect. Initially an effort to clear his name, his search for July quickly becomes a deeper psychological quest: to prove that his fears were warranted? That she couldn’ t have given up her obsession that easily? The threads of July’ s disappearance turn out to be tangled into every corner of Simon’ s life: a trusted band member, a tenuous new love interest, a resentful ex, and the self he’ s supposedly left behind. Narcissistic, insecure, and consummately relatable, Simon is the anti-hero of his own life— trying to want to be better; hoping that’ s enough.

A Calculated Whisk by CeeCee James:

A Flamingo Cozy and Baker Street Mystery partnership. Stella O’Neil and Georgie Tanner are on the case.

When the siren goes off in the museum, everyone expected the prized exhibit to be stolen. No one imagined Oscar would disappear with it.

Take a quick trip through history with Stella, Georgie, Frank, Peanut and Oscar. Guess who is going to be surprised the most!

 

Assassin’s Call by Ethan Jones:

He’s no Saint…

Assassin Xavier Saint has only one rule: kill no innocents. But on a supposed clean hit, he discovers his target has two kids and a woman with him. Why didn’t his client tell Saint? What’s worse, the woman is Saint’s former girlfriend…

While Saint processes this strange turn of events shots are fired. He watches the target and his ex fall. Rushing in to assess the damage, Saint’s ex reveals he’s a father. Not only that, he discovers he’s been set up.

In a race across Europe, Saint can barely stay a step ahead of those hunting him. He has uncovered a network of assassins eliminating innocents for profit, and he is being framed as the fall guy. With more to lose than just his life, Saint must bring down the entire network. But how?

He never claimed to be a saint, but he’s no demon either. In a world full of sworn enemies, how will Saint strike back, destroy the network, and be able to see the daughter he never knew he had?

Meet Saint.

Assassin’s Vow by Ethan Jones:

An impossible vow…

Assassin Xavier Saint is doing all he can to discover more about a network of assassins who are killing innocents while trying to stay one step ahead. But that is proving to be very costly. At the same time, to find and protect his daughter, Saint must pay back favors, which were steep and many. Now his “friends” have come for their pound of flesh…

Forced into a deadly assignment to save his new-found family, Saint vows to end the network and be the father he never knew he was. But how can he?

During all of this, he obtains suspicious intelligence that his ex-girlfriend might still be alive. With the network hellbent on eliminating him, no true friends, and the trap closing all around him, will Saint be able to get some answers and keep his promise before it’s too late?

It’s time to take off the gloves…

Perilous Potions by Amanda M. Lee:

Luna Thorn sprang into being in the middle of the night in a downtown Detroit park years ago. She had no memory of her past and no idea what the future would hold for her. The only thing she possessed was magic…and the determination to win at all costs.

She’s finally about to get the answers she’s been looking for .

There are zombies popping up on Detroit’s mean inner city streets. They’re not normal zombies, however. They move fast and don’t go down under the usual methods. They have a mission, though, and the only thing that stops them is death.

Luna knows someone is controlling them, but who? She’s determined to find answers on her own, but the people who know her best and love her most refuse to let her fight this battle without backup.

Luna has been a loner for as long as she can remember, but her blood is running hot these days after joining with a phoenix, and news that she’s a traveler—a being that can jump through time—has her second-guessing every decision she’s ever made.

Detroit is about to be rocked by death and destruction. The question is, will Luna be the saint protecting it or the sinner bringing it down?

Things are about to change for everybody, and it’s impossible to know who will rise from the ashes.

The fight between good and evil, the past and the present, is on, and Luna will be right in the middle of it for better or worse.

The world is about to burn.

As the Cookie Crumbles by Amanda M. Lee:

Christmas is right around the corner, and Stormy Morgan is ready to celebrate for the first time in years. She’s been dreaming of one thing…Shadow Hills’ infamous Christmas festival.

There’s just one little problem.

When helping her new friend Easton pick out clothes in the thrift store, Stormy discovers the owner is missing. What’s worse, it looks as if there was a struggle in the back room. What happened to the married mother of one?

Stormy gets her boyfriend Hunter Ryan involved and they start searching. The only thing they can ascertain with any certainty is that there’s a hint of magic pulsing around the town, and maybe it has something to do with the disappearance.

Stormy has her hands full with gnome shifters and her old high school nemesis, so a missing person’s case isn’t something she’s looking forward to. She has no choice but to dig, though. Her conscious won’t allow the alternative.

Stormy might be new at the magic contest, but she understands winning. When another person disappears, she realizes she’s playing the wrong game.

In a world where fire rules, cold is about to claim them all. Can Stormy win? She’s about to find out. Come along for the ride.

Stalked by Darkness by Mary Stone:

I SEE U

Nobody was supposed to know that Deputy Justice Hall secretly went to the Amado Cartel’s stronghold in Mexico to mete out justice the judicial system denied to the creator of a deadly street drug and the leader of the motorcycle gang that distributed it.

But someone followed him. And they want him to know it, as evidenced by the handwritten note with the words “I SEE U”—accompanied by photo evidence and a heart-shaped stone—left at Justice’s ranch.

Is this somehow the work of Justin Black, the man who murdered Justice’s family and then kidnapped him? Is it blackmail? Or does Justice have some kind of twisted admirer?

Rattled, Justice is more than happy for the diversion of a new case. An unusual arson, complete with the body of a pimp, his head cleaved with a hatchet, and a note identifying the victim as woman abuser written on the wall behind the victim in eerily familiar handwriting.

When another fire occurs with clues left specifically for Justice, it’s clear the two are intertwined. And the writing is on the wall—literally. This vigilante killer and note leaver is after something personal. Now Justice is knee-deep in a game of cat and mouse. But is he the cat…or the mouse?

Murder at St. Paul’s Cathedral by Lee Strauss:

Family secrets are murder!

When Ginger’s former sister-in-law Felicia, now Lady Davenport-Witt, first received a mysterious note in the post, she dismissed it as coming from a nuisance writer. These things were known to happen to those who enjoyed social popularity. But with a third one, she began to feel ill at ease.

Ginger, however, had been worried since the first short missive had arrived. Someone knew of a family secret that would upset Felicia’s apple cart in a very big way.

Felicia’s new hobby of photography turned into freelance work for a London magazine, and her first assignment was to attend the wedding of the new Duke of Worthington and his very young bride-to-be taking place at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Murder follows matrimony, and Felicia finds herself in the middle of the muddle.

Can Ginger help Felicia navigate the twists and turns of fate and stop a second death?

Death at Chateau Peveril by Russell Wate:

When Viscount Peveril is found dead at his chateau in France, his children instantly suspect foul play. But with his demise being registered as ‘death by natural causes’, they must seek the assistance of DCI Sandy McFarlane to uncover the truth.

Against his superior’s wishes, Sandy travels to Bordeaux and Saint-Émilion, and swiftly concludes that something is not quite right with the circumstances of the Viscount’s death. Enlisting the help of an old friend, DCI Rich Singh, Sandy embarks on a complex and intriguing murder investigation.

With medical intrigue at its heart, this is no classic ‘whodunit’, and is the third book in the popular DCI McFarlane crime series.

Some Comments on the 2023 Hugo Winners

No, it’s not a 2023 Hugo, it’s the 2022 model with bonus pandas, but it makes a decent stand-in.

The winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards were announced today at Worldcon in Chengdu, China. My thoughts on the finalists may be found here.

I almost forgot that the Hugos were today, because a) I normally don’t expect Worldcon or the Hugos to happen at the same time as the Frankfurt Book Fair, b) the Hugo ceremony normally doesn’t happen around lunchtime for me and c) I’ve been too busy with other things to focus on Worldcon this year, though trust me, I’d rather have attended a Worldcon than my Dad’s memorial service and funeral.

That said, this is the first Hugo ceremony since 2014 or 2015 I haven’t watched live, either streaming or in person in the auditorium and the first Worldcon since 2018 where I haven’t on programming. So there will be no commentary on the ceremony or the Chengdu Worldcon in general this year, though the photos I’ve seen of Chengdu’s new science fiction museum look gorgeous.

Around noon my time, I checked Twitter (not calling it X) to see if the Hugo ceremony had started yet, but it hadn’t. Then I went to make lunch and afterwards I opened Twitter and the first tweet I saw was someone congratulating a winner. So I checked and they were already up to Novelette with only two categories to do. As Hugo ceremonies go, this one seems to have been quite swift.

Before I delve into the Hugo winners, I’d like to take a moment to point out that the winners of the 2023 Ignyte Awards were also announced today. I don’t cover the Ignytes in detail, because there are only so many awards commentary posts I can write, but they usually have interesting winners and finalists.

And now, let’s get the the 2023 Hugos, starting with…

Best Novel

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel is Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher a.k.a. Ursula Vernon. Her acceptance speech, including a delightful metaphor about the backsides of frogs, may be found here.

This was not my first choice, but I’m perfectly happy for Nettle and Bone to win. Besides, this year’s Best Novel ballot was extremely strong and any of the six finalists would have been a most worthy winner.

Best Novella

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novella goes to Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire.

Once again, this wasn’t my first choice. I like Seanan McGuire’s work, but I’m not as enamored with the Wayward Children series as many others obviously are.  That said, I enjoyed Where the Drowned Girls Go more than some of the other entries in that series.

Best Novelette

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novelette is “The Space-Time Painter” by Hai Ya.

This was one winner which made me go “Huh, which story was this again?”, because I have barely no memory of it. This usually happens for me with at least one Hugo finalist every year, that there is a story I forget almost as soon as I read it. In this case, the reason I couldn’t recall the story was that it wasn’t available in English in the Hugo voter packet, only in Chinese, though machine translations popped up later with all the expected flaws.

Therefore, it’s a huge surprise that “The Space-Time Painter” won, even though it was hampered by a bad translation. This is clearly one case where the Chinese Hugo voters pushed this story over the winning line. And you know what? That’s great. Because I’m glad that we are seeing not just Chinese finalists but also Chinese winners at the first Worldcon held in China. This is a far cry from the 2007 Worldcon in Yokohama, Japan, where there was not a single Japanese finalist, let alone winner.

On Twitter, Sichuan Daily also posted a clip of Hai Ya’s heartfelt acceptance speech (no embed, because Twitter no longer does embeds). He wrote the story on his daily commute.

Best Short Story

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Short Story goes to “Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills.

This story was the clear forerunner and already won the Nebula Award in the same category. What is more, it’s a great, hard-hitting story, too.

It’s also very much a story of the moment, inspired by the repeal of Roe versus Wade in the US and the resulting abortion restrictions in many US states. Being a story of the moment, inspired by the political situation in the US, might well hurt the story with non-US voters, but reproductive rights aren’t only at risk in the US (Germany has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in western Europe) , so people, particularly women, everywhere can relate.

Best Series

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Series is Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

This is one win, which makes me very happy, because Adrian Tchaikovsky has been doing stellar work for years now and yet was consistently overlooked by Hugo nominators until very recently, because his books came out in the UK well before the US. So this recognition was well overdue. Besides, Children of Time is a great series.

Best Graphic Story or Comic

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic goes to Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams by Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov and Krzysztof Ostrowski.

This is another winner that made me go “Huh?”, because while definitely read the comic, it didn’t wow me and I ranked it fairly low on my ballot. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Saga, Monstress and Once and Future were all stronger IMO.

In some way, this win and the nomination for the Dune comic is a throwback to the early years of the Best Graphic Story Hugo and also the comic and graphic novel category of the Dragon Awards, where unremarkable tie-in comics to some kind of media a lot of people like (here it’s the Cyberpunk 2077 videogame) tends to get nominated and even win, because Hugo voters (and Dragon voters, apparently) are not necessarily comic readers. I don’t even exclude myself there – currently my personal Hugo longlist for 2024 includes a Masters of the Universe comic and this year I nominated Marvel’s King Conan comic – for while I will pick up the occasional comic that interests me, often because it’s about something else that interests me, my regular comic reading days are behind me.

That said, Cyberpunk 2022: Big City Dreams may well have given Poland its first ever Hugo winners and that’s great, because I’m always happy about continental Europeans winning Hugos, since the vast majority of European Hugo winners have been Brits.

Best Related Work

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Related Work is Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins.

This is another case of the clear frontrunner winning. Terry Pratchett is a beloved and much missed icon of our genre and here we have a great biography penned by his former assistant. Besides, Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes, already won the BSFA Award in the non-fiction category.

As someone who has always championed SFF-related non-fiction and would prefer Best Related Work to honour non-fiction books rather than the various “This is cool, but we don’t know where else to put it” finalists we have increasingly seen in this category in recent years. Therefore, I’m of course happy to see exactly the sort of non-fiction book I want to see in this category win.

Best Dramatic Presentation Long

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form goes to Everything Everywhere All At Once. This win is not only highly deserved, but also utterly unsurprising, since Everything Everywhere All At Once has already won every award in every universe out there. Still, now the Daniels can add a shiny Hugo rocket to their awards shelf.

I’m surprised to see Avatar: The Way of Water in second place (unless they are just ranking the rest of the finalists alphabetically), because if there was ever a superfluous sequel, it was that one. This was also the only finalist in this category (and one of only four on the entire ballot) that I no awarded. Normally, I don’t publicly share if I no awarded a Hugo finalist, but I doubt that James Cameron gives a damn that I no awarded him and haven’t liked a single movie he made in thirty years. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

I’m also a little surprised to see Turning Red finish in last place (again, unless they are ranking alphabetically), because even though it’s an animated film for kids, Turning Red was really cute and also captured the feeling of being a teenaged girl very well. Like Everything Everywhere All At Once, it’s also a story about Chinese expats. But I guess a menstruation analogy may have been a little too much for some Hugo voters.

Best Dramatic Presentation Short

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form is The Expanse episode “Babylon’s Ashes”.

I have to admit that this win surprised me a bit, because while The Expanse is a good and popular science fiction series, this particular episode, the series finale, which only barely squeezed into eligiblity due to airing very early in January 2022, wasn’t all that remarkable. I suspect it was more a vote for the series as a whole than for this particular episode.

Besides, The Expanse already won in this category twice, in 2017 and 2022 and had nominations in 2019, 2020 and 2021. I would much rather have seen a show that has never won a Hugo honoured. Never mind that both Andor episodes and the fourth wall breaking She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode were better. Stranger Things would have been a decent winner as well, though I continue to not give a damn about For All Mankind.

In general, it’s a problem with the Best Dramatic Presentation Short category that the same shows tend to be nominated and win over and over again. It has been twenty years since Best Dramatic Presentation was split into short and long form and in those twenty years, Doctor Who has won a whopping six times, The Good Place four times, The Expanse three times and Game of Thrones twice. The remaining winners are one episode each of Buffy, Jessica Jones, Orphan Black, the Battlestar Galactica as well as the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and – bafflingly – Gollum’s Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, which beat episodes of Firefly, Buffy and Smallville.

The issue isn’t new, in 1968 the Best Dramatic Presentation ballot consisted of five episodes of the original Star Trek. However, it’s no longer 1968 and there is a huge variety of SFF TV-series both animated and live action out there, not to mention short films, music videos, audio dramas (all of which can and have been nominated in the Best Dramatic Presentation category) and it would be great if more shows got honoured than Doctor Who, The Good Place and The Expanse. Never mind that Doctor Who kept getting nominated and winning long after it stopped being good. And The Good Place was never good in the first place.

Best Editor Short

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form goes to Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld, who also won in this category last year. Neil is a most deserving winner and the fact that he has published more Chinese SFF in translation (and SFF in translation in general) than pretty much any other editor in the English speaking world probably helped as well.

Best Editor Long

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Editor Long Form is Lindsey Hall of Tor/Forge. She is a first time finalist and winner, which is always great to see, especially since the editor categories can get a little stale with the same people nominated over and over again.

Best Professional Artist

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist goes to Enzhe Zhao, creator of stunning science fiction and fantasy artwork. Enzhe Zhao is the second Chinese Hugo winner this year, there will be one more further down the ballot.

I always find the art categories difficult to judge, because the finalists are usually all great and often very different from each other. This year, every single finalist would have been a most worthy winner, yet there can be only one.

Best Semiprozine

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine is Uncanny Magazine.

I could probably just copy what I wrote last year or in 2020 or 2019 here, because Uncanny has been nominated eight times in this category and won seven times. Which is still way behind Locus, which won this category a whopping twenty-two times (amd they won Best Fanzine several times, too).

Now don’t get me wrong. Uncanny is a great magazine and they do great work and deserve every single one of those seven Hugos. And considering that the Thomas family has been going through a very hard time, I thrilled that they, their team and particularly Caitlin Thomas (and Hugo the Cat, of course) got to celebrate another Hugo win.

However, there are other SFF semiprozines out there which are excellent as well. Strange Horizons has never won in spite of multiple nominations and neither have Escape Pod, Podcastle or Beneath Ceaseless Skies, who recused themselves. FIYAH did at least win once.

Semiprozine is also another category which has the tendency to go stale with the same handful of magazines getting nominated over and over again (see Locus and their twenty-two wins). This year at least we had a new finalist in this category in the form of khoréo (sorry for butchering the title, but WordPress’ well-known issues with diacritics strike again), which is an encouraging sign.

Another long-standing issue is the definition of this category, which means that relative juggernauts like Uncanny or Escape Pod or Strange Horizons compete in the same category as small magazines that pay one or two cents per word or five or ten US-dollars per story. This means that the small magazines get crowded out. There have been debates about reforming the semiprozine category or turning it into just Best Magazine for years now. But even if Best Semiprozine is reformed into Best Magazine, this still doesn’t resolve the issue of the small token payment markets, which would probably fit better into Best Fanzine.

Which brings us to…

Best Fanzine

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine goes to Zero Gravity Newspaper, edited by RiverFlow and Ling Shizhen.

Here we have the third Chinese winner and a most worthy winner they are, too. Unfortunately, co-editor and Best Fan Writer finalist RiverFlow collapsed shortly after the Hugo ceremony and was hospitalised, as explained in this comment at File 770.

Finally, Zero Gravity Newspaper is a print zine winning in a category that is dominated by blogs and online zines. This is the first time since 2009 that a print zine has won in the Best Fanzine category. File 770, The Drink Tank and Journey Planet have all won since, but they are both mostly online these days.

Best Fancast

The winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fancast is Hugo, Girl!

I’m very happy about this win, because not only is Hugo, Girl! a great podcast, they’re also friends. Though the fancast category was full of friends or at least acquaintances this year.

The Hugo, Girl! team shared their delightful acceptance speech on Twitter. I’m even mentioned in that speech along with a lot of other fine folks. Of course, I have given a Hugo acceptance speech and written several of them, but this is the first time I was actually mentioned in one.

Which brings us to…

Best Fan Writer

This is of course the category I won last year, so I was particularly interested in who would win this year.

Turns out that the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer goes to Chris M. Barkley who was one of my fellow finalists last year. You can read his acceptance speech at File 770.

Chris is a most worthy winner. Not only is he known for his insightful columns at File 770, he also has been tirelessly supporting Worldcon and the Hugos for more than forty years now and IMO should have been recognised long ago. Finally, Chris is the first ever winner of colour in what is still a very white category.

Best Fan Artist

The 2023 Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist goes to Richard Man, who is not just a first time finalist in this category, but also – as far as I can tell – the first photographer to win a Hugo in an art category. Richard Man is a great portrait photographer and most worthy winner.

The Fan Artist category usually has a wide range of different types of art. In addition to traditional artists, we have also seen jewellery designers, sculptors, cartoonists and calligraphers nominated in this category. There have been almost no photographers nominated with the exception of a Finnish toy photographer (a field which has a lot of really great fan artists deserving of recognition), even though we have a lot of photographers in our community.

Lodestar

The winner of the 2023 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book is Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor. Akata Woman is a sequel to the 2018 and inaugural Lodestar winner Akata Witch. Once again, it’s a very good choice.

Astounding

Last but not least, the 2023 Astounding Award for Best New Writer goes to Travis Baldree. This is one win which made me very happy, not just because I enjoyed Legends and Lattes a whole lot, but also because the success of Legends and Lattes showed that cozy fantasy, which had been bubbling under the surface in indie and small press fiction for a while, is a commercially viable subgenre.

***

And that’s it for the 2023 Hugo winners. Those who are concerned that too many women are winning Hugos these days will hopefully be happy that two of the five fiction categories as well as Best Related Work and the Astounding Award (plus Fan Writer and Fan Artist) went to male writers. Though I’m sure they’ll find some reason why those male winners don’t count (too foreign, too cozy, not white enough).

I couldn’t delve into the longlist and the detailed voting statistics this time around, because they aren’t available yet. I may do so in a separate post.

Regarding reactions to the 2023 Hugo winners, Camestros Felapton briefly weighs in on his blog and there is some discussion in the comments under the File 770 announcement.

This article from China Daily has some background on the Chinese winners, including the inspiration for “The Space-Time Painter”.

ETA: Here is an article from Xinhua with lots of photos of the ceremony and the con.

Writer and translator S. Qiouyi Lu shares their disappointment that there haven’t been more Chinese winners in this Twitter thread.

Otherwise, I haven’t seen a lot of reactions yet. Those people who have made it their life’s mission to hate every modern Hugo winner and let the world know why every single one of them is unworthy  are oddly silent as well. Either they’ve moved on to hating something else (Anti-Semitism seems to be sadly popular right now) or I don’t see their comments, because I have a lot of these people blocked or muted on Twitter and BlueSky, ever since some of those haters decided to send a harassment mob my way last month.

I’ll update the post as more reactions come in.

First Monday Free Fiction: The Horror in the Westermark Woods

Welcome to the October 2023 edition of First Monday Free Fiction. Though it’s actually Third Monday Free Fiction, because I had too much on my mind and forgot to post this month’s story.

To recap, inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who posts a free short story every week on her blog, I’ll post a free story on the first Monday of every month. At the end of the month, I’ll take the story down and post another.

October is the spooky month, so here’s a spooky story for you about teenagers on their way home from a festival coming across something terrible in the woods. It’s called “The Horror in the Westermark Woods” and may be found in the collection Roadside Horrors.

The Westermark Woods are a real place in my region, a popular hiking spot, and the towns, the Schützenfest, the Gessel gold hoard and the now defunct US military base on Hoher Berg are all real as well. As for the teenagers, though the characters are fictional, I’ve met those kids. I’ve been this kid. As for the horror… well, I’m still here, still alive and still go hiking in those woods.

So accompany Nils, Silke, Britta, Jens and Matthias, as they encounter…

The Horror in the Westermark Woods

Thanks for the drink, man. I really appreciate it. Prost!

Oh yes, the story. You want the story about the things in the Westermark woods? Well, buckle up then, cause this one’s going to be a doozy.

It was more than thirty years ago now. I had just turned eighteen and I had a driver’s licence and a car, a red Volkswagen Golf. And in rural Northwest Germany, a car and a driver’s licence meant freedom. It also made me really popular, the most popular guy in the village. People who hadn’t even looked twice at me before suddenly wanted to be my friends, just because I had a car.

It happened at the height of summer on the night of the Schützenfest, the local target shooting competition. Though a Schützenfest is much more than just a shooting competition. Sure, there is shooting, but there is also a parade and the crowning of the winners of the shooting competition as king and queen of the marksmen. And last but not least, there is a fairground with sausage stands and beer stalls, a party tent and even a carousel or two.

If you grew up on rural Northwest Germany, the Schützenfest was the biggest event of the year. Everybody went there, whether you were into target shooting or not. Even if, like me, you considered yourself a pacifist and couldn’t hit the side of a barn anyway.

So of course, I went to the Schützenfest that year. I hung out with my friends, having a good time, and we all danced the night away in the party tent, grooving to Madonna and Kylie Minogue, George Michael and the Pet Shop Boys.

It was already half past two, when we finally staggered home. Well, the others staggered. Not me. For I had a car and a driver’s license, so I was the designated driver and also the only one who was sober.

Two weeks before, a girl from a neighbouring village had gone missing. And the last anyone had seen of her was that she’d ridden her bike along the very same road we needed to take to get home.

Most likely, she’d just run away and would eventually turn up again. At least, that’s what the police said. Nonetheless, everybody was nervous and no one wanted to go home alone that night.

For we knew that the girl wasn’t the first to go missing in the area. There had been several cases, going back decades. A farmer milking his cows before dawn, a country doctor on the way to a late night emergency, a young couple making out in a cornfield, a few scattered soldiers, stragglers separated from their regiment, during the war. They all vanished, never to be seen again.

The people rarely talked about the ones who’d vanished, but they remembered. They remembered only too well. And so few of my friends were allowed to ride our bikes after dark. “It’s too dangerous,” our parents said, though they never told us just why being out and about after dark was so dangerous.

“If you’re somewhere and can’t get home, call me,” my Dad always said to me, “Even if it’s three in the morning, call me and I’ll come and get you.”

But I was officially an adult now and I had a car besides. Whatever had spooked my parents and half the people in the village didn’t faze me. It was all just stupid superstition anyway, like old Mrs. Holthusen, who wasn’t quite right in the head, babbling about the things in the woods and how they’d almost gotten her back in nineteen thirty-something.

So we all piled into my little Golf. My girlfriend Silke took the passenger seat, while Jens, Britta and Matthias squeezed onto the backseat.

Once everybody had buckled up, I gunned the engine, shoved a tape into the cassette deck and drove off. The first notes of “Time of My Life” filled the car and we all sang along. We’d all seen Dirty Dancing — Silke and Britta had even seen it five times, which is excessive, if you ask me — and we all knew the words by heart.

The drive home didn’t take long, not if you had a car. But we lived one village over, which meant that I had to drive along a winding country road, passing through fields of corn and a patch of woodland, the Westermark Woods.

I must have driven that road dozens, if not hundreds of times, on my bike, as a passenger in my parents’ car, during my driving lessons. But I’d never driven it this late at night. Even my Dad always avoided that road at night. “The woods are dangerous by night,” he said brusquely, whenever I asked him about that.

As soon as we left the festival ground behind, it got dark, pitch dark. This late at night, the street lights were off, as were the lights of the houses and shops along the road. The sky was overcast, so there was no moon or starlight either.

Once we left the town behind, it got even darker. All I could see was the little puddle of light cast by the headlights of the Golf. Everything else was dark, as if we were in a tiny boat adrift on a sea of darkness.

The speed limit here was one hundred kilometres per hour — fast and scary enough by daylight, at least for a new driver like me. But that night I drove much slower, so slow that Matthias hollered from the backseat, “Hey, Nils, can’t this bucket go any faster?”

“Yeah, if you want to land in a ditch or smash into a tree, sure,” I called back. Beside me, Silke rolled her eyes.

“I… hiccup… I think I’m going to be sick,” Britta slurred.

“Now?” I asked dismayed.

Britta did not reply, she just hiccupped some more and a quick glance into the rearview mirror revealed that her face had taken on a distinctly greenish cast.

She must have had five or six glasses of red one — flavoured liquor, that tasted like berry juice, but was deceptively strong. Damn, why did she have to drink so much, when she couldn’t handle it? Still, the last thing I needed was Britta throwing up all over the backseat of my brand-new — well, five years old, but still in pretty good condition all things considered — Golf.

So I cursed, hit the brakes and brought the car to a halt by the roadside.

“If you’re going to throw up, throw up outside,” I said.

“Thanks,” Britta slurred. On second try, she managed to open the rear passenger door, though she still had to climb over Jens to get out. A few seconds later, I heard her retching by the side of the road. I sighed. Looks like I had stopped just in time.

Silke got out as well to check on Britta. It looked as if this might take a while, so I switched off the ignition, though I left the headlights on. The beam struck a tree trunk and I realised that we had stopped smack in the middle of the Westermark Woods. Trees loomed all around, their tops lost in the gloom. Twisted branches reached for us, like a sinister forest from a fairy tale.

I don’t know how long we waited there, while Britta threw up into the woods. It might have been three minutes, it might have been five. Not much longer, at any rate.

Outside, Silke held Britta’s hair back and helped her clean herself up with tissues. Then Jens shifted to the middle seat and Britta climbed back into the car, still pale, but no longer quite so greenish.

“Sorry about that,” she slurred, “By the way, something’s rustling in the woods out there. Some kind of animal.”

“Something’s rustling in your head,” Jens countered.

At this moment, Silke climbed back into the passenger seat and fastened the seatbelt. “No, I heard it, too,” she said, “There’s really something out there in the woods.”

“Probably a boar,” Matthias said, “Or a deer. There’s lots of them in the Westermark Woods.”

I started up the car again and was just about to drive off, when I spotted a flicker of movement on the road ahead. I promptly hit the brakes, so hard that everybody inside the car was thrown forward. Silke and I were wearing seatbelts, but the three in the backseat weren’t and were promptly thrown against the front seats.

“Hey,” Britta complained.

“What the fuck?” Jens yelped.

“Why’d you brake?” Matthias wanted to know.

“There was something on the road,” I said, “A deer or a boar or… — well, I don’t know what. But I don’t want to crash my car into it.”

During my driving lessons, the teacher had drilled the dangers of wild animals crossing the road by night and the many accidents they cause into me. And there’d been a warning sign only a few hundred metres before.

Beside me, Silke squinted into the dark. “Whatever it was, it seems to be gone now,” she announced.

So I put my car into first gear and switched into second after a few metres, still on the lookout for deer, boars or any other creatures that might cross the road.

We didn’t get far, only a hundred metres or so, before the weak headlights of the Golf hit upon something moving across the road ahead. I braked again and the car skidded to a halt.

I was closer to the thing on the road now, close enough to make out details. And it was only now that I realised that the thing on the road was no deer or boar nor a wolf, though there hadn’t been any wolves spotted in these parts since 1897 anyway.

Instead, I found myself faced with something I’d never seen before and never hope to see again. It was a tube-shaped thing, as thick as the gas pipeline that had been laid through our district two years before. The armoured body was covered in blood red spots and bristling with hairs the size of drinking straws. Its hideous head was studded with antennae thick as cables, its legs were short and stubby, about the diameter of a smallish tree.

For a few seconds, we just stared at the thing that should not exist and yet was crawling across the road.

“Fuck, it’s a giant caterpillar,” Britta exclaimed.

The thing suddenly writhed, its antenna studded head swinging towards us. Mandibles the size of trashcans clicked and snapped.

We all screamed as one.

“Reverse, oh my God, reverse,” Jens shouted from the backseat.

He didn’t need to tell me twice, for I was already putting my car into reverse, shooting away from the creature at a speed that was much too high to be safe. My driving teacher would probably be horrified… or impressed.

The creature came after us, mandibles snapping and antennae brushing against the windshield. But it was no match for my trusty Golf.

The car was still in reverse gear and I was navigating via the rearview mirror and the reverse lights. I should probably turn the car around and drive back, back to the relative safety of the town and the festival ground. But in order to turn around, I would have to slow down the car and I didn’t dare to do that, not yet.

And then I saw it. A flicker of movement in the rearview mirror, quickly coming closer, gradually coalescing into a tubular body with red spots and short, stubby legs. There was another bloody monster behind us.

The thing reared up, enormous jaws snapping at us. I swerved hard to the right to avoid it, sending the car onto the shoulder of the road. It rattled and for a heart-stopping second, I feared the car would get stuck, leaving us at the mercy of the creatures.

But then we shot back onto the road again. I still kept the car in reverse, going as fast as I could. And then we were out of the woods and back among the cornfields. It was only now that I dared to turn the car around.

I drove like the devil, breaking every speed limit known to man, until we reached the relative safety of the town. Since we didn’t know where else to go, we returned to the festival ground, where the remnants of the Schützenfest had closed down by now. I parked the car and we sat there huddled together, until the sun came up at half past four. Only then did I dare to drive home, though I still took the longer route that bypassed Westermark Woods.

After that night, we never spoke again of what we had seen, none of us. Who would have believed us? Most of us had been drunk, after all, though I was stone cold sober. And I know what I saw. We all did.

What were those things? Beats me. Maybe some kind of evolutionary throwback or ordinary caterpillars, mutated by radiation from the American nukes stationed up on Hoher Berg and grown to giant-size like in a bad science fiction film. Or maybe they’re creatures from beyond, ancient beings, perhaps older than mankind.

After all, they unearthed a bronze age gold hoard near the Westermark Woods a few years back. And among the artefacts they found were engravings — more than three thousand years old — of warriors with spears fighting familiar looking giant creatures. A depiction of an ancient myth, the archaeologists said. We know better.

In the decades that followed, more people disappeared in the area. Most of the time, folks came up with a logical explanation for what had happened. An teenage runaway, a husband or wife who’d run off with a lover, an elderly person who’d wandered off and had fallen into a river or lake. But each and every time, the people who went missing had been last seen near the Westermark Woods. And we all knew what had really happened to them, even if we never talked about it.

To this day, I still avoid the Westermark Woods as much as possible. I’d never allow my own kids to be out alone after nightfall and I’d rather take a ten kilometre detour than drive through the patch of woodland ever again. And I sure as hell will never again drive through the Westermark Woods by night.

Because I know what’s lurking there, when night falls and the lights go off. I know why people keep vanishing in the area. There are quite a few of us who know. Though we’ll never talk about it, not unless you get us very drunk.

Cause it’s only after a few glasses of Korn that we’ll tell you the true story, the truth about the monsters who live in Westermark Woods and hunt by night.

***

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

My Dad, Addy Buhlert (1938 – 2023)

This is not the post I wanted to write today or indeed ever. But on October 1, my Dad died. It was very unexpected, because in spite of some health issues in the past, he had always been very healthy and active. In spite of his age, he still worked part time as an engineer until about a month before the end. And initially, it seemed as if the health problem that put him in hospital was easily treatable. His condition deteriorated very rapidly, within the space of only a week.

What makes this even worse is that I was the one who found him when I went to visit him at the hospital. A physical therapist who treated him tested positive for covid, so they isolated all the patients who had contact with her, including my Dad. So he had a room of his own. I went in and said hello, but he didn’t react. I thought he was a asleep, so I touched and found that he was cold and a somewhat stiff, whereupon I ran screaming from the hospital room, much to the displeasure of the nurses.

The hospital (this one, which is hated by pretty much everybody for its confusing layout, unsuitable location and difficulties to access by car, yet the Bremen senate keeps pouring money into it instead of doing the smart thing and gradually relocating the specialty clinics to other, more modern and easily accessible hospitals) was seriously understaffed and on Sunday afternoon, there were only two nurses and one doctor on duty for a ward of at least twenty to twenty-five patients. A nurse claimed that she had been in my Dad’s room forty-five minutes before I found him and that he was still alive then. I definitely know that a neighbour visited him two hours earlier and said he’d been asleep but alive then.

This is all very difficult for me, not just because it happened so unexpected and so fast – and indeed, everybody I called was stunned at the news – but also because I have to deal with everything – funeral preparations, informing relatives and friends, dealing with legal and administrative issues – largely on my own, because I have no siblings and my Mom isn’t well enough to handle those things. A lot of neighbours, co-workers, friends, etc… offered me their help, but there are a lot of things only an immediate relative can do. The fact that Dad never really said how or where he wanted to be buried, what sort of music he wanted, etc… doesn’t help either. I have a decent idea of some things – that he wouldn’t want to spend too much money on a funeral and that he would prefer donations to his favourite charity to flowers – but for others, I have to guess or go with what works best for my Mom and me.

I posted about this on Twitter and BlueSky a few hours after it happened and the outpouring of condolences (in four different world religions), messages of sympathy, GIFs, personal stories, etc… as well e-mails and personal message and even the sympathy cards piling up on the kitchen counter was overwhelming and very comforting. Honestly, if you ever find yourself wondering whether “My sympathies for your loss” or something similar helps, believe me, it does.

There are not a lot of photos of my Dad, because neither I nor anybody else could get ever get him to look into the camera, but here are a few:

Here is Dad at Christmas last year, opening up a present.

Dad in his element, posing with several co-workers in front of a SEPCON unit, which cleans oil-contaminated water. Dad helped to design and build these systems, which are used by the German Federal disaster relief organisation THW and other agencies worldwide.

Because my Dad was a kid during WWII, there are not a lot of childhood photos of him. This is one of the very few that I have and shows him at approx. age ten.

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

Regular blogging will resume eventually. The review of the Foundation season 2 finale is definitely coming and was about three quarters finished, when life got in the way. I also have two con reports planned as well as more Masters of the Universe toy photo stories, because they give me joy. Not sure if I’ll do episode by episode reviews of season 2 of Loki.

Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for September 2023

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

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

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have urban fantasy, epic fantasy, cozy fantasy, sword and sorcery, paranormal romance, paranormal mystery, space opera, military science fiction, post-apoalyptic fiction, science fantasy, horror, dragons, werecats, fox shifters, bigfoot, starships, space pirates, mage queens, deadly dreams, reality bending dance clubs, crime-busting witches and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Never Wake: An Anthology of Dream Horror, edited by Kenneth W. Cain and Tim Meyer:

Have you ever wondered where we go when we dream? Why not let this breath-taking dream horror anthology guide you to worlds beyond the norm.

Since the beginning of time, people have argued the meaning of dreams. Are they symbolic visions that hold great meaning and personal significance? Are they portals into other worlds? Or are they just a series of random events our mind shows us when we fall asleep? Whatever the case, this much is true—the mind can be a scary place to venture, even for a few hours.

NEVER WAKE is an anthology of dream horror, bringing you several mind-bending tales of nightmares, hallucinations, and phantasmagoria from some of the hottest talent in horror fiction. But don’t worry—when you (wake up screaming) flip the last page, just remember to tell yourself, “It was only just a story…”

Unless it wasn’t.

Featuring an introduction from Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann and stories from: Cynthia Pelayo, Philip Fracassi, Gwendolyn Kiste, Eric LaRocca, Lee Murray, Todd Keisling, Laurel Hightower, and many more!

Where do we go when we dream?

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths

The Denverines: Ashes to Ashes by Declan Conner:

When everything climate survivalist Joe Cole holds dear in life is ripped from him, he will have to reclaim what he loves or die trying.

In a period of severe drought and near extinction of humanity, survivalist Jack Cole returns from scavenging to find his parents slaughtered, and Denverines soldiers have abducted his pregnant wife and child as birther stock for the citadel of Denver.

He vows to enter the citadel fortress of Denver to rescue them. But first he will have to overcome his own psychological demons, his lack of trust, and the bleak environment, in a journey filled with danger at every turn and to defeat the Denverines who have new orders. New communities are to be formed outside the citadels. To protect them, the president commands the Denverines to slaughter those on the outside with knowledge of the old ways of society.

When Jack teams up with and leads a group of exiles in his quest to rescue his family, if they fail, Jack’s failure will be a death sentence, not just for himself, but for all survivors in the wastelands.

Werecats Convergent by Mark J. Engels:

Defeated, conflicted, and on the run…

Born in an ethnic Chicago neighborhood following her family’s escape from Cold War-era Poland, were-lynx Pawly flees underground to protect her loved ones after genetically enhanced soldiers led by rogue scientist and rival werecat Mawro overrun her Navy unit in the Gulf of Oman. Pawly’s family seeks her out in a desperate gambit to return to their ancestral homeland and reconcile with their estranged kinsmen. But when her human lover arrives to thwart Mawro’s plan to weaponize their feral bloodlust, Pawly must face a daunting choice: preserve her family secrets and risk her lover’s life or chance her true nature driving him away forever.

Werecats Convergent is the second installment of the Forest Exiles Saga featuring the modern-day remnant of an ancient clan of werecats, torn apart as militaries on three continents vie to exploit their deadly talents. Stories which fans of Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson franchise and Brad Magnarella’s Blue Wolf series can sink their teeth into!

Galaxy Unstable by M.R. Forbes:

Left stranded, his starship’s life support failing, Caleb initiates a distress signal, hoping that help will arrive before his time is up. Only the response to his plea isn’t what he had in mind…

Assuming command of an infamous pirate vessel, Caleb sets his sights on shaping the unruly and unpredictable crew into a skilled fighting force. It won’t be easy, but if Caleb wants to prevent the Legion from cementing their tyrannical grip on the galaxy, he’ll need to knuckle up, double down, and risk everything to make it happen.

Poet’s Bane by Rachel Ford:

An ancient legend. A mysterious evil. And – the mead of poetry?

Liss Forlatt and Idun Wintermoon are on vacation at a beautiful villa retreat, a place as famous for its legendary beginnings as its year-round sunshine.

Technically, they’re the protection detail for the newly married jarl of Little Eerie and his wife. But in a place where rainclouds are the biggest threat on any given day, it might as well be a vacation.

Until a man winds up dead in connection with an ancient fable – the mead of poetry, the supposed font of divine inspiration that guides all poets and writers.

The pair must unravel fact from fiction, myth from history – and avoid the blade of a particularly nasty killer in the process.

The Earthfather by Chris Fox:

Our Sector is Gone

We’ve discovered Terra, but the cost is bitter. All that remains is the Vagrant Fleet, carrying the refugees from every world.

Earth is our only hope, but their leaders don’t even believe in magic. We also have to convince the earth flight protecting them that we’re not hostiles. Did I mention the dread fleet is right behind us led by a dark god who seems to have a real hate-boner for Xal’Aran?

If we’re going to win, then we must harness the most powerful Catalyst in existence, the Eye of Om. We must fulfill a prophecy millions of years in the making, and find a way to elevate Aran and Nara to the Aranara, guardian of the Eye.

Anything less means complete annihilation, and if we fail here then we lost not just our own universe, but every reality as the dark titan breaks free and shatters the Great Cycle.

I cannot let that happen. I will not. Prophecy can be solved like a riddle, and somehow, I am going to find a way to outsmart them all.

Simultaneous Times Volume 3, edited by Jean-Paul Garnier:

Space Cowboy Books Presents: Simultaneous Times Vol.3 Science Fiction Anthology. 16 wonderous stories of science fiction by authors from all over the world! From alien invasions to sentient planets to intergalactic species, this book has it all. Featuring stories from the two-time Hugo Award longlisted podcast Simultaneous Times, as well as stories appearing for the first time, this collection spans multiple generations of science fiction authors and covers a wide variety of SF styles and themes.

With stories by Jonathan Nevair, F. J. Bergmann, Brent A. Harris, Gideon Marcus, A. C. Wise, Tara Campbell, David Brin, Robin Rose Graves, Renan Bernardo, Christopher Ruocchio, Toshiya Kamei, Todd Sullivan, Susan Rukeyser, Ai Jiang, Cora Buhlert, Michael Butterworth. Cover art by Austin Hart. Edited by Jean-Paul L. Garnier

Of Moms and Monsters by Lily Harper Hart:

Maddie Graves-Winters is looking forward to a week of relaxation with her best friends. She had no idea a camping trip would be so stressful, however. She might have been picturing s’mores and ghost stories around the campfire, but the world has other plans.

Having her best friends Ivy Morgan-Harker, Harper Harlow-Monroe, and Rowan Gray-Davenport—as well as their husbands and children—around for a full week is her idea of bliss. There’s just one little problem.

Maddie doesn’t consider herself a suspicious person by nature, but when one of the college-aged girls at a nearby campsite goes missing—and nobody seems to care—she’s intrigued. Then, when a mother at a different campsite also appears to have disappeared in the middle of the night, she’s officially on the case.

Maddie and her friends can’t seem to help themselves from investigating. Their husbands are another story. They’re convinced the women are making things up in their heads.

Who will turn out to be right? And if it’s the women, what happens when they draw a potential killer’s attention to their campsite?
The group is strongest when they’re together. But this trip might be the death of one of them.

Dragon Soup by Patty Jansen:

Plain version; for the illustrated version, see the author’s website.

When Perrin was so desperate that he applied for a job with the Bureau of Magic Abuse, there were two things he didn’t realise. One, that he might actually get the job and two, that it would involve working with magic sniffers.

And what an annoyance the creatures are. They keep him up at night, need to feed on expensive fresh fruit and cause him embarrassment.

A new inn opens in town and patrons flock to it. Perrin checks it out for forbidden magic, finds none but something doesn’t add up. Is it the stranger, clearly a wizard, who makes little effort to cover up his illegal activities? Is it the owner of the new inn, who can’t possibly have accumulated enough money to buy the place? Or is it the unfailingly raving reviews?

Something fishy is going on, and his boss at the Bureau doesn’t even want him to investigate. But Perrin has never let that stop him.

Dark Park by Kathe Koja:

DARK FACTORY opened the doors to a reality-bending dance club, an online immersive portal, and the feeling that the whole world is on the brink of something new. DARK PARK takes you there.

DARK PARK follows visionary filmmaker Sergey Kendricks as he tracks Ari Regon and Felix the DJ through the fever and chaos of stardom and celebrity culture, while Max Caspar quests deeper into the unstable gaming landscape of Birds of Paradise: pursued and idolized by fans, acolytes, haters, and schemers, all dazed by beauty and searching for the end of the world.

DARK PARK is the encore to DARK FACTORY, Kathe Koja’s wholly original novel from Meerkat Press, that combines her award-winning writing and her skill directing immersive events, to create a story that unfolds on the page, online, and in the reader’s creative mind. www.Darkfactory.club

Crone Cold Dead by Amanda M. Lee:

Scout Randall’s life has taken more turns than she was ready for, and it’s a new dawn in Hawthorne Hollow.

Her parents have arrived on the scene, and it turns out, they’ve been hiding in the shadows for years waiting for her.

The prophecy that foretold her winning what should be an unwinnable war, has enemies crawling out of the woodwork.

And, worst of all, she’s grappling with the realization that one of her own has betrayed her.

It’s too much for Scout to deal with, which means that the snowmen popping up around town and acting like sentries are barely a blip. When Bigfoot joins the fray, however, Scout realizes trouble is afoot.

All Scout wants is a few weeks to catch her breath. That’s not in the cards. Her life is starting to spiral, and now that she knows who the enemy is, the only thing she’s certain of is that she doesn’t have the strength to fight him.

Hawthorne Hollow is a magical nexus, and all the players are lining up. The ultimate fight isn’t far away, so when new faces appear, it’s easy to question if they’re friend or foe.

Who will come out victorious?

Imperial Hijacker by Andrew Moriarty:

Fleeing a smashed rebellion and near execution by their supposed allies, Dirk, Gavin, Dena and Ana abandon Scruggs and Lee during battle. When local medical treatment isn’t enough, Lee surrenders to the Imperials and arranges to surrender to Devin’s ship to save Scruggs’s life. When a botched meet-up leaves them all in Devin’s custody and surrounded by his Marines, it looks like time’s up for our heroes. But Devin gets startling news, and it’s not what it says, but what it doesn’t that worries him. He has a proposal of his own for Dirk and company. They’ll get Scruggs and what they want, but they might have to change sides!

If you like Galactic Empires, honorable enemies, and snappy dialog, this one’s for you!

Bad Habits by Hollis Shiloh:

Jack and Cameron have a good thing going. Jack is a burned out reporter and Cam is a fox shifter who gives him tips. They also meet up to play pinball…and to have sex. It’s a nice arrangement, no messy feelings involved, no pressure that neither one of them needs.

Cam is frightened by the idea of falling in love—been there, done that, got the scars to show for it—and Jack’s last relationship ended in a painful breakup. But things have been changing lately.

When there’s only one guy in the world you really want, is it going to work to keep pretending it’s just casual?

Mage-Queen’s Thief by Glynn Stewart:

She’s supposed to find a husband.
He’s supposed to steal a shuttle.
They’re each other’s only hope.

Kiera Alexander is the Mage-Queen of Mars, ruler of a hundred worlds and the protector of humanity. She is also unmarried and in desperate need of an heir—a duty that has left her traveling the Core Worlds of the Martian Protectorate aboard the luxury liner Extravagant Voyage.

Her mission? Meeting every eligible bachelor Mage that can be found.

Barry Carpentier’s only interest in the Queen’s traveling show is the strange shuttle hidden aboard Extravagant Voyage. The unique spacecraft, the smallest jump-capable ship he’s ever heard of, is worth a small fortune to the right buyer.
Like the one sending him aboard Extravagant Voyage.

A thief doesn’t want to meet the Mage-Queen of Mars—but when a thief accidentally inserts himself into galactic politics, neither of their lives will continue unchanged…

Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for September 2023

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

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

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, small town mysteries, historical mysteries, Jazz Age mysteries, paranormal mysteries, crime thrillers, legal thrillers, conspiracy thrillers, adventure thrillers, romantic suspense, police officers, FBI agents, amateur sleuths, assassins, serial killers, missing persons, murdered tea shop owners, bigfoot crime-busting witches, crime-busting socialites, crime-busting journalists, murder and mayhem in London, Florida, California, Arizona, the Midwest and much more.

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

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

And now on to the books without further ado:

Murder With Money by Blythe Baker:

When Sylvia’s sister disappears unexpectedly, Sylvia doubts the official story. Joan wouldn’t run off to California to become a film star without first saying goodbye to her family. Clearly, she’s in some sort of danger and it’s up to Sylvia to find out what.

But can Sylvia set aside her doubts about her mysterious butler in order to enlist help from Miles when she needs it most?

 

Chocolate Dipped Intrigue by Beth Byers:

Long time friend of Violet Carlyle, that rogue Smith, and Jack Wakefield, Denny Lancaster is a devoted husband, a father to two, and an avid lover of crime. He’s also a little addicted to chocolate.

So he notices when things change at his favorite chocolate shop. Convinced something is amiss, Denny delves right in. This time on his own. And discovers that maybe the time has come for him to be the hero.

 

Josephine West and the Unexpected Corpse by Beth Byers and Ann Warren:

Josephine West is broken after losing her husband during the Great War. She spends her days writing nonsense articles for the local newspaper and evenings avoiding the suitors her mother pushes her way.

Then, Josephine discovers a dead body in beautiful Carmel-By-the-Sea, California. She’s determined to both be the one who solves the murder and the one who publishes the story. Can she do it when everyone would try to stop her? She thinks she can, and she’s sure no one else will beat her to the truth. The only question is whether the chase will put her at risk?

The Hunt for Thaddeus Murfee by John Ellsworth:

In the heart-pounding legal thriller “The Hunt for Thaddeus Murfee,” acclaimed author John Ellsworth introduces readers to the brilliant and resourceful attorney, Thaddeus Murfee, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he crosses paths with the cunning and dangerous criminal, Johnny Seventeen.

The story begins with a shocking incident—a bar room shouting match turns fatal when Johnny Seventeen pulls out a gun and shoots a man in cold blood. Arrested and charged with murder, Johnny hires Thaddeus Murfee, known for his unparalleled courtroom skills, to defend him against the charges. As the trial unfolds, tensions rise, and the truth becomes increasingly elusive. The first trial ends with a hung jury, leaving the case open for a second trial.

With the weight of Johnny Seventeen’s conviction hanging over him, Thaddeus discovers that the stakes are higher than he ever imagined. Johnny, consumed by a thirst for revenge, breaks out of jail and becomes a relentless predator, determined to track down and eliminate the one man standing between him and freedom: Thaddeus Murfee.

Forced to abandon his comfortable life and go on the run, Thaddeus finds himself in a race against time. As Johnny’s pursuit grows more relentless, Thaddeus must rely on his wit, legal acumen, and survival instincts to outmaneuver the relentless villain. With each passing moment, the line between justice and survival blurs, forcing Thaddeus to confront his own limits.

In “The Hunt for Thaddeus Murfee,” readers will be captivated by the intricate twists and turns of the legal world as they follow Thaddeus Murfee’s desperate struggle for survival. Packed with suspense, courtroom drama, and a gripping cat-and-mouse chase, this gripping legal thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.

Twisted by Maggie Giles:

Detective Ryan Boone thought the simple jewelry heist was an open-and-shut case. That is until he discovers an unknown drug, and this minor crime he was investigating may be tied to a string of seemingly unconnected murders.

Meanwhile, Mel Parker, unscrupulous leader of a less-than-legal high-end escort service, stumbles across the same pills. On top of protecting her “investment,” she has her own reasons for attempting to unravel the mystery behind the medication.

Ryan knows someone has the answers he seeks, and Mel can’t come forward. To complicate things further, five other women are implicated in the murders despite most having never met.

As the trail turns up as many mysteries as resolutions, Ryan and Mel must discover the twisted connection before someone else ends up dead.

Memories of the Falls by Elle Gray:

It’s summertime at the Falls, and this season revenge tastes even sweeter…

Sheriff Spenser Song thought she would get a much-needed break after aiding FBI agent Blake Wilder on an international trafficking ring.
Shortly upon her return to the Falls and to Ryker, the place is once again in an uproar.

When the town’s star athletes are found dead due to a drug overdose.
Once again, it’s up to Spenser with a bit of aid from Ryker to get to the bottom of the string of drug related deaths.

Mean girls, star athletes, and class clowns.
Leaving high school is easy, but the memories you make there will always stay with you.

Of Moms and Monsters by Lily Harper Hart:

Maddie Graves-Winters is looking forward to a week of relaxation with her best friends. She had no idea a camping trip would be so stressful, however. She might have been picturing s’mores and ghost stories around the campfire, but the world has other plans.

Having her best friends Ivy Morgan-Harker, Harper Harlow-Monroe, and Rowan Gray-Davenport—as well as their husbands and children—around for a full week is her idea of bliss. There’s just one little problem.

Maddie doesn’t consider herself a suspicious person by nature, but when one of the college-aged girls at a nearby campsite goes missing—and nobody seems to care—she’s intrigued. Then, when a mother at a different campsite also appears to have disappeared in the middle of the night, she’s officially on the case.

Maddie and her friends can’t seem to help themselves from investigating. Their husbands are another story. They’re convinced the women are making things up in their heads.

Who will turn out to be right? And if it’s the women, what happens when they draw a potential killer’s attention to their campsite?

The group is strongest when they’re together. But this trip might be the death of one of them.

Crone Cold Dead by Amanda M. Lee:

Scout Randall’s life has taken more turns than she was ready for, and it’s a new dawn in Hawthorne Hollow.

Her parents have arrived on the scene, and it turns out, they’ve been hiding in the shadows for years waiting for her.

The prophecy that foretold her winning what should be an unwinnable war, has enemies crawling out of the woodwork.

And, worst of all, she’s grappling with the realization that one of her own has betrayed her.

It’s too much for Scout to deal with, which means that the snowmen popping up around town and acting like sentries are barely a blip. When Bigfoot joins the fray, however, Scout realizes trouble is afoot.

All Scout wants is a few weeks to catch her breath. That’s not in the cards. Her life is starting to spiral, and now that she knows who the enemy is, the only thing she’s certain of is that she doesn’t have the strength to fight him.

Hawthorne Hollow is a magical nexus, and all the players are lining up. The ultimate fight isn’t far away, so when new faces appear, it’s easy to question if they’re friend or foe.

Who will come out victorious?

Press Releases & Puff Pieces by Amanda M. Lee:

Avery Shaw is looking forward to a quiet—but entertaining—day in court when a furious plaintiff takes off after losing what Avery believes to be one of the funniest cases she’s ever covered. Avery gives chase because she wants an interview, and her life is thrown into turmoil during the melee that follows.

Alice Wendell likes to sue people. She’s made a name for herself suing neighbors, police officers, dogs, and even dates. That’s why, when a car is aimed at her in downtown Mount Clemens, it’s not exactly a surprise. The ensuing explosion is, however, and Avery is there for the unfortunate aftermath.

When she wakes in the hospital following a serious head injury, she finds Alice is dead…and maybe not from the blast that took out the clocktower downtown.

Once back on her feet, Avery is determined to chase the case. Her boss, husband, and the very annoyed sheriff in charge of the death investigation have other plans…and they involve Avery being pushed to the puff piece beat until she’s no longer shaky from the explosion.

Avery Shaw is not going down without a fight, however. She’s determined to get to the bottom of things, even if she dies in the process.

There’s something hinky going on at the biggest hospital in the county, and Avery won’t stop until she knows exactly what that something is. That puts a target on her back, and the individual aiming at that target just might have the upper hand.

It’s a fight to the finish for Macomb County’s favorite reporter. Will she survive to claim yet another win, or is this finally the end for Avery Shaw?

The Deadly Deal by J. Lee:

David Centrelli is a junior business development executive at a pharmaceutical company in Richmond with no military training or criminal record whatsoever…but an innocent knock on the door one typical Monday morning changes his life forever.

Thrust into a world of unbelievable accusations, outrageous claims and danger he’s only seen in the movies, he’s told that his best friend’s death two weeks earlier was no accident, and that his buddy has a message for him from the grave. As skeptical as he is, clues far too specific to be coincidental keep coming, and soon his own home is engulfed in flames. When the perpetrator contacts him, he learns that not only are the accusations legitimate, but that people trained to eliminate problems have labeled him one.

Blackmailed by decisions he made years ago, informed that his brother has been kidnapped, and threatened with a future not even his worst nightmare could imagine, the temptation to give up what he knows and disappear into affluent anonymity grows stronger by the second…until he learns that millions of lives depend on him trying to do the right thing. But can this ordinary businessman really escape death from experts trained to administer it and prevent a colossal calamity already set in motion by the highest levels of government.

Behind the Mask by A.J. Rivers:

Every small town has its secrets.
This secret is worth taking lives for…

After saving Molly from a trafficking ring and reuniting with her mother, FBI agent Ava James feels as though she has found true happiness.
While having a family dinner Ava receives a call from an old friend, with some bad news.

Every Halloween, teen girls from the rural Vermont town are going missing.
Each year more than the last.
Did the teens simply run away from home? Or is something far more sinister at play?

With no bodies to be found, it seems as though the teens simply just vanished.
At her friends urging and with only 11 days until Hollow’s Eve, Ava goes to Pine Bend, Vermont to investigate the disappearances.

Phantom serial killer, smugglers, weird Wicca club, and annoying youth groups.
Pine Bend is a town full of weirdos.
And behind a mask, anyone can hide in plain sight.

A Seller’s Market by Wayne Stinnett:

Six months out of high school and just days after finishing Marine boot camp, Jesse McDermitt is finally ready to unwind and have a little fun when he goes home on leave.

But everything Jesse remembers—his friends, his family, the sparkling beaches and familiar waters of the Caloosahatchee River and Pine Island Sound, even his faithful Lab, Molly, have all changed.

Only when he reunites with a boot camp buddy to explore the reefs of the Florida Keys and the oddly relaxing shallows of the backcountry does Jesse finally understand that it was he, himself, who had changed.

The two young men, enjoying life in paradise while on boot camp leave, soon find out that there are still pirates in those tropical waters. Only their galleons and corsairs have been replaced with offshore racing boats and motorcycles.

Arrest the Alibi by Anne R. Tan:

My name is Cedar Woods, and I am a recovering ostrich. I have the unfortunate habit of burying my head in the sand. Newly divorced and penniless, I am cleaning my friends’ fancy McMansions to make ends meet while lawyering up for a financial audit on my ex-husband’s tech company.

When my Aunt Coco fell and broke her hip, I hightailed back to Mirror Falls. But things took a bizarre turn when I found out my Chinese aunt thought her new corgi was her husband’s reincarnated spirit, and she took the dog’s financial advice to invest her retirement money into a tea shop. Is she losing her mind, or am I being punished by my ancestors?

To make matters worse, a rival shop owner turns up dead, and Aunt Coco becomes the prime suspect. With the help of newfound friends, I must shift through the town’s secrets to exonerate my aunt and prepare the tea shop for its grand opening. But with a vicious murderer on the loose, I might be in over my head. Can I catch the killer before someone else gets hurt? Will I find the home I spent my entire life searching for?

This humorous cozy mystery will charm readers with its endearing characters, heartwarming family relationships, and an intriguing whodunit that will keep readers guessing until the end. Don’t miss out on the fun. Grab your copy now.

The Girl Who Found Joy by Amy Vasant:

Mason and Shee travel to Palm Beach to hunt a killer the FBI has nicknamed “Portia”—a type of spider more clever than a black widow. Portia finds a victim and someone to frame for his murder before disappearing with the money—the perfect crime.

Shee befriends their target but plans quickly unravel. A man stabbed to death, mysterious messages, a body washed ashore—all of it a little crazy to fit Portia’s style…

Do they have the wrong killer, or is this another of Portia’s tricks?

Shee and Mason must tap the Loggerhead crew to unravel the crime, but Portia’s web only grows more twisted…and deadly.

Foundation travels “Long Ago, Not Far Away” and blows up its own premise

Season 2 of Foundation is currently streaming, so I’m doing episode by episode reviews again. For my takes on previous episodes, go here.

Warning! There will be spoilers under the cut!

“Long Ago, Not Far Away” was a really good episode of Foundation. Well, at least ninety-five percent of it were really good. Unfortunately, the last five minutes or so not only ruined the episode, but the entire series.

But first things first. The episode begins with Cleon I or rather his hologram recounting the story of Demerzel and of how Cleon found her to Dusk a.k.a. Cleon XVI and Rue, who stumbled upon a secret room in the palace last episode.

We get a flashback to Cleon I as a young prince, son of the Empress and her consort. I don’t think the kid that plays young Cleon is the same kid that played young Dawn in the first two episodes of the series, which seems like an oversight. One day, while playing, little Cleon stumbles upon the hidden staircase and the hidden chamber, where he finds Demerzel, sliced into pieces and held in stasis. At first, he thinks she’s a display piece or statue, but Demerzel begins to speak. First she asks little Cleon to set her free and then, once she realises he’s a child, Demerzel promises Cleon to tell him stories, because she knows a lot of them.

Cleon never tells his parents about his encounter with Demerzel, but he keeps coming back for more stories about robots and humans, about the Empire and Earth. There’s a time jump and Cleon is a young man, now played by Cassian Bilton, who plays Dawn. His mother, the Empress, has just died and he will succeed her, but his advisers won’t let him out of their sight and Cleon is afraid he won’t be able to visit Demerzel anymore. Demerzel tells Cleon that he is the Emperor now and can do whatever he wants. She also tells him that she has been a general and has seen many things and would make a great adviser, if Cleon were only to let her go, but Cleon won’t have any of it. He still keeps on visiting.

There’s another time jump and Cleon is now middle-aged, played by Lee Pace. He finally deactivates the stasis mechanism and puts Demerzel back together, but he still keeps her imprisoned behind a force field, because she is a potentially dangerous robot. He also brings her clothes, so she won’t have to be naked anymore.

During Cleon’s meetings with Demerzel, we learn a bit more about her. She is eighteen thousand years old or was at the time of Cleon I and has been imprisoned for five thousand years. She uses the name Demerzel, because she has a female body now, but she had a different name and body once. I guess we all know what it was – she was called R. Daneel Olivaw once and had a male body. The one who imprisoned Demerzel was a former Emperor who was both fascinated by Demerzel and wanted to figure out how she worked, so he could build more robots (apparently, the Empire had already lost that ability by that point), and also delighted in torturing her. After he died, he kept her imprisoned and eventually forgotten, until little Cleon stumbled upon her.

Does any of this fit in with Daneel/Demerzel’s history in the books? Well, obviously there was no robot uprising in the books, because Asimovian robots do not rebel due to being bound by the Three Laws of Robotics. And no, the Three Laws cannot be switched off or altered as easily as they are here. But otherwise, this version of Daneel/Demerzel’s history does not explicitly contradict the books, because we simply never learn what R. Daneel Olivaw did between gaining telepathic abilities and appointing himself protector of the humanity at the end of Robots and Empire and when he pops up again on Trantor in the double role of Eto Demerzel, First Minister to Cleon I (who is male in the books), and journalist Chetter Humin thousands of years later. And what we learn about Daneel/Demerzel’s origin does match the books, as the Stars End podcast and Paul Levinson both point out.

Fast forward once again and Cleon is an older man, now played by Terrance Mann, who plays Dusk. Demerzel asks Cleon about his impending marriage, but he tells her that he called it off, because he only wants one woman in the universe, namely Demerzel. Demerzel tells him that he needs an heir and that she can’t provide that, but Cleon has a solution for that problem as well, namely the genetic dynasty.

Cleon finally lets Demerzel out of her forcefield cage. He asks her if robots had to obey certain laws and if the first law was that a robot must not harm a human. Demerzel replies that this was so. Before she can do anything more, Cleon installs a patch in her positronic brain. Where in the galaxy he found someone who could program such a patch – Demerzel is the last robot, after all, and even five thousand years ago, humanity had lost the skills and knowledge to build robots – we don’t know? I guess the writers hope that we won’t wonder about this.

The patch forces Demerzel to obey Cleon and prevents her from harming him, though she can (and will) hurt other people. Demerzel tells Cleon that this isn’t freedom, but Cleon is oblivious to her distress and unhappiness and tells her that she will always be there right by his side, right by the throne, ruling the galaxy with him. Cleon even drops down to his knees to offer Demerzel a universe she never asked for and a role she does not really want. The various Cleon clones of the genetic dynasty will be their children. Of course, the memories of the Cleon clones must be edited, so they do not know what is going on. At any rate, Cleon I confirms what Dusk and Dawn figured out last episode – that the Cleons are just figureheads and Demerzel is the true ruler of the Empire.

Dusk is not at all thrilled at learning that he and his fellow Cleons have just been figureheads, but Rue reminds him that Demerzel’s Empire will be over along with the genetic dynasty, once Day marries Sareth. Of course, Cleon I, though dead and a hologram cannot let this happen. And since Dusk and Rue unwisely stepped into the forcefield cage, he just reactivates the forcefield, trapping them in a part of the palace no one else except for Demerzel (who is en route to Terminus with Day) even knows about. It’s quite possible that in a few centuries, once the Empire has fallen and Trantor is reduced to some peasants keeping cattle among the ruins and a bunch of telepathic nerds, someone will dig up the skeletal remains of Cleon and Rue.

Meanwhile on Ignis, Salvor Hardin has escaped from her telepath proof prison and she’s pissed. She heads for the temple, where Tellem Bond is about to reenact the end of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse with Gaal and knocks out a guard to steal his rifle. Then she storms the temple, where the mind transfer ceremony is about to reach its climax. Salvor uses the sonic devices that were used to cancel out her psychic abilities to knock out the Mentallics, grabs Gaal, who is already partially possessed by Tellem, and slaps her to drive out Tellem’s malevolent spirit. Then they make a run for the Beggar.

However, Salvor has only managed to knock out the Mentallics for a limited amount of time and once they recover, they set off in hot pursuit of Salvor and Gaal. Salvor tells Gaal to fire up the Beggar‘s systems, while she deals with the pursuers, chief among whom is Tellem’s right-hand man, the black guy with the scars who had tricked Salvor into believing he was her ex Hugo Crast before. This leads to a seemingly endless fight in the mud between Salvor and the scarred dude. And yes, that fight really does feel endless, especially since the episode cuts back to the mud wrestling several times, usually from scenes which are a lot more exciting than two people wrestling in the mud. Worse, scarred dude pulls the trick of appearing as Hugo and telling Salvor that he loves her several times. And Salvor falls for it again and again, hesitating at the crucial moment rather than taking out the scarred dude. This doesn’t really ring true, because Salvor is not stupid. And while she may have fallen for the Hugo trick once, after the first time, she’d know that “Hugo” was not real. Never mind that I also find it difficult to believe that Salvor loved Hugo so much, considering that she left him to travel 134 years into the future to search out a biological mother she’s never met at the end of season 1. The endless mud fight finally ends when Salvor lures the scarred dude into the Beggar’s airlock, seals it and vents the oxygen, suffocating him. And this time, she does not soften, when he turns into Hugo one last time.

Meanwhile, Gaal is firing up the Beggar‘s system, only to find herself faced with a very angry Tellem Bond. Tellem wants Gaal to surrender, because she still needs Gaal’s body, and uses her telekinesis to throw Gaal around the ship like a rag doll, while random consoles explode. Tellem then enters Gaal’s mind to find her worst fears. At first, she appears as Gaal’s father who tells his daughter how very disappointed he is that she left Synnax and has forsaken their fundamentalist anti-science religion and removed the stones from her cheeks. Gaal screams that he is not her father and the scene changes to Gaal’s flash forward to the Mule’s conquest of Terminus and Salvor’s death. Tellem clearly wanted to use a traumatic memory (in this case of something that hasn’t yet happened) to break Gaal, but the strategy backfires, when Tellem looks into the eyes of the Mule and screams, knocking her and Gaal back into the real world. This would seem to prove that Tellem is not the Mule herself, but may well know who he is. Either that or the Mule just out-mentalliced Tellem.

Salvor has made it into the Beggar by now and there is some more fighting as Tellem uses her telekinetic powers to throw Salvor and Gaal around like rag dolls. Honestly, the fight on Ignis goes on way longer than it should, considering that there are much more exciting things happened elsewhere. And then Hari Seldon the Second shows up – proving that he’s neither dead nor a hologram – and proceeds to bash Tellem’s brains out with a log, a scene that Paul Levinson finds quite satisfying. And in many ways it is, because Tellem Bond was a terrible person and scary villainess for all her faux hippy dippy niceness. Is this the end of Tellem Bond? Time will tell. After all, it’s possible that she pulled a Mabuse and sent her spirit into a new host body.

However, the IMO most interesting part of the episode happens in and around Terminus. The Imperial fleet under the command of Bel Riose is in orbit around Terminus, while Day and Demerzel are en route to Terminus and Hober Mallow and Brother Constant are prisoners aboard Bel Riose’s flagship. Hober asks Constant which prison cell was nicer, the one on Trantor or the one aboard Bel Riose’s ship. Constant replies that the cell aboard the ship is much more cozy.

Bel Riose himself comes to see them and we get yet another variation of the debate between Bel Riose and Ducem Barr in “The Dead Hand/The General”. In fact, Bel Riose actually utters the words “the dead hand of Hari Seldon” on screen. Bel Riose also agress that the Empire will fall eventually, but not just yet. Constant, ever the true believer, points out that maybe the spirit of Hari Seldon brought Bel Riose to Terminus, so he could see the Foundation and what they’re capable of with his own eyes and be convinced that the Foundation has more to offer than the Empire. After all, this is how the Foundation conquered the various worlds – Anacreon, Thesbis, Smyrno, Askone – it now controls, namely without bloodshed. Personally, I think that Constant grossly overestimates the appeal of Terminus, which is still a largely barren frontier outpost at this point, albeit one with very impressive technology. That said, Constant is not wrong either, because the best course of action for Bel Riose would be to defect to the Foundation and throw Day out of the nearest airlock. However, since Bel Riose is very much a tragic figure, he won’t do the logical thing out of misplaced nobility and disloyalty. And yes, considering that the show is ignoring the books in pretty much every other way, I’d hoped that maybe they’d ignore the books in the case of Bel Riose and his ultimate fate, too. But I fear we’ll have no such luck.

Bel Riose’s interrogation of Hober Mallow and Brother Constant is cut short when he is informed that Brother Day has arrived with Demerzel and Poly Verisof in tow and is about to dock with the flagship. So Bel Riose heads to the bridge to meet Day and Demerzel. He tells Day that they could end this conflict peacefully, since the Empire has the bigger fleet and the upper hand. Day actually agrees and decides that being known as “the Cleon who chose peace” would look good in the history books. So he will personally travel down to Terminus himself to accept their surrender. Demerzel very much disagrees with this idea, but Day overrules her. Bel Riose’s crew scans the surface of Terminus and find that there is a lot of power being consumed inside a specific building that appears to be a church.

Meanwhile on Terminus, Director Sernak (who gets a first name in this episode, Sev), Councillor Jorane Sutt, Jaim Twer, who is the new warden since Hari Seldon disintegrated the last one, and a bunch of citizens are standing in the town square, looking up to the sky and the battleships in orbit around Terminus. So they are finally aware of what is happening. Sernak orders the bald man we’ve seen a few times in the Terminus scenes – apparently his name is Brigadier Manlio – to go aboard the Invictus, the Imperial battleship the Foundation appropriated at the end of season 1.

Day lands on Terminus and disembarks his shuttle with Demerzel and Poly Verisof in tow. He is met by Director Sernak and his staff. Day tells the director that they are returning Poly Verisof to the Foundation as a peace offering. Director Sernak asks Day and Demerzel to come into the Foundation’s government building a.k.a. the converted spaceship on which the colonists arrived on terminus 150 years before. However, Day doesn’t want to go there and instead points at the building with the enormous power consumption. “That’s a church”, Sernak says, somewhat disconcerted. However, Day insists on going there. After all, he is but a humble pilgrim and which god would deny him visiting a church. Because Day going on a pilgrimage for someone else’s religion was such a great idea the last time around.

It’s very clear that the Foundationers don’t want Day to go into the “church”, because – surprise – it’s not a church at all. It’s a factory where the Foundation manufactures all of its miracle technology. Though for some reason, the place doesn’t even look like a twenty-first century factory – where you’d see fewer humans and a lot more industrial robots – but like a mid twentieth century assembly line. In fact, the place could be a 1940s wartime factory full of riveting Rosies (which would be oddly appropriate, considering when the original Foundation stories were written) only that the workers are all wearing monk’s robes.

So Day learns what everybody else already knows. The Church of the Galactic Spirit is a sham, science and high-tech disguised as religion. To say that Day is not pleased would be an understatement. He rants and raves and demands to know whatever happened to the Encyclopaedia the Foundation was supposed to compile. Director Sernak replies that there is no Encyclopaedia and that the Foundation has widened its scope, but that they’re still working to preserve and develop technology for the welfare of humanity. This is of course completely correct, though the Encyclopaedia Galactica does get created in the books and provides the epigraphs for every story or chapter. However, it doesn’t convince Day and he rants and raves some more.

Poly Verisof tries to calm Day down by pointing out that yes, he and his fellow missionaries are putting on a show to convince the rubes, but the spirit is real and psychohistory is real and it is inspiring the Foundationers to create and build weapons and tech way beyond the Empire’s capabilities.

“Convince me”, Day replies, “Put on a show. Convert me.” So Poly does put on a show and we get to see a scene from the books that I didn’t expect to get to see anymore at this point in the season, namely the iron into gold transformation from “The Wedge” (based on a real experiment from 1941). Now that particular scene has always been a personal favourite of mine, because it’s very cool and also a perfect example of how the Foundationers dazzle and bamboozle everybody else with science, so I’m really glad we got to see that scene. The transmutation device Poly Verisof uses is that ever popular SF movie prop, an ice cream maker. I’m not sure why ice cream makers are such popular science fiction film props, probably because they’re readily available, yet not something everybody has in their kitchen, and look suitably futuristic. Though the iron into gold ice cream maker in Foundation might simply also be a Star Wars reference.

Poly Verisof succeeds, too – well, it is science – and transforms Director Sernak’s chain of office (if that’s what it is – it’s an ostentatiously big pendant, at any rate) into gold. Unlike the elders on Askone, Day is not overly impressed, probably because he has plenty of gold himself. “Alchemy”, he exclaims and tells Poly that the atomic ashtray was a better gift.

Then someone accidentally knocks over a box full of personal forceshield bracelets and Day gets utterly furious, because only the Emperors are allowed to use such technology and yet the Foundation is selling knock-offs to anybody who can pay. “We’re not selling them, we’re giving them away”, a female missionary points out, which makes Day even more furious, because how dare the Foundation just give away something that Day always viewed as his privilege? And so Day stabs Director Sernak and orders his soldiers to capture the scientists, shoot the priests and missionaries and bag up all the Foundation tech which Day feels should belong to the Empire.

While all this is happening on Terminus, up in orbit Bel Riose and his bridge crew get their first glimpse of the Invictus. Initially, they think it’s a quaint relic from the Empire’s past, but then they realise that the Invictus is fully operational, when it starts firing at the Imperial fleet. And the Invictus packs a lot of fire power. The Empire fires back, while the Invictus is joined by a fleet of Foundation whisper ships. “I thought they were supposed to be merchants”, Bel Riose exclaims and scrambles his own fighter squad, commanded by Glawen Curr. Bel Riose even hands his dog tags (they’re still using dog tags in the far future?) to Glawen Curr for good luck, even though that sort of thing never bodes well for a character. And so we get that most un-Asimovian of science fiction trops, a giant space battle.

Now there actually are space battles in the original Foundation stories – however, they take place off page. Just as space battles were actually pretty uncommon during the so-called golden age of science fiction – the modern space battle is a phenomenon of the 1970s. That said, modern audiences expect to see a space battle, when there is one, so I don’t mind those scenes. Though I do mind the outcome, because even though the show has done a lot of work to make us sympathise with the Imperial fleet, I’ll still always be on the side of the Foundation.

The Foundation initially has the upper hand due to their superior technology. However, Glawen Curr figures out that the brain activity the Imperial scanners are detecting at the rear of every Foundation ship is not a second crewmember, but the ship’s central computer using artificial brain tissue and directs his squad to concentrate fire there. And so the Foundation whisper ships are destroyed one by one.

The Imperial fleet then concentrates its fire on the Invictus. Glawen Curr pulls a Star Wars style trench run and manages to fatally wound the Invictus. However, he’s no Luke Skywalker and so his fighter craft spirals out of control towards the surface of Terminus.

Meanwhile, back on the surface of Terminus, Day has set his sights on the Vault and wants to go there. Demerzel doesn’t want him to, but is once more overruled. Frustration with Day seems to be Demerzel’s constant state in this episode. Meanwhile, Poly Verisof, who has miraculously escaped the order to mass murder Foundation priests and is still alive, warns Day that Hari Seldon has his defences. And indeed, I hoped that the Vault would incinerate Day. Alas, no such luck, even though Day takes off his personal forceshield and armour, running around only in a gilded chainmail shirt with nothing underneath. Ouch, that’s got to chafe.

So Day, Demerzel and Poly Verisof make their way to the Vault, passing the flags planted  around the Vault. Day asks what those flags mean and Poly replies that it’s a dare for the kids of Terminus. Then Day positions himself in front of the Vault and yells at Hari Seldon to come out and face him, only for Hari or rather his hologram to pop up behind him.

Hari invites Day and Demerzel into his study. It’s very clear that not only have Hari and Demerzel met, but that Hari knows what Demerzel is. And indeed, in Prelude to Foundation, Demerzel was the one who persuaded Hari to turn psychohistory into more than just a theory. Considering that this episode revealed that Demerzel has her own agenda, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same had happened in the TV series.

It’s also pretty obvious that Demerzel is the one Hari really wants to talk to and he actually addresses her though most of the discussion. Day is just there as an annoying appendix. Though Hari tries to persuade Day to call off the attack, because war between the Foundation and the Empire would only kill a whole lot of people, but wouldn’t change the outcome for the Empire in the long run. However, that’s very much not what Day wants to hear. Because Day is absolutely convinced that he has beaten Hari Seldon and his predictions of the fall of the Empire by abolishing the genetic dynasty and marrying Sareth.

Hari replies that outliers happen and are difficult to predict (foreshadowing the Mule?), but that Day isn’t one. And whether Day marries Sareth or not, it won’t change the fact that the Empire is destined to fall, though not yet. Indeed, it’s very typical of this Day that he focusses solely on Hari Seldon’s claim one hundred and fifty years ago that genetic dynasty means stagnation and eventual decay for the Empire, even though that was just one point in a long laundry list of things that are wrong with the Empire and clearly not the worst. Because the main problem with the Cleons is not that they’re clones, but that they are megalomaniac tyrants.

Hari also offers to show Demerzel how to operate the Prime Radiant, so Day can see the future for himself and can see when the Empire will fall. But once again, that’s not what Day wants. Instead, he wants Hari to admit that his math was flawed. And when Hari refuses to do that, Day leaves in a huff and orders Bel Riose to drop the stricken Invictus on Terminus. Bel Riose points out that a) crashing the Invictus onto Terminus would probabyl destroy the planet due to the Invictus’ singularity drive, and b) the overwhelming majority of people on Terminus are civilians and not a threat to the Empire. However, destroying Terminus is exactly what Day wants.

Day and Demerzel take a shuttle back to the Imperial flagship. Aboard, they happen to pass the cell where Hober Mallow and Brother Constant are still locked up. Hober calls Day “Yesterday”, which must sting, though it’s not the worst thing someone will say to Day in the course of this episode. Nonetheless, the damage is done. Day notices Hober and Constant and realises that Hober Mallow was the one who crashed Day’s execution ceremony – quite literally – and sicced a bishop’s claw on Day. “You smashed into my home and now I’ll smash into yours”, Day says and orders Hober and Constant to be taken to the bridge to get a balcony seat for Day’s final attack on Terminus.

While they’re heading for the bridge, Demerzel suddenly gets a message – likely triggered by Dusk and Rue stumbling into the hidden chamber in the palace. She tells Day that she must leave now, because there are matters she has to attend to. Day doesn’t want her to go, but Demerzel’s programming clearly supercedes Day’s commands. She reminds him that she sometimes has to take off on other errants and that she was away a lot on such other errants when Day was a child and that this is probably the reason why he turned out the way he did. Demerzel then tells Day that she initiated a sexual relationship with him, hoping that she could fix his flaws that way. However, Day is beyond fixing. Demerzel tells him that she is very sorry that she couldn’t help him and leaves. And that right there was the worst thing anybody said to Day during this episode, worse than Hari Seldon telling him that he’s not an outlier or particularly special and worse than Hober Mallow calling him “Yesterday”, though Hober certainly gets points for the most creative insult.

On the bridge, Day orders Bel Riose to fire at the stricken Invictus and cause her to crash into Terminus. Bel Riose clearly isn’t very happy with that, but orders are orders. Then, just before Bel Riose is about to give the order to fire, his shop receives a message from the surface of Terminus. It’s from Glawen Curr, who survived crashing his fighter on Terminus, but is now stuck on the planet. Which is a problem, not just because the Foundationers likely aren’t friendly inclined towards the man who shot down several of their ships and fatally wounded the Invictus, but also because the Invictus is about to crash on his head.

Bel Riose tells Glawen Curr that he just received an order from Day to crash the Invictus into Terminus. Glawen tells him to go ahead and not defy Day’s order, because defying Day would mean severe consequences for Bel Riose and his crew and would make things worse for everybody in the Empire. He’s wrong, of course, because destroying Terminus and the Foundation will make things much worse for everybody, because it means ten thousand years of darkness rather than a thousand. Glawen Curr says that his little life doesn’t really matter in the big scheme of things. He then quotes the Bhagavad Gita, while a teary-eyed Bel Riose gives the order to fire on the Invictus and make her crash onto the planet below.

Leaving aside the fact that I find it a little hard to swallow that a galactic civilisation some twenty five years in the future, who don’t even remember the location of Earth, will remember the Bhagavad Gita of all things? Though they could do a lot worse, even with regard to mythic and religious texts. Regarding the Bhagavad Gita, is quoting it in western movies and TV shows a thing now, cause it also happens – with historical justification – in Oppenheimer. Finally, why does Glawen Curr refer to the prince and his charioteer, when they both have names, Arjuna and Krishna. Did the writers think that the audience does not know who Arjuna and Krishna are? But then people who don’t recognise the names are unlikely to know what the Bhagavad Gita is either. And in fact, I wasn’t sure which scene Glawen Curr was referring to, when he started talking about the prince and his charioteer – I read the Mahabharata a long time ago, when I was way too young for it, and didn’t offhand remember which part was the Bhagavad Gita – but when I realised he was talking about Prince Arjuna and Krishna, I immediately remembered which scene he meant.

But quibbles about Hindu epics aside, the entire scene between Bel Riose and Glawen Curr, though well acted and written, is also an excellent illustration of everything that’s wrong with the Foundation TV-series. Because much as I feel for the doomed couple Bel Riose and Glawen Curr, the Imperial fleet is about to destroy Terminus and the Foundation, the most important place and focus of the entire series and humanity’s last best hope against ten thousand years of darkness. That’s a terrible prospect and something that should have everybody on the edge of their seats. Yet the writers feel the need to use a doomed couple of Imperial soldiers to generate some emotional impact, even though the impending destruction of Terminus should already have more than enough emotional impact. It’s just like the flash forward scenes of The Mule expect us to care more about the potential death of Salvor Hardin than about The Mule, unstoppable conqueror of the universe who’ll sap your will and manipulate your mind, even as you try to kill him.

The main problem here is that the Foundation TV series simply focusses on the wrong parts of the story. Because in the books, the focus is very much on Terminus, even if the story takes us to Anacreon, Askone, Korell or Siwenna or even to Trantor. Terminus and the Foundation are the focus, they’re the people you’re supposed to sympathise with and root for. And I at least did. The TV series, on the other hand, spends so much time on the Empire – whether it’s the Cleons or Bel Riose – and on Ignis, Synnax as well as on characters like Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin, whose role in the story has passed, that Terminus isn’t as much the focus point as it should be. This is a persistent problem in the TV series and is notable in reviews from people who are not familiar with the books and care much more about the Cleons, Bel Riose and Glawen Curr or Salvor and Gaal than the story we should actually be caring about. Because in the show, Terminus often comes across as bland compared with the other settings.

As the Invictus descends towards Terminus, we see the inhabitants of Terminus City, look up at the sky in horror, including the severely wounded Director Sernak (Day isn’t very good at stabbing people) and his son. Glawen Curr also looks up at the sky in resignation and Poly Verisof finally places the little flag into the ground around Vault that he failed to place all the way back in the very first episode. Then the Invictus crashed into the planet almost directly above the Vault and we see what looks like Terminus breaking apart from the bridge of Bel Riose’s ship as well as the jumpship carrying Demerzel back to Trantor.

Is it possible that Terminus somehow survived a point-blank impact by a very large spaceship with a singularity drive? I guess it is and the Vault does have a forcefield, after all. And the Foundation capital could always relocate to  Anacreon or Thesbis or Smyrno. However, the final images of the episode looked damn final to me. And even if it’s not final, the Foundation just lost a big chunk of their political and scientific leadership.

Up to this point, I had generally enjoyed the episode, but the ending made me go, “What the hell! You bastards just blew up Terminus.” Because as I mentioned above, Terminus is the main focus and setting of the Foundation stories, even though they occasionally visit other worlds. And to just blow up Terminus is literally blowing up the entire story and its premise, because Terminus is the Foundation. I also have no idea why the writers chose to do something like that. Is it because Terminus is bland compared to Trantor or even Synnax or Ignis? Well, then make it fucking interesting.

For me, the biggest mystery about Foundation is how a show based on a beloved series of science fiction stories, with good writers, an excellent cast (many of whom I suspect are fans of the books, because we see a lot of very well known actors in small roles) and a huge budget can turn into such a complete and utter mess. Also, I wonder why Apple Plus bothered to buy the rights for Foundation, only to make something which only bares a very cursory resemblance to the original stories and often fails to understand the premise of Foundation.

And yes, I know that adapting the original stories as is would have been a nigh impossible task, because we are talking about almost eighty-years-old stories that are very dated in places and very talky and not all that cinematic. So yes, some changes would have been necessary, e.g. in 2023 the Foundation‘s superior technology clearly couldn’t be based in nuclear power and the almost entirely male cast of the first book wouldn’t have flown either. Nonetheless, an updated adaptation that still remains fairly faithful to the original stories would have been possible IMO. Cause only the first story “Foundation” a.k.a. “The Encyclopedists” is so talky that it would require a lot of changes. “Bridle and Saddle”, “The Wedge”, “The Big and the Little” and “The Dead Hand” all tell solid stories and would make for good TV, especially if the action scenes that often happen off-page were dramatised.

One more episode to go, so let’s see if the showrunners managed to salvage the series from the apparent destruction of Terminus. Though my review of the season finale will probably be delayed, because there is a lot going on in my life right now.