Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 42

Demons of the Past: Chapter 3

I'll post a couple more of these. Now when we left off, Our Hero had decided to think on a particular personal conundrum a bit...

 

 

 

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Chapter 3.
Varan:

"And that makes it three for three," I said with some satisfaction.

Diorre burst out laughing. "Okay, Sash, I'm well and truly beaten. Couldn't you have let me win just one?"

"I might have, if it hadn't been for the 'wussy Navy boy' bit. The pride of the service required I put a Guard in her place."

"Very impressive," a clear contralto voice said from behind us.

I was startled to see the Eönwyl there. "Thanks very much. How long were you watching?"

"Just the last target exchange. I hope I'm not intruding, but I wanted to get in some practice myself."

"What about –"

She anticipated the question. "Section Three's taken up with practice for the Fallday tournament, and there's a squad drilling in One. This is the only one open for general practice." Her voice was clear, crisp, precise – as defined and definitive as her looks.

I glanced at Diorre; she didn't seem ready to go yet, and neither was I. And there was a certain discussion we might, or might not, continue. Still, this was a public area, and …"It's not like there isn't space for a lot more. You want to join us?"

"Well… if it's not a great bother."

Diorre shook her head. "No, it's fine. Triples?"

"You're using slugthrowers?"

"We were last round, but if you prefer energy – what's your pleasure?" I switched on the coding screen, set up a Triples Contest round.

"I was going to use my own pistol. It's a customized Toknul-5."

"You're kidding". Diorre's tone echoed my thoughts. "That's a rannai. I thought those were pure military and enforcement issue."

"Free traders like me run into… difficulties. The Empire will sometimes allow for that." The Eönwyl began checking her weapon; the Toknul was a beautiful design, smooth and streamlined, crystal highlights picked out on a mostly black background with a three-jewel status indicator.

I shook my head in bemusement as I readjusted the target parameters and got out my own service pistol, a Madaran .500F, solid and Mada-standard issue for heavy sidearms for the past ten years. Both it and the Eönwyl's Toknul were rannai – a name that originally meant something like "dragon's breath" – weapons that fired plasma packets jacketed in dimensionally-stabilized electromagnetic fields that only slowly decayed ("slowly" being a relative factor) until and unless they hit some solid surface or a strong electromagnetic or dimensional generator field. Against unshielded targets they were devastating, and even shielded ones could be worn down by a barrage. Larger versions formed the basis of a lot of space-based weaponry.

Diorre snapped her fingers in dismissal. "Fine, use your overkill. I think I'll use my Nova."

"You'll lose this round for sure then," I warned her.

"I know that, but it's more challenging and I'm already buying the drinks anyway. I can't penetrate targets set for rannai fire with the Nova unless I get the focus close to maximum effectiveness, so I have to be a lot more accurate."

"You both ready?" the Eönwyl inquired.

"Whenever you are."

"Trigger sequence in three, two, one…"

In the first exchange of shots I knew I was in for a hell of a contest. Jearsen's bounced off her target – she had red – three times before she managed to get the right combination of aim and pressure to blow through the shield. But the Eönwyl 's target seemed to explode barely after it left the launch slot, clearly ahead of my own shot. The next exchange the Eönwyl again fired before I did, but she missed her target with the first shot and I didn't. She did nail it well with the second, but by then I was on my third target. "Nice," she said, shattering her third so quickly that I swore she must have been lining the shot up before it was even visible. Jearsen had just killed her second.

"You too," I returned, as I detonated my fourth. A chip from my target caromed into her fourth, and she missed it with another incredibly fast shot and had to line up again.

The rapid-fire Triples duel continued, Diorre trying her best but falling behind and the Eönwyl and me trading the lead with almost every launch. The targets came from randomly-chosen slots and you had to shoot only your own target or you lost a point.

The Eönwyl was fast, faster than anyone I'd ever seen on the first draw. I wasn't even sure that a Ptilian warrior would outpull her on the first shot. Her second shots she had to judge more, though – if she missed on the first I always beat her out. What I lacked in that preternatural speed I made up for in accuracy – I didn't miss one in the whole thirty-target sequence. Admittedly, that was good even for me, but I didn't mind a little luck.

The mysterious trader put her gun down to cool and offered me a bow-and-palm, which I accepted. "Impressive, Commander. Really quite amazingly impressive. And you too, Sergeant," she said, as Jearsen finished. "You couldn't keep up with that weapon, as you knew, but I think you managed to destroy almost every target. A skip-laser against shield-hardened targets… that's good work. I could get jobs for both of you, if you're ever looking."

I accepted the compliment. "Thanks. But I think I have the best job in the Galaxy already."

She nodded, but her noncomittal expression showed that she probably didn't agree. "Perhaps slugthrowers this time?"

"Sure." As we changed setup again, I glanced over. "Mind if I ask you something?"

"Yes, it is my real name. And that of my ship. No, I won't confirm or deny anything about where I came from. It is natural and no, no one else in my family has hair like that, I don't know why. It's not an Atlantaean vessel, that's silly; it is definitely non-standard though, and the hull is pre-Imperial, and that's all anyone's going to know about her without either buying her or tearing her from my dead hands, which you will find very difficult to arrange. Not anything, but I am quite flexible in what I will take as a mission. Seventeen, ten privateers, one Marjaav patrol boat, three Zchoradan Swarm patrol fighter-boarders, one Uralian troop-carrier, a security cruiser for Wissalat Enterprises, and one that I never could identify and didn't stick around to pick up the pieces of. Three contracts that I know of, and six freelancers are dead so far trying to collect. Is your question covered in any of those?"She reeled off the list with a weary practiced air that still held a note of amusement.

"Well, some of my questions are," I said mildly.

"Well, in that case, yes, go ahead. I don't guarantee answers." She smiled, brilliant blue eyes twinkling at me as if to say really, I'm not quite that snappy.

"Do you have something against the Navy? No offense."

She locked in a clip, seeming to consider her answer. "Yes, and no. As a group of people doing their job, I don't, really. I don't like particular jobs they do, or the overall organization that they're responsible to."

"But you'll do jobs for the Empire yourself, or so I've heard."

Jearsen set the target parameters and sequence for another Triple, but I could tell she was listening.

"Certainly, but unlike you – or the Guards – I get to choose those jobs. I don't have to do something that I think isn't wise, proper, or legal. And yes, I do think that the Empire does things that may be all three. I have personal experience."

"What? If you know of a violation by any official, you should report it and get it redressed. You're talking as if just being in the Service is going to eventually put me in the position of being a criminal or something."

"It hasn't yet?"

Jearsen triggered the sequence, and I was so confused by the Eönwyl 's question that I missed the first two targets and was playing catch-up with both women. "What in Torline's Name are you talking about? Of course not! The Mada Oath specifically commands… damn, that one spun tricky…commands that all of us consider the demands of our consciences and the law, not disregard them just because someone gives us an order."

She seemed, surprisingly, a bit quieted by that. Several target exchanges came and went, and I managed to narrow the lead by one target. Diorre, now that she was using an evenly-matched weapon, was doing very good, staying almost even despite the trader's still-incredible reaction speed. "And there aren't any people who would ignore that Oath?"

It was my turn to pause a bit, and almost miss another target in the bargain. "A few spoiling kuma in the case, sure. But they get caught, and when they get caught they get kicked out, jailed, or shot, depending on just how bad they'd gone."

I wasn't sure I liked the faint smile I caught at the corner of her mouth, but it faded and she didn't say anything until the Triple finished – with her and Jearsen just a split-second apart, and me far in the rear – I'd dropped back one more from the distractions.

"And those spoiling kuma, so to speak, never get high enough to keep from being picked off?"

I definitely didn't like the smile this time. "Never," I said emphatically, and to prove how focused I was I took out the next two targets faster than she could even with that preternatural speed. "That might happen – does happen – in other star nations, and even on individual planetary governments. But the Imperial system's too big, and too balanced. Look at how it's set up. You have the main Imperial government – the Emperor above everyone, of course, but then the Services – Guardsman and the Navy, with divisions of each for the exploration and to watch over and assist the local peacekeepers, down to individual planetary governments. Then there's the Families, whose job is to watch us and – especially at the level of the Five – can automatically force publicity onto the entire system, overriding any codes if necessary. They come from the civilian side – though some of them do take shifts in the military."

She'd passed me and Jearsen had almost caught up, so I paused to give myself some breathing room. "The Five, the Greater Families, and the Lesser Families, all chosen from the best and brightest for centuries… and then you have the Monitors, who are conditioned to follow the law – voluntarily, like my friend Frankel who happens to be the Monitor for this station. They can't break the law, and they can't let people slide for anything except the most minor infractions. And believe me, I've seen people try. They have the power to investigate anyone if they can get the local authorities to approve it – and if someone doesn't approve, they'd better have a good reason.

"And there's all the other interconnections, checks and balances… no, Eonwyl. The Empire's made up of people, yes, and some of those people go bad, yes, but there's no way for the worst of them to get to the top. Even if one of them did, the others would catch him pretty quick. We might not hear about it, I admit… but they'd deal with it." I looked at her directly as I shot my last target just from what I saw out of the corner of my eye. "You should know I actually know people in the Families, too. So I know something about what they're like."

She nodded, conceding at least that this wasn't an argument worth continuing. "Well, Commander, Sergeant First, it's been a very interesting session. I think I was intruding, however, and perhaps one of the other ranges has opened up." She smiled, this time a quick but friendly flash of white without a trace of irony or cynicism. "I'm sure we'll meet again. Thank you."

After she left, I shook my head. "That was interesting. She's definitely pretty strange. Sometimes sounded almost treasonous."

"It's not treason to dislike the Empire, Sasham."

"No, no, but … oh, never mind. I just don't like seeing someone going off who's clearly so sour on it for some personal reason."

She laughed. "Because your family has been Mada for time out of mind."

"Since before the Fall."

"You're crazy, you know that? Thousands of years ago. Before the Empire as we know it was founded. You want me to believe your family was serving continuously for that long, and you remember it? There's tradition, and then there's religion."

"Okay, I'm crazy, but that's what our tradition says. And speaking of crazy… I was thinking about yesterday." I wanted to get to that subject before I lost the courage.

"Oh…. So was I." She looked… shy, which was almost silly, what with her being several centimeters taller and older both.

"Well…"

"Umm…"

I suddenly found myself laughing. "Listen to us, for Torline's sake! You'd think we were two kids again, not even sure what we were asking!" I took her hand between mine. "Diorre, I think we're strong enough to keep what we have no matter what."

"Of course we are," she said, laughing too. "So maybe we should see what else there is." She pulled me to her.

I'll always think of target ranges as romantic.

 

 

 

 

Teaser Chapter: Demons of the Past, Chapter 2

I posted the Prologue and Chapter 1 of Demons of the Past a while ago. As I'm in the middle of a crunch period and don't have much time to write other columns of interest (and one I DO want to write will be very long), I'll continue with a couple more sample chapters. Like The Stuff of Legend, Demons of the Past is with my agent Marisa Corvisiero and, hopefully, will get a bite soon.

If you haven't read those prior chapters, go take a look before reading this one!

 

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Chapter 2.
Jearsen:

She looked fondly at Varan. He hasn't changed a bit.

Perhaps in pure matter of fact that wasn't exactly true, but she was hard-put to find a difference. The Mada officer's hair was still pure black (slightly matted with damp after their sparring session and the subsequent quick shower), his skin still the dusky brown, and his wide, uniquely gray eyes still as direct and, well, innocent as ever. Maybe there were a few little lines at the corners of those eyes that hadn't been there back when she'd met him in the Winter Survival camp on Wyllas, a slight increase in the width of shoulders and mass of muscle on his lean frame, but all in all, he didn't look as though twenty years had done much to him. Admittedly, twenty years wasn't all that long – anyone in a decent civilization could expect at least a couple hundred – but she knew very few people who passed that length of time without any significant change.

They touched glasses and then exchanged them. "A friendship renewed and returned." Both drank – Varan had selected Seele's Icedraught for the traditional toast, and it blazed a trail of burning frostbite down her throat. "Whew! That tastes the way an open tentflap felt on Wyllas."

"That's the idea. We're here to reminisce and talk over all the stuff we never get to talk about. Though I think we've rehashed that particular one often enough."

"What, are you saying you're getting tired of talking about how we saved Taelin Mel'Tasne's life?"

"Well, to you, yes. It's not like I could surprise you with it, and it's a lot more fun when Taelin's here to start the conversation. Besides, then it's inevitably followed up by how you saved my life, or at least an awful lot of my bones from being broken by that tzil Morno, and then we run through the other various ways in which we helped each other, we talk about Canta and how that was such a surprising change –"

"Oh, speaking of Master Guardsman Remin Canta, have you heard?"

"Heard what? Last time I got to talk to him at all was about four years ago."

She nodded in understanding. With it taking six months for a message to cross the Empire in many cases, it wasn't hard to fall out of touch with even a pretty good friend like Canta. "He's got himself a command, finally."

Varan's face seemed to light up. "It's about time! Where?"

"Bretanisith – he's got the entire Assault Guards force."

"I think I'm jealous. Guarding one of the major vacation paradises in the Empire. There's a cushy assignment."

"After his last few, I think he's earned one."

The dark-haired head nodded emphatically. "I can't agree with you more. He could have retired after that last one, but he came back; glad they've given him a bit of a plum assignment."

"So," she said, as their meals were brought out, "what about you? We didn't get much chance to talk the last time – I don't even think you gave me the whole scoop about what you did during the last war."

A faint darkening of the already dark cheeks showed Sasham Varan's usual reaction to being asked to talk about himself; aside from silly showoff stunts like the one that he did when he arrived, Sasham usually seemed more interested in talking about others than drawing attention to himself, which was probably why most people let him get away with the silly showoff stunts in the first place. "Well, I guess the best way to put it is that I visited Uralia twice."

She felt her eyebrows rise involuntarily at that. "Twice?"

"I was one of the liasons with the Ptial, so when they did that thunderstrike maneuver straight to the homeworld they dragged me along for the ride. Then…"

"Vorces, let me guess – the Ghek'Nan."

She saw the dark face pale slightly and shudder. "Yes. You?"

"Only from a distance, worse the luck. I never got any close action, just bombardment."

The gray eyes held hers. "Don't complain; you were lucky. I don't know how I got out of there alive. More than half my flight …didn't. The pictures don't do the things justice."

There was actual fear in his voice; that stunned Diorre momentarily. Oh, she remembered hearing him afraid, but only when something happened. Afterward was after for Sasham Varan; he didn't dwell on the past or let it bother him. "Sasham, sounds like it kinda got to you. I mean, I'd heard some stories, but not from anyone I knew."

He leaned back, thinking, eyes distant. "Maybe it's because I'd seen Uralia before. Okay, it was being bombarded and the Uralians themselves were never particularly fancy in their civilization, but … it was still something a sane creature would live in. This… this looked like the worst nightmares of some psi-fried chiller scripter. The Ghek'Nan seem to radiate fear; there's just something, I dunno, horrid about them that pictures don't get across."

"Psionic?"

He gave a short laugh. "Oh, no. You can bet the Monitors and civilian science corps were all over that, to make sure. Torline's Swords, the very idea of a Ghek'Nan with psi powers…" he shuddered.

Time to change the subject. "Speaking of old sword-swinging legends, you sure have been keeping in practice."

He grinned at the compliment. "I had good teachers, including a certain tutor when I was at Wyllas named, um… Jearsen, I think the name was." He gave her a Six-and-One. "And you haven't fallen behind yet. Neither of us fulfilled the tale we tried to tell on that match, but you got me two of three."

"You're probably better than I am, Sasham."

"Oh, really? Then why was I the one bowing out of the ring two of three?"

"You don't take it seriously." She held up her hand before her friend could begin to argue. "I don't mean that you don't take the art seriously – Gods, no – but that you don't take the fight seriously. You don't take joy in beating the living hell out of someone even with the safety fields and gear, you're just out there to have some fun. Unlike me or Canta or Helkoth, who find some of the fun in showing we can beat the living hell out of someone. Your inner killer doesn't come out to play; he only comes out when …" her voice softened, "… when other people need him." She saw him give an embarrassed shrug. "I think if you want to know what you can really do, you'll have to be in a real fight, not just a mat-contest."

Sasham seemed to consider it. "You might be right, I guess. But in that case I guess I'll keep getting my rear end kicked around the mat-ring by you for the next few years. Better than getting in another real fight. Those get people killed."

"That is worth a drink to." They tapped and exchanged glasses again and grinned at each other. The shared smile cut off as the sharp whistle of Perimeter Alert snapped them both to attention. The entire restaurant went silent and watchful. Minutes ticked by sluggishly. Finally the cheerful chime signifying Vessel Identified rang, and conversations put on hold slowly fumbled their way back to normalcy. Diorre slowly sank back into her seat, letting out her breath. "Every time I hear that, I'm sure it's going to go to Enemy Approaching."

"Not surprising, what with how close we are to the border and all." Varan gave the almost-crossed-arms, close-eyed bow of the Believer to the air, murmuring a traditional prayer of thanks to Torline and Niaadea that it was, in fact, just a false alarm.

Diorre couldn't quite repress her fond smile at that familiar, and so very Varan, gesture. Many of those who believed strongly in the legend, rather than just the traditions, of Atlantaea and its Eternal King and Queen, Torline and Niaadea, could get under her skin pretty easily – especially the Repentants, those who believed that the mythical collapse of the ancient galactic civilization had been due to some terrible failing on the part of humanity on the now-lost homeworld.

But Sasham Varan was one of the Seekers, who believed that the Fall of Atlantaea had been due to some mystical enemies – referred to in The Book of the Fall as demons – and that it was their destiny to seek out the homeworld and eventually confront the demons again, so that Atlantaea would be reborn. More importantly, Varan didn't push his beliefs, he simply lived them. They were as much a part of him as his hair and eyes, a tradition of faith handed down in his family for generations beyond count.

She grinned again as he opened his eyes. If all the Believers were like him, I'd almost wonder if there was something to it all.

He didn't seem to notice her glance, still thinking about the alarm. Varan shook his head ruefully. "You know, you'd think the Zchorada would just have let it drop, after we worked together so well during the Uralian Conflict and Ghek'Nan Extermination. It's not like we ever did anything to them they didn't do to us first."

Probably not, she thought – though she had occasionally heard rumors that, for instance, the colony world the Zchorada had attacked might originally have been theirs – but she had never seen any real proof of it. And there was no point in even starting a debate like that with Varan unless she had all the facts; he was one of the most completely patriotic men she knew, and for all the right reasons. She sighed and shook her head. "No telling why, I guess. And the Zchorada are well-known – even among their allies – for being stubborn and difficult to negotiate with."

Varan took another sip of his drink and grinned wryly. "Easier than Uralians. Did you know they basically couldn't surrender or retreat? Truth, swear it on the Towers. Even when they knew it was all up. At most they'd try to maneuver around to get a better strike angle or something. That's one piece of evidence in favor of their being artificial soldiers designed by some lunatic. Normal creatures don't act like that."

"No, I didn't know that. The Ptial aren't like that, right?"

"No, of course not. Though they've got their own… quirks. I don't know how they got such an advanced civilization when they still settle their governmental differences through honor combat."

"We fight duels too." Though it's frowned upon in many circles these days.

"Oh, sure, but it's lightyears different. They have personal honor duels, but they also have those kinds of contests for their leaders. It's like if someone didn't like the Emperor's policies, they could just challenge him to combat and, if they won, they'd be the Emperor."

Diorre blinked. She remembered, vaguely, hearing rumors to that effect, but they'd seemed so farfetched. "You've seen this?"

"Yes, I have. I was on Ptial for a couple years all told. It was… interesting." The way Varan paused it seemed that there was something he wasn't sure he wanted to discuss – or maybe regulations said he couldn't.

Okay, easy enough to change the subject. "So, now that you've done your inspection of Tangia, what do you think?"

He shifted courses easily, showing she'd judged right. "I think there's at least three major upgrades and changes we can make to the defenses and offenses of this station, and I know how we need to go about it. And –" he broke off, staring off slightly to the right of her shoulder.

She turned. While there were a lot of people in the restaurant, and quite a few in that direction, she didn't need to ask who Sasham Varan was staring at.

The young woman wasn't classically beautiful, although no one would ever call her plain, with even, sharp features seeming chiseled from the tanned flesh and a tall, slender body, trained and flexible, in a mostly-white skintight shipsuit. It was, however, her hair that drew the eye – a mane of hair that seemed to stand up of its own accord and with the colors of a sunburst – pure white just above the forehead, shading through yellow and orange to crimson and deep red, the red hair cascading down to the middle of her back. That hair added nearly fifteen centimeters to her already impressive height.

"That isn't…"

She nodded, somewhat annoyed by his distraction but understanding it. "Yes, that's the Eönwyl." She had, somehow, forgotten the stir that had happened a week ago when the mysterious trader and her eponymous vessel had arrived at the station. Ten years ago she'd appeared amid rumors, which grew into tales, and eventually into full-fledged mythology; by now some of them claimed her ship was an Old Atlantaean patrol vessel (even though, if true, it would have been claimed by the Imperial government so fast it would send shockwaves through empty space), or that she herself was a revived Old Atlantaean, and other similar nonsense. Still, the rumors probably served her well, and there wasn't much doubt she was a very competent trader and one who had protected herself well enough against pirates, border-raiders, and others.

She saw a flash of minor enlightenment on his face. "So she's the owner of that ship! I wondered who could possibly have a ship that looked like that." His face clouded. "What's she doing here? I thought she was on the Watch list, at least."

"You listen to too many rumors. She may not like officials, and have her own quirks, but when she does business, she's honest, fast, and she keeps her mouth shut. The Empire's even used her as a courier a couple times when they needed something sent fast but not by proper channels."

"Torline's Swords, she's younger than I thought. She can't be more than what, twenty-five?"

"Twenty-six, maybe. When she first showed up she was younger than you were when we met."

His eyes were still following the Eönwyl as she went to her table. "That must be a hell of a story, how she ended up the owner of a free trader's vessel at something like enlistment age."

"And no one knows the whole story. Just rumors. Now would you mind unsticking your eyeballs from her, or are you going to go over and ask her to take your measure privately?"

"Hey! I'm sorry. I was just curious. You don't usually get to see legends walking around a border station."

"No, no, I'm sorry, that was sharp of me." Very wierdly sharp of me, she thought. I sounded almost like…

The thought that followed seemed to be simultaneously the most outrageous thing she'd thought for years, and the most obviously true thing she'd ever thought. …almost like I was jealous.

"Diorre?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I was…"

"Distracted. Yeah, I noticed." Varan's gray eyes seemed fixed on hers with an unusual intensity. Oh vorces, I hope he didn't think… or what? What do I hope? "Funny, isn't it."

"What's funny? You're not smiling, either."

"I guess I mean odd, not funny. Strange. I was just thinking about how we first met. I was the only Mada trainee in the entire class, so you Guards made sure I got embarrassed from the start."

She sighed inwardly with relief, but was there maybe some disappointment? No. Not worth risking the best friendship I've had in twenty-odd years. "By making you orbit the entire table until you got the last chair left, and I started it, by cutting you off from the first chair." She wasn't entirely proud of that, but then she had been only twenty-one herself. "And then Helkoth made you the class brain because you came from Korealis and knew Arctic already like the back of your hand."

"And got me to embarrass Canta in that very first class. Oh yeah, I remember that. You have no idea how uncomfortable that was."

She laughed softly at the old story. "I think I do. But what's odd about it? Nothing we haven't discussed before."

"Well, it was right after that we got our room assignments, and then I had to face the fact I was rooming with the Guard that started the whole mess."

"Well, yeah. And? Sasham, I don't think it's ever taken you this long to get to whatever your point was."

The gray gaze dropped away, then returned. "Well, it's just funny; aside from thinking you looked like a perfect Guards' recruiting poster, I never thought about how you looked. I mean, not much, and not for long, we were too busy."

She found herself sitting very still.

"And… well, when you snapped at me for blanking to the Eönwyl 's interference, I suddenly looked at you and …" he took a deep breath, "… well, I wondered why I'd ever looked away."

That unknown danger she'd just backed off from was suddenly face-to-face with her. "Sash, I…" Falling Towers, Guard, that's an eloquent answer! Talk to him!

He saw the conflict. Or maybe just had the same conflict himself. "I don't want to risk what we already have, Diorre. But… I just never thought about whether we might be something more. And that's what was odd."

"Neither did I," she heard herself say. "Sasham, I don't want to risk that either. But I don't want to just avoid the idea. Gods, that would be stupid, if there's something more there. Maybe we just need to think about it. For a little while."

"That's … probably a good idea."

She tapped his glass, and they exchanged once more. The drink went more slowly, she staring into eyes the color of stormclouds and steel. "Yes… Yes, I think it is. Target practice tomorrow night? Range Two?"

He laughed, with notes of genuine amusement and relief mingling. "There I will most definitely whip you three times out of three."

"I'll take that as a 'yes, Diorre, please show me how a Guardsman can always outshoot a wussy Navy boy.' then."

"You are on, Sergeant Jearsen. And loser buys the drinks tomorrow."

"Done." She stood; this was the time to go, before that discussion resurfaced. She wasn't ready. And neither was he.

     Maybe tomorrow…

 

 

Teaser Chapter: The Stuff of Legend, Chapter 2

Figured I should at least let you see the end of that particular scene! If you're coming here for the first time, don't forget to first read the Prologue and then Chapter 1 before going on!

 

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Chapter 2.

     She was still in something of a state of shock, but she heard herself respond, "I… will have to think about it for a few minutes."

He looked suddenly chagrined. "Look at me, coming in here with a clear plan as to what I was going to say, and then messing it up already."

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Well, obviously you'll have to think about it. There's … a lot of issues. And I wanted to make sure you knew them up front. And I was going to talk about those first."

"It's not that, Mr… Legend," she said slowly, finally starting to come to grips with the situation. "I may realize the potential pitfalls better than you realize. But that's because of a rather personal set of events."

He waited, but she didn't elaborate; just leaned back and started thinking. Very personal, and my job isn't to discuss my personal life with you, just to decide if I can keep most of it out of the job.

There was nothing more personal than the death of your husband, and Samuel Hsui had died five years ago as a bystander in a battle between an inexperienced hero and a vicious empowered psychopath. The hero, named simply the Rat, had won, and – she did not hesitate to admit – had probably saved many lives by stopping the one calling himself Fenris; but in the battle three people had died, one of them her Samuel. His quick smile would never brighten her door again, his hands had never come back to pick up Yuki or touch her face, and she could not see one of these costumed heroes without – fairly or unfairly – feeling a moment of anger.

I'm also bitter because it was only a few months later that the Shelters started construction; Samuel would have lived if they'd already been in place. And the Shelters themselves couldn't have existed without the unique powers that had appeared; it was a combination of the group called the Five and one of the more secretive government organizations which had designed and built them, first in Albany (which had, for some reason, been the epicenter for the initial changes) and then in other cities around the world.

Seeing that she was lost in her own thoughts, Legend was wandering quietly around the room, looking at the pictures, certificates, and other things she had scattered around the office. She noted the way he moved, while somehow surrounded by that aura of power and impressiveness, carried also the nervousness of a new patient. He bent down and studied something on her desk, a faint smile crossing his face, then looking over to a picture tacked to the wall, a rough but painstakingly executed scene in the bright colors that were favored by small would-be artists everywhere.

"You have a fan at home, I see," he said quietly.

"You like having fans?" she asked. Yes, I'm always a therapist even when I haven't made up my mind.

"Those aren't my fans," he protested.

"Densetsu is an awfully obvious pastiche of Legend. The name even means 'legend', doesn't it?"

He looked embarrassed. "Well… yes, I can't argue that, given that they've hardly even tweaked the costume design. They actually asked me for permission to do the show."

And you gave it. Which would indicate … what? "You obviously didn't say no."

"Well, people would make some kind of show about us sooner or later. More than one, actually, as you probably know. I said yes, but on a few conditions. They had to keep Densetsu a hero. No temporary falls to the Dark Side, no Batman-esque antiheroics. But they also had to show him as a PERSON outside of the hero-antics."

She wanted to pursue that line of questioning, but now she was starting to act as a therapist and she hadn't even accepted him as a patient yet. "Can I ask how you chose me?"

He noticed the shift of conversation but didn't question it; one thing that was clear to her was that he was a very controlled man, one who liked to keep anyone from telling whether he was rattled or not. "Can I ask you if what we're saying is confidential?" he countered.

She considered briefly. "Yes, it is. Unless you tell me about something that I am required to report – which means generally suicidal tendencies or certain criminal activities, which shouldn't include anything you're likely to tell me."

He nodded. "I asked around my… peer group. While none of us – until now – have been going to anyone in our heroic identities, some of us have had issues we were seeing therapists for in our regular guises, for purely mundane problems. One of your old patients… highly recommended you."

It was suddenly blindingly obvious. "J--!" She stopped before actually saying the name. Jack Morriman. He mentioned his hobby often, and that it took time, and was dangerous, and somehow I'd decided he was probably a mountain-climber. He led me to that conclusion deliberately!

"Morriman, yes," he said with a grin. "Jack said that if you were everything he thought you were, as soon as I gave you the hint, you'd figure it out. You pass."

Do I? "I'm still trying to decide if I'm the right person for you, Legend."

He sat down quietly, but stiffly, nervously waiting for her decision, and she suddenly had an insight. The way he talks, moves, acts… the way I've seen him act on television… he's young. Very young, much younger than he looks.

That, really, was what decided her. That and the memory of the most important little voice in the world asking "You're going to help him?". A young man asking for help with what had to be an almost impossible problem. I can't let what happened to Samuel get in my way. That's not what he would have wanted. And it's certainly not what Yuki would want.

"All right, Legend. I'll take you as a client." He relaxed visibly. "I understand there are some risks inherent in this job; I will expect you to do everything possible to minimize those risks.

"In return, I will do my best to help you. Understand that therapy isn't a miracle. In the real end analysis, I, personally, can't help you. All I can do is help you to help yourself."

He nodded.

"Everything said in this office is confidential, unless I think you present a major danger to yourself or others, or have committed certain crimes that I'm required to report. I also recognize your… unique legal status and will take that into account." When he nodded again, she leaned back. "All right, Legend. What brings you here?"

He instantly went tense, with a tension that was completely familiar to any therapist. He knew there was a problem, he wanted to address it, but it scared him, worried him in several ways. He'll approach it obliquely at first. I'm guessing …

"Well… what do you know about how we… super-types work?"

Exactly right. "Not very much. What I've seen on the news. I don't think anyone knows much about how you work. You hide it for the most part, after all, and I presume that's to protect yourselves and people you feel responsible for."

"Yeah," he agreed, and shifted in his seat. "Understand, we're … ordinary people, or we were. And so far, there isn't really any clear pattern as to who gets these powers, or how. I know more about this stuff than just about anyone, except maybe Jason Wood and a few spook agencies, because I've met and talked with most of the Supers – and the bad guys, too, though usually there's a lot more fisticuffs involved."

Fisticuffs. The word was what her great-uncle Jeremy (on her father's side) used to call a 'ten-dollar word'. The fact he chose that word told her a fair amount about Legend. Compensating for nervousness with emphasized intelligence and faux formality.

Legend was continuing, not noticing her momentary thoughtfulness. "What I'm getting at is that what you see… really usually isn't what you get. Which is why most of us can have a private life at all."

"So… you don't look like Legend all the time?"

He grinned. "Not even close. And I'm not nearly the most extreme change. Well, you knew that, from people like Caracal and Coatl, but I know of at least one hero who isn't even technically alive when he's not out doing his stuff."

She nodded, just looking at him.

The smile faded and he was silent for a moment, looking back at her, clearly having realized he'd diverted himself from the subject. So how will he address it now?

"Well, that wasn't an entirely pointless diversion," he began, an undertone of defensiveness in his voice. He's used to being questioned and arguing his side. He sighed, flashed a nervous smile again, and shrugged. "That's part of the problem, really. I mean… who am I? Who are the others? Now you know Jack's one of us, but is he more Jack, or… his other identity?

"It's one thing if you're just playing the role – if you're an actor, or even a spy or something. You're still not changing yourself. But when I go out to save someone, I go from…" he hesitated, then continued cautiously, "… from my normal self to a completely different body – different voice, hair, eyes, all of that – even different fingerprints, probably even different genetics, which means even the super-spy organizations haven't got a lot of ways to track us all down. But that's not the point, the point is I'm not the person I was born, most of us aren't, when we're Supers. It's not just a mask, it's a different EVERYTHING."

She hadn't thought about that before, but now that she was thinking of it, he was right; this was a problem that was almost completely new. "I see part of your problem, Legend, and I can understand that it must be difficult. You look in the mirror one moment and then another, and see completely different people looking back. And if I might take a guess, when you see Legend in the mirror I think part of you likes him a lot more than your original self."

He winced, but laughed at the same time. "Well, yeah, I guess. Legend… doesn't have to take my baggage with him." He rubbed the back of his neck as though to massage out a cramp. "It's… tougher than that, even. My colleagues – how am I supposed to think about them? When the face they use in my line of work isn't the one they wear at home, when it may not be the same age, the same race, hell, may not even be the same sex. Or even, as I said, the same species."

"So part of your problem has to do with how you should interact with your peers. Perhaps a particular set of those peers?"

He blinked, his eyes narrowed for a moment, and then he shook his head, chuckling. "Oh, my, my, you're good. I suppose I can sorta see where you got that, but it's not direct. You have to be getting a lot from nonverbal cues."

"I'll take that as a yes, then?"

"Hell yeah. Not sure I'm quite ready to go farther," he added, candidly.

"Well, Legend, that's entirely your choice. I can see this will be a very interesting relationship, especially if you keep having to avoid some of the more basic topics." Jennifer pulled out a clipboard. "I have to have you fill this out anyway, so since you're not feeling comfortable…?"

The sharp-planed face gave an exaggerated look of horror. "By the Five Elements! Not FORMS!"

She couldn't quite restrain a chuckle. He was very good at that; he had a sense of timing and dramatics that clearly served him well in his chosen avocation.

For a few moments Legend wrote – filling in forms at inhuman speed. I can see superpowers can be useful in a lot of ways. Then he gave a snort of laughter.

"What is it?"

"I'm afraid I'll have to leave a lot of this one blank," he said. "I can't give you my address or anything, and as for insurance… do you think there is ANY company on Earth that would take me as a policyholder?" He signed the bottom of the form Legend.

She had to admit… he had a point. "So how are you paying for your sessions?"

He reached into his armor, and pulled out a roll of paper bills. "Cash. I think you may have heard of it?"

"Without insurance, my sessions come to –" she broke off as she realized he'd just dropped the entire roll on her desk, and it was all one-hundred-dollar bills.

"Just let me know when that runs out," he said as he opened the window again and glanced out. "I'll bring more."

And with a flash and a gust of wind, he was gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teaser Chapter: The Stuff of Legend, Chapter 1

 

I posted the prologue for Stuff of Legend some time back. Here's Chapter 1 of that superhero novel (based in a possible future of the world of Paradigms Lost); this book's currently with my agent Marisa Corvisiero!

 

 

----

 

 

Chapter 1.

     "I think today's session went well, Mr. Thompson," Jennifer Hsui said in her best professional tone. It was important to conclude each appointment on time, but not to make the patient – or client, as some people preferred – feel pressured or cut off.

Thompson, a man with a heavily lined face and graying hair that showed it had once been dark, managed a smile that creased his cheeks with wrinkles that had not been there so often when first he had come to her – was it a year and a half ago? "I guess so, Jen. Still hard to talk about some of this… but it's all getting easier now."

"Good to hear. Same time next week?"

"Think so."

The door closed behind him and Jen sat back with a whoosh. The hardest thing about being a therapist sometimes was trying to figure out the right direction for the patient, and then get him to move himself along it. Some people came looking for a quick cure – no, most of them do, let's be honest with ourselves, Jenny – but even when they accepted that this wasn't an option, they still had their own expectations of direction. And sometimes – maybe even usually – the direction they expected wasn't the right direction to go in.

Day's not quite over yet, not time for woolgathering, as my mother used to say. She stood and moved over to the attached bathroom, checked herself in the mirror; straight long black hair parted just so, touch up the makeup a bit, but nothing major.

She checked the schedule; a new patient was due in, a David Helten. He had a late appointment – 5:30.

What ever possessed me to take another patient at that hour?

She knew the answer; instinct. When Mr. Helten had called, his approach had been very professional, matter-of-fact… but there was just something about the tone of voice that made her feel there was something important there.

It was always important for the patient, once they made the step of calling… but somehow it had rung out strongly in the way he spoke, and she'd felt it.

Fifteen minutes before he gets here. She picked up the phone and dialed, waited. A few minutes later, a high-pitched child's voice answered, "Hsui residence, Yukari speaking." The words were enunciated with careful pride.

"It certainly is Yukari speaking!" Jen said.

"Mommy! Are you coming home now?"

"Not tonight, Yuki. That's why Gran is still there with you. I have a new patient tonight." She looked out her window idly as she spoke; from her tenth-floor window in the newly-constructed Grume Building the view was spectacular. Today, the sun was hanging low, shining across Albany and making long shadows from the buildings, throwing the Memorial Square into sharp relief. The new structures around it did not rise nearly as high as the old South Mall had, even though it had been … what, nearly ten years now? Had to be; Yukari hadn't even been born then. But there were also so many more buildings…

"You're going to help him?"

Bless you for being so understanding. I don't know if I would have been at your age. "I'll at least find out if I can, sweetie. I just wanted to call and say I love you."

"I love you too, Mommy!" A pause, during which Jen thought she saw tiny, distant shapes moving fast against the sky. They twirled together, a flash, a streak of light, and they were gone. I still have a hard time realizing that I'm really seeing this. "Mommy, it's Thursday…"

She laughed. "Oh, I see. Put Gran on."

Her mother came on the line a moment later. "I've already got dinner on, Jenny. Yukari's finished all her spelling words and showed me her other homework, which she was perfect on." The eternal pride of the grandmother echoed in her mother's tones.

"It's only third grade, mother. I think we'll wait to declare genius until the fourth."

"If you insist. Now, I was going to read her a book later, but she insists—"

"Mom, you know she's going to watch her show tonight. There's a two-hour marathon ending with a new episode. It'll make her really easy to sit for – just make sure she showers first and she can go straight to bed after, if I'm not back. I should be back long before then, though."

"But that show is so –"

Yes, yes, I know. But she loves it, and it's not that bad. And I've had this argument with Mom so many times. "I know, Mom, you think it's lowbrow, boy's adventure with nothing to recommend it. And I admit I don't know why this grabbed her attention, but it has, and she doesn't just sit and watch."

"I'm sorry, Jen. I really should stop questioning you. You've been doing fine on your own. I'll get her fed and washed up and with luck you'll be back… when, seven?"

"If it all goes smoothly. I'd hope eight at the latest." She glanced at the clock. "Gotta go, mom, put Yukari back on." When her daughter was back, Jennifer said, "Love you, Yuki. Gran knows you'll be watching your show, so that's all set. I should be home at least in time to watch the new episode with you."

"Yay!"

She ended the conversation with a kiss and hung up. She looked up at the monitor over her desk. No one in the outer office yet – her part-time office manager had gone home, and the patient wasn't there yet. I hope he's not late. The green telltale showed that the CryWolf unit was in good operation, not that she was really worried; the number of Wolf incidents in Albany was very low, even compared with other cities. Still, it was good for peace of mind.

It struck her anew how incongruously bizarre it was that she accepted the presence of a werewolf detector in her office as a completely normal thing, like having a smoke alarm in your house. That was when the world really started to change, I guess. Though even then we could never have imagined what the world would become.

The Transformation, the Awakening – people called it different things… but suddenly there were new sorts of creatures appearing, some like men, some… not. And they, and some of the people, wielding powers that had just been fiction, stories in paper and film brought now to impossible life. The law, science, even political realities shifted, and the world was still far, far from adjusting fully.

The last minutes ticked by as the sun almost touched the horizon. No one there. He's late.

There was a rap at her window.

Jennifer jumped in startlement and whirled from the monitor.

Standing impossibly outside her window was a man, a tall young man with wild-flowing black hair bound back with a silver band, wearing strange, impractically styled armor that showed a physique like an Olympic swimmer, an outlandish outfit finished off with a flowing silvery cape.

She felt her mouth drop open as she stared, but for a moment she simply couldn't do anything other than stare.

"Dr. Hsui," he said in a voice that somehow penetrated the thick glass without being either diminished or shouted, "I'm your five-thirty appointment." He flashed an apologetic grin. "Sorry about the unorthodox arrival."

And at last she spoke with the only word she could think of. "…Legend?"

He smiled and nodded, the trademark confident smile that had been the symbol of the world's final transformation. He was not the only being of his type – not the only Super, as most would call them – but he was the first.

He was Legend.

She broke her momentary paralysis and yanked open the window – it took a moment for her to figure out how to unlock the sash, since there were safety features to prevent that being easy. Legend dropped through and landed lightly, making it look trivially easy to do the impossible.

"Why didn't you… use the regular door?"

"Didn't want to be recorded on the cameras. No one was watching this part of your building from the outside, not this high up." She noted that the cape somehow moved with him, avoiding getting in his way, as though it knew what he was doing, where he was going.

"All right." She could understand that. It must be very hard to have anything private when you were like… well, like that. And you'd have to go to extraordinary lengths to assure privacy. "So… what can I do for you?"

His smile was suddenly less confident, and just as suddenly more familiar.

"You have… problems?" She failed to keep the incredulity out of her voice, and kicked herself for it.

Fortunately he laughed, and the laugh itself told her a great deal. It was a laugh edged with uncertainty, nervousness, even a ragged tone that might be unshed tears. "Problems? Yes, Doctor… I have a number of problems. And I did a lot of searching to decide what I should do… who I could talk to. You ended up being highly recommended." He sat down in one of the chairs and leaned back, trying to look like he was relaxed – and failing miserably. "So how about doing some headshrinking on a superhero, Doctor Hsui?"

 

On My Shelves: Dragon Age II

 

While I had enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins (and its DLC add-ons) immensely (see my prior review), things I had heard about Dragon Age II made me somewhat reluctant to get it; the most weighty of these being that unlike the prior game, Dragon Age II limited you to a single character, not to the several different choices of character (classes of Rogue, Warrior, Mage and species of Elf, Dwarf, and Human, with Dwarves unable to become Mages, and other choices of social class creating multiple combinations of character type, each of which had a different lead-in sequence and some different side quests) found in Dragon Age: Origins.

I came to regret my hesitation.

Firstly, the character creation was not quite as restrictive as comments implied. You could still choose your character sex and class, but not species, and the basic background – part of a four-member family fleeing from Lothering during the Blight of the first Dragon Age game – remained unchanged.

But in exchange for these restrictions you gain a vast amount in the power of the story you see.

You are a refugee from the Blight in Ferelden, fleeing to the distant city of Kirkwall. Your family has noble connections in Kirkwall, and so at least you expect to find a good life, even if you have been uprooted from the place you called home since you were born.

But time has not been kind to your uncle in Kirkwall, and you find that, far from a life of luxury, you have to start from the bottom…

From there, the plotline has multiple threads and sidequests, even though the general outline of your characters progression is set in stone. The combination of careful character background design and various choices you get to make during play, however, reduces the feeling of a complete railroad; it is possible to have multiple different outcomes even in some pretty plot-significant events.

What really makes Dragon Age II stand out – even more than its predecessor – is the vividness of the characters that Hawke (last name of the main character) encounters throughout his/her adventures. Friends and enemies are detailed and often complex people whose closeness is affected, often drastically, by your choices.

Head and shoulders above all of them is Varric. Varric is not your first companion, or even your second; those slots belong to your still-living sibling (as far as I can tell one of them will die in the prologue regardless of choices) and to Aveline, the warrior you meet in the prologue. But Varric, a dwarven rogue with a uniquely powerful automatic crossbow, is the most central of the companion characters in more than one way. In a sense, really, he's even more a central character than Hawke her/himself, because a large part of the framing story is Varric being interrogated by a Seeker named Cassandra about exactly what happened in Kirkwall.

Varric is a complex man; cynical and snarky in conversation, he quickly shows that he's also a man of considerable honor, quick wit, skill, and hidden idealism. Despite his world-weary demeanor, if you play your character as a hero, he comes to admire Hawke as someone far more worthwhile than anyone else, and a fast and reliable friend. Despite this, he's also the one not-related-to-you companion who's not a potential love interest; this is actually a good thing, I think, even though I am left wondering why, exactly, it's okay to have humans and elves dating but not humans or elves dating dwarves.

Still, Varric is one of the major features that helps carry the game; his dialogue both in cutscenes and in random dialogue when you're walking from point to point simply sparkles with wit. He also turns out to be something of an artist in the literary sense; he writes novels of various genres, and has several separate sidequests that reinforce his character and connection to Hawke.

The other companion characters are also quite detailed, even if none of them (at least for me) quite achieved the … solidity of Varric. Aveline, widowed during the opening and reduced to mercenary or smuggling work (as is Hawke) just to get into the otherwised closed city, joins the City Guard and becomes one of your best contacts and one of the most important ways to help stabilize Kirkwall. Anders, a character returning from Dragon Age: Origins, is a man trying to work for the betterment of mages, while carrying a terrible secret within. Fenris, an escaped slave of the feared Tevinter Imperium, has a tormented past and an uncertain future – that Hawke can make heaven or hell.

Even some of the not-playable companion characters become distinct and important over the course of the game. The Arishok – leader of the stranded group of Qunari who are settled temporarily in Kirkwall – is perhaps the most interesting, as depending on how you encounter him and interact with him, he can seem like a total bastard or a noble, if somewhat alien, adversary placed in what is, for his people, an utterly impossible position; in the course of following Qunari-related plotlines you also get to learn a lot more about the Qun, their philosophy.

I admit that I play these games almost always on their lowest difficulty setting; I'm playing for the story and adventure, not to prove that I'm able to beat a machine at its own game or out-strategize other people on using mechanics and in-game tricks. Thus, it is the story that matters to me when playing, and Dragon Age II really delivered beautifully.

Even ignoring the very large number of sidequests which ranged from simple "fetch this item" to character-building encounters that helped define the people of the world and their relationship to you, the overall story of Dragon Age II was gripping, exciting, well-paced, and dramatic; I had quite a few moments of being truly immersed in the world of Thedas and the conflicts being played out in Kirkwall. (Interesting trivia note: the developers of Dragon Age had a difficult time deciding on the name of the world their adventures were taking place in, and during that time simply called it "the Dragon Age setting… abbreviated as "the DAS"…)

As mentioned earlier, Varric's interrogation as a framing story also worked well to maintain interest – and to allow you to skip various segments of time. In a way, I kind of regret that – it would've been nice to play through all those years – but the game might've ended up ridiculously long. The nice thing about the story design is that various details of even the final conflict do change, depending on your choices, so you can get some feeling that your choices matter.

And unlike Bethesda competitors Oblivion and Skyrim, it IS possible for your character to take the crown (although I, personally, would rather see you be able to do it much earlier than the game allows, when it might have changed things).

I very highly recommend Dragon Age II to any CRPG gamers!

 

 

On My (Virtual) Shelves: GrrlPower

Sydney: "Inverse Ninja! Inverse Ninja!"

Vehemence: "… Heed your genre-savvy protégé, Colonel; the main event is indeed about to start."

 

A webcomic by Dave Barrack that started back in 2010, GrrlPower updates twice a week. A superhero comic, it focuses on a predominantly female cast and is specifically centered on the mystery and (mis)adventures of Sydney Scoville, a rail-thin, ADHD (medicated, and the medication isn't strong enough), genius ultra-geek girl in a world where comics aren't the only place where you'll see superheroes.

Sydney gets involved with superhero business for two reasons: first, she has the fight version of the fight-or-flight reflex, which causes her to attack a bank robber viciously when grabbed, and second… because she has a unique set of artifacts, a halo of seven crystalline orbs that bestow upon her various powers ranging from flight to a force field to an energy beam (with two still unknown at this time). In a world where most supers' powers are natural, she's an anomaly; she's also one of only two ordinary-looking members of the super-team as natural superpowers are accompanied by super-perfect physiques.

GrrlPower's strengths come from Dave Barrack's deep knowledge of the comic book and geeky field in general and the way he has chosen to play with them. The main character is a deliberately genre-savvy girl in a world that, at least to some extent, works with those genre conventions; she is a hyperkinetic genius with an oddball approach to super-situations that both proves useful… and provides the reader with endless amusement.

At the same time, the other characters anchor us in a serious world. Sydney Scoville may be something of a loon, but the rest of the ARC team are a diverse and generally serious and competent set of people whose main focus is in protecting the world from the increasing threat of super-powered beings.

Barrack has also explicitly stated that he finds the most interesting part of comic-book series the character interactions – the discussions between people, the exploration of the world and interactions of those people with the world and the non-combat events therein – and he delivers. Long stretches of GrrlPower are talking, exploring people's abilities, speculating on the meaning of various events, and simply doing things like going out to eat and seeing what that means when the people going out are super-beings.

Still, it is a superhero comic, and when combat happens, it delivers – both in humor and in sheer awesomeness. We've had only one really major fight, but it went on for quite a few comics from start to finish, and had a number of Crowning Moments of Awesome.

While I love Sydney to death (and would've wanted to date her in a flash if I'd met her as a teen), and Maxima, Harem, Dabbler, and even Math are loads of fun, I have to say that the biggest single standout of the cast is one that isn't even a regular: their first real enemy, the incredibly powerful and unfailingly stylish adversary named Vehemence. His power is innovative and the way in which he orchestrates the combat was masterful.

I look forward eagerly to every Monday and Thursday to see where the story's going. There are plenty of mysteries left – we still don't really know anything about the orbs' origin; two of them still haven't shown what they can do; several other characters seen in momentary flashes have clearly set… something in motion, but we don't yet know what. This is one of my favorite webcomics, and I very highly recommend it to anyone who likes superheroes, snark, and awesomeness!

 

 

The Craft of Writing: When I Ignore Science

Writing science fiction – especially hard science fiction, where you're expected to keep to what modern science believes is possible, rather than inventing force fields, lightswords, faster-than-light-drives, or other accoutrements of space opera – is a demanding task. It's not necessarily harder than writing, say, good epic fantasy; they're both equally difficult, in my view, just with different areas of difficulty. It does, however, have external demands that other types of speculative fiction don't really have to worry about.

In my "day job", I sometimes I say I write really hard SF – specifically, I write research proposals in which I tell a government agency (or sometimes private corporation) that the company I work for can solve some problem they have by creating some awesome gadget or process that does not exist… yet. I have to describe – in the most attractive and interesting way – a machine that has yet to be built, using real, known principles of science, engineering, and design approach, and how this machine will address some pressing need for the agency or company.

Of course, in this case I know that my audience is very limited – as few as two or three, generally no more than five to ten – but they will generally be highly aware of the state of the art in the field and at least one or two of them will be sufficiently educated to recognize immediately when I write something that shows I'm trying to BS them, or that I don't know their industry or problem sufficiently. Moreover, the only "story" I have to tell is "how does this machine or process solve your problem?".

It is, in some ways, the ultimate in idea-centered SF: describing the new gadget or approach in sufficient detail to convince your audience to pay large sums of money for it. This also, of cours, heavily restricts what I can write about; not only does it have to be physically possible, it has to also be something that the company I work for can do, and that can reasonably be done at whatever budget I think the target can and will afford for this project.

Regular hard-SF does, at least, broaden my options vastly with respect to what I can use – any scientific or engineering principle that I can get reasonably reputable scientists to agree is possible is open to me. This is where hard-SF is actually somewhat easy: I can say "this is how my characters get from X to Y", and anyone who wants to argue it has to go argue with the scientists, not me. I can get clear, objective answers on what is necessary to design, construct, and produce my literal plot device.

But sometimes – paradoxically – I have to ignore science and technology to produce a good book that happens to be hard-SF.

This is more evident today than it used to be. Before the Computer Revolution and the Information Age began, it didn't seem at all ridiculous to postulate a future in which mankind settled the Solar System with rocket ships, flown by manly men and possibly assisted by room-sized computers (mostly left back on Earth), something like the Apollo program writ large and industrialized. Heinlein's heroes and others used slide rules and paper calculations with abandon, to calculate Hohmann transfer orbits and mass-ratios and other aspects of rocket-related travel.

Today, that kind of thing is simply not happening in the future. The vast majority of space exploration in past decades has been by remote probes – and that seems to be an even more likely condition to be seen in our future, as automation becomes more reliable, drones become more capable, and we continue to prefer to risk non-sentient computers rather than sending fragile sacks of colloidal chemicals like human beings up on top of rather touchy assemblages of explosives and metal.

For Boundary I found an excuse to work around that particular issue; present the world with potential salvage of alien technology and you'll really want human beings, with their full capabilities, onsite. And probably also not want remote devices, whose data streams could be intercepted, be the primary investigators if you think anything militarily important could come out of the research.

But with Boundary – and even more so in the Castaway Planet books – I had to deliberately ignore some other really important projections of science.

The key fact to remember about writing a novel is that you want it to entertain your audience – and unlike my R&D proposals, that audience is thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. You cannot assume most of them are highly technically educated, and you also cannot assume they want to read through many pages of description and explanation. It's true that there are, sometimes, ways of making such explanations enjoyable enough to read, but they don't always work, and certainly not for all members of your potential readership.

So one key point here is… people prefer to see people as the main characters, and they prefer any jeopardy be something that threatens those characters, not the little remote-controlled robot they run on the far-distant planet they're trying to explore.

That means – put bluntly – that you have to ignore the most likely progression of space exploration, in which machines play a bigger and bigger part and humans are less and less out in space. We're not built for operations in space, and supporting a human being for a journey like those routinely undertaken by probes would require a huge amount of support material – food, environmental support, etc. – which is not needed by the autonomous systems at all.

Note that it's not impossible to try to tell a story set in such a future, but your typical "people visit other planets" setup suddenly becomes far less probable, and you have a challenge in getting people to invest in the operations of remote devices rather than the activities of other human beings on a remote planet.

Even more frequently ignored is the power and capability of automation and computation. Today we're already seeing indications that many jobs are going to be replaced with automation. Unless progress in automation drastically drops for some reason, there's every reason to believe that within 50 years, most jobs will be automated. Anything that doesn't fully require a human decisionmaker (and those are going to become fewer and fewer) will be done by a competent machine. Biological sciences will also advance during that time.

Despite multiple changes in the technologies involved, Moore's Law (the capabilities/speed of a computer double roughly once every 21 months) has continued to hold in a shockingly steady fashion. If this continues for a mere 50 additional years, computers in 50 years will be more than two hundred fifty MILLION times faster than current models. Devices the size of a grain of dust will be more capable than current CPU chips.

I knew this when writing Boundary. I also knew about advances in displays and other areas, to the point that A.J. Baker's "fairy dust" might actually be underestimating the capabilities of technology in 30 years; I did, however, at least give a glimpse as to some of the potential capabilities of such devices.

In Castaway Planet, however, I'm almost completely ignoring progress. Castaway Planet takes place about 200 years from now, a hundred and fifty years after the end of Portal. Yet while the "omnis" used by the Kimei family, with their retinal displays, vast data storage capabilities, and enhanced reality displays, are very impressive by modern standards… they fall ridiculously short of what is likely. I make tasks challenging for our castaways that – in honesty – probably wouldn't take their omnis a moment to figure out for them. Even if we never actually achieve true "artificial intelligence", simple expert system approaches, with a large enough database, would address most problems… and the potential database capability of a device built a hundred or two hundred years from now would be mind-boggling.

I do this, of course, to make sure my humans – the main characters that the readers are supposed to sympathize with and want to follow in the book – have a lot of work to do themselves, rather than relying on the automated omnis to fix everything.

Of course, one can go the other way – take everything to the logical conclusion and basically take human beings out of the picture as being in any way the prime movers of the plot. What you substitute will naturally affect the story you're telling; Charles Stross has touched on this in some of his work.

"Ignoring the facts" can also be more subtle than this. For example, I planned the trip for the Odin and Nebula Storm to Jupiter system based on optimistic assumptions about the Nebula Storm's drive, and also on Jupiter being at a particular point in its orbit (fairly near to Ceres). The latter bit is very important because the distance for a spaceship – even one capable of constant acceleration and thus not having to conform to standard transfer orbit approaches – from one world to another varies DRASTICALLY depending on where in the orbit the target planet is. I didn't define the precise year of departure, so I can sort of handwave around it, but the fact is that in likelihood the Nebula Drive wouldn't produce the accleration I assumed, nor would Jupiter have been in nearly as auspicious a location. It's possible that Nebula Storm might not have been able to catch up with Odin – or that, conversely, Odin might not have been able to keep ahead of Nebula Storm the way it did, and get passed before it ever reached Jupiter. Either case would have removed the grand confrontation at the end.

Even more than this, though, a lot of writers – myself included – don't even try to use our fuzzy, cracked crystal ball predict social change, UNLESS that social change is going to be a major focus of our story. The fact is that it's almost impossible to predict, before the fact, what changes are going to take place in society, just that they're going to make people from, say, 100 years from now be inexpressibly strange from the point of view of people today.

Compare the outlook, knowledge, and behavior of a 20-year-old American man from 1915 with that of an American man of 20 today in 2015; the two both call themselves "Americans" and may even live in a city with the same name, but their social outlooks, their day-to-day experiences, the entertainments they prefer, everything from the way they interact with members of the opposite (or same) sex to the way they handle money will be drastically different, in ways that almost no one in 2015 would have predicted (the Wright Brothers had made their historic flight only 12 years before; World War I ("The Great War") had started the previous year; the Model T had been introduced only seven years previously; and science fiction as we know it today had only just really started to be invented, and Doc Smith wouldn't publish his first epic for another 13 years).

Unless the point of your novel is exploring societal change, in fact, working hard to predict it and then trying to depict it may well work against you as an author… because you'll be asking your audience to work harder just to understand your characters, let alone to empathize with them and their circumstances. When putting your characters into exciting situations that they're supposed to work their way out of, making the reader have to work to grasp what the characters are like will defuse a lot of the tension.

Again, this isn't true if what you're doing is writing a story where the difference in social and personal outlook is the point, but if you're writing typical hard-SF, it's a very important thing to remember. Your reader wants to empathize with/follow the thoughts of the main characters, so it helps – a lot – if those characters are either like the reader, or of some group with which the reader is familiar enough to empathize in a reading context.

This is clear in the Boundary series, and even more so in the Castaway Planet series – and VASTLY so in Grand Central Arena, which takes place three centuries from now in a world where technology has very far advanced from where we are now and created a post-scarcity world (on the other hand, GCA is a grand-scale space opera which shortly takes a turn into the "if that's technology, I could still call it magic" realm). While details of the character backgrounds are significantly different from ones we might be familiar with, the basic reactions, aspirations, and behaviors of the main characters in these books are ones that people from the late 20th and early 21st century will recognize and be able to extrapolate from to come to an understanding of what these people are like, and how they are likely to act under various forms of stress.

This allows the reader to help me as an author; if I can get you, as a reader, to invest even a small part of yourself into the character, you make that character richer and stronger for you, the reader. You improve my work for your own experience.

Thus – sometimes – I find it's best to ignore the facts, in order to reach the truth of the story.

 

 

 

 

On My Shelves: Disney’s Aladdin

The Disney Corporation has produced many animated films over the years, ranging from the old classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs  (wow, not available?) to newer films like The Black Cauldron, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and many others, some very good, some… not so good.

 

One of my favorites of all is Aladdin.

 

The basic plot of this Disney version of the old classic is probably very well known. Street-rat Aladdin (with his sidekick monkey Abu) encounters the runaway princess Jasmine and has a few adventures with her, during which the two come to like each other; Jasmine is weary of her life being constrained to follow whatever other people tell her, and Aladdin has never met anyone outside of his own circle in the lower class.

 

Our villain Jafar, the Grand Vizier to the Sultan of Agrabah (Jasmine's father), has meanwhile attempted to obtain some item from a magical vault called the Cave of Wonders. When Jasmine is caught with Aladdin, Jafar arranges for the boy to be imprisoned in a location he can access, and convinces Aladdin to enter the Cave for him and retrieve a single object: a particular oil lamp.

 

Aladdin enters successfully, but his monkey's (long-ingrained and, in other circumstances, useful) greed triggers a trap that causes the cave to collapse. Jafar attempts to wrest the lamp from Aladdin before the collapse is complete, but fails.

 

Afterward, Aladdin discovers the magic powers of the Lamp – a nigh-omnipotent Genie lives within, who will grant the user three wishes (the only exceptions being he will not, or cannot, kill people directly, force people to fall in love, raise the dead, or grant wishes that ask for more wishes). After tricking the Genie into getting them out of the cave without using a Wish, Aladdin uses his first wish to make himself a prince and thus of a social standing to court Jasmine.

 

But Jafar quickly sees through the disguise, and now that he knows the Lamp is no longer in the Cave…

 

There are a lot of points that make Aladdin one of the best of the Disney canon, despite its all-too-Disney aspects in others (the Arabian Nights Days setting, the musical numbers that, while well done, always annoy the heck out of me [aside from Jafar's short, ranty reprise of "Prince Ali"], and so on). Ali himself is one of the primary ones. He really is a thief, and while he is – naturally – a Thief With a Heart of Gold – he's got very much more of the street-rat's attitude than almost any other Disney hero, in a way that makes him more real to me than many of the other Disney headliners (the worst offender being the Prince in Sleeping Beauty – a rather pathetic loser who couldn't even achieve anything without the fairies).

 

The Genie, played with manic glee by the late Robin Williams, is – justifiably – held up as one of the greatest aspects of this film. He was at his best here, and apparently by the time they were done a lot of the script consisted of "… and here Robin does something funny"; they animated around whatever Williams came up with, and it worked. One of the most obvious aspects of the Genie that wouldn't work well in most other films, but could be excused here, was his topical references – talking about modern era material while ostensibly living a thousand years ago. Well, he's an all-powerful Genie, so seeing into the future must be child's play to him, and it allowed him to make all kinds of visual and verbal jokes that amused the audience… and that the Disney animators had the other characters look at with blank confusion, as one would expect.

 

Jasmine, while constrained by a lot of the usual Disney Princess conventions, is also more proactive than many of her predecessors, quick on the uptake, not as easily fooled as others think, and never stricken with hesitation at the wrong moment. Even as a Disney Princess she manages to show that she really doesn't want others bossing her or manipulating her.

 

But no set of heroes works without a good… or should we say bad, villain, and for a Disney Villain, Grand Vizier Jafar delivers very well. Jafar is of course doomed to fail – but he doesn't fail easily. He is clever – if so EEEEVIL looking that it's really hard to imagine how even the rather ineffectual Sultan can't see it – determined, methodical (he actually has a plan that almost succeeds, and then decides to try that same plan again with appropriate changes, something many media villains don't do), and absolutely perfect at CHEWING THE SCENERY when given the chance, courtesy of the marvelous voice acting of Jonathan Freeman.

 

The movie is also filled with lovely quotable lines – "What… what are you doing?" "Giving you your reward, of course; your ETERNAL reward!" "Phenomenal cosmic POWWWEEEERRRRRRR... itty-bitty living space." (well, honestly, almost anything the Genie says, though Iago and Jafar can get in some marvelous snark lines as well).

 

What really made my day watching this one, though, was that in the end the bad guy isn't shoved off a cliff or otherwise sent to their doom by an accident. No, this time the hero deliberately and with malice (deserved malice!) aforethought sets up the villain's end, by arranging a "be careful what you wish for" that even the Genie didn't see coming – even though it was the Genie's own words that had given Aladdin the idea.

 

As a Disney film, this one holds up very well, and is one of the relatively few that I wouldn't feel badly about watching again. Recommended!

Under the Influence: Superman

 

"That man won't quit as long as he can still draw a breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I've got a different problem.

I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something. To break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die.

But you can take it, can't you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose, and show you just how powerful I really am!"

     The Man of Tomorrow. The Last Son of Krypton. The Man of Steel. Kal-El.

SUPERMAN.

The archetype of the modern legends we call superheroes, Superman was the brainchild of Jerry Seigel and Joe Schuster, who went through several evolutions of the character (the first "Superman" was a villain with mental powers, then another was a baby from the far future) before settling on the now-familiar origin of the last child of a dying world, rocketed to Earth to be raised by the Kents, and eventually taking up the job of fighting crime with his vastly superior powers.

Those powers, along with the character, evolved over time to some extent. One of his most iconic powers – flight – was not originally part of his arsenal, and his other powers were not nearly so extreme as they would later become; instead, Superman could "jump an eighth of a mile", his skin couldn't be pierced by anything less than an artillery shell, he could run as fast as an automobile, and lift and throw things like cars.

He was also originally a less restrained and considered individual, a vigilante with sometimes rough ways of dealing with what he viewed as injustices. Even then, however, he sought to deal with both individual and larger social injustices, and was generally not as grim as his rough contemporary Batman.

But it didn't take too long from his debut in 1938 for him to start to evolve, first to the "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" version, and then with the Fleischer animated shorts gaining the power of flight. As time went on, his physical capabilities vastly increased – and fairly swiftly reached the general iconic levels of effective invulnerability, nigh-unstoppable strength, and almost unlimited speed, with ancillary powers like heat vision.

His personality also quickly shifted, in part due to a directive by a new editor in 1940 that instituted some specific requirements and limits on what the heroes in their books would be allowed to do. From this, Superman quickly evolved into the icon of "Truth, Justice and the American Way" that he has generally been viewed as for the last seventy years.

Today, Superman is the superhero. Even though other superheroes have managed greater success on the silver screen, especially in recent years, and his book sales have varied, there is absolutely no other superhero that has his level of instant recognition, and very, very few that have as generally untarnished a reputation. Even attempts to deconstruct him tend to either end up Reconstructing him and accepting him as he is, or they tend to fail to work because the basic zeitgeist of Superman is, like the character, too strong to seriously damage for long.

While I didn't come directly to Superman fandom for quite a while, I could not escape knowing of Superman, even in a relatively sheltered upbringing that didn't even involve comic books until I was in my teens – and for a lot of that I was reading more Marvel than DC. Despite this, Superman still managed to become an icon for me, probably because there was literally almost no way for a superhero to define themselves without some comparison with Superman being drawn by somebody.

Still, over the years I have read quite a few of Superman's Silver-Age adventures in various collections, and in the 1980s I followed Superman fairly closely, including the famous reboot by John Byrne which tried to reverse the ludicrous power inflation of the Silver Age, and succeeded for a while; that version is also famous for publicizing the concept of "tactile telekinesis" as an explanation for various oddities of comic-book superstrength, such as the fact that even if you are strong enough to lift a building, the building should just come apart if you're just grabbing it with two hand-sized grippers. Tactile telekinesis meant that it was a subconscious psionic power which was doing the actual lifting, and it only worked on things Superman touched. The idea itself wasn't new – among others, my own gaming group had been using that explanation since about 1980, for example – but this was the first large-scale use of the concept.

In all of the versions, however, and with – comparatively speaking – very, very few exceptions, Superman presented one of the most truly heroic personalities of any character in fiction. His closest competitor in that area is Captain America, who is spiritually his equivalent in the Marvelverse. Not, of course, in power – there are a number of other characters who are basically Marvel-Versions of Superman in powers, such as Hyperion and Gladiator – but in the fact that each of them is their respective universe's moral compass. Are you arguing a moral point with Superman? You're probably wrong, and the fact you're arguing with Superman is one of the key pieces of evidence.

This has always, of course, been one of the points of contention for those arguing about Superman as a character in the sense of one for telling stories about. Not only is Superman one of the most powerful and nigh-indestructible beings in all fiction, his moral stance is about as nigh-invulnerable as well. If you're writing the generally-accepted version of Superman, you're dealing with a man who is simultaneously humble and also absolutely certain of his moral compass. He isn't an arrogant bastard trying to force his way of life upon you – just a man who will demonstrate his beliefs by absolute, unswerving obedience to those beliefs.

The morality that he follows isn't a simplistic "Superheroes are good, so he's got to be goodest" either; it's a natural outgrowth of the character's design and development. Superman was born during one of the great civil rights awakenings, and so even in the 1940s was championing the cause of the common people against the general ills of society. He was found and raised by a farmer and his wife, the most "salt of the earth" of all professions, especially in that era. His small town background and then travel to the big city, combined with his hidden but very real separation from humanity allowed him a feeling of personal responsibility for those around him, and the ability to have a perspective that covered an entire civilization.

The combination, however, makes it extraordinarily difficult to tell stories about his adventures that have excitement or tension. By his physical nature, Superman is very, very hard to threaten. Even the effects of his few known weaknesses vary in strength, and never seem to be able to manage anything like the lethality of a bullet to an ordinary human. At the same time, he is also about as difficult to threaten morally or emotionally. Superman is a stable person, with absolute faith in the basic morality he was taught. He will never have crises of right and wrong under any ordinary circumstances; his personality may grow slowly, but he can't be tested morally in the same way less certain characters might be.

Of course, stories are written around him and have been for many decades. Many of them, though, point up the problems of writing with Superman as a character; often he simply appears to be in trouble until he finally decides to do something, and then with a handwave and some expository dialogue he sweeps aside the formerly insoluble problem, defeats the seemingly unstoppable foe, end of issue.

To address this people have tried various approaches. Some have tried to examine a Superman raised differently, or one with a slightly more flexible – or inflexible – moral code, or one with less overwhelming power. These approaches all run into the same problem, to wit, that in one way or another they simply don't fit the general perception of Superman. They may be good as individual examinations of the character or alternative universes, but as main-continuity Superman they don't work. This can be true even of works which simply try to put Superman in positions where he has difficulty applying his principles fully. This is really the major problem with works such as Man of Steel. As I wrote in my review, from my point of view, Superman/Kal-El in Man of Steel really did do about the best that he could, and in his worst situations simply didn't have any choice but to take the course he did – a course which was not nearly optimal, but was the best possible choice left open to him. The problem was that from the point of view of many fans, Superman simply should never be put in that position; he should, as TVTropes would put it, always be able to Take A Third Option.

Addressing these problems is one reason that one of Superman's longest-running adversaries in all continuities has been Lex Luthor, pitting the power, alien strength, and simple country morality of Superman against the power of a human intellect with a big-city industrial morality. Well done, these conflicts force Superman to evaluate his effects on the world from a different perspective, or at least allow the reader to ask different questions as to Superman's position in and responsibility to the world, without forcing Superman to compromise or betray his morality, nor physically having to weaken him to the point that he is no longer the character we expect.

I admit that I find it sometimes bemusing to realize that the image of Superman is so strong in me, despite not having been nearly as heavily "into" Superman as I was into other comics such as The Mighty Thor or The Spectacular Spider-Man. I've read a lot less of Superman than those, or even several other, titles. Yet…

Yet…

He's SUPERMAN. His presence defined the modern comic book. He continues to define "superhero" in a way that quite literally no other character has, or can. And he is, and remains, one of the greatest icons of hero in modern mythology.

And in that sense… it is not surprising at all that I cannot think of him without a chill of awe. His influence on me extends to the most basic level of hero; if I create a character who is supposed to be a real hero, a representative of Good versus Evil, somewhere in the back of my mind a part of me will be asking "Would Superman approve of her/him?".

And I always have to hope that the answer would be "yes".

 

On My Shelves: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"Into every generation, there is a chosen one. One girl in all the world. She alone will wield the strength and skill to stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness; To stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.

She is the Slayer."

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the biggest media phenomena of its generation, and probably the single largest reason for the explosion in popularity of urban fantasy in the last few decades. While it has many ancestors (including the original movie, which didn't fit Joss Whedon's vision very well), the Buffy television series defined itself and transformed much of modern television in the process.

Buffy Summers comes to Sunnydale High School, trailing a reputation for trouble that includes, somehow, being connected to the destruction of her former high school's gymnasium. This references the events of the original movie, although the details of those events would likely be somewhat different. Unlike the movie, then, this version of Buffy already knows she is the Slayer – and having defeated the mass of vampires threatening her prior school is set on having a normal life.

But every Slayer has a Watcher, a member of a secret order dedicated to observing and ostensibly training and supporting the Slayers. Her Watcher, Rupert Giles, becomes the school librarian and reminds her that the defeat of one evil does not mean the defeat of all. In fact, her journey to Sunnydale itself is likely no coincidence; beneath cheerful Sunnydale, California, is a "Hellmouth" – a weakness in the mystical fabric of reality that allows dark forces to escape and wreak havoc upon the mortal world. A Slayer is drawn to such places to duel evil and protect the world she lives in.

Buffy makes friends at her new high school, chief among them red-headed shy nerd-girl Willow Rosenberg and rather dorky would-be hero Xander Harris, who – upon discovering the truth – become the nucleus of the "Scooby Gang", the people who support Buffy in her one-woman war against the forces of evil. Together they will face vampires, werewolves, demons, witches, and even full-fledged gods, battling them with magic, wooden stakes, explosives, and weapons-grade snark, while also dealing with the pain of loss, angst of self-doubt, and the weight of the world, as well as of impending graduation.

From this beginning sprang a television series that lasted seven full seasons and took Buffy from high school to college and beyond, spun off another series (Angel), and influenced media from 1997 to the present day.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is true to its name, a series that is both deadly serious and sometimes side-splittingly funny, usually walking the razor-thin line between comedy and tragedy in a way that very few shows ever manage. The show deals with typical high-school concerns – the high-pressure parent who insists their child fulfill the parent's childhood dreams, the feral behavior of gangs and peer pressure, the lure of drugs – and puts a supernatural spin on them that allows the show to highlight the issues in manners both sympathetic and amusing. At its best, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that fulfills all of the requirements of a great work of fiction – full-on entertainment with a core of well-realized emotion and reality to support even the most fantastic aspects of the show.

At its worst… well, it becomes clumsy melodrama whose fast one-liners can't really hide the clumsy contrivances of the plot, or, worse, a show that at least for a time betrays the basic themes and implications of its earlier work.

The one-liners – the fast, sparkling, ironic dialogue that dominates Buffy pretty much throughout its run – define the universe of Buffy. This is a world where there's never a wrong time for a "Why You Suck" speech, for a Schwarzenegger Post-mortem One-Liner, for either a villain monologue or a moment of Heroic Resolve. Joss Whedon first demonstrated his true powers of dialogue in Buffy, something that set him on the path to The Avengers – and the same flashy wit that made that film work so well was honed, and honed well, in Buffy.

Buffy was of course far from the first story to try to bring the supernatural into direct collision with the modern world; many old-style pulp stories touched on it, the works of horror writers tried their hands at it, and television had Kolchak: The Night Stalker for a few brilliant moments. I had myself written most of Digital Knight (later re-issued and expanded as Paradigms Lost) many years before Buffy ever appeared on the scene.

But Buffy managed to combine the high-school drama with the supernatural adventure – a very potent combination that gave rise to an entire subgenre of school supernatural adventure, and influenced other related stories that had slightly older roots such as the Persona series of videogames (first one in 1996). The combination allows for the emotional conflict inherent in the high-school setting, with older children trying to become adults and dealing with all of the issues surrounding this extremely challenging time of life and the more objective dangers of supernatural investigation and combat to intersect and highlight each other with a clarity and immediacy difficult to manage in other settings.

While most obviously targeted towards the teen age bracket, Buffy's quick wit, significant older characters such as Giles, and common adult themes made the show appeal to a far wider audience, making it a long-running phenomenon.

Overall, my personal experience with Buffy is that the first three seasons were the best, with other seasons having some good episodes or arcs but having failings ranging from repeating themes that could have been better let go to directly damaging the overall work that had been done in developing the ensemble cast and universe.

There were certainly moments of brilliance even in the least-good seasons ("Nothing on earth can stop me!" *WHAM* "I'd like to test that theory, if I may." is still one of my favorite scenes in all television), but like many series, Buffy was allowed, or even forced, to keep going long after it really should have been ended. Like Dragonball, forcing a series beyond its end did sometimes allow the creation of new and interesting events, but was clearly prone to disaster due to building an extension onto a metaphorical building whose foundations were not sufficient to support it.

The show was also quite able to look at itself in different ways, ones that could be terribly creepy. The worst – or perhaps best – of these was "Normal Again", wherein Buffy is affected by a demonic hallucinogenic toxin that sends her into a dream-state in which she is a normal girl who had suffered a psychotic break and had a long delusion of being this superhuman "Slayer" fighting vampires and demons. The truly horrific part of the episode is, of course, that this could really be the truth. The entire series could be the adventures made up by an insane girl in a mental hospital, and the ending of the episode is not focused on the "real" Buffy having rescued her friends, but the mental patient now fully retreated into her fantasy universe.

At the same time it had marvelous moments of heroism and self-affirmation, perhaps the greatest being Buffy fighting alone against Angelus – the demonic version of the good-guy vampire Angel – in a race to prevent Angelus from releasing a world-destroying demon. Buffy is fighting desperately, but losing to Angelus, who continues his assault, backing her against the wall, mocking her as he is about to deliver the final blow: "No weapons... no friends... no hope. Take all that away and what's left?"

Buffy (catching his sword between her hands and looking him straight in the eye): "ME."

This show has certainly influenced my writing -- mostly in trying to find ways to match Whedon's hand at dialogue. I'm not that good, but it is a goal to strive towards. He was able to keep multiple characters in character while still letting their dialogue sparkle, which is a major achievement; sure, many writers can come up with awesome lines, but figuring out how to make them not jar the reader/watcher when they're being said by the work's butt-monkey, that's harder.

In the end, Buffy is one of the best products of American television of the last few decades. It has some flaws, of course – the constant requirement for Buffy to have a "boyfriend" is one of the most annoying – but it is overall a great show, especially in the first three seasons, and I recommend it highly.