Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 50

Issue #1 – Captain America & the Mighty Avengers (2014)

Title: Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #1

Writer: Al Ewing

Artist: Luke Ross

The Buzz: I didn’t hear any particular buzz about this one ahead of time but we can count the same ‘hey Captain America is black now’ buzz for this title too. I was mostly drawn to it for the same reasons I tried out All-New Captain America : 1) Anthony Mackie, 2) Attention-grabby covers featuring Falcon!Cap plus a brand new reason 3) a team with a diverse line-up, which is always interesting to me. It’s been billed as the first Avengers team with a predominantly non-white team, which is in itself pretty exciting.

All You Need To Know: Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, is now Captain America but he still has his wings. Luke Cage is a great, interesting and nuanced character in pretty much everything else I’ve read him in.

Story: There’s a new Avengers team in town – this one is apparently “for the people,” operates out of an old cinema, and responds to a hotline. Luke Cage is grumpy. Sam conspires with Tony Stark to destroy the other Avengers. There’s some posturing villain appearances, and no clear narrative throughline. Meh. For a team book there’s surprisingly little showing (instead of telling) what the team is going to be like together, or even how they know each other.

Art: Not bad. I like the faces. Unfortunately, apart from two pages featuring Soraya speculating about who this team consists of (a question I would like to see explored in more depth, and a character I would have liked to know MORE about) the issue largely consists of squared shoulders and blokes yelling at each other, so I’m not sure the artist has a lot to work with. I like the page showing the cinema frontage.

But What Did I Miss?: EVERYTHING. This version of Sam Wilson reads completely differently to the one I read in All-New Captain America – four times as violent and maybe slightly wittier. I am so confused. Also, I know Luke Cage and Spider-Man but there’s some other Power Man wandering around, and a couple of characters called Dave and Soraya who – I don’t know, we’re not even told what their code names are. On the bright side, if you missed the entire Superior Spider-Man controversy in which Peter Parker died and was replaced by Doc Ock in his body, there is a hilarious page of him attempting to explain all that to a very unimpressed Luke Cage, who is unforgiving that Spider!Ock threatened his kid. Sadly this is the only good page in the book. The rest of the issue reads as an epilogue to another comics event (AXIS apparently) and doesn’t make any concessions for a new reader.

Would Read Issue 2?: No, it’s a shame, but I’m lost already. This aggro, violent version of Falcon!Cap is even less fun than the one in his own title, and I wasn’t given a chance to get to know anyone else in the book. Except Spider-Man. It feels like a wasted opportunity to me. I was really keen to read a team title with a diverse ensemble – and was left feeling that the writer had no particular interest in the ensemble at all.

PREVIOUS ISSUE #1 POSTS

Thor #1 (2014)

Spider-Woman #1 (2014)

All-New Captain America #1 (2014)

Musketeer on Mars (2008 & 2012)

So the trouble with Musketeer sequels, as opposed to adaptations of the original Three Musketeers, is that they’re kind of depressing. Instead of being about our boys at the height of their adventures, they are usually about the end of the story – either focusing on the next generation, and/or a reunion plot making it clear that the best fictional BFFs of all time have been sorely neglecting each other for years or even decades.

(Friendship stories based on the premise that the friends have gone their separate ways for most of their lives are the WORST friendship stories)

Also, unlike adaptations of the first volume of stories, and regardless of the original fictional fates, our boys tend to be somewhat expendable in the Gallery of What Maybe Happened Next.

As of the New Year, I’m opening up my Musketeer Media Monday posts to sequels as well as straight adaptations, to change it up a bit and keep it all fresh. However, I think you need to congratulate me, because I’m pretty sure I just found the most depressing Musketeer sequel of all time on my first try.

Seriously, I don’t want to be proven wrong on this one. Even that Leonardo Di Caprio Wears a Mask movie can’t be this depressing, right?

The Last Musketeer (2008) is a graphic novel by Jason, a Norwegian comic artist who is well known for his thoughtful, anthropomorphic animal characters, and his ‘silent movie’ style.

It’s modern day (ish) with a hint of retro. Porthos is (implied) dead, Aramis is a married professional and wants nothing to do with the Musketeer legacy, and no one even mentions D’Artagnan! Athos is sad, but he still wears his Musketeer outfit because he doesn’t want to forget who they were. There is no explanation as to why he and Aramis apparently have been alive since the seventeenth century. I guess Musketeering is good for the pores.

Our melancholy hero is slightly perked up when aliens attack from Mars, and he sets off to prevent the invasion, because that’s what humans do. Or, at least, Musketeers who are feeling like the world maybe didn’t need them for a while there.

What follows is a surreal and weirdly gentle tale that mashes up Flash Gordon and The Princess of Mars, with other retro sci-fi elements thrown in for good measure. My favourite character is the princess, who takes against her father (basically a subdued Ming the Merciless) and his plot, and seduces then bullies the captain of the palace guards into being her accomplice in saving the day.

She’s casually awesome and competent, as well as being utterly rude to everyone. She’s a complete deconstruction of Princess Aura and the other space princess types. There’s nothing super bad-ass about this princess, she’s not magically special, she’s just sarcastic and works hard when she commits to a project, like saving the Earth or rescuing Athos from the dungeon.

Some of the most glorious parts of this story are the – well, the quiet moments, though really it’s wall to wall quiet moments. My favourite is where Athos battles a robot, then gets caught because he stopped to bury the body. Because that’s what civilised men do.

For all my bewilderment, I will admit, this is a gorgeous Athos. Angst + loyal dedication to duty = Musketeer.

A mysterious human stranger in the space palace on Mars turns out to be – who else – Count Rochefort. I’m not sure why Athos is supposed to have a particular grudge against Rochefort (that’s D’Artagnan, mostly!) but their sword fight is a gorgeously underplayed series of panels which made me smile.

And, you know, #rochefortlives is always a winner for me.

The ending is so miserable, I could hardly believe it, but it matched the tone of the overall book, and pretty much made me want to cuddle Musketeers and bake them cookies. Forever.

Sigh.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

“Athos in America” (2012) is the title novella in a collection of Jason’s work, and it’s a prequel to The Last Musketeer, set in 1920’s Hollywood.

Seriously, Musketeers can live forever? And if so, what DID happen to Porthos?

This one has less swashbuckling, but also less crippling sadness, so I liked it rather more – it’s a character piece between Athos and a friendly bartender, with the funny!tragic tale of Athos’ attempts to make it in Hollywood, with a side order of his appalling luck with women.

By now I was a lot more accustomed to Jason’s restrained, deadpan style of comics, to the point of feeling quite nostalgic about his Athos, and it was a pleasant read. My favourite part, however, was the opening which shows him playing the superhero/vigilante protector on the streets of New York, and I would have definitely liked a more substantial story which played with those tropes in a similar way to the Princess on Mars riffs in The Last Musketeer.

All in all – if there’s a word for a story that is both melancholy and adorable, then The Last Musketeer and its prequel “Athos in America” are melanchorable. Melancholable?

If you’re going to present a Musketeers story with almost no Musketeers in it, but you are also going to give me a sad, introspective Athos downing wine and performing slow, surreal banter in a bar where nobody knows his name, then… well, yes. It’s almost as good as the real thing.

This Musketeer Media Monday post is brought to you by the paid sponsors of Musketeer Space, all 50+ of them. You guys rule! Previous posts in this series include:

Musketeers in an Exciting Adventure With Airships (2011)

Musketeers Are All For Love (1993)

Looks Good in Leather: BBC Musketeer Edition Part I (2014)

You Can Leave Your Hat On: BBC Musketeer Edition Part II (2014)

It’s Raining Musketeers: BBC Musketeer Edition Part III (2014)

Mickey Mouse the Musketeer (2004)

Musketeers Crack Me Up Seventies Style (1973)

Musketeer in Pink (2009)

Musketeers Break My Heart Seventies Style (1974)

Musketeers in Technicolour (1948)

ROBOTECH REWATCH 33: Team Hovertank!

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages.

It’s a whole new show, but we have clips to prove that isn’t true.

It’s totally true, though.

You weren’t attached to all the previous characters, settings and plots, were you?

Episode 37: Graduation Blues



Everything changes right here!

It’s the Second Robotech War according to the DVD case but I always think of this particular storyline as the Southern Cross.

New opening credits. I’ve missed that clip of Dana shooting the viewer. When I was originally watching the show, the credits were the same throughout, with images referencing all three Robotech series. I always wondered about those characters in the credits that I didn’t know, until finally they turned up and OH there they are.

That happened for the first time with this episode. It’s fifteen years later, and a new generation are graduating from Robotech Academy. This blew my mind the first time around, because new characters, and no sign of the old characters, and WTF? Where was my show? I was all attached and I desperately wanted to know what happened next for Rick and Lisa and where the hell is my show?

For those who aren’t familiar with how Robotech works, the show was only supposed to run for 36 episodes because that’s how many episodes there WERE of the original Japanese anime ‘Macross’. But they decided to keep it going by dubbing two mostly unconnected other mecha-based anime series as if they were all part of the same story.

This is such a bewilderingly beautiful thing, that I can’t even express it. But for me at the time, NOT KNOWING THIS in the days before Wikipedia, I was constantly frustrated and confused.

Still Dana and her antics soon wormed their way into my heart, even if I was watching obsessively for any hint of, you know, what the hell had happened to all my favourites who seemed weirdly not to be around any more. (Spoiler: they’re all off in deep space, yes even Minmei, go figure)

And then of course, when the Southern Cross storyline transitioned into the Invid Invasion, they did it to me AGAIN.

Ahem. I’m not bitter. On with the story.

We open with what looks like a propaganda film covering the destruction of the SDF1, the heroes who died that day, and how human society has developed on Earth over the last fifteen years. In other words, all the stuff that happened last week. Headspin. Now I know how Captain America felt when he woke up out of the ice.

The film is being shown to the first generation of official graduates from Robotech Academy – which maybe explains why so many of the kids are being given pretty high-falutin’ titles for newbies. And also why there’s a huge generation gap in this society – lots of over-qualified teenagers and old dudes with medals, but the parental generation are mostly AWOL.

Bowie has just graduated as a Private but he’s pretty miserable about it because he doesn’t want to be a soldier, so he hangs around in his room moping and listening to Minmei records. Does that mean that Minmei is this generation’s Nick Cave?

Bowie’s best friend, a bubbly blonde Lieutenant, arrives to cheer him up and after torturing him with her poor singing she decides to tell him the super romantic story of how her parents got together.

Ms9’s eyes lit up as she put the pieces together. The Lieutenant is Dana Sterling, the daughter of Max and Miriya, last seen with bright aqua hair being tossed about to end a war. Also, this is a clip show with an actual purpose, to explain how this saga matches up to the old one.

If we’re going to re-experience a Robotech romance, it should totally be this one. Max and Miriya are still hot together. Also their story works especially well as a clip show because you pretty much don’t have to leave anything out – I didn’t realise until this rewatch how little time we actually got with the Max and Miriya story. You can show their entire relationship in a 20 minute period.

Their knife fight has to be the best knife fight of all television ever. And also the best first date.

Just as we get to the wedding, Dana is interrupted in her storytelling by a call to arms. She and Bowie run out with their fellow graduates, and the episode skips to an Robotech Masters admin meeting. Turns out they’re running short on Protoculture. I wonder if that will turn out to be important.

Back on Earth, Space station Liberty is under attack. New pilot Lieutenant Marie Crystal is anxious but not nervous as she goes into battle.

Some things blow up.

Basically the story hasn’t started yet; we need to wait for next week to get to know all the characters properly. Dana’s pal Bowie, by the way, is the nephew of the awesome tea-obsessed Claudia who proved last week that you’re not really a dedicated shipper until you’ve sacrificed your life for your OTP. Bowie and Dana are the foster children of General Rolf Emerson, belonging to a whole generation of kids who have been heartlessly abandoned by their spacefaring parents.

I mention this, though these details aren’t overt in the show yet, because on my original viewing I found the Southern Cross storyline and many of the relationships utterly baffling, until I read the novelisation and put more of the details together. Hey, for several episodes I thought Nova Satori was actually Miriya, based largely on her hair colour.

After this first utter tease of an episode with its Max and Miriya clip show extravaganze, the references to the missing parents and their peers are so spaced out and rare that it took me ages to figure out that pretty much all the surviving characters from the original Robotech War are no longer on Earth (cough, for the obvious reasons that they were never in this show in the first place).

I’m putting you out of your misery. They’re never coming back. Don’t look for them. Don’t miss them. It’s time to move on.

We’re all about Team Dana now. Come over to our side, we have hovertanks.

This weekly rewatch of classic animated space opera Robotech is brought to you as bonus content for the Musketeer Space project. Thanks to everyone who has linked, commented, and especially to my paid patrons. You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Issue # 1 – All-New Captain America (2014)

Title: All-New Captain America #1

Writer: Rick Remender

Artist: Stuart Immonen

The Buzz: Captain America is black! Which is all-new except for those other times that happened. In all seriousness, I was interested in checking out this title because I really liked Sam Wilson/the Falcon in the Winter Soldier movie, and I was keen to see him in his own comic.

All You Need To Know: This part is pretty much spelled out in a helpful info page, but in short: Steve Rogers is old now, because alternate dimension, and he has an adult foster son, Ian AKA Nomad (which is a codename Steve himself used back in the day when he was feeling disillusioned about America). Old!Steve has handed the shield and Captain America title on to Sam so he can retire in a boat with Old!Sharon.

Story: Eh, you know what, there’s some Hydra fighting, and some introspection, and Nomad kinda thinks he should have got to be Cap instead. Possibly some kind of spy plot with shooty soldiers, but I didn’t take in much. There are no women in this comic except for a brief panel with Sharon Carter. There’s nothing here for me.

Art: This is pretty gorgeous, actually, I like Immonen’s work a lot and his depictions of Sam in particular as the new Falcon Cap (he still has his wings!) come across beautifully in reds and blacks. The idea of a Captain America who is a man of colour is hugely powerful, and I’m glad they gave this to an artist who was able to convey that in iconic imagery – I’m sure many of these pictures will be floating around and remembered long after they roll back the storyline to give the back shield to Steve Rogers (come on, like they won’t).

But What Did I Miss?: If Captain America type comics are your sort of thing, then I think this actually works fine as an intro to a new series, and I really appreciated the ‘Previously in Captain America’ info page. If, however, you came here like me because the Marvel Cinematic Universe Falcon is adorable, then you may be disappointed at the general tone which has a higher proportion of violent action to witty banter than I personally enjoy.

Would Read Issue 2?: Nah, probably not, I think the idea of Sam Wilson as Captain America is great but I have no interest in following a title that’s mostly Grimdark & Guns. Let me know when Dani Cage is Captain America and I’ll try the comic again…

PREVIOUS ISSUE #1 POSTS

Thor #1 (2014)

Spider-Woman #1 (2014)

Issue #1 – Spider-Woman (2014)

Title: Spider-Woman #1 [AKA this Spider-quest brings all the Spider-Gals to the Spider-yard]

Writer: Dennis Hopeless

Artist: Greg Land

The Buzz: Mostly the buzz around this comic was the negative kind – because the awesomeness of having a Spider-Woman solo title was marred somewhat by a ridiculous, over-sexualised cover of epic butt-contortion proportions (not shown, no longer used as the default for this comic). Other than that, this is part of the current Spiderverse crossover-multiverse event which has mostly generated buzz because of the fabulous “Spider-Gwen” one-shot.

All You Need To Know: Spider-Woman, AKA Jessica Drew, is at times an Avenger, a SHIELD agent, or a private detective. She has nothing to do with Spider-Man except for the similar iconography – her origin is entirely unconnected to his. However, you would not know it from this comic, where there’s some serious universe-hopping going on between all the Spider peeps. Apparently they’re all one big family now. Jessica is awesome and snarky, as is only right and proper for a superhero veteran. Weary sarcasm is always a character hit for me, especially in a female lead character.

Story: Jessica is on the run through various universes with a teenage superhero fangirl/sidekick called Silk, and a dude she refers to as Prohibition Spider-Man who comes from an alternate 1930’s wolrd. It’s all pretty funny and awesome, even if I have no idea what’s going on. Also, at least four named female characters are active and talking to each other, including Spider-Gwen who is my favourite new character in the Marvel comicsverse. Even feeling like I’ve been dropped in the middle of a weird alt universe action epic (which I have, basically), the story works from here, giving me plenty to hang on to and enjoy. Like giant lizards and space bazaars.

Art: The original cover notwithstanding, I like the internal artwork for this issue a lot – bright and bold and traditional in a good way, just what I want from a superhero comic. The women look like different people, as much as you usually get in comics anyway, and the backgrounds are interesting.

But What Did I Miss?: Honestly, for an issue 1, this one feels like you need to know a LOT going in. I vaguely knew that there was a Spiderverse crossover going on, so I wasn’t overly surprised to see Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) travelling around with a 1930’s version of Spider-Man and for the awesome Spider-Gwen to show up later in the issue, but this doesn’t feel like the beginning of a series. Maybe read the Edge of Spiderverse books first? I feel like I should have done that. I’m gonna go do that now.

Would Read Issue 2?: Hell yes. It has many of the things I like in a title, and that’s enough for me personally to get over the ‘not knowing what’s going on’ thing.

Musketeer Space Part 33: The Hotel Coquenard Deluxe Bathroom Experience

It’s Musketeer Day!

No I haven’t seen the first episode of the new BBC Musketeers series yet, and yes it’s driving me crazy because I have to look at Tumblr with one eye squinched closed to try to avoid spoilery stuff.

I have heard rumours that as well as having no hat, D’Artagnan is now also without shirt. You’re welcome.

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 32

Missed the festive Seven Days of Joyeux prequel? Read it now.

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana D’Artagnan came to Paris Satellite to become a Musketeer pilot and instead she has befriended three of them, and got herself wrapped up in palace intrigues and spy romances, so she’s getting pretty sick of it all. Since the attack on Gascon Station, the solar system is at war with the Sun-kissed. Before they ship out, there are outfits to chase and loose ends to tie up. Including Porthos’ love life…

NOW READ ON.

This chapter is dedicated to new Patreon supporter Dorothea Salo. I look forward to fitting your spaceship into the narrative!

Chapter 33: The Hotel Coquenard Deluxe Bathroom Experience

Fancy restaurants in super fancy hotels, it turned out, were desperately uncomfortable for Dana. She did not want to be here at all, and the cute black cocktail dress was only making her squirm.

Dana was going to roast Athos in a pie for dropping her into this without warning, and without back up. He must have known she would hate it as much as he would. The bastard probably thought it was funny.

Aramis and Porthos were obviously both enjoying themselves amongst all the wealth and glamour. Dana was also going to roast them in the aforementioned pie.

“Captain Porthos, how lovely,” said a voice that managed somehow to be both chilly and welcoming. It was an impressive feat. An older woman in a designer suit bore down upon them with a smile that did not reach her eyes. “Always a pleasure to see the Royal Musketeers here at Hotel Coquenard.”

“Madame, it’s been too long,” Porthos replied graciously and they kissed each other’s cheeks as if they were the best of friends.

It was a little creepy.

“You remember Captain Aramis, and this is our friend, Arms-Sergeant D’Artagnan. My friends, this is Madame Coquenard, our host.”

Dana blinked several times before remembering that indeed, her new position came with a new rank. Nice.

“Delighted,” purred the evidently-not-delighted Madame Coquenard. “I shall send Remy out to discuss the menu with you, of course.”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” agreed Porthos with a gleam in her eye.

As the manager moved on to another table, Dana leaned in to her friends. “What the hell have you dragged me into here?”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Porthos said, widening her eyes so much that it wouldn’t be a surprise if her long lashes got tangled in her ruby-red wig.

“It’s all going to be fine, and we get a nice meal out of it,” said Aramis in a calm voice, though it was obvious that her attention was elsewhere.

Dana followed her gaze and saw a familiar figure sitting at a table at the far end of the restaurant. Captain Tracy Dubois, with what looked like several elderly relatives, and not a husband in sight. Their eyes met and they shared a long, slow smile across the length of the room, as if they were the only ones there.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me,” Dana muttered.

She was going to kill Athos so hard. He wasn’t even worthy of a pie.

Chef Coquenard – who had to be the husband of the manager, surely – was a large, friendly-looking man who nevertheless approached their table as if he expected to be greeted by his very own personalised Death By Forks. He greeted all three of them, and managed to explain the more complex and artistic quirks of the menu in between a whispered argument with Porthos about why exactly he had failed to come to her aid back on Chantilly, while she was wounded and stuck for funds.

Other bullet points of the argument included the inappropriate nature of tonight’s little confrontation, under the eyes of Madame Coquenard who preferred to keep up the illusion that they were still married to each other, for business reasons. Yes, of course dinner was on the house, because Porthos was on the verge of causing the most spectacular Scene of Righteous Fury, and Chef Coquenard seemed to be of the opinion that he mostly deserved it.

Also, the beetroot foam was not to be missed.

It was the most awkward conversation that Dana had ever been part of, and she could have lived without being occasionally asked to weigh in with opinions about the preferred sauce to be smeared alongside sashimi escargot, and how she felt about vintages from the islands of Truth.

It really didn’t help that Aramis was so busy flirting with her girlfriend from across the restaurant that she did not participate in the debate about Paris Gateaux versus Creme of Honour.

“I feel a lot better now,” said Porthos as her lover returned to the kitchen to make a start on their appetisers. “It’s good to resolve relationship issues before they fester.”

“I’m so glad for you,” said Dana, viciously stabbing her bread roll.

When Madame Coquenard returned to personally serve their wine with polite smiles that made it pretty clear she disapproved thoroughly of Porthos but was never going to publicly admit it, Dana decided she needed a break and made for the ladies room as fast as she could in stupid frock and stupid heels.

As she swung around the grand staircase, she saw a table concealed in a far alcove, and almost stopped breathing for a moment as she recognised one of the occupants.

Milord De Winter. How was it that he kept crossing her path? Paris Satellite was a big place. Perhaps the universe was trying to tell her something – like that she was running out of time if she wanted to rescue Conrad Su before she was sent off to war.

She crept a little closer, keeping an ornamental shrub in a gilt-lined pot between herself and Milord. Perhaps she might overhear something of use.

As she moved in, however, Dana realised that she recognised his dinner companion too, though she had not seen her this close before. Milord had finally won the attention of the Marquise de Wardes, that political candidate from Valour that had so captivated his attention back on the train, and beyond.

Well, now she was practically obliged to eavesdrop on their conversation.

The Marquise De Wardes was as effortlessly beautiful in person as in all the newscasts. She was a similar height, colour and build to Dana herself – and her deep brown shoulders were surprisingly muscular for a woman who was famous as a fashion plate, not a kickboxer.

Speaking of her fashion choices, she was all in silver for the fancy restaurant; poured into a sheath dress that looked like it had been welded from sheet metal. Her mid-length hair fell in black twists with silver beads that must have taken hours to set in place.

Milord De Winter had gone to some trouble as well. His suit was grey, with a shirt embroidered with silver threads. Had he called ahead to make sure their outfits matched? That was disturbing. But if he really wanted to match colour schemes with the Marquise, why wasn’t he wearing his silver secret agent hair?

Dana shifted closer, but couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying to each other. The mood had shifted from politely flirtatious to something a little more tense – Milord spoke too fast, leaning in as if desperate to convince the Marquise of something. She in turn tilted her whole body back, as if to make extra space between them.

Finally, the Marquise de Wardes stood, and spoke loud enough that Dana could hear her from her hiding spot. “Don’t think I’m not grateful for your interest, Milord De Winter, but I have so many political advisors already. I’m not sure you are making as strong a case as you think you are.”

“Please, give me a little longer to convince you,” pressed Milord. “And do accept the token of my professional esteem.” He pushed a small, pretty object at her. It looked like a retro powder compact, decorated with a gleaming mother-of-pearl surface.

The Marquise sighed, but accepted the gift. “Excuse me for a moment, I need a spot of fresh air,” she said coldly. She swept off in the direction of the bathroom with a haughty flick of her head. De Winter, left behind, looked like the popular boy in school receiving his first ever rejection to a dance, and not sure how to handle it.

Dana hesitated for a moment before realising that as a woman, she could follow the Marquise without raising anyone’s suspicion. Anyone except Aramis and Porthos, of course, who gave her confused looks as she moved past their table and kept going, on a lap of the restaurant.

The ladies bathroom was a gleaming treasure. It was like stepping inside a jewellery cabinet, or possibly a hover-chandelier. Everything sparkled and gleamed.

There was no hiding in here – reflective surfaces were in abundance, and Dana found her face staring back at her from a dozen different angles.

At the enormous central mirror, the Marquise de Wardes touched up her makeup, swiping lip gloss across her mouth and turning a dial on her wrist to adjust the colour. “Honestly,” she sighed, meeting Dana’s eyes as if they were peers. “I think I preferred it when men were after me for my looks rather than my political value.”

It occurred to Dana that the practiced charms of her alter ego Lexi Charlemagne might be of more use here than her own usual brand of tactless stomping. “I saw your fellow out there as you walked away,” she said lightly, joining the Marquise at the mirror. “If you think he’s not interested how you look, you really haven’t been paying attention. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

The Marquise made an unimpressed huffing sound. “You say that, my dear, but believe me, that one’s only thinking about my potential career in public office – and what he can get out of an alliance with me. He can turn on the charm when he wants to, but everything beneath the surface is cold as ice.”

Dana gave a half shrug and readjusted her neckline, since she had no lipstick or more than half a centimetre of hair to primp. “I know what I saw, that’s all.”

The Marquise gave her a thoughtful look, as if she was trying to work Dana out. “What a darling gown you’re wearing,” she said after a moment. “I am sure I saw the Duchess of Buckingham wearing one like it only last month.”

“She’s a trendsetter, all right,” Dana said with a secret smile. If she was going to keep up this espionage thing, she might have to invest in gowns that weren’t Buck’s hand-me-downs and therefore fit correctly. What a horrendous thought.

“Well, I hope you’re having a better evening that I am,” said the Marquise, making for the door.

Dana spotted the compact clamshell, where the Marquise had abandoned it near the sink. “You forgot this.”

“Oh, keep it,” said the darling of the fashion broadcasts with an airy wave. “And if you hear that handsome, silver-tongued date of mine ask anyone if they’ve seen me, please don’t volunteer that I slipped out through the kitchens to avoid him.”

As the bathroom door swung closed behind her, Dana reached down and picked up the compact clamshell. It was unlikely that Milord would have put any evidence of Conrad Su’s latest kidnapping on this thing before passing it over to the Marquise de Wardes as a gift, but she could not afford to discard any possible clue.

It occurred to her a moment later that if the Marquise de Wardes could escape this bloody hotel through the kitchens, then Dana could do exactly the same thing. She felt a brief prick of guilt about ditching Aramis and Porthos, but the thought of sitting through more of that ridiculous dinner performance made the guilt instantly vanish.

She put the clamshell in the tiny evening bag that Aramis had pressed on her because the stupid dress she was wearing was apparently too fancy to include pockets, and made a break for it.

The hotel didn’t have a back entrance so much as a giant blank wall, but Dana still managed to double back and leave the hotel by the main lobby without being spotted by either her friends or Milord De Winter.

That didn’t mean that she made it out scot free. Only a few steps from the hotel entrance, a fiercely strong pair of hands grabbed her around the shoulders and dragged her into the alleyway around the side.

Dana was prepared to fight, her elbows and fists tense for action, but when she saw her assailant, she hesitated for a moment.

“Hello, Lexie,” said the piercing and no-longer-quite-as-friendly voice of Bianca “Bee” de Winter, the Countess of Clarick. “How perfectly lovely to see you again.” From her tone, she meant anything but.

“Hello, Bee,” said Dana warily.

“Or should I call you Miss D’Artagnan?” her former travelling companion went on, eyes flashing with anger.

Cover blown, then. Well, it wasn’t before time. Dana wrenched away from Bee’s grip, straightening her dress to give herself a moment to collect her thoughts. “It wasn’t personal, Bee,” she said calmly. “I was working. With a brother like yours, you should understand what that means.”

Bee de Winter wore loose practice clothes, as if she had come here straight from a yoga class – or fencing training, Dana considered, noting the sheathed sword that hung from Bee’s hip, and the folded pair of gloves tucked into her belt. Too late, she remembered that there was more to this New Aristocrat than gossip and fashion advice. Bee had told her all about the sports and games that she and her friends were into – shooting and fencing among others.

She looked positively lethal here in the alleyway, a sword on one hip and what had to be an arc-ray on the other. Dana was starting to think she wasn’t the only one who had been playing a role on that train.

“Nothing personal,” said Bee with a skeptical lift of her eyebrow. “And next you’re going to insist that you’re not stalking my brother-in-law, is that right?”

Dana almost spluttered with laughter at that. Her, stalking Milord, when it was so much more likely to be the other way around. “Are you serious right now?”

“Vaniel has a lot of enemies,” Bee said, her tone making it clear that she saw no humour in this situation. “I was really hoping you weren’t one of them.”

Dana saw red, the old familiar buzz of anger burning through her. “I serve the Crown,” she snapped, shoving Bee further away from her. “If that makes me your brother-in-law’s enemy, that’s his choice, not mine, and it’s a stupid bloody choice. I wasn’t even here because of him tonight. My stupid friends brought me for a ridiculously embarrassing dinner, and I’m starving, so -”

“What is going on here?” broke in a sharp, beautiful voice.

Bee and Dana hesitated, their hands hovering in the act of either shoving each other away further, or hauling each other in for a proper fight. Dana had not yet decided which impulse she was going to go with.

Milord De Winter stood at the mouth of the alley in his silver suit and brown hair, either exasperated or amused. Possibly both.

“Vaniel, darling,” said Bee without taking her eyes off Dana. “Did you know that our little friend from the train was actually a Musketeer spy called D’Artagnan?”

Milord went very still. “No, I did not know that,” he said calmly. “How very enterprising of her.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Bee demanded.

“Well, I’m not going to start a scuffle outside a five star hotel, sweetness. I’ll see you back at the ship later. Unless you’d rather walk with me now?”

Bee looked confused. “I’m meeting friends,” she said.

“Ah, well. I will bid you good night then, Bee. Good night, Dana.”

“Good night, Vaniel,” said Dana politely, since they were apparently on first name terms now, and if she had learned one thing about hanging out with Athos and the others, it was that politeness was a useful tool to keep people off balance.

When he was gone, it was just Dana and Bee, staring awkwardly at each other.

“So what?” Dana said impatiently after a moment. “Are we going to fight, or are we going to make out against the wall for a while? Or even better, we could go back to reading trashy magazines and painting each other’s nails, because that was a super good time.”

“My family is everything to me,” Bee hissed. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m going to make sure you stay well away from us.”

“Good luck with that,” Dana snapped back. “I’ve been trying to avoid you all week but here I am getting hauled back in.”

Bee’s eyes went very dark for a moment, and then she pulled both of the padded gloves out of her belt and slapped Dana in the face.

It kind of hurt, but Dana barely noticed because she was recovering from the fact that she had actually been hit with a pair gloves, like something out of a vid drama. “Are you challenging me to a duel, or do you just like hitting people with clothing?”

“Name the place and time,” Bee said in a steady, angry voice.

Dana opened her mouth, but was interrupted by a chorus of aristocratic voices.

“Bee, honey, there you are!”

“Yo, Clarick!”

Two men and a woman, all athletic and wearing the same kind of designer sports gear as Bee, crowded into the mouth of the alley.

“We only have the practice rooms till 2200, what’s going on with you?”

“I was busy,” Bee said between gritted teeth.

Dana did not like that she would now have to shove her way past three more people in order to get out of this damned alley. She hated it when there wasn’t a clear exit. “0600 behind the Luxembourg,” she said, keeping her gaze steady on Bee. “If you’re so keen to address your issues with me.”

“Done,” snapped Bee.

“Hang on,” said one of her friends. He was at least a head taller than Dana and his shoulders were crazy wide like he had been built out of lamb shanks and robot parts. His meaty hand slammed down on Dana’s shoulder and she flinched beneath him. “A duel, Clarick? And you’re leaving us out of it?”

“Take your hand off my shoulder,” said Dana, very calmly.

The idiot ignored her, leaning more heavily on Dana as he pressed his body towards Bee. “Seriously, you know it’s been on our bucket list since we arrived here. Paris isn’t Paris without an illegal duel under our belt…”

“Seriously, move your hand right now,” breathed Dana. “Or I’m going to make you move it.”

“Doncaster,” Bee said, sounding exhausted and pissed off. “If you can’t find your own damned duel, I don’t see why I should share mine -”

Dana stepped aside from the enormous New Aristocrat who had been using her as furniture, swung around neatly and punched him in the face. Pain shot through her hand all the way up to her elbow, but it was worth it.

“0600 tomorrow, behind the Luxembourg, everyone’s welcome,” she grated out, glaring at the other two New Aristocrats until they stepped quickly aside to let her out of the alley. “I have three friends, you have three friends, let’s have a party.”

Dana glanced over her shoulder at Bee de Winter, her hand aching. One more cheap shot before she made her exit. “For future reference, if you really want to fight duels over your brother-in-law’s honour, better check he has some first.”

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.

Issue #1 – Thor (2014)

The Marvel comics universe is huge and sprawling and complex – and it’s tricky sometimes to figure out where to hop aboard.

I thought since I’ve been on a comics kick lately, I’d do some short reviews of some Issue 1s I’ve tried out lately, of new or recently relaunched Marvel series. Come window shop the superheroes with me!

Title: THOR #1 [AKA Crankypants Odin gets Pwned by his Spectacular Wife]

Writer: Jason Aaron

Art: Russell Dauterman

The Buzz: This one got a lot of promo attention because of the whole THOR IS A LADY NOW aspect of the book.

All You Need To Know: Marvel comics Thor is mostly a storybook version of Thor from Norse myths. Odin is his dad, Loki is his brother, etc. This Thor has also been an Avenger for decades. His hammer is called Mjolnir, and Odin once cast a spell on it so that only those worthy of the power of Thor could lift it. Turned out, that was a dick move. But that’s Odin for you.

Story: We don’t actually find out who the new (lay-dee) Thor is in this issue. What we get is depressed, miserable Original!Thor on the moon while his family and friends explain what happened in a previous Marvel event: someone whispered something in his ear, he’s not worthy any more… eh. What’s fascinating is that no one now seems to be worthy. His friends, many of whom have wielded Mjolnir before, can’t lift the hammer off the surface of the moon. Turns out Odin can’t either and he is EXTREMELY PISSED ABOUT THIS.

We might not get an answer to the question of who the new Thor is in Issue 1, but what we do get is a whole lot of fascinating domestic and political argument between cranky-pants Odin (recently returned from a long holiday) and his wife Freyja who has been ruling Asgardia as the All-Mother in his absence and doesn’t plan to give the power up any time soon. Considering how she was fridged (ha, Frigged) in the second Thor movie it’s nice to see Freyja front and centre here.

Art: It’s cute, slightly old fashioned in a children’s illustration kind of way (especially the faces) which I like in a Thor comic. Mind you, the only Thor comic I’ve genuinely liked was the frankly adorable Thor: the Mighty Avenger [The God Who Fell to Earth] with art by Chris Samnee so I’m biased that way.

But What Did I Miss?: This issue is certainly very good at letting you know all the immediately relevant backstory to the comic but I still felt like I was walking in on someone else’s party. I don’t think I’ve ever read a main continuity Thor comic before, which might account for that. There weren’t really any characters I didn’t have a basic idea about thanks to the movies, though, so I guess this is a good place to start Thorring along?

Would Read Issue 2?: Hell yes, I want to know who the new Thor is. I will be a bit sad if it’s not Thor’s mum. They DO answer that question in Issue 2, right???

ROBOTECH REWATCH 32: It’s the End But the Moment Has Been Prepared For

The Robotech Rewatch will resume after these messages.

I had totally forgotten that the Christmas episode was the penultimate episode of the First Robotech War.

I’m not ready for this.

Episode 36: To the Stars

Lisa is mournfully thinking about how she lost Rick. Sadness makes her hair go all glittery.

Rick is mournfully thinking about how much he loves Robotechnology.

Minmei suggests that she and Rick both ditch their jobs, because she’s completely disillusioned with everything. He is a bit bewildered about how this means she doesn’t get him at all. Her solution to his confusion is for them to get married.

Our Minmei, she’s a problem solver.

Khyron meanwhile is gearing up to kill everyone, like he does. He has all the protoculture all the time, and it’s gone to his head. Khyron is not one for character growth.

Lisa is thinking about retirement too, which shocks Claudia who tells her off for being so weak. She is a military woman, surely she wouldn’t give all that up because her boy picked a different girl? Lisa resists her logic, because she’s miserable and just wants to ‘get away.’

Captain Gloval is similarly dismissive when Lisa tries to resign her commission, but his stern, fatherly moustache succeeds where Claudia fails. Amusingly, it turns out he has always known about the whole Rick/Lisa romance. I like to think that he has been receiving regular email updates from Sami. He rewards Lisa for making the right choice by offering her a command of her own.

The Earth forces have been building their own version of the SDF1, in order to find the home planet of the Zentraedi and the Robotech Masters. The Earth can’t take being destroyed again. So seriously, they just threw a new battle fortress together. No mention is made of how this happened without Lisa being aware of it, because it’s right there, ready to go, and seriously? Are their engineers super covert, or has Lisa just been really self-absorbed lately?

Don’t answer that.

“That is why I intend to make certain that the next battlefield will be on their home planet.”

Gloval’s argument for space travel.

Lisa is overwhelmed and pleased. This solves all her problems – she can get away AND still do her duty. Also, her own battle fortress. Everything a girl could want!

Rick is playing with his toy plane, trying to figure out how Minmei thinks giving up flying is something he can do. His duty is important, and he’s never wanted to be anything other than a pilot.

Lisa comes to tell Rick she is leaving for the stars, and to say goodbye. Because apparently interstellar missions can happen that quickly. She is polite to Minmei and manages to stay cool right up until the end where she admits she loves Rick. Because she’s actually pretty awesome now, she apologises to Minmei for saying that to her bloke, but it was her last chance.

With a salute, Lisa runs away crying and Rick tries to go after her, but Minmei stops him. It’s not clear if it’s the woman or the mission he’s most interested in, but before they can resolve anything, there’s a Zentraedi attack on the city. Rick shakes off Minmei and runs after Lisa, worried about her.

When he catches up to her in the midst of the chaos, Rick tells Lisa that he loves her too, in between assessing the military situation.

Minmei runs up and tries to get Rick to go to a shelter because she never really got the hang of the fact that he isn’t a civilian. It comes down to her shrieking about being safe and them both yelling about duty.

“There’s no future,” MInmei says at one point, which is pretty bleak. Here’s hoping the human race still has therapists.

Lisa, to her credit, defends Rick’s identity as a pilot instead of challenging Minmei on the grounds of feelings.

Rick chooses saving the human race over placating his girlfriend, and runs after Lisa.

Minmei screams hysterically in the streets, surrounded by fire and misery. It’s oddly satisfying.

Also you need to know that every time a character started professing love in this episode, Ms9 slurped her cereal loudly so as not to listen to it. I only figured out she was doing it deliberately after the second or third time.

Lisa and her girls Sami, Vanessa and Kim fire up the shiny new SDF2, but they are attacked straight away and the ship lists badly, crippled. In his plane, Rick is devastated, thinking Lisa is dead.

I want you all to stop and think about how many hits the SDF1 survived in the old days. I guess they don’t make battle fortresses like they used to.

Lisa thinks ‘what would Admiral Gloval do?” and the answer is of course “secretly repair the SDF1 so it’s battleworthy too and hang out with Claudia waiting for you guys to catch up.”

It’s not entirely explicit from the cartoon itself, but there’s a connecting corridor between the two ships allowing them to basically run across to the other bridge.

The entire old crew are reunited, and the SDF1 takes to the skies over Macross City again. Minmei is among the humans who are inspired and delighted to see the old crate active again.

Khyron continues his onslaught.

Lisa and Rick happily discover each other’s aliveness over the radio, and she sends him away from the path of the Big Gun, with Max and Miriya watching his tail.

After firing once, the SDF1 settles back into the lake, completely depleted of power. Aww, ship.

Khyron and Azonia prepare for a glorious sacrifice, to ram the helpless SDF1. They are such romantics.

Brace for collision!

Rick watches in horror as Khyron’s ship crashes into the SDF1 and it is destroyed.

“Victoreeeeee!” Khyron cackles as his final words.

But Rick gets out of his plane turns around to discover that Lisa is fine! Well, not fine, there’s probably going to be some PTSD issues, and all her friends are dead, but it turns out that Gloval pushed her into an escape pod at the last moment.

In the novelisation, it was made clear that in fact all Lisa’s friends ganged up on her and chose her to be the one to take the pod, on the grounds that “she was the only one who had something to live for” which I choose to interpret as meaning that they were all far too invested in the Rick/Lisa soap opera to give up on it now.

Puts a whole different angle on that gossip newsletter now, huh?

Just as Rick and Lisa are expressing their love to each other (slurrrrp), Minmei runs up to them. Awkward! Rick tries to tell her he is in love with Lisa but she takes over the conversation, with much umming and ahhing she comes up with an obviously fraudulent cover story to protect her dignity – she’s going back to her career because music is her life.

Lisa manages to only be slightly sarcastic as Minmei reframes the narrative so she is totally dumping Rick and not the other way around. Finally, she’s gone, and Rick and Lisa can consummate their love by staring nobly into the distance and planning to build a new battle fortress together.

Probably they won’t do the actual building themselves. Possibly they have people for that.

To the stars, then! It feels like an ending, but according to the usually reliable narrator, there’s another episode to come next week. So I guess we don’t have to say goodbye to Rick and Lisa yet?

Right?

This weekly rewatch of classic animated space opera Robotech is brought to you as bonus content for the Musketeer Space project. Thanks to everyone who has linked, commented, and especially to my paid patrons. You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

The Shape of 2014 (how it was)

Last year, in my round up post for 2013, I said this:

I won’t be writing one of my usual ‘looking forward to X year’ posts because I honestly don’t know what 2014 will bring except kindergarten and a few travel invitations that I don’t 100% believe in yet, and I hope something finished that is written by me. Watch this space.

ALL THOSE THINGS HAPPENED.

Jemima started kindergarten and had a great year; Raeli was in grade 4 and had a great year too. Jemima loves school as much as her sister does. Raeli’s main sadness was that she wasn’t allowed to visit Jemima in her kindergarten room multiple times every single day, but oh, she tried.

Raeli is nearly 10, and has read all the Harry Potter books. I’m so proud I could burst. She also wears all black and a scornful expression most of the time.

I was invited to an honest to goodness literary festival here in Tasmania, AND went to London to visit the Worldcon, which is much shinier than going to visit any old queen. I met so many people that I’ve only ever talked to online. I went to the Hugos, and to the Ritz, though the happiest time was simply hanging out in the dealer’s room, selling copies of Kaleidoscope hand over fist and chatting to knitters and readers and Alisa’s baby Mackenzie.

My honey and I even got away on a trip on our own, to the Melbourne Natcon, and had a fantastic time. There was one day when we forgot we were parents completely, and oh we felt guilty afterwards, but it was rather nice

We managed a family holiday too, having finally figured out that actually, what we need for a happy family holiday is to stay somewhere a couple of hours drive from home, in an apartment or chalet, with access to a pool and someone cooking us breakfast every day. Bliss.

So many trips this year. Not content with Melbourne and flying to London on my own so brave omg, I also jetted off to Perth to launch Drowned Vanilla, to be a guest (as Livia Day) at the cozy and welcoming CrimeScene convention, and to snoodle Mackenzie again. It was wonderful to catch up with my Perth friends, to finally hold an event at Stefan’s Books, and to hang out in Alisa’s living room drinking affogatos while watching Dixie Chicks and Dawson’s Creek.

WRITING STUFF:

As Livia Day I had a murder mystery novel published this year: Drowned Vanilla, sequel to A Trifle Dead. Amanda made me one of my all time favourite covers, and I’m really proud of the book. Its reception has been very positive so far, especially because of the extra delicious recipes which form part of the book’s narrative.

I also had some TansyRR short stories out:

“Cookie Cutter Superhero,” Kaleidoscope (Twelfth Planet Press)

“Of War and Wings,” Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens

(Zombies Need Brains)

“The Love Letters of Swans,” Phantazein (Fablecroft)

I continue to be overwhelmed by the popular reception of “Cookie Cutter Superhero,” and Kaleidoscope in general. Being part of this book at Loncon was amazing because of the huge swell of support for it, but the fact that so many people have read this story and commented on it to me, either in person or via Twitter, email, gchat, whatever, is just extraordinary.

In other book/writing news, Love and Romanpunk was reprinted in paperback this year for Loncon and we sold SO MANY it was amazing.

Thanks to Tehani of Fablecroft, there are also two collected editions of my essays out there in the world as ebooks: Pratchett’s Women (including a previously unblogged essay on Monstrous Regiment) and 50 Roman Mistresses: Scandal, virtue and womanhood in Ancient Rome.

The original Pratchett’s Women essays on my blog were also picked up by Metafilter and BoingBoing this year, which meant a couple of thousand more people suddenly descended to read them. That was pretty awesome.

“The Raven and her Victory” (2013) originally published in Where Thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe picked up two reprint sales, to Heiresses of Russ and The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2013.

CROWDFUNDING STUFF:

2014 was definitely a year of crowdfunding for me, not only experimenting with it but also talking about it, reaping the rewards of it as a creator and as a supporter.

Cranky Ladies of History is the book that Tehani Wessely and I crowdfunded in March – we’re in final edits right now and the finished product will be out next March, just in time for another Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. It was such an important, exciting project to be involved it, and we were delighted with the level of support we received. Once the fundraising was done, the hard work really started and we have so many amazing stories in this book! I can’t wait to share them with you.

Both podcasts that I’m involved with, Galactic Suburbia and Verity! continued happily throughout 2014. We set up Patreon campaigns for both, allowing our listeners to support us through micropayments, which means covering podcast costs and even being able to save up for important hardware changes like Alisa’s new microphone! It’s been a big weight off our minds and helps the podcasts to be sustainable which is awesome because we love doing them so much.

And speaking of Patreon…

MUSKETEER SPACE:

My big project this year was Musketeer Space, something that I’ve had in mind for a while. I finally bit the bullet on May 22, my birthday. My plan was to get back my writing spark and general depression at not finishing things by setting my own deadlines and using sponsors and readers to spike my adrenalin.

It’s worked in so many ways. Writing Musketeer Space every week has empowered me in all kinds of creative ways, and the associated blogging deadlines for Patreon rewards has done the same. I have written over 350,000 words this year, which completely boggles me. 200,000 of those words are fiction, and 150,000 are non-fiction – which includes commissioned articles, paid blogging such as my Rereading the Empire Trilogy column at Tor.com. Patreon-related blogging and essays.

The campaign has grown from $100 per month back in May to $236 per month now, which doesn’t sound like a lot but it adds up month by month to be the equivalent of a small press advance for the book. More importantly, it gives me accountability to the 60+ supporters, so I absolutely HAVE to post my chapters every week. I haven’t been pushing or publicising the Musketeer Space Patreon campaign much beyond my current readers, because you can’t do the same kind of full on social media blitz for an ongoing campaign that you can with a short, sharp one, but I do need to push this more in the new year because I want to reach $300 so I can commission cover art. COVER ART.

Earning some income from my blog is a new and extraordinary thing, but it’s the effect on my creative energy that I am most grateful for. I don’t know what I’m going to do as far as using what I’ve learned here once the Musketeer Space project winds up some time around July/August, but I definitely want to do something like this again, if I can find a project that suits the business model.

(cough, superheroes, perhaps? Though I’m also tempted to go back to epic fantasy and prove it can be written in bite-sized pieces)

BLOGGING/FAN WRITING:

Writing for Tor.com has been another great boost to my confidence this year, and I am enjoying the regular pressure of having to get a piece in every week. (Cough, there isn’t one this week, I fell down in a heap of torn Christmas wrapping, sorry!)

I also wrote a piece for the brand new Uncanny Magazine: Does Sex Make SF “Soft”?

I’ve been loving the Musketeer themed blogging that I’ve done for my Musketeer Space project, both the Robotech Rewatch posts and the Musketeer Media Monday essays.

I’m especially proud of my BBC Musketeer essays which were I think the most fun I had writing anything this year:

Looks Good in Leather: BBC Musketeer Edition Part I (2014)

You Can Leave Your Hat On: BBC Musketeer Edition Part II (2014)

It’s Raining Musketeers: BBC Musketeer Edition Part III (2014)

We only managed a couple of installments in the ongoing Watching New Who series of conversational reviews, but hope to get David caught up next year!

We took part in another Aussie SF Snapshot too, just before Loncon, which was great fun and bigger than ever before.

I’ve hardly done any non-Musketeer related pop culture blogging on my own site, but I did write a piece earlier on the year with my reactions to Captain America: Winter Soldier and how a Black Widow movie would work. I’m still pretty pleased with the piece although obviously multiple rewatchings, catching up on relevant comics and cough, fanfic, has taught me that I was totally wrong about Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier not being pretty awesome in this film.

See, I can change!

I also wrote essays on The Chosen Mum: Coming of Age in Yonderland, The Chauvelin Effect, and On Influence, about the various female writers who have inspired me over the years.

Oh, and a guest appearance on the SF Signal podcast, talking about Space Opera.

READING:

This year’s reading has been predominantly things that are not eligible for Hugo awards, ie almost no SF and Fantasy at all, which is both frustrating and liberating. I spent the first part of the year obsessively consuming historical romance novels, as described here in The Feminist Rake and Other Stories.

Once I recovered from that frenzy, I found myself accidentally falling back into obsessive fanfic reading, thanks to the BBC Musketeers TV series (you’ve got to love a fandom where the most common OTP involves at least four characters), Harry Potter (for old times’ sake) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was delighted to discover that fanfic communities are a lot less about hating the lady characters these days, and also that it’s possible to download Kindle-friendly files directly from Archive of Our Own. Living in the future, I tell you, it’s awesome.

My third reading frenzy of the year is all about comics, comics and more comics, so the new iPad mini that I found under the Christmas tree (and does not have to be SHARED WITH FAMILY) made me exceedingly happy. I hope to write more about comics & superheroes in the new year, though I did manage this post on Squeeing About Superheroines at Skiffy and Fanty for their Month of Joy. In the mean time, if you’ve ever wondered if it’s worth investing in the massive hardback of Brian Michael Bendis’ noir-in-superhero-universe series Alias, starring Jessica Jones? Yes, totally worth it. I’m also very into the Young Avengers, New Avengers, Hawkeye and All-New X-Men. Raeli’s favourite comic is the new Ms Marvel which makes me happy like I can’t believe.

I do have actual fantasy novels that were released this year that I really want to read. As soon as my brain lets me, I’ll be there. Books I wish I had read this year include Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, Ben Peek’s The Godless, and Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire. Seriously, I have them in hardcover, they are sitting RIGHT THERE. I hope to have consumed them all by the end of the summer.

NEXT YEAR:

Next year’s work is pretty much sewn up. I have to finish the second half of Musketeer Space, publish the book and wind up the project. I have to write Keep Calm & Kill the Chef, the third Livia Day novel, thanks to a lovely Arts Tasmania grant. I have a couple of short story commitments, mainly to anthologies that are going to have crowdfunding campaigns next year.

Cranky Ladies of History will be released in March, which is so exciting. I also have an essay coming out in Companion Piece, the next in the ‘Chicks Dig Time Lords’ series of books from Mad Norwegian Press. The e-edition of Drowned Vanilla will be out, as will the bonus Tabitha Darling novelette, “The Blackmail Blend.”

Oh, and my eldest daughter turns ten and starts Grade 5, and is drawing comics like a demon so she’ll probably have her own Patreon campaign by this time next year. My youngest daughter starts prep which is FULL TIME SCHOOL AND THE WORLD AS I KNOW IT WILL BE SO DIFFERENT.

We have family holidays and get togethers booked in. I will be the Guest of Honour at Continuum in Melbourne this year, in June. I don’t expect to be travelling much beyond this, because 2013 was the Year of Planes and I’m so, so tired.

My goal is to write 204,000 words of fiction next year, all specified projects.

I’d better get started.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Musketeer Space Part 32: Chasing Spaceships

Musketeer Space is back! Did you miss us?

If you missed it over the week leading up to Christmas, I posted the festive prequel novella “Seven Days of Joyeux” along with some great, vibrant art by Katy Shuttleworth. I am hoping to commission an ebook cover from Katy in the coming year, if my Patreon campaign reaches the $300 milestone, so now would be a great time to sign up as a Patreon sponsor if you haven’t already.

Musketeer Space will be running for another 7-8 calendar months or so, for those of you keeping track.

Thanks so much to all the current Patreon subscribers, whose support made it completely justifiable for me to work on the festive prequel story on top of all the other things I’m supposed to be doing. I had so much fun writing “Seven Days of Joyeux,” and getting to know more about Aramis, Athos and Porthos before Dana D’Artagnan crashed into their lives.

If you’ve been holding off on starting to read Musketeer Space because the 1 chapter per week thing bugs you, you can definitely read the prequel without having read the ongoing series. If you’ve come here straight from Chapter 31, you don’t have to stop and read “Seven Days of Joyeux” right now, but it may enhance your reading experience.

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 31

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: The solar system is at war, and Dana D’Artagnan is preparing for battle along with her new best friends, the three Musketeers. Her home space station of Gascon has been attacked by the shapechanging aliens known as the Sun-kissed, who are now occupying the space around the planet of Truth. Oh, and a scary political secret agent might well have kidnapped her non-boyfriend. Things are complicated.

NOW READ ON.

Chapter 32: Chasing Spaceships

This was not the first time that Athos had lost a spaceship he loved.

It was not even the third time.

He always promised himself that he wouldn’t get attached. But while avoiding intimacy was something he found easy when it came to people (most people), spaceships had a way of getting under his skin.

It didn’t help that he always refused to get a bland, factory settings ship. Oh, no. He had to go hunting for one with personality, every single time.

So here they were again.

“Where old spaceships go to die,” he said aloud.

This was the old storage yard that time, space and Musketeers forgot. It was full of the remains of salvaged, damages and abandoned ships, a low-ceilinged area beneath the Musketeer space dock. It was a treasure trove for engies looking for spare parts, but finding enough parts to assemble a complete dart was something of a pipe dream.

He was still going to try.

“I can’t believe Treville made you come scrabbling down here for a replacement for the Parry Riposte instead of ordering you a new ship,” said Porthos from where she sat on the hull of a beautiful dart that had once been called the Saucy Nancy, but had been sliced into four separate pieces in a laser battle.

Athos remembered that battle. The Musketeer who piloted her had ended up in three pieces.

“I can,” said Aramis, poking at the rubble of a broken tail fin with her boot. “She threatened to, after he lost the Balestra last year.”

“That was one time, and I found her again!” Athos protested.

“I can’t see how that redeems you for literally losing a spaceship.”

“At least when he finally blew her up, it was in service to the Crown,” Porthos teased.

“I did not – I hate you all.”

D’Artagnan’s laugh, loud and enthusiastic, rang above their bickering. It was her first visit to the land of broken spaceships, and she looked like a wide-eyed child at Joyeux. Then again, she always looked like a child to Athos.

He had to keep reminding himself that she was twenty, not twelve, and that the three of them didn’t actually have to feel guilty that their friendship was going to corrupt her irretrievably.

Well. Maybe they should all feel a little guilty.

“Why do they hang on to all this stuff?” asked D’Artagnan, whose spacer mentality was having trouble computing that so much yardage on a space station might be reserved for slabs of steel and spare parts, instead of dissolving it all down to its atoms to be re-used as freshly printed parts.

“Because you can’t print personality,” said Athos firmly. “Who wants a ship without any scratches on the hull?”

“Me, I do, my ship is perfect,” Porthos said, waving a hand as if she was volunteering in class. “You just take pride in saving broken things.”

Athos refused to respond to that on the grounds that it hit a little too close to home, and he didn’t want anyone to start assuming metaphors where none existed.

Grimaud emerged from behind a stack of cables and hatchways, with her usual headphones slung around her neck instead of clamped over her ears. “Treville offered him a new ship,” she said. “He refused to accept until he was completely sure there wasn’t something down here that could be salvaged.” And with that betrayal, his engie stood there and smirked.

Athos calmed himself by imagining several ways that he could kill her, silently, with no one ever suspecting it was him.

Aramis and Porthos shot identical looks of delight at Athos.

“You ROMANTIC,” Aramis howled.

“I might swoon,” Porthos agreed.

D’Artagnan just grinned at him, all over her ridiculously young face, as if she found all these revelations simply delightful.

Athos growled at them all.

“Speaking of which,” said Grimaud, and crooked her fingers. “Found something you might want to see, boss.”

Well. He might be furious at her ganging up on him with the other women, but he still trusted her implicitly when it came to engineering matters. Athos followed Grimaud deeper into the yard, with the others trailing behind.

“This one is a possibility,” said Grimaud, tapping a silver dart with most of its side attached as she walked past it. “Someone’s stripped out the internals, but there isn’t much I wouldn’t be able to replace with a hull as sturdy as this to work off.”

“But?” Athos said patiently. He knew a red herring when he saw one.

“But then there’s this fellow.” Grimaud stopped suddenly, and everyone else bumped into Athos, all craning their necks to see.

“Oh,” said Aramis in a baffled sort of voice.

“Seriously?” said Porthos. “Is that even a dart?”

D’Artagnan clambered around all of them, half-tripping over her own pet engineer, whose name Athos could never remember. Pigtails? Anyway, Pigtails spotted what they were all looking at a few seconds before D’Artagnan and responded with a shrill sound and a clap of her hands.

Athos stared, doing his best to ignore them all as he took in the sight. It was an old musket-class dart, practically an antique.

“It’s even older than the Buttercup,” breathed D’Artagnan, which meant nothing to Athos.

“It’s so ugly,” said Porthos, sounding giddy.

It was old and slightly bulbous and it was an odd greenish colour that Athos had never seen on any ship ever. It was so far from a modern dart that he wasn’t even sure that the designation fit. It wasn’t streamlined and elegant like the Parry Riposte had been.

He was a little bit in love already.

“It’s a classic, I suppose,” D’Artagnan said doubtfully, trying to be polite.

“It’s amazing,” Pigtails said, punching Dana lightly on the arm. “I’d love to get my hands on it. So jealous, Madame Grimaud.”

“Please,” said Aramis heavily. “Please tell me you’re not taking it home, Athos. It’s not a stray cat, it won’t benefit from a little food and attention…”

Athos held his hand up to silence them all. “I’m being seduced,” he informed them. “Don’t spoil our moment.”

Grimaud gave him one of her rare, dazzling smiles. “Guess what it’s called?”

“I can’t even,” said Athos, slowly circling around the hull. It was even uglier from behind. He had never seen such an awkward-looking ship.

“The Pistachio.”

“I am not going to be seen in public with you in that ship, war or no war,” Porthos threatened.

But it was too late. Grimaud was smiling, and Athos twitched his mouth back at them, and Pigtails was already begging them both to let her help with the restoration.

“Some battles, you just have to let yourself lose,” D’Artagnan told Porthos, patting her sympathetically on the shoulder.

“It’s SO HIDEOUS,” Porthos whispered back, as if the ship was physically hurting her with its unfashionably retro appearance.

“On the bright side,” Aramis said, blowing Athos a kiss. “Our boy will probably crash it or explode it within a few months.”

“That is no consolation!” Porthos wailed.

Athos didn’t care about any of them. “How much work does it need?” he asked Grimaud.

“All the work,” she said with a wry smile. “Give me four days.”

That week, the Great Restoration of the Pistachio took over everyone’s lives. Dana was fairly sure that Planchet was hiding her return to Paris from Madame Su precisely so that the other engineers wouldn’t get to have all the fun. And it did take all the engineers – not only Grimaud and Planchet, but Bonnie and Bazin too.

This period, between the declaration of war and the shipping out date, involved what the Musketeers referred to as ‘the chase after outfits.’ Each of them had to get their helm and harness (which was to say, their entire outfitting for war) in good order, and while most of them were lucky enough to have an intact ship, there were still weapons systems to install or upgrade, repairs to be made, and so on.

Dana herself had none of this to worry about, which left her far too much time to – well, to worry. Not only about her friends who would be seeing direct action in the battles to come, but also about the disaster back on Gascon Station. Messages from her family were few and far between, and she had only managed to speak to her Papa for a couple of minutes all up, in between his burn treatments.

The news cycle was all about Gascon Station, where there were at least more interesting images than the silent, unmoving siege of alien ships around the orbital cities of Truth, though plenty of those pictures cycled through the media feeds too.

Waiting was a quiet agony that was never be openly discussed.

Dana found Athos in the storage yard, seated in a low-slung deck chair and sipping the largest cup of coffee she had ever seen, as he “supervised” the work of the engineers. He wore over-sized safety goggles and had his feet up on an antique computer bank.

She pulled up a jettisoned slab of air ducting and perched beside him . “What’s the pink line about?”

It was drawn in chalk, a wide shape around the work-in-progress that was the Pistachio. A second chalk line encircled Athos and his deckchair.

“Grimaud and I have come to an agreement,” he said evenly, taking a slurp of his coffee.

“Are you not allowed to cross the chalk lines?” Dana asked, suddenly realising what it must mean. “Not at all? I mean, I understand her not wanting you poking your nose into the ship…”

“Oh, thank you very much.”

“But why aren’t you allowed to leave the yard, either?” She would have thought that Grimaud would prefer Athos to be anywhere but here.

“We needed some new parts – the harness in particular, but other bits and pieces that we couldn’t reclaim from the yard.”

Dana didn’t like the cagy tone in Athos’ voice. “And?”

“And the budget that Treville gave me for a replacement ship shrunk somewhat when she found out about the expenses from the Gilded Lily back on Valour.” He winced. “There was shouting.”

Not undeserved, Dana thought to herself, but did not say it aloud. “So how did you get the parts?”

“I played for them with a bunch of Mendaki smugglers.”

Dana blinked several times. “I thought Porthos was the problem gambler.”

“Yes, well we don’t all keep our vices in separate boxes, D’Artagnan,” he said sharply. “Sometimes Aramis drinks too much. Sometimes I fuck people I shouldn’t…”

“Okay, I get the picture. Did you win the parts?”

“Eventually.”

“So -”

“Grimaud found out that I used her as a stake in the betting,” he grumbled. “She’s taking it personally.”

“You are a genuinely terrible person,” Dana said, smacking him in the chest.

“She’s the most valuable resource I have. Everyone wants her as their engie.”

“That’s not an excuse for putting her up as a stake, Athos. That is the complete opposite of a reasonable excuse!”

He lifted his safety goggles briefly so she could see the swelling black eye he was sporting. “Grimaud agreed with you.”

“I’m not even slightly sympathetic,” Dana told him sternly.

They fell into a long silence together, Athos sipping occasionally from his coffee. “I believe I owe you an apology,” he said after a moment.

Dana almost fell off her temporary seat. “You what now?”

“The business in the cellar,” he said, waving a hand vaguely. “I said more than I should have. My past is not something I want to burden others with.”

“What’s said on Valour stays on Valour,” Dana said lightly. “Anyway, there was a lot of wine. I hardly remember what you said.”

Athos gave her a narrow look. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

“You can’t prove anything.”

“Hmm.” He looked unimpressed by her attempts at tact. “Anyway. I’m sure my vast wealth of miserable experience will serve as some form of useful life tutorial for you.”

“Like, don’t trust pretty men who talk sweetly about politics?” Dana suggested lightly, thinking of her own recent adventures.

Athos’ mouth twitched. “Damn straight.”

Bonnie and Planchet went past, carrying lengths of cables and tubing. Planchet gave Dana a little wave as she went, obviously in heaven to be working on an actual musket-class dart. Athos stood for a moment, his feet brushing the very edge of the chalk circle that Grimaud had drawn around him. “Not the b-clips!” he called after them. “I don’t care if it adds to the authenticity of the model, I want silver connections in the harness.”

A hand that must be Grimaud’s emerged from the hatch of the Pistachio, gave him a rude gesture and then disappeared again.

“Madame Grimaud says she knows what she’s doing,” translated Planchet with an apologetic smile.

Athos scowled, and dropped back into his chair. “What about you, D’Artagnan? I presume Commandant Essart requires you to provide the extra outfit for war just like we do? Hope that metal monster of yours is in decent condition.”

“I’m not actually with the mecha squad any more,” Dana admitted softly.

Athos tore his goggles off to look at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Amiral Treville requested me on loan,” she admitted. “Not as a Musketeer, just – supplies transport. But it means I’ll be in the middle of it all, at least, not stuck back here on defensive detail, so…”

There was something unfamiliar in his expression. He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded to himself. “Of course, if you really want to make sure you see action, there’s always the Cardinal’s Sabres, I hear they’re recruiting.”

“Shut up,” she said gruffly, poking him in the knee with her boot. “I have some self respect.”

He clapped his hands. “Oh, speaking of self respect, dinner tonight at Hotel Coquenard. Prepare to witness some extremely awkward mating rituals.”

“I – don’t even know how to reply to that sentence,” said Dana, dizzied by the rapid switch in conversation. “Isn’t that a really fancy hotel over in Gilles Section? How can we afford it?”

“Let’s just say it’s who you know,” said Athos. He looked unusually smug, which in retrospect Dana should have taken as a big neon warning sign.

Dana was so out of her depth that she was practically floating in space. She had allowed Aramis to raid the suitcase of frocks from the Duchess of Buckingham, which seemed a perfectly reasonable way to dispose of the bloody things, but somehow this turned into them both playing dress-up. An hour later, here was Dana in a formal gown, including long lace gloves and stupidly uncomfortable shoes.

This was not the plan. She hadn’t even realised that there needed to be a plan, but if there had been a plan, it would have been everything that wasn’t this.

Aramis, of course, wore Buck’s clothes as if she were a Duchess herself. She had re-inked her henna tattoos since their return to Paris, with an extra bracelet of stars and leaves painted on to the back of her neck, dipping down below the sweep of the gold satin of the dress she had poured over her slender curves.

Dana, shorter and more muscular than Aramis, but with a much flatter chest, had never even attempted to wear that particular gown, as she was pretty sure it would turn into something indecent on her body. On Aramis, if it was indecent, it was the graceful, awesome kind of indecent that Aramis could totally rock.

After something of an argument, Aramis had forced Dana into a simple but devastating black cocktail dress that went past her knees. She also insisted that Dana wear the Prince Regent’s opal on her cheekbone instead of hidden away near her elbow.

Dana felt ridiculous, but the appearance of Porthos swept away any concern that she might be overdressed. Their friend was squeezed into a purple corset and layered tulle skirt, with a fierce collection of garnet and pearl jewellery wrapped around her neck, wrists and fingers. Her wig was high, as dark red as the jewels, and her face glowed with professional warpaint.

“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” Dana said in a low voice to Aramis as they followed their friend into the bright, horribly expensive lobby of the hotel and headed for a restaurant that looked like it belonged in the Palace itself. “Also, where’s Athos?”

“Oh, Athos was never going to turn up,” said Aramis in Dana’s ear as they were escorted to a table for three. “He hates these scenes.”

Dana tried not to freak out about this, but it was difficult. “I also hate scenes,” she said in a desperate whisper. “Why did no one warn me there was going to be scenes?”

Porthos gave her a lipsticked smile as the waiter fussed around them. “Because revenge is best served cold, possibly with a nice soup and salad to start,” she said, not bothering to keep her own voice down at all.

“Porthos is here to make a point to one of her gentlemen friends,” said Aramis, perusing the menu idly. “We’re here for damage control, in case things get out of hand.”

Dana decided right in that second that Athos had to die. Slowly, by fork. Given that each place setting in this restaurant had at least twelve forks per person, that was starting to look entirely possible.

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.