The Redcaps' Queen: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale by Danielle Ackley-McPhail
Ending: The Fourth Book in the Laurian Pentology by Danny Birt
Three Chords of Chaos: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale by James Chambers
Tales from Dragon Precinct by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Fantastic Futures 13, edited by Robert E. Waters & James R. Stratton

Plus other DQB releases:
A Legacy of Stars by Danielle Ackley-McPhail
Flesh and Iron, edited by Michael Amorel & Neal Levin
Ending an Ending, Beginning, and Beginning an Ending by Danny Birt
Tales from the Pulp Side by Michael A. Black & Ray Lovato, John L. French, and Patrick Thomas
Dragon Precinct, Unicorn Precinct, and Goblin Precinct by Keith R.A. DeCandido
The Devil of Harbor City by John L. French
To Hell in a Fast Car, edited by John L. French
Defending the Future: Best-Laid Plans, edited by Mike McPhail

Note: There will be spoilers herein for Doctor Who and Star Trek, all below the horizontal lines.

Didn’t get a lot of writing done this weekend. We took Saturday off. Had a business meeting in the morning that lasted longer than expected, then went to the Baker Street Pub for lunch. I’ve been there before but it’s often too smoke-filled for us. There was an Iron Man Triathlon being held in the community so the crowds were all elsewhere, presumably the smokers, too. This is the first time I’ve ever used their restrooms and was delighted to discover that you had to push in on a bookcase to access them. Very clever.

Then we went to see the new Star Trek movie (more below). We didn’t see it in 3D or on an IMAX screen, although I expect the latter would have been spectacular. We have this thing where we comment on our interest in upcoming films based on their trailers. A couple of the ones before Into Darkness were in the “might be fun after a bottle of wine” category, but most of them were “there isn’t enough booze in the world” material. The one that intrigued us the most was called Last Vegas, starring Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas and Kevin Kline. It looked silly but fun. The AARP version of The Hangover, perhaps.

I’ve had this weird glitch with my home internet for a couple of weeks. There’s one single URL that I can’t open. I can’t even ping the site, though it works if I switch from Wi-Fi to 3G. The problem exists on several different devices and a number of browsers, so I know it’s not related to caching. I decided yesterday morning to contact tech support to see if we could diagnose the source. I was happy that the person I got on the online chat was able to keep up with me without working from a script. However, it got to a point where he didn’t have the requisite authorization to further troubleshoot the problem, so he escalated me to another support tech. The new guy asked me to wait while he read through the chat log. Fine, I said. A minute later the chat disconnected and I realized that I was offline. I waited for a few minutes, thinking he might have reset our gateway (I wasn’t going to be happy that he did that without warning, but still). After a few minutes, nothing happened. So I had to get out my smartphone and look up a phone number for tech support and call someone. She was able to confirm that, yes, someone had disabled our internet service. Hmmph. I wasn’t impressed, but she was able to plug us back in forthwith. The original minor glitch still exists, but I’m in no hurry to mess with it any time soon. I have a workaround.

I spent an hour and a half yesterday afternoon doing a Skype interview about The Dark Tower Companion for The Lilja and Lou Podcast. The episode should be available in a couple of weeks.

This week’s episode takes the cake as one of the strangest of Mad Men yet. Mad Men on speed. Reminds me of an old Cracked! magazine sketch from my youth called “Pro Golfers on ‘Ludes.” These ad men were manic, churning out a ream of ideas, all of them garbage.

River was in it, so River shall speak: SPOILERS!

So, the name of the Doctor was uttered in the season finale of Doctor Who, but not within our hearing. It was River Song, or some echo or remnant of her, who uttered the password. A lot happened in this episode, but most of it seemed oddly detached an unemotional. Jenny dies for a while and there’s a passionate goodbye to the wife, but I think I came away feeling a little more stunned than captivated.

First off there was the “conference call.” Neat concept, but I dislike it when some totally new ability appears out of nowhere just because it’s cool and advances the plot. You might as well have the Enterprise acting like a submarine all of a sudden. (Oh, wait…) It seems to me that this entire season has been a long commercial for the 50th Anniversary special in November, with this episode being the punch line. Clara, we discover, has been the constant companion. With the Doctor from the beginning, in all his incarnations, and throughout all of time and space, though not exactly “our” Clara, but one that is splintered in to infinity-cubed versions of herself, none of which know about the others.

The blank-faced “snowmen” were cool villains but without a whole lot of bite. I really did not care for the final moment when it turned into an “introducing X as the Y.” There’s nothing more guaranteed to pull a person out of a story than to stamp text on the screen in huge letters that identify an actor by name and his fictional guise. Surely that could have been handled better. As for what it all means, I’m thinking…The Valeyard?

I really did enjoy the new Star Trek, plot holes and all. I especially enjoy the reboot aspect, the way they are taking elements from the classic series and movies and turning them on their heads. This is parallel universe stuff, but the universes aren’t so very far apart. Right next door, it seems at times.

The cold open was fun. You have to violate the Prime Directive from time to time, especially to save a friend. Spock didn’t seem to object to the idea that they alter this planet’s timeline by rescuing it, but he was quite adamant that other parts of the directive remain in play. So, issue 1: the teleporter was “invented” for Star Trek because they couldn’t afford to show the Enterprise landing every week on the TV show’s limited budget. Therefore, the Enterprise can’t land. Except now it can not only land, it can go underwater. Interesting. At the end of the cold open, I had Wang Chung’s song “Start Praying to a New God” running through my head.

The movie had lots of action, of course, and a decent amount of character and character interplay. Some of it was poorly timed. Was that really the right moment for Uhura and Spock to work out their relationship problems? It led to a funny moment, but still. The Marcus family values issues weren’t as important or potent as they should have been.

Good to see Peter Weller after his ill-fated end in Dexter, playing the heroic Admiral…well, maybe not so admirable after all. I find it hard to believe that one guy with a skeleton crew could construct the Enterprise-cubed without anyone else in Starfleet knowing. There were also some confusing inconsistencies in the powers that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character (what was his name again?) possessed. Some people could fell him with a single phaser shot while others could shoot him all day long with little effect.  Scotty’s valiant moral stand that cost him his job proved to be of little importance when Kirk changes his mind about a major issue a few minutes later. Oops. At least it put him in a position to lead the one-man cavalry.

It might have been more interesting if Cumberbatch’s character was redeemed at the end, for he had an argument to make and he might have garnered some sympathy. The question, then, is if he is genetically evil, what happens to Kirk now? And will the next film be the revenge of the genetically modified Tribbles?

My wife thought the dramatic moments were somewhat overwrought, but she hadn’t seen the film’s source material. I appreciated the way that was handled, even more so after watching the “Spock” Audi commercial! I came up with the solution to the problem before anyone else, especially before Dr. McCoy, who squandered the cure in his lab. There’s still a lot of life in the old franchise, it seems.

Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there.

After a very disjointed and lackluster season, Doctor Who sprints to the finish line with a superb example of what the show can do now that it’s been freed from the narrative shackles of the Amy-Rory-River arc: the Season 7 climax ”The Name of the Doctor.” Let’s dive in, shall we?

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW! BE WARNED!

I think what I liked especially about this episode is that it had stakes. For the past two seasons, there haven’t been any real stakes involved to the season enders. In Season 5, a crack in time and space is going to destroy the entire universe, but that’s okay because the Doctor can just reboot the universe. In Season 6, the Doctor has to die or all of time and space will get messed up, but that’s okay because the Doctor can fake his death with a robot and apparently that will satisfy all the cosmic demands of his death. In “The Name of the Doctor,” at least, characters wind up using their smarts and their abilities to defeat the bad guys and save the Doctor’s life. There’s no “trick” here, no sneaky way out. There are stakes, and those stakes are real, and they are overcome through the actions of the characters. More of that, please.

It was an interesting choice to make the Great Intelligence this season’s big bad. The Great Intelligence is hardly one of the more popular monsters of the classic series, having appeared only twice, both times during Patrick Troughton’s run as the Second Doctor, and not having an iconic physical appearance to draw upon. There are some drawbacks to this choice, too. The Great Intelligence only appeared this season in the Christmas special “The Snowmen” and in “The Bells of St. John.” In both episodes, the Great Intelligence is defeated by the Doctor, but it hardly seems like enough to drive this disembodied entity to launch the vengeful plan that brings everyone to far-future Trenzalore. Granted, the Doctor did defeat the Great Intelligence two more times, but they weren’t in this season. Those episodes — “The Abominable Snowmen” and “The Web of Fear” — were aired more than 40 years ago. So yes, an interesting choice, and maybe not an altogether successful one, but it’s definitely another example of Steven Moffat’s fascination with presenting story arcs out of order. (I get that time travel is involved, but I’d argue there’s a reason recurring characters were always met in order in classic Who. For example, whenever the Doctor crossed paths with the Master, it was always after their last televised encounter. Same with Davros, the Cybermen, etc. It’s just easier to keep track of everything that way.)

What’s also interesting is that even though this is Trenzalore, the events that take place don’t seem to jibe with Dorium’s warning about the planet.  He said: “On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered. The First Question, the oldest question in the Universe, that must never be answered, hidden in plain sight: Doctor who?” While the Doctor’s name is a plot point in this episode, it is neither revealed upon the Great Intelligence’s asking, nor is there anything about not being able to speak falsely. Online, some have posited that this is what Dorium warned him about, that the “fall of the eleventh” happens when the Doctor cuts the antigrav so the TARDIS will fall to the planet’s surface, and that “silence falls” when the stars start to go out, but I think that’s stretching it. The events Dorium warns about are supposed to bring about the fall of the Silence, that secret society revealed in Season 6, and the Silence has nothing to do with this story. But we do learn that a big battle took place on Trenzalore in which the Doctor died, so it’s possible the battle that’s referenced is the one Dorium warns about. This would make it yet another example of Moffat presenting plot points out of order.

Much to my surprise, considering how overcomplicated and riddled with plot holes Steven Moffat’s grand schemes usually are, the explanation for the multiple Claras works. There’s a lot of science fiction handwaving about how it works — can a timeline actually be a physical doorway? — but it works on a storytelling level. What’s more, it gives us a wonderful, brilliantly nostalgic opportunity to see all the classic Doctors we won’t be seeing in the 50th anniversary special. Well played, Steven Moffat! (That said, some of the CGI was awful. Patrick Troughton might have been the worst, running in his fur coat across a green screen beach at a completely different speed from everyone else.) Most interesting, though, was Clara’s interaction with the First Doctor and Susan. The implication here is that one of the Claras is Gallifreyan, which opens such a can of worms! I mean, did she continue on, regenerating when needed, and eventually die in the Time War? Is Chancellor Flavia’s last name perhaps Oswald? (I kid!) Clara telling the First Doctor which TARDIS to steal was pretty awesome, but it seems to nullify the idea that the TARDIS chose the Doctor as much as he chose it, which would be a sad loss to the mythology.

This episode also nicely wraps up the River Song storyline, should they decide to end it. This is, after all, the post-Library River, and she and the Doctor get a wonderful, no-holds-barred goodbye scene. That said, I suspect River has at least one story left in her, which would be Dorium’s Trenzalore prediction, most likely the moment when she learns the Doctor’s real name.

And then there’s John Hurt. Aside from the Doctor explaining that John Hurt is him but not the Doctor and then having the onscreen titles introduce him as “the Doctor” in direct contradiction to what the Doctor just said, his presence in that strange, hard-even-for-the-script-to-explain cavern that is also the Doctor’s timeline is absolutely thrilling. Even with only two lines of dialogue and a single action (turning around), Hurt shows what an incredible actor he is. His presence in the 50th anniversary special has been confirmed, and I can’t wait to see what they do with him.

The Internet is abuzz with rumors about who he is. Most prevalent is the idea that he’s a “forgotten” or “repressed” incarnation, the one who actually pulled the trigger that ended the Time War. Which would make Eccleston really the Tenth Doctor, Tennant the Eleventh, and Smith the Twelfth. This seems rather overcomplicated and I’m not sure what the point of it would be — which means it’s right up Steven Moffat’s alley and so it’s probably true!

By the way, how cool would it be if they went back to the scene in “The God Complex” where the Doctor opens the door to the room of his greatest fear and we see now that it’s John Hurt?

“The Name of the Doctor” doesn’t wrap up everything, though. For instance, we still don’t know why the TARDIS doesn’t like Clara. We also don’t know why the Doctor is removing himself from databases across the universe, or what he hopes to achieve with that. Season 8 has been given the green light, so hopefully we’ll find out then. Or maybe in the 50th anniversary special.

And now for some Doctor Who neepery! I cannot believe the Great Intelligence name-checked the Valeyard! Fans of classic Who all over the world probably roared with laughter at that moment. So, if you’re not one, you might be wondering why. Well, once upon a time, during Colin Baker’s run as the Sixth Doctor, there was a season-long arc called “The Trial of a Time Lord.” Most classic Who fans don’t like to talk about it, and for good reason. It’s pretty dreadful. Essentially, the Doctor is put on trial by the Time Lords (again!) for all his meddling. Prosecuting the Doctor is a shady character called the Valeyard, played by the very creepy Michael Jayston in an all-black Time Lord outfit that practically screams “Villain!” And indeed, he is the villain of the story. What’s more, his true identity is revealed by the Master as…get ready for this…no, really…oh, crap, here, just have the actual dialogue: “There is some evil in all of us, Doctor, even you. The Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation.” That’s right, the Valeyard plans to have the Doctor (himself) executed so he can steal his (own) remaining regenerations, because apparently you can do that. Ultimately, the Valeyard is one of the worst creations of one of the worst eras of classic Doctor Who, and fans everywhere would rather forget all about it. Thanks for reminding us, Steven Moffat. Just for that, you’re sentenced to a glassful Mel’s carrot juice! (Don’t ask.)

Originally published at Nicholas Kaufmann. You can comment here or there.

I recently had a few encounters with creatures, both in my house and about. I try to get to a camera to capture these instances if I can.

For instance there was the spider in my sink. It spent a lot of time trying to escape, and I checked on its progress on a couple of occasions. Clearly it was not going to make the vertical climb. It stopped, probably exhausted by its failures. Eventually I encouraged it onto the silicon spoon holder that I keep beside my cooking hob – hence the science fiction landscape.

That’s a scary looking creature up close.

Yet, I appreciate the fact that spiders eat other pesky insects, so I never kill them. I release them outside where they can menace the fly population. I’ve lived in houses where I was the designated ’spider-catcher’. I’m not a fan of touching spiders, but I do prefer to rescue them from terrified humans, and let the spiders get on with productive lives.

And always I’m intrigued with what we designate weird or disgusting or gross. These creatures have a purpose, and when it is at odds with us we have no issue destroying them. And fair enough, I have no love of ants, mosquitoes, or flies, but there are birds and spiders that eat them. I try to force myself to check my innate revulsions and be a grown-up about these things.

Here’s a great example.

I do not like slugs. They creep me out, and if you are a gardener you probably hate them. The other evening in the woods it was slugappaloosa – they were all over the paths, and I was practically doing hopscotch to get around them.

I forced myself to hunker down and take some shots of them. They were quite shy and retracted their horns as soon as they sensed my proximity. Up close, they become something different – strange and kind of alluring. I wondered how they perceived the world, and what my giant presence signalled to them. An otherworldly encounter between two alien beings.

Another swallow flew into my house. I must be on their flight path. On this occasion the door was only open a few moments, and it darted in while I was loading bags into my car. Minnie the dog got quite excited by this one as it flew about a lot more. I thought it was going to do a Houdini and escape through the open door (a rare feat for panicked birds), but it flew at the blocked windows like all the rest.

I caught it and let it go. This time Minnie gave it a great barking farewell – ‘And don’t come back!’

This lovely chap (or chapess) was in a pet shop. A sedate, inquisitive parrot, with intelligent eyes. It was crawling about on top of its huge cage, and apparently the shop attendants weren’t concerned about it trying to leave. When it whistled I repeated the pattern. It paused, and tried a new one, which I then copied. It liked this. I was its echo for a while. Basic communication, but sweet.

Finally an image of Minnie, who ran into shot while I was taking pictures of the wooded path. I liked the patterns of the evening shadows. In the light, and blurred movement, she appears more like a giant feline prowling through the forest.

Or perhaps a wolf.

I’m sure there are moment when she leaps through the undergrowth and in her heart the memories of a wilder age stirs.

~ Originally published at Splinister. You can comment here or there. ~

The acting here is first-rate. As with the previous film, the actors embody the characters they’re playing without spilling over into parody. In particular Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto do an excellent job with characters who are both the same and different from their alternate-timeline counterparts played by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, because Kirk and Spock are the characters who were most changed by Nero’s time-travel shenanigans in the last film—the former lost his father, the latter lost his world.

I’m still waiting for someone — anyone — to present an argument against same-sex marriage that doesn’t boil down to, “My religion doesn’t approve” or “I think it’s icky.” Using the former as an excuse for discrimination is about as unAmerican as you can get, and the latter is just asinine.

While politicians and bigots continue to argue that “those people” don’t need “special rights or protections” under the law, here’s some of what’s been going on recently…

In Texas, a judge enforced a clause in Carolyn Compton’s divorce papers which states that, “someone who has a ‘dating or intimate relationship’ with the person or is not related ‘by blood or marriage’ is not allowed after 9 p.m. when the children are present.” Since Carolyn’s partner of three years is a woman and Texas has laws against same-sex marriage, the judge has essentially made it illegal for them to live together.

In New York, Elliot Morales shot Marc Carson, a gay man, in the face at point blank range, killing him. Elliot had followed Carson and his companion, and was heard yelling anti-gay slurs and asking, “You want to die tonight?”

In Chatham, Canada, an openly gay 13-year-old boy was attacked by four older teenagers, who called him “faggot” and “queer,” told him he was going to hell, and beat him. One of the boys pulled a knife and threatened to kill him.

Rep. Mark Pocan became the first member of Congress to obtain a congressional ID card identifying his same-sex partner as his spouse. However, his husband is still legally excluded from receiving health, pension, and other benefits.

In Washington state, lawmakers have proposed a bill that would provide an exception to anti-discrimination law and allow businesses to refuse service based on sexual orientation.

David and Jason married in New York in 2012, but Jason is a UK citizen. As a result, Jason is unable to stay in the country. In order to see his husband, Jason has to get a Tourist Visa, which allows them to be together for 90 days. Jason is now being warned that he’s used too many Tourist Visas, and has been advised to stay out of the U.S. for at least six months.

In New York, two gay men were pursued by a group that shouted anti-gay slurs and then beat them. Both victims were hospitalized. One required eye surgery.

So go ahead. Explain to me why we’re still denying people equal rights and protection under the law. Explain to me why any of this is okay. Explain how you sleep at night, knowing that these things are the direct result of our refusal to recognize “those people” as equal. Or even to recognize them as people.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Some thoughts on living in Mississippi. Oh, Black Water.

I know I had a weekend around here, but it seems to have slipped away, while I was blinking…

We spent all day Saturday down at the Smithsonian, attending a seminar on “Neighborhood Walks Through London.”  We’re going to London later this year, so the presentation was particularly welcome.  The charming presenter did a great job of highlighting major and minor sites in her home town, relaying history, bits about art and architecture, and generally making me wish that my trip could last for about three months.

Yesterday, I continued the salute to Britain by indulging in afternoon tea with the incomparable Christi Barth.  We had a lovely time at the Park Hyatt (although both of us stuck with rather traditional teas, rather than the $150/cup “there are only three bricks of this tea left in the world” or the nearly as expensive “this tea is harvested only on the third night after the full moon”).  The Park Hyatt provides a buffet of savories and sweets, which allows customers to avoid their least favorites (egg salad, for me…) and to indulge in extras of their favorites (cheddar-scallion-bacon scones and goat-cheese-artichoke crostini for me).  The savories were actually somewhat better than the sweets, which is not my usual experience at tea.

I ended up taking the Metro downtown both weekend days — rare, given the system’s spotty weekend coverage.  Somewhat frustratingly, there was a scheduled break in the line between my station and downtown — they used shuttle buses to bridge the gap.  I walked the difference both directions on Saturday, but I availed myself of the shuttles on Sunday.  The buses are an annoyance, but they run *very* frequently, and the Metro staff are extremely friendly and helpful (and there are *thousands* of staff to guide people, or so it seems.)

Back home for the evening, we power-watched Masterpiece Theatre’s MR SELFRIDGE (although we still have the last double-episode to view) — a not-entirely-successful soapy biopic about that Chicago man who opened the Selfridge department store in London in the early 20th century.  I’m not at all enamored of Jeremy Pivens’ acting choices, and I’m suspicious of a lot of the social rules depicted, but I *am* intrigued by the transition of retail that the show presents.

In between all that, I almost finished reading Lea Nolan’s CONJURE (a fun high-middle-grade, low-YA book, with pirates, curses, and Gullah magic).

And that’s the weekend that was.  How about you?

Mirrored from Mindy Klasky, Author.