Yearly Archives: 2016

Weekend Links

Weekend Links: April 23, 2016

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Well, so this was a week that happened. It started off okay, and my daughter’s thirteenth birthday was on Wednesday. Nailed it on the present front this year, so that was great. Sadly, the rest of the week hasn’t been so good. On Thursday, Prince died, which was a bummer. Then, yesterday morning, my mom called to let me know that both of their fifteen-year-old dogs had gotten to the point of declining health where it was time to put them to sleep. We went to say our goodbyes yesterday afternoon, then my daughter went to her dad’s parents’ for the weekend, and I came home and drank a bottle of very cheap wine. It’s just been that kind of week.

Today has been somewhat better, all things considered, and I did manage to get things together enough this week to put up a poll regarding my next Let’s Read! project, which will be starting on–this is the plan, anyway–Tuesday, May 3rd. Right now it’s looking like it’s going to be Dune by Frank Herbert, but there’s still plenty of time to vote.

I haven’t done as much internet reading this week as I normally do, but I did read a few things I really liked.

Obviously, everything posted at Fandom Following is worth reading pretty much every week, but this week’s posts on the recent spate of lesbian deaths on television and on consent in Game of Thrones should definitely not be missed.

LitHub published two pieces of particular interest to SFF readers:

Black Gate’s Sci-ficionados: Our Insatiable Hunger for Stories and What it Means for the Human Race is a must-read.

At Tor.com, there’s a look at the place of Queen and Freddie Mercury in SFF.

As part of Fantasy Book Cafe’s Women in SFF Month, Rachel Cotterill writes about Idealism and Realism of Representation in SFF.

Cabbages and Kings talked about Women in Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings.

I haven’t done it yet, but Feminist Fiction has convinced me that I ought to check out Critical Role.

Mythcreants lists Five Signs Your Story is Racist.

N.K. Jemisin addresses the damned if you do/don’t fallacy.

There’s a new Doctor Who companion!

 

Books

Let’s Read! What’s coming next? (Well, first a POLL!)

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Last year I blogged my reread of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell ahead of the US airing of the BBC miniseries based on the book, but a broken foot and a resurgence of major depression sort of derailed a lot of other plans I had then. This year, I’ve already blogged my way through the 1.1 million words of short fiction in Up and Coming: Stories from the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Writers, which was a sort of last minute idea I had just three weeks before Hugo nominations were due. I will be doing some Hugo blogging once the finalists are announced next week–surely there will be a few things I haven’t read–but I’m also going to be making Let’s Read! into a regular feature at SF Bluestocking.

Probably it will be three posts a week, though it could be more depending on how much time I’m ultimately able to dedicate to the project. My plan right now is that, at least until about July, I’ll be recapping Game of Thrones every Monday, publishing regular book reviews twice a week, Weekend Links on Saturdays, and then three Let’s Read! posts mixed in there somehow. First, though, I need to figure out what to read next. Because I’m indecisive and can write about pretty much anything (I’m very opinionated, obv), I feel like the only thing to do is to leave it up to my few readers.

So. Here are the options, with short pros and cons:

  • The Magicians by Lev Grossman
    I’ve heard a lot about this book/series, but it’s always struck me as fantasy for people who hate fantasy. I couldn’t get that into the show, partly because the characters are all pretty insufferable, but this could make the book really entertaining to read, and my hope is that reading the books would help me appreciate the show more.
  • Dune by Frank Herbert
    I know, I know, it’s a classic, but I’ve just never gotten around to reading it. However, I’ve been making a concerted effort in the last couple of years to read more classic SF works, and this is one that I’m practically unspoiled on. I’ve never even seen the movie. Just that music video with Christopher Walken in it for that song with the Dune reference.
  • Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
    I’ve recently started watching season one of the show, and I am in love with it. Maybe I would like the book?
  • Red Rising by Pierce Brown
    I haven’t been reading much YA stuff in the last year and a half or so, but this series is really popular and well-reviewed. Plus, since it’s YA, I don’t expect it to be terribly challenging. It might be a nice break from the more literary stuff I’ve been focusing on more recently.
  • Armada by Ernest Cline
    This book generated one of my favorite scathing reviews of the last year, and it has basically the same plot as The Last Starfighter. I’m almost certain that I’ll hate it, but it could be fun to mock.
  • Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
    I know almost nothing about this series except that it’s extremely popular in r/Fantasy. I know there’s been a Tor.com reread of it going on, but I haven’t read any of that, so it’s another series that I pretty much have no preconceived ideas about.
  • The Apex Book of World SF
    I bought the bundle of all four volumes of this ages ago and have never gotten around to reading much of it. However, I think it could be a great way to broaden my horizons, and I’ve been really enjoying reading more short fiction recently. However, I’ve also got an ARC of The Big Book of Science Fiction that’s coming out in a couple of months to get through, and I worry about getting completely burnt out on short stories.
  • Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
    I’ve read and enjoyed a couple of Sanderson’s short stories, but this is another very popular fantasy series that I haven’t touched and feel a little like I ought to give it a try.

So. Lots of options, and they’re all things I’d like to get around to eventually. What do you think?

Television

Lucifer: “#TeamLucifer” is a near-perfect set-up for next week’s finale

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So, “#TeamLucifer” is probably my favorite episode title (and my favorite episode) so far. It’s a great joke, with several shades of meaning that are explored throughout an episode that is smartly written and nicely executed. There are a couple of hiccups, but these are more than made up for by the overall excellence of the hour and a couple of genuine surprises—including a cliffhanger ending that sets us up for a potentially great finale next week.

“#TeamLucifer” picks up three weeks from the end of the previous episode, when Lucifer figured out that Chloe is somehow the thing that is causing him to become vulnerable to injury and possibly death, and he’s been avoiding her that whole time. Apparently, he’s been acting downright weird (-er than normal for him, even), but Chloe seeks him out anyway when she has to investigate the murder of a young woman who was involved with a Satanic cult. Between Lucifer’s burgeoning distrust of Chloe (and his general paranoia and persecution complex) and his confrontation with his, well, fans, it’s an episode that’s full of comedy and darkness in almost equal measure.

I was concerned last week about the ease with which Lucifer was able to deal with Malcolm, but I was pleased to see Malcolm return as a problem that has yet to be solved. Not only that, but Lucifer’s buying off of Malcolm seems to have only compounded things; it’s Malcolm, incidentally, who coins the phrase “#Team Lucifer.” Having the case of the week be tied so specifically to Lucifer and having Malcolm be the murderer as some kind of misguided attempt to honor the Devil is a bold choice that I found unexpected and well-thought-out. There’s very little new under the sun when it comes to police procedural shows, and Lucifer has tripped over its procedural elements more than once, but this episode finally manages to make the case of the week format really work perfectly with its larger storytelling concerns.

As we’ve been shown over and over again in this series, Lucifer is profoundly lonely. Due to his history, he’s literally without peer—separated from the rest of the angels and set to rule alone over Hell. On Earth, he struggles to fit in both because he’s not human and because he’s in the midst of an existential crisis of truly mythological proportions. The life that he’s built for himself in Los Angeles and the friendships that he’s found are fragile, and this week all the cracks are starting to show. Still, when things truly break at the end of the episode it’s a surprise. After all of Lucifer’s paranoia about Chloe being secretly against him or whatever, I didn’t expect that she really would be, and the gut punch of her loss of faith in her friend is real, and it’s probably the best executed emotional beat on the show to date.

Next week’s finale is poised to start off with Lucifer more alone than he’s ever been, and we’ve been promised a trip to Hell. Hopefully that will include a trip back as well.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

  • Could have done without Dr. Martin this week. I do like her, but the character just doesn’t work. She’s too disconnected from the rest of the cast to get much screen time, and her scenes seldom provide any new information or provide any extra insight into the show’s themes.
  • Another fight between Lucifer and Amenadiel. Tom Ellis and D.B. Woodside have a great chemistry together, and they really sell their characters’ conflicts. I never have any trouble believing that they really are dysfunctional siblings, and their physical confrontations feel truly fraught. Sure, there’s not necessarily any real danger for either of them, but their fights are well-choreographed and shot in a way to maximize the emotional impact of each scene.
  • Poor Maze. She is consistently the most interesting character on the show, and she doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
  • “You’re supposed to be blond.” I haven’t read the comics, but I’m still familiar enough with this complaint to have laughed out loud at this line.
Television

Supergirl: “Better Angels” predictably features all of the show’s strengths and weaknesses

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I’m not sure what I expected from Supergirl’s season finale, but I feel like what we got—an uneven episode that is equally full of frustration and heart—is probably what I should have expected. “Better Angels,” like many Supergirl episodes, has flashes of greatness, and the sheer earnestness of it is refreshing in a television landscape dominated by darker, grittier programs, but the episode nonetheless exemplifies most of the show’s ongoing storytelling flaws. There’s a lot that’s satisfying about this season finale, but there’s much to frustrate as well, especially in light of the fact that the show still hasn’t been confirmed for a second season.

Last week’s episode ended on a cliffhanger of sorts, with Alex under the control of Non through his Myriad program and set to have a fight with Supergirl. Like most similar cliffhangers in the show’s first season, however, this one is resolved within the first five minutes or so of the episode when J’onn J’onnz (I guess I should get used to calling him that now since everyone knows his identity) shows up with the elder Danvers, Eliza, who is able to break Myriad’s hold on Alex with the power of love, I guess, which is just the sort of borderline Pollyannaish thing I expect from this show, but still. It seems like something that Supergirl could have done herself, which would have been more economical storytelling, but I suppose this is the way the show decided to contrive to have Eliza in town so that she could be told about her husband still being alive and then hang around for family dinner at the end.

Eliza being able to get through to Alex does lead to the idea that ends up freeing the rest of National City (except, inexplicably, Superman, who languishes in a coma until the end of the episode when he wakes up to text Kara about how awesome she is) from Non’s control. Unfortunately, because Non is highly impressionable, Indigo is able to convince him that if they can’t control the humans they should just kill them all and move on to a planet that they can control. This is a totally ridiculous plot, and the show itself seems a little sheepish about it, to be honest. Instead of focusing on resolving this silliness, most of the episode is instead dedicated to character work and touching speeches. Sure, Indigo gets ripped literally in half by J’onn, and Supergirl flies the remains of Fort Rozz out into space to save the world, but that stuff seems relatively unimportant and takes up a comparatively small amount of screen time.

Unfortunately, this leaves the finale feeling decidedly anticlimactic. Non and Indigo never feel like a true threat, and their defeat doesn’t feel like that much of an accomplishment. Though earlier in the season the idea was heavily seeded that Astra and Non were misguided environmentalists, this theme is completely abandoned, and whatever “message” the show has been going for with the whole Astra/Non and Non/Indigo saga has been watered down to something vague and mealy-mouthed about kindness and love being the answer. The answer to what? Meh. Everything, I guess.

Still, Supergirl has redeeming qualities. Melissa Benoist is an absolute treasure, and her performance carries this episode just like it’s carried so many others before. I love the evolution of Kara’s relationship with Cat Grant, even if the promotion she receives in the finale makes no sense whatsoever. The show often goes overboard with its number of sappy speeches, but I adore every stupid one of them. The family-friendly comic book feel of the show is exactly what I want it to be, and the supporting cast is solid, even if Benoist does do a lot of the heavy lifting from week to week. All in all, it’s an enjoyable show that only lacks in the writing department. Hopefully a second season will have plots strong enough to actually support the cast’s excellent chemistry and fine character work.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

  • I guess Project Cadmus is going to be the season two big bad.
  • So, does Cat know that Kara is Supergirl or not?
  • Also, Cat finally called her Kara!
  • Is there anyone who doesn’t cry at the end of Working Girl?
  • I’m glad that it looks like they’ll be keeping Lucy Lane around. I really want her and Kara and Alex to be best friends and have lots of time hanging out together just the three of them.
  • Kara and James are legitimately precious together, and I’m looking forward to seeing their relationship develop in the future.
Weekend Links

Weekend Links: April 16, 2016

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Spring has sprung here in Ohio, but with it has come some of the worst seasonal allergies I’ve had in years, which means that much of the last week was spent eating pills and nursing a sinus headache that just wouldn’t quit. The bad news is that I wasn’t nearly as productive as I’d have liked–I intended to read four books, for example, and am only finishing the first one today–but the good news is that I think I’m better now. It also helps that after this week, I’ll basically only have Game of Thrones to write about as far as television goes, which means I should be much less in front of the computer, which means fewer opportunities for procrastinating and more quality reading time.

I know I’ve been teasing a new project announcement for a couple of weeks, and the aforementioned allergy issues (seriously, the worst) have delayed things a little, but I expect to be announcing by midweek and actually getting started on the project by the first week of May.

For this week, though, here’s what I’ve been reading and watching and otherwise finding interesting on the internet this week.

Following up on last week’s minor hullabaloo over the Rogue One trailer, Cora Buhlert wrote about Star Wars and Mary Sues.

Sleepy Hollow destroyed the show before our very eyes. RIP, Abbie.

It looks like Game of Thrones is going to be wrapping up sooner than we thought.

Neil Gaiman is writing a Good Omens television mini-series.

This new Australian show, Cleverman, looks good and sounds fascinating.

The Kickstarted tribute film, For the Love of Spock, has a trailer. I have something in my eye.

I wasn’t totally on board with the Mary Sue’s assessment of Wynonna Earp earlier this week, but after last night’s episode I think I agree after all that Wynonna Earp is a heroine we need.

At Book Riot, Alisha Rai talked about Doctor Who and Donna Noble.

Reporting the news that a woman will be directing an episode of Sherlock‘s upcoming series, Bitch asks if the show will be less sexist. I’m guessing only marginally, but we’ll see.

Samuel R. Delany gave reading and a Q&A at UCSC. To get right to the good part, start at about the 18 minute mark.

Jim C. Hines wrote several good posts about trigger warnings.

Seanan McGuire was on Midnight in Karachi.

Little Red Reviewer interviewed Jeff VanderMeer about all sorts of things.

The upcoming indie game Elsinore has a neat concept.

The Book Smugglers’ Trope Anatomy 101 for April is all about fear and heroism.

At the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, Ken Liu suggests 5 Chinese Mythological Creatures That Need to Appear in More SFF Books.

Hodderscape has a great list of Comics Fantasy Readers Will Love.

Book Riot shared 100 Wonderful, Strange, and Unusual Novels.

Amazing Stories is returning to print later this year!

The 2015 Theodore Sturgeon Award shortlist has been announced, and File 770 has links to a bunch of stories that can be read for free online.

 

 

Book Reviews, Books, Novella

Book Review: The Emperor’s Railroad by Guy Haley

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The Emperor’s Railroad is an utterly pedestrian story that is only rescued from total mediocrity by some intriguing world building. Unfortunately, Guy Haley’s novella never manages to full utilize the potential of its setting, and the ending leaves the reader with far more questions than answers.

Told from the point of view of an elderly man, Abney, looking back on his childhood encounter with a Knight, Quinn, The Emperor’s Railroad details a harrowing journey as Quinn escorts twelve-year-old Abney and Abney’s mother from the ruins of their small town in what I guess is Pennsylvania to a different small town in Ohio. It’s not entirely clear, and it doesn’t really matter that much because the setting a really just so much set dressing for a very old and very dull tale. It’s cool set dressing, but there’s not really a lot of substance if you think about it for more than a minute.

So, basically, there was some kind of global war apocalypse that was followed up by a zombie plague some thousand years before the events of the story. In the centuries since, “angels” have taken up residence in some of the major cities east of the Mississippi—Pittsburgh, Columbus, and others—from which they rule large territories that are additionally broken up in a sort of feudal system of kings and lords and even at one point an emperor, all of whom are beholden to the angels. The angels seem to have retained some science and technology, and they seem to have at least some measure of control over the armies of Dead that still ravage the countryside.

The Dead, along with a “dragon” set to police the borders between a couple of territories, are the dangers that are most immediately relevant to the story here, though, which I guess is good because none of this makes much sense. It’s neat, and I like some of the ideas, but Haley both over- and under-explains here. There are a lot of details that hint at a complex and potentially interesting world, but there’s not enough explanation for how or why this world came to be. Sure, the “angels”—though they obviously aren’t really angels—are kept mysterious, but their motives are also completely opaque, and while it’s clear that these overlords are managing the ugly and unjust world as we find it in the story, what’s not clear (at all) is how this benefits them. The subjugated towns and downtrodden populace live miserable lives, but they don’t seem to pay taxes or tithes of goods to the Dreaming Cities. In fact, travel and trade of all kinds is shown to be nearly impossible. It just doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Abney’s mother, Sarah, is the only female character in the book, and she’s not particularly present in the story. She exists largely on the edges of the story and her primary purpose in the narrative is to die so that Abney can survive. She does get a bit of backstory about how she’s a valuable commodity in a world with few fertile women left, but though Abney loves his mother and is saddened by her eventual—and heavily telegraphed—demise, The Emperor’s Railroad is primarily about Abney and Quinn and how meeting Quinn changed the way Abney saw the world. Quinn is a pretty standard lone wolf itinerant hero, though, and there’s not much to distinguish him from other characters of his type. He’s stoic and self-deprecating and gruffly kind, and when he discharges his duty he moves on to new adventures. That is to say, he’s nothing special.

Perhaps this story deserved to be told in a novel length work in order to take better advantage of the author’s considerably imaginative world building, or perhaps it’s a world that ought to have been explored through a different character’s (Sarah’s, perhaps?) perspective. Either way, The Emperor’s Railroad doesn’t quite manage to be terribly interesting. It also feels a little too reminiscent of the other recent Tor.com novella, Pieces of Hate by Tim Lebbon, which dealt with another type of itinerant hero and opened with a novelette that was a similar type of boy’s-adventure-with-hero-passing-through kind of story. Still, it’s for the most part a highly readable and mostly-enjoyable introduction to the world of Guy Haley’s Dreaming Cities. I don’t expect that these will be among my favorite of Tor.com’s novellas, but I’m looking forward to the next one, if for no other reason than I’m hoping to find out some of the answers to all the questions I have about how this post-apocalyptic world works.

The Emperor’s Railroad will be released on April 19, 2016.

This review is based upon an advance copy of the book received for review through NetGalley.

Television

iZombie: “Dead Beat” and “Salivation Army” were an amazing end to a great season

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Wow. Just. Wow. iZombie sure knows how to end a season. It would probably be impossible for a show as sprawling and juggling so many concurrent plots as iZombie to wrap everything up to everyone’s satisfaction, and I do have some issues with the finale, but mostly I’m just blown away by how overall excellent it turned out to be. Between “Dead Beat” and “Salivation Army” there was enough resolution to feel some closure at the end of the season, but there are still a few loose ends and a potentially great setup for next season’s big bad.

“Dead Beat” is all about the fallout from Major’s arrest at the end of last week’s episode, and it brings all of the Chaos Killer stuff to a satisfying, if heartwrenching, close. It’s legitimately great television, possibly the best episode of the season. Dale and Clive struggle to build their respective cases against Major while Ravi and Liv try to find a way to get Major the brains that he needs to stay human, and it’s so tense. The episode opens with the FBI showing up to search Ravi and Major’s house, which totally blindsides Liv and culminates in Ravi’s arrest as a possible accessory to murder.

Things get worse before they get better, though. The show is a little hand-wavy about exactly how Ravi avoids charges, but he’s soon out of police custody and able to work with Liv and Peyton to try and find solutions to Major’s problems. With Ravi and Liv both cut off from the morgue, they go to Blaine for brains, only to be denied by Don E, who is still taking advantage of Blaine’s amnesia in order to take over the business. Next, Ravi and Liv decide to unfreeze one of Major’s “victims” in order to weaken the case against him, only to find that someone else has already found Major’s storage space and removed the bodies.

This whole episode is an exercise in creating just the right amount of tension for the characters so that it’s believable and the stakes feel truly high, and it’s proof that iZombie isn’t afraid to go dark. Things get seriously harrowing as Major’s condition deteriorates, and the sense of urgency that pervades the episode is marvelously crafted and makes Liv’s eventual confession to Clive about all the zombie stuff—and Clive’s reaction—a great scene of high drama. This drama is further heightened by the amount of time “Dead Beat” dedicates to Clive and Dale’s police work. These two work really well together, and though their relationship hasn’t gotten a ton of screen time in the back half of this season they have an easy chemistry and a lived-in dynamic that feels real and makes the fallout from Clive’s decision to drop the case against Major hard to watch. I’m not entirely thrilled with Dale being gone—though I think we can still hope to see her next season—but at least she didn’t die tragically.

Dale’s confrontation with Clive is only topped in this episode by the penultimate scene in the morgue, when Liv is attacked by Vaughn’s hired gun, Janko, and Ravi comes to the rescue. It’s not often that we see Rahul Kohli do such physical work on the show, but he pulls it off. I loved that he was so quick on the uptake and didn’t even pause before rushing out to retrieve Liv from the assassin. Kohli also really sells Ravi’s trauma after killing the man, and his shell-shocked reaction felt natural to the character. My only quibble here is how quickly he seemed to recover at the end of the episode. I always enjoy the Liv-Major-Ravi-Peyton friend group hanging out together, and their final get together here is in some ways a nice way to end an overall extremely dark episode, but Ravi’s quick recovery after killing a man in self-defense and Major’s similarly speedy rebound from his time in jail both felt a little too sunny. That said, the moment passes quickly, interrupted by Liv’s vision of the rest of Major’s abducted zombies, who are still alive in Vaughn Du Clark’s basement laboratory.

“Salivation Army” (which is an amazing episode title) opens the morning after Liv’s vision. Peyton is upset because the mayor has called off her investigation of Mr. Boss’s crime ring, and the whole gang has to figure out what to do about the zombies locked up in the Max Rager basement. Fortunately, Major has a plan, albeit a shaky one, to infiltrate the upcoming party that Vaughn is throwing to celebrate the sale of the company to some obviously shady military contractors—Fillmore Graves Enterprises, which is an excellently silly name.

Meanwhile, Mr. Boss is making his move against Don E, sending a couple of his hired guys to take out the competition. Poor Chief takes a bullet between the eyes, but Don E manages to only take a couple to the chest, while also deflecting attention to Blaine. The ensuing B-plot is by far the weakest part of the finale, unfortunately. After apparently getting back together with Ravi early in the episode, Peyton finds herself kidnapped by Mr. Boss’s guys in order to draw out Blaine based upon Don E’s claim that Blaine was in love with the DA. This leaves Ravi and Blaine to work together in order to rescue Peyton—they play the damsel in distress trope pretty straight—and leads to a bizarre sequence in which Blaine (still supposedly suffering from amnesia) rushes in like John McClane to save Peyton, and then Ravi walks in on Blaine comforting Peyton and feels jealous. It’s a subplot that borders on nonsensical, utilizes stupid sexist tropes, and doesn’t actually resolve the Mr. Boss storyline, Blaine’s amnesia, or anything else at all. I’m fine with having Boss carry over into the next season since I like him as a villain, but I could have done without literally everything else that happened regarding him this episode.

On the bright side, the Max Rager plot works really well, and I loved getting to see Liv, Major, and Clive work together to deal with the zombie outbreak at the party—obviously this was a thing that was going to happen after all the teasing and threatening of the zombie apocalypse in the last couple of episodes—and, ultimately, deal with Vaughn Du Clark. The final sequence in the Max Rager basement is for the most part really well-done, if a bit rushed-feeling. It’s basically just an emotional rollercoaster as Liv and company find the imprisoned zombies, encounter Rita, are separated by Vaughn, figure out that Drake has been damaged by the “cure” that was tested on him, have to fight their way free of it all again, during which Liv has to kill Drake to save Clive, then Major abandons Vaughn to Rita… It’s a whole lot of climax to jam into just a few minutes in a single episode, but they manage to pull it off, leaving me with just a couple of quibbles.

First, I would have liked to see Liv get a little more time to mourn Drake and process her having to be the one who killed him. Sure, I get the feeling that really this whole thing is more about Liv’s friendship with Clive than anything else, but still. Drake played a relatively significant role in Liv’s life this season, and it seems like his death was about everything but him and his relationship with Liv—especially since getting Drake out of the way opens the door to Liv getting back together with Major again. I’m not a huge fan of love triangles, but this is the second time that Liv has had a love interest killed off in order to make room for Major. If they’re an endgame couple, fine, but simply killing off other guys when they become inconvenient is lazy writing, and it diminishes any emotional investment the audience can even have in Liv’s love life if we know that her boyfriends are disposable.

Second, I’m a little bummed out about Rita dying. Her time as a zombie, and especially her final interactions with her father, made her a somewhat more sympathetic character, and I would have loved to see what she would do while under the influence of Vaughn’s brain. She would have made a great sidekick to Vivian, even, if she could have ingratiated herself to the new boss. Alternatively, she could have been an interesting frenemy for Liv if the show would ever seriously consider dedicating some time to Liv’s relationships with other women. It just seems like a missed opportunity, is all. There’s a certain sense of justice to the way that Rita and Vaughn met their ends, but I just really liked Rita and could see other potential uses for the character even in the absence of her father.

Of the two episodes that make up the finale, “Dead Beat” is definitely the stronger one, focused as it is, really, on just barreling towards bringing Clive in on the zombie secret and doing a last little bit of final setup for “Salivation Army.” The final episode of the season is sadly weighed down by a frankly ridiculous secondary plot. It wasn’t awful, though, and Vaughn’s ending in particular was a pretty much perfect way to wrap up this chapter of the show. Passing the villain torch to Vivian and her zombie army creates a ton of new and potentially interesting storytelling opportunities, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

  • Brant Stone is exactly the sort of delightfully sleazy lawyer I would expect to be friends with Vaughn Du Clark.
  • “We now take Bitcoin!” Oh, Don E. Never change.
  • I can’t wait until Blaine gets his memories back, if he hasn’t already. Amnesia Blaine is just not that much fun to watch.
  •  “…as a friend.” Clive is generally so undemonstrative about his friendship with Liv, and his pleading with her to think about her decision to stand by Major is genuinely touching and represents a real evolution of the character.
  • Major and Liv are definitely the biggest Peyton and Ravi shippers of all. Major’s “Sup!” and the looks of delight on both their faces might have been the single funniest moment of the night.
  • “A prison theme. White people.”
  • “Who knew that this evil underground lair gig would have actual perks?”
  • “A massive zombie outbreak means never having to say you’re sorry.”
  • Vivian Stoll is already a fascinating character, and she basically steals every scene she’s in. The Matchbox 20 cover at the end while Vivian and her people snack on Rob Thomas’s brain helps to create an absolutely perfect final tableau to end the season with.
Television

Supergirl: “Myriad” is a very dull setup for next week’s season finale

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“Myriad” is almost entirely setup for next week’s season finale of Supergirl, but it’s sadly just not that compelling. The characters who aren’t mind-controlled mostly flail around ineffectually, and the moments of emotional resonance that usually make this show worth watching are few and far between this week. It’s capped off with what passes for a cliffhanger ending on this show, but the stakes still feel relatively low and the pattern of events for next week’s finale already feels predictable and, frankly, boring. To get there, though, we first have to make it through this episode, which is boring enough on its own for two episodes and turns into a downright slog in its second half.

The hour starts out well enough, picking up just after the end of “World’s Finest.” Nearly all of National City is under Non’s Myriad mind control, including everyone at the DEO, where all but one of the prisoners are to be released. Only one—Maxima, Queen of the planet Almerac—actually gets loose, however, before Supergirl arrives and stops the process. The short fight that ensues Supergirl and Maxima is the only real action in the episode, however, and Supergirl is primarily focused with disabling the DEO systems and taking out Lucy Lane and the other agents without seriously injuring them. This is all over with in the first four minutes of the episode, however, which leaves a lot of time to fill with stuff that’s not action.

After leaving the DEO, Supergirl flies straight to the Fortress of Solitude to find out more about Myriad in the hope of finding a way to stop it. Unfortunately, the little robot guy there is no help at all, and the hologram of Kara’s mother isn’t much more help, which sends a dejected Supergirl back to National City, where she spends some more time frantically wandering around and trying to come up with some kind of plan. Lucy Lane’s dad is surprisingly helpful, but the real surprise is when Supergirl is pacing around CatCo in distress and Cat Grant walks in like everything is totally normal. This is kind of hilarious until Maxwell Lord arrives hot on Cat’s heels with a smirk and several infuriatingly glib and too-convenient explanations.

While Max is teasing some kind of plan—it’s a bomb, obv—Non shows up. Probably the biggest problem this show has is that it fails, utterly, to deal in any sensible way with real moral ambiguity, and this is highlighted in this episode in a series of situations that all start with Non’s arrival at CatCo.

First, Non’s goal (and Astra’s before) is not an entirely bad one. He sees the self-destructive trajectory of the human race—much like the successfully suicidal policies of Krypton—and wants to fix it. Unfortunately, the show portrays Non as almost nonsensically villainous instead of recognizing or working with the greyness of his character. Some noise is made about Non’s desire to not have to kill his niece, but with the near-absence of any interactions between them previously, it’s hard to care very much about their relationship or believe that either of them has any sincere attachment to the other.

Before Non leaves CatCo, he has James, Winn, and another CatCo employee, Kelly, all walk outside and fall off the sides of the building, putting Kara in the impossible situation of not being able to save all of them. However, Kelly is a character who has never been named before, and is essentially a throwaway character who exists only to be sacrificed in this manner as a matter of narrative convenience. Any emotional resonance of this scene is further diminished by the fact that it all happens so quickly and things move along so soon after that there’s barely a moment to spare to reflect on the tragedy. Certainly Supergirl herself seems to get over Kelly’s death extremely quickly. It’s a moment seemingly meant to suggest a weakness in Supergirl, but it doesn’t quite connect.

Finally, the whole business with Maxwell Lord’s bomb is a little silly. I love a good Cat Grant speech as much as the next person, and on the surface this one is excellent. Taken out of context, I love this talk between Cat and Supergirl, but within the episode it’s almost silly, coming off as Pollyannaish and preachy. A very generous interpretation would be that this scene is an exploration of the moral dilemma Kara faces in choosing whether or not to go along with Max’s plan, but I would contend that it’s actually a rejection of the dilemma. Indeed, Cat’s central thesis reminded me a little too much of the Fear and Love scene from Donnie Darko. Only the sheer earnest goodness of this show saved it from being completely ridiculous.

Meanwhile, Alex and Hank are still on the run. I’m not sure how much time, chronologically, has passed since they actually left National City, but they appear to still be on a bus out of town when it’s stopped by some shady-looking law enforcement flashing their pictures around. This scene is nicely done, even if the red glow of Hank’s eyes is a bit much—yeah, we get it, the little boy is Hank in disguise—but things are almost all downhill for this pair after that. When they arrive at the Danvers home (because that place is definitely not going to be being watched for the fugitives or anything like that), Eliza tells them the news about National City, and they promptly decide to go back, even though Alex will obviously just get mind controlled along with the rest of the humans.

By the end of the episode, of course, Alex is mind controlled and Supergirl has to fight her, though Kara does say she won’t do it, and that’s where the episode ends. I’d like to say that I’m excited to find out what happens next, but my dominant feeling by the end of this episode was just “meh.” Hopefully next week’s finale can manage to make some sense out of all this.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

  • I did love Cat’s Harrison Ford joke.
  • Superman showing up and getting mind controlled and Max’s explanation for it is one of the dumbest things this show has ever subjected us to. And that’s saying a lot.
  • “We’re way past villains of the week and kittens stuck in trees” is a passably good line.
  • Also “So mind control is the answer to global warming. Why didn’t I think of that?”
  • I’m not really sure why Indigo is necessary. Sure, Non is dull on his own, but the addition of a Lady Macbeth doing a cheap Mystique cosplay doesn’t improve things.
Television

Lucifer: “St. Lucifer” is a mess of rape culture and mediocre-to-poor writing

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I can’t help but feel as if Lucifer shot its wad a little early this week. Last night’s episode was an overall okay hour of television, but “St. Lucifer” somehow managed to feel both as if it rushed through story and as if nothing much significant happened. With just two episodes left in the first season, this one ends on a curiously ambiguous and frustratingly dull note. First, though, let’s talk a bit about how this episode is actually a pretty vile piece of rape culture.

The hour opens with Chloe waking up naked and hungover in Lucifer’s bed, which I guess seems like an obvious follow-up to the events at the end of the previous episode, but it’s a situation played for laughs that I just don’t find at all funny. The more I’ve thought about the ending of “Pops,” the more I hate that we’re supposed to think at all highly of Lucifer’s “self-sacrifice” in refusing Chloe’s drunken advances. This opening scene only highlights how awful it would have been for Lucifer to have had sex with her in that condition, as Chloe was apparently so drunk that she barely even remembers what happened and needs his help with making sense out of what little she does remember. That this is framed as her having a fear of doing something she would regret rather than concern that she may have been taken advantage of is actually disgusting. Because, make no mistake about it, a sober person having sex with someone who is blackout, passing-out drunk—especially if the sober party knows that the drunk one would not ordinarily be down to bang—is rape.

It may have been easier to overlook this gross, victim-blaming, rape-enabling messaging if it didn’t form most of the basis for the thematic arc of the episode. Basically, Lucifer feels so good having done something nice that he wants to repeat the experience. It just doesn’t work the way it seems to be intended to. Or, rather, it doesn’t work if you recognize taking advantage of a drunk and incapacitated person as rape, since in that case Lucifer’s managing to, you know, not rape his friend isn’t a particularly good or heroic act as the show’s writers seem to want us to believe. Unfortunately for the foundational premise of this episode, not raping someone is not a good deed that one should feel self-congratulatory about—especially not to the degree that Lucifer is self-congratulatory. It’s just basic human decency. Not raping is literally the least you can do when your drunk and distraught friend shows up unexpectedly looking for comfort, and, frankly, not being quite human is really no excuse.

This is made even worse by the fact that, while Lucifer has been shown to enjoy a great deal of sex, often in party situations where drugs and alcohol are being consumed, there’s been no actual evidence put forward on the show that he’s a rapist. In fact, he seems to be generally considerate and nonjudgmental of his sex partners, and the show has always presented all the sex Lucifer is having as situations where a good time is had by all. To suggest that Lucifer taking advantage of a very drunk Chloe is on the same ethical level as a bunch of people having fun sexy times with substances shows a creepily bizarre lack of judgment and good taste on the part of the show’s writers. It feeds into rape culture myths that muddy the definition of rape and shame women into silence, and this undermines all of Lucifer’s supposed character growth this week.

The case of the week involves the murder of a wealthy philanthropist, and Lucifer identifies strongly with the dead man, who was someone who had reformed his life after a misspent youth. Lucifer sees himself on a similar journey, but instead of wanting to change for truly other-focused reasons, Lucifer is more concerned with rehabilitating his image and is only doing good if and because it gives him a bit of an emotional high. Through the investigation of the murder, Lucifer ought to learn that goodness comes from a sincere desire to be decent and helpful to others, but that lesson seems lost on the Devil, and it’s honestly not clear what Lucifer has learned from this experience by the end of the episode. This is half due to the writers’ seeming confusion over what rape and basic human decency are, but it’s compounded by the fact that any Lucifer character growth this week is totally upstaged by the episode’s other significant events and revelations.

First, Maze—still on the outs with Lucifer—seeks out Amenadiel, ostensibly looking to ruin his night since she blames him for her current woes. Their dinner at a fancy restaurant ends up being the standout scene of the episode, and their later getting it on in the back seat of a car is probably the most unexpected and pleasantly surprising event of the night. I said weeks ago that I shipped this pair, but I didn’t really think it would happen. Sure, Maze later tells Lucifer that she’s using Amenadiel (her revelation that she had sex with his brother should definitely have elicited a more comical spit take from Lucifer than it did), but there’s real chemistry here, and the angel and the demon steaming up the car was nicely done, sexy but understated and just the right amount of wryly funny.

The other big event of the week is that Malcolm makes his move to kill Lucifer. However, this whole plot seems to have simply fizzled. After all the buildup of making it a bit of a mystery at first why Amenadiel brought Malcolm back in the first place and then having Malcolm abduct Dan and plan to frame the other man for Lucifer’s murder, the whole thing was resolved very quickly and with remarkably little fuss. Malcolm comes at Lucifer with a gun, Lucifer sets Malcolm straight about Amenadiel’s false promises, and Malcolm is sent on his way with a get out of Hell free coin. Sure, it seems like this coin might be more important to Lucifer than he lets on, and I’m certain this is somehow going to come back and haunt him at some point, but it’s definitely a little anticlimactic after so much time in the last couple of episodes was dedicated to this stuff.

Even Dan manages to escape on his own, and arrives just in time to see Lucifer recovering from being shot by someone else entirely. Instead of focusing on Dan’s having just seen Lucifer return from the dead, or even taking a moment to pause and talk about why Dan looks so awful, Lucifer rushes off to catch the murderer, and his miraculous survival goes pretty much uncommented on, even though it ought to be pretty incontrovertible evidence that something weird is going on. This might be addressed next week, but Chloe doesn’t even bring it up in the last scene of the episode when Lucifer shows up at her house to test his new theory of what causes him to be physically vulnerable (it’s Chloe, obviously). On the one hand, it’s good to have this information confirmed (although it shouldn’t be a big surprise to viewers). On the other hand, Chloe didn’t mention Dan’s return or Lucifer’s bullet hole-riddled suit, which makes her seem a little stupid. At the very least, her wanting to talk about feelings makes it seem as if she’s inexplicably completely ignored some very important things that maybe she ought to be bringing up instead.

That said, it really could be the case that all this stuff is going to be dealt with next week, or even the week after, but it feels jumbled, and the confused ordering of events, revelations, and emotional moments only serves to weaken the overall impact of the episode. It could have been worse, and this show has certainly been worse in the past, but “St. Lucifer” was not good.

Book Reviews, Books, Novella, Science Fiction

Mini-Review: Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal

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Mary Robinette Kowal’s Forest of Memory is one of my favorite of Tor.com’s novellas to date. It’s an interesting exploration of memory and the authenticity of experiences in a world in which nearly all human experience is filtered through a technological lens. Smartly, Kowal doesn’t dwell much on the actual future technology she’s imagined, and she also avoids the pitfalls of attempting to examine the broader societal effects of that technology. Instead, she focuses squarely on a single character and her personal experiences in order to tell a singularly excellent story.

The first-person point of view is likewise a good choice, and Katya is an engaging narrator. The peculiar method in which the story is being told—from Katya’s point of view, in hindsight, ostensibly as Katya types the story on a typewriter for a client—is clever but not too precious. The occasional misspellings and typos are just enough to be noticeable to a keen reader, but not so obtrusive that they detract from the reading experience. Instead, they lend character to the story and add a small sense of realism to an otherwise somewhat dreamlike narrative.

I haven’t read much of Kowal’s fiction, just this and her marvelous novelette “The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” and I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to reading her Glamourist Histories fantasy series, but I will definitely be watching for more of her science fiction in the future.