Series Saturday: PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS Season One

This is a blog series about … well, series. I love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies, comics.

 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season One television series (2023 - 2024)

Starred: Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, Aryan Simhadri

Produced by 20th Television, Co-Lab 21, Gotham Group, Moorish Dignity Productions, Quaker Moving Pictures, and Walt Disney Studios

Originally aired on Disney+

Count me in as one of the many viewers who are far more satisfied with this television adaptation of Book One of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series than with the previous movie attempts. (To be honest: I am also one of those folks who liked the movies fine for what they were, but faithful to the novels they were not.) Disney’s eight-episode season allowed for a much more faithful (but not slavishly so) adaptation. Is it perfect? No, of course not. No adaptation from one form of media to another ever is. But it’s a damn fine eight hours of television, in this viewer’s eyes. I’m not going to spend time talking about the changes. Rick Riordan himself has commented on most of them on his social media, and while I love the books it has been over a decade since I last read The Lightning Thief. I’ll stick to my thoughts on the show we got rather than lamenting (or lambasting) the things we didn’t.

First and foremost: kudos to the casting department, especially on the three leads. I may be one of the few people on Earth who still have not seen The Adam Project, so my only awareness of Walker Scobell was when clips from that movie started to show up on social media, but what I saw in those clips definitely fit my perception of Percy. Scobell’s excellent use of snark is not the only reason he’s a great Percy, of course. He really gets the character’s struggles to fit in, to control his anger at his absentee father, to manage his ADHD; he also embodies Percy’s loyalty to those he calls friends (and his pain when those friends betray, or seem to betray, him). Leah Sava Jeffries is pretty much his perfect match as Annabeth – she too can bring the snark, but the best moments were watching her struggle with being the smartest person in the room. Aryan Simhadri brings a loveable goofiness to Grover that never tips over into broad caricature (which it could easily have done); his sense of comic timing is spot on. (Bonus points for the casting director who found Azriel Dalman to play young Percy; I believed he and Walker were playing the same kid.)

The adults are also perfectly cast. Virginia Kull is heartbreaking as Sally Jackson while also being a bastion of parental support (however imperfect at times). The gods and monsters (Lin Manuel Miranda, Toby Stephens, Megan Mulally, Timothy Omundson, Glynn Turman, Jay Duplass, Jason Mantzoukas, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Suzanne Cryer) are all excellent in their turns, but full credit especially to Adam Copeland as Ares. I do wish the late, great Lance Reddick had had more screen time as Zeus. I am also glad that on screen and even in the credits and despite their overwhelming star power, all these wonderful adults were not allowed to overshadow the three leads. They were supporting characters or antagonists (or both) but never stole focus.

My one major complaint with the season is that it should have been one episode longer. The time Percy spends at Camp Half-Blood is given only one episode and I think the Percy/Luke dynamic suffers for it. When episode two aired, I commented that I wasn’t particularly impressed with Charlie Bushnell as Luke in comparison to the other kids (including Dior Goodjohn as Clarissa). Watching the final episode, I realized I felt that way because Bushnell just wasn’t given much to work with in the earlier episode. All of his good stuff came at the end, and half of that in flashback to stuff we should have seen earlier. It was a stylistic choice on the part of Riordan and the rest of the production team and in my opinion one of the few missteps.

My only other complaint, and it is minor, is that the nighttime and Underworld scenes were all so dark I sometime couldn’t see details that I would have liked to see and I’m sure were there (because in all the other stuff shot on the Volume stage, the FX work is stunning and immersive). Yes, I’m aware that maybe it’s my television and not the production at fault.

When I originally drafted this post, I ended with a simple “So, Disney: get on with greenlighting season two already!”  And lo and behold, just a few days before this post will go live, Disney did exactly that. I hope production on season 2, adapted from The Sea of Monsters, starts up quickly and runs smoothly and that it appears on our screens sooner rather than later.


If you enjoyed this post, check out some of my previous fantasy/superhero television-related Series Saturday posts:

2021 Viewing Round-Up

Two days ago, I posted my annual summary of every book and story I read/listened to in 2021. Today, I’m summarizing every television show and movie I watched in 2021, as well as the few live events I attended. This is only my second year tracking this info in any concrete way.

Live Events:

I attended 4 live events this year (thanks, COVID-19!), two online and two in person.

·       The Firflake (a full-cast performance of my Christmas novel, aired on YouTube)

·       The Comedy of Errors (full-cast performance, on Zoom)

·       74th Annual Worldcon / DisconIII (5 days, at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington DC)

·       Assassins (at the Classic Stage Company theatre in New York City)

As I said in my 2020 summary: I miss live theater and live music.

 

Movies:

I only watched 35 movies this year (8 more than 2020!), totaling approximately 71 hours. The shortest were one hour long and the longest was three hours. Of these, 26 were movies I viewed for the first time, the rest movies I’ve seen before. I gave 12 of these a 3-star rating, 10 a four-star rating, and 13 a five-star rating.

The breakdown of what I watched where:

·       8 on DVD

·       5 in the theatre

·       1 on live television

·       21 on digital platforms

The genre breakdown was thus:

·       Science Fiction: 2 (Dune; Logan’s Run)

·       Action/Adventure: 5 (Casino Royale; Quantum of Solace; Spyfall; Spectre; A Time to Die)

·       Comic Book (Non-Super-hero): 1 (Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World)

·       Concerts: 3

o   2 Musical (Not the Messiah; John Barrowman in Concert)

o   1 Stand-Up Comedy (Bo Burnham’s what.)

·       Documentary: 1 (For the Love of Spock)

·       Horror: 3 (The Black Cat; White Zombie; Brides of Dracula)

·       Kaiju: 1 (Godzilla vs. King Kong)

·       Musicals: 9 (Tick, Tick …Boom!; Sweeney Todd (Angela Lansbury, George Hearn); Pitch Perfect; Dear Evan Hansen; Everybody’s Talking About Jamie; Come from Away; In the Heights; Allegiance; Godspell 50th Anniversary)

·       Mystery: 1 (Knives Out)

·       Romantic Comedy: 1 (Single All the Way)

·       Shakespeare: 2 (Henry IV, The Tempest (Donmar Warehouse productions))

·       Super-Hero: 4 (Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings; Spider-Man Far from Home; Eternals) (wow, ALL Marvel…)

·       Thriller: 1 (The Gift)

·       Western: 1 (The Harder They Fall)

 

Television:

I watched approximately 411 hours of episodic television (almost double 2020’s viewing!). Taken alphabetically, the shows were:

·       Animaniacs (13 episodes)

·       DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (21)

·       Doctor Who (7)

·       Hawkeye (6)

·       Live From Lincoln Center (3)

·       Locke & Key (10)

·       Logan’s Run (14)

·       Loki (6)

·       Only Murders in the Building (10)

·       Paul Lynde’s Halloween Special (1)

·       Penn and Teller: Fool Us (1)

·       Route 66 (1) (Halloween episode with Karloff, Lorre, and Chaney)

·       Schmigadoon! (6)

·       Stargirl (13)

·       Star Trek: Discovery (20)

·       Star Trek: Lower Decks (20)

·       Star Trek: Prodigy (5)

·       Supergirl (18)

·       Superman and Lois (15)

·       Superman and Lois: Legacy of Hope (1)

·       Suspense! (1) (Bela Lugosi in “A Cask of Amontillado”)

·       Sweet Tooth (8)

·       Telephone Time (1) (“backdoor pilot” for The Veil)

·       The Kennedy Center Honors (1)

·       The Tony Awards (1)

·       The Beatles: Get Back (3)

·       The Book of Boba Fett (1)

·       The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (6)

·       The Flash (23)

·       The Goes Wrong Show (12)

·       The Muppet Show (118)

·       The Ready Room (8)

·       The Veil (11)

·       The Wheel of Time (8)

·       WandaVision (9)

·       We Are Who We Are (1)

·       What If (9)

 

Genre breakdown for television watched:

·       Comedy/Variety: 144 episodes / 4 shows

·       Super-Hero: 127 episodes / 11 shows

·       Science Fiction: 75 episodes / 7 shows

·       Concerts: 3 / 1 show

·       Horror: 23 episodes / 4 shows

·       Mystery: 10 episodes / 1 show

·       Magic: 1 episode / 1 show

·       Drama: 2 episodes / 2 shows

·       Musical: 1 episode / 1 show

·       Awards: 2 episodes / 2 shows

·       Documentary: 3 episodes / 1 show

·       Talk: 8 episodes / 1 show

·       Fantasy: 8 episodes / 1 show

 

All were live action except for 3 animated shows (Animaniacs; Star Trek: Lower Decks; Star Trek: Prodigy).

13 episodes were watched on live television (while in hotels traveling for work) and 18 episodes were on DVD; the rest were on digital platforms.

133 episodes were “rewatches” (Logan’s Run, The Muppet Show, and the Paul Lynde Halloween Special), all the rest were first viewings.

 

Next post will be my (very brief) summary of the writing, proofreading, and editing work I did in 2021.

Year In Review: 2020 By The Numbers

As is ritual at this point, here’s my media round-up for 2020: what I wrote, what was published, and what I read, listened to, and watched.

WRITING

Similar to last year, not much to report on this front. 2020 was again not a good year for creating new content. I didn’t track what little fiction writing I managed to do – but I know there were far more days where I didn’t write than there were days I wrote. I’m considering it another “recharging” year, as I consumed and processed a lot of wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) books, television, movies, and “live” (via Zoo) theatre. The writing I did manage was mostly work on previous unfinished short stories, or non-fiction like book reviews and blog posts.

PROOFREADING/COPY-EDITING

I did a fair about of proofreading and copy-editing this year. In addition to my usual gig at Lightspeed Magazine from Adamant Press, I hired on as proofreader for the revived Fantasy Magazine as well. I also copy-edited Adamant Press’s anthology trilogy The Dystopia Triptych (Ignorance is Strength; Burn the Ashes; Or Else the Light). I did proofread Frank Schildiner’s spy novella The Klaus Protocol and his sword-and-sandal novella The Warrior’s Pilgrimage. I proofread the charity anthology Surviving Tomorrow and several volumes of Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s John Simon Thrillers and a few other titles I don’t feel at liberty to mention because those authors have not yet announced the books. This has become an unexpectedly fun side-line and I must be doing a good job because authors and editors keep asking me to do more! (If I proofread for you in 2020 and you’re not on this list, sorry! I didn’t keep a database tracking all the projects I worked on.)

PUBLISHING

2020 saw no new or reprinted stories published.

I wrote three paid book reviews for Strange Horizons magazine:

·         The Trans-Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács

·         Eridani’s Crown by Alex Schvartsman

·         The Mid-Winter Witch by Molly Knox Ostertag

 

READING

I set myself a variety of reading challenges in 2020. I managed to complete a few of them.

Goodreads Challenge:

I challenged myself to read 125 books. I read 154 books from approximately 73 different publishers.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Fiction: 146 books

    • 7 anthologies

      • 3 horror

      • 4 science fiction

    • 11 single-author collections

      • 1 science fiction

      • 3 horror

      • 2 fantasy

      • 2 crime/mystery

      • 1 poetry

      • 1 romance

    • 38 graphic novels

      • 21 super-hero

      • 2 horror

      • 11 fantasy

      • 1 memoir

      • 1 crime/mystery

      • 1 sport (fencing)

      • 1 science fiction

    • 13 magazines

      • 12 issues of Lightspeed Magazine

      • 1 issue of Occult Detective Magazine

    • 40 novels

      • 8 crime

      • 4 horror

      • 9 fantasy

      • 10 science fiction

      • 2 romance

      • 4 adventure

      • 1 mainstream

      • 2 historical

    • 32 novellas

      • 4 horror

      • 14 fantasy

      • 3 romance

      • 2 mainstream

      • 4 adventure

      • 1 science fiction

      • 3 crime

      • 1 Christmas

    • 1 picture book (current events/non-fiction)

    • 4 play scripts

      • 1 memoir

      • 3 dramas

  • Non-Fiction: 11 books

    • 1 biography

    • 1 current events (picture book)

    • 1 book of essays (pop-culture)

    • 1 history

    • 6 memoirs

    • 1 true crime

Other Book Stats:

# of Authors/Editors: approximately 136 (including graphic novel artists; I need to be better at listing all the creators of graphic novels somehow). The following breakdown is estimated because not every author shares their personal information online, and many people overlap categories, but roughly:

·         32 female creators

·         3 Trans/Non-Binary

·         20 LGBTQIA+

·         25 Persons of Color

 

Shortest Book Read: 24 pages (Whose Boat Is This? by Stephen Colbert / Late Night Writers)

Longest Book Read: 528 (Middlegame by Seanan McGuire) (The Sandman audiobook accounts for 632 pages of graphic novel, so technically that’s longer)

Total # of pages read: 30,793

Average # of pages per book: 199

# of Rereads: 6 (including annual rereads of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol)

Monthly Breakdown:

·         January: 19

·         February: 12

·         March: 8

·         April: 11

·         May: 8

·         June: 3 (lowest read in a month)

·         July: 16

·         August: 21

·         September: 8

·         October: 9

·         November: 15

·         December: 24 (most read in a month)

Review-wise on Goodreads I gave 19 three-stars, 84 four-stars, and 51 five-star reviews.

Format Summary:

  • 15 audiobooks

  • 31 e-books

  • 108 print

    • 26 hardcovers

    • 82 softcovers

366 Short Stories Challenge:

Each year, I challenge myself to read one short story per day. Since 2020 was a leap year, I aimed for 366 stories. I read 375 stories, beating the goal by a small margin.

Total # of pages read: approximately 6,139 pages of fiction

Average story length: 16.5 pages

Shortest story: 1 page long (“Six Waking Nightmares” by Mike Allen, and two Dresden File micro-fictions by Jim Butcher)

Longest story (novella): 190 pages (“If It Bleeds” by Stephen King).

The breakdown of where the stories appeared:

  • 9 Magazines

    • Nightmare

    • Lightspeed

    • Fantasy

    • The Dark

    • Daily Science Fiction

    • Occult Detective Magazine

    • Apex Magazine

    • Skelos

    • Tor.Com

  • 9 Anthologies

    • Surviving Tomorrow

    • Dagon Rising

    • Where the Veil is Thin

    • The Sinister Quartet

    • Ignorance is Strength (The Dystopia Triptych Volume 1)

    • Burn the Ashes (The Dystopia Triptych Volume 2)

    • Or Else the Light (The Dystopia Triptych Volume 3)

    • Parallel Worlds: The Heroes Within

    • Athena’s Daughters

  • 10 Single-Author Collections

    • Killer, Come Back to Me by Ray Bradbury

    • Dying with Her Cheer Pants on by Seanan McGuire

    • Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier

    • Halloween Season by Lucy A. Snyder

    • Greatheart Silver and Other Pulp Heroes by Philip Jose Farmer

    • If It Bleeds by Stephen King

    • Aftermath of an Industrial Accident by Mike Allen

    • Anthems Outside of Time by Kenneth Schneyer

    • Spinning Around A Sun by Everett Maroon

    • The Grand Tour by E. Catherine Tobler

    • The Burglar in Short Order by Lawrence Block

  • 4 published as “back-matter” in the following novels

    • A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuire

    • Imaginary Numbers by Seanan McGuire

    • Carson of Venus: The Edge of All Worlds by Matt Betts

    • Tarzan: The Battle for Pellucidar by Win Scott Eckert

  • 22 Stand-alone (self-pubbed or publisher-pubbed in e-format)

    • 12 Seanan McGuire (Patreon)

    • 2 Mysterious Bookstore (Printed pamphlet giveaways)

    • 2 ‘Nathan Burgoine (author website)

    • 1 H.P. Lovecraft (e-pub of “Horror at Red Hook”)

    • 5 Jim Butcher (author website/newsletter)

Those 375 stories were written by 189 different authors. The following breakdown is estimated because not every author shares their personal information online, and some people overlap categories, but roughly:

·         84 female creators

·         7 Trans/Non-Binary

·         25 LGBTQIA+

·         54 Persons of Color

Monthly Breakdown:

·         January: 26

·         February: 17

·         March: 14

·         April: 24

·         May: 11

·         June: 17

·         July: 106

·         August: 27

·         September: 24

·         October: 53

·         November: 38

·         December: 18

For short stories, I gave 1 1-star rating, 5 2-star ratings, 134 3-star, 180 4-star, and 55 5-star ratings.

 

Graphic Novel Challenge:

Because I own so many, I challenged myself to read one graphic novel per week. I didn’t make it, reading a total of 38 from 11 different publishers:

·              DC Comics: 11

·              Marvel Comics: 11

·              BOOM! Box: 8

·              Image: 1

·              Dark Horse: 1

·              FirstSecond: 1

·              Hard Case Crime: 1

·              Scholastic Books: 1

·              Berger Books: 1

·              Disney: 1

·              Pantheon Books: 1

 

To Be Read Challenge: I challenged myself to read 12 specific books that had been on my bookshelves for over a year (meaning nothing published in 2019) and assigned 2 alternate titles. I read 11 of the 12 main titles (identified in italics) but neither of the alternates:

1.       Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

2.       No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

3.       Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson

4.       A Diet of Treacle by Lawrence Block

5.       Shadowhouse Falls by Daniel Jose Older

6.       Greatheart Silver by Philip Jose Farmer

7.       Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

8.       The Bad Seed by William March

9.       The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

10.   Choke Hold by Christa Faust

11.   Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

12.   The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Alternate #1: The Mystery of the Sea by Bram Stoker

Alternate #2: Excalibur! by Gil Kane and John Jakes

 

Non-Fiction Challenge: I didn’t do as well on this one. I challenged myself to read 24 non-fiction books in 2019, and I only read 11. (That was better than 2019’s 4, though.)

Read the Book, Watch the Movie Challenge: I didn’t set a numbered goal for this one in 2020, but I managed two: Evening Primrose and The Bad Seed.

Complete the Series Challenge: As with the non-fiction challenge, I hit 50% on this one. Planned to read 4 complete series, totaling 16 books (backing out the two Marlowes and one Achebe I had read in 2019), and read 9 of 16, completing 2 series:

THE VELVETEEN SERIES by Seanan McGuire

1.       Velveteen Vs. The Junior Super-Patriots

2.       Velveteen Vs. The Multiverse

3.       Velveteen Vs. The Seasons

 

THE AFRICA TRILOGY BY Chinua Achebe – COMPLETED

1.       Things Fall Apart – read in 2018

2.       No Longer at Ease – read in December 2020

3.       Arrow of God – read in February 2020

 

CARSON OF VENUS by Edgar Rice Burroughs

1.       Pirates of Venus – read in January 2020

2.       Lost on Venus

3.       Carson of Venus

4.       Escape on Venus

5.       The Wizard of Venus

 

THE PHILIP MARLOWE SERIES (audiobook versions) - COMPLETED

1.       The Big Sleep – listened to in November 2019

2.       Farewell, My Lovely – listened to in November 2019

3.       The High Window – listened to in January 2020

4.       The Lady in the Lake – listened in January 2020

5.       The Little Sister – listened in January 2020

6.       The Long Goodbye – listened in April 2020

7.       Playback – read in November 2020

8.       Poodle Springs (started by Chandler, completed by Robert B. Parker) – read in November 2020

 

 

VIEWING

I tried tracking the movies, TV, and live events I watched this year. Here’s how that went:

Movies: Apparently, I only watched 27 movies this year, totaling 45.5 hours. The shortest was a half-hour long short film (Unspeakable, directed by Milena Govich) and the two longest were approximately 2.5 hours (Wonder Woman 84 and Billy Elliot The Musical Live). The breakdown of what I watched where is:

·              6 on BroadwayHD

·              2 on Disney+

·              12 on DVD

·              1 on HBOMax (Wonder Woman 84)

·              2 on Netflix

·              2 on Cable television

·              1 on YouTube (Unspeakable)

·              1 in the theater (1917)

Of these, 14 were first time watches, the rest movies I’ve seen before. 3 were comedies, 1 was a documentary (The House In Between), 3 were dramas, 1 was fantasy (Excalibur), 7 were horror, 8 were musicals, 3 were science fiction, and 1 was a super-hero movie (Wonder Woman 84). I suspect 2021’s numbers will match the above “what I watched where” breakdown, until COVID-19 is well and truly under control.

 

Live Events: I attended 2 live events this year (thanks, COVID-19!), and one of those was via Zoom.

·         1 play (Othello, live on Zoom)

·         1 sports event (ice hockey, the Atlanta Gladiators versus the Greenville Swamprabbits)

I miss live theater and live music.

 

Television: I watched approximately 230 hours of episodic television:

·              13 Reasons Why (36 episodes)

·              Arrow (3 episodes)

·              Batwoman (11 episodes)

·              Cursed (10 episodes)

·              DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (15 episodes)

·              Doctor Who (10 episode)

·              Leslie Jones: Time Machine (1 episode)

·              Locke & Key (10 episodes)

·              Monsterland (8 episodes)

·              Muppets Now (6 episodes)

·              Perry Mason (8 episodes)

·              Stargirl (13 episodes)

·              Star Trek: Discovery (29 episodes)

·              Star Trek: Picard (10 episodes)

·              Star Trek: Short Treks (5 episodes)

·              Star Trek: The Original Series (2 episodes)

·              Supergirl (140episodes)

·              Terriers (13 episodes)

·              The Flash (10 episodes)

·              The Mandalorian (16 episodes)

·              Watchmen (3 episodes)

Genre breakdown for television watched:

·       2 crime/noir

·       3 comedies

·       6 science fiction

·       7 superhero

·       2 fantasy

·       1 horror

·       1 drama

All were live action except for 1 animated show (Animaniacs). Only the two episodes of ST:TOS were “re-watches.”

 

So, there you have it: my writing, publishing, reading, and viewing by the numbers, for 2020.

Earlier this month, I posted about my reading challenges for 2021, if you’re interested.

Series Saturday: HBO's Perry Mason

This is a blog series about … well, series. I love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies, comics.

perry mason poster.jpg

 

Let me start this post out with a bit of background/disclaimer/call it what you will: I’ve never read any of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels (I intend to fix that in 2021); I’ve never seen any of the 1930s Perry Mason movies (starring Warren William as Maxon and Claire Dodd as Della Street); and I don’t think I’ve watched an episode of the Raymond Burr series since I was in high school (although I do recall catching a couple of the late 80s/early 90s reunion movies). So, I’m probably not coming at the new Perry Mason TV series with anywhere near the expectations/baggage heavy Mason fans are. That said: this is definitely a different Perry Mason than the television show I remember.

That’s not the negative it sounds like. I liked the episodes of Perry Mason I saw as a kid/teen. But I’m also pretty open to new interpretations even of characters I love (otherwise, how could I stand so many different versions of Superman parading across my television screen?). And I happen to really enjoy film noir.

And that’s what this new series is: a noir interpretation of the previously unwritten “origin story” of Perry Mason. As noir, the eight-episode season hits all the right notes. The tone is dark, dark, dark throughout, and violent/graphic as well, from the opening scene of the first episode (a dead baby in a trolley car) to the flashback scenes of the final episode (revealing much of what the audience and Mason have suspected all along). It’s a bit unrelenting, almost suffocating. Even the daylight scenes of Los Angeles in winter/spring feel dark and a bit claustrophobic. By the time I was able to access HBOMax and watch the show, the entire season was available; I admit I found it hard to watch more than one episode at a time without coming up for light and air in between.

The set-up, for those unfamiliar, is that this is Mason’s “origin” story. Mason (Matthew Rhys) starts the season as a down-beat, down-on-his-luck private eye living on a slowly dying family farm next to a small airport, taking whatever follow-and-photograph jobs he can. Sometimes, those jobs come from lawyer E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) via Jonathan’s secretary Della Street (Juliet Rylance) and sometimes Mason calls on fellow P.I. Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham) for help. E.B.’s newest job for Mason involves investigating the kidnapping/death of baby Charlie Dodson, which includes investigating the child’s parents Matthew (Nate Corddry) and Emily (Gayle Rankin). E.B. has been hired by rich magnate Herman Baggerly (Robert Patrick), who goes to the same church as Matthew and Emily: The Radiant Assembly of God, led by Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany) and her mother Birdie (Lili Taylor). Along the way, Mason finds himself at odds with District Attorney Maynard Barnes (Stephen Root), Judge Fred Wright (Matt Frewer) and Detectives Holcomb (Eric Lange) and Ennis (Andrew Howard), and assisted by coroner Virgil Sheets (Jefferson Mays), beat cop Paul Drake (Chris Chalk), aviator Lupe Gibbs (Veronica Falcón), and a friend of Della’s named Hazel Prystock (Molly Ephraim).

The good news for viewers and mystery lovers alike: as complicated as the overlapping plots get (there are also subplots about E.B.’s financial difficulties, Mason’s estranged wife and son, Gibbs trying to purchase Mason’s family farm, Della’s boarding house friendships, Sister Alice’s health, and Drake’s struggles as a black cop), every question asked in the early episodes is answered by the end of the final episode. No cliffhangers, no missing resolutions. And the revelations about what really happened to baby Charlie and why are what I call “fair play” – that is, the clues are there littered throughout for the viewer to pick up on, even if Mason and Co. don’t see them as quickly or as clearly. I was very satisfied with the way the overlapping mysteries and crimes were pulled together, and the way the majority of the subplots were at least temporarily resolved (hey, something has to carry over to a potential season two). Most of the characters get what they deserve (both for good and bad). Fans of the Raymond Burr-led television series may not be as enamored of the way the final episode tweaks the final big courtroom scene. And I know people more familiar with the legal system are not happy about the way Mason goes from private eye to full lawyer in the space of an episode. I can live with upended expectations and a bit of suspension of disbelief.

Rhys’ Mason is a classic noir detective: disheveled, discontent, easy to anger but also chivalrous (mostly), and doggedly determined once he decides something must be done. The character has shades and depths, and he’s not always likeable. This unlikability could have been an issue; the show is called Perry Mason, after all, and if we’re not invested in the character from the get-go that’s a problem. But Rhys gives his all to every emotion, every scene, and shows us why we should care about this damaged, often bitter, man. Mason’s arc is as strong as it is because Rhys lets us see the potential good even when Mason is at his worst in the season premiere. The character’s redemption is not a straight incline. For my money, Perry’s worst moments are mid-way through the season. Rhys plays it all expertly.

While the show is about Mason, it hews close to another aspect of noir that I love: strong, nuanced women. Rylance’s Della Street is a powerhouse of a character, equally confrontational and supportive, and I loved every moment she was on screen. She is clearly Perry’s equal, and she is the “better angel” who sits on his shoulder (and E.B. Jonathan’s shoulder as well). Equally impressive was Tatiana Maslany. I think this is the first thing I’ve seen her in (yes, yes, I know: I should watch Orphan Black) and she was mesmerizing, commanding every scene she was in regardless of whether Sister Alice was in the throes of religious ecstasy or pushing back against a controlling mother. Gayle Rankin’s Emily Dodson is the not the femme fatale one expects at the center of a noir crime story, but Rankin’s portrayal of a mother broken by the death of her child is just stunningly raw and captivating.

I know that there’s been a lot of pushback from some quarters about the casting of Chris Chalk as Paul Drake (a white character in the Raymond Burr Mason series, who I’m going to guess is also a white man in the original novels upon which both shows are based). Arguments have been made that there’s no way a black investigator, even working for a white lawyer, would have been effective in 1930s America. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in future seasons (if there are any). Regardless, Chalk is compelling, imbuing Drake with a simmering anger that he’s unable to ever totally put aside (and which erupts in one powerful scene early on, to Mason’s detriment).

The supporting cast is equally superb all around. John Lithgow is, as I think everyone knows, one of my favorite actors; his mercurial (for good reason) E.B. Jonathan appears in only four episodes but in that time you love, hate, and empathize with him in equal measure. Stephen Root’s Maynard Barnes, on the other hand, is the character you love to hate, the epitome of the slick politician who is more concerned with rising to power than he is with any kind of justice. (Robert Patrick’s officious, judgmental Herman Baggerly and Lili Taylor’s controlling, abusive Birdie McKeegan vie for second pace in the “love to hate” category.) Shea Whigham throws brilliant snark as Paul Strickland but lets us see that there’s a good guy under all that attitude. Lange and Howard do as much as they can with the “how bad are they” corrupt-cop duo act, with Howard playing the heavy very well when required. Jefferson Mays’ Virgil and Molly Ephraim’s Hazel provide some much-needed awkward humor at the right moments. Veronica Falcón’s Lupe is sexy and strong, perhaps the one true “femme fatale” in the series. Every one of these roles is a full character: we get to see at least hints of what makes them who they are.

The show is not perfect. I’ve already mentioned the stunning speed with which Mason goes from private eye to lawyer. At times, the show feels like it’s trying to do much with the lives of the supporting cast for an eight-episode season – the main storyline might have had more room to breathe had some of those supporting-cast moments been downsized a bit. And there are several pointed mentions of a mysterious Chinese gangster which felt heavy with implication and purpose, but those mentions never tie into the Charlie Dodson case nor with Sister Alice’s church. Perhaps it’s a set-up for season two. And I hope there is a season two!

One-Season Wonders

one season wonders (2).jpg

“What series(es) cancellation(s) broke your heart?”

This question was posted on a friend’s Facebook page a few weeks ago. I noticed as I typed my response that while most respondents were naming long-running series they loved (everything from Lost to ER to Family Matters), my instinct was to list all the “one-season wonders” I remember loving and wishing I had been able to see more of. Okay, there were a few more-than-one-season shows that crossed my mind (Seaquest DSV; Hamish Macbeth; Wonder Woman) but the most immediate thoughts were of shows that lasted only one season.

It also occurred to me that most of the shows on this list of “one season wonders I loved” are shows I have not watched in at least a decade and in most cases several decades. Despite having quite a few of them on DVD. So I’m using this post as a challenge: today, I’m going to talk about these shows almost purely through the lens of nostalgia. Down the line, I’d like to do a rewatch and see if my thoughts on any of them have changed.

Note: This list is comprised of shows I actually remember watching and enjoying and wanting more of. So, for instance, shows like The Green Hornet, Honey West, and T.H.E. Cat are not on here because I have no clear memory of watching them.

And so, in no particular order, here are my thoughts on “One Season Wonders I Loved:”

 

Voyagers (1982): In general, I love time-travel stories (even when they make my head hurt if I think too hard about the concept). And my memories of this show are that the episodes were campy fun. I wanted to be Meeno Peluce’s Jeffrey Jones and couldn’t get admit even to myself that I had a crush on Jon-Erik Hexum’s Phineas Bogg (but I did recognize how similar the character’s name was to Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg and wondered if there were a familial connection). I was definitely sad when this one ended.

Awake (2012): The concept intrigued me: a cop’s life is turned upside down when a car crash kills one member of his family – but depending on which reality he wakes up in (red or blue), it’s either his wife or his teenage son who is dead. But it’s the cast that sold me: Jason Isaacs. Dylan Minnette. BD Wong. Cherry Jones. Laura Innes. The finale episode works fine as a cliff-hanger and as a series finale, but I wish we could have seen where creator Kyle Killen was going next.

Invasion (2005): If I recall correctly, the 2005-2006 television season debuted three distinct “alien invasion via water” series (the other two were Threshold and Surface, neither of which I’ve ever seen). I latched onto this one: after a hurricane, a Florida town’s inhabitants start to act strangely, and a park ranger has to figure out what’s going on while dealing with his doctor ex-wife, her husband the sheriff, and other family members. It wasn’t a perfectly-acted show, but it did feature Kari Matchett, William Fitchner, Aisha Hinds, and was one of Evan Peters’ earliest series roles. (Fun story: a couple of years later I was on the Warner Brothers Studio Tour. We passed the lagoon where much of Invasion was shot. The guide asked if anyone had watched it. I was the only one who raised my hand. Tour Guide: “And that’s why it was cancelled.”)

Best of the West (1981): Yes, there are two Meeno Peluce shows on this list. Sue me.  I *loved* this sitcom about a Civil War vet who would rather talk than shoot and who moves his family to the West and ends up the town marshal. Joel Higgins as Sam Best, Meeno Peluce as his son, Leonard Frey as the criminal “town boss” and the great Tracey Walter as dim-witted bad-guy sidekick “Frog.”

Earth 2 (1994): A colony ship crash lands on the Earth-like planet they were aiming for, which is supposed to be uninhabited. But signs quickly point to native sentient life and that some humans may have preceded them there. This is one of those shows I feel really would have hit its stride in a second and third season. Debrah Farentino and Clancy Brown (as a good guy!) headed a cast that also had Terry O’Quinn, Roy Dotrice, and Tim Curry (“Hello, poppet!”) as recurring guest-stars.

Planet of the Apes (1974): This show was the subject of one of my first Series Saturday posts. I loved everything to do with Planet of the Apes back in the day: I rewatched the movies and the re-cut movie length versions of the tv series whenever they aired, owned all of the Mego action figures and playsets and a good number of the Marvel magazines (sadly, the action figures and the magazines are long gone). One of several shows I wound up writing fan-fiction about during my high school years (not that I knew it was called fan-fiction at the time).

Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982): Created to capitalize on the Indiana Jones craze, I adored this show for the over-the-top fun and because it co-starred Roddy McDowell, who I loved from the Apes movies and tv show. Another show I wrote fan-fiction about, my stories would have qualified as “Mary Sue / Gary Stu” because I created for myself the role of Jake Cutter’s nephew Baldwin.

Terriers (2010): The subject of a recent Series Saturday post and one of only two shows on this list I didn’t watch when it originally aired but came to later and loved. Brilliant modern-noir, top-notch acting by the cast led by Donal Logue and Michael-Raymond James, and a great soundtrack as well.

Firefly (2002): The other show on this list that I didn’t watch when it originally aired but came to on DVD later. So much promise left on the table. And a roundly great cast led by Nathan Fillion at his most endearing but anchored, in my humble opinion, by the great Ron Glass.

Dark Shadows (1991): I was both anxious and excited for the revival (now we’d call it a “reboot”) of one of my favorite childhood soap operas as a night-time drama. It was uneven, to be sure, but I still loved pretty much every minute of it. I’d been familiar with lead actress Joanna Going from her work on the soap opera Another World, was intrigued by the casting of Ben Cross as Barnabas and the great Jean Simmons as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. The only upside to the cancellation: Joseph Gordon-Leavitt wound up on Third Rock from the Sun a few years later.

Clue (2011): I have a real soft-spot for this teen action series nominally based on the board game. It ran 5 episodes and the finale left room for a second season that never materialized. It was a fun story despite any real connection to the board game, but part of the reason I have a soft-spot for it admittedly is because one of the stars, Zach Mills, is the son of a friend of mine.

Quark (1977): Another one of those sitcoms that just cracked me up, even if some of the humor went over my eleven-year-old head. It was science fiction, it was funny. That was enough for geeky little me. And it was created by Buck Henry, who co-created Get Smart with Mel Brooks.

Man from Atlantis (1977): In retrospect, a large part of the attraction to this show for baby-gay Anthony was probably shirtless Patrick Duffy, but I didn’t really know that at the time. I loved the science fiction aspects of the show, and the friendship between the amnesiac outsider (Duffy) and the human doctor (Belinda Montgomery).

Salvage 1 (1979): Okay, this one’s in on a technicality. It officially had two seasons. But the second season only aired 2 episodes before cancellation, and all in the same calendar year as season 1. So I’m counting it. I loved it: Andy Griffith as a junk-man with his own spaceship for collecting satellite debris, Joel Higgins as his pilot/sidekick (so yeah, two Joel Higgins shows on the list!). The unrealistic logistics didn’t bother 13-year-old me. Another show I wrote fan-fiction about. I wish this one was on DVD or streaming somewhere.

Battlestar Galactica (1978): In my memory, the original Battlestar Galactica ran more than one season, so I was actually surprised when someone pointed out it in fact hadn’t. My father loved that it starred Lorne Green (from Bonanza). I enjoyed the swagger of Dirk Benedict, the scenery-chewing of John Colicos, and the fact that it also featured Noah Hathaway who I followed to The Never-Ending Story.

When Things Were Rotten (1975): Long before Mel Brooks directed Men in Tights, he co-created this sitcom spoof of the Robin Hood myth. In my memory, its classic slapstick over-the-top comedy was hilarious. Dick Van Patten, Ron Rifkin and Bernie Kopell co-starred.

The Prisoner (1967): I was one year old when the show originally aired, but I remember watching it in reruns years later with my father (I think it aired on the New York City PBS affiliate, but I could be wrong). One of my first spy-series loves (along with Mission: Impossible and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., both of which were not one-season wonders).

Kolchak the Night Stalker (1974): Another show that looms longer in my memory than it actually ran. The prototype for all of the “investigate weird goings-on” shows that came later. Several of the episodes scared the heck of out eight-year-old me – possibly not my father’s finest parenting moment letting me watch it.

Series Saturday: Terriers

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then blog about.

Terriers poster.jpg



We all have That Thing (or sometimes, Those Things) that friends have been recommending for months/years/decades that we just, for one reason or another, put off reading/watching/experiencing. For me, the reason is often, but not always, that I’m afraid I will not like That Thing as much as my friends did and thus will disappoint the friends – which would bother me far more than being disappointed in That Thing myself. But sometimes, it’s just because That Thing isn’t available in a format I can experience it in.

For most of a decade now, my friends Dave and Jim have been extolling the virtues of a short-lived television series called Terriers. And for most of that time, it’s been difficult to find given that it’s never been released on DVD and I didn’t really have access to any streaming services that it may or may not have been on. But Dave recently discovered the show is available on Hulu, informed Jim and myself, and well… there really was no reason not to watch it, since I have Hulu (even if I rarely use it).

For those unfamiliar with it, Terriers ran on FX for one 13-episode season back in 2010. It starred Donal Logue as Hank Dolworth, recovering alcoholic ex-cop, and Michael Raymond-James as Britt Pollack, former break-and-enter-man, who share an unlicensed private eye business in Ocean Beach, CA. The main cast was rounded out by Kimberly Quinn as Hank’s ex-wife Gretchen Seiter; Laura Allen as Britt’s live-in girlfriend Katie Nichols; Jamie Denbo as the boys’ lawyer/employer Maggie Lefferts; and Rockmond Dunbar as Hank’s former police partner Detective Mark Gustafson, plus frequent guest stars Loren Dean as Gretchen’s fiancée Jason and Karina Logue as Hank’s sister Stephanie.  Folks, this is one of the tightest casts I’ve seen on a television series. They all have great chemistry; there’s not a single relationship (romantic, platonic, familial, or business) that isn’t completely believable. Even the single-episode guest stars have the right level of timing and rapport with the regulars (especially D.J.”Shangela” Pierce in the “Pimp Daddy” episode – one of those one-off characters I suspect we’d have seen more of had the series been renewed – and Noel Fisher in “Missing Persons”).

Of course, it helps that the cast actually has strong material to work with. The dialogue is sharp: witty, biting, deeply emotional one moment and tension-breaking the next. And while the main characters share a sense of humor, they don’t speak alike at all. This is one of those rare shows where the writers understand their characters well enough to not put the wrong words, the wrong turns of phrase, into their mouths.  The season arc, mini-arcs and single-episode plots all weave together almost perfectly. Small seeds in early episodes pay off in big ways down the line (examples that aren’t too spoilery: a throw-away line in the pilot in which Hank jokes that he’s possibly going senile because he doesn’t remember putting dishes away leads to a great reveal a few episodes later; Britt’s casual willingness to at least threaten violence to get information in the early episodes of course creates problems later on). If I went back and watched with greater scrutiny, I would not be surprised to find a lot of small moments of dialogue or visuals that hint at things to come. Very often, the “case of the week” mirrors themes of the overall arc or features smaller character moments that play into the whole. And the show is yet another example of why Short Seasons work so well: with only thirteen episodes, there’s less chance of a “filler” episode causing the viewer to lose interest or contradictory details sneaking in to derail the viewer with “wait, didn’t they say something completely different last episode” thoughts. You’re more likely to be derailed by “wait, that’s what he meant when he said X” or “holy shit, did they set that up four episodes ago? I think they did” thoughts. The season arc that starts in the pilot (looking for a friend’s daughter, Hank and Britt stumble on a much larger real estate mystery) is concluded in the season/series finale (which also, sort of subtly, sets up who the “big bad” for the start of season two would have been). But not every episode features the season arc up-front. There are several episodes in the middle where the case of the week is the central concern and the season-arc is either barely mentioned or moves along incrementally, and those episodes work to relieve tension for the characters and the viewers (the aforementioned “Missing Persons” and “Pimp Daddy” are excellent examples). The mini-arcs (Hank’s sister’s mental illness; Gretchen’s impending re-marriage; Britt and Katie’s relationship speed-bumps) are spaced out well and feed each other. There’s never a sense that too much is going on, never a sense that any particular storyline isn’t getting the room it needs. If anything, my one complaint/regret is that Maggie Lefferts and Mark Gustavson, while fully-realized characters played solidly by their respective actors, are more clearly around to Move Plot Along or Create Complications. I hope that, had the series gone to season two, they would have been given mini-arcs of their own.

Tonally, Terriers is absolutely modern noir. The setting may be the sunny San Diego area and the clothes may be lightweight and warm-weather appropriate, but Hank and Britt could just as easily be operating out of 1930s Los Angeles. They’re the main characters, they’re the “nice guys,” but they walk a very morally grey line throughout the series. Like the best noir detectives, they’re our protagonists but they’re not always good guys. Hank may have a handle on his alcoholism, but he’s impulsive to a fault, his recklessness making situations worse more often than fixing them. Britt may be happy-go-lucky but he’s got a dark streak that rears up at the worst times. They have blind-spots where their families and friends are concerned. They want Justice to prevail, but they’re often willing to cut corners to make it happen. They’re all heart, but they’re also downtrodden: Hank’s truck looks like it could stop working at any moment, and Britt’s motorcycle doesn’t look much better. Money is always an issue for both of them, and creates numerous complications. Still, you can’t help but root for them. Their hearts are in the right place even if their methods are sometimes a little suspect. And man, are they both charming.

Terriers ultimately didn’t get picked up for a second season, which is a shame. Friends Dave and Jim theorize that had the show debuted just a couple of years later, in the midst of Peak TV, it might have made it at least through season two if not three. But would it have been the same creature if it was picked up a few years later? Would it even have had the same cast? By 2014, Donal Logue had moved on to starring in the proto-Batman series Gotham, while Michael Raymond-James was appearing somewhat regularly on fairy-tales-in-the-real-world series Once Upon A Time. No, I think it’s preferable that Terriers was produced when it was, with the cast it had. I’m hard pressed to think of anyone else at all playing Hank and Britt with such chemistry. I also wouldn’t be adverse, since reunions are all the rage, for another 10-13 episode run taking place now and showing us where the guys and gals have ended up, provided the writing is as complex and sharp as we’d expect.

2019 By The Numbers

Earlier than previous years, here’s my media round-up for 2019: what I wrote, what was published, and what I read, listened to, and watched.

WRITING

Not much to report on this front. 2019 was not a good year for creating new content. I didn’t track what little writing I actually managed to do – but I know there were more days where I didn’t write than there were days I wrote, by far. I’m considering it a “recharging” year, as I consumed and processed a lot of wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) books, television, movies, live theatre and music events. The writing I did manage was mostly work on previous unfinished short stories.

PUBLISHING

2019 saw the publication of one short story:

  • “Regardless of How Lost You Are Returning From, Regardless of How Far” appeared in Kaleidotrope magazine, edited by Fred Coppersmith

I also wrote a six paid book reviews for Strange Horizons magazine, and one for Out In Print (non-paid):

·         So You Want To Be A Robot: 21 Stories by A. Merc Rustad

·         Friday Black: Stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

·         Forget The Sleepless Shore: Stories by Sonya Taaffe

·         The Hidden Witch by Molly Ostertag

·         Sealed by Naomi Booth

·         The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff

·         Of Echoes Born by ‘Nathan Burgoine (Out in Print)

 

READING

I set myself a variety of reading challenges in 2019. I managed to complete a few of them.

Goodreads Challenge:

I challenged myself to read 125 books. I read 144 books from approximately 73 different publishers.

Here’s the breakdown of what I read:

  • Fiction: 140 books

    • 6 anthologies

      • 1 crime

      • 1 horror

      • 1 romance

      • 1 fantasy

      • 1 science fiction

      • 1 mixed-genre

    • 12 single-author collections

      • 3 science fiction

      • 3 horror

      • 2 fantasy

      • 2 crime/mystery

      • 2 poetry

    • 33 graphic novels

      • 8 super-hero

      • 4 horror

      • 12 fantasy

      • 1 crime

      • 2 pulp adventure

      • 2 romance

    • 12 magazines (all issues of Lightspeed magazine)

    • 40 novels

      • 8 crime

      • 3 horror

      • 1 thriller

      • 1 mystery

      • 6  Fantasy

      • 8 science fiction

      • 3 paranormal romance

      • 4 urban fantasy

      • 1 romance

      • 3 pulp adventure

      • 1 suspense

      • 1 mythology

      • 1 Christmas

    • 34 novellas

      • 11 horror

      • 5 fantasy

      • 4 romance

      • 7 literary

      • 4 pulp adventure

      • 1 science fiction

      • 1 crime

      • 1 Christmas

    • 2 novelettes

      • 1 fantasy

      • 1 horror

  • Non-Fiction: 8 books

    • 2 Memoir

    • 1 History

    • 1 literary analysis

Other Book Stats:

# of Authors/Editors: approximately 136 (including graphic novel artists; I need to be better at listing all of the creators of graphic novels somehow). The following breakdown is estimated because not every author shares their personal information online, but roughly:

·         39 female creators

·         5 Trans/Non-Binary

·         29 LGBTQIA+

·         10 Persons of Color

Shortest Book Read: 25 pages (Christmas with the Dead by Joe Lansdale)

Longest Book Read: 669 (Upon A Burning Throne by Ashok K.Banker)

Total # of pages read: 25,513

Average # of pages per book: 205

# of Rereads: 6 (including annual rereads of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol)

Monthly Breakdown:

·         January: 11

·         February: 18 (most read in a month)

·         March: 14

·         April: 7 (fewest read in a month)

·         May: 11

·         June: 10

·         July: 8

·         August: 14

·         September: 11

·         October: 15

·         November: 13

·         December: 13

Review-wise on Goodreads I gave 2 two-star reviews, 21 three-stars, 86 four-stars, and 35 five-star reviews.

Format Summary:

  • 17 audiobooks

  • 31 ebooks

  • 96 print

    • 25 hardcovers

    • 71 softcovers

365 Short Stories Challenge:

Each year, I challenge myself to read one short story per day. I read 401 stories in 2019, beating the goal handily. The shortest was approximately 7 pages and the longest approximately 61. Those 401 stories appeared in:

  • 12 Magazines

    • Nightmare

    • Lightspeed

    • The Dark

    • One Story

    • Analog

    • The Strand

    • Interzone

    • Lamplight

    • Black Static

    • Abyss & Apex

    • One Teen Story

    • Uncanny

  • 9 Anthologies

    • Resist Fascism

    • From Sea to Stormy Sea

    • If This Goes On

    • A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Godds

    • The Many Tortures of Anthony Cardno

    • Fool For Love

    • F is for Fairy

    • At Home in the Dark

    • Devil Take Me

  • 15 Single-Author Collections

    • The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Physics by Carlos Hernandez

    • The Time Machine and Other Stories by H.G. Wells

    • Three Blind Mice and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

    • Beyond the Farthest Star by Edgar Rice Burroughs

    • Untranslatable by Alma Alexander

    • Hunt the Avenger by Win Scott Eckert

    • Trans Space Octopus Convention by Bogi Takacs

    • Oriental Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn

    • Spinning Around A Sun by Everett Maroon

    • A History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff

    • Acres of Perhaps by Will Ludwigsen

    • Under the Sunset by Bram Stoker

    • Two Todd Tales by Joseph Pittman

    • In Re: Sherlock Holmes by August Derleth

    • Forget the Sleepless Shores by Sonya Taaffe

  • 5 published as “back-matter” in the following novels

    • If Dragon’s Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear

    • Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother

    • Rosemary and Rue 10th Anniversary Hardcover Edition

    • That Ain’t Witchcraft

    • The Unkindest Tide

  • 16 Stand-alone (self-pubbed or publisher-pubbed in e-format)

    • Seanan McGuire (Patreon)

    • Lucy Snyder (Patreon)

    • Sabrina Vourvoulias (Cast of Wonders audio podcast)

    • Lydia M. Hawke (author website)

    • Jim Butcher (Evil Hat website)

Those 401 stories were written by 232 different authors. The following breakdown is estimated because not every author shares their personal information online, but roughly:

·         104 female creators

·         6 Trans/Non-Binary

·         33 LGBTQIA+

·         32 Persons of Color

I gave 13 two-star ratings, 208 three-star, 157 four-star, and 23 five-star ratings. The shortest story was 7 pages long and the longest 61.

Graphic Novel Challenge:

Because I own so many, I challenged myself to read one graphic novel per week. I didn’t make it, reading a total of 33 from 11 different publishers:

·         DC Comics: 7

·         Marvel Comics: 8

·         BOOM! Box: 8

·         Dynamite Comics: 2

·         Image Comics: 2

·         Hard Case Crime: 1

·         TO Comix: 1

·         Scholastic Books: 1

·         Panic Button Comics: 1

·         Dark Horse: 1

·         Self-Pubbed: 1

Non-Fiction Challenge: I didn’t do as well on this one. I challenged myself to read 24 non-fiction books in 2019, and I only read 4.

Read the Book, Watch the Movie Challenge: Completely bombed this one. Planned to do at least 10 of these and did 0.

Complete the Series Challenge: Bombed this one too. Planned to read 3 complete series, totally 16 books, and read 0 of 16, completing 0 series.

 

VIEWING

I tried tracking the movies, TV and live events I watched this year. Here’s how that went:

Movies: Apparently, I only watched 17 movies this year. (I suspect I forgot to enter a few things into the database.)

·         9 on DVD

·         2 on Netflix

·         6 in the theater

 

Live Events: I attended 15 live events this year.

·         10 plays

  • 6 straight plays (4 on Broadway, 2 high school, one attended twice)

  • 4 musicals (1 Broadway, 1 regional, 2 high school)

·         4 concerts (Dennis DeYoung, Greyson Chance, Blue Alien Mystic, and the Mahopac High School Pacapellas)

Television: I watched approximately 162 hours of episodic television:

·         Arrow (20 episodes)

·         Batwoman (9 episodes)

·         Beyond Stranger Things (7 episodes)

·         Black Mirror (2 episodes)

·         Doctor Who (1 episode)

·         The Flash (21 episodes)

·         Game of Thrones (1 episode)

·         Good Omens (6 episodes)

·         Great Performances (1 episode)

·         DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (9 episodes)

·         Planet of the Apes (14 episodes)

·         Stranger Things (25 episodes)

·         Supergirl (22 episodes)

·         The Big Bang Theory (2 episodes)

·         Vera (1 episode)

·         Vicious (14 episodes)

·         Watchmen (6 episodes)

·         Young Sheldon (1 episode)

 

So there you have it: my writing, publishing, reading, and viewing by the numbers, for 2019.

Earlier this week, I posted about my reading challenges for 2020. I plan to post about my writing plans, and possibly viewing plans, next week.