Series Saturday: The CW Crisis on Infinite Earths

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 comment on.

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For this Series Saturday, instead of looking back at a series I’ve enjoyed, I thought I’d make some predictions about a series that starts tomorrow night (Sunday, December 8, 2019): this year’s big “Arrowverse” crossover on the CW. I’m doing this because quite a few friends have asked what I think will happen, so I thought instead of a dozen text messages I’d just post my thoughts here.

AND YES, IF YOU’RE BEHIND ON THE ARROWVERSE SHOWS, THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!

For those who haven’t heard, Crisis on Infinite Earths will span 5 hours, taking up episodes of 5 out of the CW’s 6 DC Comics-based shows: Supergirl, Batwoman and The Flash on December 8-10, and then Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in mid-January. (Black Lightning will also be appearing, but only as a guest-star; the series has always stayed separate from the rest of the DCCW shows.)

The tagline for the television event, as it was for the original DC Comics maxi-series in the mid-80s, is “Worlds Will Live. Worlds Will Die. And nothing will ever be the same.” For better or worse (and I’ll save my detailed thoughts on this for a different post), the maxi-series irrevocably changed the DC Universe. Pretty much every world but one did die; so did a lot of tertiary and secondary and several notable major DC characters (don’t worry; as is standard in comics now, most of them got better over the intervening decades).

I’m looking forward to seeing what beats and moments from the original comics Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and the individual show runners were able to adapt/incorporate and what they chose to leave out (either because characters have not yet debuted in the Arrowverse shows, or because the moments would make no sense in the context of that universe versus the original comics). I have absolutely NO expectations that five hours of television will rival twelve monthly comic issues, even with the half-season of set-ups done on The Flash and Arrow this fall. But I do have some thoughts and predictions.


WHO WILL LIVE, WHO WILL DIE?

Oliver Queen and Barry Allen: We’ve been told repeatedly over the past several months that in order for anyone else to survive the Crisis, Oliver Queen and Barry Allen must die. Interestingly, it’s The Monitor telling them this, and he hasn’t told either one about the fate of the other. (Ollie thinks he prevented both Barry and Kara’s deaths at the end of the Elseworlds crossover by striking a deal with The Monitor; I don’t think he’s been told Barry is destined to die anyway.) The fact that the other characters on each show only know Ollie and Barry are destined to die because Barry and Ollie have told them leads me to believe that neither one is actually going to die. Also, it’s pretty standard that if a show beats you over the head with a character’s destiny, they will in fact not experience that destiny without some kind of twist.

Arrow is ending for good two weeks after Crisis is over (and one of those episodes is an embedded pilot for a spin-off), but I’m predicting (as I’m sure many others have) that Oliver and Felicity will be given the same send-off that the comic gave to the Golden Age Superman and Lois Lane: living happily ever after (theoretically) in a pocket dimension from which they can never (or so they think) leave. I can’t imagine them outright killing “the one that started it all.”

And The Flash, of course, is not going off the air after Crisis. Barry’s been preparing his team for a “world without Flash,” but I don’t for a minute believe Grant Gustin is hanging up the cowl for more than a few episodes. He may, as they’ve done in a previous season, appear to be lost, but he will be back. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that some other speedster will take Barry’s place at the last minute: and since we’ve seen no evidence that Keiynan Lonsdale (Wally) or Violet Beane (Jessie Quick) will be appearing in Crisis, I’m going to say it will be one of John Wesley Shipp’s characters: either the Flash from Earth-90 or a re-powered Jay Garrick. (This will give Shipp the notoriety of having died on the Flash more times than Tom Cavanagh.)

Prior Minor Characters/Guest Stars: The original comic was well-known for the wholesale slaughter of secondary and lesser characters. Depending on when you started reading DC Comics and/or when you came to read Crisis for the first time, some of those deaths hit harder than others. (For me? The death of the original Dove, Don Hall, made me cry. The death of Mark Merlin / Prince Ra-Man? Not so much.) On the current Arrowverse shows, there aren’t quite as many “blink and you miss them” level characters to be slaughtered by the Anti-Monitor’s Shadow Demons. And the ones that are out there? Well, those actors would cost money to bring back in, if they were even available to reprise their roles. However, I can imagine scenes of carnage like the one that lead off last year’s “Elseworlds” crossover: dead costumed characters strewn across Earth-1’s landscape, with faces not visible so we can’t tell these are just extras. I won’t be surprised to see characters like The Pied Piper, Huntress, Red Tornado, The Ray, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl dead in the background of a shot since at this point those characters/actors are not likely to be brought back. Still, as recently as yesterday showrunner Mark Guggenheim said there were at least 6 cameos/guest-star appearances who had not yet been revealed/spoiled, so there is the possibility of an on-screen death for a former guest-star or two.

Major Characters From Other DC Shows/Movies: We already know we’re going to be seeing, in cameos and/or key scenes, Robert Wuhl (from the Tim Burton Batman), Burt Ward (Batman ’66), Ashley Scott (Birds of Prey tv show), Tom Welling and Erica Durance (Smallville), Kevin Conroy (a Kingdome Come-ish Bruce Wayne) and Brandon Routh (the Donnerverse/Kingdom Come Superman). There was a rumor Tom Ellis (Lucifer) was on set during filming, and I’m holding out hope that some of the unleaked cameos are Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner (Wonder Woman), Helen Slater (Supergirl), Dina Meyer (Oracle on Birds of Prey), David Mazouz or Sean Pertwee (Gotham) and/or Michael Grey/Jackson Bostwick/Garrett Craig (Billy Batson/Captain Marvel from the Shazam tv show). Showing any of these characters dying would have huge emotional impact on those of us who grew up on/watched those shows but possibly less-so on viewers only familiar with the current Arrowverse shows.

Major Characters from the Arrowverse Shows: Of course, what would pack the most emotional punch would be the deaths of one or more of the main casts. The title characters on each show are safe. The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, and Batwoman are not suddenly going to become Frost and Friends, Adventures of The DEO, Thunder and Lightning, or Batwing. But if the producers want us to feel, after the fact, that this crossover actually resulted in a real shake-up of the status quo … somebody major is going to have to be killed off from one or more of the Big Three shows. My thoughts/expectations on who:

·         The Flash: Cisco Ramon. It’s fairly common on drama shows that if a character gets a happy ending and/or closure, they’re probably going to be written out or die (Lost took this to the level of an artform). Cisco has his happy ending: he got rid of the powers he didn’t really want to have, got closure on his relationship with Gypsy (and by extension, Breacher), and has a solid relationship with an understanding and loving girlfriend. But the show has also introduced another super-hacker/scientist type in Chester Runk. And there were rumors last season after Cisco was de-powered that he was leaving. His death would certainly pack the requisite punch for both viewers and fans – more so than Katie/Frost and Ralph, who have their powers and on-going sub-plots. Second Place Guess: Joe West.  There’s no indication Jesse L. Martin is ready to leave the show, and killing yet another of Barry’s father-figures (especially if Jay Garrick takes his place as The Flash Who Must Die) would just be cruel. But after two emotional “I’m not ready to say goodbye to my son” scenes in recent weeks, Joe’s death would be an even bigger gut-punch that Cisco.

·         Supergirl: J’Onn J’Onzz.  Here’s that closure thing again: in the past season or so, J’Onn has moved on from the DEO, gotten closure with the father he thought was dead and the brother he’d forgotten existed, and is in a good place. But we also saw The Monitor tell him that freeing himself of his past is what would make him a valuable part of the team fighting The Crisis. If that’s not a set-up for a heroic, self-sacrificing death, nothing is. Second Place Guess: Brainiac 5. He still has both romantic and a “am I man or machine” storylines going on, but we also know Jeremy Jordan is set to return for a few episodes as Win, which makes me think Brainy could be sacrificed.  Honestly, when it was announced Mechad Brooks was leaving the show, I was confident James Olsen would die during Crisis, but they wrote him out earlier.

·         Arrow: Wild Dog. We already know Black Canary and Black Siren are locked into the back-door pilot, so they’re not being killed off, while Rene has not been mentioned as part of that cast. Since the show seems intent this season on subverting their own future timeline (by having Roy come back to the fold sooner and lose an arm in the process, as well as having Dig and Lyla learn about their sons’ futures and work to prevent that), it would make sense for them to write out Rene before he has a chance to become Mayor and screw up Star City and the Glades. Second Place Guess: Roy Harper. It would be cruel, having Roy willingly lose an arm for the team only to then die for them as well, but they could go this route as a way to even further subvert the future timeline.

·         Legends of Tomorrow: I honestly don’t think they’re going to kill off any of the major cast. We already know Ray Palmer and Nora Darkh are being written out later in the season, so they’re safe. And most of the returning lead cast have on-going sub-plots. However, if they really want to start the new season off with a change in the status quo, killing Nate Heywood off would do it. Yeah, he’s got that whole “I don’t remember the woman I fell in love with” sub-plot brewing, but plots like that have been dropped on shows before when the showrunners wanted to shake things up (remember Ruby being promoted to series regular on Once Upon A Time only to appear in a handful of episodes and then virtually disappear because other storylines took precedent?). Second Place Guesses: either Gary or Mona, since fan reaction to both supporting characters has been less than favorable.

I’m pretty sure that we won’t see a major character death related to Crisis on Black Lightning simply because the show itself is not a part of the crossover. And Batwoman hasn’t been on the air long enough to lose a second main cast member in one season (after the death of Katherine Hamilton in the fall finale), so I think the remaining cast members there are safe.

WORLDS WILL LIVE, WORLDS WILL DIE?

The original comic ended with the Multiverse being destroyed and history being re-written so that there had always been only One Earth. This created a lot of issues for multiple-Earth dopplegangers and characters with the same names but different histories/powers/etc.  The CW shows don’t have that many characters who appear on more than one Earth (and most of those were killed off-camera when Earth-2 bit the dust in the Arrow season premiere) for that to be a storyline problem. (In fact, the only one I can think of that could be a real issue would be the Earth-1 counterpart of Alex Danvers.) But fans have long complained that Supergirl feels way too removed over there on Earth-38 given her great friendship/chemistry with Barry Allen and burgeoning friendship with Kate Kane. We’ve seen in the various trailers that The Monitor decides Earth-38 is where the Heroes need to make their stand, and evidence that first Argo City (home of Supergirl’s birth mother and the few remaining Kryptonians) and then possibly all of Earth-38 get destroyed. There’s also trailer evidence that they manage to evacuate Earth-38 before the anti-matter wave hits.

My prediction is that not all Earths will be destroyed. I think the number of Earths that survive will be small. Most of the Earths that get destroyed will be Earths we’ve either never seen or have only heard mentioned, or will be the Earths for those other DC live action properties outside of the Arrowverse that we know we’re going to be seeing guest-stars from. I’m not even confident Earth-38 will really be destroyed; trailers are notoriously misleading on things like this for dramatic effect. I think we’ll end up with Earth-1 (for Flash, Legends, Batwoman, and the possible Arrow spinoff), Earth-38 (for Supergirl and the possible Superman show), Earth-BL (I don’t think Black Lightning’s Earth has ever been given a numeric designation), possibly Earth-X (just in case they ever want to use evil dopplegangers and The Ray again), and then an Earth-whatever that accounts for the other on-going DC TV shows on other networks (Titans, Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, the upcoming Stargirl) and maybe one that accounts for the current “Movieverse.” Although I’m willing to second-guess myself about Earth-38’s destruction. It would definitely shake things up if Earth-1 and -38 were combined, but would also be a storyline logistical nightmare.

 

KINGDOM COME

We’ve already been told that Brandon Routh’s “Donnerverse” Superman is the Supes from DC’s mini-series Kingdom Come, and photographic evidence that Kevin Conroy’s Bruce Wayne is from that same Earth. My prediction? With the cameo appearance of Robert Wuhl’s “Burtonverse” Batman character Alexander Knox, I’m betting we’ll get at least a line of dialogue or two telling us that Conroy is the Burton Batman and that those movies (and sequels), the 1970s Wonder Woman and Shazam shows, and maybe the Birds of Prey show all took place on that same Earth, even if we don’t get to see Lynda Carter and Helen Slater in their iconic costumes. And of course, that Earth will go out in spectacular fashion after Bruce and Clark are recruited as two of the “Seven” The Monitor mentions need to be found in a recent trailer.

 

OTHER MINOR PREDICTIONS

·         History will at least slightly be rearranged, through either The Monitor’s doing or the Legends, and after the Crisis is over, Diggle and Lyla (who I predict will both survive) will joyously welcome baby Sara back into the family alongside her twin brother JJ and older adopted brother Connor. And yes, I think Dig and Lyla will remember that they had a daughter, then they didn’t, and now they do again.

·         The Council of Wellses will be completely destroyed, limiting Tom Cavanagh to playing only Reverse Flash, Nash Wells/Pariah (who I think will also survive) and the Earth-2 Wells if he was actually on Earth-3 this whole time, as has been rumored.

·         The West-Allens will find out Iris is pregnant thanks to that little island-hopping vacation they took a few episodes ago – but early next season, they’ll have twins who they’ll name Donald Henry and Dawn Nora. (In the comics, Barry and Iris’s twins were Don and Dawn Allen.)

·         Kevin Conroy will eventually make an appearance as the Earth-1 Bruce Wayne (sans exoskeleton) because like Clark, they can’t avoid the issue of where Bruce has been forever.

 

I could be completely wrong about all of this. But hey, when it was announced before Season 1 of The Flash that John Wesley Shipp would be playing an important mystery character, I predicted it would be Jay Garrick – and I was only two seasons off! I’ll do a “let’s see how I did post” after the final two hours of the crossover air in mid-January.

Guest Post: Connecting A Village by 'Nathan Burgoine

It’s no secret that I love fictional worlds, whether they’re as vast as a space sector or as intimate as an apartment building. Characters who cross over into each others’ stories, whether as main/supporting characters or winking in-passing references, really make my day. It’s fun teasing those “easter eggs” out when authors pay tribute to a favorite writer or character, but it’s even more fun when an author creates, across stories, an interconnected world. ‘Nathan Burgoine does that in his stories of The Village, the most recent of which, Faux Ho Ho, is available now from Bold Strokes Books. Today, ‘Nathan visits us to discuss how to connect a Village….

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Connecting a Village by ‘Nathan Burgoine

When it comes to stories centered around the holidays, I often find myself removed. Sometimes, I mean that literally: when was the last time you saw one of those Hallmark-esque movies including a queer person at all, let alone a queer person with a chosen family of queer people surrounding them? Sometimes, I mean it figuratively: even when you do find the occasional story with a queer main character, if there’s any strain from a familial sense, it’s often resolved with a bow, snowflakes, and tinsel before the credits roll or the epilogue concludes. It’s a yearly frustration, and it very much led to my first foray into queer holiday romance, Handmade Holidays.

Handmade Holidays is all about a chosen family, and how they gather, sometimes part, support each other, sometimes unknowingly fail each other, and grow. As it’s a romance, there’s also a core relationship developing throughout the novella, but my main goal was to show these queer people for what they were: as a real a family as any biological one might be, and no less the loving for it.

I honestly thought I was done with holiday stories after that. I tend to write stories with a dash of speculative fiction, but Handmade Holidays didn’t have a speculative element. I had knowingly set it in my fictional Village—a version of Ottawa’s own gay Village, only with that dash of magic and less gentrification—and the Village was definitely a place I wanted to revisit again and again. The Village is, after all, another metaphor for chosen family, and the magic thereof, and takes center stage in my first collection, Of Echoes Born, including what more-or-less sparks off the rebirth of the Village in the included novelette, “A Little Village Magic.”

But another holiday story? No. Unlikely.

Except…

One of the great things about writing romances is the grand love of various tropes. There are shorthand discussion points to the romance genre that grant whole skeletal frameworks to telling a story, and if there’s one I’ve always loved, it’s the fake relationship trope. There’s just something about people only realizing how they feel when they’re pretending to feel it that really makes my little queer heart go pitter-pat, and part of that, I think, is inherent to the queerness: so many of us spend so much time pretending we’re not what we are. A reversal of that, where pretending leads to a truth? It just feels good.

Also? Fake relationship stories are often funny, and I wanted to write something funny to get myself out of a year-long funk. It turned out to be a good idea on that front, and so Faux Ho Ho, contains some moments I hope will tickle the reader: super-awkward dates, some Dungeons & Dragons cartoon cosplay, and maybe a flung jock strap. A pink one, of course.

Faux Ho Ho grew from the notion of wanting to explore a fake relationship trope plot, coupled with wanting to explore chosen family again, but in a slightly different way. I’d seen a queer friend posting a tribute to “those of us who look at the holidays like a chore of endurance” or something similar, about spending time with families that weren’t outright hostile, but weren’t welcoming, either. Or a mixed bag, where there were family members who were great and loving worth withstanding other family members, who weren’t.

Those two thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone, and it occurred to me that having a fake partner to take home for the holidays would be like bringing a small piece of a chosen family home as backup to get through a difficult time. After that, Faux Ho Ho began to fall into place.

Chosen family meant connections, and so I found myself back in the Village, eyeing the characters who’d come before, looking for an entry point. I knew I wanted someone gregarious for the role of fake boyfriend, and the most outgoing character I’d written thus far was Fiona, an outspoken lesbian who—like Handmade Holidays main character Nick—had been disowned and disconnected from her own family when she came out. In Handmade Holidays, Fiona eventually opens up her own gym, Body Positive, where the mandate is to make sure everyone, no matter how they feel about their body, has a place to foster a more positive relationship with their body and their health.

Having a trainer who worked for Fiona be the fake boyfriend became the first piece of the puzzle, and Dino was born.

Connecting Dino to Handmade Holidays and the Village in general meant I could ground the hero of Faux Ho Ho in the close-knit community I’d already crafted, which as a writer felt akin to putting on a warm sweater I already knew would fit. Silas, a geeky computer programmer type, wasn’t going to be a person who was naturally outgoing, so I eyed my stable of characters and almost immediately decided he’d be connected to Ru, the love interest of Handmade Holidays, who is blunt, outgoing, and doesn’t stand for letting a friend stay on the sidelines when they deserve to be front and center.

During Handmade Holidays, Ru leaves Ottawa to look after his father for a few years, and then returns. When he returns, it’s a quick decision, and he has nowhere to stay immediately, though it’s intimated he couch-surfs with the rest of the characters for a while. At that point, it struck me I had a great way to introduce Silas, and to create the very reason for Silas and Dino to know each other: Silas would be Ru’s roommate, and given the concluding events of Handmade Holidays, Silas would at some point be looking for a new roommate, once Ru moved out.

That became my starting point. Silas and Dino, have been living together as roommates for nine months at the start of Faux Ho Ho, and when Silas is faced with going home for a Thanksgiving event he really, really doesn’t want to attend, Dino jumps in and pretends to be his boyfriend, citing a prior commitment to his own family, and Silas has a graceful out. Neither thinks much of it after that, except when an invitation shows up later for Silas’s sister’s Christmas wedding.

Which is when the whole “fake boyfriend” thing really takes off. Like, in a plane, all the way back to Alberta where Silas’s family lives.

In a similar way to how Handmade Holidays moves through time, a year or two between each chapter, Faux Ho Ho alternates between the present in Alberta and the past nine months that Silas and Dino have spent together as roommates. So much of their time together involves the chosen family of the Village, not just Fiona and Ru, but also Nick, and Phoebe (a trans woman first introduced in Handmade Holidays, who owns and operates a consignment fashion shop we’ve seen before in Saving the Date), Fiona’s wife Jenn and their two kids, Reed and Melody, as well as a few new faces, most importantly Felix and Owen, who make up a quartet alongside Ru and Silas of friends who hang out at Bittersweets (the Village coffee shop) on a weekly basis to catch each other up on their lives.

They also play D&D and board games, because if I’m going to write queer stories, I’m going to include queer nerds out of solidarity for my people. Silas also plays the cleric, which, for my fellow D&D nerds, was a conscious choice that says a lot about who he is.

The chapters where Silas is at home, surrounded by his Village friends and living the life he’s chosen for himself are full of connections. The chapters where Silas is back in Alberta, with his family (but with Dino for backup) are an opportunity to show what those connections have done for him, and how he’s changed in his time in the Village. That was the facet of Chosen Family I really wanted to focus on this time with Faux Ho Ho: how much we grow when we finally get to be the person we are, when we finally find back-up and support.

And although Faux Ho Ho can absolutely be read as a standalone, I don’t think it’s a story I could have written without all the other stories that came before. The short fictions in Of Echoes Born, and the novellas Handmade Holidays and Saving the Date, gave me the confidence to write a character completely bolstered by the support of a good, loving, accepting community because I could picture all of them so clearly. I had a Village, so to speak.

Like Handmade Holidays, I made the choice to stick to something completely contemporary, though the fellas do hang out in Bittersweets and they do mention going to Avery’s chocolate shop from “Vanilla” (another short story set in the Village, where the proprietor has a habit of adding a mystical oomph to anything he crafts by hand, including his chocolates). Faux Ho Ho doesn’t have a speculative element, but that’s not to say there’s no magic. It’s just this time the magic is the kind found in the strength of support and community, pride, and a really well-timed kickboxing lesson or two.


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’Nathan Burgoine grew up a reader and studied literature in university while making a living as a bookseller. His first published short story was “Heart” in the collection Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction. Since then, he’s had dozens of shorter fictions published, including releasing his first collection Of Echoes Born. He does sometimes write longer things, including novellas (In Memoriam, Handmade Holidays, and Saving the Date) and has crossed the line into novel-writing, too. His debut novel, Light, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and since then he’s released two urban paranormal novels, Triad Blood and Triad Soul, and a contemporary speculative YA novel, Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks. He lives in Ottawa, Canada with his husband and their rescued husky. You can find him online at NathanBurgoine.com.

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Reading Round-Up: June, 2019

Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and writing.

 

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in e-book format as “books.” I read or listened to 11 books in May: 4 in print, 2 in e-book format, and 5 in audio. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #109 (June 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories and novellas. This month’s favorites for me were Ellen Kushner’s “When Two Swordsmen Meet,” Caspain Gray’s “Unpublished Gay Cancer Survivor Memoir,” Isabel Canas’ “The Weight of A Thousand Needles,” and Karen Joy Fowler’s “The Last Worders.”

2.       Alexander’s Bridge by Willa Cather. You would think that as an English major in college, I’d have read something, anything, by Willa Cather. But if I did, I don’t recall it at all (please forgive me, Professor Malcolm Marsden!). So I’m counting this as my first Cather work. I’d like to read more by her eventually. I found this one an interesting character study. Full Review HERE.

3.       The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff. I’d previously read only three of the twenty short stories that comprise this mosaic novel that covers fifteen decades in the lives of two families. Subtle magic, strong women, strong LGB representation, strong ties to the Jewish Diaspora.

4.       Spinning Around A Sun: Stories, by Everett Maroon. Flash fiction with sometimes horrific twists, these early stories by Maroon show hints of the style he works so well in his novel.

5.       Fresh Kill (Jimmy McSwain Files, Book 6) by Adam Carpenter. Jimmy McSwain is back for another round of mysteries, and Carpenter returns to the character and his New York City setting with style. Full Review HERE.

6.       Lumberjanes Volume 11: Time After Crime by Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, and others. The latest Lumberjanes collection gets a bit timey-whimey, but in a very different way from Doctor Who. I was happy to see the focus this time is largely on Molly, with lots of character growth stemming out of her stressful family interactions.

7.       Shout Out edited by Andrew Wheeler. This is a wonderful YA graphic novel anthology of short stories featuring pretty much the entire range of LGBTQIA+ characters across genres from science fiction and fantasy to romance (and often intermingling several genres at once). I can’t praise this one enough.

8.       Synchronicity by Keira Andrews.  I am notoriously under-read when it comes to gay romance (as opposed to gay sf/fantasy/horror with romance or erotica elements). For some reason, much of the gay romance I have read falls into the sports romance realm, and this short about a synchronized diving team at the Olympics is no exception. Nicely written with likeable characters.

9.       From A Whisper to A Riot: The Gay Writers Who Crafted An American Literary Tradition by Adam W. Burgess. I’ve really not been doing well on the whole “read more non-fiction” thing, largely because I read non-fiction much slower than I read fiction. This work by Adam Burgess is a nicely-detailed look at a critically under-represented period in gay fiction, and it is worth your time seeking out. My full review is HERE.

10.   The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan, narrated by Suzy Jackson. A first-person narration ghost story high on eeriness but not gore, featuring a narrator who is lesbian and “crazy” (by her own words). I love narrators who tell you right at the start that they are not necessarily reliable, and IMP is one of those narrators. This is a really great listen. Suzy Jackson captures the main character’s innocence and slow fraying as she goes off her meds while relating her tale.

 

 

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) each year. Here’s what I did read and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too (with some short notes for stories that really stood out to me). If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it:

1.       “Between The Dark and the Dark” by Deji Bryce Olukotun, from Lightspeed Magazine #109 (June 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.

2.       “An Advanced Readers’ Picture Book of Comparative Cognition” by Ken Liu

3.       “The Harvest of a Half-Known Life” by G.V. Anderson

4.       “Warhosts” by Yoon Ha Lee

5.       “The Last Worders” by Karen Joy Fowler

6.       “The Weight of A Thousand Needles” by Isabel Canas

7.       “When Two Swordsmen Meet” by Ellen Kushner

8.       “Unpublished Gay Cancer Survivor Memoir” by Caspian Gray

9.       “Dust to Dust” by Tochi Onyebuchi

10.   “Sun Sets Weeping” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

11.   “The Clearing In the Autumn,” by Barbara Krasnoff, from her collection The History of Soul 2065.

12.   “Sabbath Wine” by Barbara Krasnoff

13.   “Lost Connections” by Barbara Krasnoff

14.   “Hearts and Minds” by Barbara Krasnoff

15.   “Cancer God” by Barbara Krasnoff

16.   “In The Loop” by Barbara Krasnoff

17.   “The Ladder-Back Chair” by Barbara Krasnoff

18.   “The Sad Old Lady” by Barbara Krasnoff

19.   “The Red Dybbuk” by Barbara Krasnoff

20.   “Waiting For Jakie” by Barbara Krasnoff

21.   “The Gingerbread House” by Barbara Krasnoff

22.   “Time and the Parakeet” By Barbara Krasnoff

23.   “Under the Bay Court Tree” by Barbara Krasnoff

24.   “An Awfully Big Adventure” by Barbara Krasnoff

25.   “Rosemary, That’s For Remembrance” by Barbara Krasnoff

26.   “Stoop Ladies” by Barbara Krasnoff

27.   “Escape Route” by Barbara Krasnoff

28.   “Sophia’s Legacy” by Barbara Krasnoff

29.   “The Clearing in the Spring” by Barbara Krasnoff

30.   “The History of Soul 2065” by Barbara Krasnoff

31.   “Chamber Speed” by Everett Maroon, from his collection Spinning Around A Sun.

32.   “Crazy Making” by Everett Maroon

33.   “Connaissieur” by Everett Maroon

34.   “Dead Martha” by Everett Maroon

35.   “Lost Boy” by Everett Maroon

36.   “Conception” by Everett Maroon

37.   “Mummy” by Everett Maroon

38.   “Desperados” by Everett Maroon

39.   “The Seamstress” by Everett Maroon

40.   “Cold Statues” by Jay Lake, from The Many Tortures of Anthony Cardno, a charity anthology.

So that’s 40 short stories in June, keeping me way ahead for the year so far. (June 30th was the 181st day of 2019.)

 

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 3 of 14 read.

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  40 read; YTD: 240 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 2 read; YTD: 17 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 10 read; YTD: 71 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 1; YTD: 5 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 of 10 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 0 of 16 read.

                                                                Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned

Monthly Special Challenge: I may not do something like this every month, but I set a June goal to try to read primarily work by Queer authors or centering Queer characters, since June was Pride Month.

I think I was pretty successful with this one. I’m unsure how many of the writers in the June issue of Lightspeed Magazine identify somewhere on the Queer spectrum. But Will Cather was a lesbian, Everett Maroon and Caitlin R. Kiernan are transgender, and Adam Carpenter and Adam W. Burgess are gay. Many of the creators of the Lumberjanes series and most, if not all, of the creators of the stories in the Shout Out graphic novel anthology are Queer-identifying as well. And while Barbara Krasnoff is straight, The History of Soul 2065 heavily centers two queer couples with a third couple mentioned.

Having checked several different websites, it seems like July is not a month that lends itself to any specific reading goal (it’s the National Month of several foods, though: National Baked Bean Month, Culinary Arts Month, Grilling Month, Horseradish Month, Hot Dog Month, Ice Cream Month, Blueberries Month, and Picnic Month!) So my mini-challenge to myself is going to be making July Series Month, to help me catch up on one of my year-long challenges (The “Complete The Series” Challenge).

Series Saturday: VICIOUS

Series Saturday 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 comment on.

Vicious DVD covers.png

Warning: Mild Spoilers Ahead (Yes, for a sitcom.)

Vicious didn’t last long, but I think it’s possibly in my Top 5 favorite sit-coms. Had it had more episodes per season or lasted longer, my opinion might have changed. But the short, sweet run it had (14 episodes over a three-year span, including the extra-long Finale) was I think just enough to fall in love with these bitter, snarking characters and not grow tired of them.

Created by Gary Janetti and Mark Ravenhill, Vicious originally aired in the UK before making its way to the United States on PBS, which is where I saw the first season and bits of the second. I bought the DVDs to watch the episodes my DVR had somehow failed to record (including the Finale). Because of course I did. The series focuses on Freddie (Sir Ian McKellan) and Stuart (Sir Derek Jacobi), a couple who have been together for forty-eight years at the start of the first season. In short order, they (and we) meet their new, cute-as-a-button, young upstairs neighbor Ash (Iwan Rheon) and the speculation starts as to whether the young man is “family” or not (Spoiler: he’s not.). Freddie and Stuart’s lifelong friend Violet (Frances de la Tour) also takes a shine to Ash, although the couple’s other close friends, absent-minded Penelope (Marcia Warren) and acerbic Mason (Philip Voss) don’t seem quite so enamored of Ash at first.

The first season feels the freshest and most tightly written, perhaps because the writers are so invested in getting us to understand the characters and their relationships that they wrote seven mostly stand-alone episodes. Other than Ash being drawn more completely into the older characters’ circle, there’s no real “season arc” to speak of. Each episode sets up a situation, hits certain expected moments, and resolves by episode’s end. The running joke of Stuart constantly reintroducing Ash to Violet (“You remember our friend Violet,” often delivered as though the two have never met before) is the closest the writers come to a situation that lasts several episodes and then is resolved in the season finale. Season Two’s more structured lead-up to Freddie and Stuart’s wedding after fifty years together, coupled with a change in episode structure (every episode of season one started with Stuart on the phone with his mother and some Freddie-Stuart ribbing; season two’s episodes start with the two conversing as they walk down the street and something about the on-location filming feels out of place to me) makes the season feel less improvised and thus less fresh. There are still wonderful moments of comedy and character development, but there’s a lot of run-of-the-mill dialogue and situational slapstick as well (I’m looking at you, Mason, Penelope and the wedding cake!).

Both leads deliver their quips with just enough of a wink that the viewers understand these are two men who have developed a verbal shorthand where almost everything they say means “I love you and I wouldn’t change you for the world.” Relationship-wise, it’s clear that Freddie is a bit more dominant, Stuart a bit more submissive – and when the writers reverse the relationship (for instance, in the season two opener, when Freddie has to play subservient butler to a “straight, macho” Stuart to help Violet during a visit from her condescending sister), the writing is at its best. It helps that Sir Ian and Sir Derek obviously enjoy feeding off of each other’s energy, and one has to wonder how much of their banter was ad-libbed. (I also think it’s interesting that Sir Ian says they each had crushes on the other during early acting school days, but neither ever confessed to the other. I wonder what having them as the First Gay Couple of British Theater in real life would have been like.)

The characters’ styles are very different as well. In both dress and personality, Freddie is a bit haughty, Stuart more demure. Stuart wants to be liked/loved, while Freddie just assumes he is. They are both capable of delivering a cutting bon-mot towards their friends, however, and sometimes seem gleeful in inflicting pain. I do wish we’d seen more of what brought these five people together and just a hint more of the love they feel for each other; it’s the one true negative about the lead characters. Sure, in the season two wedding episode, they show some affection – but there’s a lot of dismissiveness and derision before that point. One starts to wonder why Violet, Penelope and Mason have hung around for so long. (Frances de la Tour has a great moment of honesty with Ash in the Finale on this very topic, but it reads as a bit too little too late despite how very good she is in the scene.) Every so often, one of the three scores some equally cutting points on the two leads (Penelope in particular).

And while Violet is pretty well developed over the course the two seasons (de la Tour’s boozier and more lascivious line reads and sub-plots made me wish this show had done a crossover with Absolutely Fabulous), Penelope and Mason fare less well. In the second season we get a bit more of a sense of Penelope’s life and the brave face she’s putting on (Marcia Warren is brilliant in those scenes, most particularly in the ballroom dancing episode and the Finale), but the reveal that Mason is actually Freddie’s younger brother is the definition of a throw-away line for shock’s sake, as is the line about Mason also being gay. Philip Voss does the best with what he’s given, but he’s given the least of the series regulars to work with until the Finale when he has a poignant exchange with Penelope about being there for her to the end, and an almost-poignant moment with Freddie over a good memory from their apparently otherwise horrific childhood.

Then there’s Ash, the young innocent thrust into this biting, sarcastic, awkward family unit. I think it’s a credit to Iwan Rheon and the writers that the character never loses than innocence, never really takes on Freddie and Stuart’s way of interacting with others (except in one episode, with disastrous results). Even though Ash is straight, this consistency in his character points up a generational difference: the biting humor of the old queens doesn’t quite work in younger relationships. Unfortunately, there are a few episodes where the writers decide that innocent = goofy/stupid, especially in season two and the early parts of the Finale. It’s a tendency lots of sitcoms fall into, making the innocence or good-nature of a character too broad. In another example the show subverting expected tropes, it’s not the old gay men who slobber over Ash (or, more common, old straight men making lewd suggestive comments to a beautiful young woman), but their friend Violet. The Violet-Ash dynamic is the second most interesting relationship in the show, but the writers show a remarkable restraint in just how far they let it go before resolving the tension.

In the end, for me it really comes down to my enjoyment of watching three great older actors (McKellan, Jacobi, and de la Tour) work their craft, and watch an at the time relative newcomer hold his own with them.

Check out Vicious on DVD or streaming if you like: sitcoms that center gay characters; snarky humor with an undercurrent of love; watching a group of old professionals knock it out of the park; Iwan Rheon not playing a Bastard (yes, that’s a Game of Thrones reference).

Series Saturday: the SPIRITS trilogy

Series Saturday 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 comment on.

Spirits Series Banner.png

 

Jordan L. Hawk is a non-binary, queer and very prolific writer of M/M supernatural romance series, including the Whyborne & Griffin books (Lovecraftian in tone, and coming to a conclusion later this year), Hexworld (alternate history NYC where magic, and shape-shifters, abound), SPECTR (modern-day vampires and ghosts), and the Spirits trilogy, which is what I’d like to talk about today.

The Spirits books (Restless Spirits, Dangerous Spirits and Guardian Spirits) take place in a slightly-alternate history America at the turn of the previous century, wherein everyone knows spirits, and thus hauntings, are real. Some spirits are friendly, or at least essentially harmless, but some can and will cause great harm. As can, and do, people who pretend to be talented mediums but who are really just fakers.

Enter Henry Strauss, a scientist who was misled and taken advantage of by a fraudulent medium when he was younger. Henry’s goal is to reduce the odds of people being taken advantage of by using scientific means to locate, attract, and ultimately remove the threat of, ghosts. His Electro-Séance does the trick, if he can get it to work correctly and convince people like the Psychical Society of Baltimore that it’s more reliable and effective than human mediums. Henry, and his assistant/cousin Jo, get their chance when they are invited by a wealthy industrialist to a de-haunt a house in upstate New York – in competition with a renowned medium, Vincent Night, and his partner Lizzie. The industrialist is pitting science against spiritualism, but Henry and Vincent feel an immediate attraction to each other. Complications (and a little bit of hilarity and sexual shenanigans) ensue.

The “science versus spiritualism” competition is really only a part of the plot of the first book, and the rest of the trilogy finds Henry and Vincent working together on cases that appear to be distinct but in fact lead to revelations about Vincent and Lizzie’s pasts and a threat to the whole world.

There are certain things one expects from a Jordan L. Hawk historical series:

·         Two engaging, but quite insecure in different ways, male leads (and chapters that alternate point of view between the two)

·         A slow-burn romance in the first book, but insecurity-driven misunderstandings even once they do get together

·         Steamy sex featuring those male leads, multiple times per book, although the number of scenes per book usually decreases the longer the series goes on

·         A diverse supporting cast

·         A well-developed world with internal logic to how the supernatural element works and consistency in whether the general public knows about/believes in the supernatural or not

·         High stakes (often life-or-death) for the characters, but also for the world or society they live in.

 

 But here’s the thing: Hawk’s books don’t feel formulaic even with all of these consistent elements. And each series, thanks to that intricate world-building and thanks to the variety of lead characters, feels different from the others.

The Spirits trilogy maintains its focus on ghosts/spirits, and eschews any other form of the supernatural. No werewolves, vampires, zombies, witches, or cosmic horrors. Just spirits and the people with the ability/talent to communicate with and affect them. Vincent Night is a medium (he can speak to spirits and spirits can speak/act through him). Lizzie Devereaux is a spirit-writer. Other supporting characters are sensitive in one way or another. And then there’s Henry, who wants to do what Vincent does through science, specifically electromagnetism, instead of spiritualism. But there’s nary a hint of other magic in the books at all, and that’s refreshing. (Even though I’ve joked with the author on social media about a story where Henry and Vincent meet my favorite Hawk characters, Whyborne and Griffin, it’s clear that these series are set in the same time-period but very different versions of “our world.”) This trilogy is an ongoing debate on science versus spirituality (or, if you’d like, science versus religion/belief), but the author at no point allows one to best the other. There’s a trend out there right now in fantasy novels for magic to work the way science does – rigid rules of use and conduct and cause-and-effect – and Hawk refreshingly doesn’t use science to explain the spiritual nor use the spiritual to justify the science.

As with many of Hawk’s romantic pairs, Henry and Vincent are a study in contrasts. Henry is literal in his approach, not prone to expressions of humor, insecure because people just don’t want to believe in his achievements (the reader sees right away that Henry’s device works, although imperfectly) and also because of the way he was taken advantage of as a young man (by a medium claiming to be speaking for his father without really doing so). Vincent is a bit more poetic, swaggering (but not overbearing) to hide his own insecurities which are based in his failure during a séance which led to his mentor’s death and in the fact people don’t want to believe he’s as intelligent as he is because he’s Native American. The attraction between the two is immediate (and acted on fairly quickly, if awkwardly). Their position as rivals for a big cash prize (which each needs to save their own business and keep themselves and their partners with food and shelter) is just the first road-block of many thrown in front of them by the author. But they do persevere and grow towards a happy relationship. (No unhappy endings or “murder your gays” tropes to be had in a Jordan Hawk book!) Although it’s never expressed in quite this way, what the men have in common is a loss of fathers via “possession.” Vincent was possessed by a malevolent spirit which killed his mentor/father-figure while in Vincent’s body, and Henry was “possessed” by the fraudulent medium who took advantage of Henry’s attraction and guilelessness to steal Henry’s inheritance away from him. Both of these possessions haunt the men, and affect not only their relationship with each other but with their friends. Vincent’s fear of being possessed again holds him back from holding the séances needed to keep his and Lizzie’s business open; Henry’s anger at being taken advantage of makes it difficult for him to compromise with the people he needs to make his business a success.

This may be the most diverse main cast of all of Hawk’s historicals, both in terms of ethnicity and gender, and that’s saying something. While Henry is a gay white man, Vincent is Native American, Jo is mixed-race (the child of Henry’s white uncle and a black servant), and Lizzie is transgender. Since the Spirits trilogy is primarily M/M romance, it would be easy to relegate Jo and Lizzie to the status of “secondary characters” but they really aren’t. They have their own character arcs and contribute to the successful resolution of the potentially world-shattering events they are taking part in, and they do get their own romantic sub-plots – they just don’t get any sex scenes.

And if that’s not a perfect segue, nothing is. As mentioned, it wouldn’t be a Hawk book without increasingly hot (even when they’re awkward) sex scenes between the leads. These scenes also tend to be lovingly romantic. But they are certainly not for the prudish. (I think the books read just as well without the explicit sex, but as the sex is part of what Hawk (as well as KJ Charles, Adam Carpenter, and other authors I enjoy) is known for, I can’t complain about their inclusion – and certainly can’t claim that they’re not well-written.

The trilogy tells a complete story, over the course of three interesting hauntings and along with a variety of sub-plots. I’m sure there’s much more that could be explored in this world and with these characters, but for now the author says the story is finished. (Maybe they’ll decide to revisit this world now that the long-running Whyborne & Griffin series is drawing to a close?)

Check out Jordan L. Hawk’s Spirits trilogy if you like: ghost stories, séances, M/M romance, diverse and well-written casts, and subtle, supernatural-based alternate history.

Reading Round-Up: May 2019

Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and writing.

 

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in e-book format as “books.” I read or listened to 11 books in May: 4 in print, 2 in e-book format, and 5 in audio. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #108 (May 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories and novellas. This month’s favorites for me were Rati Mehrotra’s “This Way to Paradise,” Nancy Kress’s “Cocoons,” Matthew Kressel’s “Trust is Like the Sun,” Kathleen Kayembe’s “The Ocean That Fades into Sky,” and Sofia Samatar’s “Fallow.”

2.       Lady Susan by Jane Austen. I’ll admit I’ve read precious little Austen, despite having been an English Lit major. This was a fun, and apparently lesser-known, work of hers. I really enjoy epistolary stories when done right – meaning that parts of the story are left for the reader to “fill in the blanks” between what the characters are and are not saying to each other.

3.       In Re: Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Solar Pons (Solar Pons Book 1), by August Derleth, narrated by Steve White. I’ve been meaning, since I finished reading the full official Sherlock Holmes canon, to move on to his Praed Street successor, created by August Derleth. This is a good start to what was a pretty long run of stories and novels. Steve White’s narration is solid as well, although there were a few points where the voices he was doing didn’t seem to quite match the descriptions of the characters. I posted a lengthier review HERE.

4.       Two Todd Tales, by Joseph Pittman, narrated by Benjamin Seay. This was a re-read/re-listen of two great short stories featuring Pittman’s con-man Todd Gleason, one of which features a character named after me, so I might be a bit partial. Benjamin Seay’s narration captures all of Todd’s, and the unnamed narrator’s snark.

5.       Upon A Burning Throne (The Burnt Empire, Book 1) by Ashok K. Banker. As I said in my longer review HERE, I’ve pretty much burned out on “doorstop/encyclopedia-length” epic fantasy. But Ashok K. Banker’s short stories in Lightspeed magazine in recent months really whet my appetite for this, and I’m glad I read it right away. Great character development and world-building.

6.       The Hidden Witch (The Witch Boy, Book 2) by Molly Knox Ostertag. I have a longer review of this coming on Strange Horizons in a few weeks, so all I’ll say here is this is a wonderful second installment in Ostertag’s graphic novel series about a boy who bucks family convention to be a witch instead of a shapeshifter.

7.       Fool For Love: New Gay Fiction edited by Timothy J. Lambert and R.D. Cochrane, narrated by Roman M. Wagar. Most of the sixteen stories in this romance collection worked for me. Some are sweet, some are brutally funny, some are painful. My favorites include ‘Nathan Burgoine’s “Heart,” Greg Herren’s “Everyone Says I’ll Forget in Time,” David Puterbaugh’s “Thai Angel,” and Rob Williams’ “Party Planning.” Roman M. Wagar’s narration is wonderfully varied, voices crafted to fit each individual story.

8.       Black Crow, White Snow by Michael Livingston, narrated by Janina Edwards.  I am completely unfamiliar with Michael Livingston’s writing, and picked this up honestly because it was an Audible Original free book. I’m glad I did. The mix of Caribbean and post-apocalyptic world-building is wonderful. And Janina Edwards’ narration is warm and smooth and full of character.      

9.       Under the Sunset by Bram Stoker. One of my “To Be Read” Challenge titles for 2019, so there’ll be a longer review upcoming. But I have to say right out: as much as I love Bram Stoker in general, I struggled with this fairy tale story collection. It felt like he was trying to write in someone else’s voice, and it just didn’t work most of the time.

10.   Acres of Perhaps: Stories and Episodes by Will Ludwigsen, narrated by John Fleming. “Acres of Perhaps,” about the sudden dissolution of a television writing team in the 60s, is easily one of my favorite novellas of the past few years, and the rest of the stories in this collection, which I intend to post a longer review of soon, are equally engaging and thought-provoking. John Fleming’s narration fits the dark, not-quite-noir-but-close, tone of the author.  

11.   Algorithmic Shapeshifting: Poems (Conversation Pieces Book 68) by Bogi Takács. As I say in the longer review posted HERE, I am not a poetry reader overall and asked for an ARC of this accidentally. And I loved it. Recommended, especially to fans of poetry with speculative fiction elements.

 

 

 

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) each year. Here’s what I did read and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too (with some short notes for stories that really stood out to me). If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it:

1.       “The Iron Man” by Max Gladstone, from Lightspeed Magazine #108 (May 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.

2.       “This Way To Paradise” by Rati Mehrotra

3.       “Cocoons” by Nancy Kress

4.       “Trust is Like the Sun” by Matthew Kressel

5.       “The Ocean That Fades Into Sky” by Kathleen Kayembe

6.       “The Portal” by Debbie Urbanski

7.       “The Minor Superhero, At Home After His Series Ends” by Adam-Troy Castro

8.       “The Convexity of Our Youth” by Kurt Fawver

9.       “Fallow” by Sofia Samatar

10.   “Vegetables and Vaccines” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

11.   “The Church Fire and Redemption” by T.M. Morgan from Lamplight Vol 7 #2, edited by Jacob Haddon

12.   “Marrow” by E. Catherine Tobler, from Black Static #65

13.   “Silencer Head Like A Hole Remix” by E. Catherine Tobler, from Interzone #259

14.   “Notes Upon the Diadem Club” by Lyndsay Faye, from The Strand October 2015, edited by Lamia Gulli

15.   “It’s All Right – He Only Died” by Raymond Chandler, from The Strand October 2017

16.   “An Actual Treasure” by David Marcum, from The Strand October 2018

17.   “Tonight, My Love” by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane, from The Strand October 2018

18.   “Lady Hilda Revealed” by Bonnie MacBird, from The Strand October 2018

19.   “A Word from Doctor Lyndon Parker” by August Derleth, from In Re: Sherlock Holmes (Solar Pons, Book 1), edited by David Marcum

20.   “The Adventure of the Frightened Baronet” by August Derleth

21.   “The Adventure of the Late Mr. Faversham” by August Derleth

22.   “The Adventure of the Black Narcissus” by August Derleth

23.   “The Adventure of the Norcross Riddle” by August Derleth

24.   “The Adventure of the Retired Novelist” by August Derleth

25.   “The Adventure of the Three Red Dwarfs” by August Derleth

26.   “The Adventure of the Sotheby Salesman” by August Derleth

27.   “The Adventure of the Purloined Periapt” by August Derleth

28.   “The Adventure of the Limping Man” by August Derleth

29.   “The Adventure of the Seven Passengers” by August Derleth

30.   “The Adventure of the Lost Holiday” by August Derleth

31.   “The Adventure of the Man with the Broken Face” by August Derleth

32.   “The Antics of Anton Ardno” by Joseph Pittman, from Two Todd Tales

33.   “The Perils of Penelope Pittston” by Joseph Pittman

34.   “Thai Angel” by David Puterbaugh, from Fool For Love: New Gay Fiction, edited by Timothy J. Lambert and R.D. Cochrane

35.   “Love Taps” by Mark G. Harris

36.   “Matchmaker” by Sean Aniston

37.   “A View” by Brandon M. Long

38.   “Gratitude” by Felice Picano

39.   “Happy Hour At Café Jones” by Rob Burns

40.   “Trunk” by Trebor Healey

41.   “De-Anima” by Joel Derfner

42.   “Like No-One’s Watching” by Josh Helmin

43.   “At The End of the Leash” by Jeffrey Ricker

44.   “Two Tales” by Paul Lisicky

45.   “Heart” by ‘Nathan Burgoine

46.   “Party Planning” by Rob Williams

47.   “Two Kinds of Rapture” by Andrew Holleran

48.   “Everyone Says I’ll Forget in Time” by Greg Herren

49.   “Angels What You Must Hear On High” by John H. Rausch

50.   “Under The Sunset” by Bram Stoker, from Under The Sunset

51.   “The Rose Prince” by Bram Stoker

52.   “The Invisible Giant” by Bram Stoker

53.   “The Shadow Builder” by Bram Stoker

54.   “How 7 Went Mad” by Bram Stoker

55.   “Lies and Lilies” by Bram Stoker

56.   “The Castle of the King” by Bram Stoker

57.   “The Wondrous Child” by Bram Stoker

58.   “Acres of Perhaps” by Will Ludwigsen, from Acres of Perhaps: Stories and Episodes, edited by Steve Berman

59.   “Season 1, Episode 2: Ourselves and Immortality” by Will Ludwigsen

60.   “The Zodiac Walks On The Moon” by Will Ludwigsen

61.   “Season 1, Episode 5: Singing Each to Each” by Will Ludwigsen

62.   “The Leaning Lincoln” by Will Ludwigsen

63.   “Season 1, Episode 10: Guess What’s Coming To Dinner” by Will Ludwigsen

64.   “Night Fever” by Will Ludwigsen

65.   “Season 2, Episode 2: Dark Horse Candidate” by Will Ludwigsen

66.   “Poe At Gettysburg” by Will Ludwigsen

67.   “Season 2, Episode 8: Unable Are The Loved To Die” by Will Ludwigsen

68.   “On Stony Ground” by Cynthia Ward, from Analog May-June 2019, edited by Trevor Quachri

69.   “Repairs at the Beijing West Space Elevator” by Alex Shvartsman

70.   “Painting the Massive Planet” by Marissa Lingen

So that’s 70 short stories in May, putting me now way ahead for the year so far. (May 31st was the 151st day of 2019.)

 

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 1 read; YTD: 3 of 14 read.

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  70 read; YTD: 200 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 1 read; YTD: 15 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 11 read; YTD: 61 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 4 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 of 10 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 0 of 16 read.

                                                                Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned

Monthly Special Challenge: I may not do something like this every month, but I set an May goal to try to read primarily short story collections and anthologies, since May was Short Story Month, and also to read some non-fiction about Asia and/or the Pacific Islands and/or about the Jewish Diaspora, since May was also Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish-American Heritage Month.

I blew it on the Asia, Pacific Islands, and Jewish Diaspora mini-challenges – only Bogi Takacs’ poetry collection really counts toward the last of those three, although at the end of May I started Barbara Krasnoff’s The History of Soul 2065, which would also count towards the Jewish Diaspora challenge had I finished it in May (it was the first book finished in June, though!)

I was more successful on the Short Stories challenge, reading 70 stories, the bulk of that coming from 5 of the books and 1 magazine read in May.

June is Pride Month, so my mini-challenge is to read mostly books and stories by or about people who identify somewhere on the Queer (QUILTBAG+) rainbow.

An Incomplete List of Queer Creators

Every year, just before Pride, I say I’m going to write a post promoting other queer writers/artists/musicians. And every year the month goes by and I end up thinking “Man, I wish I’d written that post about other queer creators…”

So this year, here it is, and only one week into the month itself!

This is by no means a complete list. It’s mostly about people I’ve worked with, I’m friends with, and/or whose work I love, but it also includes some people I’ve yet to read but have heard good things about.

Caveat: I’m only including here people I have confirmed, either via open online presence or by talking to the person, are openly Queer: that is, they are “out” on their social media. I have no interest in forcing anyone out of the closet just because I love their work. So if I have any doubt as to whether someone is in fact open about their queerness, I’m going to put them in my “Allies / People Who Write About Queer Characters Even If They’re Not Queer Themselves” follow-up post in a few days.

Also: There’s no particular order to this list, either. I’m not even going to try to do this alphabetically. But I am going to try for categories (although some folk fall into more than one).

Also Also: If you should be on this list and you’re not, you were not left off on purpose! Send me a message and I’ll edit to add. I’m kind of winging this in an effort to actually get something posted, and I’m sure I’m forgetting people!

Writers

Steve Berman – gay short story and novel writer, editor, and publisher. His own work is mostly in the fantasy/horror realms, but Lethe Press publishes authors in pretty much all genres. Twitter: @thesteveberman

‘Nathan Burgoine – gay short story and novel writer, in the science fiction, fantasy / urban fantasy, horror, erotica and romance realms. Twitter: @NathanBurgoine

Richard Bowes – gay short story and novel writer, in the sf/f/h realms. One of the Beloved Elders, in my opinion. Twitter: @rickbowes

Christopher Barzak – gay short story and novel writer, in the sf/f/h realms. Twitter: @CBarzak

Adam Carpenter – gay erotica and crime author.

Ellen Kushner – lesbian short story and novel writer, mostly in the fantasy realm, perhaps best known for her novels and stories of the Tremontaine family and the City they inhabit. Also perhaps well-known for being married to Delia Sherman. Twitter: @EllenKushner

Delia Sherman – lesbian short story and novel writer and editor, mostly in the fantasy realm. Twitter: @deliasherman

Seanan McGuire / Mira Grant – bisexual short story, novel, and comic book writer. As Seanan she writes fantasy, science fiction, and urban fantasy novels and novellas and the on-going Spider-Gwen title at Marvel. As her own evil twin Mira, she writes sf-horror. Twitter: @seananmcguire

Bogi Takacs – agender short story writer, poet, and blogger. Twitter: @bogiperson

Everett Maroon – transgender short story and novel writer and memoirist. Twitter: @EverettMaroon

Alex Bertie – transgender memoirist and YouTube personality. Twitter: @Alex_Bertie

Dane Bauer Hassid / Dane Kuttler – queer poet and local activist.

Jeff Baker – gay short story writer.

Michael Nava – gay crime author. Twitter: @micnavawriter

Lydia Schoch – queer science fiction author. Twitter: @TorontoLydia

Vylar Kaftan – “queer as fuck” science fiction and fantasy author. Twitter: @Vylar_Kaftan

Jean Johnson – bisexual, gender-fluid sf/f author. Twitter: @JeanJAuthor

Peter Dube – gay author and poet.

Adam Burgess – gay non-fiction author and blogger. Twitter: @HeWritesWords

Jerry Wheeler – gay author, editor, and blogger. Twitter: @jw_den

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth — bisexaul author and photographer.

Sarah Pinsker – queer musician and sf/f author. Twitter: @SarahPinsker

K.M. Szpara – queer sf/f short story and novel author. Twitter: @KMSzpara

Lee Thomas --  gay horror author.

Hal Duncan – gay sf/f/h author. Twitter: @Hal_Duncan

Bart Leib and Kay Holt — queer publishers of Crossed Genres. Twitters: @metafrantic @sandykidd

Amara Lynn — Enby queer urban fantasy author. Twitter: @AmaraJLynn

Clarissa C.S. Ryan — queer sf/f author. Twitter: @wintersweet

Jordan L. Hawk — queer non-binary author of fantasy M/M romance. Twitter: @jordanlhawk

Kace Alexander — genderqueer sf/f author. Twitter: @kacealexander

 

Musicians/Singers

Greyson Chance – gay singer/songwriter (alternative) Twitter: @greysonchance

Ryan Beatty – gay singer/songwriter (pop/hip-hop)

Darren Hayes – gay singer/songwriter (pop)

David Roundsley of Munich Syndrome – gay singer/songwriter (electronica) and memoirist

Levi Kreis – gay singer/songwriter (blues) and Tony Award winner.

 

Comics Creators

Joe Phillips – writer/artist (House of Morecock, Joe Boys) Twitter: @joephillipsart

Tim Fish --  writer/artist (Cavalcade of Boys) Twitter: @timfishworks

Alex Woolfson --  writer, Artifice, Young Protectors Twitter: @alexwoolfson

Pride Month Reintroduction

Here we are at another Pride Month.

This website is, and always will be, a safe space for anyone who identifies anywhere in the collective realm of “queer.” Whether that identification is based on sexual attraction, romantic attraction, gender identity, or the confluence (or lack thereof) of all three: you are welcome here.

Not that this information isn’t available elsewhere on this website and across my social media, but occasionally it’s good to write a new post reminding people of who I am and what I’m about. So:

Your host and author, Anthony R. Cardno, is:

·         gay

·         cis-gender male (pronouns He, Him, His)

·         of Scottish, Italian and Polish extraction  (second-generation in the US on the Scots (Dad’s) side, and either second- or third-generation for the Pole and Italian (Mom’s) side)

·         non-denominational Christian with an open and accepting spiritual side (but raised Roman Catholic)

I came out in my late twenties. Slowly at first to my close college friends and immediate family, then to high school and childhood friends and extended family and eventually professionally. The response was a lot of “well, I always suspected but didn’t want to rush you,” which somewhat made each subsequent coming-out conversation easier. I was lucky enough to have a ton of love and support, which so many of my peers did not have, and so many folks now coming out still don’t. My process was perhaps easier than may others, but it wasn’t necessarily smooth. Mom told me she was fine with it as long as I didn’t “embarrass her in front of the neighbors” (polite speak for “I don’t care what you do at college, but don’t mention this around our community”); Dad was honest that if I’d come out as a teen his reaction would have been very different and perhaps even emotionally, if not physically, violent. And of course there were the handful of old friends who said they didn’t care “as long as I didn’t hit on them” (Interestingly, that almost always came from the guys I never even vaguely had a crush on in elementary, middle, or high school.).

Coming Out is NOT a one-time deal. It’s an on-going process as new people come into your life or as (thanks to social media) childhood friends come back in touch. And I’d be lying (or at least committing a sin of omission) if I didn’t admit that I do still find it stressful in professional (day-job-related) settings, for whatever reason.

So coming out happened in my late twenties, almost 25 years ago. But like many people, internally I knew (even if I didn’t acknowledge/accept) much earlier. A recent thread on my Facebook page about “the most obscure shows you watched when you were around 10 years old” reminded me that even at that age I had what I now can admit were crushes on actors like David Doremus (from “Nanny and the Professor”), Ike Eisenmann (from the “Witch Mountain” movies), Brandon Cruz (from “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”), Jack Wild (from “HR Pufinstuf” and “Oliver!”), Tommy Kirk (from a dozen Disney movies), Donny Osmond, and pretty much all of the Brady boys. There were crushes on older guys too, of course … but these are the guys I remember wishing I could be best friends with, have sleepovers with, could just cuddle up with – long before any kind of sexual attraction was evident (and never mind that many of these actors were people I was seeing in re-runs and were thus actually older than me – 10 year old Anthony’s brain didn’t really take that into consideration).

As puberty hit and the sexual attraction component also kicked in, so did embarrassment, anxiety and a fear (thank you, Roman Catholic Church!) that I was inherently evil – or at least not “good.” Those insecurities manifested in several ways. In middle school it came as a tendency to do anything I could to not have to go to school (which my parents viewed as a return of a “habit” I had during my one year in Catholic school in Astoria, NY – but my theories about what was going on there are something for another post, if ever). In high school and for several years thereafter, it manifested as a limited form of self-harm involving scratching my wrists (which I recently posted about on my Instagram).

I stopped physically self-harming a long time ago but I still struggle with depression, insecurity and social anxiety issues, part of which stem from those years of not accepting my sexuality and part of which stem from completely different things.

So naturally as a reader and viewer I tend to seek out the kinds of characters I didn’t see growing up (except as jokes or villains; the subject of a post later this month). As a writer, I don’t intentionally limit all of my characters to those I would have liked to have seen but almost every story I write has a queer character of some kind in it somewhere, and usually more than one. Because we’re not just tokens; we’re a large part of the human community as a whole. As a blogger, I want to support and promote creators who identify as queer or who produce work with queer characters, because we won’t be fully represented at all if we can’t represent ourselves. (I also actively seek out work by creators who aren’t white, in case you’re wondering. Because I want to see work that represents humanity in all its diversity and wonder. But that’s a post for another time as well.)

I love to read, write, and consume pop culture largely in the “speculative fiction” / “genre” realms. I love live theater. I love live sports, too, but it’s very hard to convince me to watch them on televisioin (get me to a game, especially the faster-paced ones like hockey, soccer, basketball, and I’m all in; put it on the television and I’m bored). My sense of humor swings from snarky to puns and back, and if I don’t say something every day that qualifies as a “Dad” joke my nieces and nephews are gravely disappointed. I love my family – the genetic one and the found one.

Today, and every day, I send all my love to my fellow Queers around the world. Wherever/however you identify: gay, lesbian, bi, pan, aro, ace, trans*, non-binary, gender-fluid, questioning or anything I've inadvertently forgotten; whatever your "out" status: publicly, privately, or not at all. You are unique, you are you, and no-one should take that away from you. (Nor should anyone try to force you out if you're not ready or are in an unsafe situation.)

And of course, to my nieces and nephews who identify anywhere in the wide realm of Queer: I love you, every day and always, whether you’ve ever told me you’re queer or not.