Book Review: The Warrior's Pilgrimage

TITLE: The Warrior’s Pilgrimage (The Adventures of Remus, Book 1)

AUTHOR: Frank Schildiner

103 pages, Frank Schildiner (publisher), ASIN B08RZDG9K6 (Kindle, print release forthcoming)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): In the days before the rise of Rome, two mighty champions of mankind appeared among the ancient tribes of Latinium. Their names: Romulus and Remus. Only half of their story remains. The true tale of the forgotten twin, Remus, is one of power, slavery, horror, and heroism. Remus shall battle warriors, horrors from the days of ancient myths, and a giant from the mysterious lands of the East. THE WARRIOR'S PILGRIMAGE tells the first story of Remus, the lost brother of King Romulus of Rome. All profits from this book shall St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for the treatment of pediatric cancer.

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS: Frank Schildiner’s love of the sword-and-sandal genre is clearly on display in the first book of this planned series focusing on the exploits of Remus, the oft-forgotten twin brother of the founder of Rome. Schildiner has crafted a loving tribute to the Italian Peplum film genre of the 1950s and 1960s (personified by Steve Reeves), the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion fantasy films of the 1970s and 1980s, and the Roman mythology upon which those films were based.

As a novella, this “origin” story for Schildiner’s version of Remus is action-packed, moving from one fight to another, from one minor menace to another, with the speed of the movies it is emulating. The fight scenes are wonderfully written and varied in length and in adversaries. But the book isn’t all fights. There is plenty of time for Remus to be introspective, questioning why his personality and goals differ so from his older twin and what his role in the world is if not to be co-ruler of a new nation.

Remus is guided on his path, in the very best Harryhausen tradition, by representatives of the gods – in this case primarily priestesses of Athena and Hecate. The priestesses have abilities granted to them by their patrons but are also constrained in what they can accomplish themselves, which is where Remus comes in. And of course, there’s always the question of whether the priestesses’ agendas match what their patron deities want.

The classic elements of the Romulus and Remus myth are all here: a pre-birth prophecy about their greatness sentences them to death by abandonment. They are rescued by a shepherd, raised unaware of their regal origins. Remus is taken as a prisoner by the local king the brothers are destined to overthrow, is rescued by his brother, and then the brothers fight, and Remus is killed.

But Schildiner tweaks the classic elements to fit the type of story he’s telling. Instead of being suckled by a she-wolf before being rescued and raised by shepherds, the twins are rescued quickly and adopted by a human community separated into animal clans that include wolves and horses. Romulus and Remus are trained in different philosophies within the same community, leading to Remus being more peaceful and thoughtful (but not a pacifist) and Romulus being more confrontational and emotional. It’s no surprise that their differing personalities, along with the prompting of gods and adopted parents, lead to a parting of the ways.

Schildiner spends a fair amount of time showing us Remus’ gladiatorial enslavement before confronting the biggest problem with making Remus the hero of his own story. The classic Romulus and Remus myth usually ends with the brothers disagreeing about how Rome will be ruled and Romulus killing (in some cases, “sacrificing”) his brother for the good of the Empire (or just because he’s an egotistical, controlling ass). Schildiner’s inventive twist on this moment occurs about halfway through the novella, allowing his Remus to continue beyond the traditional myth and hopefully have many more adventures through the growing Latin world and beyond.

During his enslavement, Remus is trained by a group of women warriors with ties to the Amazons of legend. They sadly disappear from the story once Romulus rescues Remus from the arena. I really hope we’ll see them again and learn more of their history in future installments. Or maybe they’ll get a novella or two of their own. The priestesses are equally intriguing, their agendas pushing Remus towards being something greater than he could have imagined.

Through the priestesses, Schildiner makes it clear that while Remus has the potential to be a force for good in the world, there’s no whiff of Destiny to be smelled. Schildiner neatly challenges the “chosen one” trope: Remus isn’t the only tool in the gods’ arsenal, and if he falls there will be someone else to do what needs to be done to judge the world towards safety and away from chaos. It’s a refreshing twist on an over-used trope.

Schildiner’s Remus combines the larger-than-life physicality of Peplum-era Hercules, Maciste, Ursus, and Goliath, with the thoughtful leadership of Harryhausen’s Jason, Perseus, and Sinbad. His supporting cast of strong women and comical sidekicks, series of brutish controlling antagonists, and intermittently involved gods enhance the story.

In short, A Warrior’s Pilgrimage is a great start to a hopefully long series of adventures set in the classical world, perfect for lovers of Roman mythology, Peplum or Harryhausen movies, or solid adventure tales with supernatural elements.

Book Review: Remote Control

TITLE: Remote Control

AUTHOR: Nnedi Okorafor

160 pages, TorDotCom, ISBN 9781250772800 (hardcover, also available in e-book and audiobook)

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): “She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.” The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From here on in she would be known as Sankofa­­―a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.

Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks―alone, except for her fox companion―searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.

But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: I remember reading Nnedi Okorafor’s short story “Sankofa” in the anthology Decision Points (edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt) several years ago. I immediately wanted to know more about the title character, intrigued by her mysterious background, her ability to kill seemingly with a thought and how she chose to use/not use that power. I particularly loved the way Okorafor kept the reader wondering through most of the story as to how the legend of Sankofa (“adopted daughter of Death”) matched her truth.

I am happy to say that Okorafor’s new novella Remote Control expands the original short story in ways that answer most of my questions without sacrificing that intricate dance between the main character’s legend and her reality, all while introducing new questions about Sankofa’s origin, her abilities, and the near-future world she lives in.

The future Ghana of this novella is distant enough from our own that technology has made some advances (“jelli-tellies” that can be stretched to fit the available space on a wall, and which sound a bit more environmentally friendly than even our current flat-screens; robotic “cops” that control traffic at dangerous intersections) but not so far distant as to render the world unrecognizable. The advance tech is not the focus of the novel but is more than just window-dressing. It’s different enough to lend the book an undercurrent of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” People still queue up outside electronics stores when they hear the latest items are due to arrive (although in this future, the line-up is due as much to the odds that new electronics shipments will be intercepted by roving pirates as it is to excitement about a new product), and people still place status on belongings (cars, paintings).

And people still “other” what they don’t understand. Sankofa, the girl who can kill living beings with a thought and technology with a touch, is subject to side-eye glances, gestures against the evil eye, and occasionally more violent reactions. In the first chapter, she has a gun fired at her; later, she is punched and kicked and run out of town by an angry mob. People (with a few exceptions) grudgingly accept the legend that has grown up around her – but they’d still rather not encounter her at all. Interestingly, the characters who attack her physically are almost all riled up because of the effect she has on the technology they rely on. In this near future, superstition and othering are still palpable forces as much as mob mentality and the “me first” mindset. Before this starts to sound too dismal, I should mention that not everyone Sankofa encounters is afraid of her or angry at her. There are kindly shopkeepers, farmers, and an Imam’s wife who all either accept Sankofa without question or who try to understand her role and want to help her out of her predicament.

Sankofa herself is unsure of why she has the abilities she has and what she’s meant to do, other than that it all started with a seed that fell from the sky and which has since been stolen from her. The personal history she has partially forgotten (including her birth name) is imparted to the reader in early chapters. We get to see the seed from which her power and her legend grew and the tragedy that drove her to partial amnesia and a nomadic lifestyle. She is dependent on the power of her legend to entice people to feed her, clothe her, and provide her with reading material, but she never abuses those who provide her what she needs. In the first chapter, realizing she needs food and new clothes, Sankofa bypasses the poorer houses of the village she is passing through and goes directly to the richest house in the neighborhood. And even then, she asks only for a good meal, her favorite drink (orange Fanta, room temperature), and a new set of clothes in her people’s native style. Sated and clothed, she leaves without doing anyone any harm. Sankofa also doesn’t abuse her actual power, other than killing mosquitoes who get too close. She only kills when someone who is terminally ill asks her to do so, or when it’s in self-defense (and even then, notably, she tries not to kill if she can avoid it). In other hands, this power could have been used to gain more power or control over a town or a region or more. Instead, it is somehow in the hands of a young woman who just wants to locate the lost seed that calls to her across great distances. She’s lonely and she’s tired of traveling. She loves animals, tries to see the best in people. She wants peace and privacy and a return to normalcy. They get denied to her at almost every turn, but she never loses hope that someday she’ll understand everything and have a quiet life.

Remote Control is a wonderful new entry under the “Afrofuturism” genre umbrella, science fiction fully immersed in African society, tradition, and history. I have no idea if Okorafor plans to continue Sankofa’s story. This novella has a satisfying ending that brings things full circle, but there are some questions I think are still lingering that could drive further stories.

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.

Book Review: ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS

TITLE: Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, Book Six)

AUTHOR: Seanan McGuire

176 pages, TorDotCom, ISBN 9781250213594 (hardcover), also available in e-book and audiobook.

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): “Welcome to the Hooflands. We’re happy to have you, even if you being here means something’s coming.”

Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.

When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to "Be Sure" before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines―a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.

But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem…

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS: For those unfamiliar with Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, a little background: the students at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children have all been through their own portals to strange fantasy realms and have returned to the world of their birth changed and unable to fit back into “normal” society. The books in the series alternate between “present day” adventures set at (or at least, starting at) the school and stand-alone portal fantasies. This latest volume is a portal fantasy installment (as are all the even numbered titles) and as such can be read independently of the rest of the series. Across the Green Grass Fields has been described as an excellent “jumping on” place for new readers, because unlike the previous portal fantasy installments (Down Among the Sticks and Bones and In an Absent Dream) this book introduces a whole new character not yet seen in the “present day” installments (Every Heart a Doorway; Beneath the Sugar Sky; Come Tumbling Down). Across the Green Grass Fields gives readers new to the series a chance to get a feel for what McGuire is doing without having to worry about how the events connect to characters and settings we’ve already met.

The setting for this installment is the Hooflands, a fantasy world full of every equine and part-equine creature from legend and mythology, whether terrestrial, arboreal, or aquatic: centaurs, unicorns, satyrs, minotaurs, perytons, kelpies, and more. If it has hooves, it exists in the Hooflands – except for the mundane horses, donkeys, cows, and goats we know. Long time fans of Seanan McGuire were not surprised that she created a fantasy world based around magical horses, given her life-long love of My Little Pony, but the Hooflands are no simple MLP pastiche. McGuire has filled this world with all the hierarchies, prejudices, misunderstandings and unfairnesses that exist in our non-magical, non-fantasy human world. These issues are not evident when Regan first arrives in the Hooflands but reveal themselves slowly first through conversations and asides and then through Regan’s encounters with the species she’s been told are dangerous. I loved the way this portal world mirrors our own in a more direct way than the other worlds we’ve encountered so far. Those other portal worlds have been populated with creatures more human in appearance, but the denizens of the Hooflands are more like us in emotion and action. In some ways, the society of the Hooflands might the most fully explained of the portal worlds we’ve visited. (This in no way means I don’t want Seanan to revisit the Hooflands in future volumes – there’s still plenty of world to explore, especially regarding what may have happened after the end of this book.)

The cast of the Wayward Children books is one of the most diverse you’re likely to find anywhere, because McGuire knows how much representation matters. For LGBTQ kids and non-white kids, seeing themselves having the types of adventures usually populated with straight white kids (looking at you, Pevensies, Gales, Darlings, and you lot) is empowering. Our new addition to the cast, Regan, gives another marginalized population a chance at the spotlight: intersex kids. Regan’s journey to the Hooflands starts when she begins questioning her parents about why she’s not growing and hitting puberty at the same rate as her female classmates. Being a girl, being the “right kind” of girl to stay in her best friend’s good graces, has been important to Regan for as long as she can remember. Finding out she is intersex is hard, even with parents who have been prepared to have this conversation for a long time and know exactly what they think they should say. But the reaction of the best friend sets her directly on the path through the door to the Hooflands, and thus puts Regan’s sense of self at the center of the story. That scene is not easy for anyone with a shred of compassion to read; it had me in angry/upset tears that made me put the book down to regain composure. But it’s also a necessary scene. Because kids can be cruel to anyone who is even slightly different, and because it sets Regan not only on the physical path to the Hooflands but also on the emotional path to being more empathic when she encounters others who are mistreated because they are perceived to be different. And that makes all the difference in the way the story plays out.

Some portal stories are simple adventures, and some come with the burden of Destiny (or, at least, Perceived Destiny). The Hooflands has traditions about what it means for a Human to arrive and what is expected of them. McGuire dissects and re-stitches the “destined one” trope beautifully, looking at it not just from Regan’s point-of-view but also from her adopted centaur family and some of the other species as well. I really, really don’t want to spoil the best part of this subversion, but I have to say that it was both unexpected and inevitable and I may have gasped out loud when the big reveal happened.

I am looking forward to learning how Regan arrives at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children, and what effect she will have on the kids we’ve come to know and care about from previous installments. And like all the kids at the school, I find myself hoping that somehow, Regan’s door to the Hooflands will open for her again someday. Because we all deserve to live where we’re happiest and where we can be our authentic selves.

Reading Round-Up: December 2020

The final monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and listening to for 2020!

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues as “books.” I read or listened to 24 books in December: 17 in print, 6 in e-book format, and 1 in audio format. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #127 (December 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories. This month’s favorites for me were Andrew Dana Hudson and C.Y. Ballard’s “Your Mind Is the Superfund Site,” Jennifer Marie Brissett’s “The Executioner,” Maurice Broaddus’s “Ah Been Buked,” and P H Lee’s “Ann-of-Rags.”

2.       State v. Claus by P. Jo Anne Burgh. Connecticut lawyer Meg Riley finds herself defending a man accused of Christmas Eve home invasion, who claims to be the son of Santa Claus. Romance with a HFN ending combined with courtroom drama and a look at how the Claus operation really works = a magical story. FULL REVIEW HERE.

3.       Handmade Holidays by ‘Nathan Burgoine. A gay holiday “missed cues” romance novella. Nick builds new holidays traditions around his LGBTQ found family when his birth family disowns him and finds love along the way. FULL REVIEW HERE.

4.       Faux Ho Ho by ‘Nathan Burgoine. A gay holiday “fake boyfriend” romance novella. Openly gay Silas will do just about anything to avoid spending time with his rich Conservative family, including pretending his platonic roommate is his boyfriend – until they get invited as a couple to Silas’ sister’s wedding. Told in alternating past/present chapters that show the growth of Silas and Dino’s friendship/relationship. FULL REVIEW HERE.

5.       Dracula, Motherf*cker by Alex DeCampi, Erica Henderson. Dracula rises again in 1974 Los Angeles, and crime scene photographer Quincy Harker is caught in the middle of a battle between the vampire lord and his three brides. A quite different take on the nature of Dracula, the stylistic art and dark coloring make a good story that much better.

6.       The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Read by Jennifer Saunders. The halls of Penlyon Place have been absent the sounds of children since the Lord of the manor’s daughters died/were disowned by him (respectively). A family friend and the old man’s niece suggest hiring some children to make the most of the season, but there’s clearly more going on. A beautiful story narrated wonderfully by the great Jennifer Saunders.

7.       Love Beneath the Christmas Tree by Jae. A lesbian holiday novella. Three short stories over the span of three Christmases tell the story of the growth of a relationship between a mall cop and a fast-food worker, and the boy who brings them together.

8.       Rear Admiral by ‘Nathan Burgoine. A gay erotic/romance novella. After finding out he’s going to meet a former porn star at a mutual friends’ wine-tasting, Russ decides to challenge himself to use the exceptionally large sex toy the man modelled for. What follows is an awkward meet-cute, sweet romance, and some extremely hot sex.

9.       Superman Vs. Wonder Woman by Gerry Conway, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dan Adkins, Gaspar Saladino, Jerry Serpe and Joe Orlando. Hardcover reprint of a 1970’s DC Comics “treasury edition.” One of my childhood favorites. FULL REVIEW HERE.

10.   Bad Blood: A Life Without Consequence by David B. Roundsley. The author details his search for the truth about his birth parents, which leads to learning just how bad a man his birth father was. FULL REVIEW HERE.

11.   No Longer at Ease (The Africa Trilogy #3) by Chinua Achebe. Achebe’s trilogy about societal change in Nigeria comes to a close with a story about a good man who slowly gets overwhelmed and goes wrong. A stunningly told story, and perhaps my favorite book in the trilogy. I should be writing a Complete the Series post about The Africa Trilogy soon.

12.   The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The author’s graphic novel memoir about growing up in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, including several years out of the country as a student. An engrossing story.

13.   Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs edited by Jeanine Schaefer and Sophie Phillips-Roberts. Another graphic novel collection of one-shot Lumberjanes tales published outside of the main run. I enjoyed all 5 of the stories herein, but my favorites were probably Seanan McGuire and Alexa Bosy’s “Somewhere That’s Green” and Nicole Adelfinger and Maddi Gonzalez’ “A Midsummer Night’s Scheme.”

14.   A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. My annual “one chapter per night until Christmas Day” reread in the paperback edition I have signed by Dickens’ great-great-grandson was accompanied by listening to the audiobook narrated by Tim Curry for the first time. I enjoyed Curry’s slightly more downbeat narration (compared to the infectiously enthusiastic narration of Tom Baker that I listened to last year and also enjoyed).

15.   Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. I’m glad that I have finally read this icon of 1970s gay literature, about the residents of a boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco. A great look at the various strata of society in SF in that era, and very soap-opera-ish in intensity.

16.   Excalibur (2019-) Volume 1 by Tini Howard, Marcus To, and others. A new version of the UK-based Marvel mutant super-team accompanies the new Captain Britain on a quest to Otherworld, with mixed success. This is the only current X-Title I read in monthly format, and it’s very rocky. I think the overall story in this and the following volume suffer from having to tie so intricately into the overall X-Men storyline. (And it still bothers me that a title named after King Arthur’s sword features only one British character in a lead role and one in a supporting role. But that bothered me about the classic line-up as well.)

17.   Once & Future Volume 1: The King is Undead by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, and others. Possibly my favorite new monthly comic of the past year-ish. Duncan, a nice guy but awkward, has a date interrupted and he and his possibly-girlfriend become embroiled in Duncan’s grandmother’s “family business.” Which turns out to be fighting legends and stories so they don’t overwhelm the modern world – including the return of a maniacal King Arthur. I’m not normally a fan of stories where Arthur is the bad guy, but this one really works for me as a treatise on the nature of stories and storytelling.

18.   Legion of Super-Heroes (2019-) Volume 1 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ryan Sook, and others. Bendis and Sook’s revival of the classic futuristic super-tea gets off to a needlessly crowded, complicated and slow-moving start, but by the end of this volume there’s at least a sense of where the creators intend to go.

19.   Once & Future Volume 2: Old English by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, and others. Already dealing with family betrayals and Arthur’s attempts to cross into the modern world and rid England of all non-Brits, Duncan and Co must face off against a revived Beowulf. And where Beowulf is, you know Grendel and his mother can’t be far behind. Volume 2 delivers on the promise of the first volume and continues to expand/build the world Duncan and his team operate in.

20.   Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children #6) by Seanan McGuire. The sixth Wayward Children volume is another past-times portal fantasy, and the first in which we meet a child we haven’t seen in the present-day School volumes (the odd-numbered entries). Regan, an intersex child, goes through a portal to the Hooflands, where every hoofed legendary species co-exists (but not peacefully). Full Review to Come.

21.   Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World Book 1) by Rebecca Roanhorse. Roanhorse’s post-apocalyptic Navajo nation series gets off to a bang with monster hunter Maggie Hoskie reeling from abandonment by her mentor and thrust into fighting a new type of monster alongside the charismatic grandson of a friend. I found Roanhorse’s portrayal of Maggie’s post-traumatic stress particularly affecting, wound within a full-on adventure tale with plenty of twists.

22.   Excalibur (2019-) Volume 2 by Trini Howard, Marcus To, and others. I basically have the same complaints about this volume as the first: interestingly story and character moments are interrupted for the latest X-book line-wide crossover. But I will say I particularly like the way Howard portrays the dynamic among the Braddock siblings, and the development of Rictor’s connection to the Earth and Druids.

23.   A Diet of Treacle by Lawrence Block. A classic noir in which a “good” girl from uptown becomes involved with a troubled war vet and his drug-dealing roommate in Greenwich Village. Block’s knack for fast-paced narrative and quippy dialogue is on full display. Anita and Joe are characters you want to root for as much as you want to shake them and say “wake up and get yourself out of this before things go bad…” which of course they do. The first half of the book is an interestingly look at a certain early-60s lifestyle, while the second half is a bloody crime spree. Both parts work well together.

24.   Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Another classic SF novella I should have read long since. The setting is a dystopian future where no one is allowed to live past the age of 21. If you don’t turn yourself into to be put to Sleep (killed), you get hunted by Sandmen. Logan-3 is one such Sandman, who gets clues towards the Sanctuary people who run from Sleep are trying to reach. But what will he do as he gets closer to finding it? This one will be the subject of an upcoming Page to Screen post.

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 366 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) this year (366 because it’s a Leap Year). Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.

1.       “Your Mind Is the Superfund Site” by Andrew Dana Hudson and C.Y. Ballard, from Lightspeed Magazine #127 (December 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams

2.       “The Executioner” by Jennifer Marie Brissett

3.       “Party Time!” by Ben H. Winters

4.       “The Woman Who Destroyed Us” by S.L. Huang

5.       “Ah Been Buked” by Maurice Broaddus

6.       “The Salt Warrior” by Kali Wallace

7.       “An Account of the Land of Witches” by Sofia Samatar

8.       “Ann-of-Rags” by P H Lee

9.       “An Indefinite Number of Birds” by Kurt Hunt, from Fantasy Magazine #62 (December 2020), edited by Christie Yant and Arley Sorg

10.   “If These Walls Whispered What Would We Hear?” by Aynjel Kaye

11.   “Umami” by Aya Ow

12.   “Tiny House Living” by Kristiana Willsey

13.    “Our Trial Patience” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

14.   “The Ones Who Got Away” by Stephen Graham Jones from Nightmare Magazine #99 (December 2020), edited by Wendy N. Wagner

15.   “The Doors of Penlyon” by ‘Nathan Burgoine, from the author’s website

16.   “A Day (or Two) Ago” by ‘Nathan Burgoine

17.   “The Good People” by Jim Butcher, from the author’s website

So that’s 17 short stories in December. Once again, a bit less than “1 per day.” But I finished the year ahead of where I should be. (December 31st was the 366th day of 2020.)

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 4 read; YTD: 11 of 12 read. (No alternates read)

366 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  17 read; YTD: 374 of 366 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 9 read; YTD: 37 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 24 read; YTD: 154 of 125 read. (CHALLENGE ACCOMPLISHED!)

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 2 read; YTD: 12 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 2 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 1 book read; YTD: 9 of 16 read.

                                                          Series fully completed: 2 of 4 planned

Monthly Special Challenge:  December’s mini challenge was Christmas/Winter Holiday tales, naturally, with a secondary goal of completing one or two of the year’s Challenges (motivated by finishing one of the Complete the Series Challenges, the Philip Marlowe books). On the Christmas/Winter Challenge, I did decently, with 6 holiday books and 3 independent holiday short stories (two by ‘Nathan Burgoine, one by Jim Butcher). On the “Complete a Challenge” front, I managed to complete The Africa Trilogy, which marked one more “complete the series” series off the list, and I got darn close to finishing the TBR Challenge!

The full annual review of what I read and watched in 2020 be up sometime this week!

Sunday Shorts: Two Fairy Tales by P H Lee

I love short fiction, and Sunday Shorts is the feature where I get to blog about it. Posts will range from flash to novellas. At some point, I might delve into individual stories/episodes of anthology formats in other media, like television and comics, but for the time being, I’m sticking to prose in print and audio.

Author P H Lee has begun an intriguing series of “secondary world fairy tales” under the umbrella title of Tales from the Great Sweet Sea. I have no idea how many of these Lee is intending to write, but the two that have appeared so far (in the December 2020 and January 2021 issues of Lightspeed) have captured my interest and have me yearning for more. Mostly because these two stories are just that good, but also partly because I want to learn more about this secondary world the stories and their framing device are set in.

The narrator of both tales is a traveling storyteller named Dusty Boots, who hails from the valley of Erwhile and who is in love with a girl they can never have. In introducing each tale, Dusty Boots tells us that in the tale-spinners’ guild, half of the tale-spinner are pledged to never tell the truth and the other half to never tell a lie … and that Dusty Boots is one of those sworn to the Truth. So, each of these fairy tales he tells must be the truth, right?

One of the things I loved about both stories was the way Dusty Boots has of including other versions of the story, or other possible outcomes that follow the story, without breaking the vow to tell only the Truth. While Dusty Boots is not a participant in the stories they tell, they are also not complete cyphers. Bits and pieces of their history and personality filter through. And one wonders if, somewhere down the line, we’ll learn more about how and Dusty Boots became a tale-spinner (and why they swore to the Truth and not Lies).

“Ann-of-Rags” appeared in the December 2020 Lightspeed and is a reworking in part of Hansel and Gretel, with a few other tales filtered in in part. (And for this reader, at least, the name of the titular doll conjured images of Raggedy Ann, adding another layer to the story.) In “Ann-of-Rags,” a young girl wanders into the woods and gets lost. As night falls and goes on, her doll Ann offers several solutions to their predicament, encouraging the girl to follow the doll’s animal friends out of the woods. But to a young child, wild animals are scary, and so she refuses their help but accepts the help of an elderly woman wandering the woods at night because she looks kindly. One of the classic morals of fairy tales (especially “Hansel and Gretel”) is that appearances are often deceiving, and Lee illustrates that so well in this story. But that’s not all the story is about. Once in Bone Grandmother’s clutches, the story takes an even darker turn and started to remind me a little bit of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree: to get the young girl to safety, Ann-of-Rags offers to sacrifice more and more of herself. Thus, the story is also a heart-breaking look at how children don’t always realize, or even remember, the sacrifices loved ones are willing to make on their behalf. I don’t want to spoil the end of the story for anyone who might venture over to Lightspeed to read it (Here’s the Direct Link to the story), but I will say that it brought tears to my eyes.

“Frost’s Boy” is already available if you subscribe to the e-book edition of Lightspeed Magazine and have received the January 2021 issue. If you don’t subscribe, the story will be live on the Lightspeed website on January 28th. Dusty Boots is back to tell us another story, this one combining aspects of many “child left for dead in the woods gets adopted by someone else” tales. Except in this case, the adopting parent isn’t a human woodsman or lonely couple but rather a personification of a seasonal attribute: Frost itself. Naturally, the child grows up cold, controlling, basically heartless. Parts of this story may not be an easy read for some folks as the titular character is essentially a serial killer preying on young women – young women especially who have heard the legends and know they should just run away but somehow believe they will be the one to break the string and thaw Frost Boy’s heart. Eventually we are introduced to the girl who may very well succeed, with the help of her parents. Frost’s Boy reminds me a bit of Rumpelstiltskin: selfish, egotistical, and manipulative, a being who thinks he is so far beyond the mortals he’s dealing with that there’s no way they can get the better of him. And like the farmer’s daughter in Rumple’s tale, the farmer’s daughter in “Frost’s Boy” is the person we really end up rooting for. In a neat bit of subversion to the standard tale, we don’t meet Frost Boy’s farm girl until halfway through the story, where in so many other tales we meet the girl first. Again, I don’t want to ruin anything about the way the story plays out, but I can say that second half of the story is suspenseful in the way of fairy tales (using repeated phrases by the characters and by the talespinner, Dusty Boots) and I was satisfied with the way the whole thing ends.

Linking the tales together is a mention of Bone Grandmother, who here seems a bit more like a personification than the actual person we saw in “Ann-of-Rags.” I found this to be really effective in reminding us that these tales have been told and retold in this secondary world we are learning about, and that Dusty Boots’ versions are the True Versions insofar as the talespinner believes they are.

I’m really looking forward to reading more of these fairy tales by P H Lee, and I highly recommend seeking these two out via Lightspeed as soon as possible.

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.

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!

2021 Reading Challenges

I always set myself more than one reading challenge per year. Some carry over from year to year, and some are new. Some are broad and some are themed. And in many cases, books read will help me meet more than one challenge. Here’s this year’s list.

TO BE READ CHALLENGE

The idea (formulated by RoofBeamReader at his blog several years ago) is to pick 12 books (plus 2 alternates in case you find yourself unable to finish a couple of your main choices) that have sat unread on your bookshelf for a year or more. Books published in 2020 wouldn’t be eligible, nor would re-reads. This year, I’ve decided to pick 24 books (12 fiction, 12 non-fiction) plus four alternates. I plan to come back to this post and add “date completed” for each book individually and for each series as a whole. Here are my lists for 2020 (not listed in intended reading order):

FICTION:

1.       The Mystery of the Sea by Bram Stoker

2.       How Long ‘til Black Future Month by NK Jemisin

3.       The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick

4.       Dune by Frank Herbert

5.       Monstress Volume 1 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

6.       Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

7.       Excalibur! by Gil Kane and John Jakes

8.       Lord Tyger by Philip Jose Farmer

9.       The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel Jose Older

10.   Slights by Kaaron Warren

11.   Minky Woodcock: The Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini by Cynthia Von Buhler

12.   The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum

Alternate #1: Let Me In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Alternate #2: The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Reinhart

(NOTE: Last year’s two alternates, The Mystery of the Sea and Excalibur!, have been moved into the main challenge this year.)

NON-FICTION:

1.       Poisoning for Profit: The Mafia and Toxic Waste in America by Alan A. Block and Frank R. Scarpitti

2.       An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina

3.       Twilight at the World of Tomorrow by James Mauro

4.       Faery Tale: One Woman’s Search for Enchantment in a Modern World by Signe Pike

5.       Something in the Blood: The Untold Tale of Bram Stoker by David J. Skal

6.       Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz

7.       The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo

8.       The Tricky Part: One Boy’s Fall from Trespass into Grace by Martin Moran

9.       Comic Book Implosion: An Oral History of DC Comics Circa 1978 by Keith Dallas and John Wells

10.   Letters to the Pumpkin King by Seanan McGuire

11.   The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier

12.   First Family by Joseph J. Ellis

Alternate #1: Classics on Infinite Earths by Julian Darius

Alternate #2: Hollow Earth by David Standish

(NOTE: In previous years, I’ve given myself a generic “read more non-fiction” challenge; I’m altering that this year to challenge myself to read these specific books.)

365 SHORT STORIES CHALLENGE

Every year, I challenge myself to read one short story per day. Some years I keep the pace pretty well, and some years I fall behind and then scramble to catch up (and some years, I catch up and fall behind again, and some years I blow past the goal handily). I used to post thoughts on each individual story over on my now-largely-defunct LiveJournal; this year I plan to review a story or two in-depth each Sunday and then do a monthly “round-up” of all stories read that month. I’m defining “short story” as anything from flash fiction to novella-length. If a novelette or novella is published as a stand-alone book (eBook or otherwise), that story will also count towards my annual Goodreads “Books Read Challenge.”

GOODREADS CHALLENGE

Goodreads allows members to set a challenge. In 2020, I set a goal of 125 books and read over 150. For 2020, I’m setting the same goal of 125 to start with, and we’ll see what happens. Goodreads counts magazines as “books,” so I count them for this challenge as well. Of course, any book read for the TBR Challenge, or the other challenges mentioned in this post count towards this one.

GRAPHIC NOVEL CHALLENGE

I own far more graphic novels and trade paperback collections of classic comics than I’ve read. In 2017 I started trying to turn that around, and I’m again setting a goal in 2021 of reading one graphic novel per week, so 52 for the year, tracking them in the monthly Reading Round-Up Posts.

NON-FICTION CHALLENGE

As with graphic novels, I tend to get intrigued by and purchase far more non-fiction books than I actually end up reading. In an effort to clear some shelf-space, justify the money spent, and increase my knowledge a bit, I’m setting myself a new challenge this year to read two (2) non-fiction books per month, or 24 for the year, also tracked via the monthly Reading Round-Up posts.

READ THE BOOK / WATCH THE MOVIE CHALLENGE

I have so many books in my collection that are the basis for classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) movies that I thought it would be fun to read some of them and then see how the movies compare. In 2020, I didn’t do so well on this challenge, but I’m game to try again, and of course track them in the monthly Reading Round-Up posts, under the Page-to-Screen feature title and tag.

COMPLETE THE SERIES CHALLENGE

In previous years I’ve challenged myself to come “up to date” on series I’d started but fallen behind on. Last year, I challenged myself to also read one series that I own but have not read. Titles that I have read in each series are indicated with (read). Last year, I completed two out of the four series intended, so I’m repeating two of the challenges from last year and adding three for 2020.  I plan to come back to this post and add “date completed” for each book individually and for each series as a whole. If I complete any other series on my shelves, I’ll come back and add that series to this entry.

THE VELVETEEN SERIES by Seanan McGuire

1.       Velveteen Vs. The Junior Super-Patriots

2.       Velveteen Vs. The Multiverse

3.       Velveteen Vs. The Seasons

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 CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES by Jeff Guinn

1.       The Autobiography of Santa Claus

2.       How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas

3.       The Great Santa Search

THE FRANKENSTEIN NOVELS by Frank Schildiner

1.       The Quest of Frankenstein – read in 2018

2.       The Triumph of Frankenstein

3.       The Spells of Frankenstein

THE SHADOWSHAPER TRILOGY by Daniel José Older

1.       Shadowshaper – read in 2015

2.       Shadowhouse Fall

3.       Shadowshaper Legacy

MONTHLY MINI-CHALLENGES

In 2019 for the first time, I set myself some monthly mini challenges based on various factors. I’m going to do it again in 2021, but list those challenges here as well:

January: No specific challenge (to catch up on stuff I wanted to read in 2020)

February: Authors from Africa or of African descent (for Black History Month)

March: Women Authors (for Women’s History Month)

April: Poetry (for National Poetry Month)

May:  Asian/Pacific Authors (for Asian Pacific / South Asian Heritage Month)

June: Queer Authors (for Pride Month)

July: No specific challenge (to catch up on challenges I’ve fallen behind on)

August: Classic and New Pulp Authors (because Pulpfest/Farmercon is held this month)

September: Hispanic authors (Hispanic Heritage Month)

October: Horror! Horror! Horror! (because Halloween, obviously)

November: Noir (because “Noirvember”)

December: Winter Holiday-related Fiction (Christmas, Hannukah, etc.)

Happy Holidays!

This year’s Christmas poem is a repeat from 2012 because I thought we could all use a laugh:

I’m trying to write a Christmas song,

God, why is this so tough?

I have no musical talent and my rhyming’s kinda rough.

But it shouldn’t be so hard to string some words together,

Say something about Santa and stars or maybe sing about the weather.

(Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow)

I could try to be serious this year, sing about some modern woe

Songs by Bing and Bowie and the Alarm cover that pretty well though.

I could sing about missing Christmas with the someone that I love

But I’m pretty sure another sad song would make you all give me a shove.

(I’ll Be Home for Christmas…)

Maybe I should sing of sleighs! Of reindeer or snowmen or drummer boys!

Or maybe I should scrap this thing and go buy the kids their toys.

I could sing of New Year’s Eve instead, of hopes for where next year will go,

Or of how it’s just another night. Oh wait, that’s been done by Barry Manilow.

(It’s just another New Year’s Eve…)

Where’s the romance of holidays, the falling in love on a sleigh?

Maybe that’s what I should sing about: being merry and gay!

That’s it! I’ll sit up all night long, wait for a cute Santa to come by

Or maybe an Elf (of Legolas’s kind), I’m a geeky kinda guy!

(I’mma be under the Mistletoe with you…)

May you have a rock-and-roll Christmas, or one that’s White or Green or Blue.

May you have Nights Holy and Silent, be it Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice or Yule.

May the Love and Light of the season

Warm you and keep you safe.

Merry Christmas, 

Happy Hannukah,

Joyous New Year!

Top Ten(ish): Christmas Books

Top Ten(ish) is exactly what it sounds like: I list of ten or so of my favorite things that have something in common (books by the same author or editor or publisher; music by the same band/performer, etc.). The (ish) allows me to run slightly higher or lower, because exactly 10 is often hard for me to decide. Note: they’re MY favorites, for a variety of reasons not always having to do with quality alone. I’m not saying they are The Best (in fact, I never make that determination, about anything). Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV). Please, don’t yuck my yum and tell me how I’m completely wrong about anything on this list.

Since it’s the night before Christmas, here’s my Top Ten(ish) Christmas books, in no particular order other than #1:

1.       A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: I sincerely doubt anything will ever knock this novel from the top spot. I have re-read it every year for as long as I can remember, one “Stave” (chapter) per night starting on December 21st so that Scrooge awakens a changed man on the morning of December 25th. I also usually watch at least one movie version and listen to at least one audiobook version sometime during the month of December. It’s probably the first novella I ever read (holiday or not), and you’ll notice quite a few novellas on this list. I am typically not a Dickens fan, but you’d never know that based on how much I love this book.

2.       Homemade Holidays / Faux Ho Ho by ‘Nathan Burgoine: Speaking of novellas. I was never a real big romance reader, until I started reading ‘Nathan Burgoine. Granted, I started with his more paranormal romance Triad series, but I guess that was the gateway drug. Like the Carol, ‘Nathan’s two (so far) gay romance novellas that take place at Christmas time have become annual re-reads. Homemade Holidays is about a span of years in the life of a young gay writer who was disowned by his family and how he builds new traditions, and a new family, around himself, including finding true love. Faux Ho Ho is a classic “fake relationship” story: the gay son of a rich Conservative family pretends his platonic roommate is his boyfriend to get out of traveling home for Thanksgiving, but then the couple gets invited to his sister’s wedding. Sparks fly, but the truth – and love – will out. (I’d also like to mention that ‘Nathan rewrites a classic Christmas tale through a gay lens every year on his website, and this year’s tale is a take on “Jingle Bells” that is really terrific. I can’t wait until he has enough of these to print a collection.) I wrote a review of Handmade Holidays you can find here and can’t believe I haven’t reviewed Faux Ho Ho yet.

3.       State v. Claus by P. Jo Anne Burgh: Sometimes a book just “clicks.” This year, it was State v. Claus, in which Connecticut lawyer Meg Riley finds herself defending a man who claims to be the son of Santa Claus from a home-invasion charge … and finds herself falling in love and learning to believe in the magic of Christmas again. I reviewed it in full earlier this week, but just can’t recommend it enough. Like most of the books on this list, it’s likely to become a frequent, if not annual, reread.

4.       A Wish for Wings That Work / Red Ranger Came Calling by Berke Breathed: Anyone who knows my love of the comic strip Bloom County will not be surprised to see either of these books on the list. A Wish for Wings That Work stars Bloom County’s penguin Opus, wishing he could do what other birds could do. Red Ranger Came Calling is another tale of Christmas magic that doesn’t feature any Bloom County characters but is an endearing tale about, again, the magic of belief.

5.       How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss: I mean … ‘nuff said, amirite?  (Okay … it’s also my favorite Seuss book, the first Christmas book I ever read to my nieces and nephews, and I cannot read it without hearing Boris Karloff in my head.)

6.       A Wish to Be A Christmas Tree by Colleen Monroe (illustrated by Michael Glenn Monroe): A tall, aged pine tree grows in the forest, left behind every year as humans come and pick other trees to cut down and take home. The animals of the forest rally to lift the tree’s spirits and show it that it is loved. A simple, yet surprisingly powerful, picture book about loneliness at the holidays and the power of friendship.

7.       If Dragon’s Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear: Ken Scholes’ novelette looks at a different but still recognizable holiday tradition on a faraway planet, through the eyes of a young woman who has lost her father and lost her hope but who goes through the motions of the holiday traditions because her father would want her to. Along the way, Scholes muses not just on tradition but family expectation, community (the good and less-good aspects) and how hope can be found in the smallest of spaces. I wrote a full review last year around this time.

8.       Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis: There are quite a few Christmas/Winter short story collections and anthologies on my shelf. Most of them I have to admit I’ve re-read a story or two out of every so often, but this Connie Willis collection is the only one I’ve read more than once cover-to-cover. The stories are humorous and touching, the characters relatable and familiar. I can’t even attempt to pick a favorite or two out of the eight in the hardcover edition from 1999 that I have. The book has been re-issued with extra stories under the title A Lot Like Christmas. I really should pick the expanded edition up.

9.       The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas / A Full House by Madeleine L’Engle: If I were to do a Top Ten(ish) Favorite Authors list, L’Engle would be on it. I loved the Wrinkle in Time books, of course, but I loved the Austin Family series just as much. I wanted to be best friends with Vicky Austin and, if we’re being honest, tween and early-teen me absolutely had a crush on her older brother John. While the main Austin books are YA, these two are illustrated Young Reader books. The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas is narrated by seven-year-old Vicky, who is concerned the holiday will be impacted by the arrival of the newest Austin child, while A Full House is narrated by Mama Austin and centers on a homeless pregnant girl who shows up on their doorstep. Both are moving stories about the power of family, of love, and of community.

10.   The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg: I tried not to put too many picture books on this list (I have … well, a bunch), but besides The Grinch, this is the one I go back to pretty often, largely because of the beautiful artwork by Van Allsburg.

11.   The Book of Christmas (Time-Life Enchanted World series): Over the years, I’ve lost or given away most of the lavish hardcover Time-Life Library books I acquired in high school and shortly thereafter. But there are two volumes from Time-Life’s The Enchanted World series that I’ve never parted with. One is The Fall of Camelot (because hi, Arthurian-obsessed writer here) and the other is this one. The book doesn’t just concentrate on the Birth of Christ and various iterations of Santa Claus, but also includes a look at a number of other Winter holidays, carols, and traditions. In fact, a particular page and illustration in this book inspired my second Christmas novella, which will hopefully be out next year.

12.   A Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick: a beautiful photography book about a group of animals encountering a snowy stranger in the woods. Not so much a Christmas story as a tale about winter and the peaceful co-existence of humans and wildlife, it’s every bit as cute as it sounds.

13.   A Family for Christmas by Jay Northcote: It’s ‘Nathan Burgoine’s fault that I’m reading so much gay Christmas romance this year. I read this novella for the first time last year and am re-reading it now amidst a veritable avalanche of other gay romance. Another “fake relationship” story with endearing main characters and a happy ending. I am not well-red in the romance field (as I mentioned), but on the strength of this one, Northcote joined Burgoine as a go-to as I explore the field more, and A Family For Christmas joins Burgoine’s novellas on the frequent reread list.

14.   DC Super-Star Holiday Special, 1980, by various writers and artists: Yes, it’s a comic book, an anthology title including stories with Batman, Jonah Hex, Sgt. Rock, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, and DC’s horror comics hosts of the era. Like the Carol, it’s a book I’ve reread every year since 1980. Still the same copy, with subscription coupons cut out and all. As much as I loved super-hero Christmas stories, you’d think I’d have kept more of them over the years (particularly DC’s tabloid and digest-size Christmas with the Super-Heroes and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer editions, and Marvel’s tabloids as well). I should look into rebuilding that collection. But even if I do, nothing will ever supplant this particular comic in my heart.

Okay, friends: your turn! Hit the comments and tell me what your favorite Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Yule/Ramadan/Solstice/etc. books are – but please do so without denigrating what other people love.

Most of the books mentioned in this post.

a better picture of the DC Holiday Special cover. Smiling Batman! Remember those days?

I may have become slightly obsessed with gay holiday romances, guys.