Welcome back to the Lovecraft Reread! Anne and I have been busy traveling with the Mi-Go going to too many conventions (me) and undergoing obscure and unnatural distortions of the human form  dealing with medical foo undergoing obscure and unnatural distortions of the human form (Anne). I’ve returned this week to report on Providence’s revels celebrating the rightness of the stars. Next week, Anne will join me once more to explore some of the cosmic secrets hinted at during those unholy rites author recommendations from the con.

I like a lot of things about Necronomicon, but one of those things is that it’s among the few cons where I meet at least as many Reread fans as people who enjoy my books. Thank you to all our readers who came up to say hi (and thank you to the vendor of mysterious maps who put up with a sudden burst of Opinions About Stories in front of their table).

My experience of Necronomicon feels somewhat more scattershot this year than last time, partly because Anne wasn’t there to pick up the bits I missed, and partly because I was too tired (see above, Too Many Cons) to make it to all the panels I wanted to check out, or the Carcosan ball, or the art show. No mysterious shoggothy sculptures for me this year, grumble. But I did attend several excellent panels and a strange marionette show, as well as spend a lot of time talking to awesome authors and chicken out of squeeing at John Langan. Sonya Taaffe, a Reread favorite, was the con’s Poet Laureate, which brought me to more poetry-related events than usual, a decision I don’t regret in the slightest. Carcosan sonnets may have been committed (and then hidden in my Patreon where their ability to warp unsuspecting minds can be limited).

Two panels stood out. First, a retrospective on Sonia Greene provided intriguing background not only on Greene’s relationship with Lovecraft, but on her role as an influential member of the amateur press world in her own right. While she wrote stories only sporadically, she was a regular correspondent and funded several publications out of her millenary earnings. I came away with an even stronger impression than before of a marriage founded on mutual geekery, and foundering on—well, on the fact that Sonia Green was a Jewish immigrant and Lovecraft was… himself, unfortunately. Beyond his bigotry, it also seemed clear that gender role expectations also played a part. She had a steady, well-paying career, and loved buying him little trinkets and tokens of affection. And yet, he spends so much of their marriage looking, ineptly, for work that paid better than his writing. If they’d both been okay with her supporting him as a stay-at-home writer… probably it wouldn’t have made much difference, because he was still a bigot. But it might have helped.

I was most fascinated to learn about Greene’s contentious relationship with August Derleth, who apparently did not appreciate her sharing non-hagiographic reminiscences of her ex-ish-husband (he never actually filed the divorce papers) with the public. He rejected her original version of The Private Life of H.P. Lovecraft complete with letters that she later burned. She eventually published the abbreviated version through The Providence Journal; Derleth published his rebuttal. They engaged in an acrimonious exchange in the letter column; one of her letters starts “My dear Mr. Derleth…” and, quoth the panelists, “it goes downhill from there.” Does anyone else feel a Hamilton filk coming on?

Second, the excellent panel on Weird Fiction From the African Diaspora introduced me to a couple new authors and delved into a fascinating discussion of how marginalization and oppression impact what feels like horror. You can’t be shocked, after all, to discover that the universe is indifferent to your survival if you already know. Victor LaValle described this as “a profoundly naïve thing to be afraid of,” and talked about finding the things that are still scary when casual malice and indifferent destruction are everyday facts of life. Teri Zin talked about the use of people of color as the scary thing in too much horror, both directly and out of ignorance or disinterest. “White writers use voodou the way men use pregnancy, as this abstract horror.”

The panel itself unfortunately also illustrated how far Lovecraft fandom itself has to go: several of the panelists had only this one panel and a reading. (Exceptions: Craig Lawrence Gidney was also on a Tanith Lee panel, and Victor LaValle was one of the guests of honor.) Cons, put your marginalized guests on panels that aren’t about their marginalizations. I swear we have other things to talk about. The panel also consisted, I think, of a large percentage, possibly the majority, of the people of color attending the con. Now, I realize that many geeky POC have other fandoms on which they’d prefer to spend their weekends, but there are also definitely POC authors and fans of weird fiction out there in rather more than single digits; the con could do a better job of actively letting folks know that they’re welcome.

It did feel as if the fandom was having a bit of an identity crisis. Several panels turned into extended discussions attempting to define “weird fiction.” This was no surprise at “Welcome to the Weird,” an early-in-the-weekend panel that I was on, but was less expected at “The Future of Weird Fiction” at con’s end, when presumably everyone had figured it out. Or not—clearly this was a topic heavy on people’s minds. For the record, my definition was the practical basket of things we cover in the Reread, including:

• Stories playing directly with Lovecraft’s Mythos.
• More general cosmic horror, dealing with the fear of an uncaring universe where human perceptions don’t reflect the whole of reality.
• Stories that aren’t horror, but still play with the disorientation associated with a universe that violates human perceptions and assumptions.
• Anything scary in the water.

I’m pretty comfortable with this big basket. But in the negative spaces of the repeated request to define terms, I sense a larger conversation about how strongly weird fiction should center Lovecraft himself. Most subgenres acknowledge and respect their founders, but few still keep them so strongly at the core of the conversation. And of course this column is itself an illustration—we haven’t been calling it the Weird Fiction Reread, after all. Maybe it’s Lovecraft’s work not as an author but as a correspondent, keeping people arguing with him in print decades after his death. Or maybe in an impersonal universe, personalization is sometimes irresistible.

Either way, despite the issues, I appreciated the chance to join the larger conversation in person for a few days–and will be back again next time the stars are right.

Next week, Fiona Maeve Geist’s “Red Stars/White Snow/Black Metal” is at the top of the Necronomicon recs list for King-in-Yellowy goodness/wickedness. You can find it in Robert S. Wilson’s Ashes and Entropy anthology.

Ruthanna Emrys is the author of the Innsmouth Legacy series, including Winter Tide and Deep Roots. Her short story collection, Imperfect Commentaries, is now available from Lethe Press. You can find some of her fiction, neo-Lovecraftian and otherwise, on Tor.com, most recently “The Word of Flesh and Soul.” Ruthanna is online on Twitter and Patreon, and offline in a mysterious manor house with her large, chaotic household—mostly mammalian—outside Washington DC.

Anne M. Pillsworth’s short story “The Madonna of the Abattoir” appears on Tor.com. Her young adult Mythos novel, Summoned, is available from Tor Teen along with sequel Fathomless. She lives in Edgewood, a Victorian trolley car suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, uncomfortably near Joseph Curwen’s underground laboratory.

Disney’s upcoming live-action Star Wars TV series could potentially have some elements that we’ve seen before. Entertainment Weekly asked showrunner Jon Favreau if the series could reintroduce characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn or Mara Jade, and his response was an…unexpected! “We do have conversations.”

Shortly after Disney purchased Lucasfilm, it did away with the long-running Expanded Universe canon that encompassed novels, games, and comics — much to the disappointment of some fans, who had (myself included) invested years in the long running stories and characters it generated.

At the end of the day, it was probably the best decision: the SWEU had a lot of high points, but with the good comes the very, very bad. Like Han Solo drugging and kidnapping Leia to prevent her from getting married to someone else. Or Luke falling in love with a long-dead Jedi Knight whose soul was trapped in a Clone Wars-era warship hard drive (And who later took over the body of one of his students). Or the time that a Hutt cartel built a superweapon that looked like a lightsaber called “Darksaber” (and built it with sub-par labor that meant it didn’t work all that well.) Some things are best left on the shelf, and clearing that all out to give filmmakers a clean slate was probably the easiest thing to do.

But that doesn’t mean that Lucasfilm is leaving those ideas, characters, and stories to gather dust on a shelf somewhere. In 2016, Rebels creator Dave Filoni announced at Star Wars Celebration that he was bringing back a major character to the franchise: Grand Admiral Thrawn, the primary villain in Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command. Over the years, other bits and pieces, like random starships, equipment, planets, and story elements have trickled their way into the official canon — Zahn even returned to write a definitive book about the origins of the character.

Indeed, the latest teaser for The Rise of Skywalker hints at a moment that looks uncannily like one that we saw in Zahn’s Dark Force Rising, leading to speculation that the final film could draw some inspiration from the plot. (Rey is a clone of Luke Skywalker? “Reey”, anyone?)

Speaking to EW, Faveau isn’t necessarily ruling out the possibility that we might see other elements of the EU repurposed for The Mandalorian: 

Part of what’s fun to see if we could merge the worlds of the original trilogy, the prequels, the sequels, The Clones Wars, and what’s been considered canon up to this point and what’s been considered part of Legends. I think this show offers an opportunity to bring in all those elements so no matter what your flavor of Star Wars ice cream you like there will be something to enjoy. But you’re asking the right questions.

EW speculates that actress Ming-Na Wen (Agents of SHIELD, Stargate Universe) could play Mara Jade, a familiar character that Star Wars fans would be ecstatic to see join the live-action Star Wars universe — we haven’t seen anything about her character yet. Jade figures most prominently in Zahn’s inciting Thrawn trilogy as an increasingly unwilling Force-wielding antagonist to Luke Skywalker. By the end of the trilogy (The Last Command), Mara is freed from her compulsion to kill Luke (as depicted above by artist Tom Jung) and set loose in the larger Star Wars universe, though her fate is incessantly interwined with Luke. The relationship between the two characters was one of the strongest arcs throughout the run of Star Wars Extended Universe novels, and it was deeply satisfying to see them finally come together in Zahn’s follow-up duology, Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future.

Despite some of its faults, there are a lot of components from the SWEU that could be easily brought back into canon status. There’s Michael A. Stackpole’s X-Wing series, about the adventures of Rogue Squadron, which came with a whole cast of excellent characters, like Corran Horn, Mirax Terrik, Erisi Dlarit, and Tycho Celchu. There’s characters like Admiral Daala (from Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy trilogy, who oversaw some of the Death Star construction — and was Grand Moff Tarkin’s squeeze), Ysanne Isard, the principal, brutal villain in the X-Wing series. If not The Mandalorian, some of these characters or stories would be ideal fodder for standalone projects of their own down the road, or for things like the upcoming Cassian Andor Rogue One prequel show, or the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

But, bringing back old characters isn’t exactly a straightforward thing: many of the elements of the Star Wars EU evolved over time — the works fit together like a puzzle, and in many cases, don’t necessarily stand on their own. In other instances, there’s a lot of history and baggage with the characters — Mara Jade eventually married Luke Skywalker, for example, something we probably wouldn’t see if she’s brought in somehow.

What, if anything will be brought into The Mandalorian? We’ll find out when the series debuts on Disney+ on November 12th.

Hey! Hey, listen! (If you want a chuckle, check out Sanderson’s latest tweet about Legend of Zelda.) Welcome back to the Oathbringer Reread, for an excursion into international politics. Will the coalition come together, or will it disintegrate into squabbling before it ever accomplishes anything? And what does your choice of seating say about you? All this and more as we join Navani in the council chamber at the top of Urithiru.

Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread – if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.

No spoilers from other Cosmere works this week. You’re safe!

Chapter Recap

WHO: Navani

WHERE: Urithiru (Lyn: In the below map, I’ve marked out the various nations represented in the meeting with simple circles to better highlight specifically where everything they’re talking about is, as well as the nations they declare lost to the Voidbringers.)

WHEN: 1174.2.4.1 (Eleven days after Dalinar remembered Evi’s death, three days after hearing that Kholinar has fallen.)

Navani conducts the first meeting of the monarchs of the (potential) coalition against the Voidbringers. There’s a lot of politicking, as well as observations on the various attendees; she finally breaks through the worst of their worries by distributing responsibilities according to strengths, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Beginnings

Title: Pieces of a Fabrial

Heralds

Palah (Paliah). Learned/Giving. Truthwatchers. Role: Scholar

AA: I have to think that the way Navani thinks and studies and directs this meeting is all in the Scholar mentality. She is also learned, a student of human nature… and in this case very giving as well, as she sets aside her own worries for her son so that she can fill in the kind of leadership that Dalinar can’t provide right now.

Icon

Fabrial Gemstone (for a Navani POV)

AA: Woot! It’s a new character icon!! We generally only get these for characters who will have multiple POVs in the book, so we can count on hearing more from Navani. I love that her icon is the gemstone in a fabrial. With her interest in fabrial technology, it’s logical; I also like to pretend that the emphasis on the gemstone rather than the entire fabrial is a reflection of the way she and Dalinar call each other “gemheart”.

Epigraph

Yelig-Nar is said to consume souls, but I can’t find a specific explanation. I’m uncertain this lore is correct.

–From Hessi’s Mythica, page 51

AA: Foreshadowing again, much? Or, I guess, an explanation of what happened to Aesudan. Either way, for all her uncertainty (real or pretend), I believe this is Sanderson telling us what happens when you try to take in Yelig-Nar. If you’re strong-willed enough, you may remain “yourself” longer, but in the end, it consumes not only your body, but your soul as well.

Relationships & Romances

Ever since he’d collapsed after visiting Azir, it seemed that something in Dalinar had snapped. This morning, he had quietly asked her to lead the meeting. She worried, deeply, for what was happening to him. And for Elhokar. And for Kholinar. …

She’d already grieved for a daughter, but then that daughter had returned to her. She had to hope the same for Elhokar—at the very least, so she could keep functioning while Dalinar mourned.

AA: I almost started this with “Poor Navani” – but I don’t think she’d appreciate the sentiment. Yes, Dalinar has almost shut down, and all she’s got is (mostly incorrect) guesses as to why. At the moment she’s telling herself that he’s mourning for his son, nephew, and city—the very things she’s distressed over, naturally.

L: And she’s not entirely wrong, I’m sure that’s a huge weight on his mind as well, just… not the biggest one.

AA: But while she may be frustrated with Dalinar, she seems to be far more focused on making sure their work thus far doesn’t fall apart, no matter what’s going on in his head. Whether it’s a matter of personal ego or the good of the world probably depends on your evaluation of her character, but either way, she is not going to let this slip away.

I do find it disturbing that after two full weeks, Dalinar still hasn’t told her what he remembered. Obviously, he’s got to work through the memory of what exactly he did, what exactly Evi did, and how the truth was twisted afterward, but… why doesn’t he talk to Navani about it? And why doesn’t she ask more questions?

L: I imagine that a big part of him not talking about it is that he’s afraid he’ll lose her if she sees the “true monster” he feels like he is. Currently she sees him much the same way as everyone else does, and taking the chance of someone you love completely changing their outlook towards you is a daunting prospect. As for Navani… if someone’s not willingly opening up about their problems, sometimes the best course of action is to wait until they’re ready to do so rather than forcing a confrontation.

She took his hand in hers, but he stiffened, then stood up. He did that whenever he felt he was growing too relaxed. It was as if he was looking for danger to face.

L: I really love how cognizant of the inner workings of his mind she is. She’s very observant. Even if she doesn’t know what’s going on with him exactly, she recognizes that something’s wrong.

AA: I just wanted to note here, without talking much more about it, how stressful this time is for everyone we care about in Urithiru. Renarin is noted as seeming “terrified that something had happened to his brother,” which is quite reasonable on a personal level, and naturally people are wondering what happened to their king and their Radiants, to say nothing of those they were attempting to rescue. Tension in Urithiru must be high.

L: The worst part of a situation like this is the not knowing. But everyone rallies and continues on, and I have a lot of respect for that.

Bruised & Broken

AA: We don’t get a lot of insight into Dalinar’s condition, other than Navani’s under-informed worry for him, but it’s pretty clear that he’s really struggling to figure out who he really is. There’s the man he thinks he is, or at least that he has grown to be, trying with all his might to keep to the Codes… and then there’s the man he now remembers that he was: the man who would take revenge for a highlord’s ambush by destroying every last one of his people, and the man who, however unintentionally, killed his own wife along with that city full of civilians.

Diagrams & Dastardly Designs

Notably, Ialai Sadeas ignored the requirement that she carry her own chair. … She met Navani’s eyes as she sat, cold and confident.

L: Ialai’s cool as ice here. She’s making her point subtly and very, very clearly—she doesn’t respect Navani’s rules and she doesn’t intend to be constrained by them.

AA: If I liked her better in the first place, I might admire this (at least, under other circumstances). As it is, she’s being deliberately disruptive at a time when literally the whole world is in danger, and that torques me off. You may not agree with the approach being taken, but there are more constructive ways to make suggestions than just being disruptive. (Also, as we see, her ideas stink.)

It seemed so long ago when Ialai and Navani had huddled together at dinners, conspiring on how to stabilize the kingdom their husbands were conquering. Now, Navani wanted to seize the woman and shake her. Can’t you stop being petty for one storming minute?

AA: They made a formidable team, back in the day. Who has changed the most since then? From the glimpses we got in the early flashbacks, I’m guessing that Ialai hasn’t changed all that much, except that she’s gotten better at subtlety when it suits her – and maybe she’s gotten more actively vicious? Navani seems a lot more sympathetic now than she did back then – like she’s matured and gotten over the “mean girl” attitude. I suspect, though, that neither of them has changed much, fundamentally; it’s just that their goals don’t align anymore.

Adrotagia sat with [Taravangian], as did his Surgebinder. She didn’t go join Bridge Four … and, curiously, Navani realized she still thought of the woman as his Surgebinder.

AA: That’s some painful foreshadowing, right there. Malata never does join forces with Our Knights Radiant. I wonder if calling her “Surgebinder” instead of “Radiant” is a subtle hint from Sanderson? Also, I wonder if she stayed away from the rest of them because she felt no kinship at all, or because she didn’t want to risk developing any kinship.

“I will send troops to your aid, Taravangian,” Dalinar said. “But one army can be construed as an invading force, and I am not intending to invade my allies, even in appearance. Can we not mortar this alliance with a show of solidarity?”

L: This is very clever of Dalinar, if a bit transparent. I feel like Navani would have been more subtle in her wording, but perhaps the direct approach was the right one in this particular moment.

AA: If nothing else, the straightforward approach is unexpected in politics, and sometimes gets the desired result just from the shock value!

As always with Taravangian, though, I’m suspicious. Does he already know that the real attack will be in Thaylenah, and he’s attempting to keep Dalinar focused elsewhere? That Diagram of his predicted a lot of events; how much of this did it predict? And how much of his apparent weakness on any given day is real, and how much is pretended for the sake of gaining sympathy? (And also, being underestimated, which is useful to him.)

Squires & Sidekicks

Many [of Bridge Four] had brought simple seats, but the Herdazian had stumbled onto the lift with a chair so grand—inlaid with embroidered blue cloth and silver—it was almost a throne.

AA: Let’s hear it for King Lopen the First of Alethkar! What a goof.

L: Of Alethkar, or of Herdaz? ::wink::

Bridge Four had, characteristically, taken the news of their leader’s potential fall with laughter. Kaladin is tougher than a wind-tossed boulder, Brightness, Teft had told her. He survived Bridge Four, he survived the chasms, and he’ll survive this.

AA: Well, they’re not wrong, though they’re not 100% right either. I have an ongoing expectation that Kaladin will die before the end of Book 5… and now I wonder what will happen to Bridge Four if I’m right.

L: DON’T. YOU. DARE.

… the little Reshi who was currently outeating the huge Horneater bridgeman, almost as if it were a contest.

AA: Heh. It probably is a contest, knowing Lift and the bridgemen! But at least she gets a good meal without needing to burn it all off in Surgebinding, for once.

Places & Peoples

On the day of the first meeting of monarchs at Urithiru, Navani made each person—no matter how important—carry their own chair. The old Alethi tradition symbolized each chief bringing important wisdom to a gathering.

L: I really like this little touch. You can tell—as exemplified in the chapter—a lot about a person and their intent by how they choose to present themselves in the seat they choose to bring. Or don’t choose to bring, in Sebarial’s case…

AA: Sebarial loves to be the exception, doesn’t he?

The only other person of note was Au-Nak, the Natan ambassador. He represented a dead kingdom that had been reduced to a single city-state on the eastern coast of Roshar with a few other cities as protectorates.

L: We haven’t heard a lot about this place yet, right?

AA: Not a lot, no. They aren’t exactly a world power, but they sure would like to gain some influence by claiming ownership of the Oathgate that is, at best, located in lands that once belonged to them.

“Wait,” the Yezier princess said. “Shouldn’t we be concerned about Iri and Rira, who seem to have completely fallen in with the enemy?”

L: This is where Evi was from. I wonder if Dalinar has any thoughts about that during this chapter, considering his state of mind concerning her right now…

AA: I wish we knew more about them as a people. How typical was Evi of the Riran mindset, anyway? Obviously not 100%, or she and her brother wouldn’t have left. How much of their “falling in with the enemy” is just a matter of accepting whatever comes along, vs. any kind of active support? The former seems more likely, to me.

L: They did seem very pacifistic, that’s for sure.

“But Shards…” Fen said.

“Manifestations of spren,” Jasnah explained. “Not fabrial technology. Even the gemstones we discovered, containing words of ancient Radiants during the days when they left Urithiru, were crude—if used in a way we hadn’t yet explored.”

L: It’s pretty cool to realize that the technological advancements of the current “age” are actually quite more advanced than those in the times of the Radiants!

AA: I know, right? We’ve been getting hints about this, and I love that Jasnah is sorting them out. The “ancient technology” that they thought was so advanced seems to consist mostly of Shardblades, Shardplate, and Soulcasters; I keep expecting to learn that the Soulcaster fabrials are similar to the Blades and Plate. Even the hinted wonders of Urithiru are beginning to look more like the active involvement of the Sibling and other spren, rather than human invention.

L: Well, when you have magic, what need is there for technological advancement? For example, if we had the power to fly, there would have been no need to invent airplanes.

“We should be addressing where to invade to gain the best position for an extended war.”

[…]

With one targeted arrow, Ialai Sadeas proved what everyone whispered—that the Alethi were building a coalition to conquer the world, not just protect it.

L: Bloody Ialai. I know she’s pissed off about Sadeas dying and all, but sabotaging this is just… stupid. This is YOUR survival too, here, lady.

AA: So infuriating.

Tight Butts and Coconuts

Well, at least [Sebarial and Palona] hadn’t shown up bearing massage tables.

L: Probably would have made this tense meeting more relaxing, though.

Sebarial choked softly…. He’d wanted that job.

That will teach you to show up late to my meeting and make only wisecracks.

AA: Heh. He’d probably do a decent job of overseeing trade (and getting a good profit from it, naturally), but it’s a lot more useful to have Fen in charge of that. She’s got the entire infrastructure to do it, and it gives her ownership. But I have to admit … even if it weren’t politically advantageous, just watching Sebarial’s reaction would have been worth this gambit!

“By every Kadasix that has ever been holy!”

AA: I like that one… and the variation across cultures of what people swear by.

Weighty Words

“I understand your concern, but surely you have read our reports of the oaths these Radiants follow. Protection. Remembering the fallen. Those oaths are proof that our cause is just, our Radiants trustworthy. The powers are in safe hands, Your Majesty.”

L: I mostly agree with her, but I’m still on the fence about most of the Skybreakers, and Taravangian’s Radiant. It seems as though the way you interpret them is still of vast importance, and let’s face it—it’s pretty rare that people think that their actions are evil. Taravangian’s a prime example of this.

AA: She’s extrapolating from the few she knows and trusts, as are we. I’m afraid that from here on out, “Radiants” as a group are not going to be the Trusty Heroes we were expecting them to be. Individuals will still be trustworthy—or not—but the spren seem to have changed their selection criteria, and we can’t count on them choosing people who are on the same side any more.

Next week we’ll be rejoining Kaladin and company as they seek out passage across Shadesmar in chapter Ninety-Seven.

Alice is delighted to report that her favorite volleyball team (her daughter’s high school team) won their first match, 3-1, in tense and high-scoring sets. Aren’t y’all thrilled to know that? Yeah… we’ll try to keep the v-ball chatter to a minimum, at least until post-season excitement ramps up.

Lyndsey is hard at work bringing law and order to the Connecticut Renaissance Faire as Constable Affable, along with her trusty dog, Deputee Bork. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or Instagram.

Jin Yong’s A Hero Born is a fantastical generational saga and kung fu epic, filled with an extraordinary cast of characters. This Chinese classic—coming to the U.S. for the first time on September 17th as translated by Anna Holmwood for St. Martin’s Press—is a tale of fantasy and wonder, love and passion, treachery and war, betrayal and brotherhood.

Want to start reading now? Tor.com is serializing selections from A Hero Born—you can find all the previous chapters here! And check back every morning this week for another installment of the third episode: “Swirling Sands”.

CHAPTER TWO
“Swirling Sands”

4

Guo Jing waited until darkness had fallen and the soldiers charged with clearing the battlefield had left, before emerging from his bush and starting back.

It was well past midnight by the time he arrived home, where Lily Li had been waiting with ever increasing alarm. Guo Jing was met by a relieved mother’s arms. He described to her all he had seen. Lily Li listened to her son’s stammering, clumsy account, and was reminded of her late husband—his twitching caterpillar eyebrows, his fascination with battle—and it felt like the thrust of a blade to her heart.

A few days later, Lily Li left for the nearest market, some thirty li hence, with two wool blankets. Guo Jing, meanwhile, took the sheep out to pasture as usual. Out in the grassland, his mind galloped back to the fight. He spurred his horse, raised his whip and shouted, herding his flock, imagining himself to be a general leading his men.

Just then the beating of hooves could be heard in the east. A horse was approaching. At first it appeared to be riderless, but Guo Jing realized as it drew close that its master was resting his head on the mane. It stopped and the rider looked up.

It was the black general from the battle, his face soiled with blood and dirt. In his left hand he held what remained of his saber, not more than a hilt—it, too, covered in blood. This was his only weapon. His left cheek had been slashed, with blood pouring from the wound, as had his horse’s legs. The man shuddered, locking his bloodshot eyes on Guo Jing.

“Water… Some water please?” the man managed to gasp.

Guo Jing ran the short distance back home and emerged with a bowl of water. The man grabbed it and drank it all down at once. “Another bowl!”

Guo Jing fetched another. Blood turned the water red as he drank. The man laughed, then his face twitched and he fell from his horse.

Guo Jing did not know what to do. But before long the man regained consciousness. “Some water for my horse. And how about something to eat?” he said.

Guo Jing reemerged with some chunks of cooked lamb and more water.

Food seemed to energize the man, and once finished he struggled to his feet. “Thank you, brother!” He then slipped a thick gold bracelet from his wrist and handed it to Guo Jing. “Here—for you.”

Guo Jing shook his head. “Mother says you should never expect anything in return for common kindness.”

“You’re a good boy!” the man said, replacing the bracelet. He then tore a section from his sleeve and began bandaging the horse’s wounds as well as his own.

Then, from the east, came the sound of more horses.

“Won’t they let me go?” the man growled.

Buy it Now

On the horizon, rolling waves of dust were already visible. They were coming this way.

“Boy, do you keep a bow and arrows in the house?”

“Yes!” Guo Jing replied, and ran back inside.

The man was visibly relieved, but relief quickly turned to disappointment when he saw Guo Jing reappear with the small bow and arrow he used for playing. “I meant the kind for fighting—a big one!”

Guo Jing shook his head.

The riders were getting closer, their banners now visible in the distance. The black general realized he would not be able to outrun them on an injured horse.

“I can’t fight them by myself, so I’m going to hide,” he said to Guo Jing. But there was nowhere suitable in or around the small thatched cottage. He was desperate. The only place he could think of was the large pile of drying hay nearby.

“I’m going to hide in there,” he said, pointing. “Chase my horse away as far as you can. Then find somewhere to hide and don’t let them see you.” With that, he scrambled into the haystack.

Guo Jing whipped the man’s horse and it cantered far into the distance before stopping to munch on some fresh grass. Guo Jing mounted his colt and took off in the opposite direction.

The riders had spotted people ahead, and sent two men on before them. They soon caught up.

“Boy, have you seen a man on a black horse come past this way?”

Guo Jing was no good at lying, so he did not answer. The men asked again, and again, but still the boy refused to speak.

“Let’s take him to see the Prince,” one of the men suggested. They took hold of Guo Jing’s reins and rode with him back to the cottage.

I won’t tell them anything, Guo Jing decided as they approached his home.

There stood a tall, thin man draped in a red cape, encircled by a crowd of soldiers. Guo Jing recognized the man: he had taken part in the battle on the hill only two days before.

“What did the boy say?” the Prince barked.

“He’s frightened and won’t speak.”

The Prince cast his eyes around him until they fell upon a black horse grazing in the distance. “Is that his horse? Bring it here,” he said.

Ten soldiers split into pairs, surrounded the horse and led it back.

“This is Jebe’s horse, is it not?”

“Yes, sir!”

The Prince approached Guo Jing and struck him lightly across the head with his whip. “Where is he? Tell me. You can’t fool me.”

Jebe gripped his broken saber even tighter, his heart thudding. He knew this was Temujin’s eldest son, Jochi, famed for his brutality. The boy was going to give him away; he had to be prepared to fight.

Guo Jing was in pain but fought back his tears. “Why did you hit me?” he asked, holding his head high. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“You’re a stubborn boy,” Jochi growled as he whipped Guo Jing once more. This time tears gathered in Guo Jing’s eyes.

Jochi’s soldiers had been searching the house, and two men even poked at the haystack with their spears, but as luck would have it, they did not hit Jebe.

“He can’t have got far without his horse. Boy, are you going to tell me where he is?” Jochi struck Guo Jing across the head three more times, each time a little harder. Guo Jing made a vain attempt to grab the Prince’s whip.

Then came the sound of horns in the distance.

“The Great Khan is coming!”

Jochi lowered his whip. The soldiers rushed to gather around the Khan as he stopped in front of them. “Father!”

Temujin’s injuries were grave. The Khan had summoned his last reserves of energy to fight out the battle, but fainted several times after Jebe fled. His general Jelme and third son Ogedai took turns sucking the blood clots from his wounds, and together his four sons and best generals waited by his bed through the night until he was out of danger. Early the next morning, the Khan’s men rode in search of Jebe, swearing they would catch and quarter him. One small group found him around dawn that morning and a fight ensued, but the black general had prevailed.

“Father, we found his horse!” Jochi announced, pointing it out for the Khan.

“The horse is no good to me. I want the man!” Temujin replied.

“Of course, Father, we’ll find him,” Jochi said. He went back to Guo Jing, unsheathed his saber and swung it menacingly above the boy’s head. “Well? Are you going to tell me now?”

The earlier beating had emboldened the boy. “No!”

Temujin noted the boy did not claim ignorance. “Trick it out of him,” Temujin whispered to his third son.

Ogedai approached Guo Jing with a smile and plucked two resplendent peacock feathers from his helmet. “These are yours if you tell me.”

“No!” Guo Jing insisted.

“Release the dogs!” An order from Temujin’s second son, Chagatai. The soldiers brought forth six of Chagatai’s beloved mastiffs, led them to where Jebe’s horse was grazing to catch his scent, and then let them loose. They ran straight for the cottage and out again, roaring and barking.

Guo Jing was no friend to Jebe, but he had admired the general’s bravery on the battlefield, and Jochi’s whipping had only strengthened his resolve. Guo Jing whistled to his sheepdog. Chagatai’s mastiffs were circling in on the haystack, but Guo Jing commanded his dog to block them. Chagatai shouted and the mastiffs pounced. Howls, barks, teeth clashing. Though outnumbered, Guo Jing’s sheepdog fought back bravely, but within moments he was covered in large gashes. Guo Jing cheered between his tears.

Temujin, Ogedai and the rest of their men knew Jebe must be in the haystack, but as there was no escape for the black general they decided to enjoy the dogfight first.

But Jochi could not wait and took his whip to Guo Jing. The boy rolled on the grass in pain, close to where Jochi was standing. Then suddenly he jumped up and grabbed hold of Jochi’s right leg. Jochi tried to shake him off, but Guo Jing was surprisingly strong. Jochi’s brothers started laughing and even the Great Khan had to hide a smile. Jochi’s cheeks flashed scarlet. He pulled out his saber and swung at Guo Jing’s head. Just as the blade was about to slice the boy’s head clean from his neck, out from the haystack popped a broken saber to block his swing. Jochi felt his fingers shake and he nearly dropped his weapon.

Jebe scrambled out from under the hay and pulled Guo Jing behind him. “Taken to bullying children now? Have you no shame?”

The soldiers surrounded Jebe, spears at the ready. He had nowhere to go. Jebe threw down his broken saber. Jochi made to punch Jebe in the chest.

“Go on, kill me!” the black general shouted back, instead of defending himself. “Shame I won’t be granted the honor of dying at the hands of a true hero.”

“What did you say?” Temujin cried.

“Were I to die on the battlefield, defeated by a hero, I would have no regrets. But today an eagle has fallen and is about to be eaten by ants.”

Jebe then howled. Chagatai’s hunting dogs had pinned Guo Jing’s sheepdog to the ground and were chomping and snarling at it, but Jebe’s call stopped them, and they retreated, tails between their legs.

“Great Khan, such arrogance is not to be tolerated,” one of Temujin’s men cried, stepping out from the crowd. “Let me fight him!”

“Fine! You show him,” Temujin replied. It was one of his best generals, Bogurchi. “If there’s one thing we have plenty of, it’s heroes.”

“I’ll kill you. So you may die with no regrets,” Bogurchi cried, as he stepped forward.

“And who are you?” Jebe replied, eyeing the sturdy man opposing him.

“My name is Bogurchi! Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

Jebe felt a shiver go through him. So this is the famous Bogurchi? Jebe said to himself. His fame precedes him; he is a hero among the Mongols. But he rolled his eyes and snorted, feigning indifference.

“You are named for your great skills with the bow and arrow,” Temujin said to Jebe. “Why not see who is more skilled: you, or my sworn brother here?”

“You are a sworn brother to the Great Khan?” Jebe turned to Bogurchi. “In that case, I’ll take pleasure in killing you first.”

The Mongol soldiers burst into laughter. Bogurchi’s unparalleled fighting skills had made him famous across the steppe. Jebe may well be a talented archer, but was he a match for the great Bogurchi?

As a boy, Temujin had been taken prisoner by his father’s former allies, the Tayichi’ud, and taken to the banks of the Onon River, where they thrust his head through the flat wooden panel of a cangue. There they drank, and lashed him with their whips. Temujin waited until his captors were incapacitated with drink before knocking the guard over the head with the cangue, still locked around his neck, and escaping into the forest.

The Tayichi’uds called a search across the steppe. A young man by the name of Tchila’un took pity on Temujin, and, risking the wrath of the Tayichi’ud, broke the cangue from Temujin’s neck, burned it, and sheltered the fugitive in a cart of fleeces. Presently the Tayichi’ud men came and searched Tchila’un’s home. The men spotted the cart and began removing the fleeces, one layer at a time. Just as they were about to uncover the future Khan, Tchila’un’s father interrupted the soldiers.

“The weather is so hot, how could he be hiding in the fleeces? He would be dead by now.”

The summer solstice was upon them, and sweat poured from their bodies like storm rains. The old man spoke sense, so the soldiers left.

Temujin had fled home, and now, along with his mother and younger brother, was forced to keep moving across the steppe, surviving on wild rats and his horsemanship to keep them ahead of their pursuers.

One day, eight of Temujin’s white horses were stolen by a rival tribe. Temujin was giving chase when he encountered a young man, milking his horse. Had he seen where the thieves had fled? This was Bogurchi. “We both know the hardships a man faces in these grasslands. Let us be friends,” he said.

They rode together for three days before at last catching up with the thieves. They fought side by side. Their arrows slayed hundreds of men, and together they recovered the horses. Temujin offered to give Bogurchi four, but Bogurchi refused. “This I did for friendship, nothing more.”

In one another they found a bond deeper than any other.

Temujin now gave his bow to Bogurchi and jumped down from his steed. “Ride my horse, use my bow and arrows. It will be as if I killed him myself.”

“As you command.” Bogurchi took the bow in his left hand, the arrows in his right, and jumped up onto Temujin’s beloved white horse.

“Give your horse to Jebe,” Temujin said to Ogedai.

“He is most fortunate indeed,” Ogedai said, dismounting. One of the bodyguards led the horse to Jebe.

“I am surrounded,” Jebe said to Temujin, once seated on Ogedai’s horse. “You could have killed me easier than a sheep. I dare not ask for more favors. Just give me a bow—no arrows are necessary.”

“No arrows?” Bogurchi said.

“That’s right. I can kill you with just a bow.”

Again the Mongolian soldiers guffawed.

“How he boasts!”

“What a braggart!”

Temujin ordered them to give Jebe one of their best bows.

Bogurchi knew Jebe’s shot was precise. But to fight without arrows? Bogurchi realized Jebe must be planning to send his arrows back at him. He squeezed his thighs and Temujin’s horse sprang forward.

Jebe pulled on his reins. Bogurchi nocked an arrow, pulled back and shot. Jebe reached out. The arrow was in his hand.

Impressive, Bogurchi said to himself.

Another arrow.

Jebe listened as it cut through the air. This one he couldn’t catch. He pressed his body flat against the horse’s back. The arrow passed above, ruffling the hairs on his head. He spurred, turned his horse, hauled himself upright. But Bogurchi fed his bow quickly, and two more arrows came whistling toward him. He slipped down from his saddle, his right foot still hooked into the stirrup, and held himself inches from the ground slipping by below. There he fluttered at the horse’s feet, like a trapped kite. He turned, loaded the arrow he had caught, fired it, and flipped back into the saddle.

“Amazing,” Bogurchi breathed. He shot at the approaching arrow. The arrowheads clashed, twisted and sank into the sand. Cheers rose from Temujin and his men.

Bogurchi nocked an arrow, aimed left, waited for Jebe to react, and shot right. Jebe knocked the arrow away with his bow into the dirt. Bogurchi fired three more arrows in a rapid flurry, all of which Jebe dodged with ease. Jebe spurred his horse, leaned down, picked three arrows from the dirt, bent his bow and shot.

Bogurchi leaped up and stood on his saddle in an extravagant display. Balancing on his left foot, he kicked the flying arrows away with his right, before pulling back his bow with all his power and letting fly. Jebe jerked to one side and shot an arrow at Bogurchi’s, splitting it along the shaft.

Bogurchi was growing uneasy and increasingly impatient. He fired a blur of arrows. Unable to catch so many in succession, Jebe contrived to avoid them. But still the arrows kept coming, thick and fast, until he was struck in the left shoulder. The crowd cheered.

Smiling, Bogurchi reached for another arrow, intending to kill Jebe. His hand felt into his quiver’s deepest corners. There were none left. He always took sufficient supplies with him into battle: two quivers around his waist and six on the horse. But he was not using his own mount now; he was riding the Khan’s. He pulled the horse round, stooped, and swept at the moving grass.

Jebe knew this was his chance, and fired an arrow square into Bogurchi’s back. A gasp rose from the crowd. It was a painful blow, but despite the force of the shot, the arrow failed to penetrate Bogurchi’s clothing and fell to the ground. Bogurchi reached down and inspected the arrow. Jebe had removed the arrowhead.

“I avenge the Great Khan! You needn’t show me any mercy!” Bogurchi cried, sitting back in the saddle.

“Jebe shows no mercy to his enemies. I have killed you, in all but deed.”

Temujin had been watching in distress, but his fears were allayed when he realized Bogurchi was unhurt. He would have exchanged ten thousand sheep, oxen, and horses to keep his best general and friend from being killed. “Enough!” Temujin called. “You have proven your prowess. We no longer seek vengeance upon you.”

“I am not asking the Khan to spare my life.”

“Then what do you want?”

“It is him I wish to be spared!” Jebe answered, pointing at Guo Jing standing by the door. “All I ask is that the Khan troubles the child no more. As for myself,” he continued, “I wounded the Khan and deserve punishment. Come, Bogurchi!” He pulled the arrow from his shoulder and loaded his bow, the blood still dripping from the tip.

“Fine! Let’s fight!”

A deluge of arrows rushed from Bogurchi’s bow, forming a chain through the air.

Jebe hooked his foot through the stirrup, tucked himself under his horse’s belly, and aimed. Bogurchi’s white colt pulled left without his master’s command, but Jebe had been swift, and the arrow hit the horse in the forehead, bringing it crashing to the ground.

Bogurchi fired as he rolled, splitting the bow in Jebe’s hand. Jebe cursed, and steered his horse away from Bogurchi’s arrows. Cheers rose from the spectators.

He’s an impressive archer, Bogurchi had to admit. He bent his bow, aimed at Jebe’s back and let go.

The arrow hit Jebe in the back of the head. Jebe convulsed and fell from his horse, the arrow landing in the grass beside him. But Bogurchi too had removed the arrowhead. He loaded another arrow and held it aimed at Jebe. “Great Khan!” he cried, turning to Temujin. “Have mercy and let him go!”

“Will you not surrender?” Temujin responded.

Jebe’s stubborn defiance was overcome. He ran over to Temujin and knelt at his feet.

Temujin smiled. “From this day forward, you fight with me!”

Mongolians often turn to song to express their feelings. Kneeling before the Khan, Jebe began to sing:

“The Great Khan is merciful, as befits his name,
Which I will repay with my protection,
With contempt of fire and water,
And rebel against dark seas and rupturing cliffs.
Take our enemies, gouge out their hearts!
I will go wherever I am needed.
For the Khan I am always willing,
Ten thousand miles by sun or moon!”

Temujin produced two gold ingots and gave one each to Bogurchi and Jebe.

“Great Khan, may I give this to the boy?”

“You may do with your gold as you please,” Temujin replied.

Jebe approached Guo Jing and held out the ingot, but Guo Jing shook his head: “Mother says you should never expect anything in return for common kindness.”

Temujin admired the boy’s bravery, but liked him even more after hearing this. “What an impressive young man!” Then, turning to Jebe: “Bring him to me later.” He then left, instructing a squad to mount the dead horse on the backs of two others, and to follow behind.

Jebe was exhausted, but pleased with the outcome. He lay in the grass to rest and wait for the boy’s mother to return.

“You’re a good boy, you did the right thing,” Lily Li said to Guo Jing after Jebe told her of her son’s fearless conduct, even if the wounds on his face did trouble her. But how would the boy avenge his father’s death if he remained a shepherd his whole life? No, it would be better to let him train with the Great Khan’s men. So mother and son agreed to go with Jebe, and join Temujin’s tribe.

Jebe was put in command of a team of ten under Temujin’s third son, Ogedai. Jebe and Bogurchi held each other in great esteem, and became loyal friends. Nor did Jebe forget his debt to Guo Jing. He took good care of mother and son, and decided he would teach Guo Jing all his skills with the bow and arrow, as soon as the boy was old enough.

Part 5 of “Swirling Sands” arrives on September 13th!

Excerpted from A Hero Born, copyright © 2019 by Jin Yong.

It’s called Star Wars. Not Star Trek, not Star Peace, not Star Friends, not even Star Tales. This gargantuan fictional universe is labeled with a title that guarantees the ability to travel space… and near-constant warfare.

We can debate the relative okay-ness of this focus from a moral standpoint, sure. But in reality, I think that Star Wars is accidentally teaching us the greatest lesson of all: It’s depicting what a universe looks like when you dedicate all of your research and technological advancements to war and destruction, and unwittingly showing us what an incredibly dark place that universe is. Because the Star Wars universe is a fun fictional playground for sure, a great place to build weird and wonderful stories… but it’s not a good place. Not by a longshot.

If there’s one thing that the Star Wars universe is super into, it’s creating bigger, louder, faster ways to kill people. The Jedi’s lightsabers are far more effective than any plain sword—a laser beam blade means that cutting off an opponents limbs or slicing them in half takes practically no pressure or force (teehee) on behalf of the person wielding the weapon. They never get dulled or dirty, and they can also deflect blaster bolts, which can be ricocheted back at the person firing them. Blasters carry power packs that move well beyond extended magazine territory. Many of the more common ships come equipped with weapons, and when they don’t, it’s often incredibly easy to modify them for that purpose. (Part of the reason people were so fond of YT-1300 freighters like the Millennium Falcon was because they were so easy to alter and customize, as Han and Lando would both attest.) And if something handheld or ship-sized won’t do, that’s fine, there are moon-sized ships with lasers that can blow up whole planets! Planets with lasers that can blow up whole star systems! Because we need that, obviously! Death droids and armed starfighters and space bombs are definitely not enough.

Let’s kill a star system! This is a thing that someone should be able to do! (Screenshot: Lucasfilm)

Someone might take this opportunity to point out that there’s plenty of other fascinating technology in the Star Wars universe. But this is where the point of the argument comes clearer than ever—because all technology in the galaxy that’s not created to either perpetuate or facilitate battle is garbage.

Allow me to explain.

In the Star Wars Universe, technology designed for war is highly valuable, and usually of higher quality than the ad hoc, poorly devised, and in some cases actively derided tech available for other purposes. Nowhere is this more clear than with everyone’s favorite duo of the series: C-3PO and R2-D2. Threepio is a marvel when you consider all that he can do, but his expertise is geared toward communication and diplomacy as a protocol droid. The fact that Threepio makes it possible to land virtually anywhere in the galaxy and communicate (as he does with the Ewoks when the Rebels get caught on Endor’s moon) should be a cause for constant praise. Instead, Threepio is treated like an annoying hindrance no matter where he tries to make himself useful. But Artoo—along with other various astromechs from the R3s all the way up to the more current BB models—is beloved by everyone. He’s the handiest tin can on this side of the multiverse. Unsurprisingly, astromechs are created largely for the purpose of enacting repairs on various ships and copiloting starfighters. Starfighters. You know. Tiny war ships.

The reason why Artoo and Beebee are so handy is because they were created for the purpose of helping pilots maintain their ships, even while under attack; we see Artoo do this constantly, from his run with Luke on the first Death Star to saving Padmé and her cadre from the Trade Federation blockade when they flee Naboo, clinging to the hull of her ship while it’s in space flight. Their droids brains are capable of intense problem-solving that most other droids don’t ever get the opportunity to experience. Given that, it’s hardly surprising that Lando’s buddy L3-37 started her life out as an R3 unit, later adding components from other droid brains into her own programming along with her own custom code. Droids that do work on the battlefield do have variable intelligence, but that’s down to purpose—the battledroids that the Separatist armies use are likely deliberately dim, making it easy to order them to die.

Mandalorian combat armor, aka the coolest thing fandom ever got their hands on. (Screenshot: Lucasfilm / Disney XD)

Then there’s the armor and arms issue, or more specifically the fact that everything distinct about the Star Wars galaxy is often represented by those two categories. The Mandalorian people (who have been featured heavily in The Clone Wars and Rebels series) have an incredible planet and rich culture known the galaxy over. But the real reason why they’re known best? Their iconic beskar armor. Said armor is not only unbelievably durable, it’s also often kitted out with a ridiculous array of weaponry, including wrist lasers, flamethrowers, rockets, jetpacks, grappling lines, blades, and more. The armor is so much a part of Mandalorian identity that when Duchess Satine Kryze turns Mandalore onto a more pacifistic road during the Clone Wars, the backlash she faces from various corners is nearly constant. Eventually, the Duchess is murdered by Darth Maul, and her pacifist message seems to die out with her; we can see by the time of the Rebel Alliance that Mandalore has largely retained its warrior ways, and Mandalorian combat armor is every bit as essential to their way of life as it ever was.

This is true for the majority of the galaxy—peoples and groups are known for their armaments above all things. We know the Mandalorians by their combat armor; the Jedi by their lightsabers; the Sith by their often red lightsabers. The Sand People of Tatooine have the gaderffii (or gaffi stick); the Wookiees have the bowcaster; the Gungans have distinct plasma weapons; even the Naboo, who pride themselves on artful design, use that design sense to create beautiful weapons, from Padmé’s small silver blaster to their sleek, canary yellow starfighters.

On top of all this, technology with seemingly benign programming is often fitted with some form of destructive capacity. In Star Wars: Resistance we find a droid named 4D-M1N, who performs many day-to-day administrative tasks for Captain Doza, and also occasionally acts as a guardian to his daughter, Torra. When there is an unannounced guest in Torra’s room, Fourdee activates into what Torra calls “attack mode”, and it takes a great deal of wheedling and finally a stern order from Torra to get her to power down. Remember, Fourdee is primarily a droid who works as an assistant, but she still had to be outfitted with defense systems and knowledge of how to fend off intruders. She’s part executive aide, part security guard—because in the Star Wars universe, even if it has a very clear noncombat function, if it doesn’t also have lethal capacity, then what is it even for?

Can take care of your puppy! Also KILL YOU. (Screenshot: Lucasfilm / Disney XD)

Which brings us to the other side of this issue: Most technologies in the Star Wars universe that don’t have some capability of being used in war… well, they kinda just suck.

There are so many areas where it seems like average Star Wars tech should outdo itself given how advanced the military-grade technology is, but in practice it doesn’t appear to make much difference at all. Repair droids who aren’t astromechs—like the pit droid crews used in podracing—have nowhere near the sophistication of their battle-ready cousins. Communication devices like comlinks are often handheld for no good reason. (Armor helmets have built-in comms, it can’t be that hard, y’all.) There’s also the issue of the Death Star’s “stolen data tapes” (tapes, for Life Day’s sake), the plans that are so key to the Rebellion’s success. Which are somehow being kept at a facility where important Imperial schematics and documents are on record in a library tower that must be manually accessed by a claw machine, housed on a tape that looks like it would fit happily into a VCR.

And then there’s the pointed lack of adequate women’s healthcare that arguably causes the rise of the Empire single-handedly—after all, Padmé’s death in childbirth doesn’t seem like it should be a common occurrence in a universe where cybernetic limbs (and cloning!) are readily available. But it’s fine, because there’s a droid babbling nonsense soothing sounds at her while it scoops up her newborn babies and she lies there sobbing. This is something out of a sad historical drama, but it’s happening in a fictional universe full of FTL travel and laser guns. We can cite the period of time when Star Wars was created all we want, but in order to find an “in universe” explanation for these ridiculous affectations, we have to assume that people are actively refusing to create the systems needed to make the galaxy run more smoothly because they have no incentive to do so. The money is in finding ways to blow stuff up and (maybe) surviving being blown up yourself.

So nothing is stopping this train, huh? We just… this is just how we die. Cool. (Screenshot: Lucasfilm)

Even life-saving software doesn’t seem high on anyone’s lists. On both the Death Star and the Colossus platform in Resistance, people enter areas where trash is disposed—one of them a compactor, the other an incinerator—and find themselves nearly murdered by the apparatuses when they activate. This means that these trash disposers, which have entrance points to permit living beings in and out of them, have no software for the purpose of detecting certain types of life and powering down on detecting that presence. It would seem the most obvious type of software to have in area so casually dangerous…and yet there’s nothing whatsoever. The same goes for the big ol’ door in Jabba’s rancor pit—the idea that Luke Skywalker can just hit the control panel with the rock and a giant metal slab comes right down on the creature’s neck tells you a whole lot about a galaxy where sliding automatic doors are everywhere. This brand of negligence seems intolerable, the sort of oversight that high-powered executives would lose their jobs over, but no one is ever surprised when these things happen.

We know why they’re not surprised. It’s because these things are commonplace. Because you can expect to find hundreds of items to help you kill someone for the price of a couple lunches, but you can’t trust a door not to behead you.

In fiction, we can laugh about these little exploits and call them “adventures,” but in reality the Star Wars universe is a place where the only thought, care, and money available is poured into warfare and death. And it makes the galaxy an unforgiving and perilous place, where many people are struggling to eat, breathe and survive. It may be cool to look at, but it’s not the sort of environment anyone should be striving for—in fact, this lived-in landscape is something that we should be avoiding at all cost. While we may all want our own lightsabers on any given day of the week, Star Wars itself is a cautionary tale.

Originally published in December 2018.

Emily Asher-Perrin just wants more droid friends. You can bug him on Twitter, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.

Prepare yourselves! HBO has announced the premiere date for its upcoming His Dark Materials series. The adaptation of Philip Pullman’s epic YA fantasy trilogy will hit the cable channel on November 4.

It’s time. #HisDarkMaterials premieres November 4 on @HBO. pic.twitter.com/XvtoCBDZ5h

— His Dark Materials (@daemonsanddust) September 12, 2019

For those in the UK, it will arrive on BBC One and BBC iPlayer one day earlier, on November 3:

This autumn, one girl will change worlds.#HisDarkMaterials, coming to @BBCOne & @BBCiPlayer on Sunday 3rd November. pic.twitter.com/Xi5myt5FdH

— BBC One (@BBCOne) September 12, 2019

Here’s the show’s official synopsis, from HBO:

Based on author Philip Pullman’s beloved trilogy, His Dark Materials follows Lyra, a brave young woman from another world. Lyra’s quest to find her kidnapped friend leads her to uncover a sinister plot of a secret organization, encounter extraordinary beings and protect dangerous secrets.

His Dark Materials will have 16 episodes in its first season, and stars Dafne Keen as Lyra Belacqua, Ruth Wilson as Mrs. Coulter, James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby.

What’s more awesome than a book signed by the author? We’ll tell you what: a book signed by 216 (and counting!) authors, none of whom are the original author, with doodles and “plenty of snarky comments“…all for a good cause.

The book in question is Nicholas Eames’ Kings of the Wyld, and the 216 literary vandals now boast George R. R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, R.F. Kuang, Joe Abercrombie, Sarah Gailey, Anna Smith Spark, Joe Hill, and William Gibson among their ranks. As for the good cause, it’s none other than Patrick Rothfuss’ Worldbuilders charity, which raises money for charities that “might otherwise get overlooked by the geek community” with prizes, fundraisers, parties, and more.

Here’s how this veritable cornucopia of big fantasy names came to be, according to a Reddit post by author Dyrk Ashton, who’s taken charge of Project #KINGSGONEWYLD (coined by author T.L. Greylock):

This all started out as a joke when Nick said he couldn’t make it to ConFusion in Detroit in January and we threatened to sign his books for him. And everybody signed it. Six cons, a Super Relaxed Fantasy Club meet-up, a few author get-togethers, and 216 signatures later, we have this madness :D

#KINGSGONEWYLD will be gathering even more signatures until November, when the book will be put up for raffle, with all proceeds going to Worldbuilders. Head on over to Ashton’s website for a full list of author signatures, as well as sneak peeks of the “vandalized” pages.

In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.

Noted science fiction author and critic Theodore Sturgeon famously professed that “ninety percent of everything is crap.” But even if that is true, there are some places where that non-crap, excellent ten percent is concentrated—and one of those places has always been The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, or F&SF, as it is often abbreviated. And when the best of the first 20 years of that magazine was distilled down into 20 stories in a single anthology, the result was some pretty potent stuff—potent enough to have a truly profound effect on the reader.

My reading habits were largely formed by the books and magazines that my dad collected in our basement. There were two magazines he followed during my youth: Analog and Galaxy. Analog had a very strong house style, guided by the heavy editorial hand of John Campbell. The magazine featured plucky and competent heroes who faced adventures with courage and pragmatism, and solved problems largely through logic. While Galaxy, guided by H. L. Gold and Frederik Pohl during my youth, offered a more diverse mix of stories, it also focused largely on adventure and science. F&SF, on the other hand, put emotion before logic, with protagonists who were often deeply flawed, and because fantasy was in the mix, the fiction not strictly bounded by any laws of science, or even pseudo-science. The stories were often extremely powerful and evocative, forcing the reader to think and feel.

When I encountered this anthology in college, I was unfamiliar with the strain of stories it contained. Thus, I had developed no immunity that could protect me from their impact, and every tale hit home like a sledgehammer. The anthology introduced me to authors I had never encountered, and many of them, especially Alfred Bester, later become favorites. The reading choices I made afterward became broader, and I grew less enamored of the stock adventure plots I had grown up with. And I’ve revisited this anthology many times—the copy of the book I read for this review, despite having been re-glued a couple of times, is more of a pile of loose pages inside a cover than a book, tattered from years of re-reading.

About the Editors

Edward L. Ferman (born 1937) edited F&SF from 1966 to 1991. He is the son of previous editor Joseph W. Ferman. The magazine prospered under his leadership, winning four Best Magazine Hugos, and after the Best Magazine category was eliminated, he won the Best Editor Hugo three times. He also edited Best Of anthologies drawn from the magazine.

Robert P. Mills (1920-1986) was an editor and literary agent. He was managing editor of F&SF from its founding, editor from 1958 to 1962, a consulting editor in 1963, and assembled anthologies for the magazine. He also edited Venture Science Fiction for two years, and went on to a successful career as an agent.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Published continuously since 1949, F&SF is among the most venerable of magazines in the field, and has published well over 700 issues during this long run. The editors at its founding were Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, with Robert P. Mills serving as managing editor. Subsequent editors included Avram Davidson, Joseph W. Ferman, Edward L. Ferman, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gordon Van Gelder, and C. C. Finlay. The magazine has also had many distinguished columnists over the years, most notably long-time science columnist Isaac Asimov, and its book reviewers have included Damon Knight, Alfred Bester, and Algis Budrys.

F&SF has long been known for publishing high quality, sophisticated stories, including fiction from some of the best writers in the field. Both the magazine and its content have been recognized by many awards over the years. F&SF was awarded eight Best Magazine Hugos, and its editors earned a total of six Best Editor Hugos. Over fifty stories published in the magazine have garnered either the Hugo, the Nebula, or both awards. The cover artwork for the magazine has always been distinctive and of high quality. Unlike other magazines in the field, however, it was almost exclusively published without interior illustrations.

Twenty Years of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

The book opens with an introduction from Isaac Asimov, “Forward: F&SF and I.” Asimov wrote a long-lived science column in the magazine, and in those days, because of name recognition, was quite in demand to write introductions and cover blurbs.

The first story, by Alfred Bester, was one that completely changed the way I saw science fiction. Starting with the title, “5,271,009,” it was like nothing I had ever read before. It introduces us to Solon Aquila, compelling and eccentric, exiled from Heaven for unexplained crimes, whose anguish at his exile is so powerful that if anyone sees him at an unguarded moment, it can drive them mad. That’s what happens to Jeffrey Halsyon, Aquila’s favorite artist, and Aquila sets out to rescue Halsyon from his retreat into childish fantasy. Aquila accomplishes this by allowing him to live out those immature fantasies: Halsyon experiences being the last virile man on Earth, travels back in time to relive his youth, becomes the only man who can save Earth from aliens, becomes the last man on Earth and meets the last woman, and becomes a character in a book. Each time he feels unique because of a “mysterious mutant strain in my makeup.” But each time the fantasy goes spectacularly and horribly wrong, and finally Halsyon decides to grow up and leave madness behind. I was horrified to realize that each of these stories contained plots similar to many of my favorite science fiction stories. It was clear that Halsyon was not the only one who needed to grow up—suddenly, a single story had me questioning my reading habits and my standards on what made a story a good one!

The next story, by Charles Beaumont, is “Free Dirt.” It follows a man filled with avarice, who ends up consumed by his own passions. Larry Niven’s “Becalmed in Hell,” the closest thing to a hard science fiction story in the anthology, presents an astronaut and a cyborg ship in the atmosphere of Venus, trapped when the ship’s brain can’t control the engines. In the chilling “Private—Keep Out,” by Philip MacDonald, a man runs into an old friend he had forgotten…only to find that the entire world had forgotten the friend, and might soon be forgetting him. John Anthony West’s story “Gladys’s Gregory” is a delightfully creepy tale of women fattening up their husbands; you can see the twist ending coming, but then it twists again. The Isaac Asimov story “Feminine Intuition” is well told, and its breezy style reminds me why Asimov was so popular, and so accessible. It features one of his greatest characters, robotics expert Susan Calvin. But the story is dated, as it depends on Calvin’s being unique in a mostly male workplace, and on the men being gripped with a sexist mindset that blinds them to their problem’s solution.

The next story, “That Hell-Bound Train” by Robert Bloch, is one of my favorites of all time. It follows a man who is visited by the titular hell-bound train and makes a deal with the conductor, who gives him a watch that can stop time whenever he wants. The protagonist thinks he has found a way to cheat death, but always hesitates because he might be happier later. This allows the conductor to think he has won, but the story takes a twist that becomes the best ending ever. I liked the story when I first read it, and with the passing years it has become even more meaningful to me.

“A Touch of Strange” gives us Theodore Sturgeon at his best and most empathic. A man and woman swim to an offshore rock to see their mermaid and merman paramours, but find each other instead, and learn that fantasy can’t compete with real love. In the next story, with their tongues firmly in cheek, R. Bretnor and Kris Neville give us “Gratitude Guaranteed,” the tale of a man who manipulates a department store computer to get things for free, and ends up getting more than he ever hoped for. While it is intended as humor, the story also anticipates today’s mail order culture, and I can easily imagine those items arriving at his house in boxes with familiar trademarked smiles on the side. Bruce McAllister’s “Prime-Time Teaser” gives us the moving story of a woman who survived a virus that killed all life on Earth—and how, after three years, she finally accepts the fact she is alone.

“As Long as You’re Here,” by Will Stanton, follows a couple obsessed with building the ultimate bomb shelter as they burrow deep into the Earth. Charles W. Runyon gives us “Sweet Helen,” where a trader travels to a trading station to investigate the loss of his predecessors. In a tale told from an unabashedly male gaze, he finds the women of this world have pheromones that can affect a human, and is drawn into a mating cycle that mixes passion with horror. The story sent a chill down my spine as a youngster, and still creeps me out today. In “A Final Sceptre, A Lasting Crown,” the incomparable Ray Bradbury gives us a story of the last man in Britain, where everyone else has fled to warmer climates. The story makes no logical sense, but tugs at the heartstrings nonetheless. Bruce Jay Friedman’s “Yes, We Have No Ritchard” gives us a man who has died and gone to the afterlife, only to find there is no judgement, a concept he finds infuriating.

From Philip K. Dick we get the classic tale “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.” A man wants to travel to Mars, but can’t afford the trip, so he goes to a company that can implant memories to make him feel like he made the trip. The memory-altering company discovers he had indeed been to Mars as a secret agent, and as the story progresses, true and false memories mix until you can’t be sure which is which. The story inspired the 1990 movie Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and plays with some of the same science fiction tropes that Alfred Bester addressed in the tale that opened the anthology.

Fritz Leiber brings his often-zany sensibilities to “237 Talking Statues, Etc.” The son of a famous actor who filled his home with self-portraits before he died finds those portraits beginning to talk to him. Their conversation starts with anger, but becomes quite touching. The next story, “M-1,” is kind of a cartoon in prose form, written by Gahan Wilson, who in my mind will always be associated with his quirky cartoons that appeared in Playboy while I was in college. The short-short story follows investigators faced with an impossible statue that appears from nowhere. C. M. Kornbluth was always known for his satire, and “The Silly Season” is no exception; a wire service reporter who searches for quirky stories to fill the slow news days of summer finds those stories have a sinister connection. And in “The Holiday Man,” Richard Matheson follows a man to a horrifying job that explains a frequently appearing news item.

I had never heard of Robert J. Tilley before I read the story “Something Else,” and haven’t encountered his work since. But this single tale affected me deeply. A music historian and aficionado of early 20^th-century jazz is shipwrecked on a deserted planet. He finds an alien creature with musical abilities, and with his clarinet, finds a deeper musical communion than he has ever experienced. The bittersweet tale ends by posing the question: when is a rescue not a rescue?

Edward L. Ferman’s “Afterword” provides a recap of F&SF’s history, and a little information on how the stories in the anthology were selected.

Final Thoughts

There is not a bad story in this anthology, and many of the stories represent the best examples of the genre. My personal favorites were the stories by Bester, Bloch, Sturgeon, Dick, and Tilley. Unfortunately, the anthology is not available in electronic format, but you can still find hardback and paperback editions if you search for them—and that search will be rewarded handsomely. For me, this anthology was a major turning point in my reading habits, opening the door to a much larger and more diverse world of fiction. F&SF has long been a venue where you can find stories of a type you won’t find anywhere else, and this anthology represents the cream of the crop from its earlier years.

And now it’s your turn to comment: What are your thoughts on the anthology, and the stories and authors it presents? And what are your thoughts on The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction? I suspect that a lot of folks who follow Tor.com have also enjoyed reading F&SF over the years.

Alan Brown has been a science fiction fan for over five decades, especially fiction that deals with science, military matters, exploration and adventure.

I used to live on the roof of the world, trying to understand why some stories get preserved for millennia and other ones disappear. I spent three years there. I wasn’t alone: I had colleagues with me, all thinking very hard about narrative and storytelling and how to talk about the ways people used to tell stories, in the other country of the past, when what truth and verisimilitude and good storytelling might have meant very different things than what they mean to us now.

No, I hadn’t joined a monastery devoted to a cult of literary criticism, located in the far north. Promise.

I was a historian, and I worked at Uppsala University, on a research project called Text and Narrative in Byzantium. It’s where I learned about narratology. In a way, I became a narratologist myself.

Narratology is, broadly, the study of narrative structures and the way in which humans perceive, create, and are influenced by them. It’s a type of literary theory, and like most literary theory, it is full of terms that can seem overtly and deliberately obscure. (Why, for example, do we need the term focalization when we’ve already got the perfectly good and fairly explicable concept of point of view? There are some reasons, but most of the time I’ve found that point of view works just fine, especially when I’m speaking as a practitioner—a writer—rather than a literary analyst or critic.) But what narratology does—especially in its newer forms, like ‘cognitive narratology’—is give us tools to think about not only the patterns in a narrative but how narratives are part of how human beings understand and interpret events which happen to them in their everyday lives.

The French term narratologie was coined by Tzvetan Todorov, a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, and literary critic, in his 1969 book Grammaire du Décaméron. In that book, Todorov encouraged literary critics to shift their focus to the most general structural properties of a narrative, properties which would apply no matter what kind of narrative you looked at: things like sequencing of events, character, narrator, audience, perspective. Todorov’s call for a new way of thinking about narrative became the academic discipline of narratology. But he certainly wasn’t the first person to try to identify systems and patterns in storytelling.

Ancient Greek philosophers were awfully concerned with this, for example, because they were worried about genre: what kind of story is this, and how can we tell? (Is it the true kind or the made-up kind or something in-between?) In The Republic, Plato said there were basically two different kinds of storytelling: one, called mimesis, was an ‘imitation’—speech or thought or action made by characters who were inside the story. The other kind, diegesis, was for speech or thought or action that belonged to the author. This division is still fundamentally important to us in interpreting stories—we think about it when we think about narrators, point of view, and showing vs. telling. Plato wasn’t the only Greek who cared about narrative distinctions, either: Aristotle, in the Poetics, distinguished between the totality of events which could take place inside the world of the narrative and the actual plot that was narrated, which is only a subset of those events, chosen and arranged by the author on aesthetic grounds.

The discipline of narratology also took a great deal from a school of literary criticism called Russian Formalism, which was popular in the beginning of the 20^th century in Tsarist Russia. One of the early groups of Russian Formalists was called OPOJAZ, or the Society for the Study of Poetic Language, and it was headed by a man named Viktor Shlovsky. Shlovsky wrote in his 1916 book, Iskússtvo kak priyóm (Art As Device) that a narrative is a sum of literary and artistic devices that the artist manipulates to craft his work. The Formalists were interested in breaking down each of these ‘devices’ and trying to see what functions they had in narratives. But they were also highly invested in not paying any attention—deliberately—to the historical or cultural context of a narrative. They only cared about functionality—about what a device did, not why it was there.

When I became a narratologist, I realized that the Formalists were extremely wrong. The functionality of narrative devices is completely dependent on the audience’s historical and cultural context… and on the author’s. A much more modern branch of narratology, called cognitive narratology, which focuses on the human intellectual and emotional processing of narratives, helped me to ask these questions as a historian—and as a writer. All of those little functional devices—how do they get processed? How do different humans react differently to them? Why did medieval Byzantine historians put obviously fake trope events—like emperors riding bravely into battles they weren’t even present for—into histories the writers swore were true and reported fact? How come readers say they feel ‘cheated’ when an author doesn’t write the ending they expected? Why, for that matter, is it so hard for human beings right now in 2019 to recognize and understand information that contradicts a narrative they believe in very strongly?

In short, I started thinking about why we want stories to make sense.

At the heart of cognitive narratology—really, at the heart of the whole mysterious discipline of narratologists—is a concept called the ‘storyworld’. It was named by the cognitive narratologist David Herman, and it is both intuitively simple and has deep consequences for thinking about how people engage with narratives. A ‘storyworld’ can be defined as a possible world constructed by, not only the narrative on the page, but the cognitive results of the process of comprehending the story, cued by the author and experienced and completed by the reader. It is bigger than any one narrative. It is a sort of “mental model” of a universe, containing all of the events, persons, places, and interactions that make up the narrative, plus all of the possible events, persons, places, and interactions which might exist in a world where the narrative-as-perceived also exists. A storyworld is thus a co-created world between author and audience, bound by mutually held-in-common rules of causality and verisimilitude—an assembly of referents that tell us what kind of stories are true and what sequences of events are believable, given the evidence of the world presented in the narrative.

Access to the storyworld takes place in the mind of the audience of the narrative. (It is no surprise that ‘storyworld’ is a term invented by cognitive narratologists—since they ask us to think of the act of reading/perceiving/interpreting narrative as something which occurs within the mind.) We can think of this process of access to the storyworld as having three elements, which the theorist Alan Palmer has defined as “the source domain”—the world the reader lives in, where the narrative is being processed by the reader’s mind—“the target domain”—the storyworld—and the “system of textual features that triggers various kinds of reader-held real-world knowledge that projects the reader from the source domain to the target domain”. This is where the deep consequences of the storyworld concept begin to emerge: storyworld thinking treats narrative as a process which moves the mind of the reader from the world they live in, with its perceivable rules, to the storyworld, which has different perceivable rules.

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Cognitively, the audience has a set of shared communal knowledge—we can call this an encyclopedia, like the French theorist Doležel does—which they use to comprehend the text. This encyclopedia, says Doležel, “varies with cultures, social groups, [and] historical epochs”—the shared communal knowledge of a 10^th-century Byzantine intellectual is clearly not the same as that of a 21^st-century Byzantinist trying to understand narratives in Sweden in 2015, let alone that of a teenager somewhere in America reading her first graphic novel. We can think of the reader/perceiver’s knowledge about the storyworld, filtered through their own knowledge about the universe, as their fictional encyclopedia. In order to “reconstruct and interpret” a narrative, the reader/perceiver must “reorient his cognitive stance to agree with the [story]world’s encyclopedia”. (That’s Herman again, explaining how storyworlds are cognitive processes.)

Storyworlds are, therefore, not confined to genres that we traditionally consider ‘fiction’. A storyworld can also be ideological: “stories construed as strategies for building mental models of the world” applies just as well to conceptions of ‘how a state functions’ as it does to ‘what is a plausible event in a novel’. A person can reorient their cognitive stance to match an ideological narrative interpretation of historical events just as well as they can do so to interpret the narrative of a novel or a television show.

We can in fact imagine all of society as a storyworld. But my storyworld—my rules for how the world ought to behave—are different from my neighbor’s, who has had different experiences than me. The stories that make sense to my neighbor may be incomprehensible when I think about them, and vice versa. This is how fanaticism happens: how people believe things which are not true, even when they’re presented with evidence to the contrary. It doesn’t match the narrative. It doesn’t fit in the story. The world doesn’t make sense with this evidence, so the evidence must be wrong.

It is also the key to understanding how to convince someone—whether you’re an author, a politician, a scientist, or just trying to get along better with your neighbor. Can you fit the new information you’re presenting into your audience’s storyworld so that they don’t reject it out of hand? If no readers blink when your handwavium whisks your protagonist away through a wormhole into a distant part of the galaxy, you’ve built the storyworld of your narrative convincingly enough that wormholes are a true and plausible thing. If you can convince Great-Uncle Malcolm that climate change is real, even though it is snowing outside, by asking him if it snowed more often when he was a child, then you’ve fit your information into his narrative of how the universe works: into the storyworld that governs his everyday interpretations.

And that is the power of the mysterious discipline of narratologists: it tells us why stories make sense, and why we want them to so very desperately.

Originally published in January 2019.
Photo: Nepal, Himalayas. National Park Langtang image © Sergey Pesterev / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Arkady Martine writes speculative fiction when she isn’t writing Byzantine history. She is overly fond of borders, rhetoric, and liminal spaces. Her novel A Memory Called Empire is available from Tor Books. Find her on Twitter as @ArkadyMartine.

Yeah, we know that Return of the King had 17 endings but there was still one ending that seemed to be missing entirely. An exchange between Frodo and Sam that, in this day and age, would make a perfect post-credits scene.

But it was always in our heads until last week, when artist/writer/graphic novelist Molly Ostertag gifted the whole entire internet with a fan-comic that perfectly realizes what a lot of us here in the office tend to think and talk about after marathoning all 11+ hours of Peter Jackson’s trilogy.

“I woke up after marathoning Lord of the Rings and could not do anything else until I drew this,” she wrote on Twitter. The ensuing six-part comic picks up after Frodo leaves Middle-earth for The Undying Lands with Gandalf and co., and well, just see for yourself.

I woke up after marathoning Lord of the Rings and could not do anything else until I drew this
1/6 pic.twitter.com/scyEP2pSH6

— Molly Knox Ostertag (@MollyOstertag) September 2, 2019

2/6 pic.twitter.com/O1wvwatvuj

— Molly Knox Ostertag (@MollyOstertag) September 2, 2019

3/6 pic.twitter.com/uL4qX2Vlud

— Molly Knox Ostertag (@MollyOstertag) September 2, 2019

We’ve included the first three parts up above, and you should head over to Ostertag’s Twitter for the deeply emotional conclusion (seriously, don’t say we didn’t warn you).

Molly Ostertag is the author of several graphic novels, including the award-winning The Witch Boy and its sequel, The Hidden Witch. She also draws the webcomic Strong Female Protagonist, written by Brennan Lee Mulligan, and is a writer on the upcoming Disney show The Owl House, airing in 2020.

The first indication that Serial Box’s Orphan Black: The Next Chapter shares DNA with its television series predecessor is in the episode titles. Following series creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett’s penchant for quoting everything from Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species to Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poem “Protest,” Serial Box’s stellar writing team (including Malka Older, Madeline Ashby, E.C. Myers, and more) draws inspiration from Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower.

The first episode, written by Older, is called “Our Needs to Shape Us,” taken from Butler’s passage in which a young woman creating a new belief system in the climate-ravaged early 2020s ponders to what level domination or even murder can be justified in order to establish a safe new community. The ends justifying the means was a regular debate on Orphan Black, in which the clones-turned-sestras fought to escape the organization that created them. Now, in this serialized continuation narrated by star Tatiana Maslany, the Clone Club are given the opportunity to reexamine their own needs—and what they’ll sacrifice to attain them—as the stakes rise beyond just Project Leda to encompass genetics and privacy on a global scale.

This is a non-spoiler review of Orphan Black: The Next Chapter.

Last we saw the Clone Club—Sarah, Alison, Cosima, Helena, and the friends and family in their orbit—they had overcome their makers. The DYAD Institute and its various offshoots were dismantled, and the sestras had the incredible chance to locate 250 of their sisters around the world to vaccinate them against a shared genetic disease. But eight years later, the core clones are no closer to figuring out how to actually live in the world as more than just experiments. No surprise, then, that the inciting action for this new series involves meeting another new clone—a secret agent, no less.

Before the next conspiracy unfolds, however, there is plenty to catch up on in cloneworld, both for loyal fans eager to learn what their favorites (Cophine!) have been up to since the series finale, and for a new audience just joining in. Despite domestic bliss in Toronto, Cosima chafes against the necessary anonymity (and resultant ennui) that keeps her safe—in contrast to Alison and Sarah, who each fear standing out lest they attract the attention of some new unethical scientist and/or government types. Meanwhile, young clone Charlotte, now 18, feels like she doesn’t share her older sestras’ history. As Episode 1 is split into two parts (to be released September 12th and 19th), unfortunately the first half is mostly setup: filling in blanks about how half of Clone Club wound up in Toronto, and introducing Vivi Valdez, a CIA agent carrying a secret identity that even she knows nothing about.

Despite the frustration of a slow-moving start, it’s worth remembering how surprisingly unrushed the original Orphan Black pilot was as well: Sarah’s first forays into cloneworld were deliberate, cautious; the viewer discovered each new hint, each tiny clue, as she did. Vivi’s journey—which starts with a stakeout but soon leads to a chance encounter not unlike Sarah and Beth’s initial meeting—is similar: blessed with an ease for mimicry, this chameleon-like operative both fears and relishes the challenge of taking on new personas, even as each one makes her doubt what she knows of her own personal history. Though in this case, readers (and listeners) have the benefit of knowing all of the intel that she’s learning.

Image courtesy Serial Box

As the season progresses, however, even diehard fans will find new mysteries in the disparate strands of a different take on the clone program that brings to mind Project Castor; various entities guarding their respective genetic data; yet another way for Kira to put herself into danger; and the ethics of invading privacy for the supposed greater good. Like the TV series, not all of these strands weave together as securely as they could; but the strongest moments remain those in which the sestras debate how much to expand the borders of Clone Club. What does it mean to confront your doppelgänger, to learn that you are not as unique as you have always believed yourself to be? Does it threaten the validity of your own particular identity, or is it reassurance that you are not as alone in the world as you once thought? Orphan Black has played out dozens of permutations on this scenario, from the first moment that two identical sets of eyes met across a train platform. And even though these encounters are told, not shown, in this new medium, the dilemma takes on new and fascinating dimensions in Serial Box’s continuation.

With that in mind, the best way to experience Orphan Black: The Next Chapter is in audio form, hands down. While the writing team picks up the TV series’ DNA and engineers a new genetically-centered conflict, Tatiana Maslany’s voice is the catalyst that brings back the spirit of the show. Lack of practice has not dimmed her incredible ability to infuse distinct inflections, accents, tones into the clones’ voices, even and especially in conversation with one another. Nor does the fact that she narrates the entire thing—internal monologues, familiar and new characters, action sequences—diminish the effect; it’s easy to distinguish each clone, Vivi included, from the others.

Which makes it such a treat that there’s a clone swap right off the bat. That’s how you know we’re back in the thick of it.

Orphan Black: The Next Chapter is available now (in text and audio form) through Serial Box.

Natalie Zutter sure did miss those clone swaps. Theorize about Orphan Black: The Next Chapter with her on Twitter!

January Scaller walks through a Door standing alone in a field and for a single moment enters another world—a chance encounter that will change the course of her life. While her father explores the globe, procuring treasures from far-off lands for his employer (and January’s foster-father of sorts) Mr. Locke, January learns to participate in high society, her willfulness crushed out of her one punishment at a time… until she happens upon a book: The Ten Thousand Doors. As the truth of her childhood experience begins to seem more and more real, she must question the world she lives in and her role within it.

The turn of the 20^th century is a fraught, fruitful time to set a novel concerned with social change, gender, and colonialism. The Ten Thousand Doors of January occupies a world in transition, a precarious world, where institutional forces are in open conflict with resistance at all corners. January herself occupies several liminal spaces: she’s the ward of a wealthy white patriarch, and so able to access class privilege. However, she is also mixed-race, and so continually judged as to her fitness for given segregated spaces. All of her experiences are circumscribed by codes of gender and respectability, and a great deal of her struggle is against those codes.

Metafictional strategies in a novel often serve to distance the reader—because while you’re experiencing the story, you’re also operating at a remove that reminds you of the nature of the book as a book, referencing other books, commenting on the genre, pointing constantly to fictionality. And there’s a whole world of potential pleasure in that paradoxical distance! The reader is allowed to do critical work and consider the text’s arguments explicitly while also consuming a narrative with the related emotional delights. However, while The Ten Thousand Doors of January is certainly a book engaged with its bookness and with the whole genre of the portal fantasy (as well as a long history of feminist works in sf)… the underlying tender hopefulness Harrow imbues in January’s story, even in its moments of violence and exclusion, closes the gap of that metafictional remove.

Though the novel features a great deal of conflict, struggle, and trauma, it maintains a quite-purposeful softness toward the potentiality of the world and the work stories can do. For readers familiar with Harrow’s recent Hugo-winning short story “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” (which I discussed in brief, here), The Ten Thousand Doors of January has a similar argument built on similar frames. Stories have the power to change the world, or our individual lives, offering strategies of resistance to hegemonic oppression in the form of classism, racism, sexism, and so on. In both pieces stories have a wild, free sort of currency to alter the reality around them.

January just makes it literal, via the fantasy I think every single child who grew up to be a writer recognizes: didn’t we all hope, don’t we still hope, to be able to write words that literally alter the world? Nostalgia and optimism are strange bedfellows, since nostalgia often has a conservative bent toward an ideal past that never existed, but Harrow unites them here. The nostalgia is for childhood, for the cusp of adulthood, for moments where a person might crack through strictures and learn to change themselves or the world; the optimism is for the potential of the crack, the fracture, where the light comes in.

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That focus on the liminal also speaks to the novel’s place in a realm of readers—and market categories—because it certainly has that crossover appeal we hear so much about. The protagonist is seventeen and entering her adult life; the stories the book draws from, portal fantasies, are almost all children’s books. The potential that vibrates off the page is the potential of youth, of a certain form of imagination… but also present are the things elided from those earlier children’s stories, like ethnicity and class. Significant portions of the book, as it is set at the turn of the century, involve specifically gendered forms of oppressive violence: asylums, drugging and enforced stillness as “treatments” for hysterical behavior, women as chattel objects and women of ambiguous race in America moreso.

And yet, it isn’t grim. Harrow is, perhaps, more holding the reader’s hand with January through an exploration of hope in times of strife and crisis. The mix of optimism and nostalgia, the references to a whole genre of books, is a way of looking: here is the world, and it is raw, but we have the potential to change it. Part of where the novel retains its connection to children’s fiction is in the conclusion, which I found rather trimly neat and yet comforting. Comfort has a value, sometimes, even if critics often reject it. January earns her adulthood, regains her mother and father, and sets off to change the world(s) after a long, frightening struggle against a handful of individual men who represent the institutions of colonization and oppression. The metaphor of stories, power, and resistance is quite clear.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a liminal book. It’s all about doorways, and Doorways, and making the crossing between one place and another. It also sits on a threshold of audience given its prose and style, with the appeal of nostalgia to adults who need to remember the power of stories as well as young people who need to remember the heady potentiality of optimism—but then also vice versa, too, for all of us. An argument can be made from a place of tenderness and basic belief that, maybe, the world can be good. Harrow does that, gently, with an attention to real hurts but also a hope for healing them.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is available from Redhook.

Lee Mandelo is a writer, critic, and editor whose primary fields of interest are speculative fiction and queer literature, especially when the two coincide. They have two books out, Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction and We Wuz Pushed: On Joanna Russ and Radical Truth-telling, and in the past have edited for publications like Strange Horizons Magazine. Other work has been featured in magazines such as Stone Telling, Clarkesworld, Apex, and Ideomancer.

My first brief hit of gaming was Super Mario Brothers in 1993, at my Granny Griffin’s neighbor’s home in the lush green world of Tipperary. I was five and in my hand was a small gray box with a cable, like an umbilical cord that connected me to a television. I made the small red and blue dots on the screen move. I was bad at it. I was vaguely aware that there was another world in there and that I traveled through it somehow with the red and black buttons under my tiny thumbs. I wanted more.

Adam down the road had a Super Nintendo. Steph, my best friend, she got one for her Holy Communion. I was devout, kneeling before televisions in my friends’ houses, leading digital men over holes in the ground. Collecting mushrooms, collecting stars—just think about that for a second. Collecting actual stars. Reading had already taken me wild by the heart but this—this was something different.

That Christmas, a Super Nintendo arrived and from that point onward, pixelated lands of blue skies and malevolent dragons were my refuge. I grew older. I got better. My quests changed. I took up a sword and a green hat and was never sure if the sprite in The Legend of Zelda was a girl or a boy—either way, Link was me. I was unstoppable, full of courage.

N64, 1997. I swear, seared into me is the moment, my dad by my side on the living room floor, when I pushed the control stick forward and Mario just walked into the world. Not just left and right. Around. The depth of it almost took the air out of my lungs. There, in my pajamas with shaking hands beside that same plastic Christmas tree that had presided over my first ship into other worlds: that was dumbstruck. That was me, gone.

A poster depicting a battle scene from the climax of The Ocarina of Time hung above my bed instead of whatever band I should have been listening to at the time like a normal teenager. It was all I thought about. But I was never sure how to talk about it. Much like books, my big mad love for these games got caught in my throat. It never managed to sound as cool as it did in my head.

A secondhand PlayStation found its way to me; Final Fantasy VII, then VIII. Dystopia, utopia, mercenary, a new vocabulary fired through my synapses. Complex relationships, antiheroes, ethical quandaries, technicolor beasts. I read through the dialogue of these vast realms and was hit as hard as I was the first time I opened The Magician’s Nephew, The Hobbit. Final Fantasy was as good in my mind as Gormenghast: it gave me music, and art—and, most importantly, agency.

I worked at a local branch of a video game shop for two years during college, during which my love was nearly squashed out of me by the incredulity of the lads I worked with. You’re not really into games. You’re appalling at Guitar Hero. You don’t even play Halo. You don’t even play Call of Duty. This kind of misogyny has always been the ambient buzz in the background of my life. But I wasn’t ever in it to play with the boys. I was in it for myself, for the stories. I quit the shop quietly, eventually. I kept playing, and playing. Often, just re-running through old favorites: the vast oceans of The Wind Waker, the silent endlessness of Shadow of the Colossus, the undeniable sugar rush of Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros., the sheer satisfaction of Portal. It’s almost meditative, how closely I know these games. Like any art, if you practice escape for long enough you get really, really good at it. There’s such reward in knowing these other worlds completely. Second lives and second homes. Confidence with a sword. Sure of the dangers that lurk in the shadows, sure that you can manage them. Above all, courage.

While editing and rewriting Spare and Found Parts and nurturing the seed of my second novel, I took up EarthBound, a legendary game from the ’90s that would have been on the Super Nintendo, but never made it to Europe on its first release, too weird for these shores. Every night I sat with my husband and our big cat on the sofa and ventured through the strangeness of it, the glorious, melodic chiptunes completely transporting me, the dialogue so poignant I welled up more than once. The fourth wall taken apart by long, scrolling monologues that spoke outside the narrative of the game and directly to the player about the nature of growing up, leaving home, returning after adventure. I was so glad that even now, playing games for the vast majority of my life, there were still reservoirs untapped: that a game could still roar inspiration through me. That games weren’t just meditative nostalgia in my adulthood; they could still shift things for me creatively. They could still make me want to write.

I use the second person quite frequently in Spare and Found Parts to echo how it felt playing video games and being spoken to by characters within the worlds on screen. You name yourself, you are the hero. They are stories about you. I think there’s something in that, the direct contact with the person experiencing the story—whether reader or player. Taking them by the hands and pulling them in. Maybe I’m not quite writing a choose-your-own-adventure, but I’d love to emulate that feeling of becoming the adventurer completely, somehow. I’m always trying to get back to that complete transportation, those first dots on the screen: how the plastic of the controller became a sword, a staff, a hammer in my hands. Sometimes the controller can feel as magic as a pen—and that’s how I know I’m in the right job. That work feels just the same as play.

Originally published in October 2016.

Sarah Maria Griffin lives in Dublin, Ireland, in a small red brick house by the sea, with her husband and cat. She writes about monsters, growing up, and everything those two things have in common. Her standalone novels Spare and Found Parts and Other Words for Smoke are both available from HarperCollins.

Jin Yong’s A Hero Born is a fantastical generational saga and kung fu epic, filled with an extraordinary cast of characters. This Chinese classic—coming to the U.S. for the first time on September 17th as translated by Anna Holmwood for St. Martin’s Press—is a tale of fantasy and wonder, love and passion, treachery and war, betrayal and brotherhood.

Want to start reading now? Tor.com is serializing selections from A Hero Born—you can find all the previous chapters here! And check back every morning this week for another installment of the third episode: “Swirling Sands”.

CHAPTER TWO
“Swirling Sands”

5

One day, Guo Jing was playing with some of the other children when two riders came galloping into the encampment with urgent news for the Khan. They rushed to Temujin’s ger and within moments the horns were sounded and soldiers ran from their tents. The men were organized into squads of ten, each with its own commander. These were then organized into companies made up of ten squads, battalions of one thousand men and, finally, divisions of ten thousand, each with their own commander. Temujin kept close control of his army through this chain of command.

Guo Jing and the other children watched as the men took up their weapons and mounted their horses. Another horn blast sounded, and the ground shook as the horses gathered into formation. By the end of the third blast, silence had descended as all fifty thousand men were lined up before the encampment’s main gate. Only the occasional horse’s snort broke the quiet; no one spoke, no clanging of weapons was heard.

“Of our many victories the Jin Empire knows,” Temujin cried as he walked through the main gate with his three sons. “The Jin Emperor sent his Third and Sixth Princes here today to appoint your Khan an officer of the Jin!”

The soldiers raised their weapons and hailed their Khan. The Jin controlled all of northern China by the force of a strong and disciplined army; their influence stretched east to the seas and west to the deserts. The Mongols, in contrast, were just one of many nomadic tribes on the steppe. To be named an official of the Jin Empire was an honor for Temujin.

The Khan ordered his eldest son, Jochi, to lead his ten-thousand-strong corps to welcome their guests. The remaining forty thousand men would wait in formation.

News of the growing power of northern tribes such as Temujin’s worried the Jin Emperor Wanyan Jing, titled Ming Chang. In reality, the Princes were not here just to secure an alliance between the Mongols and the Jin Empire, but to ascertain at firsthand their capabilities in case of future conflict. The Sixth Prince, Wanyan Honglie, was the very same Prince who had traveled to Lin’an, where he was wounded by Qiu Chuji, and on to Jiaxing, where he encountered the Seven Freaks of the South.

After some wait, a blot of dust appeared on the horizon, announcing Jochi’s return with the two Princes, Wanyan Hongxi and Wanyan Honglie, and their force of ten thousand elite soldiers, dressed in the finest brocade and armor. Those on the left of the formation were armed with spears and those on the right with wolf-fang clubs. The clanking of their armor was audible for miles. Sunlight glinted on their uniforms of silk and metal, and they shone ever more resplendent as they came into view. The brothers rode side by side, while Temujin and his men stood by the road, waiting.

As they drew near, Wanyan Hongxi caught sight of the children watching, and laughed. He puffed himself up, reached into his shirt for a handful of gold coins and threw them at them. “A gift!”

But, to Mongolians, throwing coins like this was the height of disrespect. These children were descended from soldiers and generals. Not one of them moved to pick up the coins.

“Come on, you little devils!” Wanyan Hongxi cried, throwing another handful of coins in frustration.

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This angered Temujin and his men even more. They may not have had the grand outward trappings of other great civilizations, but the Mongolians were a refined people. They did not swear, even against their gravest enemies or in jest. To step inside a ger was to be treated with utmost hospitality, whether friend or foe, and a guest was to return this favor with decorum. They may not have understood Wanyan Hongxi’s heavily accented Mongolian, but they understood his attitude all too well.

Guo Jing had grown up on stories of Jin scorn, and of how they had invaded his motherland China, corrupted its officials and killed its greatest general, Yue Fei. He stepped forward now. “We don’t want your money!” he cried, picking some coins from the dirt. He ran and hurled them as hard as he could at the Third Prince.

Wanyan Hongxi ducked, but one struck him on the cheekbone. Temujin’s men cheered.

It did not especially hurt, but such humiliation at the hands of a six-year-old boy was too much. He swiped a spear from one of his guards. “I’ve got you, you little devil!”

“Brother!” Wanyan Honglie said, realizing the situation was getting out of control. But it was too late: the Third Prince had already thrown the weapon. Guo Jing turned, rather than stepped aside. At the last possible moment, an arrow came from the left, like a meteor shooting for the moon, and hit the spear on the head, deflecting it. Guo Jing ran back to the other children, the cheers of Temujin’s men shaking the ground beneath him.

The arrow belonged to Jebe.

“Third Brother, forget about him!” Wanyan Honglie hissed.

The cheers of Temujin’s men left Wanyan Hongxi shaken. He glared at Guo Jing. “Little bastard,” he muttered.

Temujin and his sons stepped forward and led the Princes to the Khan’s ger, where they served their guests koumiss and plates of lamb and beef. With the help of interpreters, Wanyan Hongxi read the royal decree, conferring upon Temujin the title of “Queller of Northern Uprisings.” Temujin knelt before Wanyan Hongxi and accepted the title and a golden belt, a symbol of his allegiance to the Jin Empire.

That night the Mongolians honored their guests with a lavish feast.

“Tomorrow, my brother and I will bestow Ong Khan with a title,” Wanyan Hongxi stuttered, drunk on koumiss. “Will our Queller of Uprisings join us?”

Temujin was delighted and agreed at once. Ong Khan, a Kerait, was recognized as leader of the northern tribes of the steppe. He was the richest, and commanded the most men, but was known to be fair and magnanimous in his treatment of others. He was universally liked and respected. Ong Khan was sworn brother of Temujin’s father. After Temujin’s father was poisoned and Temujin fled, it was Ong Khan who took him in as his own son. Not long after Temujin was married, his wife was captured by the Merkits. It was only after receiving help from Ong Khan and Jamuka, Temujin’s sworn brother, that Temujin managed to defeat the Merkits and reclaim his wife.

“Is the Jin Empire granting titles on anyone else?” Temujin asked.

“No,” Wanyan Hongxi said. “There are only two men of note in the northern steppe: Ong Khan and the Great Khan Temujin.”

“No one else would be worthy of a title,” Wanyan Honglie added.

“I disagree. There is one man the Princes are perhaps unfamiliar with,” Temujin said.

“Is that so? Who?” Wanyan Honglie said.

“My sworn brother, Jamuka. He is most righteous and commands his men with a just hand. May I ask the Princes to bestow an official title on him as well?”

Temujin and Jamuka had grown up together, cementing their friendship with a bond of brotherhood when Temujin was just eleven, a custom known among the Mongolians as anda, sealed with an exchange of gifts. Jamuka and Temujin swapped hunting stones made from deer bone. After the boys became anda, they went to the Onon River while it was still frozen over and threw them out across it. When spring came the boys swore their brotherhood again, Jamuka giving Temujin a whistling arrow he had carved himself from two ox horns, while Temujin presented his friend with a cedar arrowhead.

When they reached manhood, they lived with Ong Khan. They would compete every day to see who could rise first and drink a cup of yoghurt from Ong Khan’s own jade cup. After Jamuka and Ong Khan helped recover Temujin’s wife, the sworn brothers exchanged gifts once more, this time gold belts and horses. By day the men drank wine from the same cup and at night slept under the same blanket.

Their tribes, however, were eventually forced to take different directions in the search for fresh pasture, and the two men were separated. But both tribes flourished and their loyalty endured. It was natural that he should wish for his anda to be honored as well.

“We don’t have titles to give to all you Mongolians. How many do you think we have?” Wanyan Hongxi stammered, by now half drunk. Wanyan Honglie cast his brother a meaningful look, but was ignored.

“Fine, give him my title instead.”

“Does a title mean so little you would give it away?” Wanyan Hongxi cried.

Temujin stood up. Without uttering another word, he downed the contents of his cup and left. Wanyan Honglie was left to diffuse the situation with some hasty and not particularly amusing jokes.

The next morning, just as the sun was climbing above the horizon, Temujin mounted his horse and went to inspect the five thousand mounted horses already lined up in formation. The Jurchen Princes and their men were still sleeping.

Temujin had at first been impressed by the Jurchen army; they appeared strong and well equipped. But still sleeping? Temujin snorted. Now he saw they were undisciplined and libertine. “What do you think of the Jin?” he asked Muqali.

“A thousand of our men could defeat five thousand of theirs,” was Muqali’s reply.

“Just what I thought,” Temujin said with a smile. “But they say the Jin has more than a million men at its command. We have only fifty thousand.”

“But you can’t lead one million men into battle at once. If we were to fight them, we could take ten thousand today and another ten thousand tomorrow.”

“We always agree when it comes to military strategy.” Temujin patted him on the shoulder. “A man weighing one hundred jin can eat ten oxen, each weighing ten thousand jin. He just needs time.” They laughed.

Temujin pulled at his reins. Then he caught sight of his fourth son Tolui’s horse without its rider. “Where is Tolui?”

Tolui was only nine years old, but Temujin treated his sons in the same way he did his troops, with an iron discipline. Anyone breaking his rules was punished.

Temujin’s men were uneasy. General Boroqul, Tolui’s mentor, was overly concerned. “The boy never sleeps late. Let me see.”

Just as he turned his horse, he saw two children running toward him holding hands. The boy with a strip of brocade tied around his forehead was Tolui, the other was Guo Jing.

“Father!” Tolui was excited.

“Where have you been?” Temujin demanded.

“Guo Jing and I swore an oath of brotherhood down by the river. Look, he gave me this,” Tolui said, waving an embroidered red handkerchief Lily Li had made for her son.

Temujin recalled with fondness the time he and Jamuka became sworn anda, two innocent children just like those standing before him now. “And what did you give him?”

“This!” Guo Jing said, pointing to his neck, to the gold necklace Temujin’s son usually wore.

“From now on, you must love and look after each other,” Temujin said.

They nodded.

“Now, mount your horses,” Temujin said. “Guo Jing is coming with us.”

The boys climbed into their saddles in excitement.

After yet another hour’s waiting, the Jin Princes emerged from their gers, washed and dressed at last. Wanyan Honglie caught sight of the Mongolian soldiers waiting in formation and sent a hurried order to his men to get ready. But Wanyan Hongxi believed in making the Mongolians wait, to let them know who had the power. He ate at a leisurely pace, accompanying the snacks with a few cups of wine, and then mounted his horse. It took another hour for the ten-thousand-strong Jin army to muster before setting off.

They marched northward for six days until they were met with a delegation sent by Ong Khan consisting of the Khan’s son Senggum and his adopted son Jamuka. When word reached Temujin that his sworn brother was up ahead, he galloped on. The two men jumped from their horses and embraced. Temujin’s sons followed close behind to greet their uncle.

Jamuka was tall and spindly, Wanyan Honglie observed, his upper lip decorated with the finest threads of gold. His eyes were quick. Senggum, in contrast, was pale and flabby, no doubt from having lived a life of opulence. He looked nothing like the men hewn by the harsh climate of the steppe. He was haughty and showed a noticeable disregard for the Great Khan.

Together they rode on again for another day. Then, just as they were approaching Ong Khan’s camp, two of Temujin’s advance guards came riding back. “The Naiman are blocking the way ahead. Some thirty thousand of them.”

“What do they want?” Wanyan Hongxi was anxious after hearing the translation.

“To fight, it would seem.”

“They’ve really brought thirty thousand men?” Wanyan Hongxi stuttered. “Isn’t… Aren’t we outnumbered”

Temujin did not wait for Wanyan Hongxi to finish. Turning to Muqali he said, “Find out what’s going on.”

Muqali rode on with ten bodyguards while the rest of the entourage waited. He was back before long. “The Naiman say that since the Great Jin Empire granted a title to our Khan, the Princes should bestow one on them too. If Your Excellencies don’t, they will take you hostage until such a title is forthcoming. Not only that, they want a rank of higher status than that given to our Great Khan Temujin.”

“Demanding a title?” Wanyan Hongxi’s cheeks had gone pale. “That’s sedition. What should we do?”

Wanyan Honglie started organizing his troops into their fighting positions as a precaution.

“Brother,” Jamuka said, turning to Temujin, “the Naiman frequently steal our livestock and harass our people. Are we really going to let them get away with this? What do Your Excellencies want us to do?”

Temujin had by now surveyed the terrain and concocted a plan. “Let’s show the Princes how we do things here on the steppe.” Temujin let out a cry and cracked his whip twice. Five thousand Mongolians howled in response, startling the Jin Princes.

Up ahead, the Naiman were approaching.

“Brother,” Wanyan Hongxi said, “order our men to charge. These Mongols don’t know how to fight.”

“Let them go first,” Wanyan Honglie whispered.

Realizing his brother’s intentions, Wanyan Hongxi nodded. The Mongolian soldiers howled again, but still they did not move.

“Why are they howling like animals?” Wanyan Hongxi said. “Shouting alone isn’t going to make them turn back.”

Boroqul was positioned on the left flank. He turned to Tolui, who along with his sworn brother Guo Jing had joined his voice with the other men. “Follow me and don’t fall behind. Watch and learn.”

Just then enemy soldiers appeared through the dust up ahead. Still the Mongols howled, still they did not move.

Wanyan Honglie was growing more and more anxious. The Naiman were fierce and might attack at any moment.

“Fire!”

The first row of Jin men released several rounds of arrows, but the Naiman were still beyond reach. They were charging at speed toward them. Wanyan Hongxi began to panic, his heart thudding. “Why don’t we just give them what they want?” he said to his brother. “We can make up some title, something high ranking, it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t cost us anything.”

With two cracks of Temujin’s whip, the Mongols fell silent and split into two flanks. Temujin and Jamuka each took one. Leaning low in their saddles, they galloped toward higher ground on either side, calling orders to their men as they rode. The riders split off into small groups as they ascended, covering all positions. Now they had the height to their advantage, they loaded their bows and held them high.

The commander of the Naiman too looked for higher ground. But the Mongolians had erected walls made from layers of sheep’s fleece to shield them from incoming arrows. The Naiman shot up at the Mongolians, but their arrows fell short, or were caught up in the fleece barricades.

The Mongolians returned fire, and the Naiman fell back in chaos and confusion.

Temujin watched the tumult from his position high on the left. “Jelme, attack the rear!”

Armed with his saber, Jelme charged, one thousand men behind him, and blocked the Naiman retreat.

Jebe took up his spear and pressed to the front of the charge. His target was the Naiman commander in chief; he would kill him as an expression of gratitude to Temujin.

Within moments the Naiman rear guard fell apart and the foremost ranks were in chaos. The Naiman commander hesitated, giving Jamuka and Senggum time to join the charge. Facing attack on all sides, the Naiman fell into disarray. Abandoned by their commander, the remaining men threw down their bows, dismounted and surrendered.

The Mongols had killed over a thousand Naiman men, captured two thousand more and gained almost as many horses before the rest of the army fled. They had lost no more than a hundred of their own.

Temujin ordered the captives be stripped of their armor and split into four groups, one for the Wanyan brothers, one for his adoptive father Ong Khan, one for his sworn brother Jamuka and one for himself. Mongolians whose relatives had died in battle received compensation: five horses and five slaves.

The battle now over, Wanyan Hongxi burst into nervous laughter. “They want a title?” he said, turning to his brother. “How about ‘Conqueror of the Northern Queller of Uprisings’?”

For all his brother’s jokes, Wanyan Honglie was feeling decidedly nervous. The Empire would be in trouble if Temujin or Jamuka ever united the northern tribes and took command of the steppe.

The Mongols were a genuine threat.

He was still mulling this over when yet more dust appeared on the horizon. Another army approaching.

Excerpted from A Hero Born, copyright © 2019 by Jin Yong.

GET HYPE! Amazon Prime’s Wheel of Time adaptation has begun filming in Prague, and on Thursday, the cast shared their first group photo on Instagram. The picture, which seems to have been taken by Rosamund Pike, unites Moraine, al’Lan, Rand, Mat, Perrin, Nynaeve, and Egwene.

Behind them, you can see some very Two Rivers-y bricks and trees, and some considerably less Two Rivers-y vans.

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“There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning." #WOTonPrime

A post shared by The Wheel Of Time On Prime (@wotonprime) on Sep 12, 2019 at 9:00am PDT

Let’s put some names to those lovely faces! As previously revealed on #WoTWednesdays, here’s the cast list for our leads:

Moraine: Rosamund Pike

al’Lan Mandragoran: Daniel Henney

Rand al’Thor: Josh Stradowski

Perrin Aybara: Marcus Rutherford

Matrim Cauthon: Barney Harris

Nynaeve al’Meara: Zoë Robins

Egwene al’Vere: Madeleine Madden

You can find some more info on what the actors for the Two Rivers crew have been up to pre-WoT in our previous write-up here. Those who have yet to been cast include Thom Merrilin, Min, Loial, Elayne Trakand and her brothers Gawyn and Galad, Morgase, and an entire flock of villains, including Ba’alzamon, but we’re sure all will be revealed on those #WoTWednesdays, so keep your eyes peeled!

Galactic dirtbag Gideon the Ninth is now on bookshelves, trashing up the place and attracting furtive glances from all walks of life (and unlife). With a character like this, any artist would struggle to capture their sweaty immediacy. But not only did artist Tommy Arnold visualize it perfectly, he also included clues and details that perfectly conveys the life of Gideon, which is a terrible one, and need not be duplicated or admired.

Click to enlarge

[1] HAIR is half-pompadour, half-fauxhawk: the type of hair that is intended to say, ‘Ladies, start your engines,’ but in reality says ‘Ladies, there are no styling products on the Ninth that aren’t human run-off, so expect the worst.’

[2] WORRYINGLY FLY SUNGLASSES in the manner of Top Gun or maybe something that once adorned Starsky’s weird, gaunt face. Are something of a mysterious enigma even in the context of the book. Will they somehow prove central to our mystery?? (SPOILER: No.)

[3] SKULL PAINT is pretty much mandatory for a Ninth House tomb cultist. Thousands of variations of the skull exist, each subject to sumptuary regulation and carrying their own specific meaning. Unfortunately, anyone who cared was dead a hundred years ago or is now seriously geriatric. Gideon depicted here as wearing paint appropriate to her role as cavalier primary, which probably has its own specific Ninth name, like The Skull in Ice-Choked Chains or The Skull of the Sharpened Phalanx, or whatever.

As a child, Gideon traditionally wore what I will call The Skull of the Laziest Juggalo.

[4] BLACK is the colour associated with the Ninth House. They are styled Keepers of the Locked Tomb. Their sigil is the jawless skull (above). Their associated symbol is the Hot Goth GF.

[5] THE RAPIER is the weapon of the House cavalier. From the Second House to the Ninth, all swordsmen who serve the lead necromancers of their household wield the rapier, which we will define very broadly here as a slender, long-bladed thrusting sword with a guard hilt. The exact dimensions of the blade can differ from House to House, but no cavalier would be caught dead with a broadsword. Over the latter half of this myriad, a typical Ninth House rapier would be “whatever is not falling apart the most,” as a typical Ninth House cavalier is just somebody with a massive backpack of elbows.

[6] THE KNUCKLES are an unusual offhand for any cavalier, let alone the Ninth House cavalier primary (usual offhand: more bones). Common offhand weapons include short swords, daggers of all kinds, nets and smallshields. The cavalier’s weapons must complement their necromancer’s style of fighting, even if cavaliers and necromancers rarely fight as a duo in the modern era; a Ninth House cavalier must limit any spread damage in case they take out their necromancer’s constructs.

[7] CHECK OUT THIS SKULL because he’s having a good time. This dude would be laughing alone with some salad if he had a lingual muscle.

Hey, don’t you just absolutely adore endless, ceaseless references to skulls and frankly to all other bones in the body? If you don’t, do not read this book. Give it to an enemy.

Looks like it’s finally House Targaryen’s turn to sit in the Big Pokey Boi. According to a new scoop from Deadline, a Game of Thrones prequel based on George R.R. Martin’s doorstopper Targaryen-history book, Fire & Blood, is reportedly nearing a pilot order from HBO.

The network refused to comment, so take this news with a grain of salt, but if this is true, the co-creators will be Martin and Colony executive producer Ryan Condal, who will also write the show. As Deadline noted, though, it looks like the author himself has been dropping several hints. In a (not-a-)blog post from May, he wrote:

Oh, and speaking of television, don’t believe everything you read.   Internet reports are notoriously unreliable.  We have had five different GAME OF THRONES successor shows in development (I mislike the term “spinoffs”) at HBO, and three of them are still moving forward nicely.   The one I am not supposed to call THE LONG NIGHT will be shooting later this year, and two other shows remain in the script stage, but are edging closer.   What are they about?  I cannot say.   But maybe some of you should pick up a copy of FIRE & BLOOD and come up with your own theories.

In case you have yet to heed Martin’s advice, here’s a bit about the book. Set 300 years before the events of A Song and Ice and Fire/HBO’s Game of Thrones, it’s a strictly chronological account of the Targaryen dynasty, ruler by ruler, from its inception 300 years before Game of Thrones to about halfway down the lineage, where the presence of Too Many Targaryens erupts into a long and terrible war called “The Dance of the Dragons”.

It’s also a very in-depth look at Westerosian world-building as the Targaryen kings work out the dirty details of government, infrastructure, economic policy, and all that good stuff. (We stan Jaehaerys! Maybe?) Plus, it answers a lot of random questions that may have popped into your head as you were reading the original series.

Should the series come to fruition, it remains to be seen whether it would stick with a specific period in the Targaryen history (like the aforementioned Dance) or be more of an anthology show, with each season featuring the era of the next Targaryen ruler. If HBO goes with the latter, then the show could conceivably incorporate the Dunk & Egg stories into its telling.

For more on Fire & Blood, check out our in-depth review from last November, and the way-more-fun-to-read speculation on the 6 remaining questions that George R.R. Martin didn’t answer in the book. (Spoilers, obviously, abound.) 

J.K. Rowling has done much to revive the literary genre of boarding school stories, which achieved its greatest (pre-Potter) popularity in the period between Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857) and the mid-twentieth century. As a setting, boarding schools allow for the construction of thrilling narratives: concerned parents are replaced by teachers who may well prioritize student achievement over student welfare, e.g. maximizing points for Gryffindor over the survival of the students earning those points. Because the students cannot easily walk away from the school, they must deal with teachers and other students, some of whom may be vividly villainous (Miss Minchin, for example—the antagonist in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess).

Are there any SFF novels featuring boarding schools? Why yes! I am glad you asked—there are more than I can list in a single article. Here are just a few.

Joe and Jack C. Haldeman’s 1983 fix-up There is No Darkness features an institution called Starschool. It is both school and starship; its itinerary includes a dozen-plus worlds scattered across the Confederación. Each world offers opportunities for students to find themselves in way over their heads. Protagonist Carl Bok, who hails from a backwater planet, must prove himself to his wealthier and more cultured schoolmates. He strides confidently into danger and then must do his best to extricate himself.

Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids (1989) introduces Ankh-Morpork’s Assassin’s Guild…or to be more exact, the institution that trains the assassins of tomorrow. Entry into the school is easy, whether one is poor or, like Pteppic of Djelibeybi, of actual nobility. Between induction and graduation, students receive an education in all the ways that living beings can be ushered into the afterlife. One in fifteen of the students emerges having mastered these techniques. The other fourteen gain personal acquaintance with sudden murder. Still, everyone agrees that the Assassin’s Guild is a lot more fun than the Jester’s Guild next door. Pteppic of Djelibeybi may survive the school—only to find that it’s actually less frightening than the looming danger waiting for him at home.

Kazuma Kamachi’s ongoing series of short novels and their associated manga and anime (A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, etc.) is set in Academy City. The city is home to over two million students, most of whom have some degree of reality-breaking Esper power. Some can control electromagnetism; some can keep objects at a constant temperature. Imagine the Xavier School for the Gifted with the population of Paris, France. Unlike the leadership of Xavier’s school, however, the people running Academy City are ambitious people entirely unfamiliar with the concepts of consent or ethics….

Christopher Brookmyre’s 2009 Pandaemonium features St. Peter’s High School. It isn’t technically a boarding school, but it ventures into boarding school territory when administrators arrange a retreat for students in a secluded facility. The teachers and staff have only the best of intentions: the outing is an effort to ensure that the students come to terms with the recent death of a schoolmate. Alas, the staff have not vetted the facility’s neighbours as well as they should have, which is why it takes the attendees some time to become aware that they will be dossing down next to a portal to Hell. Coming to terms with death swiftly becomes a universal experience.

Most denizens of boarding schools are dispatched there by their parents or guardians. In Nicky Drayden’s 2018 Temper, twin brothers Auben and Kasim have connived to win their way into a prestigious boarding school; they’ve blackmailed their wealthy father (whose paternity is unacknowledged; he prefers that it stay that way). The twins enroll in the hope that somewhere in the school’s well-stocked library is a hint about how to cure the brothers’ ongoing divine possession. It’s good to have goals when one heads off to higher education; the twins manage to achieve unimagined heights. Of what, I’m not telling you…

So, if you are a writer and your youthful protagonists are burdened with parents as doting as they are competent , don’t despair! Simply invent a suitably Dickensian educational establishment that offers full-time living quarters and dispatch them hence. Adventure can only follow!

Originally published in January 2019.

In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is surprisingly flammable.

There’s a new Midnight Society in town! Nickelodeon has released the first trailer for the upcoming reboot of its spooky classic, Are You Afraid of the Dark?

As in the original series, a group of friends gathers around a campfire to try and out-scare each other with increasingly spoopier tales. This time, however, it looks like the lines between fiction and reality get way more blurred, a la Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark. Instead of getting extinguished by the Midnight Society’s signature red bucket, the Carnival of Doom in one story finds its way into real life, and the kids have to figure out how to make it out alive.

The three-part limited series hits Nickelodeon October 11.

Amazon’s Carnival Row has garnered some mixed reviews since it premiered last mont, but we really enjoyed it — a thoughtful Victorian drama that examines themes of racial inequality and colonialism. Prior to its debut, Amazon announced that it had renewed the series for a second season, meaning that those who enjoyed the first eight episodes will have something to look forward to.

But it’ll be a while before that next season begins streaming. Fortunately, those who enjoyed the show will be able to keep returning: Nerdist partnered with Amazon, Legendary Television and Monte Cook Games to produce an official RPG rulebook that uses the Cypher RPG System, which you can download for free.

The 36-page rulebook outlines a broad set of rules, allowing players to create Human, Faerie, Faun, Trow, Centaur, Kobold, and Marrok characters as they navigate the world. The book also provides some interesting background material on the world — delving a bit into the history and culture of the two worlds and the societies that inhabit them. There’s also some additional information about the Burgue and its inhabitants — including characters from the game, should you want to incorporate them into a game that you play on your own.

Additionally, Nerdist created a series of their own characters, outlining their creation in a video. They’re also included in the book.

The book isn’t as exhaustive as a proper RPG guidebook: it’s a novel promotional tie-in that makes sense, given the immersive world that the series presents viewers. But, it’s enough for curious fans and gamers to play around with the setting while they wait for the next season to roll around.