Twenty years ago a television series premiered about a man returned from the dead, stalking monsters through Los Angeles, hoping for a second shot at life and redemption.

No, not Angel—Brimstone.

Brimstone was an early entry in the urban horror genre, before Angel, Constantine, or Supernatural, even beating out the rash of apocalyptic religious horror that hit movie theaters the following year. It only lasted a single short season, aired out of order, with nowhere near enough promotion to help audiences attach to its high concept. Which is a shame, because the alternate universe where the show was a hit is probably a much more interesting place.

Revisiting the show for its anniversary, it’s a conflicted but fascinating work of horror shot through with ’90s cheesiness, but also dotted with moments of brilliant writing and heart.

Created by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, who went on to write Kung Fu Panda and its sequels, Brimstone was a surprisingly high concept show for its era, the kind of show that would have rewarded fan theories and late night internet discussions if it had lasted long enough. Unfortunately, the show was saddled with an inconsistent time slot—eventually paired on Friday nights with the similarly dark-and-brooding Millennium—and it was cancelled after only 13 episodes.

Here’s the premise for those of you who haven’t watched the show (and if you do decide to watch, don’t worry, this is repeated [and repeated, and repeated] during the show’s opening montage): Ezekiel Stone was a cop. When his wife Rosalyn was raped, he caught the attacker, but the guy was released on a technicality. So, Stone killed him and made it look like an OD. About a month later, Stone himself was murdered on the job, and was sent to Hell for the murder of the rapist. But then! Fifteen years later, 113 of the ickiest souls in Hell managed to escape and return to Earth, so the Devil offered Stone a deal: hunt the souls down and “return” them (shoot them in the eyes so their souls get sucked back to Hell) and earn a second chance at life—and possibly a second shot at redemption.

Bask in this font!

The pilot opens with this narration, as Stone tells his origin story as a confession to a priest (as iterations of Daredevil have done ever since) but the priest, it turns out, is one of the 113 damned souls! It’s a great way to load a lot of exposition into the show without sacrificing action, and obviously it grounds the audience immediately in the fact that this is a religious horror show. A high-concept religious horror show, with over-the-top faux-medieval font in the credits, and plenty of crash cuts, murky lighting, and wobbly CGI. Peter Horton, fresh off his stint as your mom’s favorite doomed character on thirtysomething, plays Stone with maximum snark and world weariness, and John Glover imbues the Devil with even more snark, plus a dash of cold, genuine hatred for all of humanity.

Like many shows of its era, it was aired completely out of order because continuity wasn’t really a thing that networks respected. The pilot took place in New York, and set up a couple of side characters who any follower of supernatural procedurals would expect to become regulars: the naïve-but-helpful Guy On the Force Who Gives The Lead Access to Police Investigations, the Kindly Priest Who Has Seen Some Shit, the Wacky Hotel Clerk Who Busts Stone’s Balls. But all of this is uprooted in the next aired episode, “Heat,” where Stone is suddenly in L.A., and has established banter with a different Guy On the Force—Teri Polo’s Detective Ash. It’s not until “Poem” (filmed to be episode 2 but aired as episode 5) that we get the necessary exposition: Stone arrives in L.A. and looks up his wife Rosalyn in the phone book, as the Devil mocks him for moving cross-country to find her. It’s also in this episode that the Kindly Priest Who Has Seen Some Shit inexplicably reappears, having been reassigned to a Los Angeles parish that becomes integral to the plot, but it’s not until “Repentance,” (filmed to be episode 5 but aired as episode 4) that Lori Petty suddenly pops up as a different Wacky Hotel Clerk Who Busts Stone’s Balls.

You can see why the show had trouble keeping an audience.

Taxi Driver-esque Manhattan, Eternity ad, and a poster for City of Angels. This show has it all.

Stone wakes each morning with his badge, his gun, a full magazine of bullets, the clothes he was wearing when he died, and $36.27, the amount of money he had in his pockets. Which is great, because his bullets always refresh each day, but he can’t buy anything more expensive than $36.27. (And yes, Ezekiel 36:27 is significant, why do you ask? “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” for any Hebrew Bible nerds out there.) The rules are set out in the pilot and then refined: Stone and the rest of the damned have superhuman strength, and can only be hurt/killed by each other—a regular mortal attacking one of them has no effect. The longer you’ve been in Hell the more evil you are, because you absorb Hell’s, well, hellishness. The only way to dispatch one of the damned is to take out their eyes because they’re, heavy sigh, the windows to the soul. 

When Brimstone is good it could easily stand beside any of the creepy shows of the last two decades: it’s refreshingly diverse, it tackles its central plot point in a really interesting way, and, as I’ll get into in a sec, it flies in the face of most 90s “supernatural” type media.

I didn’t remember how relevant the show was regarding current conversations about gender and masculinity. The show made rape its central, catalyzing event, but then actually dealt with the consequences of rape rather than using it as a plot device. Gilbert Jax, the man who attacked Rosalyn Stone, is a serial rapist, and Stone ends up “returning” him in “Encore” when he starts attacking women again. In that episode we see how Stone dealt with what was done to his wife—in short, not well. After Jax attacks another woman, her husband begins down the same road Stone did, buying a gun and launching his own investigation with the intention of murdering the man. Meanwhile, he abandons his wife to her own emotions, so hung up on his need to “avenge” her that he can’t listen when she tells him what she needs. He prioritizes his pain over hers, just as Stone did after Rosalyn was raped.  Stone manages to stop the man and take care of Jax himself, but all the while the Devil is needling him, reminding him that it was the joy he took in the original murder that damned him in the first place. Later we see that Stone was far from a model husband, and get the sense that while he did truly love Rosalyn, he has also fetishized that love to a certain extent, rather than confronting the failings in their relationship or thinking through ways he could have been a better partner.

Your mom just sighed SO hard.

The show uses many of its episodes to examine power dynamics, oppression, sexual exploitation, and domestic abuse over a wide spectrum. “Altar Boys” avoids the issue of sexual abuse, but does explore the ways priests can abuse their power over children. In “Poem,” Stone hunts a Tang Dynasty poet who fetishizes virginal women and murders them for their blood, while “Heat” is about a medieval woman who was raped, and burned the families of her rapists after she was denied justice—it’s implied that she went to Hell for killing innocent bystanders, not for seeking vengeance. In “Lovers,” the central villains are Paco and Jocelyn, who died in a suicide pact after murdering Jocelyn’s parents for trying to force them apart. They died in the 1960s, but the show makes the point that not much has changed in the intervening years—Jocelyn can do pretty much whatever she wants as a pretty blonde white woman, but Paco is still stuck working as a valet at a country club and being manhandled by racist cops, just like when he was alive. “Repentance,” and “Ashes” both deal with Nazism. In the first, a Nazi returns to Earth in an attempt to atone for his crimes, and in the second Stone faces off with a neo-Nazi metalworker who tells him: “The millennium’s coming, and the only uniform that’s gonna matter is the color of your skin!” In “Poem” there’s also tension between Stone’s ignorance of Chinese culture, and willingness to be corrected by people, and interactions with a Chinese-American landlady who is played as an object of derision. But then the show also includes a conversation between two Chinese-Americans about cops targeting new immigrants, presented in subtitled Cantonese. But they also complicate Stone himself—one of the returned souls is an African warrior, and when Stone tells him that he doesn’t like the ways he’s smirking at him, he brags that he used to rough kids up for looking at him that way. So our white cop, who has been presented to us as a hero, is quite open about abusing his power over black boys.

People often think of religious horror as something like The Exorcist where someone’s being attacked by demonic forces, or Rosemary’s Baby, where someone’s um, being attacked by demonic forces, or The Omen, where…um. Brimstone is fascinating because it instead goes full Nathaniel Hawthorne and offers audiences a type of religious horror where people are expected to pay for their crimes. Where horror often involves the idea of physics being out of joint, of the universe not behaving the way it’s supposed to, Brimstone is about the universe behaving inexorably according to A Plan. It’s a different angle on Lovecraft’s old idea of the fear and awe of “cosmic horror”—a reversion to Old Time Religion that is decidedly out of step with its decade.

Windows to the soul!

A popular conceit in the ’90s—as evidenced by things like Buffy and The X-Files and The Sandman and most of Alan Moore’s work—posited a relativistic universe or multiverse, where many different mythological ideas were revealed to be true. (Basically they were all the media equivalent of those COEXIST bumper stickers.) Sometimes, as in The Sandman, each deity had their own realm, with the most popular ones simply having more power. Thor and Bast didn’t wink out of existence because a monotheism was popular, it just meant that representatives of The Silver City had more obvious clout when they all had audiences with Morpheus. Mulder respected Scully’s Catholic faith as much as she came to respect his belief in aliens. I tend to think that this came about because the ’90s were when a lot of longtime comics readers were coming into their own as writers and showrunners; if you grew up reading comics with Loki and Thor and the Silver Surfer and the Specter and Wonder Woman, where The Thing is a practicing Jew and Nightcrawler is a devout Catholic, and even Superman, undocumented immigrant from another planet, attends a Protestant church with his adoptive parents, it’s maybe a little easier to create a world where a lot of different religions can hang without too much fuss.

Brimstone flies in the face of all of that. The God worshiped by approximately one billion people worldwide is THE God, and if you don’t worship Him, even if he literally didn’t exist in your culture while you were alive, you will be judged for it. Seemingly this goes in the other direction, too, where people who are deemed good are presumably in a better place, even if they didn’t follow all the rules and regulations of Judaism, or Christianity—except if it’s the better place according to a culture that is not your own…um…how does that work? The comfort to be found in a show like Brimstone is simply the idea that there is cosmic justice, but the price of that justice is nightmarishly high.

This was exactly what the Devil looked like in the 1990s.

John Glover’s take on the Devil is fantastic—charming and funny, sure, but genuinely nasty, he quickly becomes one of our best cinematic devils. He doesn’t “like” Stone, Stone’s just an ant who happens to be useful at the moment. As much as Ezekiel can try to be snarky and fight back, the Devil can still knock him back down with no effort at all, and often does, with a cold, absolute anger that can’t be joked away. He’ll never allow Stone to forget that his choice to ask himself “What Would Punisher Do” resulted in his own damnation.

In Canto V of Dante’s Inferno the poet meets Paolo and Francesca, two lovers who are damned for their adultery. I remember discussing this section in a college course, and when the professor mentioned that the two lovers are bound together forever,  the class’s reaction was, and I quote, “Awwww.” The professor was quick to point out that while we found this romantic, that was not Dante’s intent. While he is sympathetic to them (he even faints from his distress) he also agrees with Virgil that the couple broke cosmic law. The class was displeased. I thought of this repeatedly while re-watching Brimstone, because it’s the first work of popular, non-didactic entertainment I’ve seen in a long time that toes that kind of moral line. And especially to do this in what is, essentially, a cop show, which are usually all about grey areas and corruption and getting the job done no matter the cost, and often feature at least a few morally-conflicted Catholics who have to reconcile their job with their faith—there is no flexibility here.

The show repeatedly takes people who have legitimate grievances about their lives on Earth, gives us reason to be sympathetic to them, but then demands that we reject that sympathy. In “Repentance,” we’re asked to empathize with a Nazi who wanted to help people, and went so far as to gather documentation for a group of Jews with the intention of forging exit visas for them and helping them escape, but then chickened out and turned them over to be deported to a death camp. He hasn’t broken out of Hell to torment people—he’s using the breakout as an opportunity for redemption. He helps Stone catch a man who’s preying on the homeless, and then when Stone offers to let him go at the risk of pissing the Devil off, he allows Stone to return him. Having gotten a few weeks of borrowed life, he’s decided that the only way he can pay for his role in he Holocaust is to go back to Hell willingly. This too, is interesting. Generally speaking even if people realize they have some sort of debt to society, they still gladly take the opportunity to leave jail sooner, to escape the death penalty, etc. In real life, cultural memory is disturbingly short: we live in a time when a national figure can use the term “Holocaust Centers” instead of “fucking death camps” repeatedly, and still show up as part of a planned gag on an awards show mere months later.

It’s comforting to think of a universe where choices have consequences, where moral lines in the sand are actually uncrossable.

The requisite confessional shot.

Of course even Brimstone doesn’t stay in that universe too long, and complicates its own premise. “Ashes” explicitly asks whether it’s morally acceptable to judge ancient cultures by more modern beliefs—in this case an acolyte of the goddess Astarte who’s being judged according to Christian ethos—and I tend to think that this plot thread would have played an extremely important role in subsequent seasons if the show had continued. In “It’s a Helluva Life” (yes, their requisite It’s a Wonderful Life riff) Stone meets an angel, also played by John Glover, who tells Stone that his work for the Devil might also be serving a higher purpose. Yes, murdering Jax was wrong, but Stone is saving lives every day by returning damned people to Hell, and the angel hints that this might be working in his favor.

Even with all of this weighty substance, the show took time to be fun. All of Stone’s attempts to adjust to life in the ’90s—learning how to use the internet, craving the long-discontinued Reggie Bar, trying to catch up on over a decade of baseball seasons—work beautifully. Stone learning to rollerblade is an actual plot point. The Devil pops up whenever Stone’s eating to steal some of his food. Dogs are rescued from abusive people and given better homes, wacky hotel clerks work on their novels, and lots and lots of ’90s fashion is on display. Plus the show features a Jewish cop who says: “You go your way—I go Yahweh” and the Devil saying: “I never loved anyone but God… and that was a long time ago” and how can you not love that?

By the end of its first and only season, Brimstone created a unique world of urban horror, and introduced some amazing characters. It’s too bad we didn’t get at least a few more demon hunts, since I think the alternate universe where this show was a hit has a little more room for gothy fun than this one does, and I hope the show at least gets the cult following it deserves.

Kingpin is one of Marvel’s best known villains for a reason; he is a mortal man who pits himself against superheroes and often succeeds, an indomitable figure that should never be crossed. His portrayal on Daredevil by Vincent D’Onofrio has only served to elevate the character’s stature—D’Onofrio has imbued Wilson Fisk with fury and purpose, but also with idiosyncrasies and vulnerabilities that enrich the viewer’s understanding of what it means to be a man who wants to shape the world through sheer brutality and might.

But he has no idea how to decorate an apartment.

Kingpin made his big comeback in the latest season of Daredevil, and the character work laid in his first season introduction bore out in some fascinating directions, tracking his long-game return to the New York City underworld. But perhaps the most integral of all these avenues was a clear indictment of his engagement with art. This is presented on two fronts—a general obsession with lavish living and his more focused obsession on “Rabbit in a Snowstorm,” a single painting that connects him to his lover Vanessa Marianna. In examining how Fisk relates to these things, we find a man bankrupt of creative conscience, a man therefore ignorant of art’s power and purpose. This ignorance is inextricably tied to his downfall and to his position as the series’ villain. The fact that Wilson Fisk is incapable of understanding art is tied to his moral vacancy, a signal of his lack of humanity.

When we meet Wilson Fisk in season 1, he is part of a criminal consortium, a man building his own little empire and pulling strings. He encounters Vanessa at the art gallery where she works, and their first conversation is about a painting called “Rabbit in a Snowstorm,” a large canvas covered in white gradients. Vanessa tells him that people often ask how they can charge so much money for such a seemingly simple work, and she explains that it’s not about the artist’s name or their skill, it’s about how the piece of art makes a person feel. Fisk counters that it makes him feel alone. He buys the painting and hangs it in the bedroom of his penthouse apartment, and we later learn that his attachment to the painting is representative of something far more sinister; it looks like the wall of the apartment where he lived as a boy. It is the same wall that his abusive father told him to fixate on while he was ordered to think about “the man you wanna be,” the same wall that he focused on once again after murdering his father by hitting him repeatedly in the back of the head with a hammer. Being reminded of that wall is not really about engaging with the piece of art itself—it’s about re-centering himself when beset by traumatic memories from his past.

That penthouse is just one of many trappings of wealth and success that define Wilson Fisk’s life: expensive clothes and furnishings, fancy cars and employed drivers, the ability to dine at the finest restaurants and even to buy them out for a night whenever he wishes. But on his first date with Vanessa, he orders a bottle of wine, then tells her, “I don’t know much about wine. My assistant, he recommended it.” His assistant, James Wesley, is more than an employee—he is Fisk’s closest friend and confidante. He is also an arbiter of excellent taste, and well capable of divining what his employer needs often without being asked. It is probable that Wesley is responsible for the appearance of much of Fisk’s life, the quality of his wine and cars and suits, the precise knots of his bowties. Wesley’s careful guidance makes it appear that Wilson Fisk has opinions and tastes when he truly has very few: he has a wardrobe full of clothes, but selects the exact same colors to wear every day; he has a tray of fine cufflinks, but elects to wear his late father’s pair; he has a stocked state-of-the-art kitchen, but prefers to have the same, simple French omelet (Vanessa’s favorite) every day for breakfast. The one time he verbally expresses an excited opinion over something is when he tells Vanessa that the restaurant they are dining at has an excellent zuppa inglese, his favorite dessert from childhood, one that his beloved mother often made for him. Outside of that moment, he is a blank slate.

Vanessa seems to notice this, and once she has entered Wilson’s life, she begins to direct him toward different choices. Being an art curator, she has an eye for quality, creative expression, and as she tells Fisk after he orders the zuppa for them for dessert on that date, “It’s good to try new things.” She dusts off different suits in his closet for him to wear; she selects brand-new ones in colors he’s never worn before; she picks out a different pair of cufflinks in his tray so that he’s not constantly reminded of his monstrous father. It’s possible that Vanessa believes that she is helping him learn by exposing him new ideas and inviting new experiences. When she briefly meets Matt Murdock at her gallery, she tells him that “There is something very intimate in seeing art through another person’s eyes.” In the moment, she is speaking to Matt’s blindness, but it’s possible that she also believes the Wilson is doing much the same through her.

Yet when Fisk meets Matt in that same encounter, and Vanessa tells him Matt is looking for advice from a man of taste, his reply is, “Well, that’s simple. Buy whatever the lady tells you.” It seems like flattery, but it also speaks to Wilson’s Fisk’s true outlook when it comes to art, style, and creativity—he outsources it in his life, first to Wesley, then to Vanessa.

This comes even clearer in Dardevil’s third season, as Wesley’s death and Fisk’s separation from Vanessa make it even more evident that he has no perspective when it comes to any form of art, be it paintings, architecture, fashion, food, or otherwise. After Fisk makes his deal with the FBI and ends up situated in the penthouse of a hotel that he covertly owns, he gets dispensation to furnish the apartment, obtain new clothes, and so on. He makes the same omelets for breakfast because they remind him of Vanessa. His tray of cufflinks is returned to him, but he only wears the pair she picked out for him. He hangs art on the walls, and obtains new furnishings—perhaps these are Vanessa’s old possessions? But the apartment is arranged in a jarring fashion, everything oddly slotted into place like someone was arranging a Tetris board rather than making choices about decoration.

Then Wilson Fisk dons his trademark white suit.

In the comics, the suit is synonymous with the Kingpin. It is his uniform, as much a part of his persona as any hero’s spandex. But the show recontextualizes that suit in more ways than one. To begin with, when Wilson Fisk met Vanessa Marianna, she was dressed in white, and it was her favored color for clothing. There’s more; on their second date, Vanessa told a story to him about a prince who hit on her while she was traveling with an art collection. The guy used a romantic though over-the-top line on her, but she slept with him anyway, and Fisk showed discomfort at the tale. When questioned about it, he admitted being upset because he wished he had used such a line on Vanessa when they had met. And the prince? He was wearing a white suit with an ascot. (Fisk remarks that the ascot sounds a bit too much, which is a nod to the comics iteration of Kingpin’s suit, which often does come with the flashier neckwear.)

In the new penthouse apartment, the walk-in closet is literally lined with copy after copy of an identical white suit—rather than attempting to arrange a wardrobe suited to his tastes, a reflection of personal style showcasing any knowledge of fashion whatsoever, Fisk has chosen to don a color favored by the woman he loves. He chooses to wear that suit every single day so that whenever Vanessa is returned to the United States and they are reunited, he will be dressed as that suave prince was, wearing the cufflinks she selected. Fashion has long served humanity as a form of self-identification, a way of communicating things about ourselves to the world, and this is particularly easy to do when money is no object for a person, as is true is Fisk’s case. But here, there is no personal signature. The white suit isn’t a mark of Kingpin manifesting and coming into his own; it is further proof that Wilson Fisk has no opinions, thoughts, or relationship to art.

When Vanessa finally does arrive and Fisk introduces her to their new life in the hotel he purchased, he continues in this same vein, his opinion non-existent, his relationship to art more about ownership than any sort of attempt toward comprehension. When she walks into their penthouse, he says, “I don’t have your eye. But I hung them where I… guessed you would like them. We can move them, or buy other ones, whatever you like. I thought that you might want to curate a collection and display it throughout the hotel.” It’s complimentary, again, and while it’s nice that Wilson is enamored of Vanessa’s expertise, it’s still a matter of outsourcing. He allows her to know about art for him. He knows she would probably be pleased to curate her own art collection for the hotel, but that collection would still lend the place a pedigree that fits in perfectly with its three restaurants and proclaimed best spa in the city. It’s all about the appearance of class, wealth, and power, but Fisk himself doesn’t appear to appreciate any of these things on their own. He should simply have the best because he is the best. He arranged the penthouse for Vanessa because he “wanted [her] to feel welcome,” not because it made him happy or fulfilled him in any way.

Which brings us back to “Rabbit in a Snowstorm.”

Before Vanessa is brought back to the country, Fisk learns that the painting was found by the original owner when the government seized his assets, and reclaimed. He offers the original owner increasing sums to get it back, and she refuses. Eventually, he makes the choice to visit her. The woman’s name is Esther Falb, and she appears to match Fisk in both wealth and imperiousness—in their first face-to-face interaction, she demands that he remove his shoes. He comes into her home and makes his case for wanting the painting; in his own mind he’s retconned its history a bit. He refers to it as a gift from Vanessa (though he bought it from her gallery), and no longer seems to have such a strong association between it and the wall of his childhood home. Instead, he insists that the painting represents the love he shares with Vanessa: “She brought focus to my life, love, if you will. This painting is bound up in that love. It’s part of me, part of us.” So, its power as a piece of artwork is still lost on Wilson Fisk. He sees it now as a symbol of the bond between himself and the woman he loves. Certainly, that’s a viable interpretation of a painting. Vanessa herself once told Matt Murdock that art should speak to a person and move them, and that’s unquestionably what “Rabbit in a Snowstorm” does for the Kingpin.

But Wilson Fisk does not understand art. And so it never occurs to him that this painting, despite the money that bought it, was never for him and cannot be appreciated to its full extent by him.

Esther Falb tells him about the night that this painting was taken from her family. It was 1943, and the Gestapo came to her family’s door and took all of their possessions. Her father tried to fight them off, and they killed him for it. She lost the majority of her family in the Holocaust, and this painting is all she has left. And what’s more, she knows that he is no different from the people who destroyed her world:

“This painting is my connection to the people I love. I know who you are, Mr. Fisk. You are a wolf, too. Men like you took away family, took away my ability to love, and almost took my life. You will take nothing more.”

Wilson Fisk listens to her, and tells her that he believes that Vanessa would want her to keep the painting. Esther Falb doesn’t know why that should matter to her, but Fisk explains, “it matters to me.” Even in this moment of seeming kindness, of comprehension, he doesn’t leave the painting with the woman who it rightfully belongs to because he understands that her connection to this piece of art is more profound than his. He leaves it with her because he thinks it’s what Vanessa would deem correct. He still has no opinions of his own.

This bears out in every artistic decision that Wilson Fisk is called on to make. The first dance song at his and Vanessa’s wedding seems just as likely to have been chosen by their band conductor as anyone—“The Look of Love” is a perfectly fine selection to dance to, but do either Fisk or Vanessa strike anyone as Burt Bacharach or Dusty Springfield fans? Fisk can’t even select the flower to put hin is lapel before they say their vows. He waffles in a minor panic until Vanessa chooses for him.

But it gets worse. Ben Poindexter, otherwise known as Bullseye, notes that Fisk does not retrieve the painting from Ms. Falb. Desperate to make himself indispensable to Kingpin—to become “another Wesley”—Dex murders Esther Falb and takes the painting back to the penthouse. It is clear that Vanessa knows Dex killed the woman for it, but as she never learns about the conversation Fisk had with Ms. Falb, she doesn’t see a problem in it. There is too much happening for Fisk to question its sudden appearance, either. Spiritually, this seems the greatest injustice of the entire series; a fascist (because Wilson Fisk is emphatically a fascist) given a piece of artwork that belonged to a family destroyed by the Nazis. It’s horrifying. It cannot stand. Someone has to fix this.

Good thing we’ve got Daredevil on our side.

When Matt Murdock confronts Wilson Fisk with the intent of killing him, the surroundings matter less than the end result. After a wedding reception interruption by Agent Nadeem’s death confessional, followed by Bullseye’s party crash, Daredevil and Kingpin retreat to the penthouse and have their showdown. In a flurry of action, while the duo have to contend with Dex and work to keep Vanessa safe, they beat each other relentlessly. Matt finally gets the upper hand and punches Fisk repeatedly in the face, an act of righteous fury and pain and catharsis—

—and he sprays Fisk’s blood across “Rabbit in a Snowstorm.”

If it can’t belong to Esther Falb, then it certainly can’t default to a man the likes of Wilson Fisk. This painting, representative of the family it once belonged to, of history that we seem culturally ever-inclined to forget, cannot belong to a man who has never managed to cultivate an attachment to any form of art beyond its association with his wife. Because Ms. Falb is right; Wilson Fisk is a monster. This is a part of his monstrosity. He sees all art as a prop for stature and a signal of might to the outside world. He is emotionally incapable of forming a connection to any of it because he lacks basic empathy toward all but one or two people in the entire world. And that is where our creativity, our imaginations, our ability to engage with art comes from—empathy.

Art is incomprehensible to Wilson Fisk. So it seems only right that the devil should take it from him by coating the only work of art he deemed valuable in his own blood. It is not a coincidence that this is where their fight ends; Vanessa asks Daredevil to relent, and Matt Murdock returns to himself and makes the choice to spare Fisk’s life. Kingpin is stopped, and vengeance is won. The painting is no longer “peaceful,” as Fisk suggested when he came to talk to Ms. Falb—now it is a canvas of gradient white interrupted by violence and fear, his own blood a representation of the moment when Daredevil emerged victorious and the city was finally rid of him. The one piece of art that he chose to place genuine importance on is forcibly excised from him as a symbol of his defeat.

While there are many aspects of Wilson Fisk that make his villainy clear, Daredevil’s choice to focus on his separation from art is a signal for the viewer’s benefit. Fascism and a love of art seldom go hand-in-hand because art is a key avenue to speaking truth. But Kingpins aren’t interested in truth. They are interested only in possessing whatever they touch.

Emily Asher-Perrin assumes that the government will repossess the painting… but you never know. You can bug him on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.

The winners of the 2018 Nommo Awards were announced on Friday, October 26 at the Ake Festival in Lagos, Nigeria. Congratulations to the nominees and winners, and congratulations to Tade Thompson for receiving the Best Novella Award for his captivating and addictive horror story The Murders of Molly Southborne, out from Tor.com Publishing!

Members of the African Speculative Fiction Society voted on the awards based on a Short List of nominees announced in April of this year. The Nommo Awards recognize works of speculative fiction by Africans, defined as “science fiction, fantasy, stories of magic and traditional belief, alternative histories, horror and strange stuff that might not fit in anywhere else.”

The nominees, with winners in bold:

Novel

• Our Memory Like Dust, Gavin Chait (Doubleday)
• The Real, Masha du Toit (CreateSpace Publishing)
• Fever, Deon Meyer (Grove/Atlantic, Inc.)
• Akata Warrior, Nnedi Okorafor (Penguin Young Readers Group)
• After the Flare, Deji Olokotun (The Unnamed Press)
• Beasts Made of Night, Tochi Onyebuchi (Penguin Young Readers Group)

Novella

• Binti: Home, Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
• Fallow, Sofia Samatar (Included in Tender, Small Beer Press)
• The Murders of Molly Southbourne, Tade Thompson (Tor.com Publishing)

Buy The Murders of Molly Southbourne from:

 Short Story

• “On the Other Side of the Sea,” Nerine Dorman
• “A Door Ajar, ” Sibongile Fisher
• “Read Before Use,” Chinelo Onwualu
• “Snake Story,” Henrietta Rose-Innes
• “The Regression Test,” Wole Talabi

Graphic Novel

• Eru, Writers and artists, Tobe Ezeogu & Ozo Ezeogu (www.thecomicrepublic.com)
• Guardian Prime Genesis, Writer, Wale Awelenje, Artist, Jide Martin (www.thecomicrepublic.com)
• Hero Kakere, Writer and artist Tobe Ezeogu, Artist Kelechi Issac, (www.thecomicrepublic.com)
• Ireti Bidemi, Michael Balogun and Adeleye Yusuf (www.thecomicrepublic.com)
• Lake of Tears, Writer, Kwabena Ofei, Artist, Setor Fiadzigbey (http://lakeoftearsghana.com)
• Quest & the Sign of the Shining Beast, Writer, Robert S Malan, Artist, John Cockshaw

Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween movie, or a Christmas movie? In terms of worldbuilding, it’s obviously both—it’s about a bunch of Halloween-town residents taking over Christmas from Santa Claus.

But worldbuilding elements don’t suffice as genre classifiers, or else black comedies wouldn’t exist. Creators deliberately apply worldbuilding elements from one genre to another for pure frission’s sake. Consider Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (speaking of Christmas movies), which takes a New York noir character, a down-on-his-luck con, and drops him into an LA noir scenario of movie glitz and private eyes; or Rian Johnson’s amazing Brick, a noir story engine driving high school characters. Fantasy literature is rife with this sort of behavior—consider Steven Brust’s use of crime drama story in the Vlad Taltos books, or for that matter the tug of war between detective fiction and fantasy that propels considerable swaths of urban fantasy. If we classify stories solely by the worldbuilding elements they contain, we’re engaging in the same fallacy as the Certain Kind of Book Review that blithely dismisses all science fiction as “those books with rockets.”

And what happens after the slippery slope? The No True Scotsman Argument?!

[Note: So far “Halloween movie” is winning in this Twitter poll, but there’s still time!”]

This is a frivolous question, sure, like some of the best. But even frivolous questions have a serious edge: holidays are ritual times, and stories are our oldest rituals. The stories we tell around a holiday name that holiday: I’ve failed at every Christmas on which I don’t watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. When December rolls around, even unchurched folk can get their teeth out for a Lessons & Carols service.

So let’s abandon trappings and turn to deep structures of story. Does The Nightmare Before Christmas work as Christmas movies do? Does it work as Halloween movies do? It can achieve both ends, clearly—much as a comedy can be romantic, or a thriller funny. But to resolve our dilemma we must first identify these deep structures.

Halloween Movies

Halloween movies are difficult to classify, because two types of movie demand inclusion: movies specifically featuring the holiday, like Hocus Pocus or even E.T., and horror movies, like Cabin in the Woods, The Craft, or The Devil’s Advocate. Yet some horror movies feel definitely wrong for Halloween—Alien, for example. Where do we draw the line?

I suggest that movies centering on Halloween tend to be stories about the experimentation with, and confirmation of, identities. Consider, for example, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which might at first glance be mistaken for a simple slice of life featuring the Peanuts characters’ adventures on Halloween. In fact, the story hinges on the extent to which the various Peanuts’ identities shine through the roles they assume. Charlie Brown is the Charlie Browniest ghost in history; a dust cloud surrounds Pig Pen’s spirit. Snoopy operates, as always, in a liminal space between fantasy and reality—he becomes the most Snoopy-like of WWI fighter aces. Linus, whose idealism and hope are the salvation centerpiece of A Charlie Brown Christmas, isn’t equipped for the kind of identity play the other characters attempt. He’s too sincere for masks, and as a result becomes the engine of conflict in the story. For Linus, every holiday must be a grand statement of ideals and hope. In a way, Linus is rewarded—he meets the Avatar of Halloween in Snoopy’s form, but fails to appreciate the message sent, which is that Halloween is an opportunity for play, for self-abandonment. It’s Lucy who turns out to be the truest embodiment of the holiday—by explicitly donning her witch mask, she’s able to remove it, and bring her brother home.

Even movies that feature Halloween in passing use it to highlight or subvert their characters’ identities by exploiting the double nature of the Halloween costume: it conceals the wearer’s identity and reveals her character at once. In E.T.’s brief Halloween sequence, for example, while Elliott’s costume is bare-bones, Michael, Mary, and E.T. himself all shine through their costume selections, literally in the case of E.T. The Karate Kid’s Halloween sequence highlights Danny’s introversion (he’s literally surrounded by a shower curtain!) and the Cobra Kai’s inhumanity (skeletons with all their faces painted identically!). Even holiday movies like Hocus Pocus that aren’t principally concerned with costuming present Halloween as a special night for which identities grow flexible: the dead can be living, the living dead, and a cat can be a three-hundred-year-old man.

If we expand our focus to include books that focus or foreground Halloween, we find Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October, Raskin’s The Westing Game, and Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, all of which focus on the experimentation with, or explicit concealment of, identities, and the power of revelation. Fan artists get in on the fun too—every time Halloween rolls around, I look forward to sequences like this, of characters from one medium dressed up as characters from another.

The centrality of identity play to the holiday explains why some horror movies feel “Halloween-y” while others don’t. Alien, for example, is a terrifying movie, one of my favorites, but with one notable exception it doesn’t care about masquerades. Cabin in the Woods, on the other hand, feels very Halloween, though it’s less scary than Alien—due, I think, to its focus on central characters’ performance of, or deviation from, the identities they’ve been assigned.

Examined in this light, The Nightmare Before Christmas is absolutely a Halloween movie. The entire film’s concerned with the construction and interrogation of identity, from the opening number in which each citizen of Halloween Town assumes center stage and assumes an identity (“I am the shadow on the moon at night!”), to Jack’s final reclamation of himself—“I am the Pumpkin King!”

So, are we done?

Not hardly.

Christmas Movies

Christmas films are easier, because there’s basically one Christmas story, shot over and over again down the decades: the tale of a community healing itself.

A Charlie Brown Christmas features all the Peanuts characters at their dysfunctional and at times misanthropic best, but it lands as a Christmas story through Linus’ speech, which fuses the shattered community and allows their final chorus. Home Alone’s break-ins and booby traps knit into a Christmas story by their depiction of Kate’s trip to join her son, and Kevin’s realization that he actually misses his family. The perennial Christmas fable Die Hard likewise starts with a broken family and moves toward reunification, with incidental terrorism and bank robbery thrown in to keep things moving.

The most famous Christmas story of all, A Christmas Carol, does focus on a single character—but Dickens depicts Scrooge as a tragic exile ultimately saved by his decision to embrace his community, in spite of the tragedies inflicted upon him. It’s a Wonderful Life tells the Christmas Carol story inside out: George Bailey doubts whether his life has meaning, given his lack of success by external, materialistic standards—but in the end his community reaffirms his value.

(By this reading, the Christmas story becomes the polar opposite of the standard Western / action movie formula of the Lone Rugged Individualist who Saves the Day. Which leads, in turn, to an analysis of Die Hard and the films of Shane Black beyond the scope of this article. For future research!)

So, if Christmas movies are movies about the healing of a fractured community, does The Nightmare Before Christmas fit the bill?

It seems to. Jack’s decision to walk away from the community of Halloween Town is the story’s inciting incident, and the film ends with the Town heralding his return, and his own offer of a more personal sort of community to Sally. (Speaking of which, I defy you to find an on-screen romance sold more effectively through fewer lines of dialogue. It’s one of moviemaking’s minor miracles that “My dearest friend / if you don’t mind” succeeds even though Jack and Sally exchange perhaps a hundred words over the course of the whole film.) So, we have a Christmas story!

What now?

A Nightmare Before Christmas seems to satisfy both classifiers, being both a story about an exile finding his way back to his community, and a story about identity play. We can safely watch it for each holiday without confusing our rituals!

But I think the film actually goes a step beyond merely satisfying as both a Christmas movie and a Halloween movie—the two story structures inform one another. We start firmly in Halloween, with a song of identity declaration. “I am the Clown with the Tear-away Face,” the movie’s opening number proclaims, and we meet Jack as the Pumpkin King. But the identities assumed here are too narrow to satisfy. Jack has mastered Pumpkin King-ing, but mastery has trapped him inside that identity. He feels sickened by his station, like a child who’s eaten too much candy.

And no surprise! For Jack, and to a lesser extent for the rest of the Town, the play has faded from Halloween. It’s a job, complete with after-action conferences, meaningless awards, and group applause; not for nothing is the Mayor’s character design functionally identical to that of Dilbert’s Pointy Haired Boss. Jack’s malaise parallels the crisis of the college graduate or midlife office worker, who, having spent a heady youth experimenting with different identities, finds herself stuck performing the same damn one every day.

Jack’s discovery of Christmas forces him into a new relationship with his community. Setting aside his unquestioned rule of Halloween Town, he becomes its Christmas evangelist; he cajoles, convinces, and inspires Halloween Town’s people to pursue a vision they never quite grasp. His Christmas quest unites, transforms, and expands his people, while at the same time revealing them—the Doctor develops flying reindeer, the band plays new tunes, the vampires learn to ice skate. The Christmas experiment allows Halloween Town to experience the transgressive joy of the holiday the town is supposed to promote: that of donning masks, applying paint, assuming a different form—and yet remaining yourself. The entire community plays Halloween together, wearing the mask of Christmas. In attempting to lose themselves, they find themselves again.

In the end, Halloween Town’s Christmas experiment terrifies the mortal realm far more than their Halloween itself. By encouraging his community to play, and by playing himself, Jack expands his identity, and theirs—and with his new, more roomy self, he finally sees Sally as a person and a companion, as “my dearest friend” rather than just another citizen.

The holidays for which cards and candy are made serve America for rituals. They chart our life’s progress. Halloween’s the first folk duty we ask young children to perform under their own power, the first time we ask them to choose faces. Costume choice is practice for the day we ask “what do you want to be when you grow up?” On Thanksgiving we remember how contingent and accidental are those faces we’ve assumed—and we recognize (or should) how many skeletons lie buried under our feet. That’s the awakening of political consciousness, the knowledge that we have received, and taken, much. Then comes Christmas, in which the year dies, and we must love one another or die too.

And then, after a long winter broken only by a few candy hearts, we reach Easter.

The Nightmare Before Christmas endures, I think, because it’s about the operation, not the celebration, of holidays. It’s a movie about the function and value and power of Halloween and Christmas both; there are even notes of Easter in the kidnapped bunny, and Jack’s momentary Pietà. The film invites us to stretch our holidays beyond their limits, to let Halloween and Christmas chat and eye one another warily.

Plus, the music’s great.

This article was originally published in December 2014

Max Gladstone writes books about the cutthroat world of international necromancy: wizards in pinstriped suits and gods with shareholders’ committees. You can follow him on Twitter.

While Marvel is often credited for revitalizing the superhero genre in the early 1960s, in truth they were simply following DC’s lead. It was in the 1950s that DC came out with new versions of the Flash and Green Lantern, created characters like the Martian Manhunter, and revived World War II heroes Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, including bringing them all together into a team known as the Justice League of America.

The JLA in particular was hugely popular, taking the various solo heroes and putting them together into their own team title. So in 1963, Marvel followed suit, as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby put Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp together into a team book that they called The Avengers.

The Hulk didn’t last long in the book, departing in issue #2, and in issue #4, Lee and Kirby brought back Kirby and Joe Simon’s hero of WWII, Captain America. In addition, reflecting the change in his own sub-series in Tales to Astonish, Ant-Man transformed into Giant-Man.

And then the big change happened: in issue #16, all the remaining founders resigned, and Captain America was left with a new team that included himself and three former villains: Hawkeye (a dupe of the Black Widow, who had fought Iron Man), Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch (the latter former members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants who’d fought the X-Men).

That proved a harbinger of things to come, as the one thing that remained consistent about the Avengers was that its lineup would never be consistent. In the 1980s, a west coast branch was formed, and for quite some time there were two titles: Avengers and West Coast Avengers (or Avengers West Coast, as it was changed to in order to keep both books in the same spot in alphabetically sorted comic store racks). After the team disbanded following the “Disassembled” storyline in the early 2000s, several new Avengers teams popped up: the New Avengers, the Secret Avengers, the Dark Avengers, and so on, not to mention the Great Lakes Avengers that has appeared periodically since the 1990s.

While the core of the team has often been founding members Iron Man, Thor, the Wasp, and Henry Pym in his various identities (Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, Dr. Pym, etc.), as well as almost-founder Captain America, the lineup has been in a constant state of flux.

Buy it Now

It has also been one of Marvel’s standbys, the central team that’s at the heart of the Marvel superheroic universe. Where the Fantastic Four were a specific family, the X-Men were always outcasts to some degree, and all the other teams were far more fleeting, the Avengers have always endured in one form or other.

Kevin Feige’s design for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s early days all was structured to lead to a big Avengers film, starting with Nick Fury’s mention of “the Avengers Initiative” in the post-credits scene at the end of Iron Man. In 2012, that all came together. Zak Penn, fresh off The Incredible Hulk, wrote a screenplay, which was rewritten by Joss Whedon when he was hired to direct. Whedon was an ideal choice: his long tenure as co-creator and show-runner of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse gave him tremendous geek cred on screen, and his comics fandom was long-established, and he had experience writing comics with an acclaimed run on Astonishing X-Men (much of which was mined for X-Men: The Last Stand, though I suppose one shouldn’t hold that against it). Whedon also did some uncredited script work on Captain America: The First Avenger, designed to help set this movie up.

The story took its inspiration from both Avengers #1—in which Loki manipulated events that wound up bringing the various heroes together—and The Ultimates series, which introduced the “Ultimate” line’s version of the Avengers, inexplicably called the Ultimates in that timeline—in which the team is a part of S.H.I.E.L.D., and in which they fight the Chitauri.

The only character who was re-cast was the Hulk, with Mark Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton from The Incredible Hulk, who was unable to come to terms with Marvel Studios. Back from Iron Man 2 are Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff, and Paul Bettany as J.A.R.V.I.S. Back from Thor are Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Stellan Skarsgård as Eric Selvig, and Maximiliano Hernández as Jasper Sitwell. Back from Captain America: The First Avenger are Chris Evans as Steve Rogers and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. First seen in this film are Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Alexis Denisof as the Other, Daimion Poitier as Thanos, and Powers Boothe and Jenny Agutter as members of the World Security Council that supervises S.H.I.E.L.D.

Downey Jr., Paltrow, Ruffalo, and Bettany will next be seen in Iron Man 3. Jackson, Gregg, Boothe, and Smulders will next be seen on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series. Evans, Johansson, Hernández, and Agutter will next be seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Hemsworth, Hiddleston, and Skarsgård will next be seen in Thor: The Dark World. Renner will next be seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Denisof will next be seen in Guardians of the Galaxy, ditto the character of Thanos, played by Josh Brolin.

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot”

The Avengers
Written by Zak Penn and Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon
Produced by Kevin Feige
Original release date: April 11, 2012

The Tesseract is active on Earth, and an alien being known only as the Other—who serves another master—has sent Loki, whom he rescued from the abyss at the end of Thor, to capture the Tesseract. Then Loki will lead the Chitauri soldiers to an invasion of Earth, which Loki will then rule.

Dr. Edward Selvig is in charge of investigating the Tesseract at a S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Agent Clint Barton is observing. Agent Phil Coulson reports to Director Nick Fury that the Tesseract is active—they have no idea why. Fury has Agent Maria Hill remove all the Phase 2 material off the base.

The Tesseract opens a portal, through which comes Loki, holding a scepter that seems to be powered by the same energy as the Tesseract. He uses the scepter to put both Selvig and Barton under his thrall. Unfortunately, the portal is unstable and it starts to collapse. Fury orders an evacuation after both he and Hill try and fail to stop Loki and Barton.

The base is destroyed by the collapsing portal, though Coulson leads an evacuation that gets most, though not all, of the agents out. While Loki conscripts Selvig, Barton, and a bunch of other scientists Loki subsumes the wills of with the scepter in order to construct a more stable portal, Fury plans for war.

He has Coulson call Agent Natasha Romanoff, who is in the midst of an interrogation—which in her case means she’s tied to a chair being questioned and using the questioning to gain intelligence. The tableau is interrupted by Coulson calling one of the agents, threatening the bad guy with an F-22 if he doesn’t put Romanoff on. She’s unwilling to end the op until Coulson says that Barton’s been compromised and captured, at which point she kicks fifteen kinds of ass (while still tied to the chair) and comes in.

Her first task is to approach Dr. Bruce Banner in Calcutta, where he works as a doctor to the poor folks and has not turned into the Hulk in a year. Romanoff assures him that Fury doesn’t want the monster, they want Banner—the Tesseract gives off a faint gamma signature, and Banner knows more about gamma radiation than anyone. Banner agrees, but not until after he tests Romanoff, snapping at her, which causes her to whip out a gun and look impressively frightened.

Coulson, meanwhile, brings all the material on the Tesseract, as well as the files on the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and Loki, to Stark Tower, a new edifice in New York City that is completely powered by the clean energy of an ARC reactor. Coulson asks Stark, in his role as a consultant for S.H.I.E.L.D., to go over the material.

Fury, meanwhile, approaches Captain Steve Rogers, who is getting himself into fighting shape, mostly by destroying a series of punching bags. Fury explains that Howard Stark found the Tesseract when he was looking for Rogers in the Arctic. Now they need to get it back from Loki. When Fury asks if there’s any intelligence about the Tesseract Rogers can provide, he says only that they should have left it in the ocean.

Coulson accompanies Rogers to what looks like an aircraft carrier. It turns out that Coulson is a huge fan of Captain America—he even has a complete set of trading cards from the 1940s. Rogers meets Banner and Romanoff; the latter suggests they get inside, as it’ll be hard to breathe. Rogers thinks that means it’s a submarine, which worries Banner, as putting him in a pressurized underwater tin can isn’t the hottest idea—then the turbines unfurl and it quickly becomes obvious that it’s a helicarrier that’s about to become airborne. Banner smiles ruefully and says, “Oh no, this is much worse.”

Banner gets started on trying to track the Tesseract. Meanwhile, Agent Jasper Sitwell has been running facial recognition to try to find Loki or Selvig or Barton, and he finds Loki in Stuttgart.

Loki is there to obtain iridium, which Selvig needs for his portal stabilizer. Even as Barton makes off with it, Loki orders a crowd to kneel before him—but one person, an older gentleman, refuses to kneel to “men like you.” Loki says that there are no men like him, and the old man says, “There are always men like you.”

And then Rogers and Romanoff show up in a quinjet, Rogers commenting that the last time he was in Germany and someone tried to lord it over the people, it didn’t go so well for him. They fight, joined soon by Stark in the full Iron Man armor (even taking over the quinjet’s PA to play heavy metal entrance music). Loki surrenders a bit too easily, and they take him prisoner on the quinjet.

As they fly back to the helicarrier, there is a sudden lightning storm, which heralds the arrival of Thor, who breaks into the quinjet and takes Loki to a mountaintop. Thor had thought Loki dead—they mourned him and everything—and now he has taken the Tesseract and will subjugate Earth, something Thor can’t allow. But before he can do anything about it, Stark attacks Thor, saying he can have Loki once he gives them the Tesseract back. They get into it, Rogers joining them, and finally putting a stop to it. (Romanoff stays the hell out of it, advising Rogers to do likewise, but he doesn’t listen.)

They return to the helicarrier. Thor says that Loki has an army called the Chitauri, from a world unknown to Asgard or Earth. Thor is also upset to learn that Loki has Selvig in thrall. Stark—after surreptitiously putting a tiny piece of tech on a console while distracting everyone with his smartassery—agrees to help Banner find the Tesseract. Loki, meanwhile, is put in a large cage that was designed to hold the Hulk—if he tries to break out, it will fall to the earth.

Stark is concerned with what S.H.I.E.L.D. is hiding. Rogers thinks they need to follow orders, but he’s also suspicious, and so investigates on his own. Meanwhile, Romanoff goes to Loki, and pretends to be emotionally manipulated by him in order to find out his endgame: to unleash the Hulk on the helicarrier.

Romanoff goes to the lab, where Banner and Stark are still trying to find the Tesseract. Rogers has found Phase 2, and is appalled to learn that S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to re-create the Tesseract-powered weapons Hydra used during World War II. Fury explains that they did so because of what happened in New Mexico when Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three fought the Destroyer and pretty much leveled an entire town. They needed to defend themselves.

The entire conversation devolves into an argument—and then Barton shows up with some turned S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and attacks the helicarrier with an explosive arrow. Banner transforms into the Hulk and goes after Romanoff, but is stopped by Thor. They fight, destroying large chunks of the helicarrier while doing so, though eventually the Hulk falls to Earth after jumping on a plane that (rather stupidly) fired on him.

Loki tricks Thor into his cage and sends him plummeting to Earth as well, but not before killing Coulson right in front of a devastated Thor. Romanoff takes on Barton and manages to knock him unconscious after a nasty, protracted fight.

Rogers and Stark have been too busy fixing one of the engines to get involved in the fight, but they do prevent the helicarrier from crashing.

The survivors are demoralized. Coulson is dead, Thor and Banner are missing, and Loki has been freed. The helicarrier is pretty much dead in the air. Fury tosses the bloody Captain America trading cards onto the table where a grief-stricken Stark and Rogers are sitting, saying they were in Coulson’s jacket. (Later, Hill comments that the cards were actually in Coulson’s locker. Fury apparently removed the cards and smeared Coulson’s blood on them to light a fire under Rogers and Stark’s asses, which is pretty hardcore.) Fury says that Phase 2 was a backup plan—his real hope was that extraordinary people could come together and deal with the threats that nobody else could. Later, Stark and Rogers try to figure out Loki’s plan—it was obviously divide and conquer, and it worked, but they need to come together and stop him. The one thing Loki still needs is an energy source powerful enough for what Selvig has built—but one possible source is the ARC reactor at Stark Tower.

Stark flies off in his armor to New York. Romanoff, Rogers, and a recovered Barton do likewise in a quinjet, while Thor and Banner get there on their own. Stark arrives first, confronting Loki in the penthouse of his tower. He threatens Loki, saying that all he’s done is piss off Earth’s mightiest heroes. Unfortunately, he’s unable to stop Selvig from opening the portal, and a whole bunch of Chitauri warriors pour through and attack midtown Manhattan.

The Chitauri take out the quinjet, but Rogers, Romanoff, and Barton get out alive. They fight the Chitauri on the ground while Stark handles them in the air—joined soon by Thor, who tries to get Loki to call the invasion off. Loki refuses and runs away on a Chitauri air skimmer.

Then a gigunda leviathan comes through the portal. It flies through the air, destroying buildings.

Quickly, Rogers formulates a strategy. Barton is to go high, looking for patterns and strays while taking out as many as he can with his arrows. (At one point, Barton notices that the flyers don’t bank very well, and Stark takes out a bunch after taking Barton’s advice to make sharp turns.) Stark handles the airborne ones, keeping them contained, Thor is to try to cut them off at the portal with lightning strikes, while Rogers and Romanoff take care of the ones on the ground. Then he turns to Banner: “Hulk—smash.” Banner smiles and proceeds to do just that.

They keep the battle contained in the area near Grand Central Terminal, though the property damage and death toll is considerable. At one point, Rogers rescues a bunch of people from a bank, while Barton tries to take out Loki with an exploding arrow. It doesn’t kill Loki, but it sends him careening back into the Stark Tower penthouse, where Banner smashes him into the floor over and over and over again.

Romanoff volunteers to go up to the roof of Stark Tower to try to close the portal. She hops on one of the skimmers and flies up there to find that Selvig is himself again. He theorizes that the scepter can close the portal, and it’s lying near Loki’s prone form. Romanoff goes to retrieve it.

The World Council that S.H.I.E.L.D. reports to has overridden Fury and ordered a nuclear missile strike on the portal, which will destroy Manhattan. Fury tells Stark about it, and Stark intercepts it and flies it into the portal. It destroys the Chitauri ship, which in turn deactivates the Chitauri people and equipment, and they all collapse.

Stark falls through the portal just as it closes, his armor depowered. Thor moves to rescue him, but Banner beats him to it.

They’ve won. A somewhat delirious Stark says he’d like to try shawarma.

The World Council is pissed at Fury, even though the results weren’t bad considering it was an alien invasion. Thor takes a bound Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard. Stark and Banner drive off together, Romanoff and Barton drive off together, and Rogers drives off on a motorcycle. Fury tells Hill that he’s confident that, should another threat arise, they’ll come together again. We also see a montage of news clips that range from celebration (including little kids dressing up as various Avengers) to mourning (folks putting flowers on the graves of people who died in the attack) to vituperation (a senator saying the Avengers should be held responsible) to disbelief (a person who looks just like Stan Lee saying that the notion of superheroes in New York City is ridiculous).

In the middle of the credits we see that the Other’s (and Loki’s) overlord is none other than Thanos. (Which is meaningless if you’re not a comics fan, but whatever.) And after the credits we see the Avengers all eating shawarma.

“I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid-ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it”

This is, in many ways, the perfect superhero movie. Specifically, it’s the perfect Marvel superhero movie.

One of the things Marvel did particularly well in the 1960s and have continued to do since was create a cohesive, coherent universe. These weren’t just standalone adventures of heroes fighting villains, but characters who progressed and changed—Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl/Woman married each other, Peter Parker graduated high school and went to college, and so on. Plus they all existed in the same universe and teamed up regularly.

Kevin Feige followed that blueprint with the MCU, creating a unity, a sense of history, and several storylines that build into a single movie—and also set the stage for future movies.

With all that, though, each movie has worked on its own terms, while still being part of the greater whole, and no movie did that better than the first Avengers film. The amazing accomplishment of this movie is that it’s, at once, a strong introduction to the Avengers but is also the next Iron Man movie, the next Hulk movie, the next Thor movie, and the next Captain America movie.

Stark furthers his relationship with Pepper Potts, doubles down on his commitment in his first movie to developing clean energy rather than weapons, and also shows his spectacular inability to play well with others (though he does come through in the end). Banner is still trying to keep the other guy in check. Thor is still trying to save his brother but willing to fight him when he refuses to be saved—and is also aware of the larger picture of the cosmos beyond Earth. Rogers tries to adjust to the modern world, and sees how much has changed—and how much hasn’t.

On top of that, we get hints of what a great S.H.I.E.L.D. movie could be like. Fury masterfully manipulates events to get the best possible result, even if it means going against the council, even if it means pulling the Captain America trading cards from Coulson’s locker and smearing his blood on them to make a point.

Coulson is the perfect character to force our heroes to avenge in this movie, because he has a connection to everyone but Banner: he’s a huge Captain America fangoober, he’s established friendships with both Thor and Stark, and Fury, Romanoff, Barton, and Hill are his comrades and coworkers. And his final scene is tremendous, his deadpan snark at Loki even in the face of death just a magnificent bit of acting by Clark Gregg. (Of course, his sacrifice got reversed by bringing the character back for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, but still…) In that, it’s in keeping with the rest of the movie, as Gregg’s calm professionalism remains intact, from his calm waiting on the phone while Romanoff kicks all the ass to his “oh, that’s what it does” after shooting Loki with the Destroyer-derived big fucking gun.

Gregg is but one of dozens of great performances—indeed, there isn’t a bad one in the bunch, starting with the one replacement. Mark Ruffalo gives us the Bruce Banner that neither Eric Bana nor Ed Norton were able to manage, providing a combination of cynicism, resignation, anguish, torment, and pathos, and he works with Joss Whedon’s script to give us, in essence, the best Hulk movie yet, starting Ruffalo on a fascinating arc as a supporting character through several movies (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: Ragnarok, and Avengers: Infinity War). In particular, Whedon deserves huge credit for his delightful turning of the now-overused “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” line from 1977’s The Incredible Hulk on its ear with, “That’s my secret, Cap—I’m always angry.”

Another magnificent marriage of great scripting and superlative acting is the fleshing out of the Black Widow, as played by Scarlett Johansson. We get plenty of hints about her background—including her affirmative response to Barton asking if she knows what it’s like to have your identity ripped from you—and also an example of her primary super-power, which isn’t the ability to kick ass (even while tied to a chair), but rather her ability to interrogate someone from a position of seeming submission, whether it’s the Russian arms dealer at the top of the movie or Loki later on. (Seriously, Marvel, giving this great character and this amazing actor her own movie is absurdly fucking overdue!)

The whole thing comes together thanks to Samuel L. Jackson’s Fury, who is stellar, working both as a badass action star and as the manipulator of events at the top of everything. I said in my rewatch of The Spirit that Jackson has two modes, and in this movie it’s the scary-calm mode that suits Fury perfectly. There’s no question that Fury is manipulating everybody—Stark, Rogers, the World Council, even Coulson posthumously—but it’s in the service of the greater good, and if that means people think (rightly) that he’s an asshole, he can live with it. Especially since his actions are directly responsible for a lot of people not dying.

One of the best conceits of the script is that, while there’s plenty of excellent action, there’s also superlative dialogue and characterization. My favorite is that every main character gets a one-on-one with Loki at some point in the film. Some are brief, like Rogers and Loki trading pointed barbs in Stuttgart, or Hulk cutting Loki’s rant off by smashing him into the floor over and over again (a scene that never fails to be hilarious, and which will be beautifully called back to in Thor: Ragnarok), or Loki giving instructions to the suborned Barton. Some are hilarious, like Stark’s threatening Loki while offering him a drink, or Fury throwing the ant-boot metaphor back in his face. (“Let me know if ‘real power’ wants a magazine or something.”) And some are poignant, like Thor’s plea to Loki to come home that falls on uninterested ears, and Romanoff’s expert manipulation of the god of mischief. Tom Hiddleston proves himself again to be the rock star of the MCU, giving us a complex, anguished, furious villain, one who refuses to remain in his brother’s shadow, and it has led him down an awful path.

The climax is one of the finest superhero battles ever committed to film. Everyone uses their powers intelligently, Cap’s strategy is sound, and I particularly like that the Avengers work constantly to save lives and keep the fight contained. (The location shooting plays to that, as every single place we see in the battle is within about a ten-block radius of Grand Central Terminal, a touch this native New Yorker appreciated.)

So many boxes are checked in this movie, yet it never feels constructed, everything actually flows naturally from one bit to the other. Thor, Rogers, and Stark fighting over Loki—the classic heroes-meet-and-fight-then-team-up cliché, but dammit, it works here. (It helps that it’s brief, and that Downey Jr. leavens it with his snark and pop-culture references.) The arguing among the team members. The defeat that should destroy them but instead brings them together.

The one team member who gets short shrift is Jeremy Renner’s Barton. In the comics, Hawkeye is the devil-may-care smartass, but in the MCU, Downey Jr. has taken over that role, so it leaves Barton to merely be a hardened sniper. Renner makes it work in his limited screentime, but it’s frustrating, especially since we get hints of what could be an entertaining character. Leaning into his marksmanship to make him a lookout/sniper in the climactic battle is excellent (I love his noticing that the alien skimmers can’t bank worth a damn), and he has some great lines (“Your memory of Budapest is way different than mine”).

And in fact, this movie is full of great lines. One of Whedon’s hallmarks has been his snappy dialogue, and this movie is crackling with it. I could use up my entire allotted word count on this rewatch just quoting lines from it, which I won’t do, but I will in particular sing the praises of all the callbacks, whether it’s the ant-boot conversations between Fury and Loki, the payoff of Fury’s “ten bucks says you’re wrong” line to Rogers when the latter says nothing can surprise him anymore, the constant exhortations of Rogers to Stark to “put on the suit,” going from macho posturing to an instruction to help save the helicarrier, or my favorite: early on, Pepper Potts refers to Coulson as Phil, and Stark jokes, “‘Phil’? His first name is ‘Agent'”; then, later in the movie, when as Iron Man he confronts Loki, he mentions the final person Loki has pissed off: “His name is Phil.”

I haven’t even covered half of what makes this movie so amazing. It’s a perfect storm of acting, directing, scripting, and superheroing. It remains the central jewel in the crown of the MCU, and best of all, it would continue to have reverberations. A hallmark of the MCU has been that actions have consequences, with major events continuing to have ripple effects: Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the first seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. all are influenced and affected by the events of this movie.

But even without it, it would be a great superhero movie. Possibly the greatest. Just a tremendous, complex, effective movie that ultimately is what all superhero stories should be: a fun tale about good guys fighting bad guys.

Next week, we take a look at another 2012 film, the reboot of the web-slinger, as Andrew Garfield takes on the title role in The Amazing Spider-Man.

Keith R.A. DeCandido was particularly amused to see that Pershing Square, one of his favorite restaurants, is one of the locations seen in the climactic battle.

Space opera is one of my favourite things. I love military science fiction—at least, when I can get it without the requisite dose of awful politics and queer erasure that predominates (with some few exceptions) in military space opera. It’d be really nice not to have to accept thoughtless imperialism, cultures that look a lot like 19th-century-European-countries-in-space (sometimes with added Rome or Stalinist Russia analogues), and a complete absence of queer folks as the price of entry, but in most cases, that’s the best one can hope for.

Richard Baker’s Restless Lightning, sequel to last year’s Valiant Dust, is a cut above thoughtless imperialism, but to be honest, it isn’t precisely what I was hoping for out of military science fiction or space opera, either one.

Valiant Dust showed promise and potential, but also seemed to suggest that we could look forward to a view of the future that reproduced the power dynamics of the 19th century with European analogues as colonial powers, and a military science fiction setting that reproduced a boy’s-own-adventure view of significant female characters—which is to say they exist to be the male main character’s temporary romantic interests, or as secondary antagonists, rather than as well-rounded individuals in their own right. (And, though Baker at least acknowledges the existence of queer people, one might look in vain for named queer characters.) Restless Lightning provides additional evidence that however Baker intends to develop his Sikander Singh North books, they seem set to continue in this pattern.

After the events of Valiant Dust, Sikander’s found his career shunted off to die quietly on the sidelines, far away from everything important. He’s an intelligence officer on a commodore’s staff, assigned to a commerce protection squadron in the Tzoru empire—a vast, ancient and hidebound alien polity that shares significant commonalities with the European view of 19th-century China.

And, as it happens, the events of the novel seem to be much inspired by the Boxer Uprising of 1899 to 1901. Anti-colonial feeling among the lower-class Tzoru leads to an uprising aimed at evicting the foreign interests, which have taken an entire district in the capital as their own. Political factions among the Tzoru elite means that the local response to this uprising ranges from opposed but helpless to actually act to quietly supportive of the anti-colonial movement. The “quietly supportive” faction is in charge of most of the nearby military assets, so when the anti-colonial Tzoru march on the foreigners’ district and put it under siege, relief can only come from foreign military assets based in a different star system. But the various foreign militaries have their own competing priorities, rivalries, and agendas. Even if they can be unified under one command, the question remains: will they be able to fight their way past the outdated-yet-immense Tzoru military to relieve the siege of their embassies?

In the middle of this is Sikander Singh North, minor royalty from a colonial planet within the Aquilan Commonwealth, and in an unusual position as a mostly-but-not-entirely assimilated officer within the Aquilan Navy. His immediate superior hates him for reasons dating back to his Academy days, and she’s determined to see him take the blame for not predicting the upsurge of anti-colonial violence—even though, as the squadron intelligence officer, his brief is military intelligence, rather than civil society.

Just before the violence breaks out, Sikander reconnects with an old flame, Dr. Lara Dunstan, an upper-class Aquilan, a Tzoru specialist, and a senior member of the local Foreign Service. He and Lara get an up-close view of the beginnings of violent reaction against the human presence at the scholarly conference that Lara’s attending, and barely escape. When they separate—Sikander back to the fleet and Lara to the foreign district in the capital—Baker continues to give us Lara’s point of view. We see the siege of the embassies through her eyes, as Sikander gives us a view on activity in the fleet.

Buy it Now

Restless Lightning offers a third viewpoint character in the form of General Hish Mubirrum, leader of the elite Tzoru faction that’s using the anti-colonial movement to effect a transformation of Tzoru society back to its “traditional” values—a society that will value the General and his faction as he believes it deserves. What Mubirrum doesn’t realise, however, is just how technologically overmatched his people are.

Sikander’s Aquilan Commonwealth colleagues may practise a kinder, gentler form of colonial exploitation than many of the other powers, but they’re still imperial chauvinists. A different book might have given us a better argument about the ethics of realpolitick and resistance in amongst its military action: Restless Lightning is not, alas, that book.

This is a readable military romp of a novel. It suffers, however, from Baker’s lack of vision in terms of worldbuilding—this is a decidedly bland and familiar future—and from his decidedly middling gifts with character. Much of the novel’s tension rests on Sikander’s interactions with military office politics. It’s possible to make gripping drama out of this kind of thing, but that requires that the other characters be developed into believable individuals, rather than plot-relevant placeholders. Unfortunately, most of the characters here fall closer to the plot-relevant placeholder end of the spectrum than otherwise. Even Sikander himself sometimes feels more like a collection of tropes than an individual with an believable inner life.

Perhaps I judge Restless Lightning too harshly. But although it’s light and mostly enjoyable, it never succeeds in giving rise to a coherent thematic argument, or in becoming more than the sum of its parts. And when it comes to military action, it comes off the worse in a comparison with Valiant Dust. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but for me, Restless Lightning fails to build on Valiant Dust‘s strengths.

Restless Lightning is available from Tor Books.

Liz Bourke is a cranky queer person who reads books. She holds a Ph.D in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin. Her first book, Sleeping With Monsters, a collection of reviews and criticism, was published in 2017 by Aqueduct Press. It was a finalist for the 2018 Locus Awards and was nominated for a Hugo Award in Best Related Work. Find her at her blog, where she’s been known to talk about even more books thanks to her Patreon supporters. Or find her at her Twitter. She supports the work of the Irish Refugee Council, the Transgender Equality Network Ireland, and the Abortion Rights Campaign.

Silent Hill 4: The Room—released in 2004 for PlayStation 2 and the Xbox—is the best Silent Hill game after the second one and one of the most original horror games ever developed. If SH4 hadn’t been part of the Silent Hill series, it’d probably be considered one of the most unique games in the genre. Part of what makes it so distinct is that it goes against the formula of what we’d come to expect of the series. Many gamers, including myself, were initially turned off by how drastically it had changed. But once the expectations faded, a horrifying experience awaited, unrelenting in its oppressive terror.

Room 302

A big part of why most of the recent Silent Hill games have been underwhelming is because they tried to outdo what was essentially narrative perfection in Silent Hill 2. The story is a trek through madness, guilt, and personal horror projected subconsciously into some of the most gruesome monsters ever seen. The climax is both revolting and satisfying, a narrative twist that makes the jigsaw puzzle of Sunderland’s journey a Rosetta Stone of death.

As much as I enjoyed parts of Homecoming, Downpour, SH3, and Origins, they felt more or less the same games, only rehashed. In short, protagonist has issues in Silent Hill, an evil cult causes a whole lot of trouble, and we wish we’d never entered the hellishly foggy suburbia. Revelations uncover a dark past that can be resolved in a number of different ways. Awesome sound effects and music from Akira Yamaoka (and Daniel Licht for Downpour and Memories) scare the crap out of us. Occasionally, a UFO reveals its grand machination to take over the world. Rinse and repeat.

SH4 began as a side story with loose connections to the series before becoming a full-fledged sequel. Because of its tangential origins, Team Silent was able to experiment and innovate on some of the core ideas in the series, sometimes scrapping them altogether. The Room’s biggest achievement is that it makes mundane, every day living, horrifying. At least with the previous three Silent Hill games, I felt like I was transported to a place that was far away, a slice of American life seen through the prism of Japanese developers.

SH4 brought the terror home. Henry Townshend is stuck inside of his own apartment and can’t leave. To highlight the feeling of familiarity, all the sequences in the apartment are in first person mode. It’s you who’s chained in and taken captive with no explicable reason. A claustrophobic atmosphere pervades and in the tight space you call your apartment, there’s no food, the phone is disconnected, and the television is shut off. It also didn’t help that the first time I played SH4, I lived in an Apt. #304, just two doors away from the game’s Room 302.

The voyeurism of spying on your neighbor and the people across from you, a la Hitchcock’s Rear Window, is both creepy and addicting. You can look out the window and see people going about their lives, all of them oblivious to what you’re going through. One of the most disturbing interactions I had didn’t even revert to the typical scare tactics most games use—you know, gory monsters and agonizing shrieks punctuated by alarming music. Rather, it takes place mostly in “silence.”

Alerted by neighbors, the superintendent checks up on your room, knocking on the front door, even using the spare key to try to enter. He is unable to get past the chains and despite your pleas for help, he can’t hear a thing. He eventually writes you a note and slips it under the door. When you look at it, it’s covered in blood, undecipherable. The superintendent then murmurs how reminiscent this is of the last time, and I’m thinking, what last time and what in the world happened to the slip? For the next few peeps out your front door, you’ll see him standing in the hallway, troubled, unable to articulate his fears. Just by staring at his troubled, polygonal face, powerless to help yet knowing what awaited me, I felt terror. Not only was aid from the outside world going to be impossible, but the dude outside pretty much knew I was screwed.

The game’s protagonist, Henry Townshend, is bland and generic. He has no connection to the villain, no demons that need exorcising. Unlike the previous Silent Hills, the monsters aren’t projections of the hero’s subconscious fears and guilts. It might seem like a major negative, but Henry is designed as a projection of the gamer, a blank avatar that just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. By trade, he’s a photographer, which is the perfect profession for a main character whose principal purpose is to observe and understand. At times, the voyeurism verges on the perverse, and it’s an odd way of embodying the sacrament of “wisdom.” His journey through the womb-like tunnels signify a ghastly rebirth. What’s most fascinating is the void in Townshend’s personality allows the main arc to center around the serial killer, Walter Sullivan, whose nightmarish wonderland we’re sucked into via the toilet hole from hell. Each of his victims populates these ghoulish bubble worlds, encapsulated and scarred by Silent Hill’s signature cult, The Order. The deadliest of these worlds is the Water Prison and a great example of what makes SH4 so good.

The Water Prison

A panopticon is conceptually one of the most efficient prison systems conceivable. A single watchman sits in the middle of a circular prison and observes all the cells around him. The inspection house has a one-way mirror into each room so that none of the prisoners know who is being watched at any given moment. It’s intended to produce paranoia, insecurity, and dread.

SH4’s Water Prison is a panopticon used by the Order to control the orphans it had under its care. It’s also a symbolic projection of Sullivan and his relationship to his victims, all of whom he is keeping tabs on. Sullivan was tortured here as a child, and his friend, Bob, disappeared at the hands of Andrew DeSalvo, a guard in the prison. As Townshend navigates the arcane spirals of the tower, he begins to understand the inhuman events that took place there. Most of these revelations come from notes he uncovers, some nonchalantly describing gruesome acts, others from orphans who are going mad. From the bloody beds and the holes built to efficiently dispose of corpses, to the brutal torture hall in the basement, this branch of the Silent Hill Smile Support Society was anything but a happy place for its inhabitants.

The first visit to the prison is relatively harmless. There are very few foes, though the Twin Victim monsters make their debut here as the conjoined reincarnation of Sullivan’s 7th and 8th victim (their baby faces clash in innocence and agony, making for a ghoulish coupling). The puzzles aren’t very difficult either (spinning the tower floors to line up the death pits). But it’s the way the story is so integrated into the architecture that makes this part so unnerving. Up until then, many of the creepiest settings in the SH games were rusted, industrial versions of their counterparts in the light world. They were scary, but more because they looked like hell factories enshrouded in night, decay, and headless mannequins. In SH4, the Water Prison isn’t set in a dark, twisted parallel universe, but is based on reality. Children were being tortured there in the most horrendous ways. The scariest part is that it feels like a believable place, grounded in the history of actual prison sites (the whole idea of a panopticon was philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s way of trying to devise a jail system that was more cost-effective). Human behavior at its worst is incomparably more diabolical than monsters at their most villainous. The atmosphere exudes with palpable suffering, giving us intimations of the tragedy of Sullivan’s past.

The whole prison has the psychological effect in turning the tables against DeSalvo. Rather than the pity or sympathy we feel when we first see him begging for his life outside his prison door, he begins to elicit disgust. Sullivan, the serial killer, actually becomes a sympathetic figure. When DeSalvo is found dead in the torture room, I’m willing to bet few gamers shed tears. It’s a labyrinthine allegory of Sullivan’s mind that’s making our own judgement just as murky. You literally need to shine a light all the way to the depths to complete the sequence.

19/21

The second half of the game has received a lot of criticism and is the biggest reason the game is maligned by fans. In part, it’s because you have to revisit all the levels while escorting Eileen, who has arguably some of the worst AI in gaming. But it’s also because the difficulty level makes a sudden spike into almost nauseating painfulness. Towing the line between being frustrating and challenging is one of the toughest balancing acts designers face.

I thought Team Silent did a great job in inducing a sense of helplessness, a motif that permeates the game. I haven’t felt this vulnerable in a Silent Hill game, or any other horror game outside of Amnesia, since. You sprint from one area to the next, Eileen limping next to you. She is not only easy prey for the enemies, but you can damage her as well. At times, this can be trying, especially since you’re unable to permanently ward off the invincible ghosts without one of the rare swords. But it also forces you to plan out your approach and get a good sense of the layout.

While the levels are recycled, each of them has new camera angles, making them feel like different locations. The unsettling perspective often precludes your front view, making the sudden appearance of monsters startling. The worlds are connected by stairs that are somewhat like the umbilical cord tying the tragedy together, and the maddening cohesion gives you a deeper appreciation for the geographical manifestation of Sullivan’s tattered psyche. In many of the other Silent Hill games, the best tactic is to run away from enemies, sprinting through the danger zones without really being able to soak them in. That isn’t the case with SH4.

In the second visit to the Building World, there’s a pet store where a brutal massacre took place. The first time through, I pretty much forgot it. The second time though, three ghosts ambush you between the shelves and the changing camera angles make it feel like the store itself is trying to kill you. When you uncover its dark past through newspapers on the ground and you hear the echoes of the bullets that destroyed it, it all clicks. Sullivan’s mind isn’t just channeling his own suffering, but those around him as well.

Personalization is an important aspect of the game. The most difficult ghosts you face are the people you saw get killed by Sullivan earlier, giving you a morbid sense of connection to them. I was still wracked by guilt that I hadn’t been able to save one of the victims, Cynthia, in the subway station. Later, she unleashes a Bayonetta styled hair attack that sucks you dry as she pursues you from one train to the other. I hated their presence, but at the same time, understood why they were so raving mad in the afterlife.

Eileen’s mental states begins to deteriorate as she gets hurt by all the ghosts. But what’s more interesting is that she can’t be killed. Usually, escort missions are so annoying because your companions need constant rescuing before they die. In SH4, her damage level only impacts the ending you’ll get. You can completely neglect her, or take pains to prevent her from taking any hits. She’s another layer in the psychological Rorschach of your gameplay and her state is a reflection of your own attitude towards her. It also mirrors Walter’s relationship with his parents, a disturbing thread to say the least.

You can’t ever let your guard down as SH4 will leave you breathless, panicked, and anxious.

A maniacal Walter Sullivan only exacerbates the situation, taunting you with a chainsaw throughout the levels, impervious to your attacks. At least you can tunnel your way back and find solace in your apartment…

Actually, scrap that. Your apartment becomes haunted. The disintegration happens at a slow crawl and ends in a torturous avalanche. Your room no longer heals you and will at times drain your energy. Windows shake, a blood-drenched apparition of yourself appears in your peephole, a ghost tries to break into your apartment, Robbie the Rabbit is staring at you with blood on his cheeks, and angry doll babies haunt your item box (damn you Sullivan for giving me that Shabby Doll!). There is no haven, no escape. The terror becomes ubiquitous.

21 Sacraments

I’ll admit, when I first started The Room, I had lots of reservations. I was confused the game had strayed so far from the best in the series. Even the character models did not seem as haunting or graphically visceral as the ones in the first three. Silent Hill 2 was not only one of my favorite horror games, but one of the best gaming experiences I’d ever had. In fact, about a decade ago, one of the main reasons I decided to leave LucasArts for EA was so I could work with the art director and principal designer of Silent Hill 2, Sato Takayoshi, who had left Konami after SH2. Here was the man who’d taken what might be considered the drawbacks of the uncanny valley and made it into a distinctive style. His attention to detail was inspiring and his insights into the mythos of Silent Hill 2, as well as game design in general, helped me to understand gaming in a very different light. I didn’t think SH2 could ever be topped.

The moment my perspective on that changed was when I was in my real living room (#304, remember) after playing The Room. It was late and I heard my neighbors talking right outside my apartment door. I got creeped out and checked the peephole. I didn’t recognize them. Who were they? What were they talking about? Were they conspiring against me? I was mixing up the horror of SH4’s eponymous room with my own in real life.

I began to appreciate the game for its own merits rather than wondering why it wasn’t another retread of James Sunderland and Heather Mason’s journey. As I looked at all the elements in play, from the grim radio broadcasts, to the needling sound whenever a ghost approaches, to the seemingly interminable escalator ride in the train station, and the panoply of surreal hospital rooms, I realized SH4 paid tribute to the series without being bound by it. There were genuine terrors that had me sweating with fear. Not even Silent Hill 2 had me terrified of my own apartment. And while Sunderland’s personal revelation at the end of SH2 is one of the most shocking twists in gaming, SH4’s surprise “room” is pretty damn appalling too, capturing both the madness of Sullivan, as well as the insane extent to which he’ll go to be with his mother again.

With the news that P.T./Silent Hills is canceled, or at least put on hold, I’ve wondered what direction the series will go if it ever picks back up. A big reason people were so thrilled by P.T. was because it changed the formula so much, even incorporating aspects that many gamers felt were reminiscent of SH4. If the Silent Hill series ever does come back from the dead, I hope they’ll follow in the spirit of The Room, innovating and trying out new ways to terrify gamers instead of clinging to the previous tenets of the Silent Hill formula like they were sacrosanct. Until then, you’ll find me sleeping with all the lights on, wondering what the strange noises coming from my bathroom are.

Originally published in October 2015

Peter Tieryas is the author of Mecha Samurai Empire and United States of Japan, which won Japan’s top SF award, the Seiun. He’s written for Kotaku, S-F Magazine, Tor.com, and ZYZZYVA. He’s also been a technical writer for LucasArts, a VFX artist at Sony, and currently works in feature animation. He tweets @TieryasXu.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Whether you’re trying to protect the townspeople, take all the power for yourself, or just lay low while other supernatural forces duke it out, chances are you’ll be pulled into the fray at some point, regardless of your allegiance. Even the purest witch, when called upon, can whip out her wand and raise some hell. With your help on Twitter, we’ve highlighted our favorite epic battles between sorceresses and witch-queens, dreamwalkers and mothers, witch-hunters-turned-witches and fairytale terrors. Let us know which witch fights we missed in the comments!

Note: We discuss plot details of most of the movies/shows mentioned here, so beware of spoilers.

Fin Raziel vs. Queen Bavmorda (Willow)

As far as classic witch-feuds go, the bad blood between sorceress Fin Raziel and treacherous Witch-Queen Bavmorda goes way back to their teen years, according to The Willow Sourcebook. Transformed into a possum by Bavmorda and imprisoned for many decades on an isolated isle, Raziel clearly has a serious score to settle when she is finally freed and restored to her human form by Willow Ufgood. In the movie’s climactic scene, the old rivals face off once again, matching each other spell for spell (with occasional pushing/shoving/choking breaks thrown in for good measure). It’s a great change of pace to see such a ferocious, physical fight scene between two women who don’t fit any of the usual action-movie stereotypes (even if it’s Willow who manages to finally defeat the evil queen with a little help from the old disappearing-pig trick…). Raziel and Bavmorda are both formidable and powerful opponents, more than capable of holding their own in an all-out magical brawl.

Gretel vs. Muriel (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters)

Getting snatched by a witch and fattened up for a feast was enough to shape Hansel and Gretel’s fate into witch-hunters wielding anachronistic guns just as out-of-place in their time period as Ash’s boomstick. But it turns out that their kidnapping wasn’t random: Gretel is a white witch, with a heart pure and powerful enough to complete the witch Muriel’s potion, which is why she conspired to kill the two’s parents. That makes it extra satisfying when the siblings face off against Muriel in their childhood home. And while Hansel—whose only magic is his sweets-induced diabetes—has an equal part in the fight, it’s witch-hunter-turned-white-witch Gretel who deals the killing blow.

Willow vs. Amy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Buffy presented Willow’s relationship to magic as a drug metaphor, including Amy Madison as the stereotypical drug friend. At first the victim of her mother’s witchy powers, Amy takes up the family tradition of witchcraft, but traps herself in rat form for several years; it isn’t until Willow has attained a certain level of power that she’s able to release her former Sunnydale High classmate in season 6. The two go on a magic-abusing rampage, causing mischief at The Bronze and burning themselves out so much that they have to turn to “magic dealer” Rack to get their fix. Before Amy can get her too hooked, Willow cuts her out of her life… But someone who spent years as a rat has no problem biding her time, and her grudges. In the Buffy comics, the two former magic friends finally throw off the gloves and throw down. Amy fights dirty and springs a trap on Willow, but eventually Willow (with Buffy at her side) proves herself the greater witch.

Chloe vs. the Witch Queen (The Last Witch Hunter)

In modern times, witches have specialties; witch bar owner Chloe is a dreamwalker. Aside from saving Vin Diesel’s ass after he gets put into an endless dream spell, she also acts as a conduit in the final battle. Her dreamwalking unlocks the truth behind Kaulder’s death and rebirth as an immortal; she forcibly kills a prisoner through which the Witch Queen is trying to create a new plague to wipe out humanity… then the Witch Queen makes Chloe her conduit. Good going, kiddo, but at least Kaulder owes you one and manages to tag in.

Evanora vs. Glinda (Oz the Great and Powerful)

This bad Wizard of Oz “prequel” sees the deceitful Evanora and exiled Glinda circling each other more than once, with battles over poppy fields and public torture scenes. The movie cribbed the witches’ final fight scene from Return of the Jedi, complete with Force green lightning, albeit with a pretty anticlimactic ending. Poor Theodora, the movie’s third witch, doesn’t really get a part in the final battle; she’s too busy having been tricked by Evanora into transforming into the green-skinned, bitter Wicked Witch of the West we know. She mostly just cackles angrily and flies away on her broomstick.

Molly Weasley vs. Bellatrix Lestrange (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

“Not my daughter, you bitch!” Give Molly Weasley a wand and a mother’s protective instinct, and that’s all she needs. We’re actually not sure if she uses the Killing Curse without saying “Avada Kedavra,” or what.

Originally published October 2015.

It’s time for everyone’s favorite fantasy villain: Spiders of unusual size!

Yeah, you might have trouble sleeping after this one.

[Spoilers for Doctor Who‘s “Arachnids in the UK”.]

Summary

The Doctor gets Ryan, Yas, and Graham back home to Sheffield, and Yas asks the Doctor over for tea at her place, along with Ryan and Graham. Graham declines to go home, and discovers spider webs all over his and Grace’s home. Yas has to leave tea to go pick up her mother Najia (Shobna Gulati), who has just been fired from her job before even starting by mogul and hotel owner Jack Robertson (Chris Noth). The Doctor and Ryan go to pick up a package for Yasmin’s family from a neighbor and finds Dr. Jade McIntyre (Tanya Fear) trying to get into the same apartment, one belonging to a colleague she works with. Said colleague is wrapped up in a spider web and dead; there is a giant spider in her flat that the Doctor traps. She asks Dr. McIntyre about her work, which is scientific research involving spiders. There has been strange arachnids activity in the city for some time now, and the Doctor realizes that the nexus of the activity is a new hotel, the very same one where Yas has gone to pick up her mother.

Robertson’s bodyguard is attacked, and the Doctor, Ryan, Dr. McIntyre, and Graham all go to meet up with Yas and Najia at the hotel. They find more spiders, and much bigger ones, and more dead workers. After capturing a spider, they learn about the history of the property; it was once a series of mining tunnels that was then overlaid by a landfill. This landfill was full of chemicals that weren’t disposed of properly, along with all the spider bodies that Dr. McIntyre’s lab got rid of, and somewhere along the way these things mixed to create super spiders. They aren’t doing well, though; there’s a giant mother spider in the ballroom of the hotel that has gotten too big to properly take in oxygen, and she’s dying. Robertson comes in and kills her with a gun despite the Doctor’s protests. The other spiders are lured to Robertson’s panic room using vibrations from Ryan’s music, there to be killed off humanely.

After the ordeal is over, Yas and Ryan and Graham go to bid the Doctor goodbye, but instead admit that they would rather continue traveling with her. The Doctor happily accepts, and they all pull the main TARDIS lever together.

Commentary

This season, showrunner Chris Chibnall made a promise not to reuse any of Doctor Who‘s classic villains, likely in a bid to make the show more accessible to a new audience. Refusing to inundate us with familiar faces like the Daleks and the Cybermen makes it easier to get people interested in the Doctor and her adventures without the burden of needing or wanting over five decades of backstory. It also means that we’re going to get some monsters that are literally giant spiders.

Which is a thing that I am terrified of, so I can’t say it wasn’t effective.

There is something else that should be noted straight away, which is—the Doctor got her companions home within a half hour of their initial departure on the first try. Last week’s episode doesn’t really count because she explains that the TARDIS redirected them for a reason, the detection of artron energy in the past. After that stop, she gets them home with little fuss, which begs the question… is this incarnation of the Doctor a better pilot than previous incarnations? Did some of River Song’s corrections finally stick? Because that would be a pretty big deal, given the show’s history. Then again, the TARDIS could just be giving her a break this time around.

For the first time since the Davies era of Who, the companions’ families are getting some extra attention. This was already true of Ryan and Graham and our unfairly departed Grace, but this episode we also get to meet Yasmin’s family, who are delightful. (Well, her little sister is a bit grating so far, but we already knew that she and Yas have a rough relationship and little siblings are often annoying to their older counterparts.) The Doctor’s more recent experiences with domestic situations, from Jackie Tyler’s Christmas dinners to a year living at home with the Ponds, has made her a bit more keen to accept said invitations—she’s genuinely excited to be asked over for tea, even if she is awful at small talk.

Of course, then she stumbles across Dr. Jade McIntyre and her colleague who has been murdered by a giant spider, and she never does get to try Hakim Khan’s pakora.

One of the things that’s subtly excellent about this episode is how the Doctor is surrounded by women for the duration of the adventure. Yas and Najia Khan and Dr. McIntyre are by the Doctor’s side for the majority of the episode as they figure out how to handle this spider infestation, while Graham and Ryan pair up a few times away from the crew to have their own terrifying fun. It’s seems like such a little thing, seeing four women storming through that hotel and solving all the problems, but when you’re accustomed to seeing rooms full of men plus a token woman or two, it can’t help but feel a little magical.

There are many thankfully unsubtle digs in this episode, particularly in dealing with Jack Robertson and his corporate empire. While it’s stated that he’s thinking of running for president in 2020 because he “hates Trump,” the man is clearly of the same mold as The Donald—wealthy, devoid of conscience, ignorant of his own business dealings aside from how much money they make him, and proud to stoke violence. He doesn’t pay attention to the old mine beneath his hotel, or the landfill he’s permitted to grow beneath it, and he never takes responsibility for wrongdoing. When the Doctor tells him not to use a gun to kill the giant mother spider in his ballroom, Robertson berates “you people”—clearly thinking that the Doctor is also a British citizen—and their unwillingness to use firearms to solve problems.

Doctor Who couldn’t have known that this episode would air the day after another mass shooting took place on U.S. soil… but given the rate at which they occur these days, they had to have figured that it was a strong possibility either way. It’s indescribable, how that feels.

The second layer of this commentary is a clear indictment of gentrification; Robertson built the hotel by buying up a much cheaper property that used to employ blue collar workers (a coal mine), and insists he’s helping the area by bringing luxury accommodations to the city. But he knows nothing of the area itself or the people who live there, many of them working class. He fires Yas’s mother without bothering to talk to her, and he ignores the many red flags brought to him by employees about the problems with the hotel and its foundations. It causes many deaths, but this man still gets away scot free, with all his money and power intact.

Don’t they always?

The only real weak link in the episode is that the spider conundrum isn’t really brought full circle or ended clearly. Robertson kills the mother spider, but the others are meant to be killed humanely, and we’re never told how that will be done. We’re also never told what will be done to secure the entire hotel site and ensure that more spider-killings don’t occur. Even if the Doctor had thrown in a few lines about her plans for the whole thing, that would have been better than where we’re left. As is, the whole story ends up hanging in midair without a conclusion. It reads as though Chibnall accidentally cut out a scene and never remembered to add it back in.

But the Doctor gets what she needs out of this adventure: three new friends who want to tag along through time and space. She’s upfront about what the cost will be, assures them that they will change permanently and that she can’t guarantee their safety (which is notably more than she’s done for many companions before). But they’re all in the mood for a change, so it’s just as well.

Asides and shout outs for this week:

• The Doctor’s tendency to be accidentally rude while making small talk is a common character trait, but this time around heavily evoked the Ninth Doctor’s tenure; she meets a companion’s family and is questioned on whether she and Yas are dating by her mother, much in the way that Jackie asked about Rose and the Doctor. We also get another example of a mother being wary about who the Doctor is and where she came from, which was true of Jackie, Francine Jones, and Sylvia Noble as well.

• Given the proliferation of Ed Sheeran these past few years, it makes perfect sense that the Doctor would presume a very famous person she’s never met before would be him.
• The Doctor mentions that she has had sisters and used to be a sister, though she seems to be talking about being a sister in the religious sense. She joined a group of nuns in the past, maybe? She claims that she was a sister at an aqua hospital, which turned out to be a training ground for some assassin group. Just a typical week, probably.
• The Doctor once again considers calling her new group “fam,” but seems to settle on Team TARDIS instead.
• Yas is the first companion to have visible siblings since Martha Jones.
• The Doctor name-drops Amelia Earhart, and that time that they apparently had a plane stopped by a very thick strand of spider web.
• The Doctor dons a fanny pack. Doctor. Doctor, you have Time Lord pockets, why would you do this to us.
• The other most notable time the Doctor faced down scary arachnids was in “The Planet of Spiders,” the Third Doctor’s final serial in the show’s first eleventh season.
• Psychic paper is back! But interestingly wasn’t explained away this time…
• The time vortex looks very different this season, and appears to have far more detailed pathways.
• Even after all this time, the Doctor still has such a hard time telling people that she’d rather not travel alone. It’s one of the character’s most endearing, yet rending, quirks.

Emily Asher-Perrin loved that the Doctor had no idea whether or not she and Yas were “seeing each other.” You can bug him on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.

We are excited to share all-new covers for new trade paperback editions (including new introductions in each) of some of New York Times bestselling and Hugo-Award-winning John Scalzi’s most entertaining novels! All three additions will be published by Tor Books on May 28, 2019.

The Android’s Dream is John Scalzi wild-and-woolly caper novel of interstellar diplomacy.

A human diplomat creates an interstellar incident when he kills an alien diplomat in a most unusual way. To avoid war, Earth’s government must find an equally unusual object: a type of sheep used in the alien race’s coronation ceremony.

To find the sheep, the government turns to Harry Creek, ex-cop, war hero, and hacker extraordinaire, who, with the help of a childhood friend turned artificial intelligence, scours the earth for the rare creature.

Others have plans for the sheep as well. The military. Adherents of a secret religion based on the writings of a twenty-first century SF author. And alien races eager to start a revolution on their home world and a war on Earth.

To keep our planet from being enslaved, Harry will have to pull off a grand diplomatic coup. There’s only one chance to get it right, to save the life of the sheep—and to protect the future of humanity.

Fuzzy Nation is Scalzi’s extraordinary retelling of H. Beam Piper’s SF classic Little Fuzzy.

ZaraCorp holds the right to extract unlimited resources from the verdant planet Zarathustra—as long as the planet is certifiably free of native sentients. So when an outback prospector discovers a species of small, appealing bipeds who might well turn out to be intelligent, language-using beings, it’s a race to stop the corporation from “eliminating the problem,” which is to say, eliminating the Fuzzies—wide-eyed and ridiculously cute small, furry creatures—who are as much people as we are.

Agent to the Stars is a gleeful mash-up of science fiction and Hollywood satire.

The space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity’s first interstellar friendship. There’s just one problem: they’re hideously ugly and smell like rotting fish.

So earning humanity’s trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal.

Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He’s one of Hollywood’s hottest young agents. Though Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it’s quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he’s going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

JOHN SCALZI is one of the most popular SF authors to emerge in the last decade. His debut Old Man’s War won him the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, and Redshirts (which won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel). Material from his blog, Whatever, has also earned him two other Hugo Awards. Scalzi also serves as critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.

Photo: Athena Scalzi

Please enjoy some helpful advice for some of the best-known heroes and heroines of science fiction and fantasy, courtesy of Baru Cormorant, the brilliant protagonist of Seth Dickinson’s Masquerade series—The Traitor Baru Cormorant and its upcoming sequel, The Monster Baru Cormorant. No stranger to sinister villainy and evil empires, Baru is more than capable of helping out everyone from humble hobbits to vengeance-driven superheroes with her unique brand of no-nonsense pragmatism…

Dear Baru:

I’m tired of farm life. I want to join the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. What can I do?

–Luke

Dear Luke,

I hate tyranny as much as you. But we need to be pragmatic. Most revolutions fail.

I suggest you fix up your uncle’s finances, study hard, and apply to the Academy. Don’t waste time trying to become a star pilot—much too risky. Get a job as an interrogator. (Do you have weird intuition or influence on the weak-minded? Could help.)

Once you’re established as Chief Rebel-hunter, try to capture one of their leaders. Offer to release her as a triple agent. She’ll feed you expendable Rebel cells. You’ll protect her.

You should be able to parley your success into political power. Once you have a loyal fleet, you can restore freedom to the galaxy!

Don’t worry about this ‘Force’ myth. It’s bait for rubes. (If you find out otherwise, write immediately.)

Dear Baru,

I’m worried the humans are getting ready to displace my tribe. How can I stop them?

–Neytiri

Buy it Now

Wow—HUGE ADMIRER. Listen: you already know what to do. Just befriend one of the human Avatars. Pretend you’re fascinated by his way of life. Learn everything you can about acting human.

Then bait him to your World Tree and use your nerve bridge to put your mind into his human body!

I know it’ll be hard for you to live in a tiny, frail human shell, given how graceful and athletic you are. But if we’re going to save our people, we have to wear useful masks.

Dear Baru,

There’s an organism loose on my ship. I’m starting to think that Weyland-Yutani cares about capturing that thing more than it cares about us. What do I do?

–Ellen

Dear Ellen,

Do you think you’re the only ship on a mission like this? The Company is the real threat.

Bait that organism into a shuttle. (If it’s your crew as bait, or the cat…) Launch the shuttle into space. Memorize the trajectory, and don’t tell ANYONE.

Once you’re home, demand a position on the Weyland-Yutani board in exchange for the shuttle. And if the Company suggests setting up a colony on LV-426, you can in send in the Marines to nuke the site from orbit!

Take good care of your daughter. And tell her everything. It’s better that she know.

Dear Baru,

I’m a huge fan of the way you manipulate financial systems and the lives of millions to achieve your goals. I’m a billionaire looking to use (mostly) human technology to improve the world in, uh, pseudo-legal ways. I need a new accountant to keep track of all my money. Interested?

–Tony

Dear Tony,

While I admire your aims, I’m unsatisfied with your methods—and with your results. You insist on putting yourself directly in harm’s way instead of managing risk by using talented subordinates. And your fraternization with your employees leaves you vulnerable to infiltration, blackmail, and emotional compromise. Imagine how you would feel if you’d lost your secretary!

Armor isn’t for fighting, Tony. Armor is for running away from fights, so you can get back to your plans.

If I may be blunt, I think you’re driven as much by your insecurities, vanity, and terror of losing power as you are by a desire to help the world. I can only conclude that one of your allies or companions is responsible for holding your company together while you play knight.

Please put me in touch with them.

Dear Baru,

I’ve recently started studying wizardry at a British school. No one can tell me exactly how the Dark Lord was defeated — but I do have access to the only survivor of his last attack. Isn’t anyone afraid He’ll return?

–Hermione

Buy it Now

Hermione, I’m glad someone is thinking about these things. It’s clear from your classes that you’ll be a star student. I have reason to believe that professors at your school are easily compromised…perhaps you can get access to magical resources? I must confess great interest in the possibilities of polyjuice, Portkeys, apparition and all the rest…

Once you have assets, you’ll need to arrange a test protocol for this Boy Who Lived. Monsters! Magical accidents! Clues, crushes, and conspiracies to test his reactions! It’s vital that you learn how he survived, and what countermeasures defeated the Dark Lord. We must be scientific!

Can you infiltrate the boy’s friends? Perhaps leverage the poor Weasley boy with a stipend? I’m not very good at this part. But if you can get close, I’m sure you’ll be able to coax Potter through a set of experiments. Think of each year as a chance to learn more about the Dark Lord and his downfall.

I suppose you could just tell Harry what you’re doing. But that seems like an unnecessary risk.

I would like to try on your school’s hat.

Dear Baru,

I’ve come into possession of the One Ring. I need to get it to Mordor. What’s the best way?

–Frodo

That’s tough. Middle-earth is good at speeches but awful at logistics. So you’ll need to rally the national economies of Gondor and Rohan to support a huge invasion force. (Please don’t try eagles. Never count on the incompetence of your enemy’s air defense.)

I understand the Ring comes with psychological risks. It’s best to use it sparingly, in shifts. Wield it as necessary to gain intelligence and unite your followers. Your Fellowship members can support each other.

But you have to ask yourself, Frodo: do I trust my allies? Isn’t it my responsibility to prepare for betrayal, and to betray first, if necessary to protect the mission?

Think on it. Let me know how it goes. Please score Galadriel’s address for my correspondence.

Dear Baru,

I recently inherited the title of Abhorsen. I can raise and command the Dead with bells. I’m supposed to kill the Dead as they rise, but I want to do more. Should I risk using Free Magic and necromancy to learn the secrets of the cosmos?

–Sabriel

Dear Sabriel,

Are you single???

Dear Baru,

My parents are dead. I want to use my billions to punch crime. Good plan?

–Bruce

Dear Bruce,

You’re an idiot.

Originally published August 2015.

Seth Dickinson is the author of The Traitor Baru Cormorant—released as The Traitor in the UK—an epic geopolitical fantasy about one woman’s mission to fix her world by learning how to rule it. Read an excerpt from the novel here on Tor.com. Seth is a lapsed student of social neuroscience and a lore writer for Bungie’s mythic megahit Destiny.

This week, Saga Press releases a gorgeous new omnibus edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Books of Earthsea, illustrated by Charles Vess, in celebration of A Wizard of Earthsea‘s 50th anniversary. In honor of that anniversary, this week we’re running a different look at Earthsea each day—starting with the first book in the series.

I didn’t meet the book that would make me a fantasy reader under the best of circumstances.

When I was small, 8 or 9, I got very sick with some sort of stomach thing. Nothing would distract me from whatever was twisting my gut. I sprawled on our scratchy, plaid sofa, miserable, unsoothable, probably an absolute terror to be near. My mother, being very smart and very well-read, decided to read to me.

I don’t know if she started with A Wizard of Earthsea, but I know it’s what worked. It was the only thing that worked, a magical spell of distraction and calm—and change, because I was never the same afterwards.

From a very young age, I was a voracious reader, a kid who would get up before the adults and spend hours with my face in a pile of Tintin books. But A Wizard of Earthsea redefined reading for me—what I wanted from stories, and what I got out of them.

There are as many reasons for this as there are pages in Le Guin’s book, but I want to talk about two of them in particular. The first of those is the landscape of fantasy.

I grew up in Oregon, in a world of damp trees, bright rhododendrons, climbing wisteria and green apples that we always ate before they were truly ripe. The Pacific, with its cold and rocky beaches, was an hour away along a winding two-lane road. We lived in a valley, the older, worn-down Coast Range on one side and the Cascades, full of towering snowy peaks and sleepy volcanoes, on the other.

Duny, the smith’s boy who grows up to be Ged the wizard, begins his story on a rocky island called Gont, “a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea.” Earthsea, so aptly named, is an archipelago, a gorgeous word I probably learned from this book. Its islands are often small, sometimes lonely, home to a variety of cultures and tales, but the ones on which we start are no tropical isles. They’re full of hills and forests, waterfalls and mountains.

In my young mind, they looked just like Oregon (but better, because the sea was right there). I grew up when kids still ran off into the woods and didn’t come back until dinner—a singular whistle from my stepfather would call me back through the trees—and I had my own mental fantasy map made up of deer-trails and a distant glimpse of a nearby lake seen from the top of a ridge.

Earthsea let me map what little I knew of our world onto a different world, and in doing that, it made my world bigger. I didn’t know, then, that Ursula K. Le Guin lived in Portland, probably just blocks from my father. I didn’t know that familiarity with the same landscapes I loved probably had something to do with the way Earthsea looked, sounded, felt; that she knew the same damp mornings and breezy summers that I did. But I knew the place, knew the way it looked, knew the way she described it: “Below the village the pastures and ploughlands of the Vale slope downward level by level towards the sea, and other towns lie on the bends of the River Ar; above the village only forest rises ridge behind ridge to the stone and snow of the heights.”

People speak of their doorways into reading, but mine, I think, was a doorway out: I stepped not into a fictional city, a great imaginary library (though how I would’ve loved to meet Lirael, way back then!), a magician’s cave, or a Hobbit hole (that was next), but out into this archipelago, this world of islands and storms. The alchemy was perfect: I recognized the landscape, if not the land, and that gave me the tools to build the rest of it in my mind.

I’ve always been a visual reader; I see the story unfolding in my head like a movie. It skips some scenes and elides faces, but I still remember my versions of the settings of books I read decades ago. And maybe it was this specific book that set me on that path of seeing pictures for words, or maybe it wasn’t, but either way, I’m grateful for it.

I hope that other readers find landscapes they recognize in other works of fantasy. I was lucky that this was my entry point; something else might have been too strange, too unfamiliar, for my story-loving brain in that moment. Dune would’ve been too dry, but maybe those deserts are just the thing for someone who grew up in a sandy, warm place. A tale that started in a city would have been beyond my ability to layer reality onto fantasy; I only knew little Eugene, Oregon, which had no towers, no walls, no crumbling ancient castles.

Everyone deserves to find the landscape of their heart in a book, and I will always be grateful that Le Guin wrote mine.

The other vital part of the first tale of Ged is a little more complicated.

Buy it Now

I was a kid who hated to be wrong. The phrase “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” is still a foreign language to me; to get to forgiveness, you have to first deal with the fact that someone’s mad at you, and that’s the worst.

But Ged is so very, very wrong. He’s the hero of this story—it belongs to him—but the darkness he flees from, the Shadow he then turns and chases, is a problem of his own making. He summoned it, he brought it into being, and when he finally defeats it, he does so by giving it his own name. He calls it Ged, as it calls him the same.

The fact that this is a story about not being defined or limited by your mistakes took a long time to click for me. Ged is enormously powerful, but power isn’t wisdom, and power isn’t strength. There are no shortcuts to experience, and showing off will get you nowhere. A Wizard of Earthsea, when it comes down to it, is about simply doing the work. The parts of Ged’s story at which he is most content, most assured, he’s doing the work: helping Pechvarry make sturdy boats; studying the names of all things in the Isolate Tower; speaking with Yarrow, the young sister of his old friend Vetch, about the different ways they experience the world.

Would Ged have still become both Archmage and dragonlord if he hadn’t made the terrible mistake he makes at the wizard school on Roke? Did fucking up so grandly, so massively, in the end teach him things he needed to know? Can we take from that a suggestion, both comforting and scary, that our own fuckups are vital parts of who we are?

I think we can. We can, and we’re meant to. Le Guin had an astonishingly clear-eyed grasp of human nature, and could paint a more nuanced portrait of a complicated, flawed young man in 200 pages than most could do in twice that. Ged’s story, now 50 years old, has the weight of myth: it’s a fable about failure, a story I need to repeatedly experience as a reminder that failure is rarely permanent. Turn around. Face the mistake. Name it as yours.

In fantasy, this is literal. It’s a story I seek out again and again: the ones in which our heroes and heroines have to clean up their own messes, or teach themselves new stories about who they are. I imprinted on Ged like a literary duckling; I want to follow stories about people making grand mistakes to all of their bittersweet ends. Fighting an immortal, random evil is one thing. Fighting the things about yourself that you wish you could just walk away from? That’s like the landscape of Earthsea: territory I recognize, and choose to claim as my own.

The Books of Earthsea omnibus is available October 30th from Saga Press.

Molly Templeton is Tor.com’s associate managing editor. When she isn’t reading fantasy, she’s probably rewatching Buffy. You can also find her on Twitter and writing about movies for the Eugene Weekly.

The weather is finally cooling down at Tor.com’s home base in New York, and we’re itching to curl up under our blankets with a good book or two, or maybe even eleven… Below, check out the cover designs and descriptions for all the novellas and novels that Tor.com Publishing will be bring out in Winter 2019, from January through April. Plus, we’ve got 5 new ebook bundles—each compiled by one of our editors—featuring some of our favorite previously published titles!

It’s an exciting new season for us—we’re visiting goblin markets, navigating a magical Milan, and solving a paranormal mystery or two!

In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children #4)

Written by Seanan McGuire
Cover art by Robert Hunt
Cover design by Fort
Available January 8th, 2019

What’s it about?

A stand-alone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire’s Alex award-winning Wayward Children series, which began with Every Heart a Doorway. This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1 — Hardcover)

Written by Martha Wells
Cover art by Jamie Jones
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Available January 22rd, 2019

What’s it about?

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

Vigilance

Written by Robert Jackson Bennett
Cover art by Brian Stauffer
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Available January 29th, 2019

What’s it about?

The United States. 2030. John McDean executive produces “Vigilance,” a reality game show designed to make sure American citizens stay alert to foreign and domestic threats. Shooters are introduced into a “game environment,” and the survivors get a cash prize.

The TV audience is not the only one that’s watching though, and McDean soon finds out what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera.

Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You

Written by Scotto Moore
Cover photo © Shutterstock
Available February 5th, 2019

What’s it about?

I was home alone on a Saturday night when I experienced the most beautiful piece of music I had ever heard in my life.

Beautiful Remorse is the hot new band on the scene, releasing one track a day for ten days straight. Each track has a mysterious name and a strangely powerful effect on the band’s fans.

A curious music blogger decides to investigate the phenomenon up close by following Beautiful Remorse on tour across Texas and Kansas, realizing along the way that the band’s lead singer, is hiding an incredible, impossible secret.

The Test

Written by Sylvain Neuvel
Cover design by Jonathan Gray
Available February 12th, 2019

What’s it about?

Britain, the not-too-distant future.

Idir is sitting the British Citizenship Test. He wants his family to belong.

Twenty-five questions to determine their fate. Twenty-five chances to impress. When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death.

How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice?

The Haunting of Tram Car 015

Written by P. Djéli Clark
Cover art by Stephan Martinere
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Available February 19, 2018

What’s it about?

Cairo, 1912: The case started as a simple one for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities—handling a possessed tram car.

Soon, however, Agent Hamed Nasr and his new partner Agent Onsi Youssef are exposed to a new side of Cairo stirring with suffragettes, secret societies, and sentient automatons in a race against time to protect the city from an encroaching danger that crosses the line between the magical and the mundane.

Alice Payne Rides (Alice Payne #2)

Written by Kate Heartfield
Cover art by Cliff Nielsen
Cover Design by Christine Foltzer
Available March 5th, 2019

What’s it about?

After abducting Arthur of Brittany from his own time in 1203, thereby creating the mystery that partly prompted the visit in the first place, Alice and her team discover that they have inadvertently brought the smallpox virus back to 1780 with them.

Searching for a future vaccine, Prudence finds that the various factions in the future time war intend to use the crisis to their own advantage.

Can the team prevent an international pandemic across time, and put history back on its tracks? At least until the next battle in the time war…

Permafrost

Written by Alastair Reynolds
Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
Photographs by Tim Robinson/Arcangel Images and mahos/Shutterstock
Available March 19th, 2019

What’s it about?

2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.

2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head… an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.

Does she resist… or become a collaborator?

Miranda in Milan

Written by Katharine Duckett
Cover art and design by David Wardle
Available March 26th, 2019

What’s it about?

After the tempest, after the reunion, after her father drowned his books, Miranda was meant to enter a brave new world. Naples awaited her, and Ferdinand, and a throne. Instead she finds herself in Milan, in her father’s castle, surrounded by hostile servants who treat her like a ghost. Whispers cling to her like spiderwebs, whispers that carry her dead mother’s name. And though he promised to give away his power, Milan is once again contorting around Prospero’s dark arts.

With only Dorothea, her sole companion and confidant to aid her, Miranda must cut through the mystery and find the truth about her father, her mother, and herself.

Perihelion Summer

Written by Greg Egan
Cover art and design by Drive Communication
Available April 16th, 2019

What’s it about?

Taraxippus is coming: a black hole one tenth the mass of the sun is about to enter the solar system.

Matt and his friends are taking no chances. They board a mobile aquaculture rig, the Mandjet, self-sustaining in food, power and fresh water, and decide to sit out the encounter off-shore. As Taraxippus draws nearer, new observations throw the original predictions for its trajectory into doubt, and by the time it leaves the solar system, the conditions of life across the globe will be changed forever.

Ragged Alice

Written by Gareth L. Powell
Cover design by Fort
Cover photo © Andrew Davis/Trevillion Images
Available April 23rd, 2019

What’s it about?

A small Welsh town. A string of murders. And a detective who can literally see the evil in people’s souls.

Orphaned at an early age, DCI Holly Craig grew up in the small Welsh coastal town of Pontyrhudd. As soon as she was old enough, she ran away to London and joined the police. Now, fifteen years later, she’s back in her old hometown to investigate what seems at first to be a simple hit-and-run, but which soon escalates into something far deadlier and unexpectedly personal—something that will take all of her peculiar talents to solve.

Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #1: A Selection of Novellas

Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
Cover design by Esther Kim
Available January 22, 2019

A curated selection of novellas by Tor.com Publishing editor Carl Engle-Laird, featuring:

• The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang
• Runtime by S.B. Divya
• The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
• Killing Gravity by Corey J. White
• The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #2: A Selection of Novellas

Edited by Lee Harris
Cover design by Esther Kim
Available February 26, 2019

A curated selection of novellas by Tor.com Publishing editor Lee Harris, featuring:

• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
• Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell
• Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire
• All Systems Red by Martha Wells
• The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp

Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #3: A Selection of Novellas

Edited by Ellen Datlow
Cover design by Esther Kim
Available March 12, 2019

A curated selection of novellas by Tor.com Publishing editor Ellen Datlow, featuring:

• The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
• The Twilight Pariah by Jeffrey Ford
• Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
• Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #4: A Selection of Novellas

Edited by Ann VanderMeer
Cover design by Esther Kim
Available April 9, 2019

A curated selection of novellas by Tor.com Publishing editor Ann VanderMeer, featuring:

• Mandelbrot the Magnificent by Liz Ziemska
• The Warren by Brian Evenson

Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #5: A Selection of Novellas

Edited by Jonathan Strahan
Cover design by Esther Kim
Available April 30, 2019

A curated selection of novellas by Tor.com Publishing editor Jonathan Strahan, featuring:

• The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
• Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
• Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• Proof of Concept of Gwyneth Jones
• Time Was by Ian McDonald

We’re back for round two aboard the glorious, out-of-control Tilt-a-Whirl that is Good Omens. My name is Meghan and I’m excited to see you again! Everyone have a good week? Are you ready for more apocalyptic madness? Let’s get the show on the road!

Summary

Anathema Device is a little girl who knows what’s up, thanks to the book written by her ancestor, Agnes Nutter. This book spells out everything that’s going to happen in the world, right up until the apocalypse. Anathema isn’t overly concerned about that, though; she mostly likes seeing where her name pops up. For now, she reads under the covers with a flashlight, like all children do, and flips through the old tome.

Picking up where we left him in the last installment, Crowley drives away from the hospital, chewing over the gravity of the events he’s just set in motion. As a demon, he’s in favor of the apocalypse in theory, of course. The real thing, though? Maybe not. He thought he’d have more time. He’s been coasting on his demonic duties as well—why bother giving it a 100% when humans can do so much worse to each other than he could? He once ended up getting special commendation for the Spanish Inquisition even though he was just in the area for a bit of vacation at the time. His frenemy the angel Aziraphale tried to explain humanity to him but the lesson didn’t take. And speaking of Aziraphale…Crowley veers down the road and decides to make a very important call.

Meanwhile, Mr. Young is still being subjected to the chattering onslaught of Sister Mary Loquacious. Baby names are hard at the best of times (hell, I know someone who took a solid two months to name a dog) and Mr. Young keeps shooting down all her suggestions. That is, until a classic emerges. What about Adam? Mr. Young mulls this over. Adam might do just fine…

Elsewhere, a young Newton Pulsifer is working late into the night. His experiment with electricity goes very well: this time he only blows the power to his house and not to the whole town. Yes, indeed, he’s really improving! He’s convinced his future lies in the realm of electricity and computers. If only they would stop breaking around him. Then again, Agnes Nutter’s book may have something to say about that.

Aziraphale and Crowley talk in a park about how awful the apocalypse will be for each side. Heaven would be insufferable and smug while Hell… the less said about that the better. Aziraphale tries valiantly to uphold Heaven’s line of reasoning but he has to admit that Crowley has a point. The end of the world would be miserable for everyone. No more nice restaurants or lovely books, no more good music and charming little shops. The angel’s resolve cracks under that logic and together they agree that something must be done. Their hands are tied, though. Neither can disobey their masters or be seen to be helping the other. So, they decide to hedge their bets…and get drunk.

They discuss the nature of time, of how tasteless Heaven is (The Sound of Music for all eternity!), and a little bird that has to go a bloody great way to sharpen its beak on a mountain. Aziraphale is agonized. Heaven sounds like Hell, when you get right down to it. Crowley has a plan, though. They decide to thwart each other and use their infernal and divine influences on the child, hoping to make him grow up a certain way. And, just maybe, they’ll cancel each other out and nothing at all will happen. It’s worth a shot, at least. After all, they have everything to lose.

Leaving Aziraphale and Crowley to plot, the other big players begin to make their way to the fore. A woman named Scarlett is selling illegal arms in the midst of a small civil war that she hopes will become a massive one. She skips town, ready for a holiday, leaving behind blood and strife in her wake. A man named Sable is relaxing in a restaurant, going over figures for his new cookbook. People lose weight simply by not eating. It’s a bestseller. A skeleton calling herself a fashion model asks him to sign her book and he does so with a flourish, proud of his accomplishments. There is also Mr. White—he’s as nondescript as they get, going unnoticed while doing odd jobs in places like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Currently he’s working on an oil tanker headed to Japan. Tragedy strikes somehow and the oil floods out of the ship, polluting the ocean and killing all the wildlife. There is a final member of this happy band, but he (it?) is nameless and very, very busy.

The American diplomat’s baby son has been named Warlock and soon has a household full of people attending to his every need. There is a rather devilish nanny and a kindly gardener. As he grows up, he is educated by two tutors, one who teaches him about dictators and warlords and another who points him toward studying artists and civil rights leaders. They both read to him from the Book of Revelation. Warlock doesn’t seem bothered one way or another about this odd curriculum, leaving Crowley concerned. Surely by now the child would have shown an aptitude in one direction or another. Something is wrong, but what could it be?

Commentary

Hoo boy, and we are off to the races! The babies have been switched, time marches on, and Aziraphale and Crowley make some rather important decisions. We are introduced to characters who will be extremely important later, like Anathema and the four horsemen. There’s also some delightful little background information about Aziraphale’s rare book collection and how Agnes Nutter’s book of prophecy came to be. Gaiman and Pratchett leave no stone unturned. We get the history for everything in this book.

One of my favorite bits is the care and detail that goes into the long running joke about spies feeding ducks. Members of MI5, the CIA, and the KGB all swapping information while wearing sleek raincoats and tossing bread to very discerning ducks. It’s one of those moments that just makes so much sense. Who goes out specifically to feed ducks? Have you? I certainly haven’t. Must be spies. Of course! Case closed.

Buy it Now

Crowley is incredibly good at not so much directly tempting Aziraphale but letting him see for himself how the arguments on the angelic side are less than perfect. Aziraphale is very precise and has excellent taste. An eternity with only movie musicals filled with nuns and singing children sounds particularly horrible, apparently. It reminds me of the “Harmony Hut” scene in Addams Family Values. You’re trapped in a hellscape of cheerful pastels and charmingly saccharine films. No wonder it scares Aziraphale so much. Could you imagine spending eternity locked in the Harmony Hut?

The Four Horsemen are also impressively and slyly introduced. Each gets only a small number of pages, but they make a huge impact. They’re personified so perfectly. Famine is the one who also seems the most plausible, even today, given how many kooky, literally killer diet trends are out there. If this book had been written in 2018, Famine would be an Instagram influencer peddling bogus “slimming teas” and juice detoxes.

Also, drunk Crowley and Aziraphale are an absolute delight, and I sincerely hope that scene makes it into the show. I still wonder if they’re going to update the action for 2018, or if it will stay firmly set in the ’90s. The trailer doesn’t really offer us a clue one way or another. Part of me has my fingers crossed, rooting for the ’90s. This is a story that should exist before the internet and smartphones became omnipresent. Then again, can you imagine how on point Crowley’s Twitter feed would be?

Pun Corner

Yes, my friends, it’s time for another trip to Pun Corner:

• Aziraphale beamed.

  “You know, I’d never have thought of that,” he said. “Godfathers. Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “It’s not too bad,” said Crowley, “when you get used to it.”

  Boom: perfect set up, then Crowley knocks it out of the park. A+ work, everyone.

• (In the footnote in Scarlett’s section): “Nominally a city. It was the size of an English county town, or, translated into American terms, a shopping mall.” Ouch. Valid, but ouch.

• “Aziraphale popped another deviled egg into his mouth, and washed it down with coffee.” And then, a moment later, “Aziraphale helped himself to Crowley’s slice of angel cake.”So, you’re telling me that the the angel is eating deviled eggs and the demon is having angel cake? This book is too good and too pure for this world, guys. It’s too perfect. Two little sentences about snacks express more about these two and their relationship than ten thousand words could. Also, Aziraphale, taking something from another’s plate? What happened to “Thou shalt not steal”?

This was a fantastic section of the book, and it only keeps getting better. Next week we get to “Wednesday” and meet the fearsome hellhound who will join the Antichrist. Make sure to read the entire “Wednesday” chapter, pages 73 to 126 in the paperback edition—if you hit “Thursday,” you’ve gone too far! I’ll see you all next Monday for Part Three!

Meghan Ball is an avid reader, writer, and lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. When she isn’t losing to a video game or playing the guitar badly, she’s writing short fiction and spending way too much time on Twitter. You can find her there @EldritchGirl. She currently lives in a weird part of New Jersey.

If you attend a remote summer camp, you have to know there’s a non-zero chance that you’ll get stalked through the woods by a killer with a mask and a machete. If you cheat Death on a plane/the highway/a roller coaster, you can’t be surprised when it comes after you in your daily life in increasingly creative ways. If you pick up the phone when you’re home alone, you’re rolling the dice on whether the voice on the other side of the line wants you dead. Horror is filled with these (and other) scenarios that don’t exactly say that you’re asking for death and dismemberment, but you really should know better by now.

You Might Be the Killer, an entertaining horror-movie riff that began its life as a masterpiece in Twitter improv, engages with these horror tropes and a larger debate about free will: Should you find yourself running through a campground, splattered in blood, are you doomed to be added to the growing kill count by a slow-stalking, relentless killer? …Wait, you’re the one holding the machete and wearing the mask? Ohh, then we have a very different problem. Unfortunately, the answers this movie raises are less than satisfactory.

Chuck (Alyson Hannigan) is working a typical late-night shift at the Rings of Saturn comic book store when she gets a call from her buddy Sam (Fran Kranz) asking for help—not unlike author Sam Sykes’ opening salvo to fellow author Chuck Wendig on Twitter last year, which the latter met with a prime example of “yes, and.” See, Sam is head counselor at Camp Clear Vista, but the night before the kids are due to arrive, he and his fellow counselors are set upon by a silent stranger staring at them through soulless eyeholes in a creepy carved mask, who instead of speaking slashes them to death with a machete. A bloody Sam has hidden himself away in one of the cabins, but he and Chuck very quickly determine that what he thought was a baseball bat for defense is actually a gore-covered machete, and he’s holding the damn mask in his hands. Worse yet, while the person wearing it may be silent, the mask itself has plenty to say—or, rather, whisper sweet nothings about put me on and killthemkillthemKILLTHEM, and Sam is hard-pressed to resist.

Despite very quickly accessing this crucial information, Chuck, to her credit, does not think the worst of her friend—her reaction suggests that he’s gotten himself into a pickle more than anything else. After all, he only slashes people when he’s wearing that sinister mask. So, with a treasure trove of occult texts in the store’s backroom and an exhaustive mental inventory of horror-movie tropes, Chuck proceeds to talk Sam through how he’s going to get out of this bloodbath alive. Already the movie is subverting a trope! A woman is on the phone with a killer, but he’s not threatening her with “What’s your favorite scary movie?” or “Have you checked the children?” Instead, she is the key to his salvation.

You Might Be the Killer establishes its kooky premise fairly early on and spends the rest of its runtime lampshading and subverting horror tropes, Cabin in the Woods-style. But where Cabin interrogates the notion of trying to shoehorn actual humans into horror-movie archetypes—and featured Kranz’s brilliant portrayal of the quintessential stoner, complete with telescoping bong that saves the day—You Might Be the Killer falls short of that caliber of commentary. If you squint, it’s sort of about a guy fighting back against this evil identity into which he’s been thrust, of trying to divorce his true, good nature from the death he’s brought about: “It’s not me!” he exclaims, even as his slashing hands say otherwise.

The thing is, Sam is a good dude: sweetly earnest about making this the best summer ever; blissfully oblivious to the fact that his praise of fellow counselor Steve “the Kayak King!” (Bryan Price) falls short, seeing as the camp has only canoes; yearning to be seen as something more serious by former fling Imani (Brittany S. Hall). This cursed object couldn’t have found a nicer victim… and yet, despite these traits, it’s still difficult to really care about Sam’s predicament. And the constant repetition of ripping off the mask long enough to talk to Chuck, then giving back in, then managing to tear it off briefly again, gets exhausting. There’s no emotional arc to Sam’s experience with the mask, only his mounting panic and the accompanying body count (shown through an amusing, ever-changing onscreen visual).

Meanwhile, Chuck is a mostly passive character, much as we get the warm’n’fuzzies of seeing Hannigan back in a semi-magical support role. (She suggests a spell!) At least when Randy got his fellow teens hip to horror rules in Scream, he also got to join in the action. Here, Chuck is limited to contextualizing why it was a bad idea for Sam to tell the other counselors the creepy story about the mask in the first place and advising on how Sam really should stop before he’s left with just a Final Girl, because that’s when things will get really bad for him.

Speaking of, there’s a moment in the film when it seems as if the two remaining female counselors will actually challenge that Final Girl narrative… and then the action yet again veers away from Cabin in the Woods and more toward Highlander. It’s downright disappointing, yet not unexpected, as the movie has proven that most of its characters are really just vessels for the eventual punchline. Part of the problem is the length; a feature film is just too much time to stretch this excellent joke. You Might Be the Killer would have done better as a tight hour, akin to an episode of Black Mirror or an installment of Hulu’s Into the Dark anthology series. (It could’ve fit as Fourth of July!)

If you enjoy poking the horror genre with a stick, you’ll still find plenty to appreciate in You Might Be the Killer, most of all Franz and Hannigan’s charismatic embodiment of Sykes and Wendig’s original witty riff. This isn’t a classic to add to the canon, but it’s an entertaining exercise.

You Might Be the Killer had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest and seems to be screening at other film festivals. You can also watch it on Syfy through your cable provider.

Natalie Zutter would be tickled if there were a sequel following Sam and the mask through an entire franchise. Talk horror tropes with her on Twitter!

It took me a grand total of one episode for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to hex me into obsession. Based solely on my love of the comic from which the show was adapted, I knew going in that I’d like it. But my preemptive affection turned into post-binge adoration with the show’s twisted sense of humor, campy sense of horror, and willingness to engage with social justice issues, not to mention the fantastic cinematography, direction, and acting.

So let’s take a look at my latest addiction that I’m sorely tempted to go back and rewatch next weekend.

Some spoilers.

As a half-witch, Sabrina was raised in the human world by her witch aunts and cousin. On her sixteenth birthday, she’s forced to make a choice: live as a mortal or become a full-fledged witch. The former means never achieving her magical potential while the latter means giving up her friends and human life. If she signs her name in the Book of the Beast, she’ll have access to more power than she can imagine, but she’ll also be beholden to Satan himself. Sabrina insists on having both power and freedom, but the other women in her life, human and witch alike, know she’ll have to choose.

For most of the season, Sabrina gets lucky. She crosses line after line, challenging and rejecting human and occult social norms when they conflict with her own sense of justice. But because others more powerful than she step in to guide the circumstances and protect her, Sabrina is spared the consequences of her actions. Until the last few episodes, that is. Everything has a cost. Sabrina can pay for power by surrendering her free will or keep her freedom in exchange for being able to use magic to help those she loves. When the entire town is threatened by an unstoppable evil, she can put off her decision no longer.

Bringing all this gothic storytelling to life is a fiery cast of actors. Kiernan Shipka brings a disconcerting blend of twee charm and devilish gravitas to Sabrina. Miranda Otto and Lucy Davis turn Zelda and Hilda Spellman into quirky and complicated sisters who looked at Sam and Dean Winchester’s damaging codependency and said “hold my beer.” I have loved Michelle Gomez since her Green Wing days, and she’s perfectly macabre as ally/enemy Mary Wardwell.

Adeline Rudolph (Agatha), Abigail Cowen (Dorcas), and Gavin Leatherwood (Nick) may be relative newcomers to television, but you wouldn’t know it from their work here. Grounding them is the formidable Tati Gabrielle, who takes Prudence’s scenery chewing dialogue and layers it with subtext and double entendres. At first it seems like Ross Lynch doesn’t have the range of his co-stars, but by the end of the season it’s clear he’s playing a long game with Harvey’s cluelessness. What the script lacks in character development for Susie and Roz, Lachlan Watson and Jaz Sinclair make up for with sheer talent. Richard Coyle (Father Blackwood) and Bronson Pinchot (Principal Hawthorne) don’t get much to do beyond being sexist and hammy, but they do it with flair. And Chance Perdomo (Ambrose), my sun and stars!

Look, as much as I love this show, it’s tone deaf in some key areas. The first is the excessively obvious ways the show tackles the patriarchy. Sabrina has a lot to say about shitty men and the women who support them, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. The show hints at bigger ideas – particularly with Sabrina’s refusal to conform to witch law, Miss Wardwell dealing with the unearned confidence of mediocre men, Susie as a potentially non-binary character, and Harvey rejecting toxic masculinity – but fails to actually do something with them. In a post November 2016 world, I expect the feminist politics of a prestige streaming show to be more than teen girls confronting their sexist principal and a femme fatale using sex appeal to scam men.

Race is also largely ignored, to the detriment of the show. On the surface, the show’s feminism lite unites the girls and women under a single banner of “feminist,” but on a deeper level it wholly disregards the constraints of misogynoir and microaggressions Black women deal with that white women do not. Just as bad, Ambrose as a queer Black man gets no racial context at all.

You can argue all you want that witch society wouldn’t have the same racist hang ups as muggles, but they came to America a decade after the first enslaved Africans were brought ashore. Witches have all of western society’s sexism, but you’re telling me they avoided racism, a trait so fundamental to American society that we built it into our constitution and fought a whole damn war over it? They had a episode about Greendale ancestors without discussing how Roz’s people arrived in the first place. Were the Walkers enslaved by Greendale settlers, freed people who relocated to the area, or Atlantic Creole settlers? These answers all come with different baggage and give viewers different background information.

Speaking of Black people, I have a MAJOR problem with that lynching scene. I can’t believe I have to say this in the year of our goddess 2018, but come the hell on, Netflix! There is this thing called context. You can’t drop a scene like that and expect historical, social, and political context to not matter. It’s gross and offensive and decidedly not cool. Yes, I know the Greendale 13 were hanged and that the Weird Sisters were imitating that specific act of violence. However, I as a Black woman watching the show am connecting it with the real world. I was angry enough when Prudence tried to hang Sabrina, but when Sabrina (through her ghost gang) strung up three girls, two of whom are women of color, I had to turn off the TV and take a break.

Lastly, I’m still not sure how I feel about Sabrina’s presentation of queerness. On one hand, Ambrose is pansexual and the Weird Sisters and Nick Scratch are at the very least open to a variety of sexual experiences. Plus the casting of non-binary actor Lachlan Watson as Susie, a character questioning their gender identity! It’s not often a show will offer more than one type of queerness in the main cast. I know that Watson worked closely with showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacas in defining Susie and their transition, but I’m bothered by how the show stitches Susie’s story around sexual and physical assaults and transphobia. Worse, those incidents are used more as motivation for Sabrina than character development for Susie. Overall I think the rep is a net positive, but Sabrina is very close to falling into some harmful tropes.

Although they share a showrunner, Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is far less kitschy and flighty than its CW cousin, Riverdale. Yet Sabrina does retain the same otherworldly feel… as well as the scattershot tone. Sometimes Sabrina thinks it’s a teen drama, sometimes a classic monster movie, and other times a Very Serious Television Show. Fortunately for me, I didn’t mind the show wandering all over the place. Everywhere it went was somewhere I was willing to go.

Sabrina suffers the three common Netflix curses of two too many episodes, too many overstuffed subplots, and an inability to figure out what to do with them all. In spite of all that, I was rarely bored. It’s better than expected and not as polished as I’d hoped, but it’s a giggly, grotesque season of haunting visuals and uncomfortable moments.

If you want a great looking, strongly acted, and well-told story that’s heavy on social commentary and classic horror suspense, you can’t go wrong with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pester cosplay Twitter to find out where I can get Sabrina and Ambrose’s killer wardrobes.

Alex Brown is a YA librarian by day, local historian by night, pop culture critic/reviewer by passion, and an ace/aro Black woman all the time. Keep up with her every move on Twitter, check out her endless barrage of cute rat pics on Instagram, or follow along with her reading adventures on her blog.

When I read the cover copy for The Defiant Agents, I had a feeling this wouldn’t be a comfortable read. It wasn’t quite as bad as I expected, but I was glad to get through it, and I won’t be going there again. Of all the Norton books I’ve read and reread for this series so far, this for me was the most cringeworthy.

We’ve talked at various points about how some of Norton’s works have held up better than others. Some manage to entertain in a cheerful retro way, with their tin-can rockets and their recording tapes and their female-free universe. Others are a little too much of their time, as we’ve taken to saying around here.

It’s not that Norton isn’t trying to respect her characters. She is, very much so. She’s done a whole lot of research. She’s studied the Apache language and tried to study the culture. She talks about the deep systemic problems of white supremacy, colonialism, and one very topical subject for the fifties, mind control. She wants to do it right.

But there’s a fundamental problem with the heart of the story, and she makes choices that don’t help.

Travis Fox, Apache time agent and college-educated archaeologist, is back. His inadvertent flight into space along with Professor Ashe, Ross Murdock, and a tech named Renfry has brought back a trove of navigation tapes, and the agency is busy setting up space voyages using alien ships and technology. There’s a space race on with the evil Reds, complicated by political machinations within the western alliance.

One crucial debate is whether and if so how to use something called Redax. This device awakens a human’s racial memory, and superimposes the memories of a particular set of ancestors over his own. This, supposedly, makes him more fit for life on a primitive planet, and gives him natural skills that would require months or years of training if he were to study them in a more normal way. It’s a short cut, designed to mass-produce colonists for worlds which, the agency hopes, are no longer occupied by the alien empire of twelve millennia ago.

There’s fierce debate about the morals and ethics of this, which is why it isn’t quite as bad as it might be, but the whole idea is still…no. Just. No. The idea of racial determinism, that you can mind-control an Apache and turn him into one of his ancestors from the 1800s, not just by installing false memories but by assuming that he has some sort of instinctual tropism toward hunting, scouting, and waging war against the white man, is unbelievably, irreparably racist.

And then she doubles down by having the Reds do the same thing to a shipload of Mongols and Tatars. But their mind-control devices are more numerous and more portable, and don’t work on Apaches, so Travis and company get to exploit a few loopholes and ultimately defeat the Reds. In the process they find a patented Norton Ancient Ruin Full Of Terrible Technology That Must Not Be Revealed To The Human World, and from there it’s all about keeping the secret and blowing up the Reds’ devices and exiling themselves to this alien planet forever. Which is very noble and they’re very smart and very resourceful, and Norton is trying. She really is. But.

To make this even more squirm-inducing, we get an actual female speaking role. She’s a Mongol, and sometimes she’s a Tatar, very plucky and smart, whom Travis comes across on a scouting run. Through her he learns about the Mongol (Tatar) colonists and the Reds’ devices, and the Apaches and the Mongols eventually form an alliance, though the process is uneven and full of reversals. The ultimate foray against the Reds involves capturing the girl and exposing her to a severely malfunctioning Redax machine that induces irrational panic, then turning her loose to run back to her people and lure the Reds into a trap. She’s clever and resourceful and by no means a pushover. And yet. And yet.

Travis voices some mild objections, but manages to convince himself that she won’t be really hurt or at least not really for very long, and anyway it’s for a good cause. Never mind that his people are doing to her exactly what the agency—most of whom are white—did to the Apaches, and with the same rationalizations.

I had to stop reading at that point. If I hadn’t been reading on a tablet, I’d have thrown the book at the wall.

I did get through the rest, and my blood pressure came down eventually. I managed to concede that the story is a nice fast-paced adventure and Norton throws in all sorts of Apache words and little infodumps about their history and culture. We don’t get nearly as much about the Mongols (who are also Tatars), but she talks a little bit about how they dressed and what kind of horses they rode and what their weapons were like. So that’s nice.

But no matter how often she goes on through Travis about how Apaches are “more than just beads and feathers,” she still constructs a story that relies on the idea that Apaches are just barely removed from savagery. All you have to do is flip some switches in their brains, and presto! Instant warrior-hunter-scout.

She makes this worse by having them speak Movie Indian, with a line or two about how at one point they give up on it and just talk straight. And the Mongols speak Movie Asian, which gave me flashbacks to Fifties film epics. John Wayne in brownface as Genghis Khan.

Thank goodness it’s 2018 and there’s an Own Voices movement and there are people like Rebecca Roanhorse writing from real knowledge of Native American culture. Her multi-award-winning story, “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian ExperienceTM,” is a fiercely satirical takedown of a whole lot of things, including novels like this.

Norton did try. I give her credit for that. She wanted to show what happens when people treat other people like objects, tools to be used for a purpose. She shows how much harm that does to both the victims and the perpetrators. The Reds are killed, and so is the white American who subjects the Apaches to Redax without their knowledge or consent—he dies when their ship crashes.

Even so. The fact that both Apaches and Mongols are depicted as being only marginally civilized, that all anyone needs to do is flip a switch and suddenly they turn into savage warriors, is seriously racist. All I could think of as I forced myself to keep reading was what a friend’s mother used to say: “We in China had a thriving civilization while you Westerners were still hacking at each other with sticks and stones.”

There’s not even the suggestion that any of these white people would take, say, Ross and Ashe and regress them to their ancestral selves. Of course not. They had to be taught. White people are just naturally civilized. No racial memory to see there, move along, move along.

Ross does at one point in The Time Traders get hit on the head and mistake his cover identity for his real one, and that’s one of the inspirations for the Redax machine, but it’s not real and he quickly gets over it. We’re not told that he has a racial predisposition toward it.

I mean, if she’s going to go there with induced racial memory, why not regress Ashe or Ross (who doesn’t even need racial memory–he’s a street tough)? Or get a bunch of Scots together, or Irish, or Cossacks for the Reds? Sure, Norton is trying to honor non-white cultures, but the way she does it, and the way she talks about what happens to them, is full of unexamined assumptions and Hollywood stereotypes. It just doesn’t work.

Let’s see how I handle the last of the Time Traders novels, Key Out of Time. We’ll be back with Ross and Ashe, and hopefully with less racial determinism.

Judith Tarr’s first novel, The Isle of Glass, appeared in 1985. Her most recent novel, Dragons in the Earth, a contemporary fantasy set in Arizona, was published by Book View Cafe. In between, she’s written historicals and historical fantasies and epic fantasies and space operas, some of which have been published as ebooks from Book View Café. She has won the Crawford Award, and been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Locus Award. She lives in Arizona with an assortment of cats, a blue-eyed dog, and a herd of Lipizzan horses.

Jane Yolen has two books coming out in the next week—Finding Baba Yaga, available October 30th from Tor.com Publishing, and How to Fracture a Fairy Tale, available November 5th from Tachyon! To celebrate, we want to send you a copy of each of these books, along with a copy of her classic Briar Rose, which was recently reissued by Tor!

Read on for more on these three books, and comment in the post to enter!

In Finding Baba Yaga, a young woman discovers the power to speak up and take control of her fate—a theme that has never been more timely than it is now. Natasha gathers the strength to leave her controlling father and quiescent mother, and comes upon a little house in the wood: A house that walks about on chicken feet and is inhabited by a fairy tale witch. In finding Baba Yaga, Natasha finds her voice, her power, herself….

In How to Fracture a Fairy Tale, Yolen breaks open the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets: a philosophical bridge that misses its troll, a spinner of straw as a falsely accused moneylender, the villainous wolf adjusting poorly to retirement. Each of these offerings features a new author note and original poem, illuminating tales that are old, new, and brilliantly refined.

And Yolen’s graceful retelling of the German folktale of “Briar Rose”—known to some as “Sleeping Beauty”—sets the story amid forests patrolled by the German army during World War II. Yolen confronts the deeply tragic events of the Holocaust with lyrical prose and rich characterizations that tell a tale of good and evil, hope and despair.

Comment in the post to enter!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes open to legal residents of 50 United States and D.C., and Canada (excluding Quebec). To enter, comment on this post beginning at 3:30 PM Eastern Time (ET) on Ocotber 29th. Sweepstakes ends at 12:00 PM ET on November 2nd. Void outside the United States and Canada and where prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules here. Sponsor: Tor.com, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

Chapter six opens with Tej hanging over the balcony. The balcony is at the center of Tej and Rish’s emergency backup plan, but on this occasion, Tej is using it to spot Ivan. Let the record show that there is no question about whether or not Tej is smitten with Ivan. She is deeply smitten.

Rish is all but glued to the wall, urging Tej to come away from the railing. Rish is a cynical realist, smitten with no one. Yes, she found Byerly attractive last night, but that could happen to anyone.

What is Ivan doing? He’s picking up takeout and hitting the grocery store. He returns home bearing Barrayaran Greekie food and a box of groats.

This chapter is a series of escalating incidents involving groats.

Incident 1 — The Groat-versation

Ivan gets the groat train rolling with a short educational presentation on the culinary and cultural importance of groats. He also says some things about Barrayaran language groups and people who have moved to Komarr, married, and started restaurants, but since he serves groats in the demonstration portion of the lecture, I infer that these are peripheral to the main point. Ivan suggests eating your groats with maple syrup—I don’t mind the Ted Talk on groats, and I wouldn’t mind a historical retrospective on the Barrayaran maple sugar industry either. Ivan also suggests groats with butter and/or cheese, or having them cold with mint and tomatoes. Groats are, of course, available on Earth. I have never tried them, and Tej’s reaction doesn’t make me think I should seek them out—she decides that the reason Barrayarans use groats in their wedding ceremonies is that they are the food whose sacrifice is least likely to be regretted.

Whoa there! Now we’re talking about weddings?

Of course we are.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance is the third book in a romance trilogy. We had unrequited love in Komarr, followed by complicated, bureaucratic love in A Civil Campaign, with an interjectory novella to tie up the loose ends in “Winterfair Gifts.” Now it’s time for the book where the plucky, stalwart friend finally finds love just like his cousins before him. Per the conventions of the genre, this will be more complicated, difficult love than Miles’s and Gregor’s and Ivan will fall much, much faster. You can tell the relationship will be complicated because they get married in chapter 6. If they were going to have a straightforward happily-ever-after, they would have had to put their wedding off until later in the book.

Tej has gotten into the habit of calling Ivan, “Ivan Xav.”

It’s super-cute.

In the post-groat hours of the evening, Ivan, Tej, and Rish watch a video of Quaddie dancing. Tej and Ivan Xav snuggle on the couch. Rish is really interested in the dancing, which I hope keeps her from feeling like a third wheel. Byerly does not put in an appearance, which makes this one of the more relaxing evenings of Ivan’s sojourn on Komarr.

I noted, but mostly neglected Ivan’s snake classification system in last week’s blog post. Admiral Desplaines has noted/will note that Ivan has an unerring instinct for touchy political situations. Ivan sorts issues into poisonous snakes, non-poisonous snakes, and non-snakes. I would love to know if there is such a thing as a poisonous non-snake, because if there is, I can graph the whole system on an X- and Y-axis, and I would find that deeply satisfying. Ivan uses a number of tools to sort snakes. Why does he tolerate Byerly? Because By is a useful tool for monitoring snakes.

By arrives at the door shortly before Dome Security and Komarran immigration authorities. Ivan is being accused of kidnapping and murder. Tej is being threatened with arrest, and Admiral Desplaines is on Ivan’s wristcom demanding explanations and asserting that Ivan’s conversation with Dome Security has been mis-classified as a garden snake. What Ivan has here is a handful of poisonous snakes. It’s By’s fault—Byerly is a snake-charmer, not a snake-proof fence.

Incident 2 — The Groat-pocalypse

In a display of quick thinking that should, but probably doesn’t, make the Imperial Military Academy proud, Ivan throws his bleating wrist-com in the refrigerator and grabs the box of groats. By is briefly puzzled by this—apparently the first thing By thinks of when someone brandishes a box of instant groats is breakfast. By wasn’t present for the Groat-versation. Ivan marks out a wedding circle in groats and proposes to Tej, offering himself as an alternative to the twenty-story plunge off his balcony. It’s actually a hard sell. Nonetheless, Tej makes her decision in time to repeat the words—because their word is their bond, and they need to be able to carry out decisions quickly in remote and inconveniently-located emergencies, Barrayarans marry themselves—before the assorted assembled security forces get through the door.

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I like to do weddings properly. The bride is wearing loose Komarran trousers and the shirt she slept in. The groom is wearing military uniform. Neither is completely dress—Tej isn’t wearing a bra and Ivan isn’t wearing shoes. Due to the exigent circumstances, Ivan acts as Coach. Ivan proclaims that he is kissing the bride for the first time; They have kissed before, but she kissed him. By breaks the circle to let them out, and he and Rish are the official witnesses to the ceremony. The groats on the floor provide physical evidence. I’m so amused by the vision of Byerly explaining this to Dome Security—“I witnessed their marriage, which has just taken place. Look, groats!” At least I assume it was something like that; Bujold has not honored us with the actual dialogue. Tej is now a Barrayaran subject, and Ivan has hired Rish to be her lady’s maid.

The marriage makes Tej an instant Barrayaran subject, no further questions asked. But apparently Ivan also has the ability to extend protections to employees who are not Barrayaran subjects. Why are these sufficient to protect Rish from refoulement, but not Tej? In fairness to Ivan Xav’s problem-solving skills, as a military officer, he has the right to transport his dependents and a wife and her maid certainly sound more like compelling dependents than a pair of personal secretaries.

In his first husbandly act, Ivan bellows “Unhand Lady Vorpatril!” He is, in this moment, modeling himself on Count Falco, the guy who actually holds the Vorpatril lands and their vote in the Council of Counts. He’s also a crucial part of Ivan’s plan to divorce Tej and her plan to divorce him—Ivan has been very open about his intentions. Tej has been relatively open about hers given that she’s hiding the existence of what she believes to be her only surviving brother.

And now, Ivan is late for work. Join me next week when he proves his value to the Imperial Military and Tej and Rish deal with ImpSec.

Ellen Cheeseman-Meyer teaches history and reads a lot.

Welcome back to Reading The Great Hunt! This week Rand and Egwene both find themselves in a new society with new rules, and both of them are preparing to learn some possibly uncomfortable lessons. But there’s good news too, in the formation of new friendships and the return of old ones, and also a little bit of gratuitous shirtless boys.

Chapter 24 opens with Egwene following an Accepted named Pedra through the halls of the White tower. She observes the other woman’s dress, white like the one Egwene has been given, but with colored stripes along the hem, and thinks of Nynaeve, who has also been given an Accepted’s dress and the golden ring of the serpent eating its own tail, but who now seems to Egwene to be haunted by the trial that gained her that status.

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Pedra shows Egwene to her room, curtly explaining that she is being given some free time on her first day, and that she is expected to be in the scullery “when the gong sounds High, and not one moment later.” Egwene gives her a respectful curtsy but then sticks her tongue out behind Pedra’s back; she has already developed a dislike for the woman.

In her room, which is quite sparse, Egwene meets Elyane, who immediately strikes her as poised and elegant. Elayne surprises her by knowing Egwene’s name and where she’s from. She explains to Egwene that someone who has been in the Tower for a while is always assigned to a new novice to help her learn her way around. She explains how Egwene’s schedule will work, the time spent training and the time spent doing chores.

Elayne’s blue eyes took on a thoughtful expression. “You were born with it, weren’t you?” Egwene nodded. “Yes, I thought I felt it. So was I, born with it. Do not be disappointed if you did not know. You will learn to feel the ability in other women. I had the advantage of growing up around an Aes Sedai.”

Egwene is curious about how Elayne could have grown up around Aes Sedai, but the other woman continues, explaining that Egwene shouldn’t be frustrated if she can’t do much with the One Power right away, or even for a while. In time, however, she will learn to sense the ability in other women and to see when they are channeling. Egwene answers that she has had a little training already, and summons a sphere of light above her hand. Elayne responds by doing the same, and Egwene is startled to see a faint light glowing around the other woman. She gasps and drops her hand, but not before Elayne has a chance to see the same glow around Egwene. The two bond over the fact that this is the first time either of them has been able to see the channeling, and agree that they are both going to be good friends.

Then, Elayne asks if Egwene knows Rand, and Egwene suddenly remembers the story Rand told of meeting the Daughter-Heir of Andor and realizes who Elayne is. Elayne confirms it, but adds that if Sheriam knew she’d mention it, she’d definitely be called into her study. Egwene asks why everyone talks about such an event like it’s such a very big deal, and Elayne tells her that Sheriam keeps a willow switch on her desk, and that there are so many rules for novices that it is very hard to never break any. Egwene is horrified, insisting that they are not children and should not be treated as such.

“But we are children. [Elayne answers] The Aes Sedai, the full sisters, are the grown women. The Accepted are the young women, old enough to be trusted without someone looking over their shoulders every moment. And novices are the children, to be protected and cared for, guided in the way they should go, and punished when they do what they should not. That is the way Sheriam Sedai explains it. No one is going to punish you over your lessons, not unless you try something you’ve been told not to. It is hard not to try, sometimes; you will find you want to channel as much as you want to breathe. But if you break too many dishes because you are daydreaming when you should be washing, if you’re disrespectful to an Accepted, or leave the Tower without permission, or speak to an Aes Sedai before she speaks to you, or…. The only thing to do is the best you can. There isn’t anything else to do.”

Egwene is shocked, but Elayne explains that even though there are not enough Aes Sedai, even though there are at this moment only 40 novices in the Tower, the Aes Sedai cannot lower their standards, cannot accept women to full sisterhood who cannot channel well enough, or who will allow themselves to be intimidated, or who will give up when things get difficult. Egwene remembers being told some of this, but she never thought about there not being enough Aes Sedai. Elayne explains that Sheriam has a theory that, because of three thousand years of Red Ajah hunting down men who could channel, the Aes Sedai have been culling the ability to channel out of humankind.

Elayne then asks after Rand, annoying Egwene but also scaring her a little; after deciding that there is no way that Elayne could know about Rand’s ability to channel, she answers that she last saw him riding with the Shienarans. Elayne admits that she finds herself thinking of Rand in odd moments, and mentions Elaida’s interest in him. Hearing that a Red is interested in Rand puts Egwene on edge again, and she hurries to insist that she doesn’t know where Rand is now, but Elayne assures her that she has no intention of telling Elaida where Rand is. Besides, Elayne hasn’t seen her since the day they arrived.

She decides that she wants to take Egwene to meet two other girls who also know Rand. Egwene observes that Rand knows a lot of girls, and Elyane seems confused by the comment, but continues to explain that one is a girl named Else Grinwell who met Rand and Mat when they stayed at her father’s farm, and they inspired her to want to run away and be an Aes Sedai. Egwene huffs, annoyed, but further discussion is cut off by the sudden appearance of a man, tall and dark haired, who looks very sad and stands staring at them until an Accepted appears and tells him that he is not supposed to be there. She directs him back to the garden, the man complaining, sorrowfully and yet idly, that they are always watching him, and that they are probably just afraid he will find a knife to turn on himself. The Accepted leads him away.

“Logain,” Elayne said when he was gone.

“The false Dragon!”

“He has been gentled, Egwene. He is no more dangerous than any other man, now. But I remember seeing him before, when it took six Aes Sedai to keep him from wielding the Power and destroying us all.” She shivered.

Thinking of Rand, Egwene asks if men with the Power must always be gentled, explaining that she would have thought the Aes Sedai would look for another way, since the greatest feats of the Aes Sedai required male and female channelers. Elayne responds that they did try, for three hundred years, before they realized there was no other way to find.

They continue on to a different garden then the one Logain is in, where they meet Min, who Egwene recognizes from Baerlon. Min recognizes her too, but assures her she holds no ill will after what happened, given how much gold was sent to Master Fitch. She and Elayne tease each other a little, and then Min asks how Rand is, sparking more annoyance in Egwene. She responds curtly, asking Min what she is doing in Tar Valon since she is clearly not meant to be an Aes Sedai. Elayne explains to Min that Egwene likes Rand.

“I know.” Min glanced at Egwene, and for an instant Egwene thought she saw sadness—or regret?—in her eyes. “I am here,” Min said carefully, “because I was sent for, and was given the choice between riding and coming tied in a sack.”

“You always exaggerate it,” Elayne said. “Sheriam Sedai saw the letter, and she says it was a request. Min sees things, Egwene. That’s why she’s here; so the Aes Sedai can study how she does it. It isn’t the Power.”

Min points out that a request from an Aes Sedai is like being commanded by a Queen with an army, and, when Egwene is confused, they explain the auras that Min sees around people. Min claims that she does not usually know what the things she sees mean, although she did see the crown of Andor and knows that Elyane was the future Queen. When Egwene asks what Min sees when she looks at her, Min mentions a white flame, among other things she doesn’t understand.

Just then, two shirtless young men pass by, looking sweaty and carrying sheathed swords. Egwene is immediately struck by the handsomeness of one of them, so much so that she hardly registers the introduction of Galad and Gawyn. Galad immediately bows over her hand.

“If your duties allow,” Galad said, “I would like to see you again, Egwene. We could walk, or if you obtain permission to leave the Tower, we could picnic outside the city.”

“That—that would be nice.” She was uncomfortably aware of the oth- ers, Min and Gawyn still with their amused grins, Elayne still with her scowl. She tried to settle herself, to think of Rand. He’s so . . . beautiful. She gave a jump, half afraid she had spoken aloud.

“Until then.” Finally taking his eyes from hers, Galad bowed to Elayne. “Sister.” Lithe as a blade, he strolled on across the bridge.

“That one,” Min murmured, peering after him, “will always do what is right. No matter who it hurts.”

“Sister?” Egwene said. Elayne’s scowl had lessened only slightly. “I thought he was your… I mean, the way you’re frowning…” She had thought Elayne was jealous, and she still was not sure.

“I am not his sister,” Elayne said firmly. “I refuse to be.”

“Our father was his father,” Gawyn said dryly. “You cannot deny that, unless you want to call Mother a liar, and that, I think, would take more nerve than we have between us.”

For the first time Egwene realized that he had the same reddish gold hair as Elayne, though darkened and curled by sweat.

“Min is right,” Elayne said. “Galad has not the smallest part of humanity in him. He takes right above mercy, or pity, or… He is no more human than a Trolloc.”

Gawyn jokes about Galad’s interest in Egwene and the two argue a little about the value of swordplay, before Elyane mentions to Gawyn that Egwene knows Rand.

“Of course,” Gawyn said slowly. “Such a strange fellow. A shepherd, he said, though he never looked or acted like any shepherd I ever saw. Strange. I have met all sorts of people, and they’ve met Rand al’Thor. Some do not even know his name, but the description could not be anyone else, and he’s shifted every one of their lives. There was an old farmer who came to Caemlyn just to see Logain, when Logain was brought through on his way here; yet the farmer stayed to stand for Mother when the riots started. Because of a young man off to see the world, who made him think there was more to life than his farm. Rand al’Thor. You could almost think he was ta’veren. Elaida is certainly interested in him. I wonder if meeting him will shift our lives in the Pattern?”

Egwene is struck by Gawyn’s musings, about how she never really thought much about Rand’s ta’veren nature because he was always just Rand to her. But she thinks of how ta’veren really did move people, whether they wanted to be moved or not, and suddenly feels the urge to tell the other girls how much she likes them and how she wants to be their friend. They end up in a group hug, confusing Gawyn, who only gets giggling in response.

“We three are tied together,” Min [says], “and we cannot let any man get in the way of that. Not even him.”

Gawyn tells them not to mention Rand to Elaida, as she has been quite intent about finding out more about Rand, and as if his words summoned her, he catches sight of Elaida and quickly leaves, not wanting to get a lecture for having his shirt off. Elaida approaches them, and something about her strikes Egwene as hard. Elida is greated by Elayne, who introduces Egwene. But Elaida upbraids her for speaking so familiarly, reminding Elayne that she is not the Daughter-Heir here, but a novice. A gong strikes and Elaida sends them off to their chores, instructing Elayne to see the Mistress of Novices in her study after, for speaking to an Aes Sedai before being spoken to.

As they run off, quietly vowing to each other that they will be Aes Sedai one day, Egwene hears Elaida speak to Min, asking about why Moiraine summoned her.

When Min is finally able to get away from Elaida’s questioning, she is coated in sweat and anxious to make sure the Aes Sedai isn’t following her. She had been surprised that Elaida knew Moiraine had summoned her; that was supposed to be a secret only Moiraine and Sheriam knew. And Elaida had asked so many questions about Rand. Min managed not to give anything away as she lied and said that she had never heard of him, and she thinks privately that she does not want to fall in love with a farmboy she’s only met once. She hopes Moiraine will come soon, to tell her what she wants of Min so that Min can leave.

Meanwhile Rand is doing his best not to chafe under his “escort” of Cairhienin soldiers. Approaching the walls of the city, they pass through the Foregate, a bustling community that grew up from markets that existed at each gate in the city walls. Despite the tangle of the crowds and the general shabbiness of the place, Rand finds that he rather likes the bustling community, full of vendors calling their wares, people in brightly colored clothes, and even street performers. Tavolin is dismissive of the peasants, and Hurin explains to Rand that the community is comprised of the families of farmers who were displaced during the Aiel War. Too afraid to return to their lands near the Spine of the World, the people all stayed and now live in the Foregate. As a result, the King has to have barges of grain from Andor and Tear, since there are no more farms in the east. But Hurin cautions Rand not to speak of it in front of the Cairhienin; they like to pretend that the Aiel War never happened, or at least that they won it.

Seeing a procession of huge puppets in the street, which include fanciful creatures and what appears to be meant to be a Trolloc (Hurin observes that clearly none of these people has ever seen a Trolloc) Rand asks if there is some kind of festival. Loial explains that Galldrian keeps the people quiet by paying for entertainers to be always in the Foregate, including Illuminators who set off fireworks many nights. Rand has never heard of Illuminators leaving their home in Tanchico to put on displays for anyone but a ruler, and is perplexed by this city. They come to a guardhouse, where they are instructed to wait while Tavolin goes inside. As they sit on their horses and wait, Rand takes the opportunity to look over the city. In contrast to the Forgate, the architecture and people of Cairhien are sparse, dark, and stoic. He can also see tall towers with workmen surrounding them.

“The Topless Towers of Cairhien,” Loial murmured sadly. “Well, they were tall enough to warrant the name, once. When the Aiel took Cairhien, about the time you were born, the towers burned, and cracked, and fell. I don’t see any Ogier among the stonemasons. No Ogier could like working here—the Cairhienin want what they want, without embellishment—but there were Ogier when I was here before.”

Tavolin returns from the guardhouse with another officer and two clerks. He makes introductions, referring to them as “Lord Rand of House al’Thor, in Andor, and his man, called Hurin, with Loial, an Ogier of Stedding Shangtai.” A clerk holds open a large ledger book and the officer, Asan Sandair, writes their names down and instructs Rand that he must return the next day and inform them which inn he is staying in. Rand asks about inns in the Foregate, shocking everyone, and at a hastily whispered admonishment from Hurin, assures the Cairhienin that they will find somewhere in the city. Rand also asks if they are familiar with Selene, and Sandair promises to make inquiries and share what he learns with Rand when he returns to the guardhouse.

Despite the fact that even Loial doesn’t draw much attention, Rand feels like people are looking at him as they make their way through the streets. Hurin, who has been in the city a few times before, leads them to an inn called The Defender of the Dragonwall. A hostler takes their horses, and the other guests in the common room don’t seem to take any notice of them, bur Rand still feels like everyone is sneaking glances when he isn’t looking. The innkeeper gives them an odd look as he takes in Loial with the blanket-covered chest, Hurin with their bags, and Rand in his coat with the heron-marked blade at his side, and Rand realizes as they are greeted that the man took him, for a moment, to be Aiel. He itches to be out of the place, but knows that it is the most likely place to rendezvous with Ingtar, and of course there is also Selene, out there somewhere waiting for them.

They get two rooms that connect, since Rand, despite his protests, needs to at least somewhat appear like a lord, and once they are alone he declares his intention to go back to the Foregate, at least for a little while, because he can’t stand the way it feels like everyone in the city is always looking at you. He asks which one of them is willing to take first watch over the chest, and Loial volunteers, saying that he wants to catch up on some reading. When pressed, however, he admits that he is wary of running into any other Ogier who might wonder what Loial is doing out on his own, and Rand is reminded that Loial essentially ran away from home to see the world. Rand invites Hurin to come with him instead, but Hurin also would rather stay—there are too many brawls and such in the Foregate and it stinks to him—and asks Rand’s permission to have a drink in the common room instead. Rand reminds Hurin that he doesn’t need Rand’s permission for anything, to which Hurin responds “As you say, my Lord,” and gives a bit of a bow.

They head down to the common room, where Cuale, the innkeeper, surprises Rand with a tray bearing three folded and sealed parchments; invitations from three Houses.

Who would send me invitations?” Rand turned them over in his hand. None of the men at the tables looked up, but he had the feeling they were watching just the same. He did not recognize the seals. None was the crescent moon and stars Selene had used. “Who would know I was here?”

“Everyone by now, Lord Rand,” Hurin said quietly. He seemed to feel eyes watching, too. “The guards at the gate would not keep their mouths closed about an outland lord coming to Cairhien. The hostler, the innkeeper… everybody tells what they know where they think it will do them the most good, my Lord.”

With a grimace, Rand took two steps and hurled the invitations into the fire. They caught immediately. “I am not playing Daes Dae’mar,” he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. Not even Cuale looked at him. “I’ve nothing to do with your Great Game. I am just here to wait for some friends.”

Hurin is horrified, and begs Rand not to do such a thing again, surprising Rand with the suggestion that he will receive more invitations. Hurin assures Rand that he will, that every lord and lady in Cairhien plays it, and by denying that he is playing it at all, Rand has probably convinced everyone that he is very deep in the game. Furthermore, he has now made enemies of three noble Houses, though they are probably not great ones, since they moved so quickly. Hurin urges Rand to answer all other invitations, to decline if he wants, and begins to go into details about what people will read into his responses, but Rand cuts him off to reiterated that he will have no part in the game and that they are there to wait for Selene. He tells Hurin to have his drink.

He stalked out angrily, not sure whether he was angry with himself, or with Cairhien and its Great Game, or Selene for vanishing, or Moiraine. She had started it all, stealing his coats and giving him a lord’s clothes instead. Even now that he called himself free of them, an Aes Sedai still managed to interfere in his life, and without even being there.

A guard takes note of Rand passing out into the Foregate but Rand ignores him, following the sound of music and laughter, and Rand finds that, while his coat is in much better shape than those of the Foregaters, he still doesn’t stand out as much, now that he is surrounded by people in just as many bright colors as he is. He watches another procession go by, and Rand watches a Trolloc puppet be easily defeated by the puppet of a crowned man.

Rand begins peering into the doorways of the large, windowless buildings that line the streets. Inside he discovers performers, jugglers, and gleemen who remind him of his old friend, Thom Merrilin. Hurrying on, he discovers a woman in a white dress performing tricks, and the man at the door tells him it costs two coppers to “see the Aes Sedai.” Rand hurries away again, and makes his way through the crowd. He’s unsure about where to go next when suddenly he hears a voice, a deep sonorous voice accompanied by the plucking of a harp.

The voice drew Rand like a rope. He pushed through the doorway as applause rose within.

“Two coppers, my good Lord,” said a rat-faced man who could have been twin to the other. “Two coppers to see—”

Rand dug out some coins and thrust them at the man. He walked on in a daze, staring at the man bowing on the dais to the clapping of his listeners, cradling his harp in one arm and with the other spreading his patch-covered cloak as if to trap all the sound they made. He was a tall man, lanky and not young, with long mustaches as white as the hair on his head. And when he straightened and saw Rand, the eyes that widened were sharp and blue.

“Thom.” Rand’s whisper was lost in the noise of the crowd.

Holding Rand’s eye, Thom Merrilin nodded slightly toward a small door beside the dais. Then he was bowing again, smiling and basking in the applause.

Rand goes where he is directed, waiting in the wings of the stage with other performers limbering up around him, until he is joined by Thom, who, other than moving with a bit of a limp, seems much like his old self, eyeing a juggler disdainfully and complaining that the audience only ever wants to hear The Great Hunt of the Horn. He gives Rand a once over and declares that he looks like he is doing well.

Rand, overjoyed, tells Thom that he was sure that he was dead, even though Moiraine said that he was still alive, and apologizes for not going back to help him. Thom replies that Rand would have been a fool to do so; the Fade had no interest in him and left him quickly—after giving him the present of a stiff leg—to pursue Rand and Mat. He asks after Moiraine, and seems even a little disappointed that she isn’t with Rand.

“Too bad, in a way. She’s a fine woman, even if she is….” He left it unsaid. “So it was Mat or Perrin she was after. I won’t ask which. They were good boys, and I don’t want to know.” Rand shifted uneasily, and gave a start when Thom fixed him with a bony finger. “What I do want to know is, do you still have my harp and flute? I want them back, boy. What I have now are not fit for a pig to play.”

Rand assures Thom that he still has his belongings, and promises to bring them to him. The make arrangements to meet at The Bunch of Grapes, where Thom is staying, and he returns to the stage to give the audience one more tale.

Rand is not the only person who is happy to see Thom again. As you all know, I was convinced from the get-go that until we saw a body he was definitely not dead, especially once Moiraine had the same opinion. But what I really want to know is more of his backstory with the Queen of Andor, and more about his nephew while we’re at it. I am also guessing that there is a bit more to the story of Thom surviving the Fade than “it stabbed me in the leg and then left.”

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Back in The Eye of the World, the initial group of travelers shared a lot of similarities to the Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings, and one thing that I found interesting about it is that while the role of Gandalf mostly went to Moiraine, there were aspects of that role that were filled by Thom, especially once he and Rand and Mat were separated from the others. He even has the white hair and mustache, and he has the playfulness and surprises of Gandalf the Grey, while Moiraine has the power, seriousness, and otherworldliness of Gandalf the White. Of course, there is also an aspect of Boromir to Thom; he is the other warrior to Lan’s Aragorn, and his “death” is an atonement for a past failure to protect someone like Rand and Mat.

In any case, Fate/The Pattern/Rand’s ta’veren-ness seems to know exactly what Rand needs in this moment of his journey. Since Thom was a bard in a royal court and has extensive knowledge of the world, he’s a perfect person to give Rand some advice and guidance while he is in Cairhien and dealing with all the political machinations of the Great Houses and Daes Dae’mar. Rand might be able to get some helpful information about the Horn from Thom as well. I do wonder if Rand trusts Thom enough to tell him outright about the Horn; he is the person Rand confided in about his dreams, after all, and Rand is definitely the sort of person to put his faith in someone who was literally willing to die to protect him. On the other hand, Rand is also accomplished at hiding things from his friends to protect them. And to protect himself.

But Rand isn’t the only one dealing with political machinations, and Egwene is also going to have to learn her way around some tricky games too— they’ll just be the Game of Ajah instead of the Game of Houses. Elayne is probably going to be a useful friend in that regard, since Egwene has a bit of that sweet, naive farmgirl thing going for her right now. She’s smart though, and I have a feeling that she’ll figure out how to adapt pretty quickly.

I was terribly confused by Elayne’s question “You were born with it, weren’t you?” She already knows that Egwene is the new novice Elayne is supposed to show around, so she can’t just be asking if Egwene has the ability to channel. We’ve heard Aes Sedai use the phrase “born with the spark” before, but there has never been any indication that one can become a channeler in any other way besides being born with the ability, so the what the heck does that question mean?

Also I loved how Egwene was trying to sound modest when she admitted to having had some training already, and then immediately performed the biggest move she knew how to do. Not surprising since she’s been jumping headfirst into channeling since day one, and I have to say that I find Egwene’s ambition refreshing, since it really is about learning the ability for the ability’s sake. With half the characters involved in schemes upon schemes and the other half terrified of their abilities and destinies, Egwene’s motivations are—for the moment—delightfully uncomplicated.

It is interesting to see Rand and Egwene both encountering strange new cultures with rules they don’t understand, and while Rand is still being forced to play the part of a lord when he does not want to, Egwene is in the opposite position of belonging, at least for the moment, on the bottom rung of a social hierarchy. Of course Egwene wasn’t a princess like Elayne, so the adjustment won’t be quite so jarring, but Egwene has plenty of her own pride and may find it difficult being treated like a child again, expected to follow orders without question, to be seen and not heard, and perhaps even be switched for breaking rules she didn’t even know about.

I sense some trouble in the Aes Sedai ranks in that regard. Of course, their need for the kind of break-them-down training that ensures that only the strongest-willed and most powerful channelers make Aes Sedai is clear. In a war against the Dark, I don’t think anyone can really argue that there is a paramount need to ensure that those fighting it are strong enough not to waver in a crucial moment; the whole world could be at stake, after all. But it’s also hard to deny the limitations and liabilities of such training; one doesn’t have to have Nynaeve’s level of stubbornness and self-protective anger to develop some pretty destructive feelings about your fellow Aes Sedai and your place in the world under such treatment.

When, at the end of the chapter, Elayne and Egwene promised each other that they will become Aes Sedai, it didn’t strike me as a brave declaration of not letting opposition prevent them from reaching their goal. Rather, it felt like a hope for revenge, perhaps not literally but certainly in a broader sense; they are already wishing for the kind of power that will make them the ones sending people to Sheriam’s office, rather than the ones being sent. I wonder how many Aes Sedai hold secret resentments against older Sisters who are now ostensibly their equals but who they were once not allowed to speak to before being addressed themselves? How many of the Red Ajah chose that shawl not because they felt a call to protect the world from insane male channelers but because it gave them a feeling of power over others who they could consider and treat as lesser than themselves? How many other Aes Sedai make decisions that are motivated by an unhealthy attempt to engage with feelings of anger, degradation, or resentment that were born when they were a novice or an Accepted and were never dealt with? I kind of doubt the Aes Sedai have psychologists on hand.

And even if an Aes Sedai is able to rationalize and understand the way she was treated—and they do seem to all understand the need, given that Elayne is already able to articulate its importance—will she ever be able to place her full trust in an older sister who may have delivered harsh punishment in the past, or refused to speak to her, or informed on her to Sheriam? Or will she always carry that bit of doubt, a sense of needing to protect herself, and maybe a few close friends, over all others? Even with the limited amount that the reader knows of the Aes Sedai so far, we have seen how strained the relationships between Ajah are, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those fractures continue to show and cause problems moving forward in the story.

I was really interested watching Egwene engage with her own jealousy over Rand, and her self-awareness in realizing that these other women’s interest in him might have more to do with his effect on people as ta’veren than some kind of flirtatious or romantic connection. And I was proud of Jordan too; often male writers can fall prey to the stereotyping of young women as catty and more interested in fighting over men than in their own friendships. Instead Min and Elayne recognized Egwene’s feelings about Rand without judgement, and recognized that they’d rather be friends than worry about Rand at all. They see their importance to each other outside of their shared connection to Rand.

Of course, Min doesn’t really have anything to worry about, does she? Since she can see parts of the future and all.

Min’s observation about the fact that Galad will “always do what is right” was another confusing moment to me, probably because the word “right” doesn’t have a very clear meaning. My assumption is that she means what is “lawful” more than “morally correct” given Elyane’s tirade about Galad’s lack of mercy or pity. The interpretation of moral right can vary wildly from person to person, even in a world with a very clear Dark side and Light side, but if the Pattern itself has a sense of what is “right” for the cosmic good, as it were, perhaps that is what Min is seeing. Maybe Galad has a strong purpose within the Pattern that will only become clear to us later. And as I recall, Gawyn also said the same thing of Galad after he found Rand in the garden; “Galad always does the right thing… even when he should not.”

Also, dear readers, can I just say? Elayne, Elaida, Egwene, Gawyn, Galad; that is a lot of the same letters in a lot of different names in one chapter.

I suppose I should have expected to see Logain again, since the moment when Rand witnessed him being taken into the palace in Andor was such a significant one. I think I just assumed that he’d be executed after he was gentled, but I suppose that the Aes Sedai could have use for his knowledge and experience even after he couldn’t channel anymore. The fact that he’s here now and wandering into our heroine’s path probably signals some significance to future events, so I guess I’ll keep my eye out for more of him now.

As far as Cairhien goes, I’ll be glad when Rand is out of there, and not just because I hate typing out the world. That place is creepy. I’m getting vibes of Ba Sing Se from Avatar the Last Airbender, and I’m half afraid if Rand doesn’t start at least pretending to play Daes Dae’mar that someone’s going to kidnap him and brainwash him in a secret facility below a giant lake. One would think that, at this point in his travels, Rand would know that he should at least try to blend in; not that I don’t understand his frustration. He’s gone from being told he’s the Dragon (which he cannot yet accept) to being called a lord and treated like nobility (which he does not see himself as) to being accused of having a lot of secrets and agendas (which he has, they’re just very different than the ones people think he has). It’s got to be very stressful. But I still laughed aloud when Hurin compared him to a man who doesn’t like hornets so he kicked the nest. It is a very apt description of Rand, and I hope for his sake that cooler heads prevail as long as they are in Cairhien.

Next week we get more drama and more danger, and some new information from Thom that even Moiraine doesn’t have. Also, Thom has a girlfriend. But in the meantime, what do you think of Rand’s inability to keep his temper in the common room? Has he just reached the end of his rope? Or, perhaps, does he not take the danger of a place like Cairhien as seriously as he takes the danger of a mirror world or the Shadowspawn? Because I have to tell you, Rand. Pretty sure that is a big mistake.

Sylas K Barrett isn’t really a D&D guy, but if he was he would want to play a character like Thomdril Merrilin.