Diabolical Plots – Page 56 – From Inspiration to Ink…

GAME REVIEW: Shovel Knight

written by David Steffen

Shovel Knight is an 8-bit styled platformer action game published by Yacht Club Games in 2014.

The playable character of the game is the eponymous Shovel Knight who is as you might expect, a knight who uses a shovel as his weapon instead of a sword or other more typical period weapon. Until very recently he has always worked as a team with the also-appropriately named Shield Knight. Their partnership came to an end on an excursion into the Tower of Fate, wherein a cursed amulet wrought a terrible (but only vaguely mentioned) fate–when Shovel Knight awakes he finds that he has been expelled from the now-sealed tower, and Shield Knight is nowhere to be found. His spirit broken by this loss, Shovel Knight retires and becomes a hermit, only returning to combat when the defenseless land is seized by the Evil Enchantress and her Order of No Quarter, a league of evil knights. Shovel Knight returns to battle to combat these new villains.

The game has an 8-bit aesthetic that would’ve fit in perfectly well on an NES. Some of the game design elements have definite nods toward games of that era. The overworld map has some similarities to Super Mario Bros 3, but the closest analog is that the individual levels and boss characters are in a style that seems to be directly inspired by the original Mega Man series–8 villains with themed powers that live in levels that fit that theme, and from those levels the hero can gain some theme-appropriate power. The main difference in the style is that there is no equivalent of the arm cannon–Shovel Knight can learn some long-range special abilities that use MP as fuel, but his MP-less attack is only his short-range shovel attack.

2015-12-23_00003 The levels are longish and progress is lost if you quite the game while you’re in the middle of one, so it’s best to have a little longer stretch if you want to sit down and play the game. But the levels do have checkpoints that help make the levels easier to progress through if you need them. Each level is very different in style and contains very different enemies, which nicely keeps the game fresh throughout the playtime. Each boss requires you to learn his patterns to be able to avoid and find opportunities to attack. The game is reasonably challenging and if you want to make it more challenging there are ways to ramp it up, such as avoiding collecting the magic weapon items, breaking checkpoints to make extra money instead of using them as checkpoints, avoiding health meter enhancing items, etc.

This game is a lot of fun if you enjoy this kind of action platformer game. I highly recommend it.

Visuals
Fun graphics appropriate for the Mega Man era of games it is in a style of.

Audio
Some fun audio bits, but nothing necessary for gameplay (handy if you want to play quietly).

Challenge
A good level of platformer challenge, not easy but not insurmountable. If you want to escalate the difficulty significantly you can do so by avoiding purchasing health meter boosts and weapons (which will also get you achievement badges)

Story
Lightish on story, just enough to justify a straightforward action quest, but plenty for this kind of game.

Session Time
Longish, because you can’t save and quite mid-level without losing your progress within the level. If you can’t leave your computer running you might want to aim for 30 minutes or so of playtime.

Playability
Easy to get the controls down, challenging to master the game. The level of challenge escalates well as the game progresses.

Replayability
There is some potential for replaying in that you might want to go back and collect all the collectibles. Or you might want to avoid collecting collectibles (which include all ranged weapons) to increase your challenge.

Originality
Felt original. It had a familiar format/style, and familiar elements, but something can feel new if it’s a mix of familiar but disparate things.

Playtime
About 8 hours to finish according to Steam, though I was spending extra time exploring and trying to unlock things, and since I couldn’t save mid-level I left the game running from time to time so I’m not sure how accurate it is.

Overall
Fun look, fun game, challenging gameplay. Especially appealing for those who like the style and challenge of games like the original Mega Man series. Each level’s design and enemies and boss were varied enough that the gameplay never felt repetitive and there are plenty of ways large and small to increase the difficulty level for those who want to challenge themselves. $15 on Steam.

TV REVIEW: Wayward Pines Season 2

written by David Steffen

Wayward Pines was a weird speculative mystery/thriller show that aired as ten episodes in the summer of 2015–see my review of that season here. At the time that it aired it was unclear whether it was going to be a standalone miniseries or whether there would be a second season–the ending wrapped up a lot of things but left a route to continue the story if it were desired. And, (obviously, given the title of the article) it did return for a second season in the summer of 2016.

Season 1 of the show was based fairly closely on the Wayward Pines trilogy by Blake Crouch (spoilers for the books and for season 1 here). In that segment of the story, Secret Service agent Ethan Burke travels to Wayward Pines, Idaho to investigate the disappearance of two other agents. But the town seems to have no escape–everyone there is living under obscure rules under penalty of death and the road leading into town doesn’t lead back out again, and there are monsters at the gate. Throughout the course of the season (or the three books) he discovers that he did not just travel to Idaho–he was abducted and put into cryogenic sleep for almost two thousand years. David Pilcher, scientist and genius, had discovered that the human genome was becoming corrupted by pollutants and human beings were mutating into something entirely different–he had started a secret project to put a thousand people into cryogenic storage to wait through the consequences and come out on the other side. But in the future the creatures that had been humanity were still out there in the form of mutated violent monsters he named aberrations (aka abbies). He rebuilt Wayward Pines from the ground up as a stronghold against the abbies, waking people up from their cryogenic sleep to populate the town under the pretense that it is still the 20th century. Eventually Ethan learns of all of this and reveals the truth to the town–Pilcher lets the abbies into town as punishment for this betrayal and the first season ends shortly after Ethan sacrifices his life to save the town from the abbies. But history repeats itself and the First Generation raised in the town seizes control of the town and starts a new regime.

Though Season 1 was mostly based pretty closely on the books, the ending of season 1 leaves no room to stick to the same story and so, unsurprisingly, it diverges wildly. The protagonist of this season is a new character who has just been woken from cryo for the first time–a surgeon named Theo Yedlin who was abducted without his knowledge as most of the residents of the town has been. Shortly after he reunites with his wife, who is behaving oddly for reasons he doesn’t understand. The Wayward Pines that he wakes to is one controlled by the First Generation who have forced a much firmer and overt control than had been visible in season 1, even with uniforms reminiscient of Nazi Germany military uniforms. Jason Higgins is leader of this group, a young man raised in Wayward Pines, trying to enforce control in the town as best he can.

Ethan Burke’s son Ben is alive and the leader of a pocket of resistance against the First Generation leadership. He is offered some protection form the fact that he too is considered part of the First Generation and they are all forbidden to harm one another by the rules of the town.

Adam Hassler returns from the wilderness where he has been on a years’ long mission to explore deep into abby territory.

The abbies are shower greater signs of organization, assaulting the electric fence that protects the town systematically and strategically. Most townspeople don’t believe the evidence, but others are very nervous about where this is going.

The ground inside the town limits has gone sour, and won’t take crops anymore. They have started growing some crops outside the town limits, and must protect them from abby attacks.

And they find an abby in town, a female who seems to be some kind of leader. What should they do with her?

As you might be able to tell from this quite scattered synopsis, a big issue I had with this season of the show is that it is kind of all over the place. Season two has only 10 episodes, and there are so many big ideas being explored simultaneously that it just feels unfocused and scattered.

Season 1 was pretty solid, and was based largely around the mystery of the town, and we started that season as ignorant of the current events of the fictional world so much of the show was trying to figure it out along with them. In season 2, we start with a new character awoken from cryo who has no idea what’s going on. But.. why? We follow a character in season 1 ignorant of the situation so that we can discover it along with him, understand the strangeness and the danger piece by piece. But… here we already know what Wayward Pines is. And, while it makes sense for the character to have go through this gaining of knowledge, that part of the story felt like it was just going through the motions telling us the same story over again as if we hadn’t been paying attention the first time. Not only that, but Theo in a lot of ways has an easier setup for understanding and affecting change in the town than Ethan had, because of Theo’s important role as surgeon. His skills are rare and valuable in a town where medical experts are both irreplacable and in short supply, so he kind of ends up doing a lot of things that no one else in town can get away with–he tries to use it to make some good change, but still, it felt like he started with similar problems as Ethan had in season 1 but with a lot more immediate advantages. I didn’t understand why they’d make that narrative choice when it would be more natural to escalate the challenges rather than escalate the protagonist’s advantages.

There were a few recurring characters, and some new ones. There is some excuse for new characters to show up, despite the relatively closed system of Wayward Pines, because we know there are a whole bunch of people still in cryo who haven’t been woken up yet–so if they want to add a new character they just need to have a new person wake from cryo. But, they also introduced a new character, CJ, who had been responsible for waking up periodically throughout the centuries that everyone was under and checking on the progress of the world to decide when to wake everyone up. He was, at every stage, the first person to wake up and to start waking other people up, and because he had such an important role, in season 2 he is important enough to have major input into decision-making. So… where had he been in season 1? The real answer is that no one had made up his character yet, but his character as established should have been visible in season 1. That kind of thing felt lazy and cheap–they could have found characters who all fit with the story as told in season 1, but sometimes they didn’t bother. It reminded me of season 2 of Under the Dome, which likewise operated with a very closed system and yet they kept adding new characters who couldn’t possibly have gone unnoticed in the first season, because of lazy writing.

Besides that familiar throughline of the plot about discovering what the town is about, there are quite a few plotlines that are very potentially interesting, but there are just so many and they’re so poorly threaded together that major plot focus for an episode or two suddenly trails off without ever really resolving anything, and as the end of the short 10-episode run approaches there are only more plots all tangled together. When the end of the season comes, it’s like… wait, was that actually the end of the season? Nothing wrapped up, there is no satisfaction at completion of story arcs. Did the writers know when the season was ending or did the makers of the show tell them to write and then abruptly ended the season 4 episodes early? Or did the writers just have no idea how to make a satisfying season arc?

Some of the ideas here were interesting, but it feels more like a rushed publication of a truncated rough draft than like a finished final work.

DP Fiction #21: “The Banshee Behind Beamon’s Bakery” by Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali

Most nights the alley behind Beamon’s Bakery is just an alley.

The street lamp bleeds piss yellow light, casting jagged shadows around the overflowing dumpster and discarded boxes. The walls are tagged with gang signs, claiming territory that was never theirs, yardage, bodies, souls, rights.

Some nights a transient clears away the broken glass, the random detritus, to squat for the night. Setting up camp here has its own rewards. The warmth that seeps through the bakery walls and through brick facing chases away the chill, but not the ghosts. This is the drawback, you see. The alley is never as vacant as it may seem at first, never as lonely as one may wish. The price of physical warmth is the chilling of your soul.

On the ninth night of November, the banshee chases away the transients, the curious, the ignorant, and claims the alley as her own. She returns in disbelief of the injustice, to recover her beloved.

If you pay attention you can see the faded outline of a body in front of the dumpster. As the hour draws closer, the details grow clearer, and the body all but materializes. A sharp sound cracks open the silence. The bud of blood on his white apron blossoms and spreads across his chest. He gasps for breath and you can even see the steam rise in a clotted cloud about his head. His lips are stained red by death’s kiss.

They say it was her son, Mikaheel, who worked at Beamon’s. Mistaken for a burglar, for reasons no one can comprehend, he was shot by an officer while emptying the trash.

She relives the day, that hour, when her entire world was remade, when she wished to no longer be a part of that world.

“He is just a baby,” she sobs into her hands as she kneels next to him. “My baby. Only seventeen. He hasn’t even lived yet.” She doesn’t feel the cold hard pavement against her knees, the hands on her shoulders, the arms that lift and carry her away.

There are many stories about her. Some say she died from grief. Others believe that she took her own life, that she might join her son in death. But the truth is something much different.

Her fury would not allow her to die, nor live. It consumed her flesh but not her horror. This is what you see on this night in the alley. This is who you feel when you come too close.

The banshee kneels before her dead son. Her flashing energy glows blood red. The air grows hotter than the ovens in Beamon’s. Then comes the palpable sound…the thunderous rending of her heart. It is the sound of the sky ripping and the Earth crumbling away. She keens like a broken dog, ropey braids whipping around her head like bird’s wings.

Her grief permeates the hood. All mothers within hearing distance share the same nightmare, her horror. Her voice, like daggers, cleaves the night. Those caught within her looping nightmare claw their way back into the waking world. Hungry for their next breath, hearts pounding, they cry out the name of her son, “Mikaheel!”

On this night, the alley is an archive of injustice and the banshee is the chronicler.

Author’s Note: The unjust violent death of Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer was the specific impetus for this story. I tried to imagine what his mother must’ve been feeling upon learning about her son’s death. This wasn’t difficult because I have a son as well. I tried to impart the feeling of rage and horror I, any mother, would feel upon learning that her son was taken away in such a violent horrific way.

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and three children. By day she works as a breast oncology nurse. At all other times she juggles, none too successfully, writing, reading, gaming and gardening. She has been published at Escape Pod, An Alphabet of Embers, and People of Color Destroy Science Fiction. She’s also penned a novel entitled An Unproductive Woman which can be found on Amazon. Khaalidah is also a narrator and you may have heard her narrations at Strange Horizons, and all four of the Escape Artists podcasts. Khaalidah is guest editor for Artemis Rising 3 over at PodCastle and is also guest editing Truancy Magazine‘s fourth issue. Khaalidah is on a mission to encourage more women and POC to write and publish science fiction stories. Of her alter ego, “K” from the planet Vega, it is rumored that she owns a time machine and knows the secret to immorality. You can catch up to her posts at her website, www.khaalidah.com, and you can follow her on twitter, @khaalidah.

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MEDIA COMPARISON: Wayward Pines, Book Trilogy Vs. TV Season 1

written by David Steffen

In the summer of 2015 I watched the summer miniseries Wayward Pines on FOX which they ended up renewing for a second season in the summer of 2016. The events of season 1 of the Wayward Pines TV show (reviewed here) are based on the events of the Wayward Pines trilogy of books written by Blake Crouch: Pines was published in 2012 (reviewed here), Wayward in 2013 (reviewed here), and The Last Town in 2014 (reviewed here). After I finished watching season 1, I read the trilogy of books, and I thought it would be fun to list out some of the major changes between the two.

I’m not going to make any effort to avoid spoilers of the TV show or spoilers of the book, so get out of here if you don’t want that. Many of the comparisons are going to have to do with major spoilery things.

This list is not an attempt to note every thing that was changed from the book to the TV adaptation, but just the most major ones that affect the story on a big level. Not included in this are changes to character appearance and age because while there were many of those, they generally didn’t affect the plot, and if one has a casting call and finds someone of a different age that seems perfect for the character and the age difference doesn’t affect the story, there’s no good reason for the TV director to not go ahead with it.

I’m not going to give a full rundown of the plot which has a lot of major revelations and twists and turns and I’ve covered it all before, it would take up a lot of space.

OK, so here we go. To the list!

1. The Ending

The ending is the most major difference between the two.

In the books, once the immediate threat by the abby incursion has been cleaned up, Ethan organizes the town to make a vote about what their next move should be. Supplies of food in the valley are running out, so trying to keep living there is going to end bleakly. But the numbers of abbies outside the valley are simply overwhelming that trying to live outside of the protection of the valley isn’t likely to work either. In the end, the town votes to put themselves all back into cryogenic sleep, and in the one-sentence epiloge Ethan wakes up there.

In the TV show, Ethan Burke dies to save the townspeople from the abbies. With everyone at the top of an elevator shaft and hundreds of abbies climbing up the sheer sides to kill them all, Ethan blows a C4 explosive to kill all the abbies in the shaft to let everyone else live.

And, just in case we might be left with the impression that this is a mostly happy ending, the last few minutes see a sharp reversal as Ben wakes up in the hospital and finds out that the First Generation of young people has taken over the town, and they’ve forced those adults who haven’t followed the rules back into cryo.

2. Sheriff Pope’s Death

Sheriff Pope is one of Pilcher’s highest ranking henchman, responsible for policing the actions of the town. In both stories he dies before Ethan assumes his role.

In the book, Sheriff Pope accompanies Pam and Pilcher to go find Ethan in the wilderness outside of town. This is the point where Pilcher offers an olive branch to bring Ethan into the fold. When it’s time to leave, Pilcher locks Pope out of the helicopter and they take off as abbies eat him alive.

In the TV show, Ethan kills Sheriff Pope in self-defense inside the wall, and is promoted to sheriff himself soon after.

3. The People in the Mountain

Pilcher has a staff of people working in the mountain to keep the people in the town under constant surveillance.

In the books, although Ethan is always the main character, we get to get a pretty good sense of these people and their point of view and how it differs from the people in the town. Especially in regards to wishing they could have a facade of a nice normal life like the townspeople do and how the townspeople don’t even appreciate it.

In the TV show, there is some interaction with the people in the mountain, but not nearly as in-depth or sympathetic.

4. The “Rebels”

In both versions Kate Hewson (ex Secret Service agent and former lover of Ethan Burke, who has been in Wayward Pines for 12 years) is partially responsible for organizing a band of townspeople who resist the rules placed upon them.

In the books, the band of “rebels” is really just a social club. Everyone in the group sneaks out from under the watchful eye of Pilcher and his staff, but all they do is hang out in a cave and talk about their past lives and drink smuggled liquor and enjoy some music. They have sent people outside of the wall, and they don’t know what’s out there, but they’ve pretty much given up on leaving when no one ever comes back. Pilcher implies to Ethan that he thinks that the rebels are a danger to the town, but Pilcher isn’t exactly a reliable witness.

In the TV show the rebels really are dangerous to the people in the town, even though they are being dangerous in the name of trying to free the townspeople. They are building explosives and are not opposed to killing to serve their purposes.

5. Pam’s Character Arc

Pam is Pilcher’s second-in-command. She serves the important role of nurse at the Wayward Pines hospital where she is one of the first influences on abductees after they wake up, to help them get accustomed to the town. She is also ruthless, and willing to torture to serve the town’s needs.

In the books, Pam is psychotic through and through, and never really changes. It seems that she has not taken this role because she believes in Pilcher’s plan, but because the role lets her carry out her psychotic urges.

In the TV show, Pam starts out just as psychotic and ruthless as in the books, but by the end of the season it appears that she has only been doing bad things for the good cause of helping the town and when it becomes clear to her that Pilcher’s plan is deeply flawed, she becomes a much more sympathetic character to Ethan and the others, even becoming an ally.

6. Theresa’s Time in Wayward Pines

Theresa Burke is Ethan’s wife. In the present, Ethan is abducted by Pilcher and put in cryo sleep first and then Theresa is abducted some time later. They are reunited after Ethan escapes from death at the hands of the town when Sheriff Pope orders his death.

In the books, Theresa continues on in the present for more than a year before Pilcher visits her and her son at their home. Pilcher offers to reunite her with her husband and she gives in but then tries to back out, and Pilcher gases both Theresa and Ben and abducts them. Theresa is woken up first and is a resident of Wayward Pines for five years before the beginning of Ethan’s involvement from the books, so she has a long time to acclimate. She spends one year of that time married to Adam Hassler, Ethan’s former boss at the Secret Service and his betrayer who had sold out all the Burkes in return for Pilcher’s promise that Adam would be able to marry Theresa after cry-sleep.

In the TV show, Theresa and Ben choose to travel to Wayward Pines on suspicion of what Ethan had been doing, whether he was dead or hiding from them. Only days or weeks pass until they go there and Sheriff Pope triggers a car accident to abduct them. They are woken after Ethan in the future and so are only learning of any of the town’s strangeness after Ethan becomes sheriff.

7. The First Generation

In the books there is no reference to the “First Generation”. We know that one of the rules is that parents aren’t allowed to talk to their children about what they learned in school, and children are not allowed to tell their parents what they learned in school. But we never really find out what they learn in school either. We see the children of the town acting pretty wicked during Ethan’s fete, when a pack of them corner him while he’s trying to run, but this doesn’t make them particularly different than the adults. We can guess about what they learned but it never became a big reveal.

The TV show coined the name “First Generation”, the town’s name for their first generation of young adults who are growing into adulthood in the town. Ben is one of those, and we get to follow his point of view as he goes to school. The teachers at the school use a combination of hypnotic techniques and good old-fashioned propoganda to steer the First Generation’s thinking into the intended course, telling them about the abbies, encouraging them to start romances that will be used to produce children, and otherwise prepping them for the times ahead.

BOOK REVIEW: The Last Town by Blake Crouch

written by David Steffen

The Last Town is a… I guess I’d call it an SF/horror thriller… the final book in a trilogy written by Blake Crouch and published in 2014 by Thomas & Mercer. There’s no way to discuss the events of this book without major spoilers for the first two books, so if you don’t want to know anything about book 1 and book 2, stop here. I have reviewed book 1 and book 2 already.

It is nearly two thousand years in the future, and pollution of the environment has caused humanity to mutate into vicious animals with only a minor resemblance to the human species we know today. In the late twentieth century rich the scientist David Pilcher predicted this and prepared to save as much of humanity as he could–he perfected the technology of cryogenic sleep, and took 1000 people into sleep with him. This group of people included both a staff of volunteers who came willingly, and those who were abducted without their knowledge under the guise of car accidents and other incidents. After waking up in almost two millennia later, Pilcher discovered that his prediction was correct, and the world was overrun with what he called aberrations or “abbies” for short, humanoid vicious predators who had replaced our species of humanity. He rebuilt the town of Wayward Pines in the mountains of Idaho. Those who had been abducted were woken to live in this town, the nature of the world kept a secret from them and living under the constant threat of capital punishment for breaking a long list of oppressive rules. No one was allowed to leave, though none of the residents know that there is nowhere safe to leave to. Pilcher’s volunteers kept surveillance over the town from a base in the mountains.

Secret Service agent Ethan Burke was one of those abducted, and he fought against the town rules until Pilcher decided to promote him to the position of sheriff to protect and oppress the people of the town. Ethan played along for a time, knowing that there would be lethal consequences for anyone who oppossed Pilcher, but he arranged a plan to reveal the whole truth to the entire town all at once so that Pilcher couldn’t stop it, with the intention that with the whole truth in front of them the townspeople could plan a better future without the need for the oppressive rules and deadly consequences for breaking them. He hadn’t counted on the depth of Pilcher’s mania, because in reaction to this sharing of information, Pilcher shut down the defenses that keep the abbies out of the valley and let a huge swarm of abbies loose into the town.

That’s where the book starts. Phew, okay, all that out of the way.

This book, as the previous two, follows Ethan Burke as the main POV character. As the book starts the stakes are already high as Ethan is just realizing the extent of the lethal problem that Pilcher has triggered. He is a leader with military experience, and he has to do his best to organize hundreds of civilians with only limited access to weapons survive a brutal attack from the abbies. And there’s still the question of what to do about Pilcher and Pilcher’s staff, still safe in the stronghold of the mountain. Near the end of the last book Pilcher’s psychotic helper Pam was left outside the wall by Ethan to die at the hands of the abbies, but with the door open she can stroll right back in. And meanwhile, Adam Hassler returns from a long trip away. Adam Hassler is Ethan’s former boss at the Secret Service who offered up an unwilling Ethan for inclusion in Wayward Pines, and who was “married” to Ethan’s wife for a year in Wayward Pines unbeknownst to Ethan before being sent off on a long voyage to investigate abby country.

Although this one was probably the most action packed, given the premise, I found this the least enjoyable of the trilogy. What I really enjoyed about the first book was the mystery of what the heck was going on in this town and what the point of the rules are, and all of that. What I really enjoyed about the second book was the step up in understand that Ethan gets when he becomes sheriff, but there is still a lot of truth to uncover, and a lot of dramatic tension inherent in Ethan knowing that the townspeople are in the only area safe from the abbies and that their attempts to escape would only be suicide. Book three wrapped up the threads from the trilogy, so it served its basic purpose. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t find it remarkable in the same way that I found the first two books to be remarkable because it was more of a straightforward action hero story. The townspeople all know what’s going, there’s no more attempt at the facade of a small town, the villains are very clear and obvious at every stage.

The ending of the book was, I thought, pretty weak as well. Felt like it wasn’t really planned, wasn’t really part of the story, but was just tacked onto the end because it had to do something.

The Last Town is not a bad action hero book, but it is a rather unremarkable one. I would still recommend the series as a whole, and if you read the first two books you’ll probably want to find out what happens to the characters, but the finale is its weakest link.

BOOK REVIEW: Wayward by Blake Crouch

written by David Steffen

Wayward is a… I guess I’d call it a mystery SF thriller… the second of a trilogy written by Blake Crouch and published in 2013 by Thomas & Mercer.

If you follow reviews on this site regularly, and this one seems familiar, that’s because I’ve already posted a TV review of Wayward Pines Season 1 which is based on Blake Crouch’s trilogy of books and covers a similar set of events as the trilogy of books. And I recently posted a review of Pines, the first book in the trilogy. The first book relied a lot on big mysteries for a lot of its appeal and revealed many of those mysteries at the end. I can’t talk about book 2 without talking about those mysteries, so if you want to be surprised go read the first book.

To give a quick recap of the first book, Secret Service agent Ethan Burke and his partner travel to Wayward Pines, Idaho to investigate the disappearance of two Secret Service agents. They get in a car accident in town and Ethan wakes up in the hospital, and something is very wrong about the little town. There are all kinds of bizarre rules, such as no one is allowed to talk about their past, and everything about the town seems set on forcing its residents to stay–the only road that’s supposed to lead out of town just loops back into it. Ethan fights hard against the town and becomes the target of a fete–where the sheriff of the town leads the citizens of the town to find and kill someone who has broken the rules. Ethan survives the fete and because of his resourcefulness he is let in on the secret of the town. David Pilcher, the secret leader of the town, has had a decades-long project that started when he discovered that the human genome was becoming corrupted and the human species was quickly changing into something else entirely. When no one believed his research, he set out on a project to preserve as much of humanity as possible, gathering people he could trust to act as his staff and collecting others against their will. His research perfected the technology of cryogenic sleep and he put all of these people (including Ethan) into cryosleep. 1800 years later he and his staff woke up to find that his prediction had come true–the world as far as they could explore had been overrun by the evolutionary descendents of humanity–which they dubbed aberrations (or abbies for short)–vicious human predators. They set out to rebuild Wayward Pines, protected by sheer cliffs and a high voltage fence and then woke up people to populate the town. During his first attempt to populate the town he tried telling people the truth, but suicide rates quickly rose, and he salvaged what he could by starting over again (putting people in cryosleep erased their memory since the last sleep). David Pilcher names Ethan Burke as his new sheriff to help enforce the rules of the town and keep people safe both from the abbies outside the wall and to keep the growing discontent among the townspeople from exploding into revolution.

Phew, sorry, long back story, but most of that’s important to understanding the basic plot of this book.

Near the start of the story Ethan Burke discovers a corpse of a woman who has apparently been murdered, and Pilcher assigns him the task of investigating. Although the violent fetes are a part of life in Wayward Pines, unsanctioned murders are rare, due in large part to the constant surveillance of the residents. The murdered woman was one of Pilcher’s employees working in the mountain to oversee the surveillance and discipline of the town, and she had been venturing into town in the guise of a townsperson to root out the secrets of a group of residents who have found ways to dodge the surveillance. Meanwhile, Ethan has been reunited with his wife and son–when he first came to Wayward Pines 2000 years before he came there before her, and she was taken by Pilcher more than a year later. But, skip forward 2000 years, and she and their son was woken from cryo more than 5 years before him so she has already settled into living in the town by the time he arrivs.

Although the setting and protagonist the same, this book has a decidedly different feel from the first book, Pines. The first book feels more like weird fiction because of the unexplained oddities of the little town and the constant attempts of the protagonist to pick at the edges of the strangeness. By the start of this book Ethan has a much clearer idea of what’s going on and has been drawn into the conspiracy himself, so rather than being in the position of rebellious loner he is a family man in a position of precarious power whose job is both to protect and oppress the people of the town. He hasn’t lost his rebellious nature, but he is in a very difficult position.

The mystery of the murder made a good centerpiece for the book, (and was a surprise to me even though I’d seen season one of the TV show because of changes in the adaptation), and Ethan’s interactions with Pilcher are a constant source of new information to understand the situation this little town is really in.

The most interesting new addition to me that differentiated this book from the first one is to see more deeply into the point of view of the staff that live in the mountain surveilling the town. While the people in the town yearn only to get out of the town, the people in the mountain yearn to get into it–to live under the open sky and be able to live a comparatively carefree life and just forgetting all the strangeness around them. That was an interesting dichotomy to read about, and one that was largely absent from the TV show.

The book is interesting throughout, and manages to avoid the Book Two Slump of many series. Although it depends on knowledge from the first book and leads directly into the events of the third book, it has an arc that stands on its own that starts with the major change of Ethan being promoted to sheriff and ending with major events that lead into the third book’s story.

BOOK REVIEW: Pines by Blake Crouch

written by David Steffen

Pines is a… I guess I’d call it a mystery fantasy/SF thriller… the first of a trilogy written franchise tie-in novel written by Blake Crouch and published in 2012 by Thomas & Mercer.

The story begins as U.S. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke travels to Wayward Pines, Idaho to investigate the disappearance of two fellow agents who were last heard from as they approached the mysterious little town. After a car accident en route, Ethan wakes up in the Wayward Pines hospital, unable to contact anyone and unable to leave. In many ways it seems like a stereotypical small town, but there are big warning signs that something is not right in this little town–the strange things that people say, the strict rules the town keeps about not talking about your past and not asking questions. He wants nothing more than to escape the small town and get back home to his wife and son, but every route out of town is blocked–the main road only loops back into town again. He finds one of the agents he was looking for (whom he had had an affair with in the past), but she seems to aged more than she should have. Everything is a mystery in this mysterious, ominous, little town.

I read the books after already seeing season 1 of the TV show, and so I knew pretty much what to expect but I was interested in where it differed and where it was the same. Pines stuck pretty close to the TV show, albeit covering only the first few episodes. There are some notable differences, probably just to compress the plot enough to fit it on TV, and the book had more of an emphasis on Ethan’s past torture at the hands of a terrorist. The main things that differed were supporting details like character appearances and character ages, and that sort of thing, which is always a little confusing but not terribly so.

I commented in the TV Review that some of the “weird little town” moments kind of reminded me of Twin Peaks but that the show did a reasonably good job with them and didn’t make it just a ripoff. I was interested to read in the introduction that Blake Crouch is a huge Twin Peaks fan and this trilogy was his attempt to write something that had some of the same feel to it, so I think it’s interesting that I picked up the reference.

Book 1 provides a pretty solid plot arc on its own, making it a reasonably good standalone book on its own. By the end of the book you find out clear explanations for most of the weirdness in the town but with enough questions left to leave plenty of remaining mystery, the immediate plot arc resolves in a satisfying and interesting way, and at the end of the book the situation changes drastically enough to serve as an excellent hook for reading the next book–many things are the same but big big things have changed so if you’re like me you’re immediately drawn by the question of “WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?”

DP Fiction #20: “October’s Wedding of the Month” by Emma McDonald

When Percy and Astrid met they’d no idea that only a few short weeks later they’d be getting married.

“Percy really swept me off my feet” said Astrid. “I’d just stepped outside the pub for a quick smoke and suddenly this guy was bundling me into his car.”

“It was love at first sight,” Percy confirmed. “I saw her and I just had to have her.”

Despite their unconventional first meeting our October couple are obviously very much in love. Sitting in their home, admiring the various objects of cult paraphernalia, including an antique sacrificial dagger, it’s also obvious that this was never going to be a normal wedding.

“We never really discussed it, because the cult is so important to Percy that I just took it for granted that the wedding would be a dark ceremony honouring the Elder Gods.” Astrid says. “Also, as I spent the weeks building up to the wedding locked in a cellar most of the preparations had to be done by Percy and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable asking him to compromise his beliefs when he was having to put in so much effort to make the day perfect.”

“Astrid was incredibly supportive.” Percy gives her a quick hug. “She even agreed to convert to the cult of the Elder Gods, which was something I’d not dared hope for. I’d had a few previous engagements which I’d had to break off once the bride realised what the cult involved, but Astrid just went for it.”

“Killing the owl was difficult,” said Astrid. “But it made for a really memorable hen night. Percy’s mother helped mix the cocktail of laudanum, owl blood, and gin that’s part of the traditional cult initiation and I don’t remember much of what happened afterwards, but I woke up covered in feathers and children’s teeth so it must have been a good night.”

While Percy’s wedding suit was fairly traditional cult attire, including a mask made out of broken dreams, the couple wanted the wedding dress to be a bit more personal. Astrid’s confinement made fittings difficult, but the final gown was still something spectacular.

“I think everyone worries about the dress.” Confided Astrid. “I was definitely one of those girls who cut wedding dresses out of magazines and I’d always seen myself getting married in something big and white.” So the vintage lace dress was something of a departure. “Percy’s mother brought around a trunk of old dresses, including her own, which was a long Bohemian number from the seventies. Sadly we had to reconsider because of the blood stains, but we salvaged some of the lace from the sleeves and used it for my hairpiece.’

“The dress I eventually chose was a real one-off. We think it might have been made for a great aunt, but the pictures of the wedding it was worn at have all been defaced so it’s only a guess. I was worried that it might seem a bit ordinary, but the rotten seams and mildew stains helped lift it above what you’d find on the high street.”

Percy chose the venue in accordance with the rituals necessary for the cult ceremony he’d always dreamed off. “Several people commented on how isolated the chapel was. Although it did make things easier from the point of view of parking, and it was very convenient for the reception which we held on the beach. The most important thing about the venue for me was that it was in the same place that I’d been having premonitions about since I was a small child. Nightmarish visions can be tricky things to pinpoint, and it took me several years of investigation before I found the perfect venue. When I told my mother she laughed and said I should have just asked Uncle Norman, as it’s the very chapel he was baptised at. There’s a funny story attached to that, because shortly after he went mad and murdered his twin brother.”

“The family connection is very important to Percy,” Astrid interrupts. “He went to a lot of trouble to ensure that my family were present at the ceremony, even chloroforming my dad when he objected to being kidnapped. We want to have a big family in the future and by making the wedding so family-oriented. I hope we’ve started off on the right track for that.”

The wedding was officiated by Mordiggan, a deity chosen by Percy due to a longstanding family connection. “It did mean we had to advise the guests to close their eyes during the ceremony, as any sighting of him causes blindness. The photographer had a particularly difficult job, and sadly didn’t survive, but he did get some beautiful shots of the service.” Indeed one of these was our cover for this month. The ominous dark cloud that stands at the altar while Astrid and Percy exchange rings gives a real sense of atmosphere, and it’s hard to fault Percy for risking his guests’ eyesight when the end result is so impressive.

While the wedding ceremony was a small affair, the reception was even more select, something most couples would consider unusual. But for Percy and Astrid the process of culling the guests was a core part of their day.

“I think we were both a little wary of how our friends and family would perceive Astrid’s newfound religious zeal,” admitted Percy. “There was a lot of talk of brainwashing and some mentions of the police, although the local police force is very sympathetic to cult members and we’d paid the usual bribes.”

“Percy and I didn’t want anyone at the reception who wasn’t really celebrating with us.” Astrid takes over as Percy seems visibly upset by the idea of anyone doubting their affection for each other. “The ritual culling wasn’t something I’d ever heard of before, but it’s part of Percy’s religion and I thought it was a good way of symbolising our new life together.” For those who aren’t adherents, the ritual culling is a ceremony in which guests are pursued and slaughtered by beasts. A small number of guests survive, either by luck or prior knowledge, and these are then invited to the reception. “Percy choose to have the pursuit led by his father, who owns a pack of dire wolves. The slaughtered guests were then dismembered and their brains and hearts used to adorn the wedding cake.”

The cake was a custom-made four-tier chocolate cake from a local baker who specialises in catering for occult ceremonies, so were well aware of the need for discretion and dark ritual.

“Chocolate cake was the one thing I was adamant about,” said Astrid, “as I’m a huge chocoholic and I didn’t want to go without on my big day. The caterers covered it with ganache, but otherwise left it bare so it could be decorated with the spoils of the hunt. We had to offer a tier to Cthulthu, along with the remains of the dead guests, but otherwise it was sliced up and handed round. As is tradition, the blood of Percy’s family and mine had been mixed into the batter so the consuming of the cake really brought us closer together.”

“Sadly Astrid’s father was one of those who died during the culling, but we placed his heart on the very top of the cake so that we could both take a big bite and make sure he’s with us in the years to come.” Percy gives Astrid a hug as she wipes away a tear at the memory. “It’s a huge shame that so many of Astrid’s close family died on the day, but I like to think that they’d have been glad to know that their sacrifice helped ensure a happy future for us both.”

The reception was held on the beach as is traditional for cult weddings. The summoning of Cthulhu that formed the climax of the evening can only be done in an area next to tidal waters and while it might have been possible to hire a local pier Percy explained that he’d been reluctant to do so due to the likelihood of losing his deposit. “Cthulhu does tend to cause damage, and while there are some local venues which are sympathetic, most of them will charge for broken windows and bloodstains.

“Despite living only a short drive away Astrid had never before seen Cthulhu, so the reception was extra special as it meant I got to introduce her to the Elder God as my wife, as well as see the horror on her face that all new initiates experience.”

“It was really terrifying.” Astrid nods. “Percy had said a lot about how important it was to him that Cthulhu accepted me, and I think I’d just built it up in my mind to something which made it a lot scarier than it really was. There was all the stress of having just gotten married and then having had to run down a cliff while being chased by dire wolves and seeing this huge tentacled dragon-man-thing emerge from the sea was sort of the last straw.”

“She went a little mad, but luckily my mother had remembered the straitjacket and once Astrid had been restrained she calmed down a lot.”

“The laudanum helped.” Astrid giggles. “I felt so stupid once it was all over, but Percy didn’t mind at all.”

“I’d been to a few weddings where the bride really lost it. My cousin Irene cut off her husband’s fingers and ate them, so Astrid was pretty unfazed by comparison. I don’t think you can expect everyone to adapt to the Elder Gods in the same way, especially if they’ve not really been part of your upbringing.”

It seems a bit unfair to ask if Astrid has any concerns about that difference in upbringing now, especially when they make such a lovely couple, but her words on the subject are an inspiration to any young bride in a similar situation.

“Everything before the wedding was such a whirlwind that I didn’t really have time to sit down and think about what was happening, but since then I’ve been on a few retreats and had my mind eaten by Shogothath and that’s made a real difference. I guess my advice to any bride in a similar situation would be to not panic, and remember that you’re needed for breeding. If the Elder Gods are going to eat anyone it’ll be the groom.” With that Astrid smiles and turns to Percy and as they exchange a heartfelt kiss we bid them adieu.

Author’s Note: The story was inspired by a conversation at a friends wedding about the different types of wedding you could have and how a fancy wedding magazine might cover them. (The friend’s wedding was very nice and no one was sacrificed)

Emma McDonald has been writing for years, but this is her first piece to be accepted for publication. She usually writes regency era stories with a touch of magic and the occasional vampire – and generally uses this as an excuse to visit English Country Houses for research. Her website is at www.emmamcdonald.co.uk and she’s on twitter as @telute.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the other story offerings.

Long List Anthology Vol 2 Kickstarter!

written by David Steffen

The Kickstarter has been launched for the Long List Anthology Volume 2!

Same premise as last year, to put together an anthology of works from the longer Hugo Award nomination list. This year, Galen Dara has been commissioned for original cover art–the art at the top of the post is not the final version, it is a color proof of the art, but the final version will be shared as soon as possible.

Check out the rewards, besides copies of the books there are critiques from Martin L. Shoemaker, Sunil Patel, Erica Satifka and myself.

Check out the Kickstarter page for additional information, but here’s the list of the stories that will be included if funding levels are reached.

Short Stories and Letters (base goal)

“Three Cups of Grief, By Starlight” by Aliette de Bodard
“Madeleine” by Amal El-Mohtar
“Pockets” by Amal El-Mohtar
“Tuesdays With Molakesh the Destroyer” by Megan Grey
“The Women You Didn’t See” by Nicola Griffith (a letter from Letters to Tiptree)
“Damage” by David D. Levine
“Neat Things” by Seanan McGuire (a letter from Letters To Tiptree)
“Today I Am Paul” by Martin L. Shoemaker
“Pocosin” by Ursula Vernon
“Wooden Feathers” by Ursula Vernon
“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong

Novelettes (stretch goal at $3900)

“The Heart’s Filthy Lesson” by Elizabeth Bear
“So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer
“Another Word For World” by Ann Leckie
“Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” by Rose Lemberg
“The Deepwater Bride” by Tamsyn Muir
“The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild” by Catherynne M. Valente
Up to 1 other

Novellas (stretch goal at $5000)

“The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn” by Usman T. Malik
“The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps” by Kai Ashante Wilson

Anime Catch-Up Review: Knights of Sidonia

written by Laurie Tom

knightsofsidonia

Knights of Sidonia is one of the few anime series in recent years that was brought over to the US, but never simulcast. While I heard the series was good, it missed a lot of the seasonal round-ups because no one could watch it during its original airing.

I finally had the opportunity see it and decided to give it a shot, even though I heard that the second half doesn’t hold up to the first.

If you like hard science fiction in your anime though, the first half will entertain you plenty, as a lot of things that go unaccounted for in other series (like the fact a combat pilot in a cockpit needs some way of urinating without ruining his spacesuit) are called out and accounted for.

The sheer grittiness of the characters’ situation calls to mind similarities to 2013’s hit Attack on Titan. Once again we follow the last known bastion of human civilization, fighting a relentless enemy that cannot be communicated or reasoned with. Characters are introduced and wiped out, and tough decisions are made between the lives of a few or the survival of humanity.

For unknown reasons, the spaceship-sized aliens called gauna attacked and destroyed the Earth centuries ago, scattering what remained of humanity on hundreds on seed ships. As far as the crew of the Sidonia is aware, they are the only remaining ship and they have just 28 kabizashi spears, which are the only weapons capable of piercing and destroying the core of a gauna, preventing their regeneration.

Due to the devastation caused to Sidonia in its the last war with the gauna and the loss of food processing facilities, children born in the past hundred years have been genetically modified to photosynthesize and only eat normal food about once a week. In order to rebuild population numbers, there are also a number of clones and humanity now has a third gender, which eventually develops into male or female depending on the partner they choose.

Knights of Sidonia is animated almost entirely by computer. Though the character designs reflect the old hand-drawn anime style, it’s often possible to see how they look a little “off” due to being computer models, but using CG has its advantages. The Sidonia has been sailing for at least six hundred years, and the ship, the mecha, even the pilots’ suits have a scuffed, lived-in look that would have been hard to conventionally animate.

The story follows one particular pilot, Nagate Tanikaze, who has a history he (but not the audience) is largely unaware of. Though he starts out an oddity for his inability to photosynthesize, he turns out to be a fantastic pilot, largely because he’s trained in a simulator since childhood to use one particular model.

Nagate ends up having other advantages in his court, but at least in the first half of the show, it doesn’t feel like he’s a superhero so much as extremely competent. He might be a hero who comes out of nowhere, but there’s a foundation for it and winning battles is a team effort. By the second half it’s a little more wearing as Nagate is the one who gets all the mecha upgrades, and gets to do all the cool stuff, when one would think the Sidonia would spread the love around with their other pilots.

Since the show does not cover the full length of the manga, it ends on a major combat victory rather than a story arc, leaving the intentions of several characters unanswered. The second half of the show in particular feels like someone hit the fast forward to make sure the story hit that battle before ending.

It’s not that the plot feels rushed so much as details are glossed over and the fallout of certain actions don’t feel fully considered. Things that ought to be a major power shift just happen and everyone accepts it.

Knights of Sidonia is also oddly two-faced about its treatment of women. On the one hand there are no shortages of capable women, from the most senior combat pilot on Sidonia, to the ship’s subcommander (effectively their battle tactician), to the Sidonia captain herself. Uniforms are practical and nobody questions their skills or position on account of gender.

But there are several shots of female characters photosynthesizing (which requires nudity). They aren’t particularly male gazey since the shot may be in the distance or focus on their faces, but this never happens with the men. Also, just about every female or potentially female character in Tanikaze’s social circle seems to dig him in a potentially romantic manner.

If anyone’s emotions override their sensibilities in combat to the point they’re sobbing and not listening anymore, it’s always a female pilot, so while some women in the show kick major ass, there are times that feel like the writer needed someone to be emotionally broken up so he picked one of the women. There’s one early female pilot death that had me shaking my head because given her rank she should have been made of sterner stuff.

Unusually for anime, there is also a non-binary/third gender character, though the English subtitles don’t treat them particularly kindly. When Nagate has trouble figuring out their gender, Izana says people like them aren’t specifically male or female, instead taking on characteristics of the opposite gender when they choose a partner.

Unfortunately, the subtitles (and presumably the dub) default to referring to Izana as “she,” most likely because Izana sounds like and is played by a woman. The only character who specifically refers to Izana as a “he” is another woman, specifically because she doesn’t want Izana to become fond enough of Nagate to transition, but technically Izana isn’t either. This would have been less of a problem in Japanese since it’s not a gendered language and it’s very easy to talk about someone in the third person without revealing whether they’re a man, woman, or something else.

It feels like a terrible case of miscasting though, because Izana’s voice is so female that when I first saw them I didn’t realize the reason Nagate was staring was because he couldn’t figure out their gender. Izana has a slender build and stands the same height as the other female characters, with the primary difference being a flat chest, and that wasn’t enough to visually read as third gender. In retrospect the only way I might have known otherwise is that Izana’s cadet uniform is not the one worn by women.

Considering that there are many Japanese women who play convincing teenage boy roles in anime, it’s disappointing the casting director couldn’t have found one for Izana, which would have helped give the viewer the same impression as Nagate.

Though I wish there was a legal free streaming option, I have to admit that Netflix made a good choice for their first exclusive anime license. The platform promotes binge-watching, and Knights of Sidonia ends on so many cliffhangers it’s definitely suited to the format.

Number of Episodes: 24

Pluses: gritty space combat with a fair dose of realism, swift moving plot, several highly competent female characters

Minuses: inconclusive ending, later episodes make Nagate too much of the ace pilot everyone relies on, English translation’s handling of Izana is very clumsy

Knights of Sidonia is currently streaming at Netflix (subscription required) and is available both subtitled and dubbed. Sentai Filmworks has licensed this for Blu-ray/DVD in the US.

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.