DP FICTION #116A: “The Gaunt Strikes Again” by Rich Larson

edited by Chelle Parker

“My friends, I apologize for pulling you away from the festivities,” the Duke said, shutting the heavy oak door behind him, “but I believe our lives to be in danger.” He turned to his guests and drew a deep breath. “It seems the Gaunt has decided to attend our soiree.”

The Beldam, fashionably attired in the skin of a flayed heretic, clapped her beautiful hand to her beautiful cheek. The Raconteur, already flushed and tousle-headed, wine staining his doublet, guffawed. The Corporal, a shard of obsidian in military dress, narrowed her flesh eye while its clockwork neighbor roved about the room.

“This is no jest,” the Duke said, unfolding a parchment leaf with trembling hands. “I found it only moments ago, inserted among the other notices of intention.”

At the sight of the Gaunt’s distinctive seal, the tarry black spiral that had portended countless grisly deaths, the Beldam and the Raconteur both shrieked aloud. The Corporal made no sound, but snatched the parchment from the Duke’s grip.

The Corporal’s clockwork eye split and rotated, bringing its full magnification to bear on the seal.

The other three waited, breaths bated.

“It appears genuine,” the Corporal squeaked.

The Duke had braced himself for this pronouncement, but still felt it like a hammer blow and heard a correspondent ringing in his ears. He searched for words to apologize to his guests, to offer them comfort.

“Then we are doomed.” The Beldam crumpled into the nearest chair, blinking. “Utterly, and entirely.”

The Raconteur pressed back against the wall, an animal cornered. “The Beldam’s correct,” he croaked. “The Gaunt likes nothing better than a soiree turned bloody. Remember the solstice garden party?”

The Beldam grimaced. “They found the Contessa strung from a lemon tree by her own intestines. Remember the carnival boat?”

“The carnival boat! They found the Bishop’s upper half nailed to the prow, and his lower in the bellies of several fishes.” The Raconteur chewed at his lips. “Murderous master of disguise that he is, the Gaunt might already stalk among us. He could be any one of the guests.”

“He, or she,” the Duke pointed out. “Or perhaps they. The Gaunt has never deigned to reveal such specificities.”

“He’s probably slithering through the party at this very instant,” the Raconteur mumbled. “Selecting his victims, slipping his infamous paralytic poison into their drinks…”

The Duke swallowed. “That does sound like him, her, or them,” he said, tugging at his beard. “Corporal, are you armed?”

“I’m always armed.” The Corporal’s clockwork eye was fixed now to the Raconteur. “So is this lad who knows so much about the Gaunt’s methods.”

The Raconteur startled, then straightened. “I make a living from sordid details,” he snapped. “And why shouldn’t I be armed? You’ve no idea how often I have to duel ex-lovers, and lovers of ex-lovers, and critics.”

The Duke raised a placating hand. “It’s quite his right to be armed. And it’s quite obvious that nobody here is the Gaunt.”

The Beldam’s laugh was soft and contemptuous. “Tell another one, Dukie.”

The Duke glared. “‘Dukie’?”

“The Gaunt can sew themselves into any skin they like,” the Beldam said. “They’re a changeling. That’s how they’ve gone uncaught for so long.”

“Rubbish.” The Corporal raised her chin. “The Gaunt is not some unearthly creature. Merely a killer who hides behind incredibly lifelike masks, and has the gift of flawlessly imitating any persona.”

“I imagine some personas would be easier than others, though,” the Raconteur muttered. “A persona with a big bushy beard and a fairly monotone voice, for instance.”

The Duke’s fingers, which had been stroking just such a beard, faltered. “‘Monotone’?” he demanded.

The Raconteur folded his arms. “Your address this evening was painful. I’ve told you time and again to work on your vocal emotive range. At the very least, it would dissuade the Gaunt from impersonating you.”

The Beldam tapped a thoughtful finger to her lips. “If the Gaunt were to impersonate someone, it would be rather sensible to impersonate the host. And then lead the guests to an isolated room, in small groups, to—”

She sliced the finger across her throat and imitated a death rattle. The Raconteur and Corporal followed her gaze to the Duke, whose jaw fell open.

“I brought you here to warn you!” he yelped. “How dare you accuse me of being the Gaunt! You’re the one wearing a human skin and knowing all about changelings.”

All eyes leapt to the flayed stole about the Beldam’s shoulders.

She gave a cutting laugh. “Please! As if the Gaunt could look this good.”

“She does look good,” the Corporal said. Her clockwork eye whirred. “Such facial symmetry seems almost… unnatural.”

She reached into her vest, perhaps for her flintlock, perhaps for her snuff. The Raconteur dove immediately to the floor, yanking the spring-gun from the lining of his doublet. The Beldam leapt from her chair with a direwood knife suddenly clutched in her bony fist.

“Friends!” the Duke croaked. “Come, now. None of us are the Gaunt, and none of us are murderers.” He cast about for a solution, some way to wet the hissing fuse. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small glass bottle of spirits. “Perhaps we should all have a drink?”

The Raconteur’s eyes widened.

***

Three knocks went unanswered, so finally the servant opened the oak door and stepped inside, tray of canapes held aloft. They were greeted by tragedy:

The Duke, master of the house, gutted by a direwood knife. The Corporal, weathered veteran of a hundred wars, exsanguinated by a shard of glass bottle to the jugular. The beauteous Beldam and the rakish Raconteur, perforated by leadshot in a half-dozen places.

The servant scratched at the burlap of their crudely stitched costume, which was not remotely passable for house garb. They yanked off their flimsy masquerade mask to take a better look at the carnage.

They stared for a moment, then stuffed a canape in their mouth. “This again,” the Gaunt mumbled. “Goddamn it.”


© 2024 by Rich Larson

1001 words

Author’s Note: I wrote this story during the winter of 2021, shortly after watching Clue for the first time.

Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has lived in Spain and Czech Republic, and currently writes from Montreal, Canada. He is the author of the novels Ymir and Annex, as well as the collection Tomorrow Factory. His fiction has been translated into over a dozen languages, including Polish, Italian, Romanian, and Japanese, and adapted into an Emmy-winning episode of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. Find free reads and support his work at patreon.com/richlarson.


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DP FICTION #58B: “The Problem From Jamaica Plain” by Marie L. Vibbert

I was waiting for the teakettle to boil, and the office wasn’t due to open for, oh let’s say three minutes. The phone blinked and I considered not answering, what with those three minutes of leisure ahead of me, but I needed every client I could get. I put on my phone voice and chirped, “Jasmine Alexa, Attorney at law.”

The voice on the other end trembled with fear and flat, Bostonian vowels. “I’m not shuh, but Ah think I might have killed someone.”

That was as good as a shot of straight caffeine. “Excuse me? Wait… right now?”

There was an unsettling long pause. “No?” It was a woman’s voice, rough and deep, but definitely feminine.

You are no doubt thinking exactly what I was thinking at this point: This person is a murderer. After years of handling divorces and wills, I was suddenly transported into an episode of Law and Order: Special Weird Calls Unit.

Before my brain could decide if murderers paid well, my mouth said, “I’m sorry, this is a civil law office. I don’t do criminal cases.”

“Crap. Wrong number.” She hung up.

I stared at my phone. Should I call the police? Report the call? The number? The time? I was still writing down the digits when my phone lit up again. The same number. I let it ring once, but oh, I was too curious to let it go to voicemail.

“Jasmine Alexa.”

“Yeah, you said you were a lawyah?”

I propped the phone on my shoulder and wrote down the rest of the phone number, and the times for both calls. “Civil law,” I said.

“I wanna ask you about a custody problem.”

I set my pencil down. “What about the person you might have killed?”

A pause. “Aw, I don’t need a lawyer for that. So, uh… lemme ask you, and does it cost money just to ask? What happens if someone leaves a baby on your doorstep, say like in the movies, in a basket with a note and all that? Is that your baby?”

“Uh… no. You’re under no legal obligation, but you should call the authorities. The police will try to find whoever abandoned it. If the baby ends up a ward of the state, you’ll have to apply for adoption the same as anyone.”

“Thanks,” she said, and hung up.

What the hell?

This time I called her. She answered the phone with, “This is Elle.”

“This is Alexa. Did someone leave a baby on your doorstep?”

Elle sighed, long and heavy. “I guess ya better come over.”

The teakettle whistled. I looked at my note for the police. I picked up my car keys. You don’t go into business for yourself as a lawyer unless you’re more curious than smart.

*

Elle’s apartment was a walkup above a consignment shop, so the story about doorsteps was probably fabrication.

From her accent on the phone I expected a husky white woman with a cigarette permanently attached to her lip. Elle was skinny and very, very black. Almost blue. Never assume. Elle had a short afro pushed back by a yellow daisy headband, bright pink lipstick and a yellow shift dress. Glam.

Her deep voice sounded warmer than on the phone. “My girlfriend Veronica and I were arguing. Nothing serious! It got maybe a little heated, and she fell.” Elle backed into the apartment, twisting the hem of her dress between nervous fingers. “I mean… I pushed her,” she said, like a caught-out child. “But it wasn’t that hahd, I didn’t even expect her to fall but… anyway, that’s what’s left.” She lifted her chin to the right.

This was the moment when I could turn around, head back down the rickety steps, and forget the whole thing. I closed my eyes as I turned, picturing splattered blood and gore. I opened my eyes.

An adorable baby, about six months old with Asian eyes and drool-wet lips, looked up at me from a pile of rumpled laundry.

Before I could censor myself, my mouth blurted out, “But where’s the body?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Elle groaned. She stomped over to just to the left of the baby. “I was here. Veronica was there.” She gestured at the air over the baby. “I pushed, she fell. She didn’t move or nothing. I got scared. You were the first lawyer in the phone book. Then while we were talking, she just…” Elle waggled her fingers in the air. “Melted or something. So I’m looking at this pile of her clothes, and that – that kid crawls out!” Fat tears spilled down her cheeks. “Did I kill Veronica? Did I make her a baby? Gawd, I never even step on bugs. She just… I just…”

“This is not the sort of problem I’m trained to deal with,” I said. Understatement of the Month.

Elle walked around the baby, reaching out like she was afraid to touch it or to let it crawl away. “So what do I… do I call the cops? What if that’s not a baby?” She bit her lower lip. “What if this is Veronica?”

“I’m not following.”

Elle squatted down, peering at the baby, who stared back with an adorable “oo” expression. “It… it kinda looks like Veronica. I’m afraid to pick it up and check its parts to see if it’s a girl.”

“However it got here,” I said, “you are now the proud finder of a lost infant.”

“I should just treat it like that?” She looked at me like I was her mom and could solve all this for her.

I get that look a lot from potential clients. “Want me to call for you?”

Her skinny, anxious face bloomed into this relieved smile. “I’ll get ya some cake,” she said.

I didn’t believe Veronica was from Mars or whatever. I believed there was a logical, if odd, explanation. Elle produced a slice of cinnamon pound cake and a mug of Red Rose tea for me. She didn’t act like she’d recently had a head injury. The baby picked at Veronica’s discarded clothing with baby-like intense scrutiny. We made awkward small talk until the police came.

Elle paid me for my time, which was nice of her, and I wrote it all off as an unexplained mystery I’d enjoy telling at parties.

Not so lucky. Two days later, Child Protective Services called.

“Yeah, we got you as a witness to a foundling recovery in JP two nights ago?”

I knew right then it wasn’t going to be good. “What about it?”

“There’s a problem.”

“Did you find the birth mother?”

“Lady, you have got to be kidding me.”

“I… really am not kidding you. What’s the problem?”

“Your ‘foundling’ is a teen and asking for her lawyer.”

“I’m not…”

“Yeah, well, her much older girlfriend says you’re their lawyer, so you better come down here and talk to your client because she ain’t in the system and we aren’t in the habit of letting kids walk out of here without a legal guardian.”

I took one longing look at my lunch – fresh pesto on shells from the market up the street – and sighed. “I’m on my way.”

*

Veronica Wong, if you believed that was her name, was a coltish teen with shaggy, short hair. She wore oversized sweats and sprawled on the sofa in the front parlor of the Forbes Home for Wayward Youth.

In my briefcase I had a Xerox of Veronica Wong’s Massachusetts driver’s license proclaiming her to be twenty-five and a resident of Jamaica Plain. The photo was uncannily similar, but older, with longer hair.

“You’re sure this is the kid you brought in?” I asked the social worker.

She was a thickset black woman and she looked about one second away from flipping out. The whites showed all the way around her irises. “We get a lot of kids in and out,” she said, “but we tend to notice if one grows five years every night.”

Veronica blew a tuft of hair out of her face. “I want my lawyer,” she said.

The social worker asked, “You want to back out?” She asked it like she was asking if I wanted to stab her in the back.

I stepped forward, hand out. “Veronica? I’m Jasmine Alexa. We… may have met at your apartment, when you were…?” I stopped myself short of saying “destroyed and reformed as a baby.” It’s bad to assume things.

Veronica gave me a quick once-over. “Elle trusts you,” she said. “Is she still mad?”

I retracted my hand. “I don’t know what you were fighting about.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “She thinks I’ve changed. Like I’m not the same person. She’s the one who changed! I’m me. I’ll always be me.”

“Well, right now that’s not as important as the question of your custody. You are… you appear to be a minor.”

“I know that. I’m adolescent, not stupid.” Veronica sank deeper into the couch, her legs spread wide. “They wouldn’t even let me see Elle until an hour ago. Tell Elle to stop freaking out and I’ll come home. And tell her I’m not going to replace her in her sleep! Jeeeeez. Why do people always think that about us, huh? We don’t go replacing any old person just to do it.”

I looked to the social worker for some help. She held her hands up and backed out of the room.

I sat down. “Right, so if you agree to have me represent you, I can hold anything we talk about in confidence. If your legal guardian—”

“I’m not an orphan. I told them, my parents live on Long Island.”

“Yes,” I said. I opened the file CPS had given me. “And those parents are a little confused how their college graduate daughter ended up in a home for minors.”

Veronica examined the ceiling through her bangs. “This sucks,” she said.

“Well, what do you expect me to do about it?” It wasn’t the tone I usually take with my clients, but this was getting unreal.

“Can’t you get them to release me into Elle’s custody? What if my folks wrote a note?”

“You can’t get Herbert and Julia Wong to come fetch you, why would they write you a note?”

Veronica flicked a hand dismissively. “They just hate taking the expressway.”

“I don’t think you understand: your claimed parents are officially denying you.”

She looked wrecked. After a long minute staring at her own sneaker digging holes in the carpet, she said, “Yeah, I guess they would.”

“Veronica, are Mr. and Mrs. Wong really your parents?”

Morosely, to her feet, she said, “I’ll be twenty-five in a couple more days and it’ll all smooth out. Guess I just gotta wait.”

“I’m not sure this will smooth itself out. I think we’re about five minutes away from black helicopters coming in to take you away.”

She half-grinned. “Guess I really need a lawyer, then.”

“My first question, as your lawyer, is: are you going to persist in being Veronica Wong? Even if everyone who knows Veronica Wong denies you?”

Hands clasped between her knees, every inch a vulnerable teen, she said, “I don’t know how to be anyone else.”

“Okay. Okay, so, Veronica, um… was there an original, other Veronica I should be concerned about?”

She rolled her eyes, and in almost exactly the inflection of Elle, but with a distinct Long Island lockjaw, said, “I don’t need a lawyer for that.”

*

The social worker stopped me with a hand on my chest as I tried to leave the building. “Look, we processed her as an infant two days ago. We got the paperwork all in place – we had adoption people breathing down our necks – but suddenly she was too old to be a newborn. Had to re-process as a toddler. The hospital bracelet had to come off. Three times. That’s a re-admit, full paperwork. Then there were the vaccination questions at each age landmark. You want to explain to the state why you can’t vaccinate a five year old because it hasn’t been twenty-four hours since their two-year-old vaccinations? I’m losing my marbles and no one is helping. District, City won’t touch her with a forty-foot pole. We don’t have procedures for this. The fourth time they asked me to re-do the paperwork, I put her in as school-age, which incidentally is loads worse with extra considerations, but I figured if we jumped a few years ahead we’d be in the clear. We are NOT in the clear.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that, regardless of what CPS is saying right now, she’s going to look eighteen soon enough and I’d really like to release an eighteen year-old into her lawyer’s custody. We’ll say she aged out of the system. It won’t be a lie.”

I didn’t think adults could get their eyes that round and puppy-like. “This is asking a lot.”

“You’re a civil lawyer. I’ll owe you a favor and I’m sure you’ll be back to collect before too long. You do divorces? Custody disputes?”

“Wouldn’t I love to,” I said.

*

Elle stood at the base of the stairs up to her apartment, arms crossed tight across her chest. “I don’t want her in here.”

“She lives here,” I said.

“That isn’t Veronica. I don’t know what that is, but it is not my girlfriend!”

Veronica groaned. “I’ve been Veronica as long as you’ve known me.”

“And how do I know that?”

It was drizzling – that soft, fuzzy drizzle that you hardly notice but that soaks you through after a while. “Look,” I said, “I got her out of official custody, but I’m not taking her home like an abandoned kitten. My landlord would kill me. Veronica has to live somewhere.”

“Veronica does,” Elle said, lifting her chin.

I said, “You’re accusing your girlfriend of being an illegal alien and identity thief. That involves contacting Immigration. That involves criminal charges. I’d be required to report that to the police. If they arrest her and can’t find a record of her citizenship, what do you think will happen?”

Elle took a step back, into the shelter of the covered stair. “I don’t want anybody deported, but come on – she’s a damned pod person! Or, or that thing from that movie in the Artic with the dogs and whatshisname. That… what was that thing called?”

“The Thing,” I provided. “Veronica, you can weigh in on this at any time.”

Veronica stepped forward, chin down, hands clasped before her. “I’m the same girl you met on the red line, Elle.”

“Your folks don’t say that. Your folks are more pissed than I am.”

Veronica’s contrite posture evaporated. She balled her fists on her hips. “You’ve been talking to my folks behind my back again?”

I said, “Can we please have this argument indoors?”

Elle gave in. She kept shooting glares at Veronica, but she let us follow her up into the apartment.

“Have a seat,” she gestured at the couch.

“I’m not a guest. I live here,” Veronica said. “I bought that couch.”

“A pod person bought my couch,” Elle said, disgusted.

Veronica started crying, helpless, wracking sobs, standing there in the middle of the room.

It was an ugly couch: tomato-soup red tweed. I charitably assigned the disgust and the tears to it. I said, “Veronica, she’s not trying to hurt you; she really wants to know who you are. Elle, she’s trying to tell you who she is. Be patient and listen. If she was going to melt your brain and use it to destroy the Earth, I think maybe she’d have done it by now.”

Elle frowned hard, but she turned to look at Veronica. “Who are you?”

Veronica sat down on the couch. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I’m not the original Veronica Wong, but it’s not like I killed her. My parents – my real parents, my pod parents – put an ad on Craigslist, looking for someone who would want to trade identities, get away. Veronica answered, and they sent her my pod.” Veronica shrugged. “That’s the way we do it. The real Veronica put my pod on her bed and slept next to it for a week, until I formed. Like I’m re-forming now. We grow to adulthood fast, then we age normal. So I… I will look a few years younger now. Because I kinda got re-set. It’s my stem, see… we’re like plants?” Turning to me, she said, “The real Veronica is in Nevada, driving a truck. We keep in touch on Instagram. You never met her. I mean… she’s not me. She’s straight, and she likes pro wrestling.” Veronica wrinkled her nose.

“I’m relieved I won’t have to recommend you a criminal lawyer for her murder.” I reconsidered my Understatement of the Month.

There was an awkward pause. I found myself listening for black ops helicopters. Perhaps, in the real world, there’s no funding for Mulder and Scully.

Elle squinted. “Wait. But how old was Veronica when you took her place? If she, like, consented and all? She can’t have been younger than… how old are you?”

“It was seven years ago, but…”

“Holy crap!”

“…but that’s like thirty in human years! Come on! I’m a pod person, remember? You see how fast I grow back. Oh, and thanks for killing me, by the way.”

Elle’s lips trembled, her eyebrows canted high. “I… I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Well, you did. And now you know what happens when you break my plant stem. It gets weak in the winter and I don’t move backwards so good, and then you stepped on my toe and SNAP. Do you know how much it sucks being a baby again?”

“But… seven? V, I can’t date some child!”

“In pod years. Jeez, it’s not like I had to spend a whole year growing up! Figure year one is actually eighteen years, development-wise.”

I raised my hand and held it in the air until they remembered they had an audience. “So,” I said, “to recap: Veronica is a pod person who replaced another girl who was over the age of consent. None of us have ever met Veronica the First, and she is not a party in this dispute. Elle did not know of Veronica’s non-human nature, a fight broke out, and, if I’m hearing this correctly – Elle, you actually did kill someone that morning when you called me?”

“Aw gawd,” Elle said, and fell down on the couch next to Veronica, twisting her fingers together.

“Not, like, permanently,” Veronica said. She reached out like she wanted to put her arm around Elle but wasn’t sure it would be accepted. “Didn’t even hurt all that much. I was just… startled. And a baby.”

“I didn’t… I don’t wanna be that kind of girlfriend,” Elle sniffled. Now they were both wet-faced.

I said, “Do we need to do something about this? We’re talking about deadly assault.”

Veronica gestured wide. “I’m not pressing charges or anything. Elle didn’t know I’m more fragile than a normal human.”

“I’m so sorry!” Elle threw her arms around Veronica. They hugged each other tight, sobbing together. “I’ll never walk again if it means not stepping on your adorable little toes. Oh gawd!”

“No, Elle. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, about your mother.”

“She is a bitch. Oh, honey. I shouldn’t have let her pressure you.”

“No, no, she’s right. I mean… it’s been four years. Maybe we are taking things too slow.”

I was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel, but I still had some things to clear up. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll charge this as a one-hour consult?”

They looked up like they were shocked to remember I was still there.

Elle sniffled, and grasped my hand. “Thank you, Ms. Alexa. Really. I don’t know how we’ll ever pay you back.”

I said, “Consider getting a prenuptial agreement and filing power of attorney writs. You never know what will happen.”

Elle quickly said, “Oh, no… I mean, I asked, but she…”

Veronica pulled her girlfriend back and looked her in the eyes. “Yes,” Veronica said.

Elle said, “Oh sweetie, no, you’re all emotional and with all this…”

“Shut up, Elle. I’m saying ‘yes,’ and you can’t take it back now.” She glared sternly at her girlfriend, who melted – in the normal, romantic sense.

They kissed, and I saw myself out. When I got back to the office, I sent them my standard prenup packet and a note to pass my name along to anyone who needed special legal attention as a pod-American. There were identity theft issues, legal status, citizenship – gallons of delicious, charge-by-the-hour paperwork.

I think those two crazy kids – and my business – are going to make it.


© 2019 by Marie L. Vibbert

Author’s Note: My friend Alexandra, a lawyer, related to me a puzzling wrong number she’d received.  The first phone call is verbatim from her memory.  I found myself trying to come up with an interested reason why this person wasn’t sure if they’d killed someone.  Then I decided to set it in Boston because, well, I hadn’t set anything in Boston yet, and two of my Clarionmates were living there at the time.  Shout out to Christian and Thom!

Marie Vibbert’s writing has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s and F&SF, among other places.  She is a computer programmer and played tackle football for the Cleveland Fusion for five years.


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MOVIE REVIEW: Pokémon Detective Pikachu

written by David Steffen

Pokémon Detective Pikachu is a live-and-CG children’s mystery/action movie based on the Pokémon franchise.

Through most of the world they are mostly used as the fighting creatures we know them as from the game/card franchises, who are trained by humans and pitted against each other in arena-style battles against other Pokémon. Ryme City is the exception, where humans and Pokémon live together as fellow citizens, each human citizen paired with a Pokémon citizen.

Tim Goodman (Justic Smith) is a 21-year-old insurance salesman in a world where are real. He used to love Pokémon but lost interest when his mother died, and his dad took a detective job in Ryme City and has had very little contact since. But when Tim is informed that his father has disappeared, he travels to Ryme City to take care of his father’s affairs. While he’s there he meets a strange Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds), the only Pokémon he’s ever heard of who can talk with a human. Pikachu wants to be a detective, and seems to have been Tim’s father’s Pokémon partner, but he has no memories.

He also meets junior reporter Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton) and her Psyduck companion, who claim that they have information about Tim’s father’s disappearance. They work together to investigate clues about what actually happened.

This was fun and funny, and had plenty of action to keep the kids interested, dialog and story, it’s all around quite a lot of fun. You don’t have to know much about Pokémon to follow the movie, though there are jokes and references that Pokémon followers will get that others want (I knew just enough to get a few of them, but I’m sure I missed many). Recommended, and fun for the kids.

GAME REVIEW: Her Story

written by David Steffen

herstoryHer Story is a keyword searching mystery game developed by Sam Barlow and released in 2015.



The game begins with you looking at a console program on what appears to be a Windows 95 machine.  The program has a search box with the word “murder” in it, and 4 video clips are shown as search results–it is a police video archival program.  Each of the videos are samples from interviews of a woman after the disappearance and apparent murder of her husband Simon.  The videos only show her answers to questions, but not the questions themselves, and the videos are all transcribed and searchable for keywords, but for each search you can only view up to five video results.
20161230132335_1What actually happened?  If you can find enough of the videos in the database, taken from 7 different interviews, you’ll be able to piece together the story and figure out everything.  As you learn more you will gather more ideas about what to search for–people’s names, location names, or key objects that might be referenced as evidence are all of especial importance, since those are likely to be the topic of interview questions.  The game is finished when you have watched enough of the videos to piece together what happened–you can keep playing to find all of the videos if you like.

The lone actor in the game is Viva Seifert, who I thought did a good job of portraying the character–you feel like you know her by the end, and her little conversational and behavioral quirks.

20161230131356_1The game is a really interest take on storytelling, watching a story out of order and told by a possibly unreliable narrator.  You hear the story in associative order rather than chronological and that makes it quite interesting. It makes you think about the problems with hearing just part of a story out of context. Trying to think of new keywords to search feels sort of like you’re participating in the interviews, trying to figure out what questions to ask.

Visuals
Video footage on top of a Windows 95 style interface, appropriate for the story.

Audio
Just the voice that goes with the recordings.

Challenge
Not challenging in the way that most games are, but it makes you think in a different way–trying to figure out keywords is kindof like trying to figure out what questions to ask in an interrogation.  Trying to uncover the whole story takes some work, but mostly is about perseverence and wanting to find out the whole story.

Story
The game is pretty much ALL story, with the element of a possible unreliable narrator (police interview regarding a murder investigation gives an air of unreliable narrator).  So story is everything for this, and uncovering it piece by piece.

Session Time
The game keeps track of what videos you’ve watched, and it keeps the result of your most recent query loaded if you quit and bring it up again, so it’s easy to shut down and pick up where you left off.  Most of the videos are pretty short, sometimes as much as a few minutes, but often only a few seconds, so it’s pretty easy to take  a break within a couple of minutes.

Playability
Simple controls–just a text searching window, then click on video to play, can add keywords to help searching control.  If you can use any kind of graphical user interface, you should be able to use this pretty easily.

Replayability
Once you have watched a certain portion of the videos, then the game offers you the chance to reach the ending.  Beyond that there is still some extra playing in terms of trying to find all of the videos, so there’s a bit of replaying (if not much).  This extra play is facilitated in that when you reach the ending, you get some codes to be able to view up to 15 results instead of 5, or to view a random video.  Note that if you want to see all of the videos, I believe it’s necessary to use the random video command to reach a few of them.

Originality
Never seen another game based around keyword searching in video archives, so definitely felt very original to me.

Playtime
The game took about 3 hours for me to find all of the videos.  This felt like a good length because I was finding interesting new footage to the end.

Overall
Neat original idea.  The possibly unreliable narrator coupled with hearing the story in basically associative order rather than chronological made it interesting to try to find more pieces of the story to get the whole picture.  This had me engrossed from beginning to end.  $6 on Steam.

 

 

BOOK REVIEW: Dead Ever After

written by David Steffen

Dead Ever After is a romance/mystery/horror novel from 2013, the thirteenth and final book in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris (which is the basis of the HBO show True Blood).  The previous books are all reviewed here earlier on the Diabolical Plots feed.

At the end of the previous book, Sookie Stackhouse used the cluviel dor, her one-use magical fairy item (which grants one and only one wish) to revive her dying boss and friend Sam Merlotte.  Meanwhile, Sookie’s relationship with Eric has grown rocky.  Among other reasons, Eric’s maker had arranged for him to be married to another vampire, despite Sookie’s marriage to him, and vampire custom strongly demands that he go along for the marriage.  He had hoped that she would use the cluviel dor to help him dodge the responsibility without consequences.

Meanwhile, Sookie’s longtime-friend-become-enemy Arlene has been freed from prison by a mysterious group with a vendetta against Sookie, urging her to visit Sookie at Merlotte’s and open their relationship again.  The meeting (unsurprisingly) does not go well, and Sookie is still trying to figure out why the visit when Arlene’s corpse is found in the dumpster behind the bar.

This was easily one of my favorite books in the series, which was a relief after the last couple of books in the series became rather a slog to read through.  The mystery behind who is plotting against Sookie was certainly interesting, and for the first time in the series you get to see the story from points of view besides Sookie’s as we get some dramatic irony by seeing them plotting their moves and then we see the consequences of those actions in Sookie’s sections.  And early on in the book you get a glimpse of someone who has apparently sold their soul to a devil, which lends a new element to the series that we haven’t seen before.

The one thing that did get on my nerves a bit was that since it was the last book it seemed like they had to get every character back in the book again to wrap things up–some of them felt like more than a bit of a stretch.  But, really, that was a pretty minor thing.

I have enjoyed reading enough of the series that I was quite relieved to see that the final book of the series went out with a bang!

BOOK REVIEW: Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

written by David Steffen

Deadlocked is a romance/mystery/horror novel from 2012, the twelfth in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris (which is the basis of the HBO show True Blood).  The previous books are all reviewed here earlier on the Diabolical Plots feed.

In the last book, Eric, Pam, and Sookie succeeded in killing the vampire Victor, the representative of the king of this vampire district.  As the book starts, Felipe de Castro, the aforementioned king, visits the area to investigate the disappearance.  Eric hosts a party in his honor, and during the party, a dead woman is found on the lawn of Eric’s house.  Meanwhile, Sookie is struggling with the quesiton of what to do with the magical fairy artifact left to her by her grandmother which will grant her one wish.

This one was definitely a pickup from the last book (which was in my opinion probably the weakest in the series), and there was lots of tension built in from the beginning which definitely kept my interest throughout.  The mystery involving the dead woman was… a little hard to follow, seemed like it was built backwards from the resolution, if that made sense?  Like one of those locked-room mysteries that is interesting to unravel but is also kind of absurd in retrospect.

One book left in the series!

BOOK REVIEW: Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

written by David Steffen

Dead Reckoning is a romance/mystery/horror novel from 2011, the eleventh in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris (which is the basis of the HBO show True Blood).  The previous books are all reviewed here earlier on the Diabolical Plots feed.

Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte’s (the bar where she works).  Before Sookie gets to the bottom of that, she finds out that her vampire boyfriend Eric is plotting to kill the oppressive representative of his vampire district, and she is drawn into the plot.  She has also been chafing at the blood-bond between her and Eric that makes a telepathic feedback loop between the two of them.

I thought this was one of the weaker books in the series.  Most of the books have a lot of subplots but it still feels tied together around some central conceit or main plotline.  This one… just felt scattered.  And, Eric feels very different in this one.  Eric has always been a bit opaque and frustrating (not in a bad way, I mean) but in this book he just struck me as being purposefully obtuse on every damned thing, that I just wanted him to go away and stop being the current love interest.  If the series hadn’t already ended by the time I read this book, I probably would’ve stopped reading in the midst one and not kept going.  (But since I knew there were only 2 more books I did keep reading).

 

BOOK REVIEW: Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

written by David Steffen

Dead and Gone is a romance/mystery/horror novel from 2009, the ninth in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris (which is the basis of the HBO show True Blood).  The previous books are all reviewed here earlier on the Diabolical Plots feed.

Before the series of books, the vampires of the world had publicly revealed their existence, but since then Sookie has learned of many other supernatural beings living among us as humans.  Among them are the shapeshifters, including werewolves and wereanimals of other types.  Now that they’ve had time to observe how the vampire revelation has gone, the shapeshifters have finally decided to make their big public reveal, outing themselves to the public both in a general sense and with individual members of communities revealing themselves at once.  The reveal in Bon Temps seems to go pretty well, until Sookie’s werepanther sister-in-law is found crucified outside Merlotte’s where she works.

The King of Nevada has now conquered all of Louisiana, killing all of the vampire hierarchy there except for Eric who he has kept on as sheriff, so that brings its own set of conflicts.

And Sookie learns that her fairy great-grandfather Niall is engaged in a major power struggle.

Never a dull day in the life of Sookie!

I thought it was really interesting to see this book tackle another great life-changing event with the reveals of the shifters to the world.  It makes sense, real worlds are always changing even if we’re used to them being somewhat static in book worlds.  There are enough conflicts all going on in parallel that there’s never a chance to get bored, and you have the mystery of who crucified Crystal to keep the reader engaged as well.

(Only minor quibble, as with the last book, is the tendency to call any conflict a “war”, even if there are only a handful of participants and the conflict lasts only a short period of time)

BOOK REVIEW: From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

written by David Steffen

From Dead to Worse is a romance/mystery/horror novel from 2008, the eighth in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris (which is the basis of the HBO show True Blood).  The previous books are all reviewed here earlier on the Diabolical Plots feed.

After surviving the deadly bombing of the vampire summit, and surviving the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sookie just wants things to get back to some semblance of normality.  But her boyfriend Quinn (a weretiger) is missing, she learns that she is descended from fairies and meets her great-grandfather who is fairy royalty, she is recruited to help investigate a series of mysterious werewolf disappearances, and the vampire King of Nevada seeks to wrest control from the wounded and bankrupted Queen Sophie-Ann of Lousiana.  So, well, I guess that is normality for Sookie.

Another action-packed book with a lot of threads all tied together in it.  I especially enjoyed seeing the vampire power struggle because up until now the vampire hierarchy has been relatively stable despite knowing that vampires have a tendency for violent scheming.  All Together Dead (the previous book) is a really hard one to top in the series, and I don’t think this one did, but it was quite good, interesting throughout.

My one pet peeve is that Sookie seems to have a tendency to call just about anything a “war”.  A dozen werewolves get into a fight that is over in less than an hour?  That’s a war, apparently (I would call that a battle).  And so, when Sookie promises in the narration that there’s going to be a war, the result is anticlimactic, finished within a chapter.

BOOK REVIEW: All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris

written by David Steffen

All Together Dead is a romance/mystery/horror novel from 2007, the seventh in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris (which is the basis of the HBO show True Blood).  The previous books are all reviewed here earlier on the Diabolical Plots feed.

Sookie is invited to a national vampire summit as part of Queen Sophie-Anne of Louisiana’s entourage.  Sophie-Ann knows of Sookie’s mindreading abilities and wishes to user her ability to give her an advantage in expected power struggles within the vampire hierarchy.  Sophie-Anne stands accused of murdering her husband (during the events of the last book) and one of the events happening at the summit is her trial, with charges pressed by her husband’s second-in-command.  Also at the summit is Barry, the only other mindreader she knows, who is now employed in a similar position as Sookie to use as an advantage in vampire scheming.  The anti-vampire church the Fellowship of the Sun has been ramping up their hostilities against vampires lately, and so security is extra tight.

Given the premise, it’s no surprise that there’s a lot going on in this book.  Vampires are known for their scheming ways, and so filling a huge hotel with the highest ranking vampires from opposing factions all across the country is bound to be tense and complicated and potentially violent.  There are schemes on schemes and there is plenty to keep the reader occupied trying to predict who is behind what.  In this book, you get to see quite a bit more detail about the internal vampire hierarchy, and there are a lot of other singular moments that let you get a better feel for the broader worldbuilding that we have typically only been able to get small glimpses of from only knowing a few vampires in small communities.

Easily the best in the series so far, by a longshot.  And, major bonus, there is nothing resembling this book in the TV series, so it is all fresh even to a TV viewer.