Jo Graham and Melissa Scott: Oath Bound

The latest (splendid) volume in what is definitely my favourite still ongoing book series. It takes place in January 1936, in Alexandria (which resonated extra deeply with me due to my Yuletide story ), Palermo and Ethiopia, features the series trademark mixture of flying and archaeology mixed with a bit of the occult, and has our heroes encounter what strikes me as the largest number of real life historical figures so far, with the two authors doing an admirable job of not going for the obvious and avoiding clichés which almost every movie, tv series or book trying to do the same fall into.

( It gets spoilery from here )

In conclusion: when is the next volume due again? I want moooore.

January Meme: (Some) Plot twists which genuinely surprised me, and what made them work

Obviously more of them in days past when I was less genre wise, starting with the granddaddy of pop culture plot twists, so to speak: when I was a wee selenak sitting in the cinema and hearing Darth Vader say "Obi-Wan never told you the truth about your father, did he?", I had no idea. I also thought that was a fantastic twist and never doubted it for a second. Only a few years ago did I learn some viewers thought Vader was lying until Return of the Jedi was released, because Obi-Wan = hero and Vader = villain. That never occurred to me. Once I heard it, it suddenly made so much sense, put a whole new light on everything and galvanized my interest into the whole Star Wars saga to no end. The equation for young me was simple. Hero avenges dead father whom the audience has never met and hence doesn't care for on villain in their eventual showdown which of course the hero will win = predictable and boring. Dead father is not dead but villain himself? Previously ultra good dead mentor a liar about a key fact? INTERESTING.

Of course, that particular plot twist was so often repeated in other media and is now so well known that new watchers can't ever experienc e it in the same way. (It's good to have been born in 1969, sometimes.) Let's talk about some lesser known twists which still surprised somewhat older (but unspoiled) me in a good way.

( Twisty spoilers for Alias, Farscape, Babylon 5 and The Sixth Sense )

The other days