For All Mankind: Following the reccommendations, I marathoned the first two seasons of For All Mankind, aka what Ron Moore (and friends) did next (after BSG), which is an AU starting from the premise that the Soviets get to the moon first, therefore the Space Race doesn't end, and history starts to alter in small and big ways from therel. (One of the big ways being that as part of catching up with Soviet progressiveness in that regard, women enter the US space programm far earlier.) naraht has said this is also a soap opera, which is true, in a good way; the relationships drama certainly forms a solid part of the narrative, but it's expertly done. (So far.) Non-romantic relationships are treated as important both on a Doylist and Watsonian level, and while space exploration continuing in this AU is clearly a good thing overall, the show doesn't use the premise to solve all the rl problems; as of the second season, which is set in 1983, acceptance of same sex relationships hasn't moved faster than it did in rl, for example.

You can tell that Moore and several of the other scriptwriters cut their teeth in Star Trek long before Danielle quotes the TOS episode A Taste of Armageddon in the s2 finale by despite things getting pretty dark at times, humanity's better instincts prevail. Also by Starfleet NASA, by and large, being an organisation where most people, be they astronauts or engineers, are brave, loyal, and devoted to each other, so you get why people would want to join even beyond the romance of visiting the moon. (Though I have to say, congrats to the GCI department, all those space shots are gorgeous.) When they do fail each other (think Margo re: Aleida in s1), there's usually a good explanation, and also fate gives them another chance. (They get called out on it, though.) And you get all the space tropes - difficult landings, losing contact, being thrown of course, having to do repairs on a moving vehicle, etc. - even the spoilery thing I last saw on The Expanse and before that read in Arthur C. Clarke. One sign of how well the show worked for me: I was never tempted to fast forward through the Earthbound centric episodes but found them just as gripping.

Another thing which impressed me: several examples of the "both sides have a point" trope, viscerally so when Danielle visited her sister-in-law in s2.

Sometimes I wasn't sure whether I read the episode right, but then subsequent events proved the creative time knew what it was doing. For example: ( Now it gets too spoilery to talk about without a cut. )

Lastly: talking about a non space related change to rl events in this AU: John Lennon survives. This isn't a plot point but something of a recurring gag since he keeps popping up on tv briefly when people switch channels. Apparantly in this AU, John in response to the escalating Cold War gets back into peace activisim and organizes a big concert as part of this. Here my suspension of disbelief broke down, not re: the surival or the return to peace activism but the concert organizing. Look, he'd be terrific at promoting something like that, if properly motivated. But organizational skills and the patience and discipline it takes to get a mega event like that together... nah. Of course, Yoko did and does have organizational skills, but a mega concert in 1983 would have required diplomacy and talking various other superstars with big egos into it and hm, I just don't see her as Bob Geldof, either, is what I'm saying.


I also read Fortune's Favor, the third volume of Jo Graham's ongoing space saga The Calpurnian Wars. Like the previous books, this one introduces us to another of those planets in uncomfortable coexistence with the expansion-hungry Calpurnia (aka, ever more apparant, Space Rome). Speaking of AUs, it strikes me that one way to describe this saga is "the story of the late Roman Republic, but a) from everyone else's pov, and b) everyone else wins". In the last volume, we basically got space!Gaul winning against Caesar, and now it's Space!Egypt's turn, confronted with two of the conspirators (space!Caesar still got assasinated in between books), Cassian and Junia. Cassian is this volume's main antagonist, but as ever in this series, the attraction and narrative interest lies in our heroes and the setting and not in the imperialist menace du jour. In this case, our main character is Caralys, a courtesan, allied to one of the main influential families on Menaechmi. This book is also where characters from the previous volumes start to interact, so Caralys teams up with Bister from Sounding Dark and Boral from War Lady in order to a) rescue her lover's kidnapped son, and b) ensure her world's freedom from blackmail by warlord. It's a very satisfying adventure, and I had a particular soft spot for the subplot involving Caralys' lover and Boral. As for Caralys, impressive as her weaving threads together to get the rescue going is, my favourite scene of hers involves something that I think is incredibly difficult to pull off both on a Doylist and Watsonian level: confront a character who has given our pov every reason to despise them so far when they are down on their luck and react with kindness and insight instead of crushing them. In a way that doesn't come across as naive or doormat-like but as going to the core of the problem in a way that can make an actual change for the better instead of continuing a vicious cycle. Perhaps because of all the rl viciousness right now, I treasure such scenes and characters all the more.

Like the previous books, the novel does tell its own adventure, and you get the necessary information about Bister and Boral in it if you haven't read the two previous ones, but the narrative texture is much richer if you have. I really enjoyed it reading it, and am looking forward to the next story of the saga!

Lastly, a DS9 vid rec: The Wrong Side, a delightful and charming Garak/Bashir vid.

Second in the series The Calpurnian Wars. (My review of the first volume, "Sounding Dark", is here.) This second novel takes place in the same universe, but offers a different set of characters, though the villains are the same, as the series offers planets that were settled eons ago and developed into very different cultures, with one, Calpurnia, seeking to dominate and rule the (unwilling) rest. This novel's main planet is called Morrigan, the one originally least settled and furthest away from the others, and the culture that developed accordingly has separated procreation completely from finding a partner, i.e. the later is entirely by choice, but in order to keep the gene pool varied, you have children artificially with an anonymous (to you) genetic match. They also have "electromancers" (who get the kind of treatment telepaths get in the Babylon 5 universe, i.e. second class citizens with strict rules and severly limited rights) and "dreamers" (essentially psychics; no limitations of civil rights).

Our heroine is Sandrine, who starts out as part of the military, and has an on/off intense love affair with Jauffre, an electromancer. As the novel starts with the mysterious death of her mentor, the head of government (essentially), a murder Sandrine and Jauffre must solve with a ticking time clock as it's (justly) feared the Calpurnians will take advantage of the situation to attempt an invasion, the novel feels as what happens when you mix space opera, a murder mystery, and a conclave, and I mean this is a compliment. It's entertaining, suspenseful, the characters are all endearing - this time I had no clear favourite, as opposed to the previous novel -, and I continue to love the layered world building, i.e. Morrigan society has its problems unrelated to the potential invasion (see also: electromancer situation), and we're even given a motive for why the Calpurnians keep trying to expand that's not "because they're evil", with the characters pointing out winning space battles won't solve this basic problem unless said reason changes.

Perhaps it's because I'm familiar with Jo Graham's non-sci fi novels, but I felt there are distinct shades of the Ptolemaic world to be found on Morrigan (Irish planet name not withstanding), what with "the Presence", which, depending on your belief, is either an AI or the ghost of the late mythic War Lord Alexander Khreesos, to be found in the Soma Sema. And when the novel named last volume's main opponent "Gnea" and this volume's outward menace "Iulus", I could not help but wonder whether volume 3 's woman or man will bear some variation of the name Marcus/Marca. If this whole saga started out as a playful "Ancient history but in SPACE and with less tragic endings", I wouldn't be surprised. But even if it didn't, it's a story that shows suspense can be had without grimdarkness, established relationships are as compelling to read about as first time stories, and that you can tell individual adventures standing on their own which still form part of a greater narrative. I can't wait for the next volume.

For the second year, due to the pandemic conditions some of the nativity scenes we used to visit in Bamberg were closed, but as last year, people were inventive and found some alternative places in addition to the larger churches which still showed them. Thus: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and only good thoughts for other friends, with my annual nativitvy scenes pic spam:




( A lot of creativity beneath the cut )


In other news: Yuletide is live!

I received two beautiful gifts in the same fandom, to wit, Jo Graham's novel, Stealing Fire, post-novel fic in both cases, since I had asked for the fleshing out and future life of one of the characters who in the novel is still a child:


a wedding dress or something white (2907 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stealing Fire - Jo Graham
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Chloe (Stealing Fire)
Additional Tags: Future Fic
Summary:

Chloe considers the future.

Daughter of a Rose (1132 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stealing Fire - Jo Graham
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bagoas/Lydias of Miletus (Stealing Fire), Chloe/Lydias of Miletus (Stealing Fire)
Characters: Chloe (Stealing Fire)
Additional Tags: Character Study, One Shot, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Yuletide, Yuletide 2021, Yuletide Treat
Summary:

Chloe's love of roses came from her mother.

I also watched the latest Discovery episode, but it might take a while till I can review it, because: Yuletide!

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.

So, of course I returned from England with a lot more books. In brief, my reactions:

Suzanna Dunn: The May Bride. I've liked Suzanna Dunn's previous novels in varying degrees; this falls for me under "interesting, also very frustrating, and I'm not sure what the author really wanted to get at so probably a failure - but one who did hold my attention a lot". The novel is told in first person by Jane Seymour (the third of Henry VIII.'s queens, aka the one who died in childbirth), but isn't about Jane, or her marriage with Henry at all. This isn't new in Dunn's work - for example, her Katherine Parr centric novel is told by the Duchess of Suffolk - but unusual in that the narrator is a far more known figure than the people the story she tells is actually about. Which is something very obscure in Tudor England history, though readers of Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell novels might recall it, because Hilary Mantel brings it up a couple of times, to wit: the first marriage of Jane's older brother Edward (who'd later go on to be the Lord Protector for her son, his nephew, before losing power and head), which ended in a major scandal because his wife supposedly had two sons by his own father, Sir John Seymour. (Historically, the wife ended in a nunnery, the sons bastardized but later re-legitimized - the later Seymours are actually descended from them - , and Edward went on to marry Anne Stanhope.) Now, in Dunn's novel, teenage Jane Seymour is absolutely fascinated by her brother's new bride, downright crushes on her, and is very sad when the ostensible love match gets worse and worse. Also, Dunn, as opposed to Mantel, lets Sir John Seymour be innocent (Mantel in the introductions to the dramatization of her novels, by contrast, points out Jane didn't go to her father's funeral and that having an affair with his daughter-in-law remains the thing he's best known for), and mostly blames Edward's lack of passion and later issue ridden paranoid jealousy; his first wife does have a one night stand with someone but not with his father. Leaving aside historical likelihood, within the universe of the novel it's psychologically plausible enough told, and teenage Jane who only gradually becomes aware of what is actually going on makes for a good narrator. However, the last fifth or so of the novel try to connect all of this with why Jane later marries Henry VIII, and this is where the author loses me. In her version, Jane, feeling guilty for various reasons, but also for not standing up for her sister-in-law when the later was sent to a nunnery, comes to court, serves Katherine of Aragorn as a lady-in-waiting just when Anne Boleyn becomes a factor, identifies Katherine of Aragorn with her former sister-in-law (also called Katherine, btw, Katherine Filliol), and, when Anne's star starks to sink years later, decides to avenge both Katherines by making Henry marry herself. Just how marrying Henry is supposed to be a blow for the sisterhood and revenge on brother Edward (who profits from this marriage along with brother Tom) for putting aside his first wife with an unjust (in the novel) accusation is beyond me. I'm all for Jane Seymour actually having an agenda instead of just being the tool of her brothers and producing Henry's longed for son at the price of her own death, but this one really lacks all logic, emotional or otherwise. What the novel mostly achieved, in the positive sense, is making me interested in Edward Seymour, who is by far the most interesting character in it. It's rare to find him in Tudor fiction that's not dealing with his brother Tom's and the young, teenage Elizabeth, and he certainly had some valuable reforms to his credit while otoh mishandling the Scots disastrously; keeping Henry's favour beyond his sister's life was more than any of the other in-laws of the other wives managed, especially considering Edward was a determined Protestant. But this was all much later, and Dunn's version of a young Edward both very competent and very emotionally mixed up, incapable of handling a bad marriage, was new to me.

The title, by the way, refers both to Katherine Filliol when marrying Edward and Jane Seymour (who of course married Henry VIII immediately after Anne Boleyn's execution - in May). It's just a shame that the author tries to enforce a parallel and motivation which refuses to appear.


Stuart Moore: Civil War. This is a novelization of the Civil War storyline from Marvel Comics; the novelization must have been only relatively recently published (I'll get to why in a minute) whereas the Civil War storyline in comics was published in 2006 and 2007. I reviewed the most important trade collections dealing with it in the following posts: Road To Civil War, Spider-Man: Civil War and Casualties of War/Rubikon, and Civil War: Iron Man; if you're interested in details about the original storyline, what it was about and why it was so controversial, check these out. Suffice it to say here that among various problems it had was that the various authors in this multiple comics characters extravaganza was that the various authors were quite obviously not on the same page as far as the characterisations of the main participants were concerned, nor, in fact, the characterisation of the main issue, the Superhuman Registration Act. So I was quite interested what a single author with years of hindsight would make of it. Given that just about every major Marvel hero and their spin-off had been involved, streightening this out to form a coherent book was not an enviable task. Stuart Moore focused on Mark Millar's main storyline, which I suppose makes sense but still unfortunate in that many of the most interesting and complex chapters of the Civil War saga weren't written by Mark Millar at all. He does include information from some of the tie-in stories, notably JMS' Spider-Man ones, and works them into Millar's main series. The main povs are: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Steve Rogers/Captain America and Susan Storm. Something that's immediate noticable if you're familiar with the original comic books is novelization did some updates, both within and without the Marvelverse. The original Civil War storyline happened before Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane was retconned by editorial fiat into non-existence (on a Doylist level; Watsonian wise, it was retconned by a deal with the devil to save Aunt May, I kid you not). The novelization, however, goes by the new continuity, i.e. Peter never was married to Mary Jane, so Mary Jane accordingly had to be written out of the story she was originally a part of... until the last third, when she does show up again and gets to help Peter and Aunt May. The other within-universe updates are nods to the cinematic versions of the characters; thus, Christine Everhart, a movieverse character, shows up among the reporters interviewing Tony who does remember his one night stand with her (I might add the novel treats her more respectfully than Iron Man II does), and also recalls coming out as Iron Man at a press conference after her questions (which happened in the first Iron Man film but not in the comics - he did come out as Iron Man quite a while before the Civil Wars storyline, but not in the same fashion). Similarly, Peter Parker remembers MJ flirting with him and Harry Osborn when visiting them in the apartment they shared, which sounds to me more like a nod towards the first Sam Raimi film than to the comic book continuity. And then there's one update that's outside the Marvelverse. Now, Marvel comics usually don't have identifiable real life Presidents, they have fictional Presidents. (With exceptions; back when Obama became President there was one Spider-Man story set specifically around his inauguration, not least due to to the fact Obama had called Spider-Man his favourite comic book hero shortly before that.) Nonetheless, back when Civil War was published, many people saw it as a reaction to the Patriot Act and George W. Bush as President. Stuart Moore's novelization, however, sets the story specifically in the current day US, with Obama as President, not Bush. (Obamacare is referenced in dialogue.) The most depressing aspect about this to me is probably the realisation that it works as a story under either President. What with the NSA, the Obama government repeatedly described as the most control-obsessed and paranoid since Richard Nixon's, Guantanomo still not closed and Whistleblowers faring worse, not better, under Obama than under Bush? It works.

Other observations: writing-quality wise this is a good tie-in; not better and not worse than avarage fanfiction fleshing out canon scenes. If Stuart Moore can't sell some things - like Sue's reconciliation with her husband, Reed Richards, at the end - it's the problem of the source. (Mind you, both Mr. and Mrs. Richards fare better here charactersation wise than they do in the original comics, see my linked reviews; Sue, the unconvincing reconciliation at the end aside, is written consistently and sympathetically, while Reed Richards isn't saddled with such clunkers signifying evil as "hooray for MacCarthy!".) What surprised me, given that Millar's main series of which this is a novelization certainly favours Cap's side over Iron Man's, is that Tony Stark emerges as the better written character, not because he doesn't do the stuff he does in the original comics - he does - but because Moore in his pov chapters shows him as emotional, conflicted over what he's doing but convinced it's the right thing and because the alternative is worse (it's also the difference between visual - the comics showed him mainly in armour, thereby emphasizing the threatening aspect - versus the written - we're repeatedly in his head). Whereas Captain America, called "Cap" in his pov characters and never "Steve" which is probably already saying something, is written as in the right but without any interior conflict (not least because Moore doesn't use any of the Cage and Bendis stuff re: the Captain America/Iron Man relationship; we're told they used to be friends but don't see it from Cap's pov, who instead mentally compares punching Tony with punching Hitler). With every other pov character - Sue, Peter, Tony - being conflicted and torn during the course of the narrative - this makes Cap the least interesting, which is a shame. Especially since I guess one reason why this novel gets published now is to interest people who only know the characters from the movieverse in the comics (hence also the movieverse nods). Anyway, this also means that the main emotional breakup happening in the novel is the one between Peter Parker and Tony Stark, not the one between Steve and Tony; which reminds me that relationship actually was interesting before getting retconned out of existence along with Peter's marriage and other signs of adulthood. Oh, comics. You do provide so much engagement and frustration at the same time.

Jo Graham and Melissa Scott: Silver Bullet. The third of these authors' "Order of the Air" series; like its two predecessors, see here , a great adventure novel set in the first half of the 20th century, with an engaging ensemble of characters. By now, we've arrived in 1932 and there are ominous historical rumblings. That one part of the plot is kicked off by a German-Jewish collector of antiquities wanting to sell in order to leave the country is maybe predictable, but far less predictable and very interesting to me was that the bad guys aren't operetta Nazis clicking their heels but various (American) people from the American Legion, and that with the country still suffering from the Great Depression the way some of the rightwing extremist ideas gain traction has uncomfortable present day parallels. (And not just because chief baddie Pelley is talking about a coalition of the willing, borrowing a Dubya phrase.) As in the other novels, there is a mixture of adventures flying and magical peril going on, though in this novel the magical peril is scaled back (though still there - it's clear there will be a long term arc with one of the villain's schemes) in favour of technological peril, since of of the plot MacGuffins is a malfunctioning Nikola Tesla invention at Tesla's old laboratory in Colorado (no, not the invention from The Prestige, she says evilly) which the villains would like to get their hands on, while our heroes manage to recruit the aged Tesla himself. (BTW, this affords the opportunity for a nice Sanctuary in joke when Tesla has to deny he's a vampire.) The flirting between Mitch and the newest addition to the team, Stasi, which started in the previous novel has now reached the serious romance stage, and given Mitch's backstory there are some obstacles which, however, are sensitively dealt with (by the narrative) and gloriously overcome (by the characters). While I still love Alma and Lewis, I must admit Stasi, conwoman, thief and medium, is pushing all my Amanda-from-Highlander buttons and has become my favourite, plus Mitch is very endearing as well, so their scenes were particular highlights. But really, there is no character in the team who doesn't hold my interest and sympathy, and I hope for many more of their adventures to come!

First, a book:

Jo Graham: The General's Mistress. Set during the later years of the French Revolution and the start of Napoleon's Empire, this is the story of Elza, aka Ida St. Elme, a young adventuress - or rather I should say it is the beginning of her story, the first volume of several about her long and exciting life that had her go, as the author once put it, from party girl to the Napeoleonic equivalent of Judi Dench's M. Elza - who is a historical character, not an invented one - starts out in the kind of trap which you'd think doomed her in her era - married to a man who was after her money and ruthless enough to abduct and "seduce" her at age 12, two children before she grows up herself, no family support because her mother never got over the death of Elza's brother Charles when they were children and only accepts Elza when she's playing said brother. But Elza decides this won't be her life any longer. Her story is one of constant transformation - mistress, actress (she's not very good at it, but it helps paying the rent), con woman, soldier - and one in which apparant disadvantages are turned around. Being able to be "Charles" becomes part of her identity and freedom instead of a way to deal with her mother. Taking a job as a fake oracle in order to make some cash allows her to discover she actually does have psychic abilities, though this isn't easy for her to accept; being a child of the Enlightenment, Elza is a natural skeptic. (This is also what makes Elza's story part of the world created in the author's other novels, all set in different eras and based on the premise of reincarnation, though each novel also tells its own story.) Sex can be a commodity to trade with or a joy; it becomes her choice. Speaking of sex, the novel isn't coy about its sex scenes, and manages something that unfortunately not that many erotic scenes, either in fanfic or in pro fic, accomplish: make them (an important) part of the characterisation of the people involved instead of feeling random and interchangable with, as the saying goes Any Two Guys (or Gals).

Something else: rare (though not unheard of) for a heroine in a novel is that Elza really is leaving her children behind in order to achieve her own freedom (and with her detested husband). Most fiction in any media has the ability to be a a good mother who puts her child(ren) above everything as a make or break criterium for the likeability of a female character. (Whereas male characters who are lousy fathers but in other ways sympathetic are as common as dirt.) So letting Elza do this and not trying to excuse it, but also not punishing her narratively for it, was an unusual and I think honest narrative choice on the part of the author.

Lastly, Elza starts out having little to no interest in politics, no matter of which country, and then slowly and surely comes to care because the system of the society she lives in affects her directly. By the end of the novel, she's gone from drifter to active participant, and we get an inkling how she might end up as a legendary spy. I can't wait to read her further adventures in print!

Secondly, tv:

Elementary 1.04.: what I said about appreciating the show's way of playing the Holmes-the-recovering-drug-addict angle? Doubly applies in this episode. Damn, JLM is good. Ditto for the Holmes and Watson relationship, the way they start to affect each other, with Joan starting to apply the Holmesian method to people in her private life (and btw, the fact that Joan Watson interacts with a variety of handsome men as John Watson in many an incarnation did with the ladies is a neat gender equality circumstance) while Sherlock has started to play by her rules as far as the sober companionship is concerned and trusts in her intelligence. And this is where Gregson (btw, good choice to use Gregson instead of Lestrade, thus no Rupert Graves comparisons apply from the outset) and his relationship with Holmes, after some hints in previous episodes, gets fleshed out on both sides. That was a great scene in Gregson's office. ( Something more spoilery. )