We got a lot done yesterday and today, Mark and I sorted through a bunch of stuff on Tuesday, and talked to Ralph (Mom's stepson) and figuring out which things are his/his sister's, and then which withim that what people actually want. Legally, he and Liz own the flat and some of the contents (specified\). In practice, there are things none of us want, partly because of geography: Ralph doesn#t need furniture, and he's the only one of us who lives anywhere nearby. So it's mostly what has sentimental value, like Simon's family china.
To our London friends: If we get enough done today, we might still be able to see people tomorrow or Saturday, but I don't know yet.
I also got into a stupid argument Tuesday afternoon with Ralph's wife Jenny, who was trying to convince me that my brother and I had some koind of obligation to arrange for clearing out everything that nobody wants, so Liz (Ralph's s sister) can sell the flat. This started with me telling her that we hadn't traveled from the US to be unpaid labor clearing out a flat for someone else to sell, and then on the third time she cirled back to telling her that by insulting my recently deceased mother she wasn't helping. |She said she wasn't trying to help, I told her to at least stop hurting then, and walked away from the conversation. My brother is one of the executor's of the will, so maybe has some obligations here, but Ralph and Liz own the flat now--my mother had a life tenancy and then it went too her stepchildren. I emerged a while later to find that Mark, Ralph, and Jenny had made a bit more progress in figuring things out.
They left here at about five, and Cattitude and Adrian went shopping to buy a few groceries.
liv, who is staying part-time in a flat half a mile from here, came over for the evening, and we had a very good, long visit. Adrian cooked dinner in an unfamiliar kitchen; I'd checked with Live a fw hours earlier about dietary restrictions. The original plan was just for her to come over here, where we can sit in the back garden, but one advantage of that is being able to comfortably share meals with people.
Wednesday was productive, sorting through papers and Mom's jewelry and a few oddments. The will leaves a few specific pieces of jewelry to Simon's daughter and two of my cousins, so we need(ed) to locate those. Beyond that we can do whatever seems good, and had agreed to offer things we didn't want to our cousins. We've found one piece Adrian is taking, and there's a bracelet of Grandma's that my cousin Janet asked us to sell her. If we find it, it's Janet's, as a gift.
After Mark and Linza left, the three of us decompressed a bit. After supper, I sorted through a bunch of [photos, pulling out a few that \I want and/or thought \mark would want to least see. My mother's youth hostel card, signed by her and Grandpa, was in an envelope, along with a 1949 student discount subway pass, which got her free or discounted trips home from school. Thirty-odd years later, they were giving us passes good for free trips both ways, but only after the first few weeks of the semester.
In going through papers, and figuring out what we need, including things the executors and Mom's account might need, we have so far found four social security cards. What seems to be the original has a number stamped on it rather than neatly printed. One of the others makes sense in that it has her second married name on it--Eve Rosenzweig Kugler--but four still seems like a lot.
June was a terrific month, I started at home in Montreal for Scintillation, then towards the end of the month flew to Sweden to take a boat to the Åland islands in Finland for Archipelacon 2, this year’s Eurocon. I saw lots of friends and was on a bunch of interesting panels, and it was just terrific. I read thirteen very assorted books, and they were mostly great too.
The Space Between Worlds — Micaiah Johnson (2020) This is a very odd book. It’s SF set after an apocalypse and it’s about people who can travel to alternate universes, but only those where their alternate selves are dead. You know how some books are vast sweeps of epic and others are intricate miniatures painted with a tiny brush? This is the latter. It’s interested in only two towns (the rest of the post-apocalyptic future world essentially doesn’t exist) and in a very small number of people, though in multiple versions of all of them. It’s very, very good, at the scale it’s working on, but it’s an intimate scale that’s unusual for SF, and which sometimes runs into oddities with genre expectations. It’s slightly claustrophobic, but memorable and effective and very compellingly written. I won’t be reading the sequel, I’ve definitely had enough of this world and these people, but I will be looking out for what Johnson does next.
Olive in Italy — Moray Dalton (1909) I’m familiar with Dalton as a writer of cosy mysteries, but this is a book about a girl without family going to Italy and, to my surprise, having a thoroughly bad time. This is free on Gutenberg but I can’t recommend it, it’s depressing and just not very interesting.
The Secret of Chimneys — Agatha Christie (1925) Technically a re-read because I read all of these when I was a kid, but I didn’t remember it at all. A country house, love letters used for blackmail, any number of murdered bodies… it’s all nonsense of course, full of the ridiculous implausibility Christie does so well, and this early in her career she took it more seriously and doesn’t leave any dangling loose ends. Not a good book, but a fun read.
Ragged Maps — Ian R. MacLeod (2023) Another stellar collection of short stories from Ian MacLeod, who is a terrific writer with the enviable ability to take an SF idea, work out the secondary and tertiary implications, and apply it to real characters living in the interesting world he’s come up with. I’d read some of these before but read them again with pleasure, and others were new to me and very good. MacLeod is one of our best writers, and we should pay attention to him.
Bath Tangle — Georgette Heyer (1925) Re-read, bath book, and also a Bath book, so that amused me. This is a piece of froth, in which people move to Bath, take the waters, and get engaged to the wrong people. It all comes out in the end like a well-done sudoku. Not Heyer’s very best, but readable and fun, and the characters have very sympathetic problems.
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library — Michiko Aoyama (2021, English translation by Alison Watts published 2023) A Japanese light novel which is technically genre, but only just. This is a short collection of charming stories about people who have problems that are solved by a (possibly) magical librarian giving them a book they didn’t know they wanted along with a felted creature that she’s made. This sounds more simplistic than it is—it’s actually a lovely window into another culture’s expectations about everyday life. The term “light novel” can be a bit vague, but the books are generally aimed at a younger audience, and many are originally published in frequently used kanji, and thus easier to read. I enjoyed this a lot and I think others might too.
Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age — Ann M. Blair (2010) Before 1550, it was possible to read everything if you worked at it; after that, there was just too much, and people started to write books about what to read and making books of extracts and encyclopedias, and there was a lot of anxiety around all of this. Fascinating book about the different systems people tried in an attempt to keep track of all the knowledge. They invented things we still use like footnotes and tabs and indexes, and also weird things like patent cabinets in which you put extracts on different layers with mnemonics for finding them again. Nobody now would think they could know everything, though there was a time in the recent past when I thought we knew how to find everything. I hadn’t really thought there was ever a time when you could read all the books—and in fact you couldn’t, because they weren’t counting things in languages other than Latin; they were barely thinking about Arabic, never mind Chinese. Blair has a chapter on the world outside Europe that’s very interesting, but her focus here is Europe and the changing perspectives on what a person can know. Great book, readable and interesting and does not require any prior knowledge of anything.
The Husbands — Holly Gramazio (2024) Re-read, book club, and we had a really great book club discussing it. I hadn’t meant to re-read it, as I’d read it fairly recently, but after opening it up to remind myself, I found I was halfway through it before I noticed. Extremely readable book about a woman who isn’t married in her original life but finds husbands she might have married in alternate worlds coming down out of her attic, and vanishing again to be replaced by another if she sends them back up. The book rings the changes on this theme extremely well, in a thoughtful and excellent way. It’s an interesting contrast to The Space Between Worlds because that too is about alternate worlds and just a few characters, but here we have a very wide cast of husbands, and the wider world isn’t affected at all.
The Humble Administrator’s Garden — Vikram Seth (1985) An early book of poems by Seth, finally available as an ebook, and just as delightful and unexpected as all his poetry. Highly recommended if you enjoy poetry at all.
Harvard Classics Volume 33: Voyages and Travel — edited by Charles W. Eliot (1909) I’ve been reading my way through the Harvard classics volume for a long time now, and this one is odd. It’s the part of Herodotus about Egypt, part of Tacitus’ Germania, and bits of voyages of Drake and Raleigh. All of it was enjoyable, none of it was a whole book, it did not feel connected in any rational way. I guess the theme was like the Le Guin story where aliens ask to be told about Earth and the ambassador just tells them about Venice—there is a whole planet, humans have been on it for a while, you can’t see all of it at once, but here are some angles.
Camp Concentration — Thomas M. Disch (1967) Re-read, for book club. This is a grim book, and it didn’t feel any less grim on this re-read. The theme of increasing intelligence must have been in the air, as Flowers for Algernon came out the year before in novel form. Perhaps this was a response to the novella? A vain poet and conscientious objector in a future war finds himself part of an intelligence increasing experiment. Brilliantly written in full New Wave style, and not very long. None of the characters is sympathetic, and it has aged oddly, some of it feeling more relevant than when it was written, other parts being things nobody would write now. Read it, but brace yourself. Again, this led to a very good book club discussion.
Mrs Tim of the Regiment — D.E. Stevenson (1932) I’d previously read the second book in this series. This is much less good. Hester is married to Tim, he’s in a regiment, she has to move around because of his job, they have two children, and servants, and have to move to Scotland… and then in the second half, Hester is staying with a friend in the Highlands and two men are in love with her and she doesn’t notice. The resolution—or what would be the resolution in the love story the book keeps threatening to turn into—is averted. Hester herself, whose diary the book purports to be, is a good point of view for understanding some things and not others, and the story is not without charm, but the whole book is unbalanced and doesn’t quite work. Stevenson has written much better.
Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849 — Christopher Clark (2023) This is a very long and detailed book about the revolutionary uprisings of 1848 and why they both did and didn’t change the world. They didn’t become the revolution people expected, but they changed regimes in many places, and had long-lasting effects. This is a book full of details that also constantly pulls back to look at the big picture, with the effect of speedy communications meaning that, for instance, events in Paris affected those in Hungary and vice versa, even when the people weren’t in touch at all except by reading newspapers about what was going on. It’s a really fascinating time, and this is an excellent account and reflection.
Both Athena and I went to go see the new Superman film, and we both came away with differing opinions on it. We thought it would be fun for each of us to put our reviews of the film in the same post so you can see how we got to where we are on this take on the character and the story. Warning: Spoilers are ahead.
If you like this “Two Takes” concept, let us know. We might do more. — JS
ATHENA SCALZI:
I love Superman. He is my favorite superhero, and I am always defending him against those who claim he is “boring.” Needless to say, I was extremely excited for Superman (2025), and had to go and see it on the big screen. I’m sad to report I didn’t really like it all that much. Though I’ve been seeing tons of high praise across the Internet, it was pretty mid in my book, so let’s talk about it. And, of course, here is your spoiler warning.
The first thing of note that this Superman movie does differently than most is that it begins at a time that Superman is already an established hero. This is not an origin story, this is a story in a world that already knows Superman and that he has been active in as a hero for years. While most people find this to be a refreshing take, and that they don’t need to see his origin story for the hundredth time, I can’t say I like the decision. I don’t hate it, but I really love origin stories. I like seeing Superman discover his powers, or having to learn to control them, or save people in his youth and having to keep it a secret. It’s a personal thing more than anything.
Right off the bat, I absolutely hate Lex Luthor’s ensemble of evil employees that are like, video-game-playing-“Gen-Z”-written-by-Gen-X-lackeys that are all like “yes!” and fist pump the air when they land a punch on Superman using their weird consoles. It’s cringe. They’re all cringe. Lex Luthor shouting out letters and numbers is cringe. Especially the line delivery for the exposition of “wow you really seem to know what Superman is going to do next,” and “Lex Luthor has spent the past three years studying all his fights and learning his moves so now he can predict what he will do next.” Great, thanks for that explanation, guys.
So, Clark goes to work at the Daily Planet, and this movie decides to include not only Jimmy Olsen, but Cat Grant, Steve Lombard, and Ron Troupe, as well. This feels like entirely too many players on the board for the reporter gang, as Cat, Steve, and Ron, get absolutely no meaningful screentime or characterization, and the only way you’d even really know who they are is if you’ve seen other Superman media such as My Adventures With Superman, where they are actual characters and serve a purpose. They felt so thrown in at the last minute and like an afterthought in this.
Of course, the real main reporter here is Lois Lane. Now here’s something that I like about the movie. I really love how Superman handled Lois and Clark’s relationship, especially the scene where she interviews him, and it starts out as sort of fun and playful, but quickly turns into a real and meaningful conflict that has a lasting impact on both of them and their relationship. The most important thing about this scene, though, is our insight into Superman’s morals and beliefs.
While Lois grills him about breaking laws, committing potentially devastating acts against a US allied nation, and threatening to cause someone bodily harm or worse, he can’t stop retorting with “people were going to die.” More and more passionately. People were going to die, and he had to stop it. No matter the laws, no matter how the US or the media would see it, he knew he had to stop this loss of life. He knew what was about to happen was wrong, and that was enough for him to act, whether or not it was legally correct.
Lois says the world is viewing him as a representative for the United States in this situation, and he claims he’s not representing anyone but himself, and doing good. Exactly. Because that’s what Superman does. He represents good, he does good. How he goes about doing it is largely questioned by the public, the government, even his girlfriend, but he knows in his heart he is doing good, and that’s what is most important to him. Above everything else, above even the law, he will do good.
I love that this interview scene caused a real fight between Lois and Clark. He doesn’t understand why she’s “being like this.” Why is she acting so against him when he saved people? How could what he did ever be construed as a bad thing? How could people possibly be mad at him for stopping a war? A country was about to be invaded, and he told the tanks to turn around. In what universe is he not a hero here? And how could anyone, especially this person he cares about so much and is supposed to like him, too, question him about his intentions, when his sole intention is to be good and help people. It’s truly a hard watch.
I really hate in Superman media when Superman is wanted by the law, turns himself in, and immediately gets handed over to the bad guys and gets locked up and tortured. It’s so predictable and so unfortunate. I truly didn’t understand how Luthor was even keeping Metamorpho under his control. Yes, Luthor had his son held hostage, but as we later see, when Superman breaks the glass and flies over to rescue his son, Metamorpho flies over right after he does using like a jet propulsion out of his lower body. Okay, so maybe he just wasn’t strong enough to break the glass himself? But later in the movie didn’t he form a giant hammer and smash some tanks? Kind of sounds like he could’ve smashed the glass and flown over to his kid and saved him at like, any point. I guess the only explanation is when he says he can’t hold his son while he changes forms, so I guess that’s the sole reason he needed Superman’s help in rescuing his son. Pretty weak sauce, though.
Anyways, Metamorpho and his son aren’t really the part I want to talk about in the pocket universe. The part I really want to look at is the death of Malik. Malik was a normal person who liked Superman, who even helped Superman one time. And Luthor made sure he paid the price. This scene is so incredibly tragic, and so good. Superman saves people, not gets them killed. And he certainly doesn’t just watch as they get killed. Except in this case, he has to. And it hurts him, deeply. David Corenswet portrayed Superman’s agony and pain perfectly in that scene. You just know he wishes it had been him instead.
Does anyone else just really dislike the Justice Gang? What a bunch of a-holes. I hate this Green Lantern, I hate how they portrayed Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific is fine. Again this is another example of too many characters on the board with not enough time to devote to getting to know them or really care about them. Plus, as is shown by Superman’s numerous attempts to mitigate damage, both to civilians, property, and the Kaiju itself, these jerks don’t give a hoot or a holler about collateral damage. Yes, collateral damage happens, but the Justice Gang is so reckless and headstrong that they just shoot first, worry about bodily harm to civilians later. I don’t find them funny, I just think they’re jerks.
And yes, they do “save the day” in the end, but I give them no praise for deciding to actually go be heroes when they were already proclaiming themselves as heroes. Wow, they saved people! Umm, yeah, that’s what they should have been doing anyways? Without needing Superman to convince them to go fight the good fight? Especially Green Lantern saying he only cares about protecting Earth from alien threats. My guy, why even bother protecting a planet from aliens if it’s going to be war-torn, unjust, and cruel? How ’bout you focus on Earth first and then fight the alien threats when they show up later to your awesome, peaceful, not terrible planet.
I also dislike the weird relationship between Jimmy Olsen and Luthor’s current companion, Eve. Eve is obsessed with Jimmy, and offers him information on Luthor and Superman if he agrees to go out with her. This whole relationship is played for laughs, but I find it very uncomfortable and unfortunate for Jimmy. He doesn’t like this girl, but makes her promises in order for her to help them. It doesn’t feel funny, it just feels wrong. Especially because he wants her information, but regards her as stupid and incompetent, and makes fun of her physical appearance. It just feels gross both directions.
Moving on, I also am not a fan of the rift that tears Metropolis in two. I think the rift is like, too much conflict. We have Luthor, Ultraman, the Engineer, the Raptors, and we have the war across the world, do we really need a rift tearing through the planet? It just feels like a bit much, and very silly that the way to fix it is to “hack the system and put in a code.” It feels half-baked.
In that same vein, I don’t think Superman should’ve been stuck in Metropolis fighting his clone, I think Superman should have actually been the hero to save Jarhanpur. Those kids were holding up the Superman flag as the Boravian army invaded, and they stood against the invaders shouting Superman! And who comes to save them? GREEN FUCKING LANTERN. This felt so unsatisfactory and like total BS. Yes, Superman is the one that “called them in” but come on! I don’t want to see Green Lantern flip off tanks, I want to see Superman shield children from bullets, his red cape flowing in the wind. This isn’t a Justice Gang movie! You’re telling me Big Blue is back home throwing his clone into a black hole? Talk about boring. I want to see him SAVE PEOPLE THAT BELIVE IN HIM!
Now, one thing I think this movie gets right is Luthor’s sick obsession with Superman. He is clearly un-fucking-well, and I think this movie and Nicholas Hoult’s portrayal of Luthor really nails that characterization aspect. Hoult’s ability to switch between a cool and collected demeanor, to an absolute madman spitting venom in every hate-filled word towards Superman is wildly impressive. He thinks he is a mastermind genius but really he’s just a crazed, sick individual. And he’s not really all that smart, just a rich, power-hungry, jealous man. Hits close to home, doesn’t it?
So, yeah. I didn’t really like this movie. Which is a shame because I think they nailed Superman’s morals, beliefs, his personality, the way he would interact with the world and with people. They absolutely killed it with Superman’s character. But that’s about it. A good Superman does not a good Superman movie make.
Overall, this movie was like a 5/10, very middling. I didn’t hate it but I don’t like it much, either. To be honest, I prefer Man of Steel. That’s right, I said it. I miss Henry Cavill, what can I say?
What did you think of Superman? What is your favorite Superman movie/media? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
JOHN SCALZI:
There have been several live action Superman movies, going back to Christopher Reeve’s iconic portrayal in the 1978 film (and actually before then, as there was a 1948 serial starring Kirk Alyn, but I’m doing a Jedi hand wave on that for this conversation). Across these many films and actors who have essayed the character, it’s generally agreed upon that the ’78 film, and Reeve’s turn in the blue suit, are the best of the bunch. After watching the 2025 Superman, with David Corenswet as the lead character, Reeve and the ’78 film still remain on top. But! Now there’s a new film, and new actor, in second place.
The reason for this comes down to tone. Superman is fundamentally an optimistic character; he’s decent and kind and humble (as much as a ridiculously overpowered character can be), he puts others before himself, and he fights for truth, justice and the American Way — which is understood to be a positive thing in the Superman mythos, even if in the real world the American Way is often not in a great state. In D&D parlance, he’s true Lawful Good, in a world that keeps wanting to tip over into chaos, or alternately is pushed there via Lex Luthor or other bad actors.
The problem is that lawful good is — sorry — kind of inherently boring. “Fundamentally decent” characters have a high incidence of being a snooze. You have to support them with interesting side characters, interesting situations and, particularly, an interesting antagonist. If you can give your main character an actual personality, that’s a plus too, but you can get away with not doing that if everything else falls in line.
The ’78 Superman (directed by Richard Donner and with a murderer’s row of screenwriters including Oscar winners Mario Puzo and Robert Benton) nailed all of this. The script was light, humorous a lot of the time, but serious when it needed to be. The newsroom of the Daily Planet had a terrific Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and Perry White (Jackie Cooper). The film’s Metropolis was lived in and alive. And, of course, Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor is still the best superhero villain (with his own terrific supporting cast in Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine), full of genial evil.
In the middle of all that worldbuilding and character work, all Christopher Reeve and his Superman had to do was be decent and kind, offer an occasional corny quip (“bad vibrations?”) and save the day. This is not to say Reeve didn’t have to act — you try selling decent and kind while everyone is chewing scenery around you. See how you do. It did mean the filmmakers gave Reeve the space and support to make his turn in the role iconic.
Contrast this with Bryan Singer’s rather ill-fated Superman Returns (2006). Brandon Routh had the look and the decency, but he didn’t have the support. Bryan Singer intentionally tried to ape Richard Donner’s vibe, but as a director he doesn’t have Donner’s lightness of touch, antic where Donner was comedic, and the script was underwhelming. Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane wasn’t up to the task of being a foil, and Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor, smarmy though he was, didn’t gel. The whole affair was off, and everyone felt it.
I actually liked Zach Snyder’s darker and grittier take on the Superman mythos in Man of Steel (2013), because Snyder (and screenwriters David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan) committed to the bit; Henry Cavill’s Superman was still decent, but the world around him was more dour and Superman darkened to match. Snyder’s problem would be that the only direction you can go from “dark and gritty” is “darker and gritter.” That’s fine for Batman, less so for Superman. Batman vs. Superman was a bummer when it came to Superman; Justice League was a slog.
For the 2025 Superman, James Gunn (who wrote as well as directed) hearkened back to the ’78 Superman vibe and plan, but unlike Bryan Singer, isn’t trying for a slavish continuation. Also unlike Singer, Gunn has an actual sense of humor. That sense of humor is not the same as the one you’ll find in the ’78 Superman — Gunn’s sense of humor is a lot more overt and rather more juvenile. Of all the things that you would call his vision of Superman, “sophisticated” isn’t one of them. But it does keep things light and moving quickly.
Gunn’s Superman, in the form of David Corenswet, matches his sensibility. Reeve’s Superman had a delivery that was dry, even if it could be corny; Corenswet’s Superman, on the other hand, is basically an adorable lunk who means well. He’s not stupid! But he might not think enough steps ahead, and he might be in over his head. He’s the strongest person on the planet but can still get flustered by a very smart, very pretty woman (that would be Lois Lane, in the form of Rachel Brosnahan, who is terrific) who isn’t taking any crap from him. Superman is famously called a “boy scout” but this is the first Superman you could actually see being a Boy Scout, really proud of his all his badges and the fact that he made Eagle Scout without once having to resort to using his superpowers to do it.
(Over on Bluesky I noted that as an actor Corenswet reminded me less of any previous Superman actor and more of Brendan Fraser circa The Mummy and Blast From the Past; this was met by several “OH MY GOD YES”‘s, so I think I’m on to something here)
I like the Gunn/Corenswet version of Superman. I like that he’s decent and kind but still feeling his way in the world, and can be outmaneuvered because of that — and indeed that’s exactly what this iteration of Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) is doing. This edition of Lex is a vainglorious billionaire who hates not being the alpha dude for the whole planet, and boy, doesn’t the idea of a billionaire weaponizing his insecurities feel a little too close to home at moment. Once again, this film has the second-best live action version of a character; Hoult isn’t going to beat Hackman as the definitive Lex Luthor — who could? — but his take is right for this particular world.
This particular world also has sunlight and color in it, which I really like, as well as probably more back story than any one single movie needs, which I am less enthused about. This is because Gunn is obliged to set up a whole new DC Cinematic Universe, this one subtitled “Gods and Monsters.” There’s criticism that this Superman is overstuffed, and the criticism is on point. I don’t know that it serves this film’s own story to jam in the “Justice Gang,” regardless of how much fun it is to point and laugh at Green Lantern Guy Gardner’s haircut (actor Nathan Fillion apparently insisted on it as it is canonical), or how much of a delightful surprise Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific turns out to be (Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl is given relatively little to do). And then there’s Krypto the dog, who is there as much for merchandising as plot. I get why Gunn did it, and, fine. It wouldn’t have hurt the film, as a film, to have focused more on Superman and his own supporting team.
With that said, this is the second-best Superman film for a reason. Overstuffed though it might be, it also hits the marks of making a good film with a fundamentally decent main character. The supporting cast ably supports. The antagonist viciously antagonizes. The worldbuilding is solid and mostly smart. The lightness and sense of humor pull us through. Is it a great film? No. But if simply being good is good enough for the character of Superman, it’s good enough for this story about him. James Gunn has put his stamp on the character and the universe, and I’m looking forward to seeing where both of them go from here.
The only antidote I may have to Trump’s election is in a small ferry to Robben Island one that shuttles you to the former prison where those who fought against apartheid were held The only answers may be in one wool blanket a basin toilet cell and the tiny windows of Robben Island in the discarded artillery the rock and the limestone yard where many were blinded driven mad Now the survivors former prisoners give tours their faces carved like tree roots exposed The only answers may be in the surrounding peaks of Table Mountain its Twelve Apostles all now standing as testament to what through years of struggles can be defeated overcome
Writers are in conversation with other writers, both the ones who are contemporary to them, and the ones who came before. In this Big Idea for The Dreaming of Man, author Nikoline Kaiser talks about what the takeaway is from these discussions, for this book as well as other things.
NIKOLINE KAISER:
I might be a writer, but I’d never claim to be a master of words. And while I feel I do have some sort of unique voice, made up of my experiences and values, there is no secret to the fact that I stand on the shoulders of giants. By this I mean that I borrow relentlessly from my favorite authors; as many a writer will tell you, reading is often the biggest source of inspiration you can find. And especially nowadays, with the near-oversaturation of tales available to us, giving a new spin to an old idea becomes a necessary go-to.
Here’s the thing though: writers have always been borrowing. Many fans of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings have heard the story of how J.R.R. himself read the Shakespeare play Macbeth, and was very unsatisfied with how the “no man of woman born” line referred to a man who came into the world via caesarean section and not, you know, a woman. Here (or so the story goes) was born his idea for Eowyn, the warrior maid who disguises herself as a man to fight, fulfilling a similar prophecy from the trilogy. (Incidentally, his ire over the walking forest in Macbeth being soldiers disguising themselves with branches, and not an actual, moving forest, is what gave birth to his idea for the Ents. Tolkien apparently had a lot of beef with Shakespeare).
Growing up, Eowyn was one of my favorite characters. There is something very affirming about seeing a female character in the kind of role she has, especially for the time the novels were written in. Plenty has been written about the cross-dressing aspect of Eowyn and other characters like her. Playing with gender roles takes on a new meaning (or maybe at times an even older one) when reading with a modern lens, and when I started my own venture into writing, I quickly found that this was a source of constant ideas. Who are we when we crawl over the walls erected around us at birth and decide to do things not because of but despite or even without thought to, our gender?
Here’s another aspect of the type of fantasy Tolkien wrote (and the type he decidedly didn’t write) and the precursors Shakespeare and his contemporaries played with in, for example, Macbeth: prophecies. In modern times, a lot of derision has been levelled against the Chosen One archetype; the one hero (usually male, usually white) who is destined to defeat the evil of the land. Of course, he succeeds despite all odds. But those aren’t really the fun prophecies, are they? They aren’t much like the prophecies we know from older times, when the Sphinx warns that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother and then, by the very act of trying to avoid this, it ends up happening. It’s certainly not Macbeth in the eponymous play being told that “no man of woman born” can kill him and his end will only come when a whole forest grows legs and starts walking, only for a C-section baby grown into a vengeful man and an army with foliage on their heads to arrive and end his reign.
Those are the clever prophecies, the word-twisters, the djinni-in-a-bottle giving you everything you wished for, except you really, really shouldn’t have been wishing in the first place. They’re often self-fulfilling, because if the protagonist hadn’t reacted to the prophecy, they might never have created the circumstances to make it come true in the first place. It’s here that the “master of words” thing comes back, because if you say something in the right way, any sentence can hold both the venom and the antidote. Shakespeare (who was also heavily inspired by the stories of his lifetime – Macbeth was a real person, though the historical figure seems to have been a lot nicer than his literary counterpart) took the prophecy with a specific focus: “no man of woman born.” Tolkien took his focus elsewhere: “no man of woman born.” And in the gender euphoria of Eowyn, of growing older, of learning things about myself and the world, the words changed in my head too: “no man of woman born.”
There’s no mastery of words necessary for this idea to spring forth, and thank some kind of god for that, because I might have never written my story if there were. But if the giants before me swam in the ocean, I’m in the shallows on shore, the water pooling behind from the waves they created. Plucking out the words and emphasis that suits the ideas in my head – if I could tell people only one thing about writing, I’d say to dive into the waters of those that came before and see what wonders – or horrors – lie beyond the deep.
is when an organization feels the urgent need to say something both in officialese and also everyday talk. I can think of three very relevant examples in NYC:
1. Every time you do your taxes or do almost anything that involves interacting with the state government, you'll have to pick your county, and if you live in Brooklyn or Staten Island that means they list the county with the coterminous borough in parentheses.
2. If you have a kid in school, every year they send you a form reminding you to fill out your Emergency Contact Card, and every year they include the phrase "Blue Card" right afterwards. Because that's what we all call it. Because they're blue.
3. And here's one I haven't thought about much since adolescence, but if a job is apt to hire teens then they will ask for their Employment Certification and then, inevitably, add "Working Papers" right afterwards, again, because that's what everybody calls them.
There must be other examples I'm missing, as well as non-NY examples. I sometimes wonder if it'd be easier for them to just cave to the inevitable and start listing the everyday term first and then list the "real" term afterwards.
In this article, I’m going to talk about preparing Chinese food for babies and toddlers! After posting articles about starting solids and weekly meal planning, it’s time to address this topic in more of a Woks of Life context. While it may seem daunting, Chinese cuisine is actually great for babies and toddlers. The natural ...
When author Josh Rountree’s story just wasn’t quite working, he decided to change his perspective. Literally. Travel back in time in the Big Idea for his newest novel, The Unkillable Frank Lightning, and see how switching things up narratively ended up being the solution to his problem.
JOSH ROUNTREE:
Well, I’m knee deep in monsters now, aren’t I?
A lot of my Big Ideas these days seem to involve them. For a while now I’ve been working on a series of monster stories set in long ago Texas. I’ve tackled werewolves and snake-headed harvest gods. Vengeful mermaids and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Now I’ve worked my way up to one of the greatest monsters of all time.
Frankenstein! (Cue lightning strike.)
Or Frankenstein’s monster, I guess.
My Big Idea for The Unkillable Frank Lightning was to tell a version of the Frankenstein story, set in the Old West. I had plenty I wanted to say about death. How breaking the fundamental laws of nature to bring a person back to life would be a really bad idea, with consequences that would reach far beyond the reanimated corpse and those responsible for his resurrection. Frank Lightning is not the only character in this story who has cheated death, and all carry that around like a weight on their souls. And I wanted to say a lot about the mythology of the Old West. How wild west shows and Hollywood movies have sold us an often sanitized version of the period, that centers the wrong heroes.
But also? I wanted to see my monster go on a rampage. I wanted to see what would happen when an unkillable person found himself in a gunfight. I wanted black magic and secret occult orders and townspeople with torches.
I wanted my monster to tell us his story.
But of course, the Big Idea doesn’t always unfold the way a writer expects it to. And the character you think is going to be at the center of it all isn’t always the voice that comes alive and demands to be heard. I worked several months, trying to tell this story through the monster’s point of view, and eventually realized it just wasn’t working. I tried alternating points of view, trying to tell the story through the eyes of various characters. But one voice, that of Catherine Coldbridge, spoke louder than all the rest. And I realized she was my protagonist. She was the character to tell this story.
Catherine is my “mad scientist” in this tale. My Dr. Frankenstein stand-in. She’s a doctor in the 1870’s, and she’s a member of an occult order called the Three Rose Temple. Catherine is an orphan, and when she loses her husband too, it causes her to make one terrible decision that will haunt her for decades.
Catherine is terribly flawed, and desperate to make amends. She is determined and practical and willing to forgive anyone but herself. She is an exceptionally strong woman who has, for a time, given up on her life and let the world ruin her. But as she beings to tell her story, Catherine is finally beginning to emerge from that sorry state, and planning to take control again. Catherine is endlessly fascinating to me, and as soon as she started telling the tale, it poured out of her, and it poured out of me, and I knew we were in this together.
Catherine Coldbridge is not our typical pulp western hero. But who needs more cowboys in white hats? Who needs another hard man with a thousand-yard stare to ride in and save the day?
I’ve been making more charcuterie boards than usual lately, and I’d like to think practice makes fairly decent, so I’d like to show y’all some of my recent spreads I’ve done for gatherings and parties and whatnot. I usually post them on Instagram and Bluesky, but just in case you missed them, you can get your fix right here and now!
For the 4th of July I was in Texas, and my friend hosted a party, for which I volunteered to supply some snackage for. Here’s the charcuterie board:
For this board, I used prosciutto, salami, Munster, Kerrygold aged cheddar, Brie, chimichurri gouda, fig and honey goat cheese, candied pecans, Castelvetrano olives, Mike’s Hot Honey, Honeycomb, and cherries. Everything on there except the pecans I picked up at H.E.B.
This was the rest of what I served:
While the salsa and guac I bought pre-made from H.E.B., I did assemble the watermelon, feta, and mint salad and drizzled it with honey, and put together the caprese skewers with balsamic glaze. I honestly think this turned out really well! I was very happy with my summery salad and light bites.
Just a few days ago I got my AppyHour Box (which I have regrettably not been doing posts over lately!) and decided to make a little board for my dad and his friend that was visiting from out of town.
This board consisted of a Togarashi cheese, an aged gouda, a smoked goat cheese, dried cherries, coppa, and prosciutto (I think it was a Calabrian Chili prosciutto?). The two jams I forgot to take the lids off of are a caramelized pear and honey spread, and a raspberry hibiscus jam. I thought this was a cute little lunch for my dad and his guest, and I’m glad the enjoyed it.
Finally, this past weekend, I hosted a friend’s baby shower at the church. She said she expected around fifty people to attend, and I can say with confidence I’ve never tried to make a spread for that many people before. I was definitely intimidated, but I was determined to make an approachable spread that would appeal to the masses and not spend hundreds of dollars doing it.
I didn’t capture everything, but here’s the gist of how it turned out:
There was also cucumbers, bell peppers, baby carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, dill dip, salsa, tortilla chips, garden vegetable entertainment crackers, fig and sesame crisps, honey mustard mini pretzels, rosemary flatbread crackers, coconut macaroons, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered shortbread cookies, and chocolate covered Belgian waffle cookies.
Other than the tortilla chips, whole grain mustard, fig spread, rosemary almonds, and chocolate covered pretzels, I bought everything at Aldi, and despite buying doubles if not three of absolutely everything I listed, my total came out to $220. I was able to make this huge spread and refill it when it got low and feed 50 guests for just over $200. Who knew Aldi was so cool?! I spent about fifty bucks more than that on my spread for the Texas party, and that was only to feed about ten people.
The best thing on the spread from Aldi was the honey mustard mini pretzels, or the chocolate covered waffle cookies. I am definitely going to be stopping at Aldi more often for some surprisingly cheap and yummy treats.
What item looks the best to you? What’s your go-to cheese to serve for entertaining guests? Am I the only one who didn’t realize how neat Aldi was? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
Nonstandard and informal are not synonyms. Dialectal and informal are not synonyms. Regional and informal are not synonyms. You can speak formally even if you're speaking a nonstandard regional dialect.
Everybody needs to stop saying that dialect words are, ipso facto, informal.
Author Marie Vibbert is back on the blog today with a fresh new novel that’s bigger and badder than ever. Dive into her Hellcats universe once more and see the world from an all new perspective in Andrei and the Hellcats.
MARIE VIBBERT:
Why are all sex robots depicted as miserable? Wouldn’t they just program them to be really horny? Thus, I created the character of Andrei: a sex-positive sex robot who loves his job, and humans. All the humans. When Galactic Hellcats was released in 2021, people responded warmly to this minor character, and when I asked, “What do you want in a sequel?” one of the top responses was, “More Andrei! And let him have sex! Why do you have two sex bots in this book and no one gets past second base?”
Why? Because my dad might read this book! I didn’t say that. I blushed and affirmed I would try harder in the sequel to be as uninhibited as Andrei.
And sequel time has come! My first goal was a book that wouldn’t require reading the previous one, and so Andrei and the Hellcats is from Andrei’s perspective, as a relative outsider. As I drafted, I realized that my little idea about sex robot preferences led into a bigger idea: how do we form our moral preferences? Can robots (or AI) have a conscious choice in their morality? What does that say about morality itself?
I know, that sounds heavy for a book about a sex robot enlisting a space biker gang to rescue his sister from an evil queen, but come drop down this mental rabbit hole with me.
As I fleshed out Andrei’s character to take center stage, I had to confront aspects of his life, personality, and preferences. He likes sex, a lot. Check. So why does he work as a hospitality manager at a space station instead of enjoying an all he can shag buffet at a brothel? Did he have a choice, or was he built for this role? Was he hired or purchased?
All of these questions funnel down into the intersection of consent and capitalism. Andrei cares a lot about consent in sex; he has whole libraries of code for it. He recognizes hesitation, the body language of distress and coercion. “I don’t enjoy inflicting harm,” he laments at one point, “I’m really only comfortable when there are safe words.” Yet he has never examined his own consent to play the role assigned to him, until the evil queen comes along and kidnaps him and his sister. He thinks Queen Jasmine of Ratana is simply roleplaying “Evil Queen and the mindless sexbot” until after their tryst, when she waves her hand and says “deactivate yourself.” Through her words and actions she makes it clear she doesn’t think Andrei is self-aware, and he realizes she felt that way the entire time they were fooling around. This prompts a moral crisis: have other clients of his mistaken play for reality? Does he need to update his most sacred algorithms?
Poor Andrei! What is sapience? What is consent? I wanted to have him follow this rabbit hole to money as a motivation, anti-capitalist gal that I am. To that end, I had this fun idea to have him in conflict with the Hellcats. They are, to put it mildly, uninterested in property rights, especially kleptomaniac Ki. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if, having finally enlisted the gang, he’d interrupt the ensuing caper with, “Excuse me, does that belong to you? Put it back.”
To quote Ki, “Ugh, it’s like taking my social worker on a heist!”
Nothing makes a plot outline happier than juicy, theme-relevant complications! But I found the right opening for my little gag difficult to find, and part of that was, well, I was already forcing Andrei to confront his programming through every step of the plot. First the evil queen, then I put him on his own on a strange planet with nothing but his keen fashion sense and gift of gab. How can he find where they’ve taken her? How can he begin to save her? He has no local currency and has to contemplate breaking his programmed reverence for property rights to even get to a point where he can start searching in earnest. He wonders why he can’t bring himself to steal what he needs, why he was programmed to be a good little capitalist. “Were we designed to desire things to keep us working? Could we learn to do without designer clothes and porn subscriptions?”
By the time he gets to the Hellcats, he’s ready to hear Ki out when she takes it upon herself to turn him to the lawless side of the force. He has already seen that laws can be unjust; the queen’s law declares him and his sister property! When Ki compares hoarding money to hoarding kisses, Andrei accepts that ownership is not as important as good snogs… or the safety of sapient beings.
As I was writing, I found myself a little envious of Andrei. He can consciously edit his moral programming when he discovers a bias in it, while I make the same gaffs nine or ten thousand times before I learn. Well, so do the Hellcats. They have those relationship arcs to get through, all that learning what and who to prioritize. So while he learns from them, Andrei gets to drop some truth bombs in return. “Darling, I get it. When you and your brother left the factory… I mean, when you were born, your settings were the same…. Then you were sent out into the world, and your programs updated.”
Ninety percent of writing a novel is making decisions. Where could I fit in my little anti-theft Andrei gaff? Well, I couldn’t. Then I realized he still cared about the rule of law. Ah ha! The confrontation now comes not from stealing, but from breaking and entering, and I got to use all the snarky lines I had daydreamed.
Andrei sighs, “Humans take so long to make decisions! How did they ever get around to inventing us?”
(… she wrote, thinking about her own plot outlining.)
That accomplished, I was free to make everything worse! Bwah ha ha. Have to push all those moral lessons harder with some external examples, right? So they all get captured in a forced labor camp. It’s dark. I found myself pausing on a scene where an explosive implant takes out a guy’s arm because sometimes they just go off and thinking, “Um, self? Is this still a lighthearted space romp?” And lo, the moral quandary has come home: the choices I make as an author can reflect my own morality (or lack thereof.)
I couldn’t just have them blow up their way out of there, leaving the other slaves behind. Crap. I had to go back and change the entire ending heist to reflect my values of collective action. Andrei, I hope, would be proud.
Andrei gets through the plot, the Hellcats get through the plot, and the author gets through the plot: each a little wiser for it.
The book should be available wherever books are sold. Have your local independent bookstore order it, or your library!
“I Don’t Know What I Want”: The Line That Changed Everything
In the final moments of the season, Murderbot says: “I don’t know what I want. But I know I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want or to make decisions for me. Even if they are my favourite human.”
This is not a dramatic declaration. It is confusion wrapped in clarity. A sentence that holds discomfort and self-awareness in equal measure. It reflects a truth often ignored in stories about intelligence and emotion: that it is okay to not know, as long as that unknowing belongs to the self. In a world that constantly demands certainty, this line opens up space for uncertainty without shame.
So, it just wants to start fresh and get away, and figure out who it is and what it wants. It doesn't really know that. I quite enjoyed that Murderbot didn't end up having answers to all the questions or knowing exactly what it wants. It's more messy and complicated than that. But it definitely knows that it needs to find its own path and make its own decisions, to make its own mistakes, and not have the Corporation or anyone tell it who it is or what it wants.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redbird
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
