Lit City Blues

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Holladay Soft Red Wheat, A Tasting

A Smooth Kick In The Teeth

Smooth, delicious, but perhaps not for sipping straight?

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Doctor, My Ears

Lies, Damned Lies and Random Shit On The Internet

A random TikTok stuck in my brain, so I did some research on it and apparently, it's not real. Like, at all...

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'War Of Honor'-- A Review

I'm back to the Honorverse, and honestly, when it comes to War of Honor, I'm genuinely torn. On the one hand, there are parts of this book that are good, very good, even ambitious in terms of the overarching series itself. On the other hand, Weber teases a lot of major developments that then don't pay off, so this book is a lot. It's also thick as hell-- it topped 1K pages, and there were portions of this book I just rolled through and then portions that were, quite frankly, a chore to read, so I honestly don't know how to feel about this book.

It's been five years since a truce was declared between Manticore and Haven, right as Manticore was on the verge of defeating them and winning the war. Neither side is interested in resuming the war. Haven is still trying to consolidate itself and deal with the last remnants of the old regime. The new government on Manticore, led by Baron High Ridge, wants to keep the status quo, as it allows for powers of taxation allotted to wartime governments to continue, so they can lock in their power with the electorate through generous economic and welfare programs.

Of course, should they actually get a treaty done, then there would be no extra taxes for them to use, so they don't have a lot of motivation to sit down at the negotiating table. Haven has quietly been playing catch-up on the technology front to equalize the balance of power with Manticore, but a treaty resolving the status of their occupied systems would be something that they would like to get done, but Manticore is kind of stringing them along.

With no peace treaty, the High Ridge government sets about demobilizing and scaling back the Navy from its wartime heights. They slow down shipbuilding and keep phasing out older model ships. Now seated in the House of Lords, both Honor and Hamish Alexander are constantly sounding the alarm about the problem.

Honor and Hamish are both dancing around their feelings for each other, but unfortunately for them, the High Ridge Government decides to attack them by insinuating exactly that: that they are having an affair. That hits way too close to home for both of them, and eventually all three-- Hamish, Honor, and Hamish's wife Emily, have dinner together and kind of put it all out there. Emily (because she's kind of awesome and low-key one of my favorite characters of this tome) is aware of just about everything. Hamish has had affairs before-- discreet ones. But she knows this is different and actual feelings are involved. Both Hamish and Honor are left with this terrible verdict of being upright, honorable, and just doing their duty, regardless of their feelings for one another.

That seems like an okay place to settle at, given the complications and blowback they're receiving, but then, Nimitz's Treecat mate, Samantha, 'adopts' Hamish. Which is a new difficulty that's both welcome and inconvenient.

Thankfully, duty intervenes- it's a legitimate problem that requires the Navy and Honor to go and deal with it, but it has the added benefit of getting her out of the political arena for a while AND gives her some space from Hamish.

Meantime, things back home are going from bad to worse. The High Ridge Government is pissing off members of the Manticore Alliance left, and right-- Grayson and especially Erewhon are quite perturbed and upset, though it's ultimately Erewhon who switches sides. (An event that was heavily foreshadowed throughout the book only to be officially made true at the end in passing in like a sentence or two, which was annoying.) Grayson stays true to the Alliance because of their ties with Honor and because they are convinced that the High Ridge Government is going to fall once they dump everyone back into a war that no one really wants.

Meantime, Haven starts to raise the pressure on Manticore to try and get negotiations going again. They reveal their new fleet capabilities. As Manticore and the High Ridge government continue to obfuscate, a new wormhole junction leads to a new portion of the galaxy that is all too eager to join up with the Manticore Alliance. This, in turn, starts the spiral down to war as Haven-- not wrongly, mind you-- assumes that Manticore has decided on a policy of aggressive expansion and they won't be getting their occupied systems back after all. So, having decided that, they decide to strike hard and fast.

Honor, meanwhile, is all the way out in Silesia. The Andermani Empire has been taking the occasional potshot and getting bellicose about Manticore's presence in Silesia, and there are worries that conflict might be on the verge of breaking out between the two previous, if not allies, then certainly not enemies. But when war with Haven resumes, Honor sees off a Havenite fleet and manages to pick up the Andermani Empire as an ally in the new conflict as well.

That's about the only piece of good news Manticore has as the book ended. Haven has caught up technologically. Erewhon has broken out of the alliance and switched sides. Manticore has lost a huge shipyard with many of their newest ships, and their government has collapsed to boot, leaving Hamish's brother, William Alexander, to once again resume the reins of government.

What happens next is left for the next volume!

Okay, let's unpack-- I think the problem I have with this book is that Weber doesn't do politics all that well. The personal character growth stuff that's sort of an outgrowth of that here (Hamish, Honor, and the unspoken feelings of it all-which I have to wonder is a parallel between Nelson and Lady Hamilton if the latter was a brilliant naval officer and tactician-but it's that level of love, devotion, and duty we're talking about) works really well. I loved the Hamish/Honor stuff, and I especially love the fact we get to meet Emily as a character as well-- and that she's awesome, smart, and despite her being confined to a wheelchair, capable as well.

The High Ridge stuff I could have done without a lot of, to be honest. Erewhon leaving the alliance seems like it's being telegraphed as a major break point for the series, and yet turns into... meh. Strategically, it's a major problem for Manticore moving forward, and we got to see far more of the internal fractures of the High Ridge government and far less of what their incompetence was doing to the Alliance. Grayson even picks up on the fact that Erewhon is unhappy, and it still just falls flat in the end.

The military stuff is top notch, as usual, and I will give him this: the post-People's Republic of Haven is a lot more interesting and complex than it has been thus far in the series. It's nice to muddy this up a bit, because you go from a dynamic of THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC versus the STAR KINGDOM to... THE REPUBLIC versus what's essentially becoming the STAR EMPIRE OF MANTICORE... It's a nice change of perception and makes Haven harder to view as the villains.

Overall: A heavy lift, because it's a thick volume, I will say if you're all in on this series enough to get through ten volumes, there's enough here to keep you going for the next one. I will be back to the Honorverse, but I think the size of this one revealed some structural problems that seem to prevent all the plot threads here from being closed as neatly or as completely as they should have been. But I'll be back for more. In for a penny, in for a pound. My Grade: *** out of ****

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'2010: Odyssey Two' --A Review

Okay, so my experience with this series is a little odd, because growing up, I had the last two books (2061 and 3001) but not the first two books on the bookshelves, so I've read 2061: Odyssey Three a lot. I knew I had seen both movies (2001 and 2010), but I wasn't sure I had read the first two books, though I think I had read this book at least once before, so I felt like the first two were worth revisiting, as I wasn't entirely sure I had read the first one at all.

My review of the first book also got tied up with my rewatch of the movie and wound up on my Substack instead of here. But I did not watch the movie, so you get just a book review this time.

So, to clear things up: yes, I saw the movie at one point. I think it was years ago, back when Netflix sent you DVDs in those little red envelopes. I'm honestly not a huge fan of remakes, but if there is a movie that I'd be okay with a remake of, it would be 2010: Odyssey Two. (I remember this movie being fairly pedestrian and starring Roy Scheider and that's about it, to be honest.) The book is written in much of the same style as 2001, which means it's heavy on description, especially in the Bowman/Starchild parts of the book, but I do think with the right director-- big, visionary, trying to fill the shoes of what Kubrick did with 2001-- you could remake this and it would work.

The obvious choice is obviously Denis Villeneuve. Dune is fantastic. He's probably the right choice to revive James Bond, and there are rumors and whispers that he wants to adapt Rendezvous with Rama, which would be AMAZING. I'd lean towards Villeneuve tackling Rama first, but I don't know who else you would get to do this who would be on that same level, especially with science fiction experience. It would take someone as big as Kubrick to do this right with modern technology and visual effects, I think.

We start, once more, with Heywood Floyd. He's no longer the man in charge of the Space Agency for the Americans-- he's got a wife, a kid, a pretty cool house in Hawaii that involves dolphins and a cushy job in academia, but he's still bothered by the failure of the Discovery mission and the fact that he sent multiple people to their deaths. When the Russians announce a mission to go check things out (as the big black thing Dave Bowman vanished into is still out at Jupiter-- but not Saturn, as this is a change from the first book), the Americans want someone to go along, and they suggest Floyd. He's reluctant (wife, new kid), but for his conscience, he wants to get answers as to what happened, so he agrees to go.

(Now, spoiler alert: his marriage implodes as a result-- but again, the way Clarke writes, we don't get to see a lot of the marital stress on the page. There are references to his wife, Caroline, being obviously unhappy, and he worries about it throughout the mission, but the end of it happens off-page and feels odd and a bit abstract. He also has a weird moment with one of the crew, Zenia, during their aerobraking maneuver to get into Jupiter's orbit, which is a one-off situation, seems perfectly nice, but she ends up with someone else, so I wasn't entirely sure of the purpose of having a singular interaction between two characters. I do think Zenia sees Floyd as a safe person to confide her fears in, which would be legit-- but we see no prior interaction between them establishing that!)

The Chinese 'space station' suddenly being revealed to be a ship and subsequently crashing on Europa and finding life is awesome. It's a jolt of electricity to the plot that's needed, but after they lose contact with them, we settle back into 'there's a big ass thing in orbit, plus Discovery is here.'

Speaking of: Dave's back! Dave Bowman returns through the gate-- he's both kind of still Dave Bowman and yet not at the same time. We also find out who he's working for-- kind of, anyway, and they reveal both that the core of Jupiter is a gigantic diamond and that there's life in Jupiter, but probably won't go anywhere-- yet the life on Europa could. Dave Bowman visits Earth, sees his Mom and an old girlfriend one last time and eventually pleads with his bosses-- once he understands the plan-- to warn his colleagues. They allow this, but only to a point.

This is another jolt of energy to the book, because the sudden reappearance of Dave to Heywood with a warning to leave Jupiter within 15 days or else provides a new wrinkle, as the big giant monolith isn't doing anything much, and Heywood has to convince everyone that he's not crazy and make a plan to meet the deadline. They do and get out just in time, as the big monolith vanishes and then reappears in Jupiter and, for all intents and purposes, starts to eat and then, boom. Jupiter explodes and is stellarized into a second sun. But a cold one?

The way this would actually work in real life would be insane to think about. Clarke just kind of proclaims 'the effective end of night' and says everyone's happy about it because of productivity reasons, except for the astronomers who can't see shit now. Farmers love it because they can grow more... hold the phone, friends, WHAT? Even if you're assuming an Alaska-type situation, human biology needs that diurnal cycle. What does this do to that? How does this change humanity? Is this more like a second moon, always shining? WHAT? EXPLAIN THIS SHIT TO ME MORE PLEASE.

So frustrating-- similarly, Dr. Chandra should have been way crazier than he was portrayed here. He sort of mentions in passing that he disconnected their emergency shutdown for HAL months ago and wants to stay with HAL, yet in the end doesn't.

I think I'm going to have to finish this series out, because I remember the latter two being much more fleshed out than the first two are, which might be a consequence of Clarke writing more for screen than plot-- that's my hypothesis anyway. We'll see if it's true. In the meantime, My Grade: *** out of ****

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Bless This Mess

1,784 miles, ten days and reflections on America at 250.

Happy Birthday, America!

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'X-Men: Grand Design' --A Review

I am curiously ambivalent about X-Men Grand Design. On the one hand, it's a monumental, well-nigh impossible task, and Ed Piskor-- who wrote, drew, colored, and lettered this volume, making this the first entirely by a single creator that Marvel had published since 1985-- takes an incredible swing at this monumental, well-nigh impossible task.

I'm just not entirely sure he hits the ball out of the park.

Part of that is simply the sheer scale of what he's attempting. He's attempting to take the entirety of the X-Men Silver Age comics and condense them down into a single volume. It's an eight-year run of comics. In contrast, there is an excellent podcast out there attempting to untangle the entire history of The X-Men one issue at a time (Jay & Miles X-Plain The X-Men), and they've been at it since 2014. They are currently on episode 526, from what I can tell. Five hundred and twenty-six.

That's the scale of what Piskor is attempting.

I didn't have a lot of familiarity with Silver Age X-Men, but this first volume features the formation of the original team of Cyclops, Marvel GIrl, Beast, Angel and Ice Man and explores the backstories of Professor X, Cain Marko, Magneto-- and even though he seem like he's going to be more of a figure in this than he turns out to be, Namor.

Opposing them and gathered by Magneto, you see the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which features Mastermind, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Toad. As the two teams engage in various battles with each other, in the background, we see a rising tide of anti-mutant hysteria, led by Robert Kelly, Bolivar, and Larry Trask, and the eventual emergence of the Sentinels, as well as Cameron Hodge and his anti-mutant supremacist group, The Right.

The first volume also includes a Piskor reproduction of X-Men #1, which is awesome-- granted, I can't say that I have a ton of interest in Silver Age Comics or the history of comics in general as an artform, but even I was like, 'oh snap, this is pretty cool.' and that's me, who is not at all a hardcore comics person.

Everything art-wise is on point. The lines, the colors, the giant-sized treasury, and the general look and feel of the pages are all designed to make you, the reader, feel like you're holding one of those Silver Age issues in your hands. And it works. It's a remarkable piece of art in that respect-- but, narratively...

I just don't know. I don't know what it is-- it doesn't feel like Piskor is phoning this in- his reverence for the characters and the source material is way too obvious and can be felt in every page. If I had to put a finger on it, it might be that the size and scope of what he's trying just kind of collapses back in on itself, like a dying star in some parts. It feels like he's trying to give you a decade's worth of comics in two volumes, and as a result, you see the broad strokes of the history, but it lacks a lot of the character work you would get in individual issues and arcs. But what else can you do? Those broad strokes, attempting to construct a coherent narrative out of all this history, that's what this is. Piskor does it and does it well. I don't know if anyone else could have managed it quite this well.

Overall: Beautiful art, love for the source material oozes off every page. Narratively, it feels a little stretched and abridged in parts, but you know what? I'm probably going to buy Volume 2 of this. My Grade: *** out of ****

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'The Martian Contingency' --A Review

The Lady Astronaut series finishes up with the fourth and final volume, The Martian Contingency. This volume flips back to Elma York and her husband, Nathan, and their arrival on Mars.

Look, I'm going to be up front with everyone: Elma's not my favorite character. She starts out strong in the first book, becomes unbearably naive in the second book, and dances towards that again in this book, but rallies nicely at the end. I actually really like her arc in this book, because it does something that we haven't seen since the first book. There, Elma overcomes her anxiety and learns how much power she actually has when she becomes the public face of the astronaut program. Here, Elma has to learn how to be in command.

So, they're on Mars, and things are going well, but Elma starts noticing things. A very nice mural has been painted over some racial slurs. There is what appears to be a makeshift jail cell in an airlock. Members of the first expedition dodge her questions about it, and she gets frustrated. But before she can get to the bottom of it, events intervene.

A critical supply drop goes off course and crashes into the surface. Mission Control stonewalls their request for guidance and supplies, and the new Martians worry that they're about to be evacuated. Wanting to preserve the mission, they take matters into their own hands and tell Mission Control they won't leave-- only to find out that Director Clemons, longtime head of the IAC, has died of a heart attack, and Elma's old rival Parker is taking over.

Parker immediately separates everyone by gender, sending the women up to the Goddard, the colony ship in orbit, and keeping the men on the surface. Elma is initially (along with everyone else) outraged until Parker sends her a coded message that lays out the problem: he needs to be confirmed first and, until he gets that done, he asks Elma to trust him. Nicole (still President) chimes in as well, urging trust. Elma considers this, considers the events of the second book, and how their relationship changed, and actually goes along with the plan.

She takes command of the Goddard, and work continues on Mars to complete the second dome expansion.

In the meantime, Elma settles into her role and immediately courts controversy: one of the crew members reveals a pregnancy. Medically, they are nowhere near ready for babies on Mars, and the crew member in question (who thought that Elma's tried and true rhythm method would work for her, even though Elma's math was off thanks to being on Mars now). It gets insanely complicated, as the crew member wants an abortion, and it is the early 70s, so abortion is an issue.

I actually loved this part of the book, because Elma gets called out a little bit and has to face up to the fact that, as commander and because of who she is, she's got influence and a certain amount of power over people, whether she wants to admit that or not. She finally understands the truth of that, and despite Nicole sending a message via Helen that the abortion should not proceed, she takes advantage of a communications lapse between Earth and Mars (Earth moves behind the sun for a bit) to authorize it anyway- and, more importantly, owns the decision.

On Mars, something goes disastrously wrong with the carbon dioxide scrubbers, and Nathan is among those seriously affected. Elma finds out that Nathan has been hiding medical conditions from her and, more importantly, finds out what happened on the First Expedition. Here's the thing, though: the well-meaning white lady of the previous book actually listens and gives the people of color who had the experience space-- but also, insists that they report it. It's such a sea change from the second novel; it's almost jarring in a way, but it fits the arc that Elma goes through in this book. She gets and owns the power that a part of her has always felt that she deserved, but in the end, she realizes that what she really wants to do is fly.

She turns down the opportunity to take over as head of the Mars base and settles into life with Nathan on Mars.

Overall, this felt like an ending and curiously open-ended in many ways. The series has been pretty good up to this point in giving us glimpses at how climate change brought on by the meteor strike is changing Earth, but it seems to fade into the background here. And there are hints here and there that they think they might be able to ameliorate the effects of it somewhat? It's unclear... the ultimate fate of Earth is left open, and the characters are just kind of chilling on the moon and Mars? I'm torn about it.

On balance, I think this finished strong. Elma's character was far more palatable than when we last saw her, and while I do miss Nicole (The Relentless Moon was really my favorite novel in this series) I think ending this on Mars, with the goal of having gotten humanity off planet achieved was the best finish possible.

The alternate history is solid. The story is readable and entertaining. It's got some bumps and bruises that annoyed me, but other people may not be bothered by them at all. My Grade: *** out of ****

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It's The Writing, Y'all.

So, without meaning to, I begin a rewatch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and originally, this post was going to be about that, but I want to put a little bit of a spin on it, especially given what's happened with Starfleet Academy. Now, granted, I know Star Trek in general is up in the air given the current merger between Paramount and the WB, but let's assume that the franchise returns to both big and small screens over the course of the next few years. I do think Trek has a problem; they're going to have to sit down and really think about it-- and no, it's not the alleged wokeness of it all.

It's the writing.

I don't think that Nu-Trek has figured out how to write for the streaming era quite yet. The striking thing about watching the first two seasons of Deep Space Nine is the amount of character work the writers get to do, because of the amount of time they have to work with, episode-wise. You can do more-- you can, as the kids say, 'cook' when you've got 20-26 episodes to work with. It allows you build out your characters more and actually develop evolution and story arcs in the way an 8-12 episode order, which is more common in the streaming era doesn't allow for.

Kira alone evolves over the course of the first two seasons-- 'Past Prologue', 'Battle Lines',' 'Progress', 'Duet', 'Sanctuary', 'Crossover', 'The Collaborator', 'Second Skin'-- that's nine episodes centered around Kira's character in the first two seasons and doesn't include the pilot ('Emissary') or the first season finale/second season premiere, which is essentially a four-episode arc ('In The Hands Of The Prophets', 'The Homecoming', 'The Circle', 'The Siege)'.

The crazy part is that you could break down most of the other cast members the same way-- I'd say there might be some overlap between Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) and Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) as there aren't many truly 'Jake-centered' episodes in the early going, but really and truly, they all get their moments. And again, why? Because the structure and length of the season allowed the writers to give them that.

Contrast that with the first season of Starfleet Academy and indeed all of Nu-Trek to some degree or another. The structural limitations that these shows have mean that we're given glimpses of really interesting things that feel half-formed because they seem to be unable to really have the time to develop and round out the characters the way they used to be able to. Whether this is a product of newer writers to the Trek universe or the change in structure, I don't know-- but for all the complaining about Starfleet Academy, if you scrape aside the 'but it's woke' bullshit, this is what the heart of a lot of the criticism gets at. There's no time to get to know these characters. There are way too many 'CW High School Show' tropes being thrown around and not enough competence porn.

But that's kind of unfair to the writers as well. Honestly, my boldest take on Starfleet Academy is that 'Come Let's Away' (Episode 6) should have been the pilot. We should have been dropped right into that situation, because it told us SO MUCH about the universe the show currently occupies. This isn't the Federation the way it used to be-- it's a vulnerable Federation, a rising/returning power in the Quadrant, and there are forces that don't want to see it return. That would have been one hell of a way to introduce us to these characters and how they react to danger, loss, and work together as a team. Everything could have flowed from that moment-- it's legitimately one of the strongest episodes of the season, and they buried it in episode six.

'Vox In Excelso' was another excellent moment that didn't quite stick the landing, because again, you have one episode to build around. Why not make it an arc over multiple episodes? Why not allow us to explore Jay-Den's character more? It's a fascinating episode, primarily because the idea that the Klingons are a dead end as a culture has been kicking around in multiple iterations of Trek dating back to the Original Series movies-- their fate here is a logical endpoint, but what DOES THAT MEAN. SHOW US. EXPLORE IT A BIT-- but how can you really do that in a 12-episode season?

Another example of weird writing choices was the character arc of Phillipa Georgiou in Star Trek Discovery-- the character builds up to a point where she's forced to admit that she's changed and maybe isn't the brutal Terran from the Mirror Universe she used to be and then gets sent back in time via The Guardian of Forever to save her life and then appears in the Section 31 movie as a completely different character. So annoying-- and what a waste of potential that movie was as well. Honestly, probably far worse than anything Starfleet Academy has offered so far.

(The Burn was... an interesting choice, but I think better ones were available in Trek canon if you dug a little bit. Omega particles, for instance.)

What I am curious about with Nu-Trek is the thought process behind some of their decisions-- like, I don't know if the plan was always to send Discovery to the future, but it felt like a brilliant, game-changing choice for that show. In Starfleet Academy, Sam's character gets flipped on a dime in order to repair her injury, and it brings added context to The Doctor that would have been amazing to explore. (The choice to make it the original Doctor and not the one that left the Delta Quadrant planet to go home hundreds of years in the future was an interesting one as well.) Despite the frustration with the writing on Nu-Trek and the difficulty diagnosing what, if anything, is wrong with it, I will give them credit: they take big swings —sometimes those work. Sometimes they don't, but I like the flashes of ambition we see from time to time with Nu-Trek.

I think going forward, I like the idea of adopting what James Gunn is (reportedly) doing for the DC Universe: if the script isn't right, don't make it. I'd love to see any of the following:

Star Trek United, but with a clear planned three-season arc (similar to Andor.) Have a complete story laid out and ready to go. It's a great pitch and would allow you to give Enterprise a better capstone while also exploring something we don't really see in Star Trek-- the political side/machinations of how the Federation actually works.

A better Section 31 movie: The Hunt for Red October is just sitting there waiting to be tweaked, and if done right, it would be perfect. Keep Rachel Garrett, by all means. Ditch the weird kitschy technicolor crap and just tell a spy story, preferably involving Romulans. (What's The Tomed Incident? No one really knows what drives the Romulans into their period of isolation, which only ends at the time of TNG? There's a story here, I just know it.)

There are other pitches out there that you can dig up-- a fascinating one that I see a lot is 'a planet discovering warp drive and then getting admitted to the Federation' like an inverse First Contact story. I do think there is something to the notion that competence porn is resonating with viewers right now, and it's always been a key and underrated component of Trek-- it's a group of really smart people solving problems and doing it well. Whatever you do, whatever story you tell, if you find that at its core, you're going to be in a good place.

I'll keep picking my way through Deep Space Nine until Strange New Worlds drops again in July. But as this post was supposed to be about Deep Space Nine, I suppose I should talk about it...

Season One gets a lot of crap in some quarters, mainly for 'Move Along Home.' I honestly don't think it's that bad of an episode-- 'Dax' is a solid courtroom drama, which is always good at, but honestly, even if it was nice to see Q ('Q-Less') and Lwaxana Troi ('The Forsaken') again, 'Duet' is just an incredible episode and leads directly into a really strong arc of episodes about the ongoing mess on post-Occupation Bajor. What's crazy about 'Duet' is that it was obviously meant to be a bottle episode-- light on the special effects for budgetary reasons and writing just holy shit, it sings. The performances —Harris Yulin as Marritza going eyeball to eyeball with Nana Visitor as Kira — are absolutely electric. Easily a top episode of Star Trek altogether-- if it's not on a list, your list is wrong.

Season Two finds more of a groove, I think, and introduces The Maquis, which is a nice 'shades of grey' aspect to the Federation that we get to explore over the course of the next few seasons. The Mirror Universe and more Bajoran political twists and turns keep it entertaining, but the introduction of the Jem'Hadar in the final episode really begins Deep Space Nine's incredible run.

Onwards to Season 3! (And maybe more thoughts about the future of Star Trek, so stay tuned.)

[litcityblues]

'The Relentless Moon' --A Review

Okay, I'm going to admit something: I might have been just a wee bit too harsh about The Calculating Stars, because this book provides so much context about its predecessor that it almost functions as a separate part of the same story in many ways.

Don't get me wrong: I get why Kowal split these two books up. Trying to flip back and forth between one narrative and another AND have two separate primary POV characters seems positively migraine-inducing to contemplate. But if you think about The Calculating Stars and The Relentless Moon as two different sides of the same coin, it makes so much more sense. I was genuinely disappointed in The Calculating Stars and felt like the series had fallen off quite a bit to the point where I was wondering if it was worth finishing it out. The Relentless Moon dragged me all the way back in, and now I'm definitely finishing this series out.

The Relentless Moon switches us to a new narrator: Nicole Wargin. She's back on Earth, while Elma is on her way to Mars with the first Mars expedition, and tensions are rising. People are starting to question the necessity of spending so much money on the space program when there are parts of the world that have not recovered from the effects of the Meteor. There are people who don't believe in climate change caused by the meteor, despite evidence all around them indicating that temperatures are rising and the problems are getting worse.

Nicole has struggles of her own: she wants to be in space and loves being a pilot, but has to balance her ambitions with those of her husband, the Governor of Kansas and prospective presidential candidate Kenneth Wargin. Nicole is something of a chameleon, shifting from pilot to perfect politician wife and back again with ease, but Kenneth, her husband, also knows that she wrestles with a demon of her own: an eating disorder.

A rocket launch goes awry, there's rioting in the new United States Capitol of Kansas City, and then, during an astronaut husband's poker night, Nathaniel York, Elma's husband, collapses from what everyone thinks is an ulcer, but turns out to be something more sinister: poison.

Suddenly, the FBI is investigating the space program, and Nicole is sent to the moon, not as a pilot or an astronaut, but to send a message to the Lunar Colony Administrator that the program has been infiltrated and they suspect that there is a saboteur somewhere on the moon.

Those suspicions soon prove correct, as the pilot (Eugene) of their trip to the moon gets violently ill en route. The landing goes awry, and one of the landing struts collapses, forcing them to evacuate the shuttle and for Nicole to leave her top-secret cargo behind. Once safely in the colony, power outages start cropping up. There's an outbreak of polio. (Which is a nice historical touch on the part of Kowal: there's a vaccine, but it's not widely available yet.) Nicole breaks her arm and is worried that it will heal incorrectly and keep her grounded permanently, but gets to work trying to find the saboteur.

In the middle of all of this, Kenneth announces a run for President. She's doing press appearances and giving interviews, and almost gets electrocuted, and then just when she thinks she might be getting somewhere, Kenneth offers to go and find out more for her and gets assassinated in the process.

Now, it's personal. Nicole's friends-- including Eugene, Myrtle, and Helen rally around her, and some of them-- Myrtle especially are aware of her eating disorder and have to force her to eat to keep going. Resenting the hell out of them for it, she does, more determined than ever to get to the bottom of this. She's forced to deliver a eulogy from the Moon and blames (rightly) the terrorists for her husband's death and urges people to fight against them. She figures out that all of this is building towards something potentially catastrophic, like a bomb, and races with her friends to find those responsible and eventually does so.

The post-script of the book fast-forwards a couple of years later, when Nicole, now President, welcomes home the crew of the First Mars Expedition, and Eugene has been elected Mayor of the New Luna Colony. She eats every day, because food is fuel and she has a job to do.

Okay, where to begin? First of all, the title is right on-- The Relentless Moon, because Nicole is just getting hit with one thing after another throughout, and she gets put through the wringer here, but does fight through everything- including the loss of her husband to get the job done.

Second, I love the context it provides for the previous book. Elma and company don't know why they can't contact Earth; they just know they can't-- here, the characters know that there's a massive blackout that affects most of Kansas and their ability to contact Earth, which they have to work through and figure out that the satellites have been hijacked as well.

Finally, I just love Nicole. Elma, bless her cotton socks-- and I know this was one of my principal critiques of the previous books-- falls into the 'white lady discovering racism and trying to be helpful in all the wrong ways' trap way too much for my liking. There's almost a certain amount of naivety to her character that I was willing to forgive in the first book, but by the second book, I'm just sort of shaking my head and being like, 'Elma, come on, girl.' Nicole, on the other hand, is very clear-eyed about people and how much or how little to trust them. She's not naive about racism or extremism. It's a refreshing contrast-- especially when you learn that she spent the war not just as a pilot but as what is heavily implied to be a spy of some kind.

Did Kenneth have to die just because it's 1963 in this timeline, so a prominent politician should, of course, be shot? I go back and forth-- It's a pet peeve I have with alternate history/timelines-- if you're going to be all Missy Elliott about it (put that thang down, flip it and reverse it) and I can tell what's coming next because you've obviously just tweaked the history just a wee bit, I find that annoying as a reader. Here, it serves an unfortunate plot purpose-- Kenneth reveals he had a heart attack on one of Nicole's previous missions that he didn't tell her about, and that as a result, he probably wouldn't be able to survive a launch. For all that they're trying to establish humanity off planet, the uncomfortable truth they have to wrestle with is that not everyone is going to get a ticket off.

Nicole as President? Eh... imagine if Jackie Kennedy had been a fighter pilot, highly educated, could speak multiple languages, and had become an astronaut while being married to JFK? It's not wildly out of the question though, given recent events and the fact it took NASA decades to put a woman into space and the Soviets just kind of did it make me want to press 'X' for doubt on this one, but given who the character is and the loss of her husband, it's at least plausible, which is about all you could ask for, as a reader.

Overall: Redeemed the previous book and then some, awesome meaty new addition to this series, and I am already into the next book. My Grade: **** out of ****

[litcityblues]

8. Angles

The next chapter of The Long Defeat

The Reboot Project has a new name: The Long Defeat!

The latest chapter, Chapter 8, is up over on my Substack... check it out today, and if you like what you read, stick around and subscribe!

[litcityblues]

Can I Say Something?

'Star Trek: Starfleet Academy' (Streaming Club #12)

The more I think about it, the more I think it's the writing. You can see the outlines of really fascinating and interesting stories that just... go nowhere. Or kind of get explored, but not really?

All that being said, Starfleet Academy was not bad. A little rough around the edges? Sure. Room to grow? Oh, absolutely. But certainly not worth the cancellation, largely driven by internet trolls. I would have let the second season at least be released before making that decision one way or the other.

[litcityblues]

Streetcar Ghosts

How History Can Teach Us That Nothing Is Immutable

I fell down a local history rabbit hole and explored the old streetcar lines a bit. It was fascinating to find out how much of our history is hidden in plain sight all around us, and that the built environment we lament is something that has changed multiple times throughout history.

So, we can change it again if we want to.

[litcityblues]

The Death of Twitter

Reality is decompensating in the rising age of AI

*NERD ALERT*

Yes, I'm using my two shiny polisci degrees again, so buckle up. But pretty close to one month into the Iran War, the information space remains so unhelpful and uninformative that I have little to no idea what's actually going on, and I'm starting to suspect the people running this war are in that same boat. Which is scary.

[litcityblues]

You Can't Please Everyone

'Ella McCay' (Film Club #11)

Emma Mackey is very good.

This movie would have made a ton of money in 1998.

I have no earthly idea why it's getting so much critical love in France, of all places.

It tries to please absolutely everyone and ends up being something of a hot mess.

[litcityblues]

Bookshot #189: The Templars

Honestly, I'm not quite sure why I picked this book up. I think I was in the bookstore with one of the kiddos and just felt an unshakable u

If you're into picking up random history books for kicks, just know that if they're written by Dan Jones, they're (most likely) accessible, readable, and all around excellent. Dude has not missed on those three aspects yet, as far as I can tell.

[litcityblues]

The Dreamers Saved Us

New Short Fiction for 2026

New short fiction is up over on the #Substack, #TheDreamersSavedUs is inspired by the lack of color in the landscape this time of year and the dream of a more beautiful, colorful world in the future

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'Memories of Ice' --A Review

Grappling With The Epic Scale of Malazan

Another volume of #Malazan is complete! #MemoriesOfIce is just as epic in scope as the first two volumes and just as satisfying, but man, are these books A LOT.