Since then, the eBay seller removed the listing and brought it to Heritage Auction for authentication, with the intent of sending it on a voyage to its rightful home. The experts there confirmed the model was legit and reached out to Rod Roddenberry Jr., the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
“After five decades, I’m thrilled that someone happened upon this historic model of the USS Enterprise. I remember how it used to adorn my dad’s desk,” Rod Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment said in a statement. “I am tremendously grateful to Heritage Auctions for facilitating the return of this iconic piece of Star Trek history to my family. I can’t wait to figure out how we are going to share it with my extended family, Star Trek fans around the world. We look forward to making that announcement.”
The model was designed by the art director Walter “Matt” Jefferies, who worked with Gene to create what they thought could be a believable starship, which Jefferies said in the 1968 book The Making of Star Trek was founded “on fairly solid scientific concepts, projected into the future.”
The result was the NC-1701 model we’ve all come to know and love, which will now live long and prosper under Roddenberry’s protection.
If you want to see some images of the model, check out the image at the beginning of this post as well as the photos below. [end-mark]
We don’t know the plot for Aang, but we do know its voice cast: Dave Bautista and Eric Nam are set to star in the film in undisclosed roles, though it was confirmed that Bautista will be playing a villain of some sort. They will be joined by Dionne Quan, Jessica Matten, and Román Zaragoza, also in undisclosed roles.
Originally, the film was supposed to premiere on October 10, 2025. Varietyreported today that Paramount, who is developing the film along with Nickelodeon Studios, has pushed the feature out to a January 20, 2026 release date.
How will Aang: The Last Airbender compare to the live-action remake? It’s hard to say for sure, but the fact that the feature is being co-directed by William Mata and Lauren Montgomery, the latter of whom is an alum of the original series, bodes well. What bodes even better is that creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are executive producers on the project. (The live-action series originally had DiMartino and Konietzko on board, but they left the production due to creative differences, something that critics have said hurt the remake.)
We’ll have to withhold judgment, of course, until Aang makes its way to our eyeballs in 2026. [end-mark]
There's good news and bad news, Witcher fans: The Netflix adaptation has been renewed for a fifth season, but that's the last you're going to get. And if you're keeping Witcher-score, that means three seasons for Henry Cavill, and two for Liam Hemsworth, who steps into Geralt's shoes for the currently-in-production fourth season.
The last two seasons will, according to Netflix, be filmed back-to-back, so presumably you won't have to wait a number of years for the grand finale. And they will cover three of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, and Lady of the Lake.
At this point, season four has a typically vague summary:
After the shocking, Continent-altering events that close out Season 3, the new season follows Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri, who are separated and traversing the war-ravaged Continent and its many demons. If they can embrace and lead the groups of misfits they find themselves in, they have a chance of surviving the baptism of fire — and finding one another again.
Are there ever events in this show that aren't shocking and Continent-altering? Creator and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich gave a few clues about what to expect, pointing at Vilgefortz and his betrayal. She told Tudum, “We want people to go back and start looking at all of the clues and breadcrumbs that we have laid out to see how these two people align. Because, clearly, there’s a lot more going on with Emhyr, Vilgefortz, and their past—and their future.”
Quite a few new faces are set for the upcoming season, including Sharlto Copley as Leo Bonhart and Laurence Fishburne as Regis, "a world-wise barber-surgeon with a mysterious past." No premiere date has been announced just yet.[end-mark]
For years, now—years and years and years—the people have been crying out, not for more origin stories, but for them to stop. We have been origined half to death out here.
And if—if!—for some reason another origin story were necessary, you know what it wouldn't be necessary for? Robots from the last century. Robots that are more than meets the eye. Robots that are going to say that tagline out loud in the trailer for the animated origin story Transformers One.
Hey, did you know Optimus Prime and Megatron were buds once? (What is this, the X-Men?) Did you know that they didn't always know how to transform? Did you need to know that they were once lowly worker bots just like everyone else? Well. Someone thinks you ought to find out.
If your humble writer's frustration with this inane commercial for robot toys seems a touch outsized, please consider this: The makers of this film saw fit to spend some unspecified but obviously quite large amount of money to shoot this movie trailer into space. Remember when space exploration meant something? Remember when we were curious about what was out there? You know what's out there now? Transformers junk.
The actors providing the voices for this commercial film include Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm. Yes, despite the fact that we're no longer in the ’80s, there is one token woman. Love that. Love that for all of us. Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4) directs.
For some reason, this movie is in theaters on September 20th.[end-mark]
In its seventh and final season, Star Trek: Voyager did an episode entitled “Shattered.” The episode, with its title reminiscent of a Rolling Stones song, had Voyager split into different timeframes, where each section of the ship was in a different time, and only the present-day Chakotay and a past iteration of Janeway were able to move freely among the different time zones. It was little more than an excuse to visit bits of the show’s past (and one possible future), and even be reunited with a crew member who died (Martha Hackett’s Seska). Scientifically, the show made nothing like sense.
It its fifth and final season, Star Trek: Discovery has done something remarkably similar to “Shattered.” In this latest episode, with its title that is borrowed from a David Bowie song, only instead Burnham and Rayner are bouncing around to Discovery in different times and places, also visiting bits of the show’s past (and one possible future), and being reunited with a crew member who died. However, the science in this one actually takes a stab at plausibility (as plausible as time travel can possibly be). It even takes into account that Discovery is in totally different places in each time that Burnham and Rayner visit!
Okay, before we start, I have to mention something that I somehow completely missed last week at the very end of “Jinaal.” I managed to completely not notice that Moll (disguised as a Trill Guardian) slipped some kind of bug onto Adira.
However, I did notice it in the “previously on Star Trek: Discovery” re-showing of that scene at the top of “Face the Strange.” My initial thought was that it was a listening/homing device, but it was much more than that: it freezes Discovery in time, which apparently has effects throughout time and space.
(We see Moll and L’ak acquiring the bug from a dealer who tries to cheat them, but they anticipated that and poisoned the latinum they gave him and he dies. It shows that our bad guys are definitely very bad guys, but doesn’t really do anything to make our Bonnie-and-Clyde-in-space pair interesting, something that needs to happen soon.)
Discovery has two advantages, one inherent, one due to fortuitous timing. The latter is that Burnham and Rayner were trying to transport to the bridge right when the bug activated. Yes, after being reminded last week that, even in the thirty-second century, a “buncha rocks always beats centuries of technological progress,” this week we’re reminded that the transporter can seriously fuck shit up.
The inherent advantage, however, is a benefit, as Stamets, thanks to having tardigrade DNA, has a much more peculiar relationship with time and space than everyone else. This has already saved the crew’s asses on another occasion when they went on a wacky time-travel adventure, to wit, the Harry Mudd-induced time loops in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad.” What’s more, Burnham knows this, and so she and Rayner seek out Stamets. Unlike Burnham and Rayner, Stamets is actually inhabiting his own body in each time jump, and going through whatever he happened to be going through at the time—including one occasion when he was really badly injured and about to go into a coma.
Credit: CBS / Paramount+
And when they go several decades into the future, everyone’s dead, because the Progenitors’ technology has been unleashed on the galaxy, and Burnham and Rayner show up to an empty Discovery, a slightly crazy Zora, and a destroyed Federation HQ.
This was the first of several minor disappointments I had with the episode. When Burnham and Rayner went to a future version of Discovery, I was really really really hoping that it would cross over with the Short Trek “Calypso,” maybe even with an Aldis Hodge appearance! But, alas, it was the “possible future” where Discovery doesn’t save the day and everyone dies. Which was another disappointment, because one of the things I liked about the quest for the Progenitors was that it wasn’t a Big! Major! Thing! That could destroy! Everything!
Except now it is. We got a hint of this when Jinaal told Burnham and Book last week that the tech killed one of his fellow scientists, and this week we get confirmation that if L’ak and Moll get the tech, it will destroy the heart of the Federation. It’s not quite the major threat that Control or the DMA were, but it’s still too fucking big a threat. It’s just tiresome, is all…
This episode’s reason for existing is mainly to get Burnham and Rayner to have their buddy movie, and for Rayner to come around to understanding how things work on Discovery and what kind of captain Burnham is. Because Rayner is an experienced captain in his own right, it’s a difficult transition for him. And it’s understandable. It’s incredibly hard to go back to being second-in-command after you’ve been the person in charge for so long. Plus, Rayner’s also adjusting to post-Burn life. The Federation was a different place during most of Rayner’s lifetime.
And, like “Shattered,” it’s also here to revisit some past storylines. We get them going back to the third season, when Burnham and Book are still a happy couple, and Burnham has to fake being someone who is still smitten with Book before she found herself forced into a place where she couldn’t trust him. And she’s reminded of the good times and that she loves him (and that David Ajala looks very good with his shirt off). We get them arriving when the Emerald Chain has taken over the ship, giving both Burnham and Rayner a chance to beat up some of Osyraa’s thugs. (One gets the impression that this is far from the first time Rayner has beaten up some Chain cannon fodder.)
During that bit, Rayner encounters Reno (Burnham hides at the sight of her). Rayner bluffs that he’s a temporary crew member, and Reno gives him a pep talk and makes him promise to buy her a drink at Red’s. Another minor disappointment: the episode didn’t end with Rayner buying Reno that drink.
The heart of the episode, though, is when they wind up on Discovery very shortly after Burnham came on board. She’s still a prisoner, trying to work off her mutiny conviction by helping Lorca. This is the longest they’ll be in one time zone, and it’s their best chance to destroy the bug (which is protected by a temporal force field, because of course it is).
Between them, Stamets and Burnham come up with a technobabble solution that requires Discovery to go to maximum warp and break through the warp bubble and then Rayner has to deactivate it as they break out of the bubble. It has to do with relativity and temporarily losing the protection against relativity that the warp bubble provides so that they can get through the temporal force field.
The problem is they have to convince the bridge crew to do it. Lorca, Saru, and Landry are off on a mission (because that would require getting Jason Isaacs and Rekha Sharma back, plus apparently this was an episode Doug Jones got off from having to be made up, as Saru only appears vocally over an intercom), so Airiam is in charge of the bridge.
Before Burnham can get to the bridge to convince the crew—including the one she saw die—to do her batshit plan, she bumps into herself.
Credit: CBS / Paramount+
Which leads to another disappointment, as Prisoner Michael Burnham sees Captain Michael Burnham and assumes she’s a shapechanger or some other kind of violent life form, and fisticuffs ensue. And ensue, and ensue. It’s bad enough that the episode is riffing on the stupidest scene in Superman III, but it just goes on for-bloody-ever…
It’s fun seeing folks in the old uniforms, and in some cases in their old hairstyles—Burnham, Owosekun, and Tilly all get their first-season hair back for some scenes. And it’s especially nice to see Hannah Cheesman return as Airiam, and also Ronnie Rowe Jr. as Bryce. And you can tell that we’re back on Lorca’s Discovery (and they’re in the middle of a war), because everyone is angry and trigger-happy. When Burnham explains that in her future Airiam is dead, Bryce whips out a phaser and points it angrily at Burnham, refusing to believe that nonsense.
But Burnham is able to convince Airiam herself, which is what matters. They do the thing, the day is saved, and the timelines all reset thanks to plot-convenient-itis! That same plot-convenient-itis is how Burnham and Rayner manage to wander iterations of Discovery they don’t belong on with impunity and without being detected. At least they’re able to have privacy with Stamets mostly by Stamets declaring a “spore breach” and needing to clear engineering. Though early-first-season Stamets can just clear the room by being a grouch, as he was a lot snottier then…
Besides giving Burnham, and the viewer, a chance to indulge in some nostalgia, the episode also gives Burnham and Rayner a chance to do their little buddy movie, and Rayner starts to get the hang of the crew. In particular, he appreciates Burnham’s more free-spirited bridge more by the episode’s end. (My favorite is when he uses his knowledge of Rhys’ nerdity over starships in general and the twenty-third Constitution-class in particular, gained during his twenty-word meeting last week.)
My final disappointment with this episode is that we were told last week that they’d be going to Tzenkethi space, and I hoped that meant we would actually see the Tzenkethi for the first time onscreen. Alas, it was not to be.
Still, minor disappointments notwithstanding, this was a fun episode that didn’t exactly move things forward in terms of plot, but did fantastic work in doing it for character.[end-mark]
The trailer for Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps suggests that the film is a fun fantasy romp, where a man goes to a witch to ask her to give him a wife, and the witch gives him three impossible tasks to do before she grants him his wish (which, I'm guessing, is that the two get together).
Here’s the official synopsis:
Tami Stronach, the iconic Childlike Empress in The NeverEnding Story (celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year), makes her long-awaited return to the big screen in the new fantasy film Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps. When a lonely goatherd discovers that he has been cursed at birth to never take a wife, he makes a bargain with a reclusive witch to reverse the spell, only to find that if he can't complete her three impossible tasks, he will never find true love.
In addition to Stronach, Man and Witch stars her real-life husband Greg Steinbruner as her co-lead, as well as Sean Astin, Christopher Lloyd, Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Saunders, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Michael Emerson, Bill Bailey, Daniel Portman, Stuart Bowman, and Martha West. It’s directed by Michael Hines and written by Steinbruner.
That's quite an A-list supporting cast!
The film will be in theaters nationally only for a short time, on July 28 and July 30, 2024. You can learn more about the movie by heading to ManAndWitch.com.
Neon, the distributor of the upcoming horror film Longlegs, is going all in on enigmatic marketing for the movie. Today, the company sent out a press release that was purposefully confusing and undoubtedly holds some secret code or something for people more motivated and/or clever than me to figure out.
Below is exactly what was shared in that email. Make of it what you will!
First, they shared this poster, titled “Sweet Part One”:
Then, they shared this teaser video, titled “Sweet Part Two”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORe5cAnpTFQ
The clip is short, full of spooky scare vibes, and has a voiceover of a woman saying she never said her prayers because she was afraid to. There’s more there, of course, including some enigmatic phrases that I'm sure Mean Something and I invite you to watch it yourself and take notes.
Lastly, the email had the following “checklist":
What does this mean? I have no idea! It seems like it’s a list for those who want to join or be recruited into… something? What that something is I have no idea, but I bet it's spooky af.
Here’s what I do know about Longlegs. It stars Maika Monroe (It Follows) and features Nicolas Cage in an unknown role. It comes from writer-director Osgood Perkins, who is also the person behind the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, “The Monkey.”
The film will hit theaters on July 12, 2024. Hopefully (probably) we’ll get more disturbing clues before then! [end-mark]
Suppose for the moment that you were a hard-working speculative fiction author with a lengthy backlist of short fiction. Further suppose that you wanted to package some of that short fiction into a collection that readers might buy. Imagine your consternation on discovering that collections weren’t selling well and that no publisher wanted to gamble on your work. What is a hard-working author to do?
One solution to a temporary shortage of funds is to don a garish costume, adopt a memorable nom de crime, and launch a series of unnecessarily complex schemes to rob banks. But there is an even easier solution! Simply take those unsellable short works, apply narrative spackle, and transform them into what A. E. Van Vogt called a “fix-up” novel. Readers will barely notice the seams as they enjoy your latest novel1. You will enjoy extra income. Everyone wins—especially your bank manager.
While Van Vogt’s own fix-ups were (to put it charitably) of variable quality, the form has produced legitimate classics that are well worth readers’ time and money. Herewith, five truly glorious fix-ups you might want to read.
Miller’s only novel published during his lifetime, Canticle details the efforts of the pious brothers of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz to preserve scientific knowledge following the Flame Deluge and subsequent Simplification. The results are mixed at best, but the brothers’ hearts were pure.
The novel Canticle began as "A Canticle for Leibowitz," “And the Light is Risen,” and “The Last Canticle,” all published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction between 1955 and 1957. Each was substantially reworked before appearing as the fix-up Canticle for Leibowitz in 1959. The result was an instant, Hugo Award-winning classic. In fact, Canticle was so successful that it eclipsed Miller’s other work; I have encountered people who are entirely unaware Miller wrote other stories.
Following Queen Elizabeth I’s assassination, the Reformation is crushed. Spain remains ascendant. The Catholic Church remains the Church and technological and social innovation is discouraged. The consequences (and ultimately, the true cause) of this historical alteration are detailed over generations from the perspective of England’s Dorset region.
The novelettes that became Pavane began as “The Signaller,” “The Lady Anne,” “Brother John,” “Lords and Ladies,” “Corfe Gate,” and “The White Boat,” all published in 1966, all of which save “The White Boat” were first published in Impulse. “The White Boat” first appeared in New Worlds. As with Canticle, the result was an instant classic. While Pavane did not win a Hugo, it was featured in the first Ace SF Specials and is still in print over half a century later.
Alaric the Minstrel (bard and teleporter) gains employment in the Red Lord’s court. The mysterious screams heard from the Red Lord’s tower lead Alaric to question the prudence of working for the lord. A man who can teleport need not worry overmuch about imprisonment…but is Alaric the sort of man who will simply walk away from injustice?
Red Lord began as “The Land of Sorrow,” “The Mountain Fastness,” and “Beyond the Red Lord's Reach,” all of which first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction between 1977 and 1988. Annoyingly, despite Eisenstein’s talent as a writer, both this volume and 1978’s Born to Exile are long out of print2. Alaric-curious readers can seek out Eisenstein’s more recent Alaric tale, 2014’s “The Caravan to Nowhere,” which may be found in the Rogues anthology edited by Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin.
A mishap en route to an exoplanet cost the hopeful pioneers the index that was key to a cutting-edge biotechnological tool. Lack of index did not prevent genetically-engineered animals and plants from occasionally producing dissimilar, sometimes dangerous, offspring. It falls to Annie Jason “Mama Jason” Masmajean to deal with the resulting “Dragon’s Teeth.”
Mirabile’s composite parts—“The Loch Moose Monster,” “The Return of the Kangaroo Rex,” “The Flowering Inferno,” “Getting the Bugs Out,” “Raising Cane,” and “Frankenswine”) first appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine between 1989 and 1991. As fix-ups go, the efforts to transform the original short pieces into a novel are perfunctory to the point that for years I thought it was a collection. Nevertheless, the result entertains. It’s too bad that Mirabile is currently out of print. Perhaps a letter-writing campaign to Mirabile’s publisher Tor could change that!
As was foretold by techno-optimistic futurists, the Singularity utterly transforms the world. A trifling side effect barely worth mentioning is that intellectually out-classed humans are swiftly reduced from Earth’s dominant thinkers to cognitive archaea. As detailed over generations, the post-Singularity era is an exciting time to be alive…or to be consumed by ruthless, super-intelligent AIs.
Accelerando’s component chapters (“Lobsters,” “Troubadour,” “Tourist,” “Halo,” “Router,” “Nightfall,” “Curator,” “Elector,” and “Survivor”) were all first published in in Asimov's Science Fiction between 2001 and 2004. Accelerando was very well received; I don’t have the spare word count to list every award nomination that the fix-up and its parts earned. One wonders how Stross finds the mantlepiece space for all the awards. Accelerando can be downloaded here. Try not to burn out the servers.
Fix-ups are a venerable, respectable approach to writing and publishing speculative fiction. The five examples above are only a very small sample of a very large body of work3 [3]. No doubt I’ve missed some very notable examples. Feel free to lambast me for my omissions and correct my oversights in comments below.[end-mark]
Seams are less obvious in fix-ups that were planned to become fix-ups from the beginning. One thinks of the many Victorian novels that were serialized and later collected into books. ↩︎
As far as I can tell, anthologized stories aside, Eisenstein is completely out of print. I am astonished there hasn’t been A Complete Alaric, at least. The world found space to keep They’d Rather Be Right in print. Why not Eisenstein’s far superior books? ↩︎
I seriously considered mentioning a certain fix-up first serialized in Analog way back in 1963 and 1965. However, the resulting fix-up was so unappealing to SF publishers that the author eventually settled for a publisher specializing in automotive repair manuals (an acquisition for which the purchasing editor was subsequently fired). Ultimately, I reluctantly deleted my discussion of that fix-up. After all, would 21st-century readers have even heard of Dune? ↩︎
We're thrilled to share an excerpt from The Silverblood Promise by James Logan, an epic fantasy debut publishing with Tor Books on May 28th.
Lukan Gardova is a cardsharp, academy dropout, and—thanks to a duel that ended badly—the disgraced heir to an ancient noble house. His days consist of cheap wine, rigged card games, and wondering how he might win back the life he threw away.
When Lukan discovers that his estranged father has been murdered in strange circumstances, he finds fresh purpose. Deprived of his chance to make amends for his mistakes, he vows to unravel the mystery behind his father's death.
His search for answers leads him to Saphrona, fabled city of merchant princes, where anything can be bought if one has the coin. Lukan only seeks the truth, but instead he finds danger and secrets in every shadow.
For in Saphrona, everything has a price—and the price of truth is the deadliest of all.
A sharp rap at his cabin door jolted Lukan from sleep.
“Go away,” he said—or tried to say. His tongue was gummed to the top of his mouth. He worked it free, grimacing at the sour aftertaste. Another rum-filled night. There had been plenty of those during the second week of his voyage. The ship’s captain—a jovial bear of a man by the name of Graziano Grabulli—had taken to inviting Lukan to his cabin each night for a glass or two (or several) of rum. Like most men from the Talassian Isles, he liked to talk, mostly about himself and his various exploits and escapades— of which there were many. Lukan felt inclined to believe some of them (such as the captain’s encounter with a black shark; the man had the teeth marks on his forearm to prove it) but was sure that others (like his claim to have seen the fabled ghost ship the Pride of Prince Relair) were little more than tall tales. Still, a lack of truthfulness was to be expected from a man who had—courtesy of the Tamberlin Trading Company—a brand on his left wrist that marked him out as a former pirate. Fortunately Grabulli was even more generous with his rum than he was with his lies.
A second knock at the door, slower and more deliberate.
“Piss off,” Lukan shouted. He shifted in his hammock, not enjoying the way his stomach lurched. An ache was slowly building at his temples.
The door creaked open.
Lady’s mercy.
He opened his eyes, squinting against the sunlight that poured in through the solitary porthole, illuminating the tiny cabin that had been his home for the past two weeks. Grabulli had promised him quarters fit for a king, but the cabin was barely fit for the rats that lurked in its corners. Lukan had seen bigger broom cupboards. Cleaner ones too.
He blinked at the figure standing in the doorway, recognizing the slight figure of the ship’s cabin girl.
“Thought I told you to get lost,” he said.
The girl shrugged and made an I didn’t hear you gesture.
“Yeah, you did. You might be mute, but I know you’re not deaf.”
The girl ignored him and moved to his dresser, which along with a stool was the cabin’s only furniture. She picked up a dagger that Lukan had won from one of the crew, in the early days of the voyage before they had started refusing to play with him, and turned it over in her hands, staring at the garnet set in its pommel.
“Put that down.”
The girl obliged, placing the dagger back down on the dresser with exaggerated care.
“You’ve got some nerve, kid, I’ll give you that. What the hells do you want?”
The girl made a shape with her hands: thumbs pressed together, fingers steepled. Captain.
“Grabulli? What about him?”
She pointed at Lukan—you—and formed a beak with her right hand, opening and closing it. Talk.
“What, now?” Lukan winced as he rubbed a thumb against his right temple; his headache was growing worse, and the girl wasn’t helping. “Tell him I’ll be up in a bit… it’s too damned early.”
The girl traced a circle in the air, then held up nine fingers.
“Yeah, well that’s early for me.” She made a cutting gesture. Now.
Lukan swore under his breath. “Fine, have it your way. Tell the bastard—uh, tell the captain—that I’ll be up shortly.”
The girl nodded and turned back to the dresser, a smile playing across her lips.
Lukan raised a finger. “Don’t you even think about—”
She snatched the dagger and darted through the door.
“You cheeky little…” Lukan managed to get one foot out of the hammock, only for his left leg to get tangled up as he tried to lunge forward. The room flipped and suddenly he was lying on his back, the hammock swinging above him as the patter of the girl’s feet disappeared down the passage. He tried to rise, only to abandon the attempt when the rum in his stomach gurgled a warning that it was considering making a swift, explosive exit. With a groan, Lukan sank back down to the floor and closed his eyes.
Grabulli could wait a little longer.
* * *
“Ah, friend Lekaan!” Grabulli called from where he stood at the Sunfish’s prow, butchering the pronunciation of Lukan’s name in his usual fashion. The captain was unmistakable in the red velvet coat that he claimed had been a gift from some prince or other, though Lukan suspected—judging by the faded stains and poor quality of the lacework—he’d actually picked it up at a flea market in some far-flung port. “So good of you to join us. A beautiful day, no?”
Perhaps, if you’re not hungover. As it was, the sun was a little too bright, the blue sky a little too vibrant. Still, the breeze that slapped at Lukan and ruffled his hair was proving effective at driving away his headache. He gave a lazy wave in response and picked his way across the deck, doing his best to avoid the crew as they hauled on ropes and called to each other in their peculiar singsong dialect that seemed comprised almost entirely of insults. The sailors of the Sunfish were a creative bunch when it came to invective, as they’d demonstrated when Lukan fleeced them at cards. He glanced around but didn’t see any sign of the cabin girl. No doubt she would reappear later—without the dagger, of course. Not that it matters, Lukan thought as he climbed the steps to the prow. Damned garnet was fake anyway…
“The morning’s sun to you, friend Lekaan,” Grabulli said, grinning through his black snarl of a beard.
“And the evening’s stars for yourself,” Lukan replied, completing the traditional Talassian greeting as he joined the older man at the railing. He still wasn’t sure when it was that he’d revealed his true identity to Grabulli—no doubt it had been during one of their late-night drinking sessions, the rum loosening his tongue and lowering his guard. Perhaps that’s what Grabulli had intended all along, his own tall tales merely serving as cover while the liquor did its work. Or maybe all the liquor is making me paranoid.
“You seem thoughtful,” Grabulli said, slapping the back of his left hand against Lukan’s chest. “And even paler than usual.” He frowned. “You are well, yes?”
“I’m fine.”
“Come, tell me what’s on your mind.”
I’ve told you too much already. “I’m just wondering what’s so important that you woke me up at this ungodly hour.”
The captain grinned and gestured at the horizon. “See for yourself.”
Lukan shielded his eyes against the sun and squinted at the expanse of ocean. Not just ocean, he realized—in the distance were the dark shapes of mountains.
“Land, friend Lekaan!” Grabulli clapped Lukan’s shoulder. “We’ll dock in Saphrona within the hour. And we’ve arrived two days ahead of schedule, just as I promised you.”
“You said three days.”
“I must beg your forgiveness, but I said two.”
“You said three and then banged the bottle of rum on the table three times, just in case I didn’t quite get your point. And then shouted it again when I didn’t look convinced.”
“Two days, three days… ” Grabulli puffed out his cheeks and shrugged. “What does it matter? There’s hardly any difference, no?”
Lukan smiled as he imagined the captain taking the same approach with customs officials. No wonder the Tamberlin TradingCompany left their mark on him. “You,” he said, turning his gaze back to the horizon, “are a scoundrel.”
Grabulli barked a laugh. “Now that is something I can agree with!”
* * *
As the Sunfish’s captain prowled the deck, barking orders to his crew as they began final preparations for making port, Lukan remained at the prow and watched the distant mountains draw closer. A half hour passed before he finally caught sight of Saphrona’s famous Phaeron landmark. The tower rose from the sea in the middle of Saphrona’s bay, a dark edifice constructed from the mysterious black material that the Phaeron had used in all their architecture.
As the Sunfish drew closer, Lukan had to crane his neck to take in the tower’s full height, which must have exceeded two hundred feet. Its surfaces seemed smooth as glass, save for the uppermost stories, which had splayed outward like black, broken fingers, as if something within had exploded.
“The Ebon Hand,” Lukan murmured. “It’s more impressive than I imagined.”
“Best behave yourself in Saphrona, friend Lekaan.” Grabulli spat over the railing. “You don’t want to end up in that place.”
“What do you mean?”
The captain pointed. “See for yourself.”
As the Sunfish sailed past the tower, Lukan saw several rowing boats bobbing beside a ramshackle wooden jetty. Two figures in uniforms of black trimmed with silver were dragging a third figure between them—a man in a rough-spun tunic, his hands bound. He struggled as they climbed a flight of steps that rose from the end of the jetty, leading to an arched doorway. The man threw back his head, mouth wide, but his scream didn’t reach the Sunfish as he was dragged inside the tower. Lukan’s gaze moved to the banner that hung above the entrance, crossed silver keys on a black background.
“Whose symbol is that?” he asked.
“The Saphronan Inquisition,” Grabulli replied, his expression darkening. “Protectors of law and order in this fair city, or so they would have you believe.” He spat over the side again. “You do not want to tangle with them, friend Lekaan.”
“I don’t plan to. So they use the Ebon Hand as a prison?”
“Just so. And a nasty one it is, too. The stories I’ve heard… ” The Talassian shook his head. “Anyway,” he continued, his grin returning as he gestured to the approaching city. “Behold the Jewel of the South, the Mother of Cities!”
Lukan turned his attention back to Saphrona. The city sprawled across the crescent-shaped bay and the foothills of the mountains beyond, a hazy tapestry of red-tiled roofs and countless bronze domes gleaming in the morning sunlight. Grabulli pointed to the largest dome, near the center of the city.
“The Lady’s House,” he said, adopting a tone of mock reverence. “Where the Lady of Seven Shadows judges us all.” He belched. “If you believe that sort of thing.”
“You’re not one of the faithful, then? Color me shocked.”
“I believe in the strength of steel, friend Lekaan! In the color of courage, in the—”
“Language of lies?”
Grabulli punched his arm, a little harder than necessary. “Just so! You’re a smart boy.”
Lukan winced as the liquor in his stomach churned another warning. Not so smart. “What’s that place?” he asked, pointing to a grand, turreted building that crowned a promontory at the eastern end of the bay, looming imposingly over the city.
“That’s the ducal palace atop Borja’s Bluff,” the captain replied. “But the Duke rules Saphrona in name only. You see those towers?” He pointed to seven stone towers rising from the foothills of the mountains behind the city. “They belong to the Silken Septet—the most powerful merchant princes. The Septet dominate the Gilded Council, which is the true political power in Saphrona.”
“So I’ve read,” Lukan replied, recalling Velleras Gellame’s Gentleman’s Guide to Saphrona. He’d managed to read nearly two-thirds of the booklet before hurling it across his cabin after one flowery metaphor too many, and had no intention of picking it up again. Grabulli was still talking, but Lukan wasn’t listening, staring instead at Saphrona’s sprawling expanse. Somewhere in there lay the answer to the question of who, or what, Zandrusa was. And why my father wrote that name in his own blood.
“You have gone quiet, friend Lekaan,” Grabulli said, scratching at his black beard. “You are lost for words, I think.”
“It’s an impressive sight,” Lukan admitted.
Velleras Gellame claimed that Saphrona was the greatest center of commerce in the Old Empire, and, while the buffoon had written his treatise nearly fifty years prior, the number of vessels crowding the waters of the bay suggested his claim still rang true. As they drew closer to the city’s docks, Lukan saw trade ships from various cities of the Old Empire—Deladrin, where he himself had sailed from, Tamberlin, and even distant Korslakov. There were also dhows from the Southern Queendoms, most of which bore the flag of Zar-Ghosa, three silver circles on a pale blue background. He even caught a glimpse of a sleek, crimson-sailed vessel from one of the ports of the Mourning Sea, its black, lacquered hull bearing intricate carvings. Countless flags and banners rippled in the breeze as gulls wheeled overhead.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many ships,” Lukan said.
“I have,” Grabulli replied nonchalantly. “Though half of them were on fire. Including my own.” He shrugged. “No doubt most of these are here for the celebrations. Just like us, eh?”
“What celebrations?”
The man threw him a sharp look. “The Grand Restoration, of course.” His dark eyes narrowed at Lukan’s blank expression. “The symbolic exchange of the Silver Spear… Truly, you don’t know of what I speak?”
Lukan grinned. “I don’t have a clue.”
“Then what brings you to Saphrona, friend Lekaan?”
“Personal business,” he replied, determined not to give anything else away. “But I never say no to a good knees-up. What are we celebrating?”
“You surely know of the great war between Saphrona and Zar-Ghosa, yes?”
“Uh, vaguely ”
“A naval conflict like nothing the world has ever seen!” the captain continued, quickly warming to his subject. “Hundreds of ships destroyed, thousands of gallant sailors lost on both sides! And then, during what promised to be the decisive battle—”
“The Corsair Lord of the Shattered Isles arrived with his fleet, hoping to kill two enemies with one stone,” Lukan said, recalling one of the few lectures he’d bothered attending at the Academy. “And so the Saphronans and Zar-Ghosans joined forces to defeat the corsairs. An act that ended the war.”
“And forged a newfound peace between the cities that has lasted forty years,” Grabulli finished, making a sweeping gesture. “A grand story, don’t you think?”
“Very,” Lukan agreed. “And so these celebrations… they’re to mark the anniversary of the war’s end?”
“Just so. And to mark the renewal of friendship between the cities.”
“Right. You said something about a spear?”
“The Silver Spear!” Grabulli’s eyes lit up. “A Phaeron weapon of savage beauty that once belonged to the Corsair Lord himself, and which he wielded in the final battle. The Zar-Ghosan admiral is said to have offered the spear to his Saphronan counterpart at the battle’s end as a gesture of comradeship, and so the two cities have exchanged it every decade since, when they renew their vow of peace. This time it’s Saphrona’s turn to host the celebration, hence…” He gestured to the multitude of ships in the bay.
“So the spear is handed over, someone makes a speech, and then everyone gets drunk?”
“Just so, friend Lekaan! The ceremony is in a few days. Enough time for you to conclude your business and join the party, eh?”
“Perhaps.”
Grabulli coughed into his fist. “Ah, speaking of business…” He turned and snapped his fingers. The Sunfish’s quartermaster joined them at the railing, the jaunty angle of her three-cornered hat completely at odds with the scowl on her face. She held a sack, the bottom of which was stained with what could have been wine, but Lukan suspected was something else entirely. Two other crew members—hulking brutes who looked like they’d seen their fair share of tavern fights—stood behind her, eyes alert, postures tense. As if expecting trouble.
“What’s this, Grabulli?” Lukan asked warily, wishing he’d buckled his sword on before staggering out of his cabin.
“We need to discuss the matter of payment, friend Lekaan. As you can see, I have delivered you to Saphrona, safe and sound.”
“You’ll get your seven silvers. I gave you my word.”
“Yes, well…” The captain grinned wide, gold tooth flashing. “The price just went up.”
“We agreed on seven silvers,” Lukan replied, his tone hardening. “We shook on seven silvers, though of course I should have known that means little to a pirate.”
One of the sailors stepped forward, only to freeze as Grabulli raised a hand. “We also agreed,” the captain said, “that you would keep your hands off the cargo in my hold. And yet, just the other day, Sandria here noticed that a crate had been tampered with, and that it seemed to contain a little less tobacco than when we left Deladrin.”
“A lot less,” the quartermaster put in, speaking around her scowl.
“So you see,” Grabulli continued, spreading his hands, “we have something of a problem.”
“No problem,” Lukan replied, with a sigh. He’d snuck into the hold in search of a bottle of something, anything that was better than the coarse rum he’d been drinking. Instead he’d found a cache of Purple Dragon, premium Parvan pipeweed, and… well. One cheeky smoke had turned into several dozen. “What can I say?” he continued, offering Grabulli a rueful smile. “I guess I just fancied a taste of home.”
The captain frowned. “You said you were from a town near Deladrin.”
“Ah…”
“You stole from us,” Sandria hissed, her scowl deepening.
“Lady’s mercy, you’re pirates.”
“Careful, friend Lekaan,” Grabulli warned, with no trace of his usual humor.
“All right,” Lukan said, raising his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken the pipeweed. Let me make amends. I’ll pay for the amount I took.”
“Fourteen silvers.”
Lukan blinked. “I… What?”
“Fourteen silvers,” the captain repeated. “The price of your voyage just doubled, friend Lekaan.”
“I don’t have that sort of money.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“Been spying on me in my cabin, Grabulli?”
The man’s grin returned, flashing gold. “There’s no secrets aboard my ship.”
“And if I refuse to pay?”
“We’ll toss you over the side. Nothing personal, of course.” “Of course.” Lukan glanced at the distant waterfront. Not sodistant now… “Doesn’t seem too bad,” he said, with more bravado than he felt. “I can swim that.”
“You think, eh?” Grabulli snapped his fingers again.
Sandria reached into her sack and pulled out a hunk of raw meat, blood oozing between her fingers. She stepped up to the rail and hurled it out across the water. The meat struck the waves with barely a splash. A moment later a mottled, sandy-colored snout broke the surface, and Lukan caught a glimpse of a black eye and a grinning maw of needlelike teeth, ringed by a peculiar, loose fold of skin that almost had the appearance of a mane.
The creature disappeared back beneath the waves, taking the meat with it.
“Lion shark,” Grabulli said, a glint in his eye. “The bay is full of them. Must be the guts from the fisheries that attracts them, though no doubt the Kindred sometimes throw them a tastier morsel.”
“The Kindred?”
“The criminal underworld of Saphrona.” Grabulli clapped Lukan on the back. “You still fancy a swim, friend Lekaan?”
“Not as much as I fancy keeping all my limbs.”
“Ha! Then fourteen silvers seems like a fair price for that privilege, no?”
“Fine,” Lukan said, meeting the captain’s gaze. “Fourteen silvers and you forget all about me. If anyone asks the name of the passenger you picked up in Deladrin, you tell them he was called… Dubois. Bastien Dubois.” He held out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t know, friend Lekaan,” Grabulli mused, tugging at his black beard. “I am renowned for my long memory.”
“Enough bullshit,” Lukan replied, with far more conviction than he felt. “If you try to screw me any further I’ll take my chances with the sharks.”
Grabulli and Sandria exchanged a look. One of the brutes behind them cracked his tattooed knuckles.
For a moment Lukan thought he’d pushed it too far.
Then Grabulli laughed and seized his hand, crushing it in an iron grip as he shook vigorously. “Welcome to Saphrona, Master Dubois.”
All roads lead to Alaska in the new trailer for the third and final season of Sweet Tooth, and it looks like things might get pretty dark for at least part of the upcoming episodes.
“Sweet Tooth showed me you got nothing to live for, until you got something to die for,” Jeppard says in the trailer. I’m sure that means that everything will be fine and nothing that makes you cry will happen.
Here’s the third season’s official synopsis:
Having defeated General Abbot in the battle at Pubba’s Cabin, Gus (Christian Convery), Jepperd (Nonso Anozie), Becky (Stefania LaVie Owen), and Wendy (Naledi Murray) embark on a journey to Alaska in search of Gus's mother, Birdie (Amy Seimetz), who has been working to uncover the mysterious origins of the deadly Sick. Along the way, they are joined by Dr. Singh (Adeel Akhtar), who may have his own dangerous beliefs about Gus and his role in reversing the virus. Meanwhile, a new threat emerges in the form of Helen Zhang (Rosalind Chao), her daughter Rosie (Kelly Marie Tran), and the ferocious Wolf Boys, who seek to restart human birth and view Gus as the solution to their plans. As they navigate through perilous terrain, Gus and his group of friends find refuge at the Outpost in Alaska, where they meet a new ensemble of characters including Siana (Cara Gee) and her hybrid daughter Nuka (Ayazhan Dalabayeva). With the clock to find answers running out, alliances are tested and destinies intertwine, all leading to a thrilling climax that will determine the fate of humanity and hybrids.
“[It’s] another road trip story like Season One, but in a very different way,” showrunner Jim Mickle told Netflix’s website, Tudum. “Season Three is an Arctic story with exciting new adventures and what we hope will be a satisfying conclusion to this epic tale. Gus is going to see a side of the world and humanity that he didn’t see in Season One or Two.”
Tudum also confirmed that season three will be darker, and Mickle added that “in Season 3, everybody is dealing with some kind of wound or emotional loss, whether that was somebody in their life or a part of themselves. Everybody is looking inward and looking to move on and ultimately learning that life doesn’t stop. You have to keep putting one foot in front of another.”
The third season of Sweet Tooth premieres on Netflix on June 6, 2024, which gives you plenty of time to stock up on tissues.
Space is still the place for Apple TV+, which has renewed For All Mankind for a fifth season. The series imagines an alternate timeline in which the Soviets won the space race—so it makes a certain amount of sense that the streamer is adding a spinoff series, Star City, that will explore the Soviet space program.
Two of For All Mankind and Star City’s three creators, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, will showrun the new series. (Presumably Ronald D. Moore will stay busy with the original show.) In a statement, Wolpert and Nedivi said, "Our fascination with the Soviet space program has grown with every season of For All Mankind. The more we learned about this secret city in the forests outside Moscow where the Soviet cosmonauts and engineers worked and lived, the more we wanted to tell this story of the other side of the space race."
Apple's official description of the new show says:
Star City is a propulsive, paranoid thriller that takes us back to the key moment in the alt-history retelling of the space race — when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon. But this time, we explore the story from behind the Iron Curtain, showing the lives of the cosmonauts, the engineers and the intelligence officers embedded among them in the Soviet space program, and the risks they all took to propel humanity forward.
No casting or timeline has been announced for StarCity, and neither show has a premiere date. The first four seasons of For All Mankind are available to watch on Apple TV+.[end-mark]
Have you had enough of video game adaptations? Too bad! Another one is coming down the pike—though this one is animated. Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan and American Dad producer Joe Chandler are teaming up for a cartoon version of Golden Axe, the side-scrolling Sega game in which good guys must save the magical land of Yuria from the evil Death Adder. Also, naturally, there's a golden axe involved.
The voice cast for this obviously epic adventure includes Matthew Rhys (The Americans), Danny Pudi (Mythic Quest), Lisa Gilroy (Glamorous), Liam McIntyre (Star Wars: Resistance), and Carl Tart (Star Trek: Lower Decks). McMahan and Chandler are co-writing the show's first episode; Chandler will serve as showrunner.
The official description, according to Variety, goes like this: Golden Axe “follows veteran warriors Ax Battler (McIntyre), Tyris Flare (Gilroy), and Gilius Thunderhead (Rhys) as they once again battle to save Yuria from the evil giant Death Adder who just won’t seem to stay dead. Fortunately, this time they have the inexperienced and underprepared Hampton Squib (Pudi) on their side.”
Hard to pick a favorite from those character names, but I think I'm going with "Ax Battler." However, Gillius Thunderhead is a grumpy dwarf, Tyris Flare is a "battle sorceress," and Tart plays a "humanoid panther," so you can't really go wrong no matter which fighter you pick. (Pudi's character, on the other hand, is a "naive, inexperienced first time adventurer.")
Comedy Central has ordered ten episodes of Golden Axe, but no premiere date has been announced.[end-mark]
Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we wrap up Max Gladstone’s Last Exit with Chapters 35-36. The novel was first published in 2022. Spoilers ahead!
Summary
“When you understood that there was something else beyond—that was when you realized just how much work there was to do.”
Desperate to get help for the gravely wounded Sarah and pursued by the cowboy, Ramon veers the Challenger off the alt-road into uncharted darkness. He is, at last, trailblazing.
On the newly blazed trail, the Challenger races down a steep hill to collide with an oak stump. Ramon, to his shock, finds himself still alive. He helps June ease Sarah out of the wreck. They’ve landed in a lakeside grove of sequoias. The night’s alive with the conversations of frogs, insects and birds; branches twist against the wind. Ramon senses he’s observed. “She needs help,” he says. Branches part. He is permitted.
He and June carry Sarah to the lake. For once, his knack doesn’t divine their location, so they’ll have to find their own way home. Can Sarah last that long? She’s so still that he can hardly tell if she’s swallowed the water he gives her, but they can’t lose her, not after Ramon has left the road, not after he’s asked. It has to make a difference. It has to matter.
June points to a sky overfilled with stars, some of them moving. Ramon thinks of shepherds and angels. Then Sarah says, “Aliens.” She’s awake and smiling. Through the hole in her blood-soaked dress, he sees that her gunshot wound has closed. “She did it,” June says.
Ramon feels paths open all around them, other spokes from the Medicine Wheel. Secret ways to other worlds await, lands beyond the cowboy, “beyond all borders and any map.” Ramon wants to follow them all. For now, though—
“Now,” June says, “we go home. And we get them ready.”
* * *
Two years pass. When it’s safe, Sarah drives her family from Virginia to New York. They’ve spent a lot of time inside, for the sky feels unimaginably big overhead, like it goes on forever. When you understand that there’s something beyond this forever, Sarah thinks, you realize how much work is left to do.
People repeat themselves a lot these days, as do the media, saying things are normal as if that makes them so. Nevertheless, people also tell stories about places that weren’t there when the world closed down, about shut doors now open, about statues that walk, trees that catch fire but don’t burn, lights in the woods, a dog ten years lost returning unaged. About what happened to them personally, people are more reticent. Sarah doesn’t blame them. She knows what’s going on but isn’t sure she believes it.
Ramon has emailed directions “precise as poetry”: Turn left at the dog, go until the sorrow hits you. New York seems like a maze, no, a labyrinth. In labyrinths, all paths lead to the center. Sarah negotiates the maze as if it were made just for her. Six blocks out from Ma Tempest’s house, the streets are so full that she and her family abandon their car. It’s a festival, not quite the Fourth of July. It’s folk of every age and color, speaking every language, singing, offering free cookies, barbequeing feasts. Sarah walks with a cane these days, and her body still aches as it accommodates itself to her injuries. Even magical healing has limits. What’s broken may mend, but it can’t be unbroken. There’s no undoing. There is going on, growing.
At Ma Tempest’s, people make a path for Sarah. There’s a grill going on the roof, but the group up here has a purpose. All around the city, many-colored flags rise and fall; young women with binoculars interpret this conversation, the city talking to itself, and call out answering codes. June is their leader. When she runs to Sarah, though, she’s almost a kid again. Ramon and his partner Gabe stand at the roof’s edge. Ma Tempest sits with folded hands, waiting and watching as she’s done for a long time.
Sarah’s just in time, June says. Can’t she feel it? Sarah feels something, but she’s been wrong before. So she asks, “What happens now?” It’s happening already, June says. It’s been happening. It will keep happening. They must just learn to ride it. Is Sarah scared?
“I used to be,” Sarah says. June smiles, but not at her answer. She’s rigid, as if listening for a sound only she can hear. At her word, the people fall quiet. Someone knocks on the door below.
June runs to the roof’s edge and shouts down: “Come on in. Come on in! It’s open.”
This Week’s Metrics
Fighting the Cowboy: Arizona State University’s Future Tense program uses speculative fiction to imagine alternatives.
Libronomicon:Sarah’s daughter Susan brings a tote bag to the Bronx, full of books to read and share.
Madness Takes Its Toll:The newspapers and TV doth protest too much about how normal everything is.
Anne’s Commentary
At the end of Chapter 34, we finally got to the fabled crossroads. Well, Zelda got to them, and Ish almost, oh-so-close. To be halted at the threshold of the alt-riders’ goal was his punishment for succumbing to the cowboy’s fear-tactics. It was also his last shot at redemption, which he took with unerring aim; in doing so, he achieved his personal goal of saving Zelda. He also saved his friends and contributed to saving his world. The cowboy dead, Zelda could climb the chain link fence between the black-flower path and the crossroads. She changed and grew, to meet Sal on Sal’s own ground.
It took Zelda long enough, as Sal said. That was so Sal, and you can’t blame her. Time is different in the alts, who knows how stretched out in the beyond. To paraphrase Sarah’s question to June in Chapter 36: What happens next? I just knew Chapter 35 would tell us, with suitable cosmic-level fireworks.
No. Instead of witnessing whatever BIG WORLD-RIGHTING MAGIC Sal and Zelda wield following their reunion, Chapter 35 returns to Ramon as he crashes the Challenger into one more damn tree. Luckily, it wasn’t one of the magisterial sequoias that ring his landing site—he and his passengers survive, though Sarah’s in no condition to hike home. Ramon forces himself to look at her wound, to find it healed! Somehow, perhaps through the jolt of Ramon’s trailblazing, she has gathered enough spin to heal herself.
Here’s the initial resolution for three of the alt-riders. Whatever else follows, they’re going home. From the vastness of space-time that separates them from the crossroads, they view the fireworks happening there. The crossroads are where BIG, FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE can happen, presumably due to Sal and Zelda’s combined spins. Anyway, new stars crowd the sky, “in all the colors whose names [Ramon] had ever forgotten.” Colors out of space, for real! Ramon thinks of angels. Sarah thinks of aliens, but she smiles, cool with the idea. June, recently as alien as shadow-Sal, has returned to her human, practical self. How much she’s changed awaits revelation.
Chapter 36 provides a tantalizing glimpse of a world also in flux. Sarah supplies the point-of-view. The physician’s healed herself, but magic only goes so far, leaving her with a limp and “cascade aches.” With an unresentful resignation she lacked earlier, Sarah accepts that what’s broken can’t be undone. It can, however, “mend, and grow again.”
As with Sarah, the world. Ish, who in the end loved his friends more than he clung to fear, has killed the cowboy. No, really: The cowboy seems to have departed from the earth, along with the crippling paranoia he promulgated. His death may have been the prerequisite for whatever BIG MAGIC took place at the crossroads. With the cowboy gone, people eventually dare to crack their defensive shells and notice the BIG MAGIC that was always there. Immediately after the change, people clamped their shells tighter than ever, self-isolating as against a pandemic. Venturing out again, Sarah notices that she’s “turned chatty.” People start gathering under the open sky, with barbecues as their excuse. They tell stories about magical happenings, though not ones that occurred close to home. Sarah hears no personal tales of the incredible, but she doesn’t blame people for their reticence. They have residual fear enough to insist that things are normal again, and for the media to echo the comforting idea. Sarah knows you don’t say something so often if it’s true. She knows things aren’t normal, but hey, even she’s not sure she believes it.
One epicenter of magical change seems to be the New York City area. People keep giving Sarah directions on how to skirt the NYC hot zone. She’s undeterred: Something big is about to happen there that she can’t miss. Ramon’s directions take her through a massive street party to Ma Tempest’s house. With Ish dead and Zelda and Sal elsewhere, it’s as much of a reunion as the alt-riders can expect. Sarah has come with her family. Ramon has come with Gabe. June is there, at home among the “switchboard” girls keeping the city connected and safe. Ma Tempest lets June play hostess. Her job is to sit and wait.
But to wait for what, or whom?
Of changes in the world at large, June tells Sarah, “It’s happening already. It’s been happening. It’ll keep happening, and I guess we’ll all just learn to ride it.” Echoing the words she spoke on the princess’s balcony, June adds that Sarah’s arrived just in time for a specific event, Soon after, she goes rigid, “one finger raised, as if straining to a sound only she could hear.” When she calls for silence, Sarah hears knocking on Ma’s front door, and June shouts down for the new arrivals to come in, it’s open.
Without telling who’s at the door, Gladstone ends the novel. Does he want us to make up our own ending, or (as I’m thinking) does he believe we’ve had enough clues to figure it out for ourselves? Whose coming would not be an anticlimax? Who can complete the reunion but Zelda, knocking as she did more than ten years ago, only to be repulsed? She’s not repulsed now.
And who could Ma Tempest be waiting for in such an attitude of long-endured loss? Sarah hasn’t come alone. Neither has Ramon. Why should Zelda, when among all the new wonders of the world, the greatest would be Sal, returned to her former humanity but mended and grown as all must be who’ve ever been broken.
Those who’ve never been broken need not come to the barbeque. Unless you bring those really good baked beans, now….
Ruthanna’s Commentary
This week I’ve been putting together our annual Passover seder—a ritual that if done right is mostly questions and arguments. If you’re not careful, though, even the questions become rote, the same year after year with no new answers.
When I try to articulate my reactions to finishing up Last Exit, I keep filling paragraphs with “maybe”. I suppose that’s appropriate, in a book about opening to possibilities—also, inevitably, about opening to doubt and uncertainty. Ish’s flaw was thinking that certainty solves everything, instead of just nailing doors shut. The whole gang takes a long time to admit that they might be wrong about the nature of the Rot. For Zelda, especially, that means admitting she’s been trying to solve the solution for 10 years, locking out the very potential for change that she originally wanted to invite in.
I don’t know why I expected to see what Zelda found on the other side of the fence. Thinking about it, I don’t see how one could reasonably write a scene depicting the things beyond what we can, tautologically, imagine. We do, though, get to see what Ramon and Sarah and June find by leaving the paved road: healing, and stars, and other directions. Aliens, maybe. Unconsidered possibilities, in whatever shape.
“Another world is not only possible,” says Arundhati Roy. “she is on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.” The alt-riders are a very particular set of people: broken and privileged and broken by privilege. The Princess was clearly much the same. Take someone with a different perspective into the alts and you get, well, June. Someone who won’t need long at all to question assumptions and look beyond the road and imagine what those wearing blinders cannot. Someone who won’t assume that tentacles and claws are as terrifying as they first seem, and who will see tools that aren’t the master’s tools.
What we see on the page this final week isn’t those possibilities, but the world’s response to them. Insistence on normality, and whispers about miracles—only the far away ones, though. Only the ones that aren’t too personal to talk about. Barbeques and poetic road trips. Street festivals and street medics. An imagined release from quarantine that’s as much spiritual as physical: more hopeful and open than the one we got, less shaped by the demands of employers and more shaped by the joys of the people. That choice, almost inevitable for a book written in the pandemic’s earlier days, is hard to read now. It feels like a future we’ve already missed. Maybe we can still get there by a different route, off the paved road and between the cracks.
It’s a harder route for us, because we haven’t lost our cowboy. You can’t actually shoot a story, even with its own bullets. People will keep telling it as long as they have reason. It’s a peril of incarnation, I suppose: national mytho-lies are written into every textbook and carved on every monument, but once you start possessing people with your hat, you’re taking a new risk. Maybe he’s gone back into the textbooks, but quiet enough for the moment to let a few new ideas leak through.
And to let people who’ve traveled in new directions come back, and knock on the door, and tell us what they’ve seen—just past the last page.
Next week, we wrap up National Poetry Month with the first five poems in Marisca Pichette’s Stoker-nominated Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair. Then, in two weeks, we start our new long-read, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Stephen King’s first novel by... reading a different King novel. Join us for Pet Sematary![end-mark]
The Spiderwick Chronicles is set to premiere on the Roku Channel in mere days, and the series based on the popular books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black makes some changes and additions to the original material while remaining true to its source (in no small part because DiTerlizzi and Black worked closely on the project).
I had the chance to talk with showrunner Aron Eli Coliette in the lead up to the premiere of the show, including how he initially passed on the project but came back to it during the pandemic. “This felt like a show that was an opportunity to talk about what teenagers are really going through, their mental health journeys, their neurodiversity journeys, and an opportunity to not only talk about it, but to destigmatize it,” he told me.
Read on for our full discussion, which includes how the addition of a certain character came to be (it involves a Mean Girls reference), where one can find Easter eggs while watching, and what word was the thematic inspiration for the Spiderwick estate.
Credit: Roku
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
I know you've worked on a lot of adaptations in the past, such as Daybreak and Lock & Key. What attracted you specifically to doing this adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles?
I make a joke that I have a very specific niche, which is families who move to Victorian mansions and find out that magic exists. And when they initially approached me about Spiderwick, I was like, “I think I've done this before. I think I'm good.” I initially said no. Because I was like, “I told the story. I’m good, thanks.”
But then some very wise people at Paramount asked me to read it again. And my four-year anniversary of working on this project was last week. So when I reread it, this was very early on in the pandemic, and looking at Jared’s struggles with mental health, his being the “bad kid,” his anxiety, his depression, everything that’s in the DNA of the story really started speaking to me, especially because I was watching my own kids go through their mental health journeys, of feeling so isolated. They’d close their doors. They didn't want to talk about it.
And this felt like a show that was an opportunity to talk about what teenagers are really going through, their mental health journeys, their neurodiversity journeys, and an opportunity to not only talk about it, but to destigmatize it. I think there's a lot of shame that comes with these emotions and we want them to go away. We don't want to be depressed. We don't want to be anxious. But the truth is it’s part of our emotional set. And this was a show that could juxtapose those real-life issues against this extraordinary world and talk about something that's really relevant right now both to kids and to adults.
Credit: Roku
In terms of the adaptation, I know Calliope is a new character [played by Alyvia Alyn Lind]. Can you talk a little bit about the genesis of that character and the decision to add her to the show?
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I mean, Alyvia is amazing. And if you ever if you watched Daybreak, you know why I cast her in this—I would just cast her and everything. She's amazing. So in early discussions with [Spiderwick authors Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black], we know our Mulgarath had to be quite different than in the books or the movie because we needed to make sure it wasn't an onslaught on the Spiderwick estate. He wasn't a brute force ogre—our ogre had to be manipulative and had to worm his way into their lives. And he needed somebody to talk to, he needed this sidekick. And so in creating a sidekick, Calliope immediately came to mind just as a moody teenage kid who could also work her way inside the Grace family.
I think what was fantastic about it was we had all these amazing discussions about what kind of creature she would be. Because initially I was like, “Oh, she's a goblin-like, like the Redcap in the book and in the movie. Let's make her a Redcap. And Tony and Holly were like, “No! She can't be a goblin—goblins are little creatures. They're smaller. They're fiercer. They're more like really angry dogs. And that's not what this character is.”
And I was like, “I'm not fighting for it to be a goblin. But what can it be?” And having Tony and Holly work so intimately on the show was such an amazing resource. I think I know a little bit about creatures but I know nothing in comparison to these two. And Holly said, “What if she's a Fetch?” And my first instinct is, “I have no idea what you're talking about. I have no idea what a Fetch is. You have got to explain this to me because my only point of reference is Mean Girls.”
She went on to explain and provided the most amazing images. It's a portent of death. It is somebody who feeds on death and sees death coming and so therefore, it can take on the appearance of somebody who is either about to die or has recently died. And I was like, “This is amazing, what a fantastic character.” And she showed these images of people with their faces flipping around. So it's something mechanical and organic simultaneously, that I just fell in love with. She can use glamour spells, but she's also the emo kid because she's the portent of death. She is that kid who was way into The Cure, way into My Chemical Romance. And what Alyvia brought is, yes, this is a creature who is hundreds of years old but can still feel that angst of being a teenager. We always like to say that she's the loneliest teenager in the world. She's the loneliest creature in the world because everybody is afraid of death.
Credit: Roku
I love the portrayal of the Spiderwick house. Can you talk a little bit about the process of creating the house and imbuing it with the vibe you wanted to have for the show?
Absolutely. First of all, we had an amazing production designer, Elena Albanese. I'm so lucky that we had her for the show—she is just an artist. The first thing was, Tony and Holly have a description in the book that the house looks like shacks built on shacks built on shacks, and we really wanted to run with that. This was a house that went through very different periods of architecture, based on Arthur Spiderwick and what creatures he was working with and dealing with at the time.
So you have the initial Victorian mansion in the center, and then you have all these little shacks built on shacks, houses built on houses—this what the fairies built; this is what the elves help them build. So all of the magical influences are just teeming inside this house and I wanted to make it both whimsical, and Holly's favorite word, which is now my favorite word, is numinous. I want to make it feel like yes, it could exist, but there is wonder inside it.
There are two things that I want to bring up about it. One is, you also don't want to judge [the mother] Helen, played by Joy Bryant who was just so wonderful. You don't want to judge her for bringing them to a decrepit house, right? So it had to be a house that felt scary, that felt decrepit but also felt like we're not judging her for living there. And we want them to explore all the aspects of this house. The other thing that just speaks to how genius [the production designer Elena Albanese] is and how much I just adore working with her, is she put hidden fairies and there's all these Easter eggs all over that house. There are fairies hidden in the wallpaper. There are fairies hidden in the windows. Every frame that you look at, there's something to discover, and there's something to find within every shot of that house, which is what we want to happen. We want not only our characters to be exploring this house, but we want the audience to be exploring it simultaneously.
You can explore the Spiderwick estate yourself when The Spiderwick Chronicles premieres on The Roku Channel on April 19, 2024. [end-mark]
News about the second season of Netflix’s Wednesday has been sparse. We know that there is a Season Two in the works (no surprise there, given the success of the first), and that Jenna Ortega will be back as the titular character. Ortega has also hinted that the upcoming episodes will “lean into the horror” of the Addams Family and away from the love triangle teed up in Season One.
Other than that, details have been few. Today, however, Variety broke the news that Steve Buscemi (pictured above in Boardwalk Empire) has joined the cast. The trade didn’t have many details about his role except for one key thing: He will be taking over as principal of Nevermore Academy.
Spoiler warning!
I’m going to spoil events from Season One of Wednesday below, so bow out now if you don’t want anything revealed!
In the first season of Wednesday, the Nevermore Academy principal was Larissa Weems, who was played by Gwendoline Christie. Weems was a shapeshifter who was killed at the end of the season, leaving the role of principal open for someone else to take on. If Variety is right, Buscemi is that person, though who his character will be (and whether he’ll have any supernatural powers like Weems’ shapeshifting) remains to be seen.
It also remains to be seen when Season Two of Wednesday will premiere on Netflix, or whether the spinoff series centered on Uncle Fester is still a thing. The good news is we can rewatch the first season of Wednesday (again) while we wait for more information. [end-mark]
