Thora Birch and Nine More Actors Join the Cast of Netflix’s Wednesday

With the most difficult roles sorted—Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, and Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán as perfect parents Morticia and Gomez—Netflix’s Wednesday has moved on to rounding out the rest of its cast. The streamer announced ten additions today, most of which are young, lesser-known actors who will play Wednesday’s classmates and friends. But there are a couple of familiar faces among the crowd, including Ghost World and Hocus Pocus icon Thora Birch, who will play Tamara Novak, described as “Wednesday’s dorm mother and the only ‘Normie’ on staff at Nevermore Academy.”

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Ranking the Live-Action Versions of Superman’s Supporting Cast

Although Superman first appeared in pages of 1938’s Action Comics #1, no single medium could contain the Last Son of Krypton. Within ten years, the Man of Steel started showing up on toy store shelves, in a radio show, and, of course, on the screen. Since the 1948 Republic Pictures serial Superman starring Kirk Alyn, we have always had a human face to go with the world’s first superhero, a tradition that continues today with Tyler Hoechlin in the new Arrowverse series Superman & Lois.

But while we could discuss the individual merits of the many men who have donned the Man of Tomorrow’s signature red trunks, I’d argue that any Superman adaptation is only as good as its supporting cast. Superman stories live and die by their portrayals of ace reporter Lois Lane, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen, Daily Planet editor Perry White, and, of course, the diabolic genius Lex Luthor. Instead of ranking the different Clark Kents (Clarks Kent?) and their alter egos, I find it far more interesting to rank the various live-action takes on his supporting cast.

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Kazuo Ishiguro Returns to Sci-Fi With Klara and the Sun

Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro’s eighth novel released this past February, has all the trappings one would expect from an Ishiguro story: dramatic irony, a mounting sense of dread, and careful ruminations on power, memory, love, and the unknowability of both self and other. It follows AF (Artificial Friend) Klara as she is purchased from a department store to act as companion to a young girl named Josie. Her simple happiness with her new home is short-lived, however: Josie is deteriorating from an unnamed illness and Klara becomes convinced that she’ll be the one to save her. She simply needs to convince the Sun—the being that powers Klara and the other AFs, and yes, that sun—to lend his nourishment to Josie.

Ishiguro’s oeuvre is one of those rare literary sets that is immediately identifiable by both style and theme but rarely by genre, as he more often than not examines similar questions under different generic constraints (his last novel, The Buried Giant, is based on Arthurian legend; his most lauded novel, The Remains of the Day, recalls post-war England). Klara and the Sun stands out in its return to the science fiction genre that Ishiguro explored with his 2005 Never Let Me Go. In fact, it’s all but impossible not to compare them. Even aside from genre, they share a concern with children specifically as a pressure point for asking what it means to be human. But Klara’s story is uniquely moving, its questions more expansive. Though perhaps not as gracefully rendered as Never Let Me Go, Klara is a stunning book in its own right and a vital addition to today’s proliferating sub-genre of climate change novels. 

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5 Scene-Stealing SFF Cats

Cats are dicks.

Before the cat lovers of the world descend on the Tor.com offices, think about it for a moment. You have this animal in your house, most likely by choice (and if it’s not by choice, you should probably look into getting that taken care of), and sometimes you can pet them if they’re so inclined. If they are not inclined, you’ll most likely get a swipe of claws on the back of your hand or knuckles. They also tear through your house at three o’clock in the morning, crashing into doors and walls. It’s supposedly to “release energy” according to cat scientists, but you absolutely cannot convince me that needs to be the case in the middle of the night.

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Five Off-Beat Gothic and Horror Recommendations

I was halfway through the umpteenth draft of What Big Teeth, my novel about a manor-dwelling monster family, before I finally read We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I still haven’t finished Frankenstein. I am, in many ways, a very poorly-read horror reader. But while I’ve missed out on some of the classics, my time in my MFA program and my own peculiar tastes have led me to some works that might not be on the horror classics lists. I’ve often found these books by looking for earlier or later works by an author I’ve just read, or by following my own longing for a book that resolves something I didn’t enjoy about a more famous book.

So if you’ve read all the traditional favorites, here are some works that you might have missed. With some of these, I had to verify that they were still available for sale. Some are only just recently in print. But all of them are a little strange and twisty in a way I think you’ll really enjoy.

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Seven Vampire Books for Fans of What We Do in the Shadows

I’m not sure if Nandor, Nadja, and Lazlo taking over Staten Island would help with everything that’s going on in the world right now… but I’m not not sure it would help. At the very least, I know that watching Taika Waititi’s quirky vampire mockumentary has been bringing some much-needed laughter into my life the past year and a half. And let’s be honest, we could all use some more of that right now. Trust Taika to deliver.

There’s a week left until the season three premiere, when we can see our favorite awkward vamps (and one burgeoning vampire hunter) on TV again. In the meantime you can always rewatch the first two seasons (I’m already on two watches and counting—no judgements), but why not spend the week with some vampire novels? We’re not talking well-worn blockbusters like Twilight or Interview with a Vampire—these seven vampire books feature their own unique mythology and their own often hilarious takes on vampire lore. Not everyone can deliver Waititi-level wit and mayhem, but some of these books come pretty close!

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The Old Guard 2 Has Found Its Director

Netflix’s Old Guard sequel is continuing apace, reports Deadline. The film will see Chiwetel Ejiofor, Marwan Kenzari, KiKi Layne, Luca Marinelli, Veronica Ngo, Charlize Theron, and Matthias Schoenaerts return to reprise their roles, while Victoria Mahoney (second unit director on Rise of Skywalker, and Amazon’s forthcoming adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Dawn) has been hired to direct.

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Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch: “Flesh and Blood”

“Flesh and Blood”
Written by Jack Monaco and Bryan Fuller & Raf Green and Kenneth Biller
Directed by Mike Vejar and David Livingston
Season 7, Episodes 9 & 10
Production episode 253
Original air date: November 29, 2000
Stardate: 54315.3

Captain’s log. A couple of Hirogen are hunting prey—but their prey ambushes and kills them. Said prey are a collection of Alpha Quadrant species, including Starfleet officers, Romulan soldiers, etc. The entire ship is a holodeck, and the prey are holograms who have killed most of the Hirogen on board.

[You tortured me to gain my sympathy?]

Series: Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch

The Hills are Haunted; the Mountains are Hungry: Digging Into Appalachian SFF

A few months ago Appalachia was trending on Twitter; someone was explaining what makes the mountain range unique, diving into some of the geographical data on the Appalachians, trying to conceptualize just how fucking old this spine is. It’s difficult to imagine, but this range contains some of the oldest mountains in the world. Even comparisons fail; for example, the Rocky Mountain range was formed about 80 million years ago. The Appalachians? 480 million years ago.

All this orogen history has to mean something. These mountains know a thing or two.

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Small Things Grow Into Big Problems in the Latest Trailer for The King’s Man

Disney’s 20th Century Studios has released a new trailer for its upcoming third installment of the Kingsman series: The King’s Man. Set around a century before Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, the film is about the origins of the freelance intelligence agency as they work to stop a devastating war from taking place.

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Decisions Are Hard: Picking What to Read Next

You’ve turned the last page of your book. Maybe you read the acknowledgements, the author bio, reread the blurbs on the back now that you have more context for them. Maybe you let it fall heavily on your coffee table and sigh a satisfied (or infuriated, or disappointed, or giddy) sigh. Maybe you immediately return the ebook in your library app, or add it to a stack of books by the door to take back to the library or put on a free book shelf. Maybe you enjoy the particular sensation of finding the book its new home on your shelves, giggling a little if it lives in between two particularly unlikely neighbors.

Whatever your end-of-book rituals, if you’re a regular reader, you’ll eventually arrive at one question:

What do I read next?

And sometimes, this choice feels impossible.

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Behold the Mistress of the Winter Constellations! — Star Trek: Lower Decks: “We’ll Always Have Tom Paris”

It’s all status-quo-restoration all the time! I had been afraid that the second season would twist itself into a pretzel to restore the status quo, and while they did to an extent, they did at least some of it in a way that is hilarious and perfect for Lower Decks. Unfortunately, there are other elements of the story that make for a good sitcom plot, but don’t actually work in any kind of Star Trek context.

So about like usual for LD, truly…

[SPOILERS AHEAD! FALSE GREEN!]

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