Streamin' Meemies: Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 Episode 8, "All In"

 

So we pick up directly after the midseason cliffhanger, with Cleveland Booker and Ruon Tarka taking off on a rogue mission to destroy the Dark Matter Anomaly, complete with stolen spore drive technology. Needless to say, Federation President Rillek is pissed; she calls both Admiral Vance and Michael Burnham in and reams them new ones, demanding to know why they couldn't have predicted this.  Michael is dismissed, ordered to find out as much as she can about Species 10-C. However, later Admiral Vance comes to see her and professes himself mystified by Tarka's behavior (of course, the viewer already knows why he's doing this, from the scene between him and Book in "But To Connect"). He also states he just got his family back and doesn't want to send them away again. So he orders Burnham to surreptitiously look for the two: "You find a way, Captain Burnham."

This episode, then, is the story of Michael "finding a way." It's not as good as the previous episode, as it's mostly Michael and Book trying to outdo each other to acquire isolynium, which the unctuous Tarka neglected to inform Book he would need to build his weapon. Both Michael and Book end up on a floating casino they knew from their courier days, "Haz Mazaro's Karma Barge." Haz will sell you just about anything for the right price. Ostensibly, Michael comes there to find star charts from a species called the Stilph, which is close enough to the galactic barrier to have scans of the area where Species 10-C is believed to be. But she suspects Book and Tarka will also be there looking for isolynium, and sure enough, they are. 

Haz plays them against each other, trying to inflate the price, and at the end, it comes down to Michael and Book beating each other in a game of Leonian Poker (which is just like regular Earth poker, if with a truly funky deck of cards--I would love to know where the production found those). Of course, this also becomes a metaphor for Michael and Book's disintegrating relationship. 

Michael: "You know, if you win and take that isolynium, every bridge you built will be disintegrated instantly."

Book: "The bridge between us--will that be gone too?"

Michael: "You'd leave me no choice. Starfleet will come after you with everything they've got. I'll be one of the tools they use. Doesn't have to be like that. We can end this. Let's end it."

Book: "All right. Let's end it," as he pushes all his chips forward for his final bet. 

Michael loses. But she went into the game knowing she would lose, and when she insisted on inspecting the isolynium beforehand, she stuck a tracking device on it, the same device the Federation uses to keep track of their dilithium shipments. At the end of the episode, this shows Book's ship not moving as Tarka builds his weapon. At the same time, they have discovered from the Stilph scans that Species 10-C is holding an area of space with a hyperfield "black blob," a Faraday cage that takes unimaginable amounts of power to maintain. Michael asks Zora to scan the areas where the DMA recently was, looking for the combination of gases and elements left behind. One element is missing: boronite. It's been  mined from the areas of space the DMA traveled. Which means that it's not a weapon--it's a dredge. 

Vance: "If the DMA is their mining equipment, we can only imagine what their weapons are like."

Rillek: "And if their power supply is threatened, it will almost certainly be seen as a hostile act. Booker and Tarka must be stopped. Whatever the cost." 

Michael, with the look of someone who realizes she is plunging into deep shit: "I know." 

There are also two other delightful parts to this episode: first and foremost, Joann Owosekun gets off the bridge and gets something more to do! Michael takes her along to the Karma Barge, and she enters the fighting ring, facing off with a big bruiser to win the latinum Michael needs to buy the isolynium. The actor makes the most of this (she has more lines in this one episode than she has in the entirety of the series so far). There's also a really nice scene with Stamets and Culber: Culber is very upset that he didn't see what Book was planning--"He was in a volatile emotional state and I didn't do enough." Stamets says he's anxious too and "It's not the same as yours, but it all comes from the same place. Uncertainty. Which is terrifying. So let's be terrified together." They go off to the holodeck to "take a stroll through a field of flowers for a bit." 

So the pieces are setting up for the endgame, and once again Michael Burnham is going to be put through the wringer. It's nice that the DMA isn't actually a weapon, but one wonders if the species operating it is so far beyond humans that we're basically ants to them, and they don't even notice when they're stepping all over our planets. Or they do notice and simply don't care. Either way, we're going to find out. 

Review: Dustborn

Dustborn by Erin Bowman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has a very Mad Max: Fury Road vibe to it (with the protagonist, Delta, standing in as a young Furiosa) even though it's not set on Earth. We don't find this out till about three-fourths of the way through the story, but the hints have been well seeded. At first the reader thinks this is a far future dystopia, on the other side of climate change when the environmental catastrophe has turned much of the planet to desert and shrunk the oceans, and water is more valuable than gold. But I gradually realized something was off-kilter: the landscape, the existence of Old World tech, and other subtle tipoffs told me my assumptions weren't lining up with the story the author was telling.

And sure enough, this isn't Earth at all, but an alien planet being mined for fuel by "the Federation," using prisoners as slaves. Until a magnetic storm hits and fries the GPS and other tech, including control chips in the prisoners' heads. This sparks an uprising where the guards are killed. The bosses of the mining operation were having a meeting in one of the Federation ships in orbit around the planet when this happened, and they bombed the planet (not nuking it, thankfully) and abandoned the operation. But there were a few thousand survivors, hunkering down in an onplanet bunker called Eden. After the bombing, they emerge from Eden and spread out across the planet, trying to survive. The lone surviving Federation official invents a religion in an attempt to give them hope (the prisoners' chip malfunctions erased most of their memories and they don't remember who he was or why they were really there): the stars seen in the planet's sky (Federation ships also left behind) are their gods, who are testing them and will someday return.

Several hundred years later--about 360, per my calculations from the number of days recorded on Eden since this happened--our protagonist, Delta of Dead River, is trying to survive with her family group, called "pack," in a harsh, ruthless environment. This constant fight for survival breeds a harsh, ruthless protagonist, which Delta certainly is. Her character arc is learning to trust, to depend on other people, especially when the foundations of her world are shaken and everything she thought was true turns out to be a lie. The story opens with one of the planet's many dust storms, and Delta's pregnant sister Indie's water breaking early and Indie getting infected. Delta drags her away from Dead River on a sled to the Old Coast and the dry ocean bed, to an ancient oil tanker sitting on the sand. But even the healers there can't save Indie, and Delta has to return to Dead River with her sister's newborn. When she does, she discovers there was a raid while she was gone. Some of her pack was killed, and the survivors taken into the Waste.

This story is Delta's quest to find and save her pack, and along the way she discovers the truth about their world. She thought there were gods that would return, and there was a green place called the Verdant, and the generations-old map branded on her back, copied from a paper her ancestors found in an Old World rover, would lead her and her pack to Verdant and safety. But all of that was a lie--there is no Verdant except the one she and her people will make for themselves, and she and her allies must fight the dictator of the Waste, called the General, to secure their future.

This is a really interesting story with good worldbuilding, and Delta is a character worthy of the setting. There are a few plot holes. For instance, why would there be Earth animals, including frogs, fish, jackrabbits, goats, horses, mules, falcons and so forth, set loose on this alien planet? I can see the Federation growing crops for their workers--the mining operation was evidently meant to take years or maybe decades, since they were there for fifteen months before the geomagnetic storm struck. (And I don't know how they pollinated said crops without bees, unless they were genetically engineered crops.) I suppose they brought the animals along--or more likely, genetic samples they could clone--since the planet seems to have little or no native life; and after the uprising the abandoned animals would have bred and spread out, just like the humans did. That part definitely has to be handwaved away by the reader, but aside from that, this is a solid adventure story. Delta is determined to save her pack, and since she is something of a budding engineer, she helps to invent and build some of the things that will save them. She also has to face down the General and kill him.

Along the way she discovers her true pack, her family, and her love: a boy named Asher she thought was lost years ago. At the book's ending, she has pride and purpose. The author sticks the landing, and the closing paragraphs leave a warm glow in the reader's heart. This is a self-contained story, and while there are enough remaining questions about the world and the characters' future to support a sequel, a sequel isn't really necessary. I really liked this story, and I recommend you pick it up.

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Streamin' Meemies: The Book of Boba Fett Season 1 Episode 7, "In the Name of Honor"

 

Well....that was a finale, I guess.

I will say this: it's the third-best episode of the season, and the best of the Boba-centric episodes. It was directed by Robert Rodriguez, and it shows: he seems to come around only to handle the fast-moving action scenes and big screaming fights, and smaller episodes with character-centric moments are either beyond him or uninteresting to him. (Though I would have loved to see what Bryce Dallas Howard could have done with this material, as she directed the best episode of the season.) And this episode certainly had both action and fights, I suppose he did a fair-to-middling job with it. 

However, this episode laid bare the show's glaring weakness, something I (and many other people) have been pointing out all along: this show is only marginally a show about Boba Fett. First and foremost, it exists to set up Season 3 of The Mandalorian, which was made clear by episode 5, "Return of..." well lookee here! Who'da thunk it? It also exists to dip into Empire and Jedi nostalgia, as seen in Episode 6, "From the Desert Comes a Stranger," and a second incarnation of CGI and deepfake Luke Skywalker (albeit a far better representation this time).  Finally, it reminded us there is still an Ahsoka Tano show on the way, while completely neglecting to show us the necessary conversation she and Luke should have had about his father and her history with Anakin. Episode 6 was not particularly fast-moving, and by God that should have been shown. 

This is irritating as all get out, and absolutely a squandered opportunity. I've never been a Boba Fett fangirl, but you must admit that for a character from 40 years ago, he was a near blank slate. (At least as far as the movies go--I know he was fleshed out more in the books and comics.) He could have been considered the same as a new character; they could have done anything with him, as they did with Din Djarin and Baby Yoda. Do the powers that be at Disney not comprehend that this is precisely the reason we like Mando so much, because he's not a flippin' Jedi and a bloody Skywalker, and through him we can watch fascinating stories about denizens of the Star Wars universe like the Mandalorians that are not bound up with the Force? Boba Fett could have been the same way. Indeed, the first four episodes made feeble stabs in that direction. 

Unfortunately, those efforts were incredibly clumsy and ham-handed, and only served to hopelessly muddle whatever characterization Boba possessed, which was not much to begin with. The best of those was probably Episode 2, "The Tribes of Tatooine," with the terrific train chase and Boba's making his gaffi stick. But then (and I will keep beating this drum until the end of time, I suspect) IN THE VERY NEXT EPISODE THE TUSKENS WERE KILLED OFF FOR NO GODDAMN REASON. This was another missed opportunity, as what happened in episode 2 was begging to be used as the motivation for Boba's entire character arc. 

Instead, we got such treacly nonsense as "I'm tired of working for idiots who are going to get me killed," and "I will rule with respect" (talking about taking over Jabba the Hutt's operation). This is okay, my dude, but still does not answer the question of WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? You could have taken your ship and jumped the hell off Tatooine, never to return (once you got your armor back, that is). But if the whole POINT of getting the armor back and taking over Jabba's operation was to RESTRUCTURE AND RUN THE TATOOINE UNDERWORLD FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE TUSKENS......well, right there is an actual SHOW, instead of the incoherent mess we received.   

So now we come to the finale, and Robert Rodriguez taking the reins for what is basically a forty-minute running battle between Boba's bunch and the Pykes. At the beginning, they get their asses kicked, but then the Freetowners come in to join them. This drives the Pykes away, and they think they're home free, until two huge Scorkenen battle droids come stalking down the streets of Mos Espa to take them on. This makes the group scatter and run, with Boba and Din Djarin trying to cover them (among other things, we see all the cool bombs, shots and other things built into Mandalorian armor). Boba jets away to get his last ace in the hole, which is of course the Rancor, and Mando is running through the streets trying to lure the battle droid away. In the middle of all this mayhem, he runs across Peli Motto and her droids, bearing him a gift--Baby Yoda, who had arrived earlier in Luke's X-Wing, piloted by R2. So now we know what choice Grogu made (and in addition he is wearing the beskar mail shirt). Their reunion is heartwarming, as Grogu uses the Force to launch himself into Mando's arms. 

In fact, Grogu apparently learned a substantial amount from Luke in the short time he was there, as there are two scenes where he uses the Force to protect Mando. He rips part of one leg off one of the Scorkenens, allowing the Rancor (which Boba has arrived on by this time) to tear the thing to pieces. After Boba and the Rancor destroy the second droid, Boba gets knocked off to have his showdown with Cad Bane and the Rancor goes on a rampage (climbing Mos Espa's tower in a deliberate homage to King Kong). Mando tries to ride it and calm it down, but the Rancor will accept only one Mandalorian, and Mando ain't it. In fact, the creature tries to nibble down on Mando's head, so it's a good thing beskar armor is well nigh indestructible. But as the Rancor flings Mando down in the street and prepares to charge him, the tiny Grogu waddles out to protect his Dad (and the Rancor pauses, obviously having no idea what to make of this miniscule being standing in front of it) and puts the Rancor to sleep. (This so drains him he curls up beside the prone monster for a nap himself.) 

This is all well and good, and most of this is fairly exciting. However, it also belongs in the third season of The Mandalorian, not this show. I'm thinking nearly all of this storyline could have been covered in two or three extra episodes of Season 3, which would have made for a tighter, more relevant story without wasting time on the muddled mess of attempting to flesh out Boba Fett's character. It was done in such a half-assed way that I'd almost rather not have the show at all. This is rather puzzling, as all of the episodes were written by Jon Favreau or Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. I'm still thinking there must have been some sort of behind-the-scenes scuffle that would account for such a disjointed mid-season pivot, but I suppose we'll never know. 

At any rate, the bottom line is that the Boba Fett part of this show irritated and disappointed me, and I'm not too keen on The Book of Boba Fett Season 2, if there is one. Also, Bryce Dallas Howard should direct all of The Mandalorian Season 3. 

I have spoken. 

Review: Servant Mage

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a nice self-contained story, with a surprising amount of worldbuilding packed into 164 pages. It's an examination of politics, power and class, and what happens when both factions competing for rule are morally deficient and the best course of action is to create an entirely new path.

Fellian is a Lamplighter, a fire mage and indentured servant who is recruited for a quest by a secret member of the rebel faction, the Monarchists. The monarchy was overthrown years ago by the Liberationists, who proceeded to institute a dictatorial regime under the so-called August Protector. Mages are taken from their families when young and bound into service to the Liberationists, and Fellian is assigned to light Lamps and scrub privies for a local lodging house. She also teaches people to read and write on the side, which we discover towards the end of the book was a thing forbidden under the previous regime, along with learning about magery. At the beginning, the Liberationists and the August Protector are meant to be seen as the villains, but as the book progresses we, and Fellian, learn that the Monarchists, for all their carping about honor, were just as corrupt and uncaring.

Fellian is a wonderful protagonist, cautious and pragmatic, if a bit impulsive about speaking her mind. She helps Lord Roake, the Monarchist who hired her to free refugees trapped inside one of the northern mountains, and along the way they end up taking an unexpected side trip to find a legendary five-souled dragonborn child. At the end, Lord Roake expects her to join his cause to return the monarchy to power, but she turns her back on him and returns to the northern village where she was raised. She has seen what the future will be: the Monarchists and Liberationists will fight for control of the land, and in the vacuum left by this struggle she wants to raise her people, the common hill people, to a place where they can live and thrive without either of them.

This is a quieter, thoughtful fantasy, with a great deal to say about the labyrinths of power and revolution. The world is fascinating, and I hope one day the author will return to it.

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Streamin' Meemies: The Book of Boba Fett Season 1 Episode 6, "From the Desert Comes a Stranger"

 

This show is a mess. 

I say that with regret. I'm certainly not against the idea of a show about Boba Fett in and of itself, especially if Ming-Na Wen plays a prominent part. The first four episodes weren't outstanding, and were absolutely wrong-headed and dumb in fridging the Tuskens, but I think it could have built into something more interesting if it had been given the chance. I'm wondering if there was some sort of internal fight at Disney and some higher-up forced Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni's hand with a "WAIT WE MUST BE MORE LIKE MARVEL STUDIOS AND HAVE EACH SHOW SET UP AND LEAD INTO THE NEXT," because all of a sudden The Mandalorian was dragged onto the screen. 

And last week's episode was good. That's the most unsettling part of it. "Return of the Mandalorian" was good, and poor Boba got left in the dust. Which leads to this episode, where we see him for two or three brief shots and he doesn't have a single line. And we're back to Din Djarin, and Cobb Vanth and Ahsoka Tano from season 2 of The Mandalorian, and we see......guess who again? 

This episode isn't quite as good as last week's, and the closing scene set a fire under certain quarters of the internet. We see Master Luke training Grogu, having him raise frogs from swamp water and use the Force to jump into the air (and in a hilarious scene, Grogu can only do the tiniest little hop, because after all he's still a baby) and fight with a "training module" that keeps zapping Grogu as he hops from rock to rock in the river, until he finally becomes fed up with it and smashes it into the water. But one definitely gets the sense that he's only doing this because Luke is asking, not because he really wants to. Luke gets this vibe as well: "It's more like he's remembering than I'm actually teaching him anything."

Ahsoka Tano: "Sometimes the student guides the master."

Luke: "Sometimes I wonder if his heart is in it."

Ahsoka: "So much like your father."

Luke: "What should I do about him?"

Ahsoka: "Trust your instincts."

(As an aside: Really? That's all we get between Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano? This scene is bursting with subtext. One gets the feeling that they've talked all about Anakin and each of them knows what happened when he was young and how Luke managed to redeem him, but boy howdy I would've liked to see that complete scene. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to, not in this show or The Mandalorian either. Maybe in Ahsoka's show? 

Another aside: This CGI'd Luke was a helluva lot better than the one in The Mandalorian Season 2. Maybe the guy Lucasfilm hired, who worked up the deepfake on YouTube, worked on this episode?)

This leads to the episode's final scene, and The Choice That Shook the Internet. Luke's Jedi training house is complete (and was constructed by six-legged ant droids, in an absurd bit of Star Wars weirdness) and Luke and Grogu are sitting inside. Luke takes out the little beskar chainmail shirt Din Djarin brought for him and lays it down in front of Grogu, then Yoda's miniature lightsaber, and tells Grogu he has a choice.

"The Mandalorian wanted you to have this. But before you take it, I will give you a choice. This is a lightsaber. It belonged to my teacher, Master Yoda. Now, I'm offering it to you. But you may choose only one. If you choose the armor, you'll return to your friend, the Mandalorian. However, you will be giving in to attachment to those that you love and forsaking the way of the Jedi. But if you choose the lightsaber, you will be the first student in my academy, and I will train you to be a great Jedi. It will take you many years to master the ways of the Force, and you may never see the Mandalorian again. Because a short time for you is lifetime for someone else. Which do you choose?"

(Argh. This is why these two episodes really belonged in the third season of The Mandalorian, dammit. I do not like how they were shoehorned into this show, no matter how good they are in and of themselves.)

There's also so much to unpack in this scene: Luke (and Ahsoka, to an extent) falling into the "Jedi attachment-free" bullshit that ruined Anakin Skywalker; Luke's setting things in motion for the downfall of his school and his withdrawal from the galaxy decades later, as seen in The Last Jedi; and Luke's wrong-headedness in not realizing that Grogu can be both a Jedi and a Mandalorian, as the Armorer pointed out in the previous episode about the person who forged the Darksaber. (Which, to be fair, Luke may not be aware of.) I suppose we'll see what Grogu chooses in the next episode. Although I'm pretty sure Peli Motto didn't build that second little seat in Mando's Starfighter for nothing. 

Yeah, and some other things happened in this episode as well: Cobb Vanth reappears, still the sheriff of Mos Pelgo, or Freetown, who Mando goes to see in an effort to convince him to join Boba Fett's fight. Vanth also has a shootout of his own, with a gunslinger from the Pyke Syndicate who wipes the floor with him (although I don't think Vanth is dead, as said blue-skinned gunslinger was also aiming for his deputy and the shot that dropped Vanth to the sand was a bit off to one side). In Mos Espo, Garsa Fwip's bar is blown to smithereens by a couple of Pykesters. We also see a barnstorming session at Jabba's palace, with Fennec Shand briefing everybody as to what the Pyke Syndicate is doing. 

Oh yeah, and Boba Fett makes all of a two- or three-minute appearance in his own show! 

If this is the result of some interior tussle over the future of the franchise, I hope it gets worked out. Because the quality of this show is simply not up to par, and everyone should know it. 

Review: Light from Uncommon Stars

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For a while, I wasn't sure about this book. It's written in a style I usually find very offputting--the omniscient narrator--and it's structured in a rather peculiar way, as the author freely headhops every few paragraphs on every single page. There is a line space for every change of POV, but I still felt my head whirling back and forth as if it was on a turntable. This grew very irritating in a couple of places--I thought, for frak's sake, can't you do even a single page in one character's point of view?--but I persisted. And lo and behold, the characters started growing on me in a big way. The author's skill with characterization is remarkable, and it soon overcame my objections.

This is a mashup of science fiction and fantasy, and even the "science fiction" at times borders on the absurd, in the manner of Dr. Who and the original Star Trek series. There are aliens fleeing a galactic empire they fear is collapsing, and hiding on this obscure planet called Earth in an attempt to save their family. Lan Tran, one of the three main characters, is the captain of this crew and family, and in her gambit to hide in plain sight, she disguises her family as human (their real forms have extra joints in funny places and plum-colored skin) and ends up buying, of all things, a donut shop. (There are a lot of mouth-watering descriptions of food and baking in this book, both to depict the setting and propel the plot.) The second main character is a former famous violinist and now teacher, Shizuka Satomi, who has a time-sensitive problem: forty-nine years ago she sold her soul to Hell, and she can only redeem it by delivering the last of seven promised students, students who take a cursed bow and give their souls away to attain their wildest dreams. (Yes, her demon appears, both in a mostly human form and as a ball of fire and sulfur at the climax.) She has one year remaining on her contract before she will be dragged to Hell if she does not deliver, and she has yet to find a student she considers worthy to teach--and manipulate into fulfilling the contract.

The final main character is Katrina Nguyen, a beaten, battered and abused trans girl who finally can take no more and runs away from her non-accepting family. She took violin lessons when she was younger, and was told by her teacher she had a rare gift--but her father refused to accept his child's playing and who his child was, and smashed Katrina's first violin. She was eventually able to save enough money to buy a violin off Ebay, but when her father threatened to kill her, she left. She goes to Oakland, hoping to stay with a former classmate, but he is not very happy to see her and asks her to come back later. So she goes to a park to while away the time--the same park where Shizuka Satomi also visits, and comes across Katrina and her violin on a bench.

This fateful meeting sparks this lovely story of love, identity, music, and acceptance, marked by beautiful prose and deep and thoughtful characterization. There are lush descriptions of both food and music, and all the characters are wrapped up in and revealed by their reactions to both. You wouldn't think a tale of a demon-bound teacher on one hand and an alien from an imploding galactic empire on the other would work, but it does. This is also a hopeful, uplifting story, as Katrina grows from a frightened girl afraid of existing to a confident woman who plays out her life's story through her music; and Shizuka Satomi changes from someone desperately looking for her final soul to Katrina's surrogate parent who will not sacrifice this girl she has grown to love; and Lan Tran meets both of them and realizes that though she must keep her family safe, she has a galaxy to save--at at the end, she and Shizuka set out in their starship's runabout to do just that.

If this isn't the best book I have read from all of last year, it's damn close. Please do yourself a favor and pick it up.

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Review: The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes

The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I started this because The Sandman series is now filming on Netflix, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about before it aired.

Well....I do see what all the fuss was about, but at the same time this collection of the first 8 issues is definitely a collection that's floundering a bit, trying to find its way. Neil Gaiman admits as much in the afterward. He says the last issue, "The Sound of Her Wings," where Death is introduced, is the first one where he felt he was really finding his voice, and I think I agree with that. (Although I think issue #4, "A Hope In Hell," where Dream journeys to Hell to meet Lucifer Morningstar and try to get his helmet back, is another highlight. It's sad that David Bowie didn't live long enough to see the adaptation or maybe even play Lucifer, since the character was so clearly modeled on him.) Still, this tale of the Dream King is clearly a story about stories, and as such it plays out on as broad a canvas as one could imagine, pulling in Shakespeare, Bowie, the Doors, Cain and Abel, the Maiden/Mother/Crone, John Constantine, and many other fragments from Neil Gaiman's apparently boundless imagination. In the final issue, that imagination, and Gaiman's storytelling ability, is obviously taking off, whetting my appetite for the volumes to come (and I intend on getting all of them). I hope Netflix's adaptation can live up to it.

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Review: Plague Birds

Plague Birds by Jason Sanford
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book has a good premise, but I don't think the execution lived up to it. It's the story of an Earth approximately twenty thousand years in the future, with extreme genetic engineering, nanoteched AIs, and humans with animal genes. We have a post-collapse society in the aftermath of a war between those same AIs, who have demanded that humans leave their cities and global civilization behind to return to small villages, each watched over by an AI, until they have returned to a more "natural" (i.e. less engineered) state. So-called "plague birds" enforce this state of affairs: humans each bearing a nanotech AI in their body and blood, a bloodthirsty artificial intelligence with the power to judge and kill.

Crista of the village of Day's End is coerced and manipulated into becoming a plague bird, and the book is the story of her journey to find out about her past, about the mother who was killed by another plague bird years ago, and just who she is and the part she has to play in the world's future. This is all well and good, but neither the worldbuilding or the characterization in this book was deep enough or explored enough to suit its setup. Crista in particular was an annoyingly passive protagonist, dragged here and there by her AI, Red Day, and reacting to what others do to her instead of seizing the moment, laying down the law, and breaking free from the various and layered manipulations that have marked her life. The testy relationship between Crista and Red Day was also fairly shallow, and Red Day's admitting in the book's final pages that Crista had "changed" it didn't feel earned to me at all.

(Also, the characters in this book scream at each other way too much? It got on my nerves to the point where I wanted to do a search-and-replace for that word and eliminate almost all instances of it. And this may be a persnickety nitpick, but the font was too small and I believe contributed to my recent need to buy stronger reading glasses.)

I think this could have been a more interesting story if the author had dug deeper into his world and characters. As it is, it's just so-so, and won't stick with me for longer than it takes to donate it to the library.

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Streamin' Meemies: The Book of Boba Fett Season 1 Ep 5, "Return of the Mandalorian"

 

You know, if I was Temuera Morrison, I might be a wee bit ticked that the best episode of my show.....had nothing to do with me at all. 

That's right, folks. Episode 5 of Boba Fett is actually a stealth episode of The Mandalorian! 

In one way, this is definitely not a bad thing. This episode, superbly directed by Bryce Dallas Howard (I'm very tempted to just say hand her the keys to all the director's chairs going forward), was fun and emotional and squee-inducing (it had a fucking Ringworld!), while showing us what's become of our favorite doting father since the sad separation from his Baby Yoda. Din Djarin is obviously lost and adrift; he's gone back to bounty hunting, clumsily swinging the Darksaber around like a knobbly-headed sledgehammer instead of the finely-tuned lethal weapon it is, to the point where he slices his leg with his own weapon. (The way he was stabbing and hacking with the Darksaber, it's a wonder he didn't cut the limb right off. In a later scene when the Armorer is trying to teach him the finesse necessary to use it, she remarks that he is "fighting against the blade." On Wookieepedia the article on kyber crystals, which power lightsabers, says they're quasi-sentient, so I can easily imagine the Darksaber's crystal wondering what the hell the untalented oaf hacking at things with it thinks he's doing.) After turning in his bounty and gaining the information he demanded, Mando descends to a lower level of the Ringworld and finds the two remaining members of his fundamentalist Mandalorian sect, the Armorer and a new character named Paz Vizsla. He doesn't remain with them long, because Paz is jealous of the fact that Mando has the Darksaber (which the Armorer says was forged a thousand years ago by Paz's ancestor, Tarre Vizsla) and challenges him for it. Despite his ineptness with the Darksaber, Mando manages to win, but loses all the same....because apparently a condition of the challenge is that each fighter must answer the question, "Have you ever removed your helmet?" and Mando admits that he did. The Armorer doesn't even give him a chance to explain and casts him out, saying he is a Mandalorian no more. 

(But we're there long enough to hear some general backstory about Mandalore, the Darksaber, and Bo-Katan Kryze, including a flashback to Mandalore's Great Purge, when the Empire all but wiped them out. This looked a helluva lot like a Terminator 2 outtake. Oh, and the Armorer forges Mando's cool beskar spear into....something....for his founding. From the tiny links I saw hitting the floor, I suspect it will be a Baby Yoda-sized mithril beskar chainmail shirt.)

Mando leaves the Ringworld and returns to Tatooine via commercial freighter (following a hilarious scene where the boarding droid demands he remove his weapons, and he fills up a good-sized suitcase with everything stashed and hidden in his armor) to meet the mechanic Peli Motto, who says she has a replacement for the Razor Crest. This turns out to be an absurdly tiny Naboo Starfighter, and though Peli persuades Mando to stay and help her put it back together, this is about the most impractical thing she could have saddled a bounty hunter with, despite its prodigious speed. The Razor Crest had, among other things, an actual living space, sleeping quarters and bathroom. This new ship has none of that. I guess Mando (and Grogu, because you know he'll be reunited with his kid in The Mandalorian Season 3) is just going to stay in hotels and bring back the chopped-off heads of his targets from now on (and maybe invest in a lot of diapers, cockpit catheters and urinary leg bags) because that ship isn't going to have room for anything else.

Nevertheless, the scenes in the middle of the episode of Din and Peli repairing and reassembling the ship were one of the best parts of it, mainly because of Amy Sedaris' hilariously improvised dialogue ("I dated a Jawa for awhile. They're quite furry. Quite furry. Lots of issues."), and Bryce Dallas Howard's wonderful eye for tiny details in characterizing Peli and her pack of droids. When Mando first shows up, Peli is chasing down a womp-rat who grabbed one of her smallest droids, BD. She yells at the other droids to help her, and not only do they fail to do that, they take turns hiding behind each other. At one point, little BD is so happy to have helped Mando put a part on the ship in its proper place that it stomps both feet up and down and shakes. In another scene, the droids are trying to guide one of the starfighter's new engines into its proper place, and one of the droids almost gets its head smashed. It pulls its head out, grabs it in both hands and runs away, clearly done with helping with the repair, at least for a while. In the background of one of the long shots of the repair bay, a rat (or Tatooine equivalent) runs across the sandy floor. These scenes were just a delight, and they were all punctuated by Amy Sedaris' funny, idiosyncratic banter. 

After the Starfighter is finished, Din takes it out for a run, shooting across Mos Eisley and through the same canyon where Anakin Skywalker pod-raced and Luke Skywalker chased womp-rats. He then takes the ship up and out of the atmosphere, where he gets caught by one of the same New Republic cops who tracked him in Season 2. One of them recognizes his voice and starts to question him, but he pressed the SUPER-SEKRIT BUTTON and the ship accelerates so fast it instantly vanishes from sight. When he touches back down in Peli Motto's courtyard, she asks him: "How was it?"

"Wizard," he replies.

(Apparently this, like several other references in this episode, is a callback to the prequel trilogy? I still have no great desire to watch it.)

Peli then tells Mando a "friend" has dropped by. Said "friend" is of course Fennec Shand, who says she wants to hire him as "muscle." When Mando realizes it's for Boba Fett he hands Fennec her money back: "Tell him it's on the house. But first I have to pay a visit to a little friend."

Well, well, well. This all but begs for the NEXT episode also to be about Din Djarin and Grogu, but I think we've shortchanged Boba Fett and Fennec Shand quite enough. I also think the powers-that-be may regret taking this diversion, because this episode shows just why Boba Fett is falling short. The protagonist's characterization is hopelessly muddled, we still have no real idea why he's doing what he's doing, and (banging the drum once again) the TUSKENS STILL DIDN'T HAVE TO BE SACRIFICED TO MOTIVATE HIM. Maybe if Bryce Dallas Howard were to direct the final two episodes? Regardless, even if--as I suspect he will--Boba gets to ride his baby Rancor, this show's first season (except for this episode) is going to be mediocre at best. 

Review: Where the Drowned Girls Go

Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This seventh book in the Wayward Children series continues the stories of the kids at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. These are children who never fit in, with their families or their schools or their friends; and one day they found a door leading to an alternate world. These are worlds such as the Hooflands, where unicorns, centaurs and other magical hooved beings dwell; or Confection, where there are strawberry-soda seas and cookie-leaved trees; or the Moors, where there is a blood moon and vampire kings and the Drowned Gods, Cthulhu-like tentacled creatures that live in the seas.

But eventually these kids are not sure they want to stay, and they're rejected back to our world. Many of them spend the rest of their lives looking for their Doors again. Some of them find their way to Eleanor West's Home, where they are surrounded by people--including Eleanor herself--who know what they are going through.

However, there is another school, the Whitethorn Institute, where children go who want to forget their worlds, and remove the hold their worlds have on them. Whitethorn is a cruel, rigid, rules-bound place, and as our protagonist discovers, she may have chosen to go there....but it's not a place anyone should want to stay.

This continues the story of Cora Miller, taking up her storyline from book #4, Come Tumbling Down, and bringing in Regan Lewis, the protagonist of book #5, Across the Green Grass Fields. The background knowledge of those books adds to the story, but it isn't really necessary. After her visit to the Moors in book #4, Cora is desperate to get the Drowned Gods' hooks out of her. She begs to go to Whitethorn, where she hopes to forget, only to discover Whitethorn has its own secrets, and staying there may be worse than her current demons. We meet a number of new characters and find out just what Whitethorn's secret is. Cora manages to break away, bringing several new friends with her, and in the process she gains the strength of will to refute the Drowned Gods. But the person behind Whitethorn is an interesting new antagonist, and I hope he will play a role in this series' storyline going forward.

This is an exploration of the often heavy burden of expectations and roles society places on children, and the importance of staying true to one's own heart, no matter what others think. The Wolcott twins of the second and fourth books and their fascinating, terrifying world of the Moors are my favorite in the series, but I think Cora is coming in second.

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