Marvel Does Pleasantville: Episodes 1 and 2 of WandaVision

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Cora

Of the many Marvel and Star Wars related projects Disney (who, if I may remind you, are still not paying royalties due to Alan Dean Foster and other authors) has announced for its Disney+ streaming service, WandaVision was probably the one that I least knew what to make of.

I mean, even the whole setup – “We’re making a sitcom that’s a parody of other sitcoms, the protagonists are phasing android and a reality-bending mutant – oh yes, and it’s set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, too” – sounds like Disney and Marvel are trolling us. But then, I already suspected that Disney/Marvel were trolling us, when they announced they were making a Guardians of the Galaxy movie and we all know how that turned out. For in the past few years, Marvel has been at the point where they could tell pretty much any story, no matter how weird or offbeat (gonzo space opera, retro spy adventure, Afrofuturist fantasy, X-Files style paranoia mixed with space opera, heist movie with superpowers, etc…), and make a success of it. So why on Earth shouldn’t Marvel make a sitcom about an android married to a reality-bending mutant? If anybody could make it work, it’s them.

That said, I was skeptical about WandaVision for a simple reason. Namely, I don’t like sitcoms. I don’t watch sitcoms, I’m not familiar with most of the shows WandaVision is apparently trying to parody and I find US suburban sitcoms with their unfunny jokes and laugh tracks (Why, of why, are laugh tracks even a thing?) about as alien as if I were watching TV from another planet. In fact, it took me a long time to realise that the sitcom was considered a separate format of TV show in the US. So watching a sitcom parody should feel about as alien to me as watching a parody of Beijing opera or Kabuki theatre. It may be the best parody ever of Beijing opera or Kabuki theatre, but I can’t tell, because I’m simply not familiar enough with what’s being parodied.

In many ways, Disney+ rolling out a parody of US sitcoms through the decades as one of its major shows to a global audience was a huge risk, simply because the kind of suburban couple and family sitcoms WandaVision is parodying are a very uniquely American form of entertainment. Yes, other countries do have comedy TV programs, some of them focus on middle class couples and families and sometimes they’re very funny. But the claustrophobic setting of the typically American suburb (which many Europeans associate mainly with horror movies), the limited sets, the laugh track, the type of humour, all that’s uniquely American.

Occasionally, such shows can successfully cross the Atlantic. I Dream of Jeannie was a big hit in West Germany and I remember adoring reruns as a kid, while All in the Family/Till Death Do Us Part/Ein Herz und eine Seele was a big hit in the UK, the US and West Germany, even though it was never even remotely funny in any country. Though All in the Family/Till Death Do Us Part/Ein Herz und eine Seele did adapt its basic situation – creepy old racist with a very stupid wife, non-entity daughter and a progressive son-in-law as well as neighbours who are other – to every country differently. And so the neighbours are black in the US version and Socialdemocrats in the German version. And a lot of the jokes in the German version are based on West German politics of the 1970s, while the US version took the occasional detour into drama. So yes, the basic premise of a random sitcom can be adapted across cultures.

One early review, which I can’t find right now, declared that WandaVision was perfect even for people not familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because it’s primarily a sitcom that doesn’t require any knowledge of comics or the Marvel Universe. Which made me wonder, “What about some like me who’s familiar with the comics that WandaVision is based upon – mainly the two Vision and the Scarlet Witch limited series from the 1980s and Tom King’s The Vision limited series from 2015/16 – but knows next to nothing about sitcoms? Will WandaVision work for me?”

The answer is, “I’m not sure yet.” I have to admit that the first few minutes of episode 1 – after a title sequence featuring newlyweds Wanda and Vision moving into their new suburban home – were actively painful with a noisy laugh track almost drowning out dialogue which simply wasn’t funny enough to justify such raucous laughter. However, then the episode got better and in the end I was actually laughing along with the canned laughter.

Warning: Spoilers below the cut! Continue reading →

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Fanzine Spotlight: Salon Futura

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Cora

It’s time for the next entry in my Fanzine Spotlight project. For more about the Fanzine Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines featured by clicking here.

Today’s featured fanzine is Salon Futura, edited by four-time Hugo winner Cheryl Morgan.

And now I’d like to welcome Cheryl Morgan of Salon Futura.

Salon Futura No. 26Tell us about your site or zine.

Salon Futura is a web-based magazine that mostly publishes reviews of books, TV, films and conventions. I aim to publish 10 issues a year, taking a break in February (for the UK’s LGBT History Month) and August (for Worldcon) when I tend to be very busy.

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

It is mostly just me at the moment, though Kevin Standlee occasionally contributes an essay on WSFS issues.

Why did you decide to start your site or zine?

When I set up Wizard’s Tower Press, one of the things I wanted to do was create a semiprozine for non-fiction. It turned out that there wasn’t a market for such a thing at the time, and it closed after 9 issues. Then last year I saw Nicholas Whyte bemoaning the lack of interest in the Fanzine category of the Hugos. I’d already come to the conclusion that I needed some form of discipline to ensure I made time to read and review books, so I decided to relaunch Salon Futura as a fanzine. Thus far it has worked in that I have read a lot more books. I figure that if I ever get on the Hugo ballot again there will be a flood of new people voting in that category to stop me winning, and that will be the other objective achieved.

What format do you use for your site or zine (blog, e-mail newsletter, PDF zine, paper zine) and why did you choose this format?

It is essentially a blog format, but the entries for a particular issues are posted at the same time so it has the feel of an issue-based magazine. That’s what I did for Emerald City, so it is what I am used to. Obviously people can subscribe to it via the RSS feed. Amazingly the Feedburner list still works, so anyone who signed up for it back in the semiprozine days will still get an email when new content is posted, but officially Feedburner is deprecated so I can’t do new signups, which is a shame.

Cheryl MorganThe fanzine category at the Hugos is one of the oldest, but also the category which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines and sites are important?

I grew up on fanzines. I started out in role-playing fandom, where fanzines were just as common as in SF fandom. And of course I ran Emerald City for 11 years, winning a Hugo for it along the way. I have always seen fanzines as an important means of communication in fan communities. But equally I’m not purist about form. If people prefer to create zines by vlogging, or podcasting or on paper, or just tweet, that’s fine by me. In fact I think having categories divided by form is silly, and I make a point of including audio and video in Salon Futura occasionally to mess with people’s heads.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online. What do you think the future of fanzines looks like?

I think that increasingly people feel the need to do video, or at least audio, because fannish communication will ape what happens in real media, and the means of production and distribution of these media have become increasingly democratised of late. But I hope that there will still be room for the printed word. There’s much more space for nuance in an essay than you normally get in video or audio. And words can be beautiful. I mean, we are fans of reading books; why would we not want to write?

What I really want to see, however, is fanzines from outside of the anglophone world. The pandemic has forced conventions to go online, and we have seen the creation of new events such as FIYAHCON and FutureCon. This is helping us forge communities across national boundaries. I’d love to see more fanzines that support that process.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

Well you, Cora. I’d also like to put in a good word for Rachel Cordasco’s SF in Translation blog: https://www.sfintranslation.com/. While I’m not a big short fiction reader, I’m very grateful for what Charles Payseur does to promote fiction about and by queer people.

These days I tend to be way too busy to follow much in the way of fan media, but I am hoping that this excellent new project of yours will help me find people to read, watch and listen to.

Where can people find you?

https://www.salonfutura.net/

https://www.cheryl-morgan.com/

And @CherylMorgan on Twitter

Thanks, Cheryl, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Salon Futura, cause it’s a great zine.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine or site and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Fanzine Spotlight: The Drink Tank

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Cora

It’s time for the next entry in my Fanzine Spotlight project. For more about the Fanzine Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines featured by clicking here.

Today’s featured fanzine is The Drink Tank, a seven-time Hugo finalist (if I’ve counted correctly) and Hugo winner for Best Fanzine in 2011.

And now I’d like to welcome Christopher J. Garcia of The Drink Tank.

The Drink Tank 425Tell us about your site or zine.

I started doing The Drink Tank is in 2005. That series ended in 2015, and I took a 3 year break and started back up with two new co-editors. The concept this time around is that we take a different theme for every issue. Some aren’t SFF, like our issues on The Tower of London or Musicals, but many are, like our look at Science Fiction Comics and Universal Monsters. Our issues range anywhere from 12 to 50-ish pages and tend to be from a wide-range of writers and artists. We’ve been lucky enough to get some amazing material from some amazing people.

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

It’s me, Chuck Serface (3 time Hugo nominee!) and Alissa McKersie (2015 Hugo Winner!) as the editorial team, and we’re lucky enough to have a batch of writers and artists like Helena Nash, Vanessa Applegate, Julian West, Kathryn Duval, Chris Duval, Doug Berry, and many more!

Why did you decide to start your site or zine?

That, sadly, is a very dull story. I wanted to have a zine to give away when the big fanzine convention, CorFlu, came to San Francisco.

The Drink Tank 425What format do you use for your site or zine (blog, e-mail newsletter, PDF zine, paper zine) and why did you choose this format?

We’re largely PDF, though that allows us to also print paper copies, which we do from time to time. I like the flexibility of PDF to act as an in between the traditional print and online format. I have also started uploading to Issuu, and their flipbook style actually works well with our stuff.

The fanzine category at the Hugos is one of the oldest, but also the category which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines and sites are important?

I’m the worst person to ask that question. Fanzines are still a vital part of the community, though what older fanzine folks think of as fanzines are slowly fading away. All you have to do is look at eFanzines.com to see the great material that is still being pumped out.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online. What do you think the future of fanzines looks like?

I think we’re seeing a lot of Fanzines are gonna look like. I think there will always be a place for a zine-like thing as opposed to the blog format, there’s something in adjacencies and layout that eZines give that no one has really managed to capture in the blog format. No doubt, online is the way it’ll be, but there’s always gonna be multiple forms.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

So many. For Fanwriters, I can’t say enough about John Coxon, the great Helena Nash, Chuck Serface, and there’s Michael Carroll (and every comics fan should read Rusty Staples) and Padraig O’Mealoid. Fan Artist is so much harder, because you have people like Vanessa Applegate, who has done covers for us and interiors for LoLZine and Journey Planet, and Sara Felix, and if you haven’t seen the incredible Espana Sheriff, you really should go looking! (Technically, I guess I’m a fan artist, too!)

THere are so many amazing zines out there, but the ones I have th emost heart for are Rusty Staples, Banana Wings, The Zine Dump (Guy Lillian’s Fanzine Review Zine!) and Lolzine. Fancasts is even harder (I’m also a podcaster!) but I’ll say that the only thing I regularly listen to that would be in Octothorpe. Good folks on that one!

Where can people find you?

The Drink Tank lives at https://claimsdepartment.weebly.com/the-drink-tank—series-deaux. We’re the rare thing that ain’t got a regular social Media account, but we love to hear from folks at DrinkTankEditorial@gmail.com

Thanks, Chris, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out The Drink Tank, cause it’s a great zine.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine or site and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Fanzine Spotlight: Galactic Journey

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Cora

As promised yesterday, here is the first Fanzine Spotlight. For more about the Fanzine Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines featured by clicking here.

By the way, DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon, has retracted the controversial policy to list only four people per finalist, a policy which would have disproportionately affected the fanzine, fancast and semiprozine categories, where the finalists are often produced by large teams. This is an excellent decision, because the many great people producing fanzines, fancasts and semiprozines for little to no pay deserve the recognition.

Today’s featured fanzine is Galactic Journey, three time Hugo finalist and a site that’s near and dear to my heart, since I’m one of the contributors. However, that’s not the reason why Galactic Journey is the first fanzine/site featured. Instead, they were the first to reply to the call I sent out.

And now I’d like to welcome Gideon Marcus of Galactic Journey.

Galactic journey banner

Tell us about your site or zine.

Galactic Journey is more than a site or a zine. It’s a time machine.

The 20+ writers for the Journey produce an article every other day from the context of SF fans (and professionals) living exactly 55 years ago.  Thus, when it turned January 1, 2021 in your world, we rang in the new year of 1966.

When we started eight years ago, in “1958”, we were just covering the three big American SF mags: Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Analog, as well as the space shots — Pioneer 1 had just gone halfway to the moon.  Very quickly, as more people became associated with the Journey, we expanded our coverage to all the SF mags, current SF movies and TV shows (we’ve reviewed every episode of Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits, and Doctor Who), comics, fashion, art, music, politics, counter-culture…you name it!

A few years ago, we were nominated for the Hugo, and we’ve been on the ballot ever since.  We are very grateful and gratified to have made such an impact!

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

The Journey is composed of some of the most varied and accomplished fans ever assembled in one place.  Demographically, we range from 16 to pushing 80; roughly balanced gender-wise with a slight edge toward women, but including at least one non-binary writer; ethnically diverse; not a little queer; and geographically widespread, with correspondents from the US, the UK, West Germany, Australia, and even the Soviet Union.  Two of us are professional space historians, several of us are professional authors.

The one common element that unites us is that we are all fans.

Why did you decide to start your site or zine?

There are lots of great fanzines out there, from Nerds of a Feather to Journey Planet to File 770.  They necessarily cover current stuff.  I wanted a site that allowed people to rediscover great works that had been forgotten, marginalized creators who had been eclipsed.  Beyond that, I wanted to create an experience such that people could appreciate these works in context.

The Journey uses the past as a mirror to the current world, showing where we came from, what’s changed, and what hasn’t.

It’s also a lot of fun.  I don’t think there’s anything else like it in existence.

What format do you use for your site or zine (blog, e-mail newsletter, PDF zine, paper zine) and why did you choose this format?

The Journey has a lot of facets now.  We started as a blog, and that’s still the core of our effort.  But we also have a Twitter feed that we keep updated with “current” events.  Last year, we started The Journey Show, a live broadcast variety show set in the past with a bunch of great guests.

We chose to put our presence online to reach the most people, and because it’s the most versatile format.  At the same time, we try to evoke the fanzines of yore, in our format and our writing style.  We challenge anyone to catch us in an anachronism! (and a No Prize for the person who does…)

The fanzine category at the Hugos is one of the oldest, but also the category which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines and sites are important?

Back in the day, the line between fanzine and prozine was quite hazy.  A lot of pros would contribute content to the fanzines, and the path from fanzine writer to pro author was and is well worn.  Over the years, as the fan to pro ratio has increased (we’re no longer a community of hundreds, or thousands, but tens of millions), I think the barrier has been nurtured.  Even fan creators are deprecatory of their work (I recall a Hugo-nominated Fancaster a couple of years back reviewing the Hugo nominees of a year and then shrugging their shoulders when they got to Best Fanzine and noting they “didn’t really read those.”)

But fans love discussing their loves.  That’s why we’re fans (short for “fanatics”).  I’ve been on the TrekBBS for twenty years.  AO3 is a second home (and a deserving Hugo winner).  I get my news from File 770.  I get great commentary from Cora Buhlert.  A fan site/zine can cover anything they want; a professional site is limited by financial concerns.  So fan-run sites are the best place to get information on a fandom, to meet other fans, and to geek out.

And, as before, fanzines offer a stepping stone for fan authors to break into the pro world.  Certainly, it’s where I got my start (in fiction, anyway).

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online. What do you think the future of fanzines looks like?

I feel like “fanzine” is a label that doesn’t make much sense anymore.  I don’t want it to disappear or be subsumed in Other Work because then a whole bunch of worthy entities will simply not make it onto the ballot anymore.  But the age of paper ‘zines, except as a fun affectation, is long gone.  And this from the fellow who helped make a TOS zinelet! 🙂

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Do you have any recommendations for any of the fan categories?

Well, I’m a little biased!  The Journey is eligible for three out of four of these, one way or another.  Also, I spend a lot of time 55 years ago, so I’ve got a better handle on ‘zines like “Yandro”, “Zenith”, and “Science Fiction Times.”

That said, the sites mentioned above are all worthy, and as for Best Fan Artist, someone I really like is Goss:

(https://goss.dreamwidth.org/ and https://archiveofourown.org/users/goss/)

James Nicoll and Alasdair Stuart are great Fan Writers, too.

Where can people find you?

Galactic Journey

The Journey Show

The folks who do Galactic Journey

Galactic Journey on Twitter

Galactic Journey on Facebook

Thanks, Gideon, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Galactic Journey, cause it’s a great site. Also check out their eligibility tweet.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine or site and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Introducing Fanzine Spotlights

Posted on January 12, 2021 by Cora

Hugo season is upon us. Nominations are not yet open, but DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon, has just announced its Hugo Award related policies to some controversy, particularly with regard to limiting the number of names listed per finalists to four, which disproportionately impacts the fanzine, semiprozine and fancast categories, who often have large teams.

Some of you may remember that last year I started the Retro Reviews project to raise the profile of potential candidates for the 1945 Retro Hugos. The project did move the needle a bit, though not as much as I’d hoped.

The 1946 Retro Hugos were already awarded in 1996, so there will be no Retro Hugos this year. I will still continue to do Retro Reviews, because I enjoy (re)discovering great forgotten stories, but not with the same intense frequency and focus as last year.

However, the Retro Hugos are not the only Hugo-related thing that could use a boost. There are also regular Hugo categories that get little attention and few votes and nominations. Particularly the Best Fanzine category could use more love, since it consistently gets the fewest nominations and votes and is actively endangered by the 5% rule.

So I decided to do my part to raise the profile of the Best Fanzine and give more attention to the many worthy sites and zines out there. And so I decided to start a new project called “Fanzine Spotlight”, for which I will interview Hugo eligible fanzines and fansites and the people behind them.

The first Fanzine Spotlight will go live tomorrow and I have another scheduled for Friday. I will also continue to interview eligible fanzines throughout the Hugo nomination period. Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine or site and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

So check out all the great zines, sites and newsletters that will be featured and consider nominating your favourites for the 2021 Hugo Awards.

ETA January 18, 2021: None of the below has been a problem yet and I don’t expect that it will, but nonetheless, here is a clarification of policies:

I want to feature as many different zines and sites as possible and everybody is welcome to participate. However, I reserve the right to refuse to feature something, e.g. if a site or zine (and/or the people behind it) is known for shitposting, harrassment and generally terrible behaviour.

I will post responses as I get them, including potentially controversial answers, unless there are egregiously problematic, e.g. racist, sexist, homophobic, etc… comments, in which case I will contact the interviewee to discuss edits.

Finally, a feature is not an endorsement. Instead, the Fanzine Spotlight project is intended as a resource to show Hugo nominators what’s out there and hopefully increase nominations in fanzine and the other fan categories.

ETA2 February 3, 2021: I have decided to expand the scope of the project to also encompass fancasts, because the fancast category could also use a boost. And besides, the borders between fanzine and fancast are porous anyway.

Posted in Fanzine Spotlight | Tagged , , , , , | 50 Comments

First Monday Free Fiction: The Ghosts of Doodenbos

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Cora

The Ghosts of Doodenbos by Cora BuhlertWelcome to the January 2020 edition of First Monday Free Fiction. And yes, I know it’s one week late, but I was ill last week.

To recap, inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who posts a free short story every week on her blog, I’ll post a free story on every first Monday of the month.

Winter has finally come to North Germany. And since winter is also traditionally the season for spooky stories, this month’s free story is a wintery tale of historical horror called The Ghosts of Doodenbos.

So let’s travel back in time to the Spanish occupied Netherlands of the year 1571 AD, where the young widow Ann and her little son Florentijn have a close encounter with…

 

The Ghosts of Doodenbos

 

“Never go into the woods, especially not alone.”

Like everybody in the Dutch village of Doodenbos, Ann had grown up with those words, had heard them since she was old enough to walk.

“Don’t go into the woods alone or they will get you.”

Ann didn’t know who “they” were. No one else did either, since no one had ever seen them and lived to tell the tale. All she knew was that something fearsome and terrible lived in the woods that surrounded the village of Doodenbos.

Oh, the road that led to the neighbouring villages and the nearest market town was safe enough. Though even on the road, it was safer if you travelled with a caravan or armed guards and never ever by night.

But take one step off the road and you were doomed. Like Jan Renneboom, who’d gone into the woods on a dare and never returned. Or Dineke de Boer, who’d followed a runaway cow into the woods and never came back and neither did the cow. Or so many others from the village who had ventured too close to the woods and had been taken by the creature that lived there.

Ann didn’t know whether any of those stories were really true. But better to stay safe and keep to the village and the roads. So Ann had been told since she was a small child.

She was no longer a child. Ann was a grown woman now, a mother herself and — at twenty-six — a widow before her time. Her husband Martijn had gone off to fight for Willem of Orange, fight to throw the Spanish oppressors out of the Low Countries. He had never returned.

But at least he’d left Ann a gift to remember him by, the child she’d carried under her heart when he left, her little son Florentijn. He was three now, a pudgy golden-haired boy who was the joy of her life, her sun and her moon, her everything.

Once the mourning period ended, there had been other suitors. Widowers from the village, looking for a wife and mother for their orphaned children. Farmers in need of a wife and even the occasional merchant passing through. But Ann had turned them all down. For even though it had been three years now, she still wasn’t ready to forget Martijn, still wasn’t ready to move on and find someone else. Maybe she’d never be ready.

After all, there were stories of men who’d been thought lost in war or at sea and who’d nonetheless returned home, after years or even decades. What if Martijn was still out there, still alive, languishing in a Spanish prison, hoping to escape and return to her someday.

“It’s not good for a woman to live alone,” one of her would-be suitors, a widowed farmer named Pieter Ten Bos, had said, “Especially not in a house that’s so close to the edge of the woods. You know that they are out there, waiting, hunting.”

“Yes, they’re out there, in the woods,” Ann had replied. Sometimes, she thought she could see them, strange shapes moving around between the trees at dusk, watching and waiting. “Not here, not in the village, not in my house. I keep the fire and the lanterns burning all night, so we’re perfectly safe.”

And besides, she wasn’t alone. After all, she still had Florentijn.

***

This story was available for free on this blog for one month only, but you can still read it in The Ghosts of Doodenbos. And if you click on the First Monday Free Fiction tag, you can read this month’s free story.

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Star Trek Discovery realises “That Hope Is You, Part II” in its season 3 finale

Posted on January 9, 2021 by Cora

We’ve reached the season finale of Star Trek Discovery, so here is the last installment in my ongoing episode by episode reviews of season 3 of Star Trek Discovery. Reviews of previous episodes may be found here.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Star Trek Discovery realises that “There Is a Tide…”

Posted on January 3, 2021 by Cora

Yeah, this review is two days late, since the powers that be at CBS All Access apparently believe that all their viewers have nothing better to do on New Year’s Eve than watch TV (or that they all have families who want to watch Star Trek Discovery, too). Still, here is the latest installment in my ongoing episode by episode reviews of season 3 of Star Trek Discovery. Reviews of previous episodes may be found here.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Happy New Year 2021

Posted on January 2, 2021 by Cora

First of all, a happy new year to everybody who reads my blog! May 2021 be better than 2020 and bring you health, happiness and success!

If you want to know what I’ve been up to in 2020, here is a handy overview of all the blogposts, articles, reviews and fiction I published in 2020. And if you’re waiting for my take on this week’s episode of Star Trek Discovery – well, that’s probably not coming until tomorrow.

Good luck New Year's Night decorations

Some New Year’s Eve decorations. The candle holder is handmade and was a present from a friend more than 20 years ago. The figurines are all good luck charms of sorts.

Here in Germany, the new year is a little over a day old now and started with a foggy night and a cold, but largely clear day. I had dinner with my parents at home, because the restaurants were all closed anyway. Furthermore, because there were only three business days between Christmas and New Year and German farmers decided to stage a blockade grocery chain warehouses to protest against low prices for agricultural products (which I theoretically agree with, but this is not the right time), so the grocery store shelves were often empty, which made some ingredients difficult to come by. And so we had a selection of deep-fried vegetables with Manchurian sauce.

Breaded vegetables for deep frying

A selection of breaded vegetables for deep frying. Clockwise from top left, we have cauliflower, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts and peppers.

Gobi Manchurian

Gobi Manchurian, i.e. deep-fried cauliflower with Manchurian sauce.

After dinner, my parents watched TV, while I did some work on my laptop. At midnight, we drank some champagne and then went outside to watch the fireworks. And yes, there were fireworks.

Champagne

Champagne and good luck charms to ring in the new year.

As I mentioned in last year’s New Year post, welcoming the new year with fireworks has a long tradition in Germany. However, that tradition has come under fire in recent years, because some people really, really hate fireworks and come up with various reasons (dangerous, a waste of money, bad for animals and environment, might trigger people with PTSD) why they should be banned. And this year, the pandemic finally gave the fireworks haters a reason to ban the sale of fireworks, because supposedly people gathering in the streets to light fireworks might spread the virus and people managing to hurt themselves with fireworks would put extra strain on hospitals. Of course, the pandemic is just a pre-text in this case.

Of course, people gathering in the streets in larger groups only happens in those city centre areas where fireworks are banned anyway because of the fire risk. Meanwhile, in suburban and rural area, what happens is that families stand in their own driveways and light fireworks and wish the neighbours a happy new year. The infection risk involved is no worse than when taking the trash out, as long as you don’t hug your neighbours.

As for the accident risk, the overwhelming majority of fireworks accidents happen with unlicensed fireworks imported from Eastern Europe or with homemade fireworks. And if you ban legal fireworks sales, guess what happens? The people who really, really love fireworks will find a way to procure illegal fireworks or try to make their own, which is a lot more dangerous. And so, a 19-year-old in Eckernförde on the Baltic Sea coast managed to blow up himself and his parents’ winter garden, while trying to make fireworks.

But even though sales of fireworks were banned, a lot of my neighbours did manage to get hold of fireworks. There was less firework than last year, but not that much less. The one difference was that there were comparatively few fireworks to be heard early on New Year’s Eve and on the days before – instead the fireworks were concentrated on the hour around midnight. And this is a development I actually welcome, because while I like fireworks, I also think they should be limited to a few hours on New Year’s Eve.

Mostly, the people who didn’t light fireworks this year were the casual fireworkers like me who buy a package of rockets at the supermarket, but don’t stockpile (though I did have some sparklers and half a package of firecrackers from previous years) and don’t look for alternate sources. Meanwhile, the folks who light hundreds of Euros worth of fireworks every year continued to do so this year. And I’m pretty sure that what was blown up last night was not just stockpiles, because I cannot imagine someone stockpiling dozens of rockets and fireworks batteries. No, there likely were ways to get fireworks in spite of the ban. Though thankfully, almost all the fireworks blown up last night were licensed ones. Cause you can usually distinguish the unlicensed illegal fireworks, because they’re louder, smell worse and the leftovers look different. And I noticed very little of that.

Last night’s fireworks display also showed that many people are no longer willing to accept nonsensical anti-covid measures (I hope they will continue to accept those measures that do make sense). Because the ban on sales of fireworks was largely nonsensical. It did little to nothing to combat the pandemic, especially since the vast majority of infections and deaths still happen in nursing homes whose residents are among the least likely to light fireworks. Instead, the pandemic was used as a pretext to push through an agenda that some people have had for a very long time.

But anyway, here are some fireworks photos. They might be a bit blurry, because the night was foggy and I couldn’t use the flash.

Fireworks

Fireworks in my neighbourhood

Fireworks battery

Some neighbours have lit a firework battery on the street.

Fireworks

Fireworks and fog make for some interesting views.

Fireworks

More foggy fireworks, this time in green.

Fireworks

No, the garage hasn’t exploded. A neighbour has lit one of those massive 100 shot fireworks batteries.

Fireworks and fog

More fireworks and fog.

Fireworks

And one last fireworks photo.

On New Year’s Day itself, some of the mist lingered, but otherwise it was a clear but cold day. So I drove down to the river Weser this afternoon.

Misty meadows in winter

The low winter sun shines down on misty meadows near Arsten.

River Weser near Dreyhe

A look across the river Weser near Dreyhe.

River Weser near Dreyhe

Another look across the river Weser near Dreyhe. On the far bank, you can see a kilometre marker. This is kilometre 356 since Hannoversch Münden of 451.4 kilometres altogether to the North Sea.

And that’s it for 2021 so far.

What can you expect on this blog for this year? More fiction, more genre commentary, more TV reviews, more Retro Reviews, more new release round-ups, a new project to highlight fanzines and sites eligible for the Hugo and much more.

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A handy guide to all SFF-related posts and works of 2020

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Cora

I never felt particularly comfortable with eligibility posts, but I posted such an overview for the first time in 2016, when someone added my name to the Hugo Nominations Wiki. Eventually, it paid off, because I was a Hugo finalist for Best Fan Writer in 2020.

So if you’re interested in what I write, here is an overview of all SFF related blogposts of 2020, in chronological order, as well as a list of all the SFF and other fiction I published.

Because I wrote so many pieces for my Retro Reviews project this year, I separated the Retro Reviews from the other blogposts

At this blog:

The Complete Retro Reviews:

At Galactic Journey:

Elsewhere:

Fiction (SFF):

Fiction (other genres):

*published under the name Richard Blakemore

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