Star Trek Discovery – Now with Sweet Gay Kisses, Full Frontal Nudity and Klingon Prison Rape

Yes, this is the obligatory rambling post about episode 9 of Star Trek Discovery a.k.a. the mid-season finale, though it’s more like the two thirds of a season finale. For those following along at home, previous posts in my mostly angry dissection of Star Trek Discovery and the many ways it doesn’t work may be found here.

As for this episode, the headline sums it up really. One thing I really enjoyed seeing and two things I didn’t particularly want to see, particularly not in Star Trek. Oh yes, and there was a plot, too, and it wasn’t even half bad. Nor was it obviously cribbed from older Star Trek episodes. Indeed, I noticed two weeks ago that the show seems to be improving and this episode certainly continues that trend after a dip with the last episode.

Warning: Spoilers beneath the cut! Plus, trigger warning for rape and sexual assault further down. Continue reading

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Star Trek Discovery – Of Rubberheads and Rushed Romances

It seems that last week’s episode of Star Trek Discovery (which was actually good) was an outlier, because this week Star Trek Discovery is back on form and it sucks. If you’re interested in reading me detailing all the many ways in which Star Trek Discovery sucks, go here. For another take, check out Camestros Felapton who remarks on the inconsistency of Star Trek Discovery here. Or listen to Anita Sarkeesian and Ebony Aster dissecting the show and its many problems at the Feminist Frequency podcast. Or read Bridget McKinney’s take at SF Bluestocking, which quite often mirrors mine.

In fact, this episode made me so angry that I’m pretty close to stopping watching this show altogether, because it’s not good for my health. Though I’ll probably watch next week’s episode, which is the last one before the winter break. And why does a streaming video show need to take a winter break anyway? Christmas/winter breaks make sense for broadcast television, but not for streaming videos.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading

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More than just a Bond Girl – Remembering Karin Dor

German actress Karin Dor died Monday aged 79. Most international obituaries, such as they are, mainly focus on her turn as a Bond villainess in the 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice and on her appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s spy thriller Topaz in 1969. Depressingly, she dies in both movies, by piranha tank in You Only Live Twice and by falling from a great height in a beautiful billowing dress in Topaz. Now Karin Dor was threatened with grotesque death in plenty of films. She was nearly drowned, strangled, guillotined, shot, thrown into a snake pit, etc… But it’s telling that she dies in her two best known international parts, but was rescued in most of the others.

Now I have to admit that Karin Dor’s turn as a Bond girl is probably my least favourite of her many roles, not counting some late career appearances in very bad German TV melodramas. For starters, she looks awful with her hair bleached and dyed red, since Karin Dor was really a brunette. The Karin Dor I remember doesn’t look like the bad dye job from You Only Live Twice, she looks like she does in this still from the 1961 Edgar Wallace movie The Green Archer.

Worse, at least the German advertising materials for You Only Live Twice billed Karin Dor as the female star opposite Sean Connery’s Bond, but once you watch the actual movie, it turns out that Karin Dor plays a villainess and henchwoman of Blofeld, whereas the actual heroine is Akiko Wakabayashi, who is then replaced with Mie Hama halfway through the movie. To add insult to injury, Karin Dor’s character is then thrown into a fish pond and fed to Blofeld’s pet piranhas. Yes, You Only Live Twice is the movie that not just wasted Karin Dor, but also fed her to piranhas. Okay, Blofeld’s vulcano lair cum spaceport is still the most fabulous set Ken Adam ever built for the Bond movies, so fabulous that my reaction upon first seeing it was “I want to live there. With the rocket, but without the piranhas.” Pity the movie is one of Sean Connery’s weakest.

German obituaries of Karin Dor like this one and this one paint a slightly different image, even though they cannot resist focussing on that Bond movie either. But here in Germany, Karin Dor was one of the most iconic stars of the 1960s. She specialised in damsel in distress roles, quite often directed by her then-husband Harald Reinl, one of the best German directors of the postwar era.

Karin Dor appeared in several Edgar_Wallace movies, most notably in Der Grüne Bogenschütze (The Green Archer) in 1961 (trailer here and a neat clip of Karin Dor being chased by Gert Fröbe here – interestingly, the director this time around was Jürgen Roland and not Dor’s husband Harald Reinl) and Der Unheimliche Mönch (The Sinister Monk) in 1965 (full film available on YouTube here). Interestingly, Karin Dor plays the daughter of a man framed for murder and wrongfully sent to prison in both movies. And in both movies, a masked avenger sets out to avenge the injustice done to Karin Dor and her family. Okay, so many of the Edgar Wallace movies are kind of similar and tend to follow a certain formula (which they then rejoice in breaking), but the parallels is still notable. Part of the Edgar Wallace formula of the 1960s was that all films had certain stock characters, often played by the same actors. The main female stock characters were the good girl damsel-in-distress, the bad girl femme fatale, the sinister old lady and the eccentric, but harmless old lady. Plenty of actresses played the “good girl” role in the Edgar Wallace movies, but Karin Dor was the most iconic and memorable of them all to the point that you think she appeared even in those Edgar Wallace movies she wasn’t in. And just because the Edgar Wallace movies really liked subverting their formula on occasion, in the 1964 movie Zimmer 13 (Room 13 – trailer here) Karin Dor still plays the doe-eyed damsel-in-distress, who eventually turns out to be a psychopathic serial killer who has been murdering a succession of Wallace bad girls all along.

Karin Dor also played damsels-in-distress in other German thrillers of the 1960s, such as Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse (The Invisible Doctor Mabuse) in 1962 (full film here), where she is almost guillotined by Germany’s most resilient supervillain, the body-jumping Dr_Mabuse. In 1967, she dealt with snake pits and razor-sharp pendulums as well as with Christopher Lee and Lex Barker in a (loose) German adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum (trailer here). In 1965, Karin Dor was kidnapped and menaced by Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu in Ich, Dr. Fu Manchu (The Face of Fu Manchu – trailer here, trigger warning for yellow face). Coincidentally, Fu Manchu’s equally villainous daughter who threatens to whip Karin Dor at one point was played by actress Tsai Chin, who also had a small part in You Only Live Twice and more recently appeared as Melinda May’s mother in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. So does this make Melinda May Fu Manchu’s granddaughter? Cause that’s my headcanon now.

Karin Dor also was a frequent presence in the Winnetou movies of the 1960s, also directed by Harald Reinl. In 1962 she played Ellen Patterson in Der Schatz im Silbersee (The Treasure of the Silver Lake – full movie here, trigger warning for red face), where she wound up in the arms of a very young Götz George. Then in 1964 she played the Karl May role for which she is best remembered, when she played Winnetou’s great love, the Native American maiden Ribanna, in Winnetou II (full movie here – trigger warning for red face). As Ribanna, she wound up marrying someone else as well, Terrence Hill in this case (Karin Dor’s Winnetou heroines sure had a good taste in men). But then we know that there was only one true love in the lives of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, namely each other.

But though Karin Dor is best remembered for her roles in thrillers, westerns, adventure and horror movies, she also appeared in more wholesome fare such as the 1960 adaptation of Ralph Benatzky’s operetta Im Weißen Rößl (The White Horse Inn – trailer here), where she was involved in one of the many romantic entanglements in the story and finally winds up with Adrian Hoven.

Though the peak of her career was in the 1960s, Karin Dor continued to appear in movies, TV and theatre roles almost up to her death. Most of her later roles were in bad German TV shows, but occasionally she appeared in good stuff as well such as Margaretha von Trotta’s 2006 drama Ich bin die Andere (The Other Woman – trailer here). And because the Edgar Wallace movies, the Winnetou movies, the Dr. Mabuse movies, the Fu Manchu movies and the rest of the marvelously entertaining German thrillers of the 1960s were a staple on TV in the 1980s and 1990s and even show up on TV occasionally today, Karin Dor is still the iconic face of 1960s German cinema to a generation born long after these movies first appeared. She was definitely an important part of my childhood. Looking up these movies for this post, I’m shocked to realise that almost the entire casts of these movies is dead by now – Karin Dor was the last survivor in many cases. Tsai Chin and Wolfgang Völz who appears in The Green Archer are the only ones who are still alive.

I knew Karin Dor was ill, because I saw a headline to that effect in one of the celebrity gossip mags my Mom reads (only for the crosswords, of course). However, everybody knows that the headlines of those mags are largely made up and over the years they have reported a lot of celebrities near death (the current issue places Patrick Duffy of Dallas and Man from Atlantis fame near death’s door) who are still alive years later. So I took that headline as seriously as I always take the headlines in these mags, namely not at all. However, in this case, the mag was sadly right.

So let us remember Karin Dor, who was much more than just a Bond girl with a bad dye job. She was also Valerie Howard and Gwendoline and Maria Müller and Lilian von Brabant and Ellen Patterson and Ribanna and Liane Martin and Brigitte Giesecke and Denise, the psychopathic murderess, and above all, one of the last great stars from the glory days of West German postwar cinema.

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Star Trek – Into Grimdarkness

Since I seem to be doing an episode by episode dissection of Star Trek Discovery anyway (previous posts may be found here), I might just as well do the last two episodes of the first half-season as well. Besides, the title pun was too good not to use.

So the seventh episode of Star Trek Discovery was made available (you can’t really use “air”, since it’s on one of these bloody streaming video services) a few days ago. It actually manages to look and feel like a Star Trek episode for much of the time, which is a big step forward. The plot also feels like a Star Trek plot, probably because it is. Now it’s something of a tradition for the various Star Trek series to recycle ideas and whole plots from other Star Trek series or even episodes of the same series. And for this episode, Star Trek Discovery borrowed one of the most venerable science fiction trops of them all, the time loop. Star Trek has used the time loop concept plenty of times, starting with the 1992 Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect”, which actually predated what is probably the best known implementation of the time loop concept, the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, by a year. In fact, “Cause and Effect” may be the earliest filmic treatment of the time loop idea in general, though someone claimed that there is an episode of the original 1950s Twilight Zone (which I’ve never seen) that also featured a time loop.

Warning! Spoilers underneath the cut. Continue reading

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New Steampunk Story Available: Tea and Treachery

And now it’s time for a commercial break, because I have another new release to announce today.

Today’s new release is another story to come out of the 2017 July short story challenge, where the idea was to write a short story per day in July 2017. The inspiration in this case was one of Chuck Wendig‘s flash fiction writing prompts. The prompt in this case was a list of several five word titles. One of the titles, “Time for Tea and Treachery”, jumped out at me. And since I was doing the July short story challenge anyway, I decided to borrow the title, though I lobbed the first two words off.

The associations “Tea and Treachery” evoked were of civility with dark undercurrents, of two people sharing a civilised cup of tea in a situation where nothing is quite as it seems. It also has a certain Victorian feel about it. The Victorian era suggests Steampunk. And since I’ve always loved Steampunk, even if I don’t write it all that often, I thought, “Okay, I’ll write a Steampunk story about two people having a cup of tea in a situation where nothing is quite as it seems.”

So I got two characters, Lady Violetta Chesterfield and Count Danilo Danilovich Ostrowsky, together in a room over a cup of tea to see what happened. And what happened was that the two quickly engaged in a high stakes game of cat and mouse.

I initially intended Violetta only as a one-off character, but I quickly became fond of her. And I’d certainly love to see more of Captain Nicholas Blackstone and his airship, the Renegade. After all, who doesn’t love airship pirates? What is more, I’m pretty sure Ostrowsky will want revenge eventually.

So what was intended as a one-off adventure might well have series potential (yeah, because I need another series).

But for now, get yourself a nice cup of tea and some biscuits (Violetta recommends shortbread fingers, ginger nuts or spiced tea biscuits – just don’t let her make the tea) and enjoy…

Tea and Treachery
Tea and Treachery by Cora BuhlertLady Violetta Chesterfield travels to the Kingdom of Dragomir on a mission. For her fiancé, Nicholas Blackstone, Captain of the airship Renegade, has been captured and sentenced to death as a pirate and spy.

Violetta is determined to save her beloved from the gallows. Therefore, she arranges a meeting with Count Ostrowsky, prime minister of Dragomir, to beg for her fiancé’s life. The Count agrees to meet with Violetta, even though he has no intention of letting Blackstone walk free. However, he has no idea to what lengths Violetta is willing to go to save the man she loves…

 

More information.
Length: 4650 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Scribd, Smashwords, Inktera, Playster, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, e-Sentral, 24symbols and XinXii.

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Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month for October 2017

Indie Speculative Fiction of the MonthIt’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some September books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Once again, we have new releases covering the whole broad spectrum of speculative fiction. This month, we have epic fantasy, Arthurian fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, science fiction romance, post-apocalyptic romance, science fantasy, space opera, military science fiction, hard science fiction, Steampunk, dystopian fiction, horror, werewolves, psychics, zombies, space pirates, hostile planets, intergalactic mages, renegades, treasure-hunting alchemists, haunted amusement parks, grim reapers. King Arthur in the past and the future and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Speculative Fiction Showcase, a group blog run by Jessica Rydill and myself, which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

Apollo Burn by Ken BritzApollo Burn by Ken Britz:

King Arthur lives. Now, he’s up against a threat that can destroy what he’s built. But he must trust her, so she can kill him.

Brilliant scientist and Binary A.I. CEO Anora Myrrdin has lost her only brother. She’s out for revenge and everyone is going to pay–including Arthur, her brother’s final experiment and killer.

Arthur’s Avallach Team is fractured and half are dead or missing, yet Arthur drives toward his vision of the future. The Paladins grow in power, ability and doubt.

Sergeant Percival ‘Percy’ Jones is Arthur’s most loyal Paladin, but months after the destruction of Tintagel and the death of Indiana, he questions Arthur’s leadership and the uneasy partnership with the shadowy group known as the Sisterhood. Percy has a future of his own in mind, and he turns to the most unlikely of mentors – Anora.

Owen LaFayette in every way is Arthur’s equal and now he has Arthur’s technology and powers. The Chevaliers are growing fast in numbers. Yet Owen doesn’t have all that Arthur has–Caliburn and his charisma. Owen wants what Arthur has and he’s going to do whatever he must to be Arthur. Anora may be the link that takes it all away.

What will Anora be–the Betrayer or the Savior of Avallach?

Read where Fall to Earth left off–a blend of science fiction, thrill, and mythology–Arthur himself heralds fundamental changes in humanity for generations to come.

Red Sky in the Morning by Elana BrooksRed Sky in the Morning by Elana Brooks:

Psychics battle aliens for the future of Earth—and love will determine the victor.

Adrian Marshall is a recruiter for the Covenant of the Rainbow, a millennia-old secret society dedicated to defending Earth against hostile aliens. He runs covert screening sessions, seeking people with psychic abilities. They’ll be trained to use their gifts of telepathy, telekinesis, and astral projection to repel the coming invasion. Though his own gifts are modest, he’s deeply committed to the Covenant’s cause and determined to contribute to the best of his ability.

Life has taught Beverly Jones not to believe in anything she can’t see, or to depend on anyone besides herself. When a simple exercise class takes a bizarre turn and the handsome instructor tells her she’s the most powerful psychic he’s ever discovered, she knows it’s only a dream. Why should she heed his warnings when the danger isn’t real? But when she recklessly courts death, the dream becomes a nightmare. To save her life and Earth’s best hope of salvation, Adrian links their souls in a bond breakable only by death.

Trapped in a union neither of them wanted, Adrain and Beverly cautiously get acquainted. Despite their profound differences, growing attraction draws them together. If they can learn to love and trust each other, the soul bond can make both of them far more powerful than either alone. If not, it might kill them.

As the alien ship approaches, Adrian and Beverly struggle to overcome the fears and prejudices that keep them apart. Only by uniting hearts and bodies as well as souls can they hope to survive and save Earth from destruction.

Red Sky in the Morning is the first book in THE COVENANT OF THE RAINBOW, a seven-book series featuring a diverse array of protagonists. It contains adult content and is intended for readers 18 and older.

Tea and Treachery by Cora BuhlertTea and Treachery by Cora Buhlert

How far would you go to save the one you love?

Lady Violetta Chesterfield travels to the Kingdom of Dragomir on a mission. For her fiancé, Nicholas Blackstone, Captain of the airship Renegade, has been captured and sentenced to death as a pirate and spy.

Violetta is determined to save her beloved from the gallows. Therefore, she arranges a meeting with Count Ostrowsky, prime minister of Dragomir, to beg for her fiancé’s life. The Count agrees to meet with Violetta, even though he has no intention of letting Blackstone walk free. However, he has no idea to what lengths Violetta is willing to go to save the man she loves…

This is a short Steampunk adventure of 4650 words or approx. 16 print pages

Renegade Atlas by J.N. ChaneyRenegade Atlas by J.N. Chaney

The search for Earth has begun.

After barely escaping the Union’s grasp, The Renegade Star is off to parts unknown. Every member of its crew is a wanted fugitive. None of them can ever return home.

But all is not lost.

Thanks to Lex, a strange girl with a remarkable gift, the path to Earth has been revealed. According to ancient myth, Earth holds valuable treasures, lost technology, and endless secrets, ripe for the taking. Jace and his new friends have a chance to discover it all, but only if they can keep Lex out of the Union’s control.

Doing so won’t be easy.

With enemies on all sides, the deck is stacked against them, but nothing in this universe comes easy when you’re a Renegade.

Experience the beginning of a sprawling galactic tale in this second entry to The Renegade Star series. If you’re a fan of Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, or Leviathan Wakes, you’ll love this epic, space opera thriller.

Warning: This book contains action, cussing, thieving, a flagrant disregard for the law, hard candy, a bobblehead, an albino, a lack of manners, murder, lasers, a nun, and general badassery. Read at your own risk.

Dex by Stacy ClaflinDex by Stacy Claflin:

A world of mindless zombies. A lone traveler kills to stay alive. To survive a new threat, his only choices are trust or death…

Dex fears humans more than the hordes of wandering undead. After 11 years in survival mode, he’s learned how to fight the wandering killers. But humans are unpredictable, and in the chaotic ruins of civilization, one unplanned move can get you killed.

After an attack by the zombified version of a beloved family member, Dex resolves to travel back to his hometown. As he searches for surviving friends and family, he encounters a new breed of wanderer… less grotesque, but just as hungry for flesh.

To combat the new enemy, Dex must re-learn how to trust his fellow travelers. If he fails, he has no chance of reaching his hometown alive.

Dex is a post-apocalyptic zombie adventure with both thrills and heart. If you like tales of undead survival, compelling characters, and new twists on classic horror, then you’ll love USA Today bestselling author Stacy Claflin’s edge-of-your-seat thriller.

The Corsair's Captive by Ruby DixonThe Corsair’s Captive by Ruby Dixon:

A pirate doesn’t ask for permission – he takes.

When I see the delicate human female collared and enslaved by the smuggler I’m about to swindle, I do what any male would do.

I take her from him. It’s what I do best, after all.

Now Fran’s mine, and I’m never giving her up. On board my spaceship, she’ll be safe. She’ll wear my clothes, eat my food, and sleep in my bed. I’ll keep her safe from a galaxy that wishes her harm. But my sweet Fran wants nothing more than to return to Earth. How can I take her home when she holds my heart in her dainty, five-fingered hands?

This story stands completely alone and is only marginally connected to the Ice Planet Barbarians series and Prison Planet Barbarian. You do not need to read those books in order to follow this one.

Tales From The Lake, edited by Ben EadsTales From The Lake, Vol. 4, edited by Ben Eads:

The Legend Continues…

Twenty-four heart-rending tales with elements of terror, mystery, and a nightmarish darkness that knows no end.

Welcome to my lake. Welcome to where dreams and hope are illusions…and pain is God.

This anthology begins with Joe R. Lansdale’s The Folding Man, one of his darkest stories ever written.
Kealan Patrick Burke’s Go Warily After Dark pulls us into a desolated world, and reminds us of the price of survival: a guilt that seeps into the marrow.
Damien Angelica Walter’s Everything Hurts, Until it Doesn’t places us in the middle of a family whose secrets and traditions are thicker than blood.
Jennifer Loring’s When the Dead Come Home explores a loss so dark, that even the stars are sucked into its melancholic vacuum.

In the spirit of popular Dark Fiction and Horror anthologies such as Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories and Behold: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, and the best of Stephen King’s short fiction, comes Crystal Lake Publishing’s Tales from The Lake anthologies.

Seers Stone by Holly EvansSeers Stone by Holly Evans:

My name’s Kaitlyn Felis, and I’m a treasure-hunting alchemist.

I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to work for a mysterious elf called Fein Thyrin. Not only did he give me my dream alchemy lab, one that came with a beautiful part-nymph assistant (she’ll be the end of me, in the best possible way) he’s also hired me as his personal treasure-hunter. To say I was excited is a drastic understatement.

First on my treasure-hunting list? The Seers Stone – it’s a thing of legends, and I’m going to be the first hunter to get my hands on it.

The Hidden Alchemy series is set in the same magic-packed world as the popular Ink Born series.

Magic Compass by Jaymin EveMagical Compass by Jaymin Eve

Tyson Compass, as one of the famed Compass quads, is not a wizard used to living with regrets. Except for one: Grace Carter.

Grace is a healer witch he rejected many years ago. After completely disappearing from his life, she has returned, and turned his world upside down. The attraction between them flares strongly, but she has not forgotten or forgiven his callous rebuff when they were teens.

Tyson does everything he can to prove he will never hurt her again, and just when he thinks there might be a chance for them, she has to leave again. She makes him promise not to follow her – a promise he honors for as long as he can. But after almost two months with no word, he’s done waiting. He’s going to find his girl.

With a little help from his brothers, he tracks her down, only to find Grace betrayed by her family … tortured … hurt. His rage knows no bounds. He will do everything he can to bring her family to justice, to find out why they turned on her.

By unlocking these secrets, though, he will discover that Grace is so much more than just a healer witch. She holds a secret that could save the world of Faerie. Or destroy it.

** Magical Compass is a spinoff set within the Supernatural Prison World. It’s full length at 90,000 words, and is standalone with HEA. You do not need to read the Supernatural Prison trilogy first, but it will help your understanding of this world if you do.

The Sorcerer by Ann FisherThe Sorcerer by Ann Fisher:

He’s an imperial sorcerer.

Janek Lanari has devoted his life to the service of the Ghadrian Empire. When a plot to murder the imperial family is uncovered, Janek is charged with protecting the crown prince while the emperor hunts down the traitors inside the palace. Janek hides the boy on wild and remote Erys, determined to see to it that both prince and empire survive the attempted coup.

She’s a rebel spy.

Lorel’s brother is rotting away in a Ghadrian dungeon on Erys, and she’ll do whatever it takes to get him out—join the rebellion, enter the Keep as a spy, even sleep with the enemy if necessary. Whatever the cost, she’ll set her brother free, and then she’ll watch the empire burn.

The Summoner and the Seer by C. GoldThe Summoner and the Seer by C. Gold:

He murdered her family, she sentenced him to eternal torture. Now they have to work together to save the world from the coming darkness.

Radcliff was widely known as the most ruthless wizard of all time. Nicknamed Destroyer, his brutal actions forced even the most recalcitrant kingdoms to surrender. When the west defied him, he immolated their entire city and thousands died. But this action was the last straw for many. Betrayed by his lover, stripped of power and memory by his mentor, he was locked up and tortured for one thousand years.

Amira’s seer talent has always been unpredictable but accurate. So when it shows her the wizard responsible for slaughtering her friends and family is the key to saving the world, she has no choice but to rescue him. But Radcliff is no longer who he was and certainly not what she expected. It isn’t long before she regrets her part in his sentencing.

Radcliff doesn’t know he’s the most reviled person in history. In fact, he doesn’t know anything because when he wakes up each morning, he forgets his past. A journal lets him relearn basic spells, but it can’t help him build a relationship, and he’d really like one with his beautiful traveling companion.

Together, they must evade their enemies and restore Radcliff’s memory before the world is consumed in darkness. But bringing back the Destroyer may not be wise. It may also break Amira’s heart.

Heir of Tanaris by Kyra HallandHeir of Tanaris by Kyra Halland:

As a young boy, Davian was sold into slavery at Source Makarsk, a corrupted magical wellspring. Over the years, he has risen in the ranks of the slaves; still, he knows he will never be anything but a slave until an elderly wizard, a prisoner at Makarsk, tells him he can be something more and gives him an astonishing gift. Desperate to find the destiny the wizard promised him, Davian risks his life to escape from Makarsk.

Isamina, a talented young healer at Sharan, a Source of healing magic, loves caring for patients and has a special gift for soothing their fears and pain. But her parents, the Master and Matron of the Source, and her betrothed, her former teacher, doubt her abilities and have their own plans for the path her life should follow. And the kind of healing Isamina most wants to do, mending broken minds and spirits, is strictly forbidden at Source Sharan.

When a badly-injured runaway slave is brought to Sharan, Isamina is captivated by the man she senses deep inside and risks everything to try to heal his tormented spirit, damaged by the evil Source that still holds him prisoner. And Davian, hunted by Makarsk’s fearsome Guardian, must find a way to defeat the powerful magic that binds him to Source Makarsk so that he can become the great man he longs to be and win the love he yearns for, the love of his healing angel, Isamina.

Romantic high fantasy for adults. Contains violence, mild to moderate sensual content, and disturbing themes.

Stranded Justice by Stephen L. HawkStranded Justice by Steven L. Hawk:

Captain Eli Justice is a Shiale Ranger. His training, instincts, and experience set him apart from other soldiers, and enable him to succeed where most fail.

When his ship gets shot down during a scouting mission, Eli finds himself stranded on a dangerous, untamed world. Reports of the planet being uninhabited were wrong, and the need to alert the alliance of the hostile presence is critical.

To alert the alliance, though, the ranger first has to survive the planet. Welcome to the jungle.

 

Brimstone Blues by James A. HunterBrimstone Blues by James A. Hunter:

A Demon King. An Infernal city. The whole world hangs in the balance.

Yancy Lazarus—mage, bluesman, and demon-souled—is having the worst hangover of his life.

He just woke up in a dingy hotel in literal Hell with one eye missing, an arm covered in swirling golden tattoos, and no recollection of the past six months.

All he wants is to figure out how he ended up in the Great Below and whether there’s a way home. But getting out of Hell is no easy feat. Yancy is the most wanted man in the Infernal city of Pandæmonium, and he’s being hunted by demonic cutthroats for a series of high-profile murders he can’t remember committing.

Now, Lazarus will have to rely on the help of a shapeshifting stranger with a dark past to battle his way past a legion of freakish Hellions and the murderous Derby-Girl Nation to reclaim a weapon capable of killing even immortals. And to escape Hell? Well, he’ll need to pull off the greatest coup the Abyss has seen since the Morning Star took on Heaven. If he fails, not only will the King of Pandæmonium roast his soul for eternity, but his friends will be left to the mercies of the Savage Prophet and the Morrigan, goddess of death.

Dark Ride by P.G. KasselDark Ride by P.G. Kassel:

Some criminals have all the luck, but Marty’s is about to run out…

Marty Wedlow needs one last score before he can skip town. It’s only a matter of time before two thugs he swindled point a finger… and their guns in his direction. But even when Marty is brought to the police station for his latest crime, he’s not worried. Marty is incredibly lucky.

After dodging the long arm of the law yet again, Marty looks for another illicit payday at a local amusement park. What he finds instead is a mysterious stranger who prophesies that his lucky days are running out. He ignores the warnings as he pursues a vicious conquest. But good fortune is a wheel, and Marty is about to find out what happens when it spins in the other direction.

Dark Ride is a supernatural thriller in the vein of The Twilight Zone. If you like eerie amusement parks, pulse-pounding page-turners, and a touch of the paranormal, then you’ll love P.G. Kassel’s electrifying story.

Melokai by Rosalyn KellyMelokai by Rosalyn Kelly

She thinks it’s the end, but it’s just the beginning.

“Trouble will come from the east. A wolf will claim the throne.”

Legendary warrior Ramya has successfully reigned over Peqkya as Melokai for twelve years. Prosperous, peaceful, and happy, her people love her… or so she thinks.

But Ramya’s time is up. Bracing herself for the gruesome sentence imposed on all Melokais who have served their purpose, she hears instead a shocking prophecy.

Is the sudden appearance of a mysterious cave creature from the east the trouble the prophecy speaks of? Or is the threat something darker, more evil? And what of the wolves… does the ferocious war with their kind mark the end for Peqkya?

Before Ramya can answer, she and her fearless warriors must first crush a catastrophic rebellion that threatens to destroy her and devastate her beloved nation.

Spectre of War by Kin S. LawSpectre of War by Kin S. Law:

A third Victoria has ascended the throne of a steam-driven country where enormous clockwork giants walk the streets and airships carry news of the Ottoman threat in the East.

In the wake of a calamity that engulfed all of Europe, Inspector Vanessa Hargreaves of Scotland Yard is given the dubious task of policing steamcraft crime. Along with flamboyant detective Arturo C. Adler, she stumbles upon a conspiracy to use a horrific plague in an effort to prevent war.

But even as dastardly forces converge upon her, our high-heeled detective struggles with her devotion to Queen and Country, and the shadows under the Union Flag grow ever deeper.

Can she put a stop to this new disaster before her country is devoured by a Spectre of War?

SPECTRE OF WAR is at once detective story, political intrigue and giant robot fantasy in a fabulous, international, and multicultural steampunk riot!

Grim Rising by Amanda M. LeeGrim Rising by Amanda M. Lee:

Aisling Grimlock should be happy.
She’s living with and engaged to the man of her dreams, her mother isn’t eating people … at least out in the open, her best friend is distracted by wedding details … mostly, and there are zombies running around Detroit.
Yeah, it’s that last one that’s driving her crazy … especially because no one in her family believes her when she spouts the tall tale.
Aisling Grimlock is a reaper in trouble. She’s got big decisions in front of her and nonstop trouble chasing behind. The dead appear to be rising … and they’ve got their eyes (and teeth, for that matter) trained on Aisling and her family.
Even though the rest of the family thinks she’s exaggerating – or even lying because she’s looking for attention – they’re determined to help before Aisling goes over the edge. It seems there might be a little something going on, and Aisling might have been right all along.
You know what that means, right? Yes, she’s doing her “I’m right” dance … and then ducking for cover.
It’s going to take every Grimlock to fight this enemy, and even then, Aisling will be isolated in the end. The question is: Can she win the day or is she destined to join the creatures stalking her?

Wanted by the Werewolf Prince by Kara LockharteWanted by the Werewolf Prince by Kara Lockharte:

The toughest pilot in the universe…and the werewolf prince who will claim her.

She’s bold, fearless and disobedient–which always gets her in trouble.
He’s controlling, demanding, and superior–which always gets him what he wants.

Captain Skye Daring is a space fighter pilot without equal. Rescuing a foreign werewolf prince and his sister from behind enemy lines should be a breeze.

Prince Ral doesn’t take orders from impudent humans. He’s determined to save not only his sister and but his people they left behind. The only thing in his way is a sexy pilot too stubborn to acknowledge his authority.

Stuck in a crippled ship and hunted by tiger shifters, Skye and Ral must stop fighting each other and battle the enemy — together. Will the prince and pilot drop their guards long enough to conquer their dislike…and desire?

READER NOTE: This story features sizzling hot emotions (and physical actions) with an awesome HEA. Only for readers who like their sexy times action to be explicit! Please also note that in this book the laws of quantum astro-physics have been modified for your story-telling pleasure (as in the use of faster than light travel via portals made by ancient space leviathans).

Sanctuary by Phil MaxeySanctuary by Phil Maxey:

Katrina Ambrose was used to being on the fringe of society, but as she neared her twenty-first birthday on the twenty-first of December, a fateful visit to her mysterious grandfather changed her life forever.

 

 

 

 

Kill For You by Michele MillsKill For You by Michele Mills:

A virus swept the globe killing almost all of humanity and crushing civilization to the ground, leaving Trevor Mason in the enviable position of being able to strut out of his wide-open death row cell, a free man. Now he’s trying to find redemption by helping to rebuild a ruined and empty world.

Rebel Case was a box office phenomenon, but after the apocalypse she’s just a survivor like anyone else. When passion explodes between her and a tattooed, sexy-as-hell bad boy who says he wants forever, will Rebel risk her future, her safety, on a man with an inexcusable past?

But can an ex con really leave his past behind, when it refuses to stay gone?

And how far will Trevor go to keep his woman safe?

Warning: This book contains spanking and voyeurism. Love, in a hopeless place and laughter despite the pain. And as usual, more bad language and violence than are strictly necessary.

Ygerna by Ruth NestvoldYgerna by Ruth Nestvold

When young Ygerna first meets Uthyr, Pendragon of Britain, she is dazzled by the handsome and famous warrior. But when Uthyr interprets admiration as consent and takes her by force, Ygerna’s hero worship turns to hatred.

And she will do anything to get revenge on the man who got her with child and ruined her life.

 

 

Rebellious by Chrissy PeeblesRebellious by Chrissy Peebles:

Sky was raised in an underwater city after a meterorite stuck Earth and the air was deemed unbreathable.

Sky doesn’t accept her fate and bucks the system every chance she gets. She feels as though her government is lying to her and doesn’t trust her leaders. With a serial killer on the loose and a stalker she can’t shake, Sky wants nothing more than to see the surface, soak in the sun, breathe in fresh air, and get the hell out of that glass city.

But with people dying all around her, can she get to the surface before it’s too late?

Voices by Dean RencraftLegends of Elera: Voices by Dean Rencraft

“Whether you choose magic or madness, you can’t save the world from itself.”
Auntie Mitra

The Ancients have turned their backs on a corrupt and unjust society, leaving chaos, death and ruin in their wake. A new magic, one born of nature to balance the chaos, rises to replace the old, while the old will stop at nothing in its dark pursuit of power without cost.

Raised deep in the Farwood in a caring, yet enigmatic home, Liah is outcast in her own village after being rejected by the legendary bards. Tired of bullies and baseless accusations, she is ultimately accepted as a ranger’s apprentice and travels with her family through the Farwood to the Hall of the Ancients, where she begins her training and searches for answers to the mysterious rejection that damned her in the eyes of her realm and its gods.

Here, at the academy’s Hall, she struggles to find her way in the great city of Geth’ana before the combination of secrets, magic and the chaos swirling around her can destroy everyone, and everything, she holds dear.

Magic in my Bones by Kellie SheridanMagic in my Bones by Kellie Sheridan

My name is Melanie Sinclair, and as far as anyone knows, I’ve been dead since the day I was born.

It’s been over two decades since I was smuggled into Galway to be raised where the magical community would never find me. Two decades of hiding. Two decades of pretending to be less than I am, blending in with the lesser magicks—those whose abilities are of little interest to those in power.

With the threat of exposure is growing every day, humanity is getting closer and closer to learning about a world they may not be ready to handle. The supernatural world must band together if they stand any chance of survival.
Now, Galway has been chosen to host a summit between the four major factions, the same people my family died to protect me from. Because, of course it has.

So much for the luck of the Irish.

Interstellar Mage by Glynn StewartInterstellar Mage by Glynn Stewart

Mars destroyed his ship — but gave him a new one.
Mars drafted his Mage — for the good of humanity!
He should have known that wouldn’t be the end of it…

Captain David Rice has a new ship, a new crew, and a new set of Jump Mages to carry him between the stars. All he wants is to haul cargo, make money and keep his head down.

His past, however, is not so willing to let him go. An old enemy is reaching out from beyond the grave to destroy any chance of peace or life for Captain Rice—and old friends are only making things more complicated!

All he wants is to be a businessman, but as the death toll mounts he must decide what is more important: his quiet life or the peace humanity has enjoyed for centuries…

Hostile Planet by Jeff TanyardHostile Planet by Jeff Tanyard

Sergeant Jerry Harper left the military nine years ago. He’s just a landscaper now, not a soldier. He spends his days mowing lawns and his nights playing gigs with his band. It’s a nice, steady life, and that’s the way he likes it.

That steady life is interrupted when a colonel from military intelligence shows up. Jerry’s old war buddy, Brandon Woods, has gone missing, and the colonel is assembling a motley group of rescuers. He wants Jerry to join the team.

Jerry owes Brandon his life, so he agrees to help. He travels to another planet and soon finds himself mired in interstellar politics. There’s something psychological going on, too, a legacy of his last battle nine years ago. Finding Brandon is challenging enough by itself, but now those secrets from the past threaten to drive Jerry insane. He hopes he can grab his friend and get out without attracting too much attention, and he certainly doesn’t want to risk starting another war. But he’s on a hostile planet now, and it won’t give Brandon up without a fight.

Kymiera by Steve TurnbullKYMIERA by Steve Turnbull:

They stopped the monsters, but at what cost? Who’s going to stop them?

Chloe Dark lives in a world decimated by a pandemic that turned humans into genetic freaks, and she fears it will happen to her. When her best friend goes missing, Britain’s tyrannical Purity ruling class keeps Chloe from discovering the truth. To find her friend, she has no choice but to take the road more dangerous…

As Chloe realizes she has more in common with the freaks than she’d care to admit, the search to save her friend transforms into a fight for her life. Now she must risk everything to determine if the real monster is the one within.

KYMIERA is an action-packed dystopian biopunk page-turner. If you like gritty sci-fi settings, strong-willed heroines, and coming-of-age tales, then you’ll love Steve Turnbull’s binge-worthy thrill-ride.

Hibernian Charm by Dean F. WilsonHibernian Charm by Dean F. Wilson:

A tense urban fantasy mystery with charm!

Melanie Rosen hasn’t settled for much, but her travels have brought her to Dublin, Ireland, where she works for the Occult Investigations Unit, exploring the strange and unknown.

Her fiery disposition and tendency to probe where she’s not wanted keep her in the office with the paperwork, or chasing cases that don’t seem to have an answer.

Then she gets a new case, where a killer slowly paralyses his victims, and leaves a calling card behind: a charm. Her Romani-Irish roots might come in useful, but the more she probes this case, the more she doesn’t like the answer. All the clues keep pointing back to her.

This is a standalone tale in the Hibernian Hollows universe.

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Indie Crime Fiction of the Month for October 2017

Welcome to the latest edition of “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Crime Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some September books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

Our new releases cover the broad spectrum of crime fiction. We have cozy mysteries, small town mysteries, paranormal mysteries, police procedurals, psychological thrillers, crime thrillers, private eyes, lost girls, dead bodies, creepy stalkers, grim reapers, seaside hotels, haunted amusement parks and much more.

Don’t forget that Indie Crime Fiction of the Month is also crossposted to the Indie Crime Scene, a group blog which features new release spotlights, guest posts, interviews and link round-ups regarding all things speculative fiction several times per week.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books without further ado:

Class Conspiracy by Ace BeckettClass Conspiracy: A Hank Lancaster Mystery by Ace Beckett

Private Detective Hank Lancaster thinks his new client, local high school history teacher Stephen Bates is intelligent, rational and friendly, but also a conspiracy theorist. Bates believes three members of his high school graduating class have been murdered within the last two months. However, police in three states have ruled the cause of the deaths of the three graduates were accidents or suicide. Lancaster warns his client an additional investigation is probably a waste of time and money. But Bates is not deterred.

Then Lancaster detects disturbing hints of possible homicide in each death. He begins to think his client is correct. These were three carefully planned murders and possibly more to come.

But besides the fact they were in the same high school senior class, Lancaster knows of no link between the three graduates who have died. And no motive for their deaths.

As he digs even deeper into the past, he finds a blood-stained trail and a secret hidden for decades. Lancaster believes at the center of the tangled, confusing web of lies being spun are three of the oldest motives for murder in history – power, money and a dash of revenge.

Little Girl Lost by Alexandria ClarkeLittle Girl Lost by Alexandria Clarke:

When the seventeen-year-old star of the high school softball team vanishes from a small town, the victim’s estranged older sister, Bridget Dubois, returns home in order to find her. The only problem is that Bridget has a reputation, and the locals aren’t pleased by her reappearance. Without anyone to help her, Bridget must find a way to reconnect with her younger sister before time runs out.

 

 

 

Fireworks in Paradise by Kathi DaleyFireworks in Paradise by Kathi Daley

While on vacation in South Carolina, Tj Jensen receives a call that her father has been left in a coma after a devastating car crash. Back home in Paradise Lake, Tj learns the accident that killed family friend Judge Harper and left her father clinging to life wasn’t an accident at all—someone cut their brake lines. To make matters worse, her friend and police contact, Deputy Roy Fisher, is working with a new partner who has no intention of letting Tj anywhere near the case. Facing an investigation more explosive than the annual fireworks show, Tj enlists the help of her best friends to unravel the mystery, all the while navigating a new romance and the thought her father may never wake up.

 

Fatal Vacancy by CeeCee JamesFatal Vacancy by CeeCee James:

Maisie Swenson was thrilled to host the premiere party for the hottest new movie release in Hollywood at the five-star Oceanside Hotel, but she had no idea how difficult Hollywood types could be. Dramatic and demanding, she could handle but… murder? She needs to charge more for these events.

Everyone assumed it was an accident when the stunt went wrong, until they saw the body wasn’t the stuntman. Now everyone is a suspect – the stuntman who despised the victim, ex-lovers, actors–the list goes on and on.

None of this is Maisie’s business until her friend Kristi Bentley, the police officer in charge of security that night, gets suspended for not providing adequate protection. As the circumstantial evidence grows against Kristi, Maisie can’t help getting involved to clear her best friend.

The more she digs, the more dirt she finds. Did anyone NOT want this person dead?

Dark Ride by P.G. KasselDark Ride by P.G. Kassel:

Some criminals have all the luck, but Marty’s is about to run out…

Marty Wedlow needs one last score before he can skip town. It’s only a matter of time before two thugs he swindled point a finger… and their guns in his direction. But even when Marty is brought to the police station for his latest crime, he’s not worried. Marty is incredibly lucky.

After dodging the long arm of the law yet again, Marty looks for another illicit payday at a local amusement park. What he finds instead is a mysterious stranger who prophesies that his lucky days are running out. He ignores the warnings as he pursues a vicious conquest. But good fortune is a wheel, and Marty is about to find out what happens when it spins in the other direction.

Dark Ride is a supernatural thriller in the vein of The Twilight Zone. If you like eerie amusement parks, pulse-pounding page-turners, and a touch of the paranormal, then you’ll love P.G. Kassel’s electrifying story.

Grim Rising by Amanda M. LeeGrim Rising by Amanda M. Lee:

Aisling Grimlock should be happy.
She’s living with and engaged to the man of her dreams, her mother isn’t eating people … at least out in the open, her best friend is distracted by wedding details … mostly, and there are zombies running around Detroit.
Yeah, it’s that last one that’s driving her crazy … especially because no one in her family believes her when she spouts the tall tale.
Aisling Grimlock is a reaper in trouble. She’s got big decisions in front of her and nonstop trouble chasing behind. The dead appear to be rising … and they’ve got their eyes (and teeth, for that matter) trained on Aisling and her family.
Even though the rest of the family thinks she’s exaggerating – or even lying because she’s looking for attention – they’re determined to help before Aisling goes over the edge. It seems there might be a little something going on, and Aisling might have been right all along.
You know what that means, right? Yes, she’s doing her “I’m right” dance … and then ducking for cover.
It’s going to take every Grimlock to fight this enemy, and even then, Aisling will be isolated in the end. The question is: Can she win the day or is she destined to join the creatures stalking her?

Last Chance for MurderLast Chance for Murder by Estelle Richards:

One last chance to get things right.

Too old for Hollywood at age 29, Lisa Chance leaves her failed acting career and a cheating boyfriend in LA and goes home to Moss Creek, Arizona.

The Folly, a stately 1870s mansion in the middle of her hometown, has always drawn Lisa like a magnet. She thought she was done with that place, but now she has the chance to turn it into the coffee shop of her dreams.

But when a dead body turns up on the property, she’s the prime suspect in the murder. Can Lisa figure out whodunit, or will she lose her last chance at happiness?

Last Chance for Murder is the first book in a new cozy mystery series.

Fortune's Wheel by J.A. WhitingFortune’s Wheel by J.A. Whiting:

While working at the chocolate shop and clearing tables, Claire Rollins notices a story in a newspaper left behind by a customer about the cold case murder of a young graduate student. Odd details about the case draw Claire’s interest and when her boyfriend, a Boston detective, asks her to read over the old case notes, Claire knows she will be pulled into the decades old mystery. With the help of her “intuition” and with her friend, Nicole, by her side, will Claire find answers before the killer strikes again?

This is book 4 in the Claire Rollins mystery series. This story has mild paranormal elements.

 

Hibernian Charm by Dean F. WilsonHibernian Charm by Dean F. Wilson:

A tense urban fantasy mystery with charm!

Melanie Rosen hasn’t settled for much, but her travels have brought her to Dublin, Ireland, where she works for the Occult Investigations Unit, exploring the strange and unknown.

Her fiery disposition and tendency to probe where she’s not wanted keep her in the office with the paperwork, or chasing cases that don’t seem to have an answer.

Then she gets a new case, where a killer slowly paralyses his victims, and leaves a calling card behind: a charm. Her Romani-Irish roots might come in useful, but the more she probes this case, the more she doesn’t like the answer. All the clues keep pointing back to her.

This is a standalone tale in the Hibernian Hollows universe.

The Evil One by Cyrus WintersThe Evil One by Cyrus Winters:

Life is perfect. Officer Justin Hodge and his fiance Kellie have just moved into their new apartment and are looking forward to the rest of their sweet lives together. Unbeknownst to them, someone has been stalking the happy copule for an extended period of time – someone violent and jealous who wants to destroy them.

An email is forwarded to Justin’s online account, detailing as such. It’s from a person – a man or woman – who knows them. It’s from someone chilling and deranged. Someone completely, totally EVIL…

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The Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents

Last week, I came across a Tor.com post by Emily Asher-Perrin, in which she claimed that we can safely say that Sarek of Vulcan is science fiction’s worst dad.

Both the headline and the post left me baffled, for while Sarek is never going to win any “Father of the Year” awards, he’s definitely not the worst father in science fiction, far from it. How could he be, considering he shares a genre with the likes of Darth Vader, Thanos and Ego, the Living Planet? And indeed, during a discussion over at File 770, we came to a very similar conclusion. In a genre full of truly horrible parents, Sarek isn’t even a blip on the radar.

So what has Sarek done to cause Emily Asher-Perrin to make the sweeping statement that he is science fiction’s worst father, beating out the likes of Darth Vader, Thanos or Ego?

Well, as we know from his occasional appearances in various incarnations of Star Trek beginning with the original series episode “Journey to Babel” and ending with two episodes of Star Trek Discovery, Sarek, the Vulcan ambassador with an uncommon liking for humans, particularly human women, is estranged from his half-human son Spock. The reason for this estrangement is that Sarek was disappointed, when Spock opted to join Starfleet rather than the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, the Vulcan-only counterpart to Starfleet. Spock’s decision caused a rift between him and his father, which lasted for the rest of Sarek’s life. The fact that Sarek, being a Vulcan, had problems expressing affection for anybody, including his son, didn’t help either.

Nor is Spock the only child from which Sarek is estranged. There is also Sybok, Sarek’s pure-blood Vulcan son from his first marriage, who – as we learn in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (provided we could endure what has to be one of the most excreable Star Trek movies) – left Vulcan to become a fantical cult leader looking for god at the edge of the universe or some such thing – the film doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, to be honest.

Finally, as we learned in Star Trek Discovery, the latest addition to the Star Trek canon, Spock also had an human foster sister, Michael Burnham, who was adopted by Sarek and his human wife Amanda after her biological parents were killed by Klingons. Now the surpise addition of a never-before-seen sister to Spock’s family might have raised some eyebrows (and to be fair, I rolled my eyes when I learned that Michael was supposed to be Spock’s sister), however, it’s not entirely inconceivable that Spock might have a sister he just happened to have never mentioned before, because Spock never mentions his family, until they suddenly show up in the lives of the Enterprise crew. After all, Spock never mentioned his parents before “Journey to Babel”, he never mentioned his fiancée T’Pring before “Amok Time”, he never mentioned his brother Sybok before Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. So it’s not inconceivable that he never found a reason to mention his adoptive sister Michael (and besides, would you introduce your sister to Kirk or even mention her in his presence?), because not talking about his family is just something that Spock does.

As seen in Star Trek Discovery (and discusses extensively here, here, here and here), Michael Burnham doesn’t fare all that well either. Vulcans, no matter how well meaning, really aren’t the ideal foster parents for a traumatised and grieving child, since telling her to repress her emotions doesn’t actually help her cope at all. And once things go spectacularly wrong for Michael and she first ends up in prison as the most hated person in the Federation (without cause) and is then forcibly conscripted into the crew of the starship Discovery under the command of the flat-out monstrous Captain Lorca, Sarek is absolutely nowhere to be seen. So yes, he is a crappy father.

Warning! Spoilers for Star Trek Discovery behind the cut: Continue reading

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More Griping about Star Trek Discovery and Some Surprising Parallels to Raumpatrouille Orion

Yeah, to a certain degree another post about Star Trek Discovery. For previous installments in the loose series “Let me tell you of all the ways in which Star Trek Discovery sucks”, see here, here and here.

Interestingly, by now even those who had previously viewed Star Trek Discovery positively to cautiously optimistic are beginning to have issues with the show. At The Daily Dot, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw wonders whether Star Trek Discovery has gone too far in the latest episode. Meanwhile, over at io9, Katharine Trendacosta has entitled her review of the latest episode “And Now Star Trek: Discovery Has Lost Its Soul.” As I read that headline, my initial reaction was “That would presume the show ever had a soul in the first place.”

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading

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Among the Stars – Big Science Fiction Romance Cross Promo

Of all the various speculative hybrid genres, I have always had a soft spot for science fiction romance. After all, what’s not to love? Ideally, you get all sorts of science fiction goodness – space battles, aliens, genetic engineering, larger than life characters – combined with the emotional punch of romance fiction, an emotional punch that “pure” science fiction is all too often lacking.

Now Rinelle Grey, author of science fiction and fantasy romance, has organised a huge sale of science fiction romance. The sale runs from October 19 to October 21st. More than fifty books are available, most for either 99 cents or free. You can find a full list of participating books here.

And if you’ve ever wanted to try out my own stab at the science fiction romance genre, the In Love and War series, two books are included in the sale.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself some science fiction books with all the emotional punch of romance fiction!

Among the Star science fiction romance cross promo

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