quipxotic

I'm really surprised how much I enjoyed Second Hand Curses by Drew Hayes. This is another book I only picked up because it was on sale and looked fun. I ended up with way more than I'd expected.

It's not as lighthearted as the blurb would lead you to believe. Some really horrible, gruesome things happen, often perpetrated by our three leads, Jack, Frank, and Marie, collectively known as the Bastard Champions. You can't call them heroes really, but they're not quite villains either. They're the people you call when you have no other choice. When you need to welsh on a fairy bargain that would deliver you into slavery, when all of your town's children are being held to ransom by a con-man playing a flute, when a witch has captured a significant portion of your citizenry, and IF you can pay, you call the Bastard Champions.

As you can tell, there's a heavy element of twisted fairy tales at work in this story. The world it's set in is made up of lands focused on a certain type of stories, separated by difficult (to impossible) to pass seas. Although the bulk of the action takes place in the fairy tale lands, we see glimpses of a land of Gothic stories and one dedicated to The Arabian Nights tales. There's also a guiding principle overseeing each of these lands; for the fairy tale kingdoms that principle is called "The Narrative." The Narrative gives aid to certain types of people (royalty, for example) or people occupying certain roles (victims, those defending themselves). Everyone else can find themselves ground down and discarded - the red shirts of the story, utterly expendable. Learning to navigate the rules of The Narrative and turn them to your advantage, however, can lead to profit, and that's what the Bastard Champions try to do.

As interesting as that idea is, the real strengths of the story are the three leads and the audio format. There are three narrators for this story, one for each main character and then they split the supporting characters among them. As a result, it sounds more like a full cast audio than a traditional audiobook. The voice actors do a fantastic job and really make the characters endearing - even Jack eventually, who I found a bit annoying in the first few chapters. There's also some real depth to all three characters. The title comes from the fact that they're all dealing with curses they've inherited from their parents. I won't say any more for fear of spoilers, but I'll happily talk about them in the comments if anyone is interested.

All in all, the book is like following a bizarre D&D campaign set in a fairy tale universe. Check it out, if that sounds like your thing.

Today I listened to Alien III by William Gibson. Audible bills it as the Aliens franchise "script that never made it to screen." The story recaps the events of Aliens (1986) and picks up an indeterminate amount of time after the movie. Michael Biehn and Lance Henriksen reprise their roles as Hicks and Bishop respectively. Newt and Ripley appear in a limited capacity, probably because they couldn't get Sigourney Weaver and Carrie Henn in for this full cast recording. There are plenty of new characters, many of whom meet with typically grisly fates for this type story.

The audio serves as a sort of AU in which the Sulaco doesn't catch on fire and therefore doesn't load the four surviving crew into an escape pod that later crashes (as seen in the movie Alien3 (1992)). Instead the ship travels through the territory of a rival political group to "The Company" and is boarded. Disaster, as it usually does in these movies, ensues.

Long story short: it's a very good audio and honestly frightening. The last ten minutes or so were so tense I had to get up and pace. Biehn and Henriksen sound great in their roles and I love their characters just as much as I did in the movie. The lack of Ripley is extremely disappointing but, given what all happens, there is at least the comfort that she's out of this mess early. This is definitely still a Cold War story, with obvious stand-ins for the USA and USSR/China in the two featured political groups. At a little over 2 hours, it is a short audio and I'm glad I got it for free. That said, if you can find it cheap it certainly is worth a listen. It's definitely a better sequel than Alien3, although that's damning it with faint praise and it deserves better than that.

My favorite bits, other than Hicks being awesome vs the Xenomorphs, were when he says goodbye to Newt and Ripley. I may eventually end up writing some fan fiction related to those two segments.

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Updates on the writing front:

• I added a few more drabbles to "The Lost City of Jedha" this week.


• I've added some Sanctuary drabbles as well, with a particular focus on the episode "The Five."

I've got to work this weekend, but I hope to continue writing for "Hill House Five" and the Eighth Doctor drabbles at some point.

I found a few resources on the Lusitania that might interest people:

The Merseyside Maritime Museum has an exhibit on the ship and its sinking, as well as online content like a breakdown of who survived and who didn't by gender, age, crew vs passenger, class of room, etc; biographies of people on the ship; and highlights from their Lusitania collection.

There's also a Smithsonian article on people who were supposed to sail on the ship but missed it.

There are also plenty of World War I digital collections out there from a variety of institutions in the US and elsewhere.

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After the heaviness of the last book I listened to I wanted something lighter, which in this instance turned out to Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, narrated by Kenneth Branagh as part of a promotional tie-in with the movie version that came out ca. 2017. I may be in the minority, but I didn't hate that movie adaptation; there was some Hollywood silliness in it (that chase scene - really?), but it was certainly very pretty. Branagh was a better Hercule Poirot than I thought he'd be and in the audiobook he does create separate voices for all the characters. If you like his performances in things, this version is probably worth picking up.


I added a few drabbles for the Seventh Doctor audio "An Alien Werewolf in London." I enjoyed this one a good bit, although writing for it wasn't as fun as I'd hoped. It looks like Mags, the alien werewolf, will continue traveling with the Seventh Doctor, which is good news as far as I'm concerned.

Next up, I think I may try to listen to SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard and I've also queued up Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire.

Last week's stress reading was The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. I hadn't heard of the book or author before and only listened to it at all because it was offered as part of a "buy one get one free" sale. I'm glad I did, however, because it was delightful. Vasilisa, the main character, reminds me of a Russian Tiffany Aching, although Arden's style is more realistic and less humorous than Terry Pratchett's. The book is full of Russian fairy tales, national and family politics, the conflict between Christianity and older folkways, descriptions of both city and country life, and above all the consequences of the Russian winter. There's probably nothing groundbreaking in any of this, but it was an enjoyable distraction and it's the first book of a trilogy. I may try to pick up the other two books later.

This week I listened to A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman, another book I got on sale and story I've read previously. Normally I really like it when Neil reads his own books and he did a fine job with this one, but while listening I found myself wishing an actor had read it so there would be more variety to the character voices. Knowing that most of you are Holmesians, I won't bother telling you about the story - you've all probably read it before too.

I've now started Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but has a lot of interesting, humanizing details about major and minor political and military players during World War I, as well as the people associated with the Lusitania. And, for whatever it's worth, if I ever need to write fan fiction set in a World War I era German submarine, I think I could based just on the information Larson includes.

I've had a week of day-long meetings after which I couldn't word any more, so I haven't written anything lately. Last week I finished off the drabbles for the Third Doctor audios "Primord" and "The Scream of Ghosts." Of the two stories, "Primord" is my favorite - having Liz Shaw and the Brigadier back in the audios is such a treat. And, since I have a long weekend coming up, I'm hopeful to spend part of that working on "Hill House Five" a bit.

I've started a few audiobooks during the time I haven't been writing. I just finished Doctor Who: The Faceless Ones by Terrance Dicks, the novelization of the Second Doctor serial where Ben and Polly leave the TARDIS. It's one of those stories that is so bizarre that it probably works better as a book than on TV and I enjoyed it, although it's an interesting choice to have the two departing characters practically disappear for the greater part of the story. Then there's Jane Austen at Home: A Biography by Lucy Worsley, who is one of my favorite British historians. And finally, there's Circe by Madeline Miller. I'm only a few chapters in on that one, so it's a little too soon to say, but I'm enjoying Circe's voice and all the threads of Greek myths that Miller weaves through the story.

Drabbles for the audiodrama version of the Seventh Doctor/Ace/Benny story "Theatre of War" are now online. Originally the story was a novel in the Virgin New Adventures range, and it's my favorite of that series so far. I've been in a bit of a Bernice Summerfield kick lately since listening to and writing for "The Eighth of March" set. I don't dislike Benny, but she's not a favorite of mine either, which is why I haven't written much for her previously. But I hate having only one or two drabbles featuring a companion in a set; it feels vaguely disingenuous to list them among the characters in those situations. So I've been listening to a few audios featuring her to bulk up her representation in the drabbles. Probably no one but me notices or cares about things like that, but like I said, it bothers me.

Work on "Hill House Eight" continues. I've done a bit of plotting today and working through character sketches to iron out some things I need to figure out to move forward in the story.

On the audiobook side of things, I've listened to almost all of the Lord Peter Wimsey radio dramas. Having just finished Busman’s Honeymoon, I'm now going back to the beginning to listen to the radio drama versions of the first stories. I'm also continuing with Dracula and beginning Doctor Who: Scratchman written by Tom Baker. Yes, the Fourth Doctor wrote a Fourth Doctor story. So far it's...interesting, also idiosyncratic and a bit scary. But it features one of my favorite Fourth Doctor teams (Four/Sarah Jane Smith/Harry Sullivan), so I couldn't resist giving it a try.

I've never been a big fan of the Daleks. I know that's practically sacrilege for a Whovian and I can name a few Dalek stories that were really good, but on the whole the Daleks have rarely frightened me. Cybermen, on the other hand, regularly scare the bejeezus out of me. There's something about their almost-humanity (minus emotions) that is really horrifying. They are my favorite of the classic villains, which is why I've been listening to the audiobooks for their first two TV stories.

I started with Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet by Gerry Davis. This was William Hartnell's last story as the Doctor as well as being the first ever appearance of the Cyberman. I had high hopes for this one and, long story short, I was pretty disappointed. It's a basic "base under seige" story and I usually like those, despite the fact that they tend to follow a certain pattern: the Doctor and friends show up somewhere by accident and are taken prisoner by suspicious military types who blame them for whatever issue is currently going on; the leader is obstinate and won't listen to reason despite multiple attempts to alert him to the true situation; the real threat shows up and wipes out a considerable amount of the population; the Doctor and his friends rally the survivors and save the day.

The book hit all those points like clockwork so it's pretty predictable, but that's not the only problem. It's also a very character-lite story. The Doctor doesn't feature in it much and, while I'm sure that's because Hartnell was ill at this point of the series, I don't see why they couldn't have fleshed his role out a bit for the novelization. Anyway, he's rather absent and that makes the story feel less like Doctor Who and more like your average 1960s science fiction. Polly doesn't get to do much of anything other than make coffee; she does have one scene where she fearlessly confronts the Cybermen but otherwise she's just there to ask questions. Ben is the only one who really takes an active role. To make things worse, unlike the Daleks who appear fully formed in their first story and don't change all that much throughout the rest of the series, the Cybermen aren't quite themselves yet. They aren't clever and, despite their numbers and relentlessness, they aren't that difficult to defeat.

As far as the audiobook version, Anneke Wills does a fantastic job with the narration and voicing all the characters, as always. But I'd say this one is only really for die hard First Doctor fans or completists who have to listen to or read every story in order.

In some ways the next appearance of the Cybermen, Doctor Who and the Cybermen by Gerry Davis, is the exact same story as Tenth Planet. It takes place in a base under siege, just on the moon rather than in the Antarctic. The base is staffed by scientists rather than the military, but the chief is still gruff, suspicious, and obstinate. Once again the Doctor and his friends are suspected of sabotage, but that's where the similarities end. Unlike its predecessor and despite the fact that Jamie is injured for the first half of the story, all four of the leads have plenty to do. Polly and the Second Doctor in particular have a lot of good scenes and interactions. One of my favorites for Polly is when she's redoing her nails (no really) while being held prisoner (as you do) and makes the connection between the Cybermen's plastic chest units and the chemical makeup of her nail varnish. She uses that information to cook up something to use against them and calls it "Cocktail Polly."

As for the Second Doctor, he's his usually sweet, befuddled, and yet sneakily frightening self. The Cybermen are more like they'll be for the rest of the series: cunning, cold, and implacable. The action is far less predictable, even if the science doesn't really hold up, and the dialog is better. All in all, it's a much more enjoyable read (or in my case, listen).

Edit to add: by the way, according to Doctor Who and the Cybermen, the events of Tenth Planet take place in 1986. So what were you doing during the first Cybermen invasion?

Just dropping by to say I finished listening to The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill today and it was utterly delightful. I cried like a sap at the end, but it was worth it. The book is a Newbery Award winner and, although listed for Grades 4-6, is a story I think adults and children will both enjoy (while appreciating slightly different aspects of the story and characters).

More later, hopefully, when I have time. But here's the book blurb:

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the Forest, Xan, is kind. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon. Xan rescues the children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. As Luna’s thirteenth birthday approaches, her magic begins to emerge--with dangerous consequences. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Deadly birds with uncertain intentions flock nearby. A volcano, quiet for centuries, rumbles just beneath the earth’s surface. And the woman with the Tiger’s heart is on the prowl . . .