Superstition, Season 1, Episode 5: Tangled Web

Time for a heavy handed flashback and the belief that putting a grown man in a baggy sweatshirt and a baseball cap you can somehow make him pass as a teenager: basically Isaac telling his sons that the ring of solomon is the family’s legacy and how they need to not touch it unless they’re fully committed to using it in ways he will never actually explain. Also stay out the damn woo-woo room.

Ok am I the only one kind of skeeved by the immortal telling his sons that he will outlive them that the family legacy is his personal jewellery? I mean there’s something there, right?

In the present Cal and May do the totally unsubtle hey we ran into each other at the same cafe, what a surprise, we should all have lunch together and share lots of happy memories and pretend to be a family, right Garvey?

Garvey is not playing this game. Nice try. Do not pass go. Do not collect the last-16-years-never-happened card

So he goes home to find they have a house guest. Aunt Nancy who knows Bea (though she doesn’t seem especially thrilled to see her) and is an old friend of the family’s. Isaac mainly. She comes with dire warnings about Dredge, how it’s connected to some bad woo-woo in the past and if she doesn’t bring those memories to the surface, someone’s going to die. She also brings pie

I think more portents of doom would be tolerable if they brought pie. We should mention this to the union

Until Tilly arrives and she really doesn’t like Aunt Nancy - or, as she reveals - Anansi. The trickster god, collector of stories and generally person Tilly doesn’t trust or doesn’t like and should not be let in your home and you certainly shouldn’t eat their pie

To underscore this point Cal collapses after eating said pie. Anansi explains he’s been sent back in his memories to Arlo.

Bea joins the Not Pleased crew since Anansi is dragging up some very painful family memories for her story here but she still trusts her and tries to calm down Tilly - Anansi is powerful but involved in the unique place of this town. But Tilly isn’t easily appeased - asking how many more towns Anansi has left in her wake, broken and destroyed, collateral damage so long as she collects her stories. She thinks Anansi just sees people as characters, sources of drama not actual people. And when Cal gets into distress it’s she who wakes Cal up with a taser and reminds them that in Anansi’s memory visions you’re in danger and can still die

It seems Tilly has a lot of inside knowledge about Anansi and this is confirmed when she confronts her in the woo-woo room. It sounds like Tilly used to live with Anansi, Anansi calls Tilly “her favourite.” But Tilly says “yeah the Artful Dodger had nothing on me” which suggests the relationship wasn’t kind of ethically ideal. I hope more of this is revealed.

Anansi notes that the Hastings treat Tilly as family but Tilly is still keeping secrets - which Tilly insists is her right to do so so there are some revelations coming. Anansi also defends her whole memory game simply because it’s better this knowledge comes from her than Dredge

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Aliens have arrived in the waters of Lagos and sent their ambassador to contact a few special, gifted humans to carry their message of peace and inhabitation to the national government. They have remarkable abilities, but also goodwill – which they share with the inhabitants of the planet

Whether they are human or not. And some of those inhabitants have no reason to love humanity

But no matter how peaceful the message, it still shakes the people of Lagos. People react to this amazing revelation – and chaos soon follows as disparate groups clash, people react in fear and anger and others seek to understand the implications. And other still seek what they can get as order begins to crumble…

Where to begin with this book? It’s almost impossible because while there is one person I would say is the protagonist, Adaora, we also have a huge number of other characters, some of which are almost as prominent whose eyes we also see through. We get the few days of the alien arrival through dozens of different viewpoints – some of them not even human. Each of which has a new take, a new opinion and a new reaction to the amazing things around them

The different viewpoints bring a lot of fascinating takes to the reactions to the aliens – as we see different people interpret the major events differently, see it through their own lenses and react with curiosity or fear or greed or hope or awe. Each reaction within is shaped differently and even people coming from a similar viewpoint – for example, religious people – react differently despite their apparent surface agreement. People from the same family can be divided by fear, greed or hope.

I’m particularly amused by the man who ends up inviting a much hated alien to dinner and hosting him because no matter his opinions are he has good manners.

I think the reactions are so very real – which means this book full of aliens and wonders has a powerful sense of reality to it. Do we think people would be rational when faced with the presence of aliens? Do we think people would be irrational in the same way? Too often we tend to see stories that divide the population into the fearful/haters and the compassionate/realists. But it’s shows humanity in all its messy glory – people terrified of the aliens and thinking they’re a threat. People curious and desperate. People are looking for an advantage, some way to cash in. Some people are in utter denial and determined to continue their lives. Some people are terrified and think it’s the wrath of god. Some people think it’s a sign of god – and all of them meet together in one giant mess.

And, of course, there are people willing to capitalise on the chaos as well as people trying to bring some reason back to the whole mess. In between that we have chaos creating more chaos because panicking people just don’t make sense – not even close. I particularly liked both government officials not being entirely corrupt and useless (as is common in panic situations so the protagonists can save the day) and normal people stepping forward and being incredible heroes – even if they aren’t the protagonist.