Comic-Con Highlights: Defiance

Yet more videos from Comic-Con (oh how I wish I was there). This time for Defiance that has been renewed for a second season and we can't wait for it's return

Almighty Johnsons Season 3, Episode 4: Like the Berserkers of Old

Time for another day of Axl joining Mike in rebuilding his home, Mike and Michele in bed and Michele hating the chaos, dirt and dust and Axl bringing in the ceiling. Over that bed. That’s not made things better.

With the house officially unliveable, Mike insists they stay at Michele’s flat, temporarily, especially since it’s 2 bedroom with one person in it. Michele finally has to tell him that her tenant is her mother – and she’s dreading moving back with her.

To the flat, to meet Michele’s mother, Karen who is… pretty pleasant. A bit full on, over enthusiastic and she calls Michele “snappy”. Which is an awesome nickname which should be used forever and ever. Of course, Karen is also a goddess (and, strike against her, she liked Colin – Loki – but, then she seems to like everyone) – Lofn (oooh the gentle matchmaker); she loves parties and Mike’s the god of games – sounds awesome. Michele looks like she regrets Sjofn’s powers don’t let her sink into the floor.

At Anders’s office, someone has left Ander’s a briefcase full of money (which he had Dawn open because he’s a coward). A briefcase full of money with a note to meet the anonymous benefactor if they want more. Dawn is very sensibly suspicious, Anders is very typically greedy and foolish. Always listen to Dawn, Dawn is always right

The meeting turns out to be with Colin. Loki. Turn around and walk away now Anders. He says he needs Anders – oh gods walk away! Colin wants to be mayor! Because it’ll be fun! And, of course, he wants Anders with the powers of Bragi to make it happen (and his boyish good looks won’t hurt). Anders objects on the grounds of Colin blowing up his brother’s house and Colin responds with some objectification of his assistant, a round of homophobia, mocking Anders for being on Mike’s leash and a briefcase with a nun puppet in it. Yes he’s as confused as I am

From nun puppets to a church full of congregants singing a hymn – with Olaf and Stacey among them. After the service Stacey laments that they’re nice people, because they’re going to have to kill them – or smite them as Olaf puts it. They go from the church to Mike to explain things – Stacey tracked them down, they’re the god hunters like the murderous Natalie. And they plan to try again.

Gathering many of the gods together, Stacey tells them how she tracked Natalie back to her source showing some pretty decent deduction skills, leading her to Natalie’s tearful husband Bevan, in New Zealand. (Ingrid continues to be nice and fluffy, Stacey much harder on the god murderers) they followed him to his church and, examining the church, found a cell within the church that are god hunters – probably 6 of them. (Also Olaf is just awful at undercover). Stacey found they where planning to meet that day at 2 – so they’d all be in the same place for the gods to, as Olaf puts it, smite them.

Stacey suggests just giving the information to Colin and letting him burn the place down (don’t rely on Loki!) and Ingrid objects to murder, Mike agrees – and Axl invokes Odin-ness (causing much sarcasm from Mike) saying that bringing in Colin is always a bad idea (behold wisdom), and that they go round and get the jump on the hunters. Mike agrees – but not taking Axl, because Odin dying kills them all. Also, no he’s not in charge yet. They go and leave a bitter, sad Axl behind.

Comic-Con Highlights: Warehouse 13

Some more vids from Comic-Con panels - this time Warehouse 13. Back with us soon, I hope

Real Vampires Don't Sparkle by Amy Fecteau

Matheus had put a lot of effort to escaping his past and leading a nice boring life free from any kind of drama – or any real human contact. Until he was recruited to steal something from his workplace

And by recruited, we mean threatened with terrible, horrible torture until he complied. If there was any doubt as to the sincerity of the threats, his contact is a vampire. And to ensure his silence, he makes Matheus one too

Learning to become a vampire isn’t easy – less so when you have considerable resentment towards the vampire who murdered you. There’s a lot to learn, a lot of hoops to jump through, city politics to navigate, hunters to dodge – and some surprising revelations to learn about himself as well.

But even that gets complicated when his long hidden past returns in force.

A book about vampires! Time for me to get my big big pile of clichés and tropes and scenarios I’ve seen again and again and again…

And throw them out the window! Because they don’t apply here! Yes, I’m quite gleeful about this. A vampire story without so many things that are now staple – and impossibly gorgeous vampire, lots of angst for no good reason, a whole lot of sanitising what it actually means to be undead and a monster with a heavy side order of super powers and romance.

Not this book. First of all becoming a vampire is difficult and really messy – as Quinn notes, he really should have brought a mop.

The vampires drink blood and kill people. This isn’t a choice and there isn’t an alternative – for a vampire to go on living they kill people. This is a moral quandary and it is treated as such –something to think about and feel guilty about and try to find exceptions and minimise the damage and have considerable resentment from Matheus towards Quin for both murdering him and dooming him to murder other people. It’s not angst in a “oh what a terrible person I am” but it’s extreme discomfort, anger and fear over what Matheus has become and what he has to do rather than the very tired angsty monologues over nipping a vein. It has a depth, a nuance and a strength to it that is sorely missing in so many stories of monsters that regret who they are.

In fact life and death continue to be a major theme in the books. There are a lot of deaths and they’re not even slightly sanitised. It’s graphic, it’s often brutal and it’s not pretty nor is it meant to be. People die – and no-one’s expendable and no-one’s disposable and even people hunting you or working for the evil corporation are people with families. At the same time, while everyone who dies is human, Matheus is not a saint – and he’s certainly not going to weep for his torturer – and Quin is far too jaded by his centuries to feel anything.

Dead Like Me, Season 1, Episode 10: Business Unfinished

Today’s theme seems to be business and eternal to-do list and Delores giving George a massively repetitive task which she thinks is soothing and zen. Delores can find a bright happy side to everything ensuring that, if I knew her, I would have to kill her. George seems to agree with me on that score. Increasing the chances of murder, George also works enough hours to qualify for their health and pension benefits – which means lots of deductions so she takes home less money

Ok, this seems like a very odd system

This means she only orders toast at the Waffle House and is most unhappy. Unlike Roxy who comes in with balloons and good will for all. She must be ill. She even wants to buy George breakfast she feels so blissed out; Rube gives her 2 days off. See, I’m not the only one who thinks she’s ill. Daisy complains, of course, because she’s Daisy and someone needs to axe murder her. She also succeeds in ruining Roxy’s mood.

Daisy goes to reap a snobby racist woman surrounded by her rich fellows who gets set on fire by the flambé, not helped by her friends trying to put her out by throwing alcohol on her. Unfortunately for Daisy, rich snobby dead lady isn’t co-operative (but she has manners enough to get Daisy to tip the bus boy who tried to put her out).

So what does Daisy do? She takes the ghost to see Georgia at work – even calling her real name rather than the one she uses (Millie) at work. She has a plan to use her very rich ghost to get money –oodles of it. George is tempted but it’s just wrong to use dead people to make money. Very moral but it has to be said that both Mason and Betty regularly stole from dead people. This moral quandary lasts a few minutes before George decides to fake a dead relative to get time off. And Delores is such a happy dappy person she even helps George abuse the rules to get more time off.

They take their scheme – and ghost – to see Mason and she looks around a very nice house and asks if it’s a slum (she thought George’s work place was a sweat shop). She wants to communicate with her son. And for Daisy’s plan to work she needs Mason out of his house – which requires negotiation based on Mason’s creepy attraction to her resolving at 15% of the money and him getting to see her breasts. Mason, invest in porn and get your creepiness off Daisy, you can see breasts there and easily negotiate and extra 5%

Boycotting Orson Scott Card's Bigotry - Skip Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card, as you probably know, is a nasty human being and one of the worst bigots you could ever hope to meet. He has also written a series of books that are pretty popular and many a person, including those who think of themselves as straight “allies” have twisted themselves into knots about that.

And now one of his books has been turned into a film, Ender’s Game. I’m kind of disgusted that Lionsgate would go near this man - so I fully support Geeks Out’s petition urging people to skip this film.

And cue a whole lot of people defending, dismissing, downplaying and otherwise squirming around Orson Scott Card’s bigotry so they can justify to themselves why they should see the film coupled with a fair bit of aggression aimed at GBLT people who are calling for a boycott. Let’s cut through some of this homophobic apologism

Orson Scott Card’s precious opinions

First of all, while this is what is most often reported, Orson Scott Card is not just a man who disagrees with marriage equality (though why gay people shouldn’t boycott someone who fights against any of our rights bemuses me); he became a director of the hate group, NOM. That goes beyond even speaking against our humanity or campaigning against our rights or putting his money into the fight against gay people – he became the director of a hate group.

And he is actually in favour of overthrowing any government that supports gay families. He vowed to act to bring down and destroy a government that does so.

But this is just part of Orson Scott Card’s bigotry – this is a man who opposed every and all rights for gay people. He actually supports sodomy laws, he wants being gay to be illegal. He wants to lock us up for existing – that’s a genocidal policy aimed at eliminating us. That sounds like a pretty good reason to shun him.

Orson Scott Card is so utterly steeped in homophobia that he actually re-wrote Hamlet’s father as a gay paedophile, turning people gay. He’s on record saying that it’s sexual abuse that makes people gay.

Stop downplaying the extent of this man’s hatred and how much time, effort and money he has put into bigotry. If you need to deflect the truth to salve your conscience then that should tell you something.

And if you're going to raise "freedom of speech", go read this and this and this and this and this and this and this so we don't have to repeat ourselves

Why Boycott – the money

While Lionsgate have tried to do their best to downplay how much Orson Scott Card is involved and Gavin Hood, Harrison Ford and Robert Orci have definitely done their very best to dismiss concerns (which makes me think I should be boycotting more than Card if these three men are so desperate to downplay and ignore homophobia). Despite this dismissal, Card has most certainly earned a big wadge of cash from them turning his book into a film – not only that, but he is listed as a co-producer of the film. If this film is successful, he will get more money.

When Gavin Hood, Harrison Ford and Robert Orci say Ender’s Game has nothing to do with Orson Scott Card, they are lying to cover the homophobia. They are putting money into the pockets of a rabid bigot who has a track record of using his money to fight against gay people’s rights. The audiences of this film will be putting money in Orson Scott Card’s pocket.

And not only this film. If this film is a success it’s quite likely that more of Orson Scott Card’s books will be turned into films, raising his profile and putting yet more money into his pocket.

Comic-Con Highlights: Being Human (US)

Some More vids from Comic-con - this time from Syfy and Being Human (US), coming back to us in January 2014

Kiss of Venom (Elemental Assassin #8.5) by Jennifer Estep

Owen and Phillip are having a guy’s night out in the club – but Owen’s having a hard time letting go and enjoying himself with his head fully absorbed in how badly he messed up with Gin – which only gets more depressing when Gin and Bria come to the club for their own night out

With so much regret to mull over, it’s almost a relief when Owen hears a couple of assassins planning to take Gin down. The least he can do is try to keep her night undisturbed.

In some ways, this is exactly the kind of short story I want in a series that is this established – something to give me an insight above and beyond the standard plot, taking someone else’s point of view other than the protagonist I’ve seen over and over again, getting their perspective on things that maybe will show the events in a different way from what I’m used it. After all, the series is 8 books long, not including short stories, it’s good to hear from the characters who follow Gin around, see what their version of events are especially since Gin has had personal conflicts with just about everyone.

So opening the book and seeing Owen’s point of view was a big plus to me. Especially after everything that happened in the last few books with his ex-girlfriend and then the action at the Rotunda and trying to make up with Gin.

And because of that, I was very very very tolerant of recapping. Even if there was a lot of recapping – and oh boy is there a lot of recapping – because if you’re going to get someone else’s point of view on past events then you need to look at those events again.

But… Owen doesn’t exactly have an informative or deep point of view; about the only new insight I gained was his regret of all the years he lost with Phillip, the friend he cast aside because of Salina’s lie. Other than that?

Woe! I let Gin down! Wooooe!

Woe! Bria hates me because I let Gin down! I deserve it. Wooooe!

Woe! I am such a bad person!

Woe! Gin hates me – and she totally should!

Woe! A woman flirted with me and Gin saw and now she’s hurt! Woe, I’m a terrible person!

Woe! I treated Phillip like shit for years because I’m a terribad person! Woe!

Woe! I let my sister down! Because I’m a terribad person! Woe!

Woe! My extreme depression is now ruining Phillip’s night! I’m the worst person in the world! Woe!

Woe! I didn’t tip the waitress enough! I’m scum beneath her shoes! Woe!