The 100, Season Three: Episode Twelve: Demons

I guess this is horror show week on The 100.  First, we have Miller Telling and Harper and Brian a horror story about a first generation member of the ark. It feels very much like a campfire story. When Miller heads outside he is taken down.  Bryan goes to check on his boyfriend and disappears.  Harper no longer thinks the the story is amusing and she believes the guys are playing a practical joke with their sudden disappearance but of course finds out that this is no practical joke when she gets attacked by a large masked man.

After failing to make contact with Harper, Bryan and Miller, the crew decides to head back to Arkadia to grab supplies and Lincoln's map.  The first thing they see when they enter Arkadia is a pool of Lincoln's blood. The plan is to get out as quickly as possible though Arkadia looks abandoned with half eaten food abandoned on the table. Monty is still feeling the weight of having to kill his mother last week. He questions if Hannah is still alive in the City of Light and Raven responds that it depends on his definition of alive.

It seems that Raven has been reading Rebekah's journal.  Raven reveals that ALIE is the one who destroyed the world because she believed that the problem was over population.  As a way to atone for what ALIE did, Rachel created ALIE 2.0 but it required a genetic mutation which changed the colour of her blood.  It seems that this mutation is something which has been inherited by the rulers of each generation.  This is why nightbloods exist.  Clarke is absolutely determined to get the ALIE 2.0 to Luna so that they can access and stop ALIE 1

Octavia heads straight to what was once Lincoln's room and she is overcome with memories and sadness.  I am glad that mourning the loss of Lincoln is taking some time because it gives the character some amount of respect.  Octavia starts to cry and Jasper tries to be empathetic by telling Octavia that "it's okay to fall apart a little." Yeah, I guess with his manpain, Jasper would be the expert at that. Octavia however is too much of a warrior for that and  is adamant that a warrior doesn't mourn until after the war is over. Naturally, this is when the masked man who took Harper, Bryan, and Miller, shows up. He knocks out Octavia and Jasper.

Raven, Clarke, Monty and Sinclair are completely engrossed with the chip. Raven thinks that she can activate the chip and asks Clarke to think of a phrase which Lexa said repeatedly, explaining that Lexa didn't know that A.I was a part of her body because the chip has become degraded.  Clarke thinks for a moment and says, "blood must have blood," but the chip stays dormant. Monty tries, "seek higher things", which is written on Rebekah's journal but once again, the chip remains dormant. Raven says that the chip could respond to Latin and it's Sinclair to the rescue since he took a little Latin. Sinclair says, "ascende superius", and this time tendrils shoot of the chip.  Raven is immediately captivated and starts to move closer to the chip, only to be pulled back by Clarke. Clarke explains that anyone who isn't a Nightblood, who takes the chip inside them dies.  Clarke once again reminds everyone that the task is to find Luna.

It's time to find the rest of the group and Clarke and Monty head off to find Jasper and Octavia. Monty once again brings up his mother and points out that if Clarke is successful, she will get her mother back but Hannah will be dead.  They head down the hallway and hear a music box playing a child's lullaby.  Monty pauses to suggest that it's not a good idea to follow the music but of course, Clarke forges ahead. Look, I know this was meant to be horror show freaky but it cracked me up. It's always the blonde chick in the horror film who gets killed because people of colour know better than to go in the basement, head somewhere alone, or to check out a strange noise. When they get to the carousel, Clarke picks it up and on the bottom is written the name Aaron.  Red gas is shot into the hallway and Clarke pretends to be overcome by it. When the man goes to check Clarke's pulse,Clarke pulls up his mask and reveals his identity as Emerson, before managing to escape.

Clarke runs outside and finds Bellamy. She quickly fills him in on the situation and is full of guilt for not killing Emerson when they were both at Polis. They radio Raven and Sinclair about the danger and warn them to shut down the hanger. Unfortunately for them right after closing the doors, they realise that Emerson is in the hanger with them. The hanger is pitch dark but Emerson has night vision goggles. Sinclair tries to manually open the doors and tells Raven to stay in the rover. Sinclair does get the door open but is stabbed by Emerson for his trouble. Raven runs to Sinclair, though he begs her to get into the rover.  Raven tries to take care of his injuries, as once again Sinclair pleads with his dying breathe for Raven to get in the rover. Sinclair succumbs to his injury and Raven is grabbed from behind by Emerson.

Clarke and Bellamy make it back to the hanger to find Sinclair dead.  Clarke grabs the radio and tells Emerson that they need to talk.  Emerson orders Clarke to meet him at the airlock alone and without any weapons.  Clarke is ready to comply to save her friends and because of the guilt she feels for not killing Emerson when she had the chance.  Clarke tries to give Bellamy the chip so that he can complete their mission but he refuses, saying that Clarke sacrificing herself won't get them anywhere and just like that, Clarke and Bellamy are team mates again.  Bellamy is always better when he is acting as Clarke second.

Clarke makes her way to the airlock with Bellamy staying hidden but Emerson is to smart to fall for their little ruse.  He starts to hurt Octavia to force Bellamy to show himself and disarm.  Bellamy then enters the airlock and handcuffs himself.  Emerson steps out of the airlock and seals it, causing those inside to begin to suffocate.  Clarke starts to beg but it seems that Emerson will not be satisfied with her death when he can kill Clarke and give her the pain of watching her friends die first.  Emerson talks about all the people he loved who died on the mountain. Emerson grabs Clarke, forcing her to watch as her friends begin to suffocate.  Clarke reaches into her pocket grabs the chip, says the magic latin phrase and slams the chip into Emerson's neck.  Emerson promptly starts to claw at his neck and ends up dying from loss of blood, as Clarke gets the airlock open and saves her friends.

Free of Emerson the group is gathered outside and Bellamy joins them with Lincoln's body in his arms. Octavia cries over Lincoln's body.  When next we see them, the group has created a funeral pyre.  Raven pauses to say that she hopes she sees Sinclair again.  Octavia lights the fire and is immediately ready to get going.

The next day, Raven announces that she is staying behind because as injured as she is, she believes that she would just slow them down. Because ALIE downloaded a part of herself into the ARK, Raven feels that if she stays behind, she just might be able to take her down.  Monty, Miller, Bryan and Harper agree to stay behind to help and protect Raven and Monty if necessary.  Japser is up for the danger and when he tries to say goodbye to Monty, Monty turns his back on him.  Clarke, Jasper, Octavia and Bellamy better get moving because things in Polis don't look good.

Murphy is now officially a part of Ontari's entourage in his role as flamekeeper and is following her down the street when he runs into Emori.  Murphy stops to chat with her and when called on his actions by Ontari, Murphy lies and claims he just stopped to taste the rat Emori is selling.  Murphy gives Emori a location to meet him at and scurries away. When Murphy meets up with Emori, after making love, he tells her everything that has happened since they last met, including that Ontari doesn't actually have the chip inside her and that he has been forced into being her sex slave. The reunion doesn't last long because Murphy is called away and so asks Emori to wait there for him because she will be safe.

Wynonna Earp, Season 1, Episode 4: The Blade

Time for another whacky leap to Purgatory – and this time Doc Holiday is on side and everyone knows his secret. Yes, even Dolls – after Dos is briefly imprisoned because Dolls knows a whole lot

We also get a bit more about Dolls’s past and a nice confirmation that there are demons and the supernatural out there beyond Purgatory and the revenants. It also means that his organisation has been going around the world to fight demons and monsters – which has left Dolls with some difficult memories and a lot more knowledge an access to some shiny artefacts. I like this because it confirms that it isn’t just this town that is special but also that Dolls is an expert. So far Dolls has been the professional but he hasn’t been necessarily a expert – he’s done a lot of things like take Wynonna’s gun and rely on Waverly’s research which has implied that, despite his position, he really doesn’t have a whole lot of an idea of what’s going on. But this episode establishes that he doesn’t have a whole lot of local knowledge, but his general knowledge and history of the supernatural is greater than any of their’s.

Which is where we also come to Waverley, whose local knowledge is excellent, her research unsurpassed and that she has worked really hard all her life to become an expert in this. She has learned a lot, mastered ancient languages and generally become a font of knowledge and hard work.

Which is why, despite her general sunny attitude, she resents the hell out of Wynonna: after all Wynonna left, Wynonna rejected her heritage, Wynonna did nothing while Waverley has worked so hard but, in the end, Wynonna is the chosen one. It bugs her a lot.

I really like this line of reasoning and wish more shows would pursue this. How many works of fiction have a “chosen one”, an every day person who rises up and becomes super special because they are “chosen” while surrounded by people who have been working/fighting longer, trying harder, truly preparing themselves, sacrificing and end up becoming the side kicks and supporting staff to the “chosen one.” More shows need to look at this.

Zoo, season 1, Episode 7: Sleuth

Time for the gang to go to the next step on their world tour – Paris – where we have some bears running amok.

In Paris we get to meet Chloe’s boss who is not amused by a major major issue – Jamie killed an FBI agent, maybe a dirty one, but still an FBI agent and likely to cause all kinds of issues and problems not least of which is exposing their investigation.

Can we again question why this investigation has to be so hush hush? Or why everyone is worried about gathering enough evidence about the Mother Cell to convince the America government rather than relying on the fact they’re working with sharing all the information WITH the French government (presumably) and they should have a whole lot more official clout and resources. Really, why are they so clandestine? And why do they need to bring Mitch across the ocean to France to investigate the blood work of the hibernating bears when they could use the actual authority and power of the government without having to sneak around? It makes no sense! Stop this cloak and dagger nonsense!

Anyway to France, where there’s something weird going on with the bears hibernating in summer. They don’t have a defiant pupil but there’s something weird happening with them. Mitch basically has the theory that the animals are becoming X-men with super powers caused by rapid evolution aided by the Mother Cell – and, good news, her can maybe cure that.

But first we have Jamie’s issue – Chloe’s boss wants her to dump Jamie as the liability she is. But Abraham wants to save her because she’s family and she protects family

And he has an awesome, excellently acted moment where he describes his childhood, being forced to fight for a rebel army, his dead brothers and his amazing goodness, courage and self-sacrifice and powerful morality. Abraham is an awesome man. Abraham is an excellent character. Abraham deserves better than to have his devastating, powerful, amazingly-well acted emotional past being used not so much to develop him to explain why he’s going to go to bat for Jamie.

Orphan Black, Season Four, Episode Two: Transgressive Border Crossing

At the end of The Collapse of Nature, M.K had gotten in touch with Sarah through Art, to warn her that Neolution had discovered where she was and was on their way.  Sarah became frantic and Mrs. S tried to calm her but the reality of their precarious situation became obvious when Kiera noticed headlights coming their way. When we next see Sarah, Siobhan, Kiera and Kendall, they are getting out of truck outside of a comic shop where Cosima and Scott have set up a secret lab to work on Cosima's illness and find out more about their biology. Sarah doesn't miss a beat and is off to find Art to learn as much as she can about M.K., our new elusive clone.

Art tells Sarah all about the Capra case and the fact that once Beth stared something she never let it go.  They decide to look for clues at Beth's place.  Apparently, the rent had been paid for for the year so all of her things are still there and boxed up.  Art explains that the cops were told that the next of kin would take care of it but since Beth doesn't actually have next of kin, all of her stuff remains in her apartment.  In the bathroom, Sarah finds Beth's works and for first the time gets some sense of what Beth was going through.  What I want to know is why Sarah didn't discover the works when she was living there with Paul after assuming Beth's identity? When Art finds a camera, he assumes that it was Paul spying on Beth but Sarah corrects him and says that it was Beth spying on Paul.  They watch some of the video and notice that a pregnant Neolution woman visited Beth.  When Sarah finds the book that Leekie signed for Beth, she decides it's time to drop in on the Neolution Bar.

Though Felix has been avoiding her calls, Sarah decides to pay him a visit and walks right into his bathroom while he is having a shower. Damn, the man cannot even bathe in peace once Sarah decides that she has servant work for him to do. It's particularly irritating that while she tells him that they should have a drink because she misses his face, what she really wants is for Felix to come to her aid. Since she cannot get into the Neolution bar by herself, she expects Felix to enter and then help her sneak in the back door.  Sarah actually has the nerve to look shocked when Felix asks her for money to pay the cover charge to get into the bar.

In the bar, Felix reveals that he has started the search for his biological family and naturally Sarah is not pleased with this. Felix explains that Sarah is connected to everyone and is even related to Siobhan. Do you think that Sarah even invested two seconds of her time to discuss Felix's feelings? Why, of course not, she simply protested that Felix already has a family. Felix hits the dance floor with a guy. I can only hope that for the rest of the season, Felix takes a more assertive stance with the clones he is expected to serve at the drop of a hat.

At the bar, Sarah is mistakenly recognized as M.K. and pulled aside to see a video of man with something in his cheek.  When the item is messed with it explodes and kills its host. Sarah asks about the device, thus alerting the man that she is talking to that she is not in fact M.K. because M.K. is the one who alerted him to the device in the first place. Sarah is forced to run but she does manage to grab the man's phone before escaping.  Sarah uses the phone to discover where the man was planning on meeting M.K. Instead of going back for Felix, Sarah simply sends him a message.  I guess she's done with Felix now that he's served his purpose.

The meeting point is in a laundromat and typical of what has become M.K.'s style, she's not physically in the laundromat but is watching Sarah view CCTV. They chat briefly with Sarah thanking M.K for saving her. M.K. suggests that Sarah go into hiding so that she doesn't end up like Beth but Sarah is adamant that hiding doesn't work.  M.K. takes off when Sarah spots her sitting in a hooptie outside of the laundry.  Before Sarah can leave, the White male and the Black woman from last week enter, and this time they are posing as paramedics. They hold Sarah down, check her mouth and declare that she is not the clone they are looking for. After pulling something out of Sarah's cheek they are actually able to identify her.

Sarah rushes back to the hideout and is in a complete panic.  When Siobhan uses a flashlight to check inside Sarah's mouth, she sees a creature moving. Oh gross.

Onto the other clones.

Helena is actually pregnant with twins.  She has to pretend to be Allison to get healthcare and Donny poses as her husband.  Allison is clearly upset and jealous.  Allison comments to Donny that Helena is eating them out of house and home and is a murderer.  When Donny points out that they've killed people as well, Allison claims that they are different because they have committed manslaughter and not murder.  Yeah, I think Allison's splitting hairs on this one.  Allison is upset that her little craft room has been invaded by Helena, who is not as scrupulous about things being in their appropriate place as her.  Donny tries to pacify Allison by explaining that Helena just wants to be like her.

Wynonna Earp: Yeti Wars by Beau Smith, Enrique Villagrán, Manual Vidal

The consortium has hired a scientist to do something genetic experimentation.  This is not good news for the humans because it involves creating creatures that are part human, part animal and yes, part supernatural.  If Doctor Robidoux is successful in his experimentation, it means that the already powerful supernaturals will be unstoppable. It's Wynonna and her team to the rescue.

I have to say that I found Yeti Wars far from compelling.  The Consortium is determined to unite all of the supernaturals on the globe but unfortunately they're nearly universally hated for their wealth and their power.  Thus far, the consortium has managed to bring everyone into the fold except for the vampires, who are determined to keep their independence.  The Consortium decides that the only way to bring the vampires into the fold, is to offer them something they don't have - immortality. HUH? A vampire that's not immortal? I know, what the hell is the point?  To that end, The Consortium hires Doctor Robdioux to conduct genetic experiments but what they don't realise is that Robidoux is a double agent and is also working for the vampires.

We are told that Robidoux is a psychopath and that this is why he does wild experiments. I found this to be ableist.  Why is it so hard to have someone who is not neuro typical just go about their lives or even be on the hero side?  Why must they constantly be framed as evil, or beings to be wary of? Robidoux really doesn't even get any development, he's just some horny, mentally ill guy, doing horrible experiments. He's described as a cross between Frankenstein, Doctor Moreau and Dr. Mengle. Here's the deal, it's fine to say that Robidoux is engaged in horrible experiments but it's not fine to decide to invoke Mengle and therefore the holocaust to make a point.

Robidoux is not the only character who is described as a psychopath.  Maxim, the leader of the consortium also considers Dr. Sasha Tarasov to be a psychopath, albeit less so than Robdioux.  Maxim charges Sasha with keeping an eye on Robidoux, getting inside of his head and sleeping with him to get as much information as she possibly can from him.  She is nothing but a tool and gets absolutely zero character development. Because Dr. Tarasov also falls on team bad guy, we have yet another example of a person with mental illness as evil.

Inexcusable Homophobia on The Magicians

Before The Magicians even aired, the people behind it did the now almost obligatory bits in LGBT media (check that “sexual events” happen to Elliot and his relationship “doesn’t go as expected” hah oh you crafty writers, may someone strangle you with a rainbow scarf) to talk up their regular inclusion of a gay characters and try to get a gay following before the show even airs.

I do have to say I wonder at the mentality that is willing to troll to LGBT media to try and generate a fanbase and then thoroughly crush those hopes with maniacal glee. I suspect sadism.

Since we’ve seen a whole lot of this before, we weren’t exactly taken in by the selling of Elliot as a positive character. It was no surprise that Elliot turned out to be exactly the kind of stereotypical gay side character we’re so used to: a sassy, quipping, comic relief there to delivery snarky put downs, cute one liners, and saucy innuendo. And, don’t get me wrong, funny innuendo and snark can be great fun - but this excessively stereotyped role is a box gay men are continually forced into (often to the exclusion of any actual characterisation or personality). Elliot joined characters like Orphan Black’s Felix and True Blood’s Lafayette in being the gay jester - a trope that hasn’t really changed since the days of Are You Being Served.

Elliot and Margot lurked in the background, making random quips, drinking a truly improbably amount of alcohol and generally being musing, pointless caricatures. If it had remained that way we’d probably have rolled our eyes and put it down to another stereotyped extra existing to amuse straight people: another gay clown that straight writers continue to think that background comic relief actually counts as inclusion.

But it got worse. Oh it got so much worse.

The Gay Best Friend is a pernicious trope - one that has a powerful reflection in real life - where gay men are reduced to pets and toys for the amusement, fulfilment and general service of straight women. There is an entire culture that views gay men as accessories and toys of straight men and, more galling, this is seen all too often as progressive even as it is dehumanising and reductive.

And Elliot may actually take the prize for being GBF - not so much from his actions, but because of Margot - the straight woman he duly serves. When he is amusing and quipping away, Margot loves Elliot and they are the best of friends. When he actually has anything in his life that doesn’t involve amusing her? She can’t stand it. How dare he have an existence outside of her and her personal grooming (and yes, of course the show went there. Of course it did because what’s the point of a GBF if he doesn’t care about your bikini line?)?! When Elliot met Mark and actually spends time with someone who is not Margot she is outraged, she is furious, she lashes out, she pouts and, through the influence of a genie, she inflicts a pretty nasty homophobic scene on him (which we’ll get to).

This demand that Elliot be there to serve her only gets worse after the tragedy of Mike and Elliot actually feeling emotions. He’s sad, he’s hurting (this show depicts this by more drunkenness and drugs ALL THE TIME), he’s in incredible pain and Margot is troubled, sad and furious - because he’s not fun. He’s not her toy any more. Her stunning disregard for his pain, her actual inability to understand that he even feels something that doesn’t amuse her is a horrifying indictment of this trope - or would be if the show made any attempt to call out this bullshit even once. In fact, there’s zero attempt to make Elliot and his pain even remotely sympathetic - he’s in pain, but that pain manifests by constant, overwhelming substance abuse: including when they’re all stuck in dangerous magical libraries and trying to stealthily escape bad guys. Elliot is a complete burden on the entire cast and a constant source of sabotage for the story, there is nothing sympathetic or even humanising about his depiction. Not only is his grief dismissed as an irritant to Margot - but that is how it is depicted for the whole series. His grief is a nuisance. His grief is a problem everyone has to struggle to work around. His grief is an irritant to all of us - never something to respect. Which sums up Elliot - he’s never there to respect. He’s something to laugh at, or something to regard with contempt.

This depiction of LGBT service is a nasty stain on the series which follows with the all-too-brief depiction of Kira, a Black, disabled lesbian who exists for just long enough to provide service to Julia. She is equally undeveloped - Black, disabled lesbian is literally all we know about her - because she only exists to serve. Even that limited depiction is flawed - because it makes little sense that a woman who quite literally can live in a world defined by her happiest memories decides her life just isn’t worth living. She doesn’t have to make sense. She doesn’t have to be a character. She’s a servant. And when that servant has served her purpose she can be disposed like any other tool - which is exactly how she is treated: a disposable tool for Julia.

Which brings us to disposability - because tragedy and gay death are big here. Kira was killed off under a pretty convoluted fashion because leaving her around after she had helped was apparently unthinkable - because gay death is better angst. Elliot’s whole story is defined by tragedy - a tragedy that not only no-one cared about, but filled all the classic tropes of broken gay happiness, waiting until Elliot and Mike seemed close to being happy before killing him off. No, before making Elliot kill him off they had Elliot open up, begin to show some characterisation, begin to show some depth and have an actual relationship - all to be cut off seconds afterwards (there’s really no wonder why Elliot was so miserable, though, again, I have to stress no-one cared). Mike’s death was predictable from the minute he was introduced because shadows of his being evil were brought in - tragedy was built into the relationship from the very beginning. Elliot’s rapid happiness and trust was there not to develop him, but just to lay the foundation for his inept suffering.

The Last Ship, Season Two, Episode Six: Long Day's Journey

Doctor Scott is determined to find a way to spread the vaccine but with all the labs being destroyed, this is proving to be difficult.  When she receives a message from her murdered friend that he has found a way to complete mass distribution by air, Rachel is determined to talk Tom into going to see if they can find any information at his lab. Tom is more concerned about the continuing threat that the submarine holds and is quick to nix Rachel's suggestions, believing that until the sub is dealt with that they won't get anywhere spreading the cure.  Given that all the labs and samples have been destroyed, this once again makes Rachel the only scientist capable of mass producing the cure.

Sean and Ned continue to not only gather immunes, they continue to send Niels out to intentionally make people sick so that they can find more. This absolutely amounts to genocide and Niels, as the originator of this disaster is all to happy to go along.  Things are not at all smooth between Sean and Ned though ultimately, they both want power.  For Ned, it's clearly about changing his former station in life and having access to the things that he used to be denied. If the Nathan James is allowed to distribute the cure, then there special status as immunes will no longer have any great value and this is why Ned tries to push Sean away from collecting people who have immunity to focus his attention on sinking the Nathan James.  Ned is adamant that they should be back on the sub and dealing with the threat that the Nathan James poses because otherwise, all of Sean's big plans will be for naught.

Sean however is all grand plan and epic cult.  Sean gathers the immunes and talks to them about being special because of their DNA and suggests that they have been attacked by communities because of their DNA.  If everyone around them has died, how can that last statement even be remotely true? The immunes are more than happy to sip the Kool Aid, clearly in search for someone to tell them what to do.  Beyond amassing one massive cult, at this point, we still don't know Sean's end game.  As Sean speaks to the American immunes, he gives the impression that he is ceding power to the president.  It seems that Michener was part of the housing department and is the highest ranking governmental elected politician still alive - thus making him the president.  It's already clear that Michener will be nothing more than a figure head in Sean's big plans.  Because symbolism is so important to Americans, they are ready to wave the stars and stripes at the mere sight of Michener.  It's clear that Michener will be used to help encourage the immunes to come together.

What Sean does not know is that Tom and Tex have infiltrated his group of immnunes.  They recognize both him and Ned from a previous encounter.  Just by being in the room, Tom and Tex get a bit of an earful about Sean's plans.  The question is, now that they are on the inside and have managed to pass themselves off as immunes, what's their next step.

Days of Tao (Tao series #3.5) by Wesley Chu

Cameron Tan is having a summer break – somewhat enforced by his less than impressed mother – a very important figure who is not amused by his latest grades.  It’s a break from his training as a Prophus operative – carrying the alien Quasling in his mind – but not too unwelcome

That is, until he finds himself on the front lines of World War 3.

This book was fascinating and frustrating

Fascinating because I love the world setting and the concept. People bonding with a Quasing, alien beings who then bring their experience and knowledge to the partnership while at the same time drawing human nations into their own civil war. I like the balance of this, Tao brings experience, knowledge and intelligence to the partnership with Cameron, but he doesn’t bring super powers or awesome abilities. He has insight and intelligence to offer, but skills and abilities are all Cameron‘s own. Including his great combat skills

It’s also easy to make a character a combat monster and call it done – but Cameron has a lot of stress riding on him that no amount of combat ability can really change. He has huge expectations laid on him, a large legacy to fill, demanding parents, a demanding Tao and hard decisions to make. In many ways, no matter how dangerous he is, he is not even remotely ready for this task. In fact, his doubts and difficulties make his combat skills seem almost surprising – which says a lot about the ideals I’ve absorbed from the genre. A male protagonist who can cause so much damage is surely super confident and can’t have any doubts! In Cameron we see skills and insecurity, ability and inexperience and a whole lot of doubts and pressures that he’s desperately not ready for

It’s also one of those books where you can sit there smugly as an audience and say “you’re making the wrong decision” because there’s an obvious, logical choice. But it’s easy to make those logical choices when you don’t have an emotional connection to those left behind.

I think that may be one flaw of this book – because while Cameron’s growth, conflict and emotional development is impressive and excellent – I can’t say the same for the people around him. I think it’s because the book is pretty short and there are a lot of people and they kind of just become names. I mean, from Cameron’s reactions I can see how painful it would be for him to leave a person behind or to see them hurt –but I don’t have any connection to these characters.

The characters are racially diverse, or generally seem to be. Cameron is Asian, and many of his friends from school are definitely POC – generally the characters are not described in great detail, though, so in some cases it can be hard to make sure. One of the main characters who Cameron is trying to protect who is so important to this war is Nazar, a disabled Kurdish man (and nicely complicated after his time as an undercover operative). Cameron’s fellows come from many countries including Iran (perhaps the character he is closest to beyond his mediate friends) and China which adds extra conflicts since these countries are allied with Cameron’s enemies which is touchy when a Cold War turns hot. There are, sadly, no LGBT characters

So why am I frustrated with this book? Because it’s very short and feels very much like an introduction, a prologue, more than a complete story. That’s not necessarily a bad thing fora novella. This book sets up our main character and the opening shots of a main story arc, We see the stakes - the terrifying global stakes as the first shots of world war three are fired, as well as the very personal stakes as we see what Cameron has to go through in such a short time. This is the prologue – and the story from here is going to be brutal and fascinaing

Of course, part of that frustration could stem from my belated realisation (after finishing the book) that this is The Days of Tao and not The Lives of Tao which means, yes, silly me has started a series half way through.