Doxacon

I went to Doxacon, a Christian science fiction and fantasy convention. It was on Saturday, Feb. 8th, in Woodinville, a suburb of Seattle. Its name comes from the fact it was founded by an Eastern Orthodox priest.

Scenery outside

The attendance was somewhat over fifty, compared to a normal six thousand for Norwescon or thousands more for Worldcon.

One of the volunteers running things was Megan.

The day started with a worship service, the Daily Morning Prayer service of the Anglican/Episcopal Church.

Then, while people were getting coffee or tea or finding their seats, a tall woman with long dark hair simply stood at her table. She wore a black sheath with a couple of gold chains at her waist. She didn’t seem to be looking for anyone, so that was puzzling.

She turned out to be SK Ehra, an author and the first speaker. So she had been standing like that to get a feel for the audience. She gave a lengthy, detailed lecture on science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She granted that these can be forms of escapism. But they are a way of going beyond the material universe to grasp truths that we know exist. She used illustrations from a number of books to show such fiction can ask us hard questions about ourselves.

She gave a defense of horror I had never heard before. When horror is done right, it reflects different mental states. If I remember correctly, a person haunted by a ghost may be having guilt for past sins. (Or it could be bad memories. I apologize if I got that wrong.)

Afterwards, I went up to her and said that was the best lecture I had ever heard on the subject, and I had been to many Norwescons and Worldcons. Her lecture was so good because she emphasized the fallen nature of the world.

The Writers Panel was composed of Reece Friesen, Tasha Kennedy, Suzanne Hayek, Aaron Ryan, Rosamund Hodge, and Kevin King. Sorry, I didn’t think to get a group picture. You might look up their books and see what you think.

There were a number of other sessions, some similar to a regular con, some very different. I’m glad I went and experienced something different.

BOOK REVIEW: The Lies of Vampires and Slayers

Jade is a vampire slayer, though she denies it. She comes from a family of vampire slayers, with the inherited ability to sense vampires or blood nearby. But slayers are the hired assassins of the supernatural world, and Jade is through with it. She wants to make a positive difference, so she has left them behind to join the Magical Response Task Force. Teaming up with wizards, were-beings, and vampires, they form an elite force that patrols the streets of Magiford to take on any supernatural rowdies who disturb the peace.

But Jade is not really accepted by her teammates They assume nothing good about her attempts to talk. When she approaches two teammates, who are exchanging friendly insults, “My movement killed Brody and Tetiana’s verbal sparring. Their smiles disappeared when they glanced at me.” (p. 6) What makes it worse is Jade has a phobia of socializing. Her attempts are pathetic, whether with her teammates or ordinary humans in her apartment complex, ending in silence or a few words that don’t sound friendly. When a neighbor holding a baby and a diaper bag tries to talk to her, she just mumbles. Then when the neighbor struggles her way into an elevator, Jade is belatedly able to talk. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I should have—and she’s gone.” (p.74) Going back to the Task Force, Jade has to be careful when she bleeds, because her blood can be deadly to vampires.

Jade turns out to be quite effective. She has enough dexterity that she can climb a chain link fence with a dagger in either hand, then perch on the edge of an open dumpster. She also seems to sprint farther than a normal human can. And when six insects the size of cars invade from the fae realm, six members of the Task Force fight them. Jade doesn’t want to use her handgun, since humans are around, so she stabs two of them to death by herself.

The running gag/slow burn throughout the story is her relationship with an immensely old, extremely powerful vampire named Considine. Jade encounters him and wonders what he is doing in Magiford. He happens to move in next to Jade and calls himself Connor. Since Jade always wears a mask while on patrol and never reveals her name, and since Considine always has his hood scrunched together when outside so only his red eyes can be seen, they don’t recognize each other. Since Jade finds it easy to talk to vampires, they spend time together, each lying about their backgrounds. And so Jade finds someone she can get close to.

K.M. Shea’s The Lies of Vampires and Slayers kept my interest throughout. But it was not because of the quality of the storytelling. It had all to do with Jade’s personality. Her phobia of socializing is realistically described, and her fumbling attempts to do small talk are achingly realistic. This continues throughout the story, and it never gets old.

A couple of supporting characters also never get old. Tetiana is a female vampire from Ukraine. Since vampires live so long, they often do not keep up with the latest technology. When they are supposed to call in to headquarters, she always shouts into her handheld radio, because headquarters are so far away. Grove is a fairy who constantly carries potions. He offers them whenever a teammate gets hurt. Since some are poisonous concoctions he hurls at monsters, his teammates often turn him down.

So the characters are interesting, but the storytelling is not the best. Often, Shea puts in too much detail. She goes to great lengths to describe the clothing of even minor characters, including the color of each item, which just slows down the storytelling. When running with her radio, Jade notes, “I had to slow a little bit so I’d be understandable as I unhooked my radio and pressed the button so I could talk.” (p. 142) These details do not make the scenes more vivid; they just lard them down.

Also—and don’t roll your eyes at this—she often does not separate participial phrases with commas. When Grove hurls one of his potions, “It shattered on impact showering him with golden liquid.” (p. 267) We need a comma between “impact” and “showering.” This occurs constantly throughout the book, and it jerks a reader out of the story.

On a more meta level, The Lies of Vampires and Slayers is part of a shared universe. This is great for her fans, and is a reason to buy more of her books. But it does not always work smoothly. Jade’s Magical Response Task Force is part of the Curia Cloisters. Shea never defines in this particular book what that is.

But overall, Jade has an engaging personality, and the action scenes are interesting. A great plus is that the novel has no sex scenes and no swearing or foul language. I wish more urban fantasy novels were like that.

St. Stephen's Day

Happy St. Stephen’s Day.

Ever wonder why the hymn “Good King Wenceslas” is sung around Christmas? If you go through the hymn, there is not one word about Christmas. It is actually a St. Stephen’s Day hymn, which is December 26^th. This gets associated with Christmas, which is a good thing, otherwise it might not be sung. The same thing happens with St. Nicholas’ Day, which is December 6^th. So now you know why he is associated with Christmas.

For me, this was a good day of rewriting. I was rather satisfied with a particular scene (less than a chapter) involving two characters in my novel Day 10K. I had hired two freelance editors (more on that in a later post). The first said that in her opinion, this scene slowed down the story. The second one said he saw no point to the scene. So after thinking about it a little, I deleted the scene and summarized the essential information in a few sentences in a later scene. It’s important to listen to professionals (or beta readers). If they have problems with the same scenes, it may be best to cut.

Barnes & Noble had a sale of one-third off all hardcovers today. I had seen a slim hardcover that looked interesting, but it cost $23.00, so I thought I would look for a used copy. But when I found out about the sale, I decided to buy the new copy. In addition, since I’m a member, that meant an additional 10% off. I was surprised that the total before tax was $11.50. That is a lot less than a third off and a tenth off. It turns out there was a promotional sale of 50% off for it. Would the promotion have been good on any other day? Shrug.

I’ll have to let you know what I think of it.

Here is a random street sign. Anything odd here?

Book Review: My Dear Hemlock

My Dear Hemlock by Tilly Dillehay

Canon Press, 2024, 182 pp.

Tilly Dillehay’s My Dear Hemlock is her concept of a female version of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. For those who are not familiar with that novel, it is a series of letters from a senior demon named Screwtape to junior demon Wormwood on how to tempt a particular man. What Dillehay has done is pen a series of letters from a senior demon who has taken female form, Madame Hoaxrot, to a junior demon who has also taken female form, Hemlock. Hoaxrot gives her best advice to Hemlock on how to tempt a particular woman.

Objections to the very idea of the book have been juvenile.

·       -  The writing cannot be on a level with C.S. Lewis’. Dillehay does not pretend that it is.

·      -  We don’t need another Screwtape Letters. Dillehay firmly believes there are temptations particular to women.

Having dismissed the objections to the very existence of the book, I have to say that for the most part it didn’t really reach me. I don’t think this is mostly because I am not a woman. Although I like the concept, the insights it gives on how a woman might be tempted did not strike a cord with me that much.

But here is a part where she does sound like C.S. Lewis:

You asked which is better: to encourage your woman to start a fight with the husband about what he did, or to encourage her to ignore what he did and punish him with silence. The answer is—yes. Honestly, it’s little matter to me which she does, as long as her heart is cooled and hardened toward her husband and the Enemy. (p.17)

The concept of demons not caring which opposing choice a human takes, so long as it is wrong, is much like The Screwtape Letters.

Since this is an updated version, we find out the demons like smartphones. “Social media has made it possible for her to do something, to take concrete steps to pursue the fame she desires.” (p. 38) “And her husband’s eyes will never provide the inflation of regard she requires.” (p.39) Serious articles have been written on how too much smartphone use can erode relationships, but this captured it nicely.

The letter I found most interesting was “On Envying the Pastor’s Wife.” A new pastor comes to the woman’s church, and the pastor’s wife is kind, wise, and attractive. She is constantly invited to dinners. The other women of the church are paying attention to the pastor’s wife, not to the woman being tempted. Madame Hoaxrot finds this to be “Pure comedy.” (p. 133) The hope is that this woman will become envious. The ways that envy can become hatred were insightful.

Hoaxrot’s letters seesaw back and forth between the woman falling for a temptation, or completely avoiding it or even repenting. I suspect that despite my tepid reaction to it, many will find it interesting.

Dolly the Vampire Slayer—Reprise

Dolly Parton has been in the news a lot recently. In October, the State Department granted her the 2024 PEACE Through Music Award. Then in November, she was #1 in Billboard’s 100 Greatest County Artists of All Time.

This gives me enough reason to reprise my 2020 post, Dolly the Vampire Slayer.

________________________________

Or this could be called “Slay Belle.” So this is the convergence between Dolly Parton, country music star, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Dolly Parton rocketed to fame with her hit song “9 to 5,” which was the centerpiece of the 1980 movie of the same name. She became famous not only as a country singer, but as a symbol of what nowadays is called female empowerment.

Then there is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the TV series that jumpstarted the subgenre knows as urban fantasy. Were there some urban fantasy novels before Buffy? Sure. But it was the Buffy series that made urban fantasy an overwhelming subgenre in novels, movies, and TV shows.

So how did that happen? It turns out Dolly Parton was an uncredited producer of the original movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That’s right. And Dolly’s company financed the TV series. It was Dolly Parton behind it all the time! 

 photo by Eva Rinaldi

But what if Dolly hadn’t done that? See my post What if Buffy had Never Been? to see how life as we know it would be different. Meanwhile, you can see every season opening for Buffy below, including the musical episode.

Then you’ll definitely want to see my post Buffy the Vinyl Slayer.

Magazine Reviews

These stories are from the November/December 2024 Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, and the November/December 2024 Analog magazine. If these are not still in your bookstores, you can order them from their publishers.

In Asimov’s, the cover story is “Murder on the Orion Express” by Peter Wood. It’s a catchy title, but other than the fact that it’s a mystery, it bears no resemblance to an Earthly train. It’s on a one-hundred-and-twenty-five-year trip to Orion, and it’s Ava Martin’s shift to be out of stasis as a ship cop. And it’s just her luck that a murder occurs on her watch. The ship is divided between two political parties, neither of which listens much to Ava. The leader of one party is missing. A recording shows the other leader killing him with a photon gun and shoving the body off the ship. But the other leader points out none of the photon guns have been removed from the armory in years. So what is going on?

Wood deftly goes from segments on the murder mystery to segments on the mutiny, thirty years before. The mutiny isn’t that important; Ava mainly has roommate problems. Her roommate purposefully stays out of stasis long enough to outrank her. This does not help when the roommate comes out of stasis again and tries to one-up Ava during the murder investigation. This story works well as a collision of different personalities.

I think the best story in Asimov’s is a much shorter one, “Deep Space has the Beat” by Mary Robinette Kowal (and yes, it’s another catchy title). This is a contemporary story, wherein Isolde, an engineering major, has opened a dance club. The title has to do with how all the wall screens show images of deep space. But someone is sabotaging her opening night by turning some of the wall screens into porn. And a big investor is going to show up in fifteen minutes.

Isolde has psoriasis on the back of her neck, which acts up during stress. She has to constantly fight the urge to scratch the itch, which turns into a crawling burn as she tries to figure out who is sabotaging her. This is a good story for people (like me) who don’t know what that condition is like, and for people who like the club scene.

In Analog, the best story is another mystery, “Mirrorstar” by Sean McMullen. The Mirrorstar is a massive space telescope, wider than the Earth. Only three dozen people are in the Habitat area. The main character is Dr. Connell, who is a doctor and had been a forensic pathologist, so he can serve as a detective if the need arises. It certainly does when one of the crew in a distant part of the telescope has her body temperature go down to minus one-twenty Celsius. This appears suspicious when a distant camera shows her to be naked. But then it turns weird when her body is shown to be covered in brown fur.

Things get even stranger in “Mirrorstar” before there is some resolution. I can’t say I find it completely satisfying. Also, there is the overall attitude that people still on Earth are somewhat barbaric compared to the people in the telescope. But McMullen has an interesting style, combining careful investigation with terse conversations with co-workers.

I Voted

 

Labors of Love: Megalopolis, The Apostle, Coriolanus

I have not seen Megalopolis. I know that a lot of people walked out on it, while some critics found some artistic merit. This is not a negative blog, so I will draw no conclusions about it. My point is that it is a labor of love.

Francis Ford Coppola spent decades working on this movie. Instead of a production company shouldering the cost, he reportedly sold part of his wine business to finance it. This is what makes a movie a labor of love: A man considers himself a visionary (women don’t tend to do this), he spends years working on a project, and he cannot convince people in the business to pony up the funds for it.

These labors of love usually don’t work. The visionary isn’t as great as he thinks he is. Years of work poured into a project doesn’t make it great. And there are usually good reasons why people in the business do not want to invest in it.

Having said that, I have seen two labors of love that have worked.

The older one is The Apostle. This was written by, directed by, and starred Robert Duvall. He had had a career high when he won an Oscar for Tender Mercies. He then had a good but ordinary career after that. Somewhere in there he was working for years on this labor of love. Producers turned him down because they said audiences didn’t want to see a movie about religion, so he had to use his own money.

He plays a holy roller preacher who is a raving egomaniac. No matter what he does, he considers himself a servant of God, though he admits he is a “womanizer” and commits a horrific act of violence. Farrah Fawcett gives a surprising turn as his wife, who wants a divorce. Contrary to what some people have said, this is not a story of redemption. He christens himself The Apostle and starts a new church.

Critics and audiences alike consider it a masterpiece. I was astonished by Duvall’s fearless acting. You really need to see Robert Duvall as a holy roller in the rural South.

The other triumphant labor of love that I have seen is Coriolanus. This was directed by and starred Ralph Fiennes. I believe he spent five years on this project. He didn’t pony up his own money, so I may be contradicting myself here. But he made the controversial decision to show the story in modern dress, using modern military equipment. I usually detest such things (there was one modernized version of Hamlet that I truly hated). But I was suitably impressed by this version of Coriolanus.

Purists will note that whole swaths of dialogue from the play were left out, as they decided to make a trim, taut story. His mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and his wife (Jessica Chastain) are turned into fierce women, which is fine by me. Warning: One character commits suicide, which was not in the play, and may be disturbing.

So choose a labor of love and see what you think.

Movie Review: Reagan

Reagan is a biography of Ronald Reagan, an actor who became a two-term governor of California and a two-term president of the United States. This is a more traditional sort of biography: There is no attempt to go smoothly from one major part of his life to another. Instead, it focuses in great detail on certain strategic moments. For instance, it completely skips his negotiating with Congress to pass massive tax cuts that made the economy prosper. But it focuses in surprising detail on the Reykjavik summit with the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons, down to his wearing an ordinary suit despite the cold, to look more like a leader.

The movie wisely does not cover the fifty-three films he made. Instead, it focuses on his successful attempts to prevent Communists from taking over the Screen Actors Guild, a struggle that many of his fans are not aware of.

The theme of Reagan is his unfaltering opposition to Communism. He did what he could when he was governor of California, but it was when he became president that the movie compellingly shows his victory after victory.

Reagan was completed in 2021. Dennis Quaid, who has had quite the film career, had reached the level of gravitas by then to portray the president. There are uncanny scenes in the film when he sounds like Reagan, and he even looks like Reagan for a few moments. Penelope Ann Miller does a sprightly job of portraying his wife Nancy. For fans of Kevin Sorbo, he does a brief appearance as the minister of the Disciples of Christ church where Reagan was raised.

Some have accused this movie of hagiography. (The proper use of this term has to do with pious accounts of the lives of saints. In movies and literature, it is a highly critical term that means a biography that portrays the subject as someone who can do no wrong, and which leaves out any problems.) This is not true. Reagan spends a surprising amount of time on his making schlock commercials at the bottom of his acting career, so that he bitterly referred to himself as a “clown.” It also shows the Iran-Contra scandal, and Reagan finally admitting in a speech that his administration had indeed traded arms for hostages. And it does show the tragic nature of his Alzheimer’s, when he could not remember he had once been president.

This movie should be recommended to everyone who is too young to remember those years.

The funniest line in the movie occurs after Soviet Premier Brezhnev dies, followed in quick succession by Andropov and Chernenko. A frustrated Reagan slams down a phone and asks, “How can I establish communications with them when they keep dying on me?”

These were crucial and dangerous times, and the movie shows us Ronald Reagan’s role in them.