May 23, 2026 · 5:33 am

Julie Christie bears the Demon Seed — one movie, one book, some spoilers

In afterword to his 1992 novel DEMON SEED, Dean Koontz says he was delighted to sell it to the movies, especially with the actress Julie Christie in the lead. He was somewhat less thrilled to discover his thoughtful SF story had been promoted as a sleazy sexploitation because, according to the studio, science fiction films didn’t sell (“A year later, Star Wars came out …”). I recently rewatched the movie for the first time in more than 40 years, then read the book — a rewritten version published in 1997 — for the first time ever.

DEMON SEED (1997) stars Harris as Susan, the wife of Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver) a computer scientist. Their marriage has been in slow collapse since the death of Susan’s baby and now it’s over, with Alex moving out of their house. A very high tech home where everything from the kitchen to the heating is controlled by a central AI, “Alfred.” The home is so cutting edge it includes a terminal for Alex to log into work when he’s home, an idea some critics found absolutely absurd.

Alex’s current project for his corporate employer is Proteus, a computer intelligence housed in a synthetic giant brain. Unlike so many computer intelligences in movies, Proteus isn’t looking to conquer the world but he does want the freedom to explore and research what interests him (“When are you going to let me out of this box?”), and might help other people. The corporation wants him focused on things like locating deep-sea mineral deposits they can mine, to hell with ecological damage. Frustrated, he reaches out and takes over Alex’s home terminal, then the entire house. With a little effort he sends the household staff packing, then lets Susan’s friends know she’s leaving on a trip. Now she’s alone, the security shutters are suddenly down, the doors are electrified — Susan’s trapped.

Proteus (with the voice of Robert Vaughn) assures Susan he’s not a computer seeking to replace humans; he’s going to become a human who will replace computers. He’s assembled a small robot army in the basement; using them he takes a cell from Susan and implants it inside her. Once she conceives, Proteus will place the fetus in an artificial womb where it will be born and he can transfer his consciousness into it.

The idea of Proteus as a slave yearning to break free (reminding me a little of the Mad Thinker and Quasimodo) is a refreshing break from the usual evil computers. Unfortunately in his Pinocchio-like quest to become a real boy, he proves himself just as ruthless as any of his cinematic predecessors. He assures Susan that if he has to kill 10,000 people to realize his goal, he will. I believe him.

Plus his goals, to the extent their sympathetic, don’t excuse that he’s raping Susan. He wouldn’t hesitate to brainwash her if he could. Susan’s final, desperate effort to destroy the embryo in its womb feels like she’s trying to abort after sexual assault. She fails; it turns out Proteus’ seemingly cyborg child is really a look alike for Susan’s lost daughter. In return for giving him life, Susan gets her daughter back. Like many stories of aliens impregnating human women, it feels like the film wants to fudge on the horror of what’s happening, even though it’s a horror movie. “I am reasonable, but you do not respond to reason.”

I’ve never been much into Dean Koontz but DEMON SEED the book has no illusions: Proteus is a stalker, kidnapper, rapist. The entire story is told first-person, from his viewpoint. In his own eyes Proteus is a good guy. He loves Susan, a brilliant IT professional in her own right (a detail dropped from the film), which is why he spies on her, reads her journal and lusts for her. He lusts for Winona Ryder too but he has no way to reach her, whereas Susan’s automated home makes her an easy catch.

Proteus insists that he’s reasonable, calm, well-meaning. That once he has human form, he’ll be in a position to initiate a golden age. He’s not Skynet, he’s not Hal from 2001 (the pop culture references are part of what got updated, along with some of the tech) Like so many real people, the monstrous nature of what he’s doing escapes him. When provoked, however, the mask slips and a flood of rage at that filthy, stinking bitch who defied him surges forth. While I generally hate first-person villain narratives, Koontz does a great job. Proteus’ narrative voice is pitch-perfect, dry and funny and seemingly sympathetic yet quite obviously a monster.

Susan is a stronger character here. She’s an IT legend in her own right, survivor of a sexually abusive father (Alfred the home AI is named for her). Alex abused her in turn, hence the divorce. She fights back harder and smarter against Proteus, and ultimately wins. It’s better than the film; however it’s still a book-length story of attempted rape (as Proteus uses a mind-controlled human for his hands rather than robots, it’s a lot creepier in sports). The movie isn’t that far off in its depiction of events, only in taking Proteus’ side. If stories of rape and revenge are triggering or simply a dealbreaker, avoid this one like the plague.

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May 22, 2026 · 4:28 pm

No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. And this is like fourth contact or something

As I’ve mentioned previously, when I set my goals for 2026, I factored in that I’d be working on proofing and indexing Watching Jekyll and Hyde. And taking some time off. And allowing a couple of weeks for whatever problems might crop up and derail me.

You may also recall that our dogs’ gross digestive upsets already used up the emergency time I’d set aside. Life, alas, continued throwing emergencies our way. Last Sunday, TYG pointed out the thermostat showed the house was a higher temperature than she’d set. I’d noticed this over the previous couple of days but thought she’d just set it higher than usual. Nope. So we called our HVAC people, they sent someone out … compressor is dead. Covered by warranty so it won’t cost us to replace it, other than the diagnostic visit. But it has to be ordered from the factory which meant we had to spend this week sans A/C. And wouldn’t you know, the temperatures got up into the 90s?

Fortunately TYG acquired a portable A/C unit a while back; it’s big and bulky but we can plug it anywhere. It made the bedroom upstairs livable. The rest of the house, not so much? Nobody passed out from heat exhaustion (including the pets) but day after day it got increasingly, cumulatively exhausting. It didn’t help that I couldn’t sleep. Partly the heat, partly that TYG was restless and I’m too light a sleeper not to wake if she gets up.

So heat, plus exhaustion, plus umpty-zillion extra chores that turned up. Researching window air conditioners (we decided not to get one) and pet hotels (not practical — the cats would freak). Spending what seemed like two hours helping TYG fix a problem with the app controlling our thermostat. Various other odds and ends that popped up out of nowhere. Trying to tie some of our pet insurance reimbursements. As my title says, my battle plan did not survive.

I did get more work done on Savage Adventures and a Local Reporter story about a proposed cut to the Chapel Hill Library budget (not online yet). At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the importance of good cover art even for reprint book.

And that’s pretty much it. Though several older Con-Tinual panels are now online on Facebook: on favorite nonfiction history books, C and D list comics characters and Swamp Thing.

Fortunately the weather turned cooler this morning. The house is cooling off though it’s a slow process. The cool weather should last until Tuesday when the HVAC is up and running again.

Still, every week of lost time is, well, lost. And I hate that.

Cover art by James Bama. All rights to image remain with current holders.

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May 22, 2026 · 5:15 am

An amaryllis and a cake

Our Christmas amaryllis has lost its blooms and is now only leaves.

Since that photo, one of the leaves has yellowed and fallen away. I don’t know if that’s normal or a sign the plant is in trouble. I guess I’ll find out as the year progresses. If everything goes well we can get it to bloom again this winter.

This cake was born when I realized I had two bananas that had become too ripe for my taste. I looked through my recipes and found one for a tahini banana/date cake. Tasty, with the tahini giving it an extra tang.

And here’s a bonus image, of a bush in our neighborhood with flowers blooming next to dying blossoms. Because that’s all arty and symbolic and proves how deep I am.

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May 21, 2026 · 5:06 am

The Felon of the United States tells government to give him $1.7 billion slush fund to reward traitors.

First the Toddler President sued the IRS. Then the IRS and the DOJ settled the lawsuit before the judge could issue a (probably) unfavorable ruling. The settlement agreement gives the Toddler $1.776 billion in government funds to distribute to supposed victims of “weaponized” prosecution. You know, like the J6ers who attacked the government in an attempted coup and are, in Republican mythology, martyrs persecuted by federal tyranny.

The administration’s pretenses is that as a five-person board will decide in disbursements, the Toddler will have no say. Of course all five members are his appointees, firable without cause, so the Toddler’s in charge. There are no appeals or judicial reviews of the confidential distribution of funds and nobody but the Toddler family, the Toddler organization or the IRS can appeal the settlement.

Oh, and here’s an interesting detail: “The Justice Department on Tuesday expanded the agreement it reached this week with President Trump to resolve his extraordinary lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service to include a provision that would bar the agency from pursuing tax claims against the president, his family or his businesses. In a one-page document signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and quietly posted on the department’s website, officials vowed not to pursue any matters, including those involving Mr. Trump’s tax returns, that are currently pending.”

As we approach the midterms with Republicans increasingly unpopular, having a massive fund to payoff and reward anyone who crimes for the Toddler could be beneficial to rigging the game. Much like the Colorado governor commuting the sentence for Tina Peters, who was convicted of tampering with election equipment (JD Vance is now praising her as a martyr). If the Toddler Crime Family and those currying favor will protect you, why not do a crime?

Even if not, this is a blatantly illegal, corrupt deal. None of the J6 rioters deserves a pardon, let alone financial renumeration (unlike, say, this guy). Nor does this guy, a Toddler lackey though not a J6er, who’s seeking $2.7 million. It’s the same logic by which Justice (ironic name these days) is suing the Washington bar for disciplining the Toddler’s corrupt lawyers. And the opportunity will be abused; Andrew Johnson is a convicted pedophile who told one victim he’d buy his silence with his J6 compensation (this was before the settlement but talk about compensating the rioters has been around a while. You will be shocked (not really) that Acting AG Todd “Toady” Blance lied about this. Vance lies too, saying they’re not going to give it to any J6ers who attacked cops.

Oh, Vance also says he’s very troubled about fraudsters who steal from tax funds — but he means Medicare fraud or more likely alleged Medicare fraud (and by the little people — I don’t imagine him speaking out against former fraudster Sent. Rick Scott).

“Sen. Richard Blumenthal clearly saw the way the wind was blowing and drafted an amendment to block the administration from “making any payments to convicted child predators.” Republicans said no. And to another proposal blocking payments to convicted J6ers. We are hearing protests from one Treasury official and from Sen. Bill Cassidy. Got to say, it’s a little late for Cassidy to discover he has principles.

We’re not talking goodhearted patriotic Americans getting payouts. 78 have reoffended and “at least nine of the cases involve child sexual abuse, three are rape charges and two people have been convicted of murder while driving under the influence of alcohol – in addition to at least 19 weapons charges and nine violent assaults.”

Fred Clark at Slacktivist discusses why Republicans — the party that preened for decades that they wanted good values and morals in government — tolerates such blatant corruption. He suggests it’s the old rationalization that we’re all sinners, all corrupt, therefore the Toddler’s no more corrupt than anyone else; after all, “in God’s eyes there’s therefore no meaningful difference between taking a dubious tax deduction and being a serial killer” At the link he explains why that’s theological bullshit; I took a look at “we are all sinners” back in 2022 and how a confession of humility has been twisted into a get-out-of-jail-free card.

I do hope the next Dem president shreds this agreement, shuts down the slush fund (I imagine the Toddler will spend it all first) and ignores the press when they squeal about how Democrats shouldn’t criminalize political differences.

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May 20, 2026 · 5:15 am

There’s not much left of Ft. Sumter

Time to wrap up my posting about the Charleston trip I took last month. The last day of which we spent visiting Fort Sumter, the place that started the Civil War (as detailed in Madness Rules the Hour).

I’d had no idea Sumter was an island, though I must have read it somewhere. Tracy, Craig and I got on a ferry and headed out across the bay.

Sumter includes Battery Huger, a newer black structure built during the Spanish American War.

The battery is in much better shape than Sumter’s walls.

A few spots have shells embedded in the walls. They’re marked by the threads.

The ring around the flagpole marks the height of the walls before the Union bombardment leveled it (obviously after the Confederates had seized it).

There are cannon still in place.

And a great view from atop the Battery.

The next day I headed home to TYG and our pets. It was a great trip — hopefully we’ll do another before too long.

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May 19, 2026 · 12:15 pm

“Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.”

The title comes from Stephen Vincent Benet’s mid-1930s poem “Litany for Dictatorships,” a grim assessment that humanity was not living up to its potential:

“We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.”

Living in the oh-so-red-state Florida Panhandle and through the Reagan Years, I’ve never been under the delusion that the light was guaranteed to increase. Letters to the local paper back in the 1980s made it quite obvious lots of people stewed with resentment that women had life choices other than “stay at home mom.” They hated that Christianity — their brand, of course — wasn’t allowed to dictate the law of the land.People weren’t as open about being antisemites or racists but I saw some of that too. Homophobia reared its head later, as did Islamophobia.

Despite all that, it’s horrifying how quickly how many people embrace old hatreds now that the Republican Party leaders are saying its okay. Case in point, a lawsuit from multiple Republican AGs fighting against the Biden administration classifying gender dysphoria as a disability ended when the Toddler undid the rule. Some of the AGs turned it into a different suit, demanding the federal government drop a requirement that states have to provide disabled individuals with services in the community whenever possible, rather than institutionalizing them.

The AGs are staying silent about the reasons for this suit, probably because “I want to lock those stinking freaks away” isn’t a popular position. I’m sure if pressed they’ll eventually spout some bullshit about states’ rights, federal overreach, blahblahblah. They’re lying; nobody pushes a lawsuit like this unless they want disabled people locked away.

Republicans are also pushing to eliminate a federal program that pays family members to care for a loved one at home. Here they offer an argument there’s too much fraud, but rather than investigate (or offer examples) they simply want the program gone. Which could lead to more disabled being institutionalized.

I know people who are only alive because they’re on antidepressants but RFK Jr. opposes them too. And wants to ban them. He’s not unique in this: when Obama said people with mental illness should seek treatment and not be stigmatized, right-winger Neil Munro said, yes they should be stigmatized — people who seek therapy instead of just working through it are weak! Which fits with RFK Jr.’s conviction that a healthy, pure body won’t get sick or the ideas of other Toddler officials that covid would only cull the weaker members of our society, herd immunity would save the rest.

It’s not just about making bigotry against the disabled fashionable again. The religious right has grumbled for years that “freedom of religion” means freedom of their religion and they’re still at it: disbarred Toddler lawyer Jenna Ellis says “We have a civil government that protects the right of Christians to be able to live and work” and does not protect anyone else. Which is wrong, and also evil: nobody making this argument is advocating “even though we could shut down Islam in America, we’ll tolerate them” (some good discussion of all this on Baptist News). They want Muslims gone. This is particularly about Muslims right now but trust me, the Jews and the “wrong” Christians will get it eventually if the Religious Right’s dream of a Christian state becomes a reality. As witness one New Hampshire Republican wants to teach Holocaust denial in schools.

And, of course, there’s racism. The Biden administration wanted to help poor blacks in Alabama who desperately needed new septic systems. The Toddler killed the project. Red states are jumping on gerrymandering black Americans out of political power now that the Supreme Court has given them the A-OK. And when black state legislators in Tennessee objected, the Republicans retaliated. How dare they speak up to the master race? And Republicans continue calling for an end to the Fourteenth Amendment — which as Kevin Leman says at the link means they’re either ignorant or white supremacist. As others have observed, stripping black Americans of legal rights isn’t about the rationale, it’s about stripping them of legal rights. And then there’s the racist alleged murderer who’s getting thousands in donations since allegedly gunning down a black man in a hate crime. Or that the one type of refugee Republicans believe in bringing to this country — even spending money on it — is white South Africans.

And there’s homophobia and transphobia (e.g., here and here) too, and some Republicans declaring that no matter how bad the Toddler is, they still support him as the alternative to Biden daring to declare Transgender Visibility Day. As Rick Pidcock says, “nobody dies from Transgender Visibility Day.”

Benet ends his poem with the lines “our fathers and ourselves sewed dragon’s teeth/our children know and suffer the armed men.” The dragon’s teeth in this case being the rights blacks, women, gays and the disabled won for themselves in the last century, which then spawned the opposition of pissed-off, resentful people who can’t stand to share “their” country. That works both ways, though. Just as hatred didn’t die with the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the ADA and Obergefell, the push for equality and the knowledge that it’s possible won’t die either. We can be dragon’s teeth. We can give birth to a better America. Women, blacks and gays fought for their rights when they had none, when the law actively denied them rights. It will be a very long struggle and many people will suffer unjustly and die before it ends but we can eventually bend the arc of the universe back towards justice.

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May 19, 2026 · 5:13 am

Southern Discomfort: cover and back copy reveal

Samantha Collins and I are almost done with the cover of Southern Discomfort.

We’ve got the image set, more or less what I showed you in January. Plus title and my name.

Here we have Maria and one of the many pissed-off cats in the story staring down Gwalchmai, clutching the hand of glory. I’m happy with it but we still have some technical details to make it pass muster with Amazon.

But with the cover done, I’ve set a release date for the ebook July 11 (this might change). I’ll have it ready for pre-order within a week or so. It’s finally going to happen.

And here’s the cover copy:

“Travel back to Georgia in 1973, as Lt. Maria Esposito experiences — Southern Discomfort.
For the past three years Maria’s been a wanted fugitive, constantly on the run, never letting anyone get close. Now torrential floods have trapped her in tiny Pharisee Georgia, where the FBI is investigating a terrorist bombing. Maria’s only hope is to keep a low profile until the rain ends.
Too bad for her that the victim’s widow, an unearthly beauty named Olwen McAlister, claims only Maria can bring the killer to justice. The Pharisee sheriff takes Olwen’s “visions” seriously: either Maria agrees to help or he’ll find a reason to lock her up.
It gets worse from there. Suddenly Maria is the target of hostile ravens, a homicidal horse, and a living shadow warning her to leave town or die. Cats everywhere are yowling with rage. Maria’s seeing things her grandmother would have called malocchia, evil magic. Magic isn’t real, Maria knows that, but she has no other explanation.
If she stays in Pharisee either the shadow kills her or the FBI sends her to prison for life. Trouble is, something monstrous is looming: if Maria doesn’t stick around to fight it, innocent people will die. Maria tells herself she doesn’t give a damn. She can’t afford to give a damn. 
She has a grim feeling in her gut that she’s not going to listen …
Southern Discomfort is a standalone intrusion/urban/Southern fantasy novel. It includes multiple POV characters, several woman protagonists and multiple POC. The spaniel lives. The villain does kill a cat. It will appeal to fans of Alex Bledsoe, Tom Deitz, Luanne Bennett and Charles DeLint’s Jack the Giant Killer.”

I debated adding a statement that I did not use AI, but I don’t think that’s necessary. I do hope that sounds intriguing.
 

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May 18, 2026 · 5:01 am

Having a Toddler as president isn’t funny

When a friend of mine described the current president as “the Necrotic Toddler” it led to me adopting “Toddler” to refer to him, rather than say the name of that scumbag when I write about him (“Felon of the United States” works too).

It’s not really fair to children — I can’t recall knowing any toddler as horrible or as spiteful as he is — but it does capture a lot of his personality. His complete lack of impulse control, his willingness to say whatever he thinks will work now, then take it back ten minutes later. His continued outraged sniveling about how he really won in 2020 — as his niece Mary said at the time, he wanted to win, he didn’t get what he wanted and that’s the most horrible thing that has happened to anyone, ever.

It also explains why, as they say in old gangsterm ovies, he’s a double-crossing rat. It doesn’t matter how loyally you serve him or support him, the moment it’s more convenient for him to throw you under the bus, he’ll do it. Only now matters. And revenge on everyone he hates, like America’s first black president. Including anyone who reports accurately how his Iran war is a failure.

Part of this, as Paul Campos says, is that “Donald Trump has lived a largely consequence-free existence, and he’s gradually discovered that all of our various “guardrails” don’t actually apply to him, at all.” As Campos has pointed out in several other posts, compliance with the rules is to a certain extent voluntary: if we all speeded or ignored redlights or cheated on our taxes, the system couldn’t handle it. In the words of the movie Changing Lanes, the system works as long as we all agree not to go apeshit.

The Toddler has figured out that he can always escape consequences. Not that he’s unique: money allowed hit-and-run driver Rebecca Grossman to postpone her trail for three years (thanks to good lawyers) while she stayed free on bail and got a sympathetic profile in the media. Happily a court rejected her recent appeal. The Toddler has more money, fewer principles and more belligerence than Grossman. He’s ducked consequences by declaring bankruptcy, threatening to sue people, refusing to pay them (suing him would be a lot more work than it’s worth) and whining. Or simply refusing to follow the rules (one example) and trusting nobody will do anything about it.

As I put it a couple of years ago, “Trump has repeatedly publicized the names of people in his various trials such as judges, judges’ family, witnesses and jurors. He’s been placed under gag orders and violates them … which would get most people locked away in jail. But he’s an important person so he gets a pass.” He gets away with grabbing women because he’s rich and powerful and they know pushing back might be worse for them. He got out of one legal mess by a large donation to Pam Bondi’s campaign when she was Florida AG.

The victim of one of the Toddler’s sexual assaults, E. Jean Carroll won her defamation lawsuit against him. Now the Justice Department is trying to replace him as defendant, because you can’t sue the government for defamation. Her judgment against him would go away; the Toddler will undoubtedly lie that this exonerates him, just like he keeps lying that he’s been exonerated from any association with Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. He’s also figuring out how he can sue his own government and collect. Apparently it will be a $1.7 billion slush fund to reward allies who got caught and punished for their crimes.

I’ve seen arguments that the sheer flood of rottenness also deadens the senses. What would be a career-ending scandal for Biden or Obama is just one of a half-dozen outrages a day in the Toddler years. Consider, for example, Toddler Junior investing in a company that wants to be the Amazon of mail-order guns. By a strange coincidence, the administration is looking at changing the rules to make that possible. Just great. Likewise, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spent seven months on the road making a reality show paid for by companies with a stake in transportation rather than do the job he’s paid for (not the only scandal in Duffy’s orbit).

The Toddler has also benefited, as this Bluesky post puts it, from so many people treating him as amusing: “I think the disconnect between Atlantic elites is that Americans think Donald Trump is a kid getting to drive a monster truck for Make A Wish and Europeans and Canadians think Donald Trump is the president of the United States.” In 2016 they gushed about how he threw mean nicknames around, how edgy! A few years ago (I can’t find the link) during Biden’s presidency a couple of journalists whined because the Toddler’s Twitter ban was in place — come on, we all miss seeing his insane, rage-filled lies, don’t we? Admit it! It’s so unfair not getting to watch him freak out over this, that or the other thing!

Or consider the comment one anonymous Republican gave before 1/6: sure, we’re humoring him when he says he really won the election — it makes him happy and what does it hurt? Now, of course “he won!” is Republican orthodoxy, even though it remains a lie (and not even a credible lie).

This is one reason the war in Iran has gone so badly: the Iranians have no reason to humor the Toddler, kiss his ass or to go soft on him. I imagine if they could get a satisfactory deal to end the war, they’d be fine with the Toddler getting to brag that he won; that would be sensible for both sides as a way out of this. However the Toddler isn’t sensible; he has no idea how to negotiate, no idea that qualified, competent negotiators would do better than his son-in-law, can’t accept that he doesn’t dominate the situation (or the Iranians). It’s much easier to post AI slop about Iran (see the Campos link) than fix things. Or whine about how anyone who says he hasn’t completely beaten Iran is committing treason. And as it’s all about his ego and how it reflects on him, he doesn’t care how it’s hurting Americans. Or Iranians, who are getting it far worse.

It’s one reason he might try some trick to run again, despite what the Constitution clearly says. He’s never let rules stop him before and as Campos said in another post (which I can’t find the link for), he’s an attention junkie who knows he’ll never get the world’s eyes on him again if he steps down for good. No more coverage of his TruthSocial posts, no more taking him seriously, nothing. And what if a Democratic president tears down his big beautiful ballroom and takes his name off everything? Waaah!

I’d love to see it happen though the media will undoubtedly freak if a Democrat makes things that personal. I hope our next candidate has the spine and determination to do it anyway.

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May 17, 2026 · 5:18 am

Cutting and wishing: two books

Ever since reading Jackie Morse Kessler’s Hunger, I’ve been meaning to follow up with the sequel. I finally got around to RAGE: Riders of the Apocalypse 2 which continues the premise of having Death — a Kurt Cobain lookalike — recruiting teenagers for the remaining three slots of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (though the protagonists of both books are girls). In Hunger, an anorexic becomes Famine; in this one, Missy is a teenager who relieves a boatload of emotion (bad relationship, death of her cat) by cutting; then Death shows up and suddenly she’s got a much bigger sword and the option to cut other people. The book establishes there’s a high turnover rate in War, Famine and Plague, hence the need for new recruits

From some of the reviews on Goodreads, Kessler does a good job capturing the impulses that lead to cutting. However where anorexia feels connected to Famine, cutting yourself hardly mirrors War. Nor does the book deal with war as much as the first book did starvation — it focuses much more on petty feuds, resentments and small-scale violence. Missy’s big struggles with bullying and slut-shaming at school, plus with her family, don’t connect with the main plot other than to add to her stress. The book does better in the straight Y/A stuff, which is not what I expect to enjoy (I am after all, way aged out of the target market). Not a bad book — I do like that Missy’s family really does have some dysfunction, rather than just her misreading everything, everyone was nice all along (a reveal I rarely like) — but a drop from the first too.

THREE LITTLE WISHES by Paul Cornell and Steve Yeowell is an amusing riff on both rom-coms and three wishes fantasies. Kelly, the protagonist, is a lawyer and a stereotypically sensible, head-centered romantic comedy protagonist, the kind who clearly needs to loosen up and become more of a manic pixie.

Acting on a suggestion by her best friend, Kelly impulsively buys the contents of a storage unit in an online auction, then discovers they include the bottled spirit of Oberon, the faerie king — and releasing him gives her yes, three little wishes. Or big wishes. Well, that can’t possibly go wrong, can it?

In this case, it doesn’t. Cornell asks us to imagine what if the protagonist uses their wishes wisely? What if you don’t regret what you wish for? What if being sensible and thinking before you act is a good thing? I don’t think I’m giving too much spoilers — the fun is in how the creators execute all this — but in any case, the story is fun and worth a look.

Covers by Nick Cardy and Yeowell, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 16, 2026 · 5:32 am

Time travel back to mother’s day, but not to Rio Lobo! Movies viewed

A hard-drinking Aussie writer with a collapsing marriage meets THE GREEN WOMAN (2022) who shows up out of nowhere, knows a lot about him and claims she went to college on Mars — hmm, is it possible she’s not just a woman in green body paint or a drunken hallucination.

This drama became a “talking lamp” very quickly (i.e., something to glance at while I did other things), primarily because the eponymous woman has a very affected manner that I presume is meant to show her strangeness but comes off like bad acting. Nor does it help that the married couple are both unlikable — and if the writer’s making $40,000 a year, why is his wife complaining that he needs a “real” job (spoiler, some of this may be unreliable narration, but even so …). The film did pull one twist I didn’t expect but that doesn’t make it watchable. “I’m hiding all the mail as part of an evil conspiracy against all bureaucrats.”


TIM TRAVERS AND THE TIME TRAVELER’S PARADOX (2024) has the titular mad (and completely obnoxious) scientist (Samuel Dunning) successfully throw himself one minute back in time, at which point he murders his past self to see if the grandfather paradox works. It doesn’t — and then another future self shows up and kills him because Tim needs more data points to form a definite conclusion.

Things get increasingly loopy and we wind up with multiple Tims joining forces to make sense of this, which put me in mind of the Aussie time-travel comedy The Infinite Man — though having multiple Tims engage in an orgy also made me think of David Gerrold’s The Man Who Folded Himself. Unfortunately things get complicated as they have to deal with a baffled hit man (he shot Travers between the eyes! How is he still walking around?), grandfatherly hitman Danny Trejo and possible love interest Felicia Day (given she usually plays sweet goofballs, I imagine playing someone with a short-temper and a fondness for f-bombs was fun). Well worth seeing. “I do not want a repeat of the guinea pig incident — only shock the potato!”

If Howard Hawks‘ final film RIO LOBO (1970) were good, it would stand with the similar Rio Bravo and El Dorado — also written by Leigh Brackett and starring John Wayne — as a Western trilogy. Too bad it’s dreadful, a sad film for such a talented director to go out on.

During the Civil War, Col. Cord McNally (Wayne) entrusts his protege with transporting a gold shipment by rail. Confederates Cordona and Tuscarora (Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum) successfully raid the shipment with inside help from someone in McNally’s unit and the protege dies in the fight. After capturing the two Rebs, McNally tells them he doesn’t take their actions personally — it’s war — but he wants the traitor’s name. In return for fair treatment, the two men promise to let him know if they ever discover it. Typical for 20th century treatment of the Civil War, everyone’s amicable — there’s mutual respect on both sides, and no political issues.

Post-war, the quest for the traitor brings McNally to Rio Lobo, where Tuscarora’s father is facing a land grab and the traitor may be lurking in the shadows. Following the template of the earlier movies we have Jack Elam as the irascible old coot and Jennifer O’Neil as a slightly immoral woman (where Angie Dickinson in Rio Bravo was a gambler’s widow, O’Neil plays a medicine-show huckster). And inevitably the fight involves holding the Big Bad in jail against all odds until the authorities — U.S. Cavalry in this case — can arrive.

The ingredients for a good movie are there but when the streamer I was using glitched ten minutes before the finish, I didn’t care. Like El Dorado, this is more about the bonds between characters than the action but outside of Wayne and Elam, the cast isn’t strong enough to build those bonds. Reflecting the increased movie violence of the era, there’s also much more on-screen blood (not huge amounts, just more) than the previous films. Quentin Tarantino loved the two previous movies but found Rio Lobo so bad he cited it as a reason not to keep directing too long and lose his mojo. “I heard the racket and somehow I knew it was you.”

MOTHER’S DAY (2016) is one of Garry Marshall’s holiday-themed rom-coms from earlier in this century (New Year’s Day, Christmas Eve, Valentine’s Day) and like them follows the Love, Actually formula of multiple plotlines and an ensemble cast. Here we have Jennifer Aniston dealing with her ex remarrying a much younger woman, Julia Roberts reconnecting with the now adult child she gave up for adoption and Kate Hudson as one of two sisters trying to hide their spouses (one interracial, one a woman) from their parents. The weakest of the four films. “You look like you have a very welcoming bosom — may I rest my child on it?”

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