September 2, 2026 · 5:18 am

When do the good times start?

When I watched The Exorcist a couple of years back, I was struck by how slowly the story opens, showing us the details of everyday life. It was a carefully calculated decision to ground the film in the “real” world before the spookery gets going.

I think the source novel, William Peter Blatty’s THE EXORCIST, does the same thing, but less successfully. It’s a hundred pages of mundane detail about Chris and Regan’s lives (and some about the priests) before anything happens; sure, there’s some odd noises in the attic, but that’s as creepy as it gets. Even after the supernatural happens, the resistance to accepting it gets comical: sure, someone fell down the steps with his head completely twisted around on his neck but that could certainly happen naturally! No, not it couldn’t.

I presume this reflects that Blatty was writing in an era when mainstream horror novels weren’t a thing — this was three years before Stephen King broke in with Carrie. So perhaps grounding it in reality was necessary — and the book’s blockbuster success clearly shows it didn’t hurt. Nevertheless I couldn’t get into it; Blatty’s oddly jerky prose style didn’t help. I do think a little more tension in the everyday stuff would have been a good idea — if you’re going to spend more than a quarter of the book in the mundane world, find some way to make it interesting.

This is, of course, a challenge lots of speculative fiction writers face when they’re setting stories in our world. Some plunge right in: the opening page of Storm Front informs us that Harry Dresden is a wizard helping people out with supernatural problems. My short story “The Savage Year” (in 19-Infinity) opens with mage Artemis West getting ready to perform magic on a job for the Secret Service. “The Glory That Was” in the same book has a robot minotaur break in on a political luncheon.

Other stories take time to build. Southern Discomfort, as I’ve mentioned before, starts with little overt magic. We have Maria’s sense of something wrong, hints that Pharisee Georgia is, shall we see, eccentric (no stop signs allowed — traffic circles instead), freakish rainstorms. Until the ravens attack as Maria’s getting off the bus, there’s nothing that seems strongly supernatural. However Chapter Two spells out that this is a town run by elves, and the person who murdered Aubric McAlister is not of mortal clay. Not a long wait.

That puts me in mind of Orson Scott Card’s old rule that the opening and ending of your story should mirror each other. Mine starts out with Maria in a bad place: on the run from the cops, emotionally closed, desperate. The final scene is all about resolving that. Likewise Let No Man Put Asunder starts with Mandy and Paul waiting for their life to begin, and ends accordingly. Maybe that’s what bugged me about The Exorcist: it starts with Chris but it’s not really a character-centered story where her personal arc is resolved at the end. Instead it switches to horror midway through and stays there.

Then again we have the priest supporting character who does indeed get a character arc. Unlike the movie, he’s not quite interesting enough to be the spine of the story, at least for me — like I said, the success of Blatty’s book certainly speaks for itself. But like I said, I didn’t find it terribly compelling, and I think I’ve identified why.

All rights to images remain with current holders. Covers top to bottom by Lee Macleod, Kemp Ward and Sam Collins.

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September 1, 2026 · 5:15 am

How many gentle flowers grow?

Some years back, when my sister and our mutual best friend visited here, we went to the Sarah Duke Gardens. Surprisingly TYG has never been so recently we visited. It’s still beautiful — see for yourself.

Hope that brightens your Tuesday a little.

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August 31, 2026 · 5:15 am

The rottenness and folly of so many of the “elite”

Right-wingers have been sneering at elites for years. The “pointy-headed intellectuals” who had the ridiculous idea Jim Crow segregation wasn’t righteous. The conviction that small town and rural Americans are the real Americans, not the decadent cosmopolitan immigrant scum living in cities. That the simple, honest view of a common man who knows nothing is better than someone with an education. It’s a variation of the Imaginary Republican fantasy: all small towns are sweet and decent like Mayberry, all cities are the same crime-ridden hellholes as in Dirty Harry. The uneducated man sees the simple common-sense truth that blacks are inferior, women belong in the kitchen, rape is an attack on men; the elites are out to deny all that with their … facts.

While this is bullshit, they got one thing right: many of our “elite” don’t amount to much. They’re rich because chasing money is an end in itself, no matter what damage it does. Rather than risk any fractional loss of prestige or money, they kiss the Toddler’s ass. Those elites the right-wing is fine with because they end up supporting the social hierarchy instead of challenging it. Rupert Murdoch’s elite but he’s not going to topple white men off their position as apex predator. That said, let’s looks at some of our odious elites in action:

Centimillionaire Flock CEO Garrett Langley insists that restricting Flock cameras from intruding into people’s privacy puts safety at risk. Regulating or refusing to use Flock would be bad! Of course, the topic he was discussing was cops using Flock to stalk women, the loss of privacy isn’t increasing safety, it’s putting people in danger. Police tracking someone with Flock to create a pretext for a search doesn’t seem like a safety vs. privacy issue either.

The Toddler is letting Wall Street know, for a price, what he’ll be tweeting about on Truth Social, an obvious business advantage. Business woman and Toddler supporter Carla Sands insists it’s all Democrats fault.

“President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars by placing bets on more than a dozen of Trump’s speeches on the prediction market Kalshi, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.” Prediction markets are also arguing that betting on the survival of individuals with cancer isn’t at all objectionable (no handy link, sorry).

Turn over an accused murderer to Minnesota? Not on Greg Abbott’s watch!

Treasury Secretary Luke Bessent is planning to revoke the non-profit status of left-wing groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Someone should explain to him that the corrupt tax man working for the evil tyrant is never the good guy. Oh, and they’ve also arrested a former SPLC employee for fraud. Guess it really hurts right-wing fee-fees when SPLC labels hatemongers as hatemongers.

Corporate elites? Looking at the way some drug stores now lock up even trivial items, Danny Katch concludes “the great lotion lockup was a corporate moral panic, which has been a disaster for their profits and for the rest of us a degrading enshittification of running basic errands.”

SCOTUS continues putting the one before the many, and using the shadow docket to avoid explaining.

Okay, Sean Duffy ain’t much of an elite as far as accomplishments, but he is a Toddler cabinet member. So let’s remember a couple of months back when he announced he’s fighting DEI by defunding bike lanes.

How private equity bled Red Lobster dry to line their own pockets.

BMW is a luxury car brand. Owners are less than thrilled that when they start a new car up, they have to endure ads.

Republican Rep. John McGuire revives the old bullshit about human baby parts in covid vaccines “when they could just have used ivermectin.”

The entire Republican caucus voted for RFK Jr. as head of federal health policy, even though they knew he was anti-vax. They knew his views but when he lied about his track record, they pretended to believe him. Now kids are dying of measles. But hey, there’s money in quack medicine — there always has been.

“If we ask why is this outrage, this fundamental tax cheating permitted to continue, the answer is very clearly, it is the power of people with money who want to be able to avoid taxes. And their ability to avoid taxes leads them having even more money, which reinforces that power.” Small wonder that one billionaire CEO suggests we make it official: give him extra votes for being rich.

And of course, there’s the least competent, most dim-witted member of the elite, our Toddler president.

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August 30, 2026 · 5:30 am

A sorceress, a heroine, a feminist philosopher: books

T. Kingfisher’s A SORCERESS COMES TO CALL shows she definitely has a type in protagonists. Like Thornhedge and Nettle and Bone, the protagonist, Cordelia, is a socially awkward, emotionally numb woman who badly needs some found family to help her live again. Unlike them, Cordelia’s numbness is because she’s the daughter of the sorceress of the title; whenever Cordelia breaks the rules or doesn’t show her mother appropriate devotion, Mom reduces her to a puppet for a few days. What are rules? Cordelia has no idea.

Mom’s determined to see her daughter marry rich and if Cordelia objects, well, too bad. Not from any big scheme; she’s a mom in a vaguely Edwardian world and she knows what’s best for her daughter — some day, she probably, imagines, Cordelia will thank her. As innocent people get enmeshed in her mother’s schemes, Cordelia has to fight back, but even when she finds allies, what can they do against magic? This was very good, though the opening was so creepy in the way Cordelia was suffering, I almost put it down.

Following Heroine Complex and Heroine Worship, Sarah Kuhn deliver’s HEROINE’S JOURNEY focuses on Evie’s younger sister. Bea is an empath, constantly frustrated Evie and Annie won’t let her fight crime alongside her. And what’s with the way her long-time platonic friend Sam is getting her all hot and bothered? And is it possible Bea and Evie’s mom isn’t dead but kidnapped into the demonworld?

This has some good elements such as the sister’s relationship and Asian-American life (according to Bea, “Asian girl with multicolored hair” is now a trope) but it didn’t work as well as the first two books. Bea is more annoying than engaging and the ending felt like two chapters of epiphanies: everyone understands perfectly what their feelings are and everyone can explain them perfectly. That rarely works for me.

Kate Manne is a feminist philosopher who coined the term “Himpathy” for the way we’re supposed to sympathize with the tragic male figure accused of sexual harassment or rape. I figured her DOWN GIRL: The Logic of Misogyny would be interesting but I DNFed. Manne’s argument is that misogyny and sexism less about hate — thinking that’s the issue is “naive” she says in one chapter — than about resenting women for not providing the emotional/sexual/practical support some men think they deserve; sexism is the rationale for women’s subjugation, misogyny is the tools. Which is a fine definition (I used a different one in Undead Sexist Cliches but I don’t claim I have the definitive definition) but then she gets to the case of misogynist mass-shooter Elliot Rodger and a lengthy discussion about why his actions fit her definition better than a simple “hate’s women” and I couldn’t get into it.

All rights to cover images remain with current holders. Don’t know the artists.

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August 29, 2026 · 5:15 am

Atlantis rises — and so does Superman! Movies and TV

GOLDEN NINJA (1966) has an astronomer who’s discovered the rogue planet Icarus is hurtling towards Earth join a UN team that’s working to destroy the planet with a super-laser. Too bad the sinister Noza’s out to steal the laser and bring about Earth’s death — who can save us now?

Well, as the title tells us, it’s the Golden Ninja, a laughing gold-lame clad superhero who rises from his tomb in ancient Atlantis to battle Noza. This silly but engaging movie was originally Golden Bat, which makes more sense (he has a bat familiar he uses at key moments) — but then again, I can’t imagine anyone watching this movie was worried about the plausibility of Atlantean ninjas. I am, however, bothered that Noza’s weird outfit makes him resemble a four-eyed pantomime horse. “Humans don’t belong in this universe — this universe exists only for me, Noza!”

In BLACK PANTHER: Wakanda Forever (2022), the MU’s Atlantis is transformed into Talokan, an underwater haven where an indigenous Central American tribe fled (by means of a water-breathing potion) to escape Spanish colonialism. Now, though, American attempts to mine vibranium from the ocean floor threaten their existence so their leader, Namor (Tenoch Huerta) invites Wakandan Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and Shuri (Letitia Wright) into an alliance against the surface world.

Okay, he actually demands one, along with ordering Shuri to capture Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), the teen genius whose invention makes the mining operation possible. Namor blames Wakanda because their refusal to share their vibranium with the world is what drove America to go looking. And if they refuse? “Our warriors are as numerous as the blades of grass in your kingdom.”

This Black Panther sequel had the challenge of the MCU T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) having died after the first film; one of the plot threads is Shuri dealing with her grief, and her ambivalence over stepping into the hereditary role. I don’t think it met the challenge. Part of the problem is that it’s got a lot to do: Shuri’s grief, more geopolitical conflicts, introducing Namor and Talokan, setting up Riri for her Ironheart series on TV, plus Wakanda vs. Talokan action scenes. The result is a 2hr 40 minute movie and while there’s no shortage of plot, there’s not enough drama for me. Fitting Namor into the Killmonger role — the voice of someone who’s suffered from colonialism and wants Wakanda to Do Something — didn’t work, and neither did Namor. For me, the essence of Namor has always been his arrogance and this version didn’t have that; while he’s imperious and makes demands he comes off more as a leader making tough choices. And while I do love them keeping Namor’s ridiculous ankle wings, why would a Mesoamerican merman say Namor’s catchphrase of Imperius Rex? “There is an entire YouTube channel dedicated to sightings of me.”

By contrast, the third season of MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN (S1 review here; S2 review here) succeeds admirably. The plot threads include Jimmy insisting he and Kara date other people (he’s convinced she only likes him because she hasn’t seen what other Earth boys are like); Clark talking marriage and Lois freaking out; their kids arriving from the dystopian future to change it; Luthor unleashing a superhuman of his own (spoiler: doesn’t go well); and Clark losing his powers for much of the season. I particularly love a scene in which the depowered Clark gets between a killer and some kids, takes a bullet stopping him and then beats himself up — those kids almost got killed because he didn’t have his powers! Of course he did save them but he just takes doing the right thing as a given and doesn’t consider it. I look forward to S2.“Your fear is a weakness — mine is a weapon.”

Cover by Curt Swan, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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August 28, 2026 · 4:40 pm

Do I wither with time, or is this just a fluke?

Which is to say, this was another frustrating week. Looking at how often I type that, I wonder if I’m losing my ability to concentrate as I age? Or is it just that sometimes, shit happens.

This week was definitely partly “shit happens.” First off, Monday evening Plushie’s good eye had something wrong with it, making him squint so much it was barely open. TYG rushed him down to the nearby emergency vet who did not perform well. We may not go back which is a crying shame (it’s a lot further to the next closest E/R). However we were able to get a Tuesday morning appointment with his eye doctor (they’re also close): it’s an ulcer, which is manageable and it was back to normal by Thursday (though we’ll be doing added eyedrops for a week or so). Still that meant we got to bed sometime around midnight, which ain’t good.

Yesterday I went in to my own doctor, who confirmed I have sleep apnea. The most likely outcome is that I’ll end up wearing one of those freaky masks hooked up to a small air pump. I’ll be talking to a specialist about that. The other alternatives are a smaller mouthpiece that would widen my air intake or to take the GLP and see if my weight comes down. My doctor favors the CPAC pump and I’m inclined to agree. While I’m obese by BMI standards I’d need to lose 30 pounds to be non-obese; while I’m nobody’s idea of six-pack abs I do not believe I have 30 excess pounds to lose. In any case, that took a chunk out of my day.

Oh, and Trixie came down with a tummy this weekend and refused to eat. Since then she’s eating but she’s ultra-picky. Won’t take her meds on anything but the same canned chicken we give Plushie. Won’t eat kibble, only soft food. Refuses most hard treats — I’d think she had a tooth issue but there are some treats she does eat so … well, you’ve got me. If it keeps going I may ask the vet for insight.

All that said, part of the problem this week was me not being organized. I had three stories to work on for The Local Reporter and in-between sending out emails and waiting for replies my mind kind of wandered (the lack of sleep didn’t help). Plus I had some personal plane travel I might take before the end of the year and that always messes up my mind: do I want to spend the money? Do I want to get to the airport at 5 in the morning if it saves $100? I’ve spent much of my life living on a struggling writer salary so it’s impossible for me to be just “yeah, that’ll do for anything over a couple of hundred bucks. And if I plonk down the money now, who knows what’ll happen between now and then?However I did get most of the work done on the stories. Plus I got more work done on Savage Adventures, including adding footnotes. I’d been mostly attributing stuff in the text when appropriate but it’ll flow much smoother with footnotes.

And that was about it. Part of the problem is that I kept trying to do more than one project in a day and that’s usually a mess unless I plan it very carefully. I’m going to try to avoid that in September.

Oh, here are two pieces over at Atomic Junkshop: one about realizing what certain songs really mean, one on DC’s Homo magi and my head-canon version of their history.

Doc Savage cover by James Bama, comic book panel by Jack Sparling. All rights to images remain with current holder.

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August 28, 2026 · 5:10 am

Our cats shed

Recently I was using our Roomba only to discover the brushes needed cleaning. Take a look.

We didn’t use to have this problem. Trixie and Dudley aren’t much for shedding but the cats? So I cut the hair off the brushes and got this pile.

Happily it paid off and Roomba thrives again.

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August 27, 2026 · 5:15 am

We could use some imaginary Republicans right now

Back in 2004, writer John Rogers mentioned how much he missed Republicans: “Sober men in suits, pipes, who’d nod thoughtfully over their latest tract on market-driven fiscal conservatism while grinding out the numbers on rocket science. Remember those serious-looking 1950’s-1960’s science guys in the movies — Republican to a one. They were the grown-ups. They were the realists. Sure they were a bummer, maaaaan, but on the way to La Revolution you need somebody to remember where you parked the car.”

Instead, we had the insanity of the W years: incompetence, opposition to science, a stupid never-ending war waged for stupid reasons (almost certainly including that W, by his own admission, wanted to be a War President), massive military spending that benefited contractors more than those who served … And two years later, in another post, Rogers concluded things had not improved.

The trouble is, that really doesn’t register with voters. A couple of months back I wrote about how Democrats not only struggle with Republicans but with the imaginary Democrats in people’s heads:

Here’s a related comment from Lawyers, Guns and Money on the “activist class” mentioned above.

(There’s also sexism towards “wine moms” in this — women just can’t be authentic working-class liberals, you know!).

The media also endorse this portrayal, as do the Sensible Centrist Democrats (see my comments Monday on Very Serious People). Dems must moderate their supposedly ultra-liberal policies, or to denounce party members who are supposedly too extreme, like Zohran Mamdani. Possibly the Imaginary Democrats are why one conservative NYC district voted for him: someone concerned about lowering their cost of living must be a conservative.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a senseless centrist, just declared the federal deficit is the result of socialist polices, not the Toddler’s tax cuts (did his imaginary Long Island voters tell him that?). It never registers that even centrist Dems will be turned into Imaginary Ultra-Liberal Democrats, no matter how centrist they are. And the media will always treat the left-wing of the party as an inconsequential fluke. I doubt Joe Manchin’s efforts to push liberals to the center will get the same scrutiny.

At the same time, Dems have to run not against the Toddler, Vance and their ilk but against the the imaginary Republicans who are the polar opposite of the imaginary Democrats. The fantasy Republicans are the stereotype Rogers write about. Sensible guys (never women. They’re the daddy party after all)who always balance the budget, know how to manage the economy, believe in a strong defense and a tough-but-fair legal system. They’re battle-experienced veterans who support the military, unlike the Democrats who all protested the Vietnam War and spat on the troops coming home. Imaginary Republicans believe in America and they put their country first. They don’t believe in a nanny state regulating everything but trust Americans to make their own decisions. As witness this piece on JD Vance presenting him and his party as sensible mainstream Americans (small wonder Vance and Marco Rubio aren’t suffering from the Toddler’s unpopularity).

As plenty of bloggers and liberal pundits have pointed out, this image doesn’t seem to die. Never mind that Reagan, W and now the Toddler all set record deficits. Reagan’s 1980s economy went through a recession and the poor wound up poorer because of his policies (I was poor. I know). Reagan’s attorney general Ed Meese said we shouldn’t worry about the rights of the accused because if the police accuse someone, they’re guilty. As for regulation, it’s Wilhoit’s law: conservatives don’t want government telling them what to do but they’re fine with regulations that hurt gays, Muslims, women, etc. (even though members of all of those groups exist in the Republican tent). Speaker Mike Johnson is fine with Republican red ink but eager to gut Social Security. As for the military, the draft-dodging W (who also blew off his National Guard service) squandered hundreds of soldiers’ lives in Iraq; the Toddler is exhausting our armaments in Iran. Lots of Republicans avoided the draft but somehow it was only an issue for Bill Clinton (probably because only Democrats have agency — Republicans can’t be held responsible for being hypocrites).

I’d like to hope things are changing. It’s tempting for people to imagine the Toddler is the problem and the rest of his administration and its enablers will turn into the Imaginary Republicans once he’s gone. They won’t. People have been predicting for more than 15 years their right-ward march would end soon. It hasn’t. Here’s some recent examples:

The Toddler is now thinking about more budget-busting tax cuts. Which will become a serious problem once a Democrat is in the White House.

Strong on crime? The Toddler’s pay-for-a-pardon corruption has cost victims of crime $1.7 billion because pardon recipients don’t have to repay any of their ill-gotten gains.

Supporting the troops? Well, no.

Deep religious faith? “Faith groups suing President Donald Trump’s administration filed a motion Thursday (Aug. 20)alleging the Department of Homeland Security committed “multiple egregious violations” of a court order that largely barred warrantless surveillance at their churches.”

Have I mentioned the Toddler has threatened to bomb our ally Oman?

Fixing housing problems? The Toddler finds that a big yawn.

Sensible and moderate? If you ignore the party’s Nazi wing. Or their odious misogyny.

The Toddler is far and away the biggest pimple on the face of our democracy but he’s not the problem. His entire rancid party is. Like Rogers, I miss the sensible Republicans but there’s no point in pretending they’re ever coming back. As I put in 2022, “Republicans aren’t interested in compromise. They haven’t been interested in it for years. And they do want to end democracy, in favor of a banana republic where they can do what they damn well please to the rest of us. Or so they imagine.”

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August 26, 2026 · 5:07 am

A cool comics cover for Wednesday

The Shade became an A-lister thanks to his appearances in James Robinson’s Starman series. From there he springboarded into the CW’s excellent Stargirl as a supporting character for two seasons.

It’s surprising to look back and see what a minor player he once was. One appearance in the Golden Age. Then an appearance in the classic story “Flash of Two Worlds,” which introduced the idea the Justice Society and Justice League co-existed on different Earths. There he got to fight alongside the Thinker, Jay Garrick’s arch-foe (seven appearances) and the Fiddler (four). All he could do was blot out light — a useful skill, sure, but not much.

And then the Shade returned.

This was the story that established the Shade could access dimensions of darkness, elevating him beyond a C-lister. Without this story changing his trajectory, he’d be a bar-trivia answer.

What I’m really posting about, though, is the Carmine Infantino cover. I think it’s great. Then smirking, lean figure of the Shade. Jay, trapped. Barry unable to beat his foe. When I saw it as a kid, although I didn’t have the money to spare, I was hooked. Thrilled years later when I acquired it.

The Shade’s career shows even a C-lister has potential. The cover shows — well, while I generally disregard “things were better back in the day” I think the covers were.

All rights to image remain with current holders.

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August 25, 2026 · 5:02 am

The ending of the book (and what came before)

As I mentioned last Friday, the second draft of Let No Man Put Asunder is now done. Though technically I suppose it’s more like the eighth draft: this is a rewrite of a novel I finished in the 1990s, which was a rewrite of my second novel from back in the 1980s. The title has remained, nothing else is the same.

(As I don’t have any book-relevant illustrations, the photos will be random)

Okay, one thing remained the same, the core concept of two people, an older woman and a younger man, meeting and forming a telepathic link, one that downloaded all their memories into each other. The original 1980s version had them pretty happy before things began to happen; I went with “ordinary person caught up in a deadly dangerous game” rather than “protagonist with a personal problem resolves it by getting caught up in a deadly dangerous game.”

The 1990s rewrite made everything considerably weirder and more imaginative as they wandered through various nightmare worlds running from the mercenaries hired by their mysterious, unknown enemy. In the 1980s version, their enemy saw them as a threat and wanted them dead; at the climax he turns out to have a weakness that isn’t set up in advance. The 1990s take established he’s a psionic who kills anyone he sees as a threat to his power — and that’s pretty much anyone with similar abilities. His weakness is that he’s always struck and killed swiftly and never learned to fight a protracted battle; when my protagonists, Adrienne and Neil, confront him at the climax, they survive long enough that his confidence cracks. For someone whose powers stem from his force of will, that proved a fatal weakness.

The reason Adrienne and Paul were a threat remained the same in both versions. It doesn’t work for Paul and Mandy in the current version. The Community of All is simply too big and too powerful a foe, with different motivations … so why were they a threat to it? And how could they beat it?

Suffice to say, I figured it out. There is a reason the Community is hunting them down. And I think it works. Having found an ending to the plot, however, I still need one more draft. I need to sharpen the character arcs — both Paul and Mandy are in worse places at the start than Adrienne and Neil were. And I’m not sure those character arcs end satisfactorily. The 1990s version was Part One of a duology; this ending makes the book a standalone. The adventure is over, their immediate problems have been resolved, but I still want to show where they’re heading next. Paul, for example, was supposed to end up in a relationship with one of the supporting characters: this draft that didn’t happen, though I may change that back.

In September I’ll read over the story and take notes, then start mapping out what needs to happen — beats in the character arc, and the like. I’m tentatively optimistic I can finish by the end of the year and then send it out for beta reading, alongside getting the final proofing done on Watching Jekyll and Hyde.

Wish me luck.

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