#soon to take on the role of Emma Peel in The Avengers

[aiiaiiiyo]

[isabelcostasixties]

Diana Rigg, soon to take on the role of Emma Peel in The Avengers ABC TV Series, pictured at her parents home in Roundhay, Leeds, 19th April 1965. Photo by Daily Mirror. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[sparklywaistcoat]

Take a seat, children. I’m gonna tell you a story.

It’s Patrick Macnee’s birthday today, and somehow it feels right for me to get this out there, this thing I’ve been cooking for a few years now. So here goes.

About six years ago or so, I had a severe breakdown, both emotionally and physically. I had nearly worked myself to death (yes, literally; I was probably about two weeks away from needing to be hospitalized, and maybe four to eight from needing to be coffinized if I hadn’t regained my senses and stopped), and I was actively suicidal. I hadn’t actually made any attempts (and never did), but I was at the point where I was seriously considering methods and how I wanted to be found and by whom. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia soon thereafter, and a bit later had to deal with learning that I am autistic and have ADHD after already having lived nearly 50 years completely ignorant of those facts. (Actually it was something of a relief to finally know, but still; I had a pretty full plate already without having to also figure out what that meant for me.)

And all that up there? That’s just part of the story. (Yes, it was even worse than what’s in that bit up there. No, I am neither exaggerating nor joking.)

Anyway. With the help of some good meds and a better therapist, I started putting the pieces back together. And then my father died. His death wasn’t really unexpected, but it was kinda sudden, and since he passed an hour before my plane landed, I didn’t really get to say goodbye. (No, this isn’t the bit that’s missing from the first paragraph. My dad dying was on top of all the rest of that. Fun times.)

When I got home after the funeral, I started looking for old TV shows we used to watch together, and I remembered that my dad liked Avengers, although I myself had only the very foggiest memories of the show. But I looked around and found out Hulu happened to be streaming Seasons 4 and 5 for free at the time, which was convenient.

And into the cosmic shitshow I had been enduring walked John Steed and Emma Peel. And in a manner of speaking, they saved my life.

Oh, I had stopped being actively suicidal by then, because rest and meds and therapy, but Avengers was the thing that tipped the balance. I should mention that the whole suicide thing wasn’t exactly new for me: I had, in fact, been dealing with suicidal ideation of one kind or another for almost 30 years at that point, although I never really was tempted to actually do anything to myself until that breakdown. But after Avengers? I’ve had hardly any suicidal thoughts at all. Like, maybe once every six months or less, after having them on a weekly, if not daily, basis for three decades. And it’s not that I’m actively repressing them or anything. They just don’t happen much anymore.

Avengers was a revelation. I mean, here were two strong, intelligent people who were unapologetically themselves; who truly gave not a single rat’s ass about what others might think of them; who weren’t afraid to take open delight in things they loved and things that made them happy; who really loved each other and acted like it; who knew how to give each other their space and not resent the other’s need for privacy or alone time; who treated each other like equals and full human beings; who supported each other unconditionally and celebrated each other’s talents and contributions both to their work and to their relationship; who honestly trusted one another, and with good reason; and who really saw and respected one another and the other people they interacted with. I had never seen or experienced anything like it. (Sad, no?)

You know those “what I learned from Steed/what I learned from Mrs Peel” things I did a while back? Those weren’t jokes, and they weren’t just fun blog posts. Some of those really were things I learned from watching the show, while others were reminders of things that I never should have forgotten in the first place, but all of them things I consider life goals. (Well, except for maybe the kilt one. That was a little jokey. And I can’t really afford champagne on a daily basis. Also I don’t know how to do martial arts. Yet.)

Steed and Emma saved my life because they gave me back my self. For as long as I could remember, I had been walking a tightrope between trying to stay true to myself and trying to meet other people’s expectations of me, other people’s visions of who I am and how I should be in the world. Steed and Emma’s example gave me the courage to say FUCK THAT and just be myself, to stand up for myself, no matter what anyone else said, and showed me that it’s okay to be angry and to fight back because sometimes that’s the appropriate and necessary thing to do.

I think that’s the major reason why the suicidal ideation evaporated: I’ve stopped playing games, stopped trying to be someone I’m not, stopped feeling bad that I can’t be the person others want me to be, stopped beating myself up about the struggles I have because of my disabilities, stopped diminishing myself and twisting myself into pretzels so that others can be comfortable with me. Avengers showed me that was possible, and gave me the courage to do it.

So yeah. John Steed and Emma Peel kinda saved my life. They’re probably the two best role models I’ve ever had. That’s why they matter so much to me.

[true-halloween-tales]

2017: #4-SPIES

There’s a man who leads a life of danger To everyone he meets he stays a stranger With every move he makes another chance he takes Odds are he won’t live to see tomorrow Secret agent man, secret agent man They’ve given you a number and taken away your name. - “Secret Agent Man” by Johnny Rivers.

James Bond is not an uncommon Halloween costume; so many different Bond outfits could be used, but white tuxedos are sure to win the day.  There are other distinctive spies that one could create costumes for Halloween.  Patrick McGoohan was one of the first actors to regularly portray a spy, John Drake, in the British series, Danger Man, from 1960-62.  In the half-hour episodes, John Drake worked on various cases as a United Nations agent.  The series returned from 1964-67 as Secret Agent in one-hour episodes.  In Secret Agent, John Drake now worked for the British secret service.  The storylines were sophisticated and realistic.  McGoohan performed his own stunts, and there were excellent supporting actors.  Johnny River’s song, “Secret Agent Man” was created for this series.  In 1967, McGoohan went on to co-create The Prisoner, a science-fiction/spy, cult tv mini-series.  McGoohan wore a distinctive outfit in The Prisoner, perfect for a Halloween costume, including a black blazer with white piping.  The Prisoner sure seems like the continuing Orwellian nightmarish misadventures of John Drake, even though McGoohan’s character is only referred to as Number Six in the seventeen episodes.  Who has kidnapped him?  Where is he?  Who is Number One?  And what are those growling, large, white bubble monsters (see 2011: #2-STRANGE TV MONSTERS)?  The Prisoner is one of the most artistic and intelligent television series ever made, and has social commentary ranging from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to 1984.  In fact, The Prisoner is one of the top ten best tv series ever.  The Prisoner has a definite ending which is so strange that it makes a werewolf yodeling Swedish songs in a hot tub filled with gravy to be rather normal.  In the 1960’s-70’s, McGoohan was offered the role of James Bond three times, but he turned it down because he felt that Bond was an immoral character.  Actors who portray spies often feel that they are villains.

In 1962, Dr. No, the first James Bond film, was released starring Sean Connery.  When he tired of the role, George Lazenby became the second James Bond for one film.  Meanwhile, a popular British spy tv series had started since Danger Man had begun: The Saint.  The Saint ran from 1962-69, black and white and then into color, and featured the thief, but honorable cultured man, Simon Templar, as played by a young Roger Moore.  Roger Moore then graduated to become the third James Bond.  He extended his tongue-in-cheek persona of Simon Templar into his characterization of James Bond.  The Saint was resurrected in 1978 with The Return of the Saint British tv series and starred Ian Ogilvy.  Timothy Dalton then replaced Roger Moore in the 1980’s as the fourth James Bond.  The 1982-87 American tv series, Remington Steele, became popular which was about a Simon Templar-like character, starring Pierce Brosnan.  After waiting for his Remington Steele contractual issues to end, Pierce Brosnan became the fifth official James Bond.  But there have also been unofficial James Bonds.  The 1967 film, Casino Royale, was not included in the James Bond film series.  Instead, it was curiously created as a comedy with multiple actors portraying James Bond including David Niven and Peter Sellers.  For villains, Casino Royale starred Orson Wells as Le Chiffre and Woody Allen as Dr. Noah.  Back in the proper James Bond series, in 2006 Daniel Craig became the sixth James Bond.  He portrays Bond the most accurately as compared to the character in the books.

The James Bond original novels were written by Ian Fleming who also strangely released, Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.  He wrote fourteen James Bond books from 1953-66 which provided full characterizations of Bond.  They are worth reading if you like spy novels.  The Bond in the books is a bit different than the Bond in films.  The novels characterize Bond as more of a gourmet and less of a lusty womanizer, who tries to live life to the fullest because he expects to die any day.  The central characteristic of Bond and any superior spy is thinking outside of the box – and probably blowing up the box!  In 1968, Kingsley Amis continued the Bond series with Colonel Sun.  Then the Bond book series died, until 1981-96 in which John Gardner continued the series with sixteen more novels.  Some of his Bond novels were exceptionally awful.  The series was then continued by Raymond Benson with nine novels from 1996-2002.  Since then there have been four new novels written in the series, each by a different author, such as Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks.  There is also a Young Bond series that started twelve years ago written by two authors and containing eleven books.  

James Bond is a major acting role just like Batman or Sherlock Holmes.  There are some noteworthy actors who turned down the role over the years besides Patrick McGoohan.  Richard Burton and Cary Grant both turned down the role.  Adam West and Clint Eastwood refused the role because they felt the actor should be British.  There are many actors who auditioned and were not selected for the role: Michael Cain, Paul McGann, Mel Gibson, Sam Neill, and Jeremy Brett (see 2012: #12-THE ADVENTURES OF SHEERLUCK HOMIE).  It would be fascinating if a future James Bond film brought back the surviving Bond actors including Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan as villains.  When considering Bond-related Halloween costumes, take into account distinctive Bond villains such as the bald Goldfinger or the three-nippled Scaramanga.  But there are spies beyond Bond!

Perhaps the most stylish, elegant, and entertaining spy tv series is The Avengers starring Patrick Macnee as John Steed and Dianna Rigg as Emma Peel.  Steed was a spy who wore custom-made, light blue or gray, Pierre Cardin suits, wore a distinctive armored bowler hat, and carried secret-gadget umbrellas, all suitably swell for Halloween costumes.  The first season featured Dr. David Keel who meets the spy, John Steed.  The second season included Steed mostly working with Cathy Gale played by Honor Blackman who appeared in Goldfinger.  The third and fourth seasons were the best and introduced Steed to Dianna Rigg as the wonderful Mrs. Emma Peel.  Mrs. Peel’s colorful catsuits and full leather bodysuits qualify for being cool Halloween costumes.  The fifth and sixth seasons had Steed working with his spy boss, Mother, played by Patrick Newel as he was assisted by the spy-in-training, Tara King, played by Linda Thorson.  The Avengers ran for six seasons between 1961-69 with one hundred and sixty-one episodes.  Some episodes crossed over into science-fiction/horror with possible ghosts, time travel, Frankenstein monsters, and UFOs.  Guest stars included Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (see 2018: #1-GREAT HORROR FILM ACTORS).  In 1976-77, two seasons of The New Avengers ran with Patrick Macnee reprising his role as an older Steed as he directed the spies Gambit and Purdey, who was portrayed by Absolutely Fabulous’ Joanna Lumley (aka Patsy).   The Avengers was adapted into a 1998 film that was panned by critics but included Ralph Fiennes, Sean Connery, and an appearance by Patrick Macnee as an invisible man.  I met Patrick Macnee in 1992, and I asked him to impart his wisdom and he told me, “Do whatever you have to do to get through the day.”

There are many other popular spy tv series.  The Man From Uncle was popular; so was I, Spy.  Mission Impossible was a tv series and has also been a film series.  The Wild, Wild West was a decent spy series with a lot of perilous dwarf villains.  In the 1970’s, Edward Woodward was the lead in the dark, gritty British spy series, Callan, who sometimes performed assassinations.  In the 1980’s, Woodward swam to the U.S. to star in The Equalizer for four seasons.  His Robert McCall was quite similar to a retired Callan.  24 was a very popular, anti-terrorist, action-oriented series.  Most recently, Person of Interest was a science-fiction/spy series similar to The Prisoner in some ways.  Get Smart was the first spy/comedy tv series, and Archer is now a popular, spy/comedy, animated series.  There are many spy films, and many of those are based on previous tv series and are never as good as the original.  

There is one fresh and new, spy video game character that offers a distinctive Halloween costume: Sam Fisher.  Sam Fisher is the central character in the Splinter Cell game series.  There are Splinter Cell books and a film is planned potentially starring Mad Max’s Tom Hardy.  Sam Fisher is more athletic than James Bond, and mainly performs special operations for a subdivision of the NSA.  His ninja-like methods are reinforced by his gadgets.  He uses a light meter to stay in shadows and wears distinctive night-vision goggles with his trademark three green glowing lenses.  Sam Fisher typically wears high-tech black bodysuits and creeps about using lethal force on high-stakes missions.  Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is the best game in the series, and it features a really great soundtrack by Amon Tobin.  I expect that in the future Sam Fisher will be much more well known after the film is made, and he will provide popular Halloween costumes.  

There is one great, non-fiction, spy tv series, Reilly: Ace of Spies starring Sam Neill.  Reilly: Ace of Spies is a 1983 mini-series consisting of twelve episodes that followed the life of the real spy that inspired Ian Fleming to create James Bond.  The spy was named Sidney Reilly, but his original name is believed to be Sigmund Rosenblum (see center photo).  He was born in Russia, faked his own death as a young teenager, stowed away on a ship to Brazil, and soon ended up meeting British spies.  He ended up working for the British Secret Service, and went undercover in other countries for extended periods of time.  Reilly was utterly ruthless.  He once was sent to help another spy steal design plans, and he became the man’s roommate without telling him who he was.  He let the other spy be caught and die as Reilly left with the plans.  Reilly was a major factor in causing wars.  He tried to overthrow Lenin and set himself up as the head of Russia, and he got very close to achieving that to such an extent that he was listed in Russian history books as an enemy of the state.  He had no problem poisoning or even executing people.  Even Sam Neill, in his returned correspondence to me wrote that, “Reilly wasn’t such a good guy, really.”

Reilly went undercover, became a millionaire, and soon his identity was very fuzzy and even the British did not know if he was working for them.  He did not have any sort of regular employee-employer relationship with the British Secret Service anymore, and he became a force to be reckoned with.  He moved to the United States, met with captains of industry, and started his own private secret service organization.  Before WW2 broke out, Reilly disappeared.  It was believed that the Russians finally captured and executed him, but it never confirmed.  In fact, there is conjecture that he survived the 1930’s and remained a hidden manipulator of world events after his disappearance.  Maybe he was always working for Russia.  Even though spy costumes and tv series are fun, real spies live in a world of paranoia and tend to be dark figures that border on being villains.

Even a mask of Spy vs Spy from Mad Magazine is swell for Halloween.  But don’t just tie a black mask over your eyes and go as a criminal!  Take a chance, lead a life of danger, and dress up as a spy for Halloween!

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Crusher Joe, Diana Rigg, Black Ops Cold War, Ambrose Bierce

Forthcoming (Cirsova): We’ve just received Schuyler Hernstrom’s foreword for Endless Summer, and we thought it was too good not to share:   Discussing stories is a complicated business.  Buried somewhere underneath layers of criticism, commerce, and identity you might find some deep understanding of Misha’s work. But I worry that careless digging will disturb the landscape. I challenge myself to think about his work with the care and sensitivity that he puts into it.

Memorial (The Silver Key): Word spread on Facebook last night that Charles Saunders, author of Imaro, has passed away. It is being reported he died in May. Odd that an obituary search turns up empty.  Let’s hope it may be a rumor, but it does not appear that way. Author Milton Davis, who continued in Saunders’ “Sword-and-Soul” tradition, broke the news, and many authors, friends, and peers have chimed in since.

Cinema (Wert Zone): Born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire in 1938, Rigg was raised by her parents in Bikaner, India. Returning to the UK, she trained as an actress and made her stage debut in 1957 and her TV debut two years later. In 1965 she was cast in the first of her three major screen roles on the fourth season of British spy series The Avengers, playing Emma Peel. Peel was an action heroine with a line in witticisms, engaged in a constant battle of comebacks and ambiguous tension with her co-star Patrick Macnee (playing John Steed).

Cinema (Wasteland & Sky): The 1970s are still looked on by movie snobs as the peak of cinema, destroyed by the aforementioned filthy space movie that opened the theaters of the 1980s to juvenile pap. This is of course ignoring that the 1970s were dead, spiritually, and morally, which makes many of those 1970s “classics” more worthless than the juvenile goofy space movie. It actually has a moral point, regardless of what you think of it. 1970s cinema, as a whole, did not.

Games (Bleeding Fool):  The new game Black Ops Cold War takes place during Reagan’s presidency during the height of the cold war with communist Russia. The initial trailer features KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov speaking about the communist’s plan to bring down America from within. If you pay attention, you may recognize some of the moves being used by the left today. The trailer urges you to “know your history or be doomed to repeat it” as it flashes images from the cold war across the screen.

History (DMR Books): This past Friday marked the four hundred and fifty-fifth anniversary of the definitive end to the Great Siege of Malta. On September 11, 1565, the tattered and battered fleet of Suleiman the Magnificent sailed away from the tiny island of Malta, utterly humiliated. The Ottoman Turks had disembarked amid imperial splendor nearly four months earlier. Their soldiers were reckoned in the tens of thousands, outnumbering by a factor of four to one–at minimum–the Knights Hospitaller and the Maltese who fought alongside them.

Fiction (Galactic Journey): The book is titled The Wizard of Lemuria but we don’t meet the wizard until Chapter 4. There are 12 chapters. The first quarter of the novella-length book is spent introducing our hero, Thongor of Valkarth. He is, although a lowly barbarian mercenary, both mighty and honorable. The book opens on the aftermath of a wager on a zamph race. Jeled Malkh—an officer and swordmaster—lost the wager, and attacked Thongor rather than pay up. Thongor quickly overcame him, shrugged off the bet, and offered to drink away their differences.

War Gaming (Jon Mollison): Miniature wargames in general, and historical wargaming in particular, are headed down the same road as every other hobby out there. You’d think those with an interest in history would be better prepared to learn from the history of other hobbies, but it doesn’t look that way. A lot of ink is being spilled and chit is being chattered about how to save the hobby from… well, from something that can’t really be shown or identified.

Comic Books (Screen Rant): Heads are gonna roll – as well as fly, disintegrate, and cave in upon themselves, along with pretty much any other violent act that can be inflicted upon a head – in the latest adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian. Originally published in Weird Tales and later adapted by Dark Horse Comics, the story of the legendary Destroyer is now published by Ablaze, a publication that has given Conan a sword more caked with blood than ever before thanks in part to their decision to create a truly uncensored version of his exploits.

D&D (Grognardia): I’ve never been much of a fan of Deities & Demigods, though I owned it, of course. Why wouldn’t I? I have always had decidedly completionist tendencies and being an unabashed TSR fanboy, there was no chance I wouldn’t purchase this book as soon as I was able to do so. It’s true I didn’t get much use out of it, but I still proudly displayed it on my bookshelf, right next to the Monster Manual.

Guns (Frontier Partisans): As will most when forced to fight for their way of life, the Apaches of The War Chief utilized any weapon to which they might lay hand. Some of these they fabricated, with especially skilled artisans becoming highly revered by the tribe. The Apaches ranged a broad swathe of the American West and portions of Mexico, and so various materials fell into their hands — materials they converted into bows, arrows, and war clubs, including the famous jawbone club. These weapons and tools, for centuries, they fabricated themselves from indigenous materials.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Pulpfest): The 2020 Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) Gathering will be held Sunday, October 11 through Tuesday, October 13 in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. Guest of Honor is acclaimed comic book artist and Hollywood illustrator Daniel Parsons. COVID-19 restrictions dictate this will be a small gathering in two large meeting rooms at the Country Inn & Suites located at 1650 Doris Drive. Fort Atkinson is located just 35 miles from Madison or 65 miles from Milwaukee. It’s 100 miles from Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Fiction (Old Style Tales): “Some Haunted Houses” is easily one of Bierce’s most entertaining series of tales. I recommend it as the ideal Hallowe’en reading choice – a collection of pithy short stories that exude the gloomy atmosphere and chilling mood that make stories like Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” or Poe’s “House of Usher” horror classics. Reading one after another, a strange feeling of uneasiness creeps into your imagination as Bierce’s reporterly prose calmly details what sound like the verifiable details of veridical hauntings.

Cinema (Swords & Stitchery): There is a space opera out there that came out back in the day that most of you had never heard of… A bit of background, on the weekends back in the 90s I would get into my car & go down to Wallingford,Ct for a weekend of Anime at a local comic shop. I would spend the weekend with friends & one of the things we saw was this. Crusher Joe was made into an animated film in 1983, and a pair of for-video animated episodes in 1989. The film version won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1983.

Gaming (Future War Stories): There are time when we must ask ourselves when we witness what could have been: how can this not exist? That is how I and many other gamers felt during the recent leak of a Xbox development kit for the Blizzard cancelled StarCraft: GHOST 3rd person action/stealth game for the 6th generation. For many of us, GHOST was going to be first day buy for our OG Xbox consoles…and then there were delay after delay until GHOST was placed on DNR status in 2006 by Blizzard after nearly six years of development that span two studios.

Tolkien (Notion Club Papers): John Garth. The Worlds of JRR Tolkien: the places that inspired Middle-Earth. Frances Lincoln, London: UK, 2020. pp 208. John Garth is one of the best and most important writers on JRR Tolkien. This is his first full-length book since the landmark volume Tolkien and the Great War of 2003; so I knew I would enjoy it. From the title, and the fact that it is a large format, really beautifully-produced, hardback volume; I supposed The Worlds of JRR Tolkien might be dominated by the pictures, maybe even be something like a superior ‘coffee table’ book?

Fiction (Library Blog): This week marks the bicentenary of Sir Walter Scott’s twelfth novel The Abbot, published in Edinburgh on 2 September 1820 and in London two days later. Alone among the Waverley Novels, it was presented not as a stand-alone narrative but as the sequel to an earlier volume, The Monastery, which had appeared just six months earlier. Set in the early years of the Scottish Reformation, The Monastery had sold well but had disappointed many readers and reviewers. Criticism was directed, in particular, at the pivotal role played by the ghostly White Lady,

Cinema (Hollywoodintoto): Reporters have spent days detailing why “Terminator: Dark Fate” became the year’s most embarrassing flop. The movie made just $29 million stateside, and its foreign box office totals are equally weak ($94 million and counting). That’s no way for a franchise reboot to perform. Most observers are writing the saga’s obituary. Those reporters nailed some of the core reasons for its box office woes, from franchise fatigue to recycled story beats. Most missed another crucial factor. The sad decline of Arnold Schwarzenegger, A-list movie star.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): So yesterday’s post on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Harold Lamb and the recent post on the canon, coupled with today is the anniversary of the passing of J. R. R. Tolkien and the seventh anniversary of the death of Frederik Pohl, got me to thinking. I referred to Burroughs and Lamb as giants. In the canon post I quoted Newton talking about his achievements being due to his standing on the shoulders of giants. So who exactly are the giants in the field?

Fiction (Tentaculii): There’s a new bibliographic website for prolific British writer Michael Moorcock. The Works Of Michael Moorcock is obviously still a work-in-progress, but the pages for books and shorter fiction appear fairly complete. Moorcock tried his hand with at least one Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but has no overtly Lovecraftian pastiches that I’m aware of. His leftist attacks on many other writers, often described in words such as ‘brusque’ or ‘pungent’, turned out no differently in Lovecraft’s case and with the usual knocks being offered (“astonishingly awful prose” etc).

Fiction (George Kelley): I’ve been a big fan of Hank Davis’s Science Fiction anthologies over the years. Just in time for the Holiday Season, BAEN Books released Space Pioneers, an anthology with just about something for every readers’ taste. In typical Hank Davis fashion, the mix of stories blends Oldies with some newer stories like David Drake’s “Superweapon” (2018). I especially enjoyed Ross Rocklynne’s “Quietus” and Manly Wade Wellman’s “Men Against the Stars.” If you’re in the mood for an entertaining theme anthology, I recommend Space Pioneers. GRADE: A

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): In 2019, Stark House Press generated a commercial and critical hit with the release of The Best of Manhunt, an anthology of stories from the legendary 1950s crime fiction digest. Knowing a good thing when they see it, the reprint publisher has compiled a second volume of blood-on-the-knuckles tales from the popular magazine’s heyday for an August 2020 release.

Writing (Rawle Nyanzi): Recently, I came across an article (archive here) about the evolution of the horror genre in film. While the article is from 2000, and I’m not a horror fan myself, one point stuck with me: how scientific materialism, rather than an understanding of good and evil, became dominant in horror filmmaking, starting with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. In the materialist worldview, the universe came into being by random chance, and so did the Earth and humanity.

Writing (Kairos): World building is the one element that sets speculative fiction apart from every other category of writing. When designing a secondary world, it’s crucial to establish a foundation of internally consistent principles to help readers suspend their disbelief. Religion in general has been a constant of human existence. Writing a secondary world where there are no and never have been any religions will automatically cause tension between the setting and known history, straining credibility (though it could make for an interesting story hook if handled properly).

Tolkien (Jon Mollison): Listening to the Silmarillion on audiobook, and something occurred to me. The three themes of the Ainur presage the three ages of Middle-Earth.  From the Tolkien Gateway: The Ainur’s flawless Music satisfied even Ilúvatar during this early stage. The Second Theme was “like and yet unlike” the First; it gathered new power and beauty. Soon, however, Melkor’s discord rose up against it, and there was a “war of sound more violent than before”. This time, Melkor’s Theme triumphed over that of the others; many of the Ainur stopped singing entirely out of dismay.

Sensor Sweep: Crusher Joe, Diana Rigg, Black Ops Cold War, Ambrose Bierce published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/