Author: Cheryl Morgan

Cheryl Morgan is the editor of Salon Futura and owner of its publisher, Wizard's Tower Press. She is also non-fiction editor for Clarkesworld Magazine. Cheryl has won three Hugo Awards: Best Fanzine in 2004 for Emerald City, Best Fan Writer in 2009 and Best Semiprozine for Clarkesworld in 2010. She is a director of San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions and of Association for the Recognition of Excellence in SF & F Translation. She lives near Bath in the UK.

Issue #69

Issues

This is the March 2025 issue of Salon Futura. Here are the contents.


  • Cover: Fifteen Hundred Miles an Hour: This issue's cover is from Fifteen Hundred Miles an Hour (The story of a visit to the planet Mars.) by Charles Dixon (Bliss, Sands & Co , 1895). The artist is Arthur Layard.

  • Written on the Dark: A new Guy Gavriel Kay book is on the way. Does Cheryl love it? Of course she does.

  • Loka: S B Divya's follow-up to Meru is every bit as thoughtful as its predecessor

  • Future’s Edge: Gareth L Powell's latest novel is fast-paced and full of ideas

  • Mediaeval Women: Having been to the exhibition, Cheryl reviews the book of the exhibition

  • Navigational Entanglements: This novella from Aliette de Bodard is all about love between women, and so much more

  • The Tusks of Extinction: Ray Nayler brings the mammoth back from extinction, but this book is not just about people being chased by dangerous prehistoric animals.

  • The Many Selves of Katherine North: A review from a few years back that nicely compliments to Ray Nayler book

  • The Wild Robot: Lots of air travel, so much media, so little worth watching...

  • The War of the Rohirrim: Despite its feminist themes, Cheryl is less than impressed with the latest Lord of the Rings movie

  • Editorial – March 2025: Yes, this is a bit late. Cheryl was away in Canada.

Cover: Fifteen Hundred Miles an Hour

069, Art, Arthur Layard

This issue’s cover from the British Library’s online collection is an illustration for a novel called Fifteen Hundred Miles an Hour (The story of a visit to the planet Mars.) by Charles Dixon. It was published by Bliss, Sands & Co in 1895. The artist is Arthur Layard.

I note that 1500 mph is not a great speed for a spacecraft, though obviously far in excess of anything achieved on Earth in the 19th Century. At that speed it would take over 2.5 years to reach Mars, at closest approach.

As usual, an unadulterated version of the image is available below.

Written on the Dark

069, Book Review, Guy Gavriel Kay

A new Guy Gavriel Kay novel is always a cause for excitement in these parts. I love history, and I love the way that Kay makes use of it in constructing not-quite-historical novels. Kay’s last few books have been set in the Mediterranean, originally inspired by a visit to Croatia and learning about that country’s history. The cycle also encompassed the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, and the condottiere of Renaissance Italy. I will miss Folco d’Acorsi, but there are other stories to be told.

Written on the Dark is set in Ferrieres, Kay’s version of France, in mediaeval times. The central character, Thierry Villar, is a poet well known in the taverns of the capital city of Orane. If he reminds you a little of Jaskier, well, Kay is allowed to watch TV as well, but he is also based on a real-life French poet who had an equally adventurous life.

Villar did not want fame, though he would not have said no to fortune had it fallen in his lap. Indeed, he was not above trying to acquire it by less than honest means. Fame, however, found him first. Loose lips owned by one of his confederates have brought him to the attention of the Provost of Orane – a sort of mediaeval police commissioner – who just happens to have a difficult and deeply political murder to solve. An intelligent lad who is well known in the taverns of the city is just the sort of agent that Robbin de Vaux needs. Which is how Tierry will come to the attention of the King and Queen, and spend much of the rest of his life trying to avoid being murdered on the orders of the Duke of Barratin (Burgundy).

Those of you familiar with the history of mediaeval France will now be wondering which other notable characters from the real world will find their way into Kay’s narrative. There is, for example, a king from a country to the north of Ferrieres, separated from it by a narrow sea. That king, the fifth of his name, won a legendary victory against overwhelming odds.

Then there is the matter of the humble peasant girl who, having seen a vision from God, dons armour and seeks out the French army so that she can lead it against the perfidious English.

Not all of the characters that Kay uses in the book are quite as well known. However, anyone who visited the Mediaeval Women exhibition at the British Library will be expecting one other person to make an appearance. Like Thierry, she is a poet. Of noble birth, following the death of her husband she was able to make a living writing for the Court. Much of her work has strongly feminist themes. I am, of course, talking about Christine de Pizan, or Marina di Seressa. Of course her path and Thierry’s have to cross.

If you are trying to work out actual timelines, you will get into something of a mess. This book, possibly more than anything else Kay has written, plays fast and loose with our world’s history. He has characters he wants to use and, because this is not an historical novel, he doesn’t have to worry about when they actually lived. I’m OK with that. After all, Kay has been very clear that this is his world, not ours.

That, of course, means that other things can and do diverge from what the reader might expect. They do so in quite dramatic ways. The English may be a little upset as a result.

The other thing I should note about this book is that it is rather more literary than genre. What I mean by that is that there isn’t exactly a unifying plot. Yes, the book tells the story of Thierry Villar’s life. Yes, his conflict with Laurent The Bold, Duke of Barratin, bookends the story. But beyond that what we get is a series of vignettes – key moments from Thierry’s life that are not particularly connected except that he lived them, and many of them are important to the history of Ferrieres.

This again did not worry me. Kay writes beautifully and I was more than entertained seeing how he made use of the various human and historical pieces he had chosen to weave his narrative.

I note that Guy sent me a PDF of the book in advance of publication. I will be buying the hardcover as soon as it comes out.

book cover
Title: Written on the Dark
By: Guy Gavriel Kay
Publisher: Hodderscape
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Loka

069, Book Review, S B Divya

This book is a more-or-less direct sequel to Meru, though set some 16 years into the future. Some spoilers are inevitable, so if you have not read Meru yet you may want to look away.

By the end of Meru, Jayanthri has succeeded in her quest to be allowed to open a colony on the planet for which the book is named. Jaya’s sickle cell condition makes her ideally suited for life on Meru, whereas baseline humans would struggle there. She and her partner, Vaha (an ‘alloy’, a type of sentient spaceship evolved from humans) have created a human child who shares Jaya’s unique genetics. Controversially, Jaya has also given her daughter some alloy genes which provide the child with chromatophores on her arm to allow her to speak the alloys’ sign language.

The new book, Loka, opens with young Akshaya on the cusp of adulthood. She has spent most of her life on a transport alloy called Chedi so that she could have human friends growing up. Her alloy genes are still a closely guarded secret. Being a typically rebellious teenager, Aks is furious that her mother designed her to live on Meru, a planet largely devoid of animal life. She desperately wants to see Earth, and all the amazing creatures that are reclaiming the planet now that the human population is under control.

Aks and her childhood best friend, Somya, discover something called the Anthro Challenge in which humans attempt to circumnavigate Earth using only human-era technology. Aks strikes a deal with her parents to the effect that, if she is able to complete the challenge, she will have proved her ability to survive on Earth and not have to go to Meru.

Being parents, Jaya and Vaha have entirely forgotten their own rebellious youth, and are terrified for their child. Seeking a way to keep tabs on the two teenagers during their journey, they strike a deal with a documentary film-maker, and allow called Nara. He agrees to provide regular updates to the worried parents in return for being allowed to make show about the youngsters’ travels. Parents can be very foolish.

On the face of it, Loka is a science fiction re-telling of Around the World in 80 Days, with Aks and Somya facing peril (both natural and human) as they race to complete the challenge before Chedi is due back at Earth to pick them up. But, as I mentioned in my review of Meru, SB Divya is an author who uses science fiction to examine interesting questions. The new book is no exception, and it is those questions that I would like to focus on.

By the way, Loka is the name given to the alloy-managed part of Earth where most humans live. There are also areas known as OOB – Out of Bounds – which are not alloy-managed and which have become home to humans who resent the benevolent dictatorship of the alloys. The Anthro Challenge requires travel to include time in the OOB.

Loka is a book that is primarily about personal autonomy in three different ways. Firstly there is the right of Aks to determine her own path through life and not be bound by her parents’ ambitions for her. Secondly there is the right of humans to have adventures such as the Anthro Challenge, even though this might pose a cost to society and cause a small amount of environmental damage. Finally there is the right of humans to evolve by acquiring alloy genes.

While Aks and Somya initially admire the people of Earth, especially the Out of Bounders, for living on an actual planet rather than in a very safe environment such as travelling on Chedi, they soon find out that the Earthlings are deeply conservative. While their travels are done in a very environmentally conscious way (primarily by solar-powered bikes and sailboats), they are seen as unnecessary adventurism and probable evidence of Aspiration and Avarice Disorder, the mental illness that almost led to the destruction of Earth’s environment in times past.

As for the alloy genes, it is inevitable that a media-savvy operator like Nara will discover Aks’ secret, and reveal it to the public at a time intended to cause maximum outrage.

Before this, however, the documentary series results in two other major political movements. Firstly the humans of Earth decide that the Anthro Challenge needs to be banned before any other reckless teenagers can get daft ideas. In addition, because Nara grounds the narrative in the story of Jaya and Vaha, the show leads to a movement amongst alloys to scale back some of the more cruel punishments for social deviance. Those of you who have read Meru may remember that the conservative alloy, Pushkara, and his unwitting dupe, Kaliyu, have been condemned to exile for their part in attempting to sabotage Jaya and Vaha’s mission to Meru.

While Aks and Somya don’t want the Challenge to be banned, they become very much aware that a significant part of alloy society is heavily invested in their story because it is providing fuel for the anti-exile campaign.

All of this gives us plenty to think about while we follow Aks and Somya on their journey. There is a certain amount of personal growth that they go through as well, not to mention some genuine peril caused by Earth’s weather, but that by itself would have made for a dull book. The sort of philosophical debate that Divya indulges in is all too rare in science fiction these days. I for one am grateful that she’s around to do it.

book cover
Title: Loka
By: S B Divya
Publisher: 47North
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Future’s Edge

069, Book Review, Gareth L Powell

The latest offering from Gareth L Powell is a fast-paced space opera with multiple themes. A little background is required to explain what goes on.

The central character of the book is Ursula Morrow, a young archaeology student who is studying the remains of an alien civilization. While on the dig she meets and falls in love with a dashing naval officer called Jack. However, Ursula makes the mistake of putting her bare hand on a piece of alien technology and ends up infected with, well, something.

Leaving hospital on Earth where her infection was being examined, Ursula gets urgent word from Jack to flee the planet as it will soon be under attack. Thanks to Jack’s warning she is able to get on an evacuation vessel and ends up living in a refugee camp. Two years pass, and she hears little of the war against the mysterious aliens called Cutters. All she knows is that Earth has been destroyed and Jack is out on the front lines.

Then Jack turns up. He needs Ursula’s help because the alien technology with which she is infected may be the key to fighting back against the Cutters. Also he is now married. To his starship.

In the book, most of that is background which is related in the first chapter or two. It is a lot. We already have war against an implacable and seemingly unstoppable foe (similar to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Final Architecture series), archaeology on an alien civilisation that is millions of years old (around 64 million, to be precise, think about what that means in Earth chronology), a human-starship relationship, and the problem of dealing with your ex’s new wife when she happens to be an intelligent war machine with the unlikely name of Crisis Actor (Cris for short).

In his social media posts, Powell has occasionally talked about writing thrillers. It is clear from the opening chapters of Future’s Edge that he’s been practicing the style. The book doesn’t slow down from there. A story that Tchaikovsky might have spent three fat novels over, Powell wraps up in a single, fairly short, stand-alone. It certainly pulls you through the book, but personally I would have liked more space to explore the themes and characters.

And there is more. We get to meet Ursula’s old professor, and her gay best friend, both of whom are still studying the aliens. There’s a whole thing about Ursula’s dead twin, Chloe. There’s the rest of the crew of the Crisis Actor, who make for interesting found family. But blink and the narrative has moved on.

This is possibly a little hypocritical of me, because I don’t have time to read big, fat books. (I still haven’t read part three of The Final Architecture.) But I did finish the book feeling like I wanted to know more about just about everything in it.

book cover
Title: Future's Edge
By: Gareth L Powell
Publisher: Titan
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Mediaeval Women

069, Book Review, Eleanor Jackson, Julian Harrison

Those of you who follow me on BlueSky will remember me posting about my visit to the Mediaeval Women exhibition at the British Library. As social media is rather ephemeral, I will recap some of what I said here, but mainly this is a review of the book of the exhibition.

While seeing an exhibition in person is wonderful because of the personal connection you can have to the items on display, I often find the book to be of equal or greater value. You are not pressed for time when reading it, not surrounded by crowds. Also the curators have much more space in which to expound their themes. That is particularly valuable in the case of any exhibition where there may be political constraints on what can be said on the exhibit labels.

My main complaint about the exhibition is that it foregrounded a very “traditional” view of women and played down they amazing things that the women of that period could and did achieve. At first glance the book follows the same pattern. It begins with a section on ‘Private Lives’ in which women are kept firmly in their roles of daughter, wife and mother. We then go through ‘Public Lives’ and ‘Working Lives’ to ‘Spiritual Lives’ where women are once more sequestered away, this time in the cloister.

However, once you dive into the book, you get a much more nuanced view. The ‘Private Lives’ section spends a good deal of space talking about women’s role in medicine. ‘Public Lives’ opens with an admission that this section is mainly about women who achieved political power. And the ‘Spiritual Lives’ section does make it clear that entering a nunnery was a way in which women could achieve wealth and power (and pet cats) with very little interference from men, and freedom from the expectation to breed.

As a consequence, the book is far better in its coverage of Empress Matilda, who was most shamefully disparaged by the exhibition label. She was Empress of the Romans by dint of her marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor, and Queen of England by order of her father, Henry I. None of this was invention or self-aggrandisement on her part.

The book (and exhibition) concentrates primarily on Europe because the term ‘mediaeval’ has little meaning outside of that context. But there was significant contact between the Christian and Muslim worlds, and one European country – Spain – was in large part Muslim ruled. As a result we do have a few Muslim women in the book, perhaps most excitingly the amazing story of Shajar al-Durr who rose from being a slave concubine to be, for a few glorious months, Sultan of Egypt and Syria. She held her country together when her husband died fighting the Crusaders, and seems to have relinquished power to one of her generals only because of the impracticality of ruling from the confines of the women’s quarters. She continued to play a major role in Egyptian politics for years afterwards.

The full title of the book is Mediaeval Women: Voices and Visions. That’s partly because we do sometimes have their words, as opposed to words written by male contemporaries, and partly because women sometimes played a major role in the book trade. One of the stars of the book is the feminist writer, Christine de Pizan who, along with Isabella of France and Joan of Arc, is a major inspiration for Guy Kay’s Written on the Dark. Also featured is Jeanne de Montbaston, the creator of the hilarious ‘penis tree’ image.

The book is edited by Eleanor Jackson and Julian Harrison, primarily because of their jobs at the British Library looking after its collection of mediaeval manuscripts. While having a male co-editor does not perhaps give the right impression, the majority of the contributors are women. Also two of them openly identify as non-binary, including Rowan Wilson who penned the excellent and very respectful section on the transfeminine sex worker, Eleanor Rykener.

Although the exhibition is now closed, the book is still available from the British Library shop and from Amazon. At around £25 for a hardcover it is exceptional value. It is a hefty tome with high quality paper and is absolutely stuffed full of colour illustrations that are mainly taken from stunning illuminated manuscripts. Yes, it is a coffee table book, but it is also informative and has an excellent section on suggested further reading for those of us who want to know more about the women it features.

book cover
Title: Mediaeval Women: Voices and Visions
By: Eleanor Jackson (ed.) & Julian Harrison (ed.)
Publisher: The British Library
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Navigational Entanglements

069, Aliette de Bodard, Book Review

These days Aliette de Bodard’s books are best known for their themes of Sapphic romance. That’s not really my thing, but if it wins her extra sales I’m all in favour because it means that more people are reading interesting SF.

The plot of Navigational Entanglements revolves around a creature known as a Tangler. They apparently live in the void between worlds, the place where spacecraft go to travel between stars. One of these creatures has escaped into our world. It is dangerous. A group of young people from the Navigators’ Guild have been tasked to capture it before there is an unfortunate incident. Complicating matters, the Guild is divided into rival clans. Because of the importance of the mission, each clan has to have a representative, and of course they all despise each other.

Our main characters are Viêt Nhi from the Rooster clan, and Hḁc Cúc from the Snakes (my apologies about the lack of fully correct accents on some of the vowels, I got as close as the fonts I have allowed). Nhi is smart and good at manipulating others, which frankly is just what the mission needs, but really doesn’t like people. Cúc is an assassin, with the sort of massively over-developed sense of morality that comes from having to live with the fact that your job is killing people. Inevitably they will fall in love.

However, that isn’t really what the book is about. The main theme is one of politics. The main questions that confront our heroes are ones such as, “how did the tangler get free in the first place?”, “who is responsible for the murder that takes place early on in the story?”, and, most importantly, “who stands to gain from all of this chaos?”

Ultimately, Navigational Entanglements is a book about old people who will do anything to stay in power, and young people who have to choose between their careers and doing the right thing. I’m afraid that’s rather more interesting to me than who gets to kiss who.

book cover
Title: Navigational Entanglements
By: Aliette de Bodard
Publisher: St. Martin's
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

The Tusks of Extinction

069, Book Review, Ray Nayler

Bringing animals back from extinction has been a fascination of science fiction at least since Jurassic Park, probably much longer. Usually what people want is dinosaurs, but the wooly mammoth also holds a significant place in the human imagination, and resurrecting it seems slightly less unlikely.

Ray Nayler clearly knows his biology. In The Tusks of Extinction he correctly notes that mammoth fur was not orange, no matter what the creatures found frozen in Siberia might look like. In life the fur would have been a chocolate brown colour. It fades when it gets frozen. Also Nayler knows that extracting actual mammoth DNA from those Siberian corpses is not going to be possible. What might be possible, and indeed has been trialed on mice, is implanting genes for furriness in modern elephants.

A creature manufactured in this way is, of course, described as transgenic – it has crossed genes – and it may well be mice transformed in this way (they look adorable) that Donald Trump was thinking of when he went off on a rant about “transgender mice”.

Back with Nayler, his interest is not just in mammoths, but also in the fate of elephants, and by extension most of the natural world. Mammoths are extinct now. Elephants will be extinct in the not too distant future. The fewer elephants there are, the more valuable ivory becomes, and the more money and effort will be put into hunting them.

Nayler’s heroine, Damira, is a conservationist specialising in elephants who has dedicated her life to fighting poachers. We also catch up with her in the future where her mind has been implanted into that of a genetically manufactured ‘mammoth’. These poor creatures were reared in zoos and have no idea how to survive in the wild, let alone in the frozen wastes of Siberia where there is at least land that is not wanted by humans and can therefore become a wildlife sanctuary.

The idea of putting human minds into animals is not new, of course. If you would like to see it done very well, at novel length, I warmly recommend The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Geen. I’ve put my review of that book, originally hosted on my blog, in this issue.

Back with Nayler, what his novella is actually about is the economics of conservation. There are two opposing viewpoints here. One holds that the only way we are going to save the natural world is to make it valuable to humans. That means, among other things, eating meat, and allowing a certain level of hunting. The alternative view is that all animals are sovereign beings in their own right, and should not be killed by humans for any reason. The problem with that approach is that stopping humans killing animals is a monumental task, and probably the only way to make it stick is to kill most of the humans. Nayler hints at this, but doesn’t make it explicit. I got the impression that he favours the ‘kill most of the humans’ plan, which is a bit worrying.

book cover
Title: The Tusks of Extinction
By: Ray Nayler
Publisher:
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

The Many Selves of Katherine North

069, Book Review, Emma Geen

This review was first published on Cheryl’s blog in June 2016.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a tiger, the mightiest beast in the jungle? Or a majestic eagle, soaring over mountains with consummate ease? Perhaps you’d just like to be a dolphin, swimming merrily through the open ocean with a pod of playmates.

Kit North has been all of these things and more. It’s her job.

Kit works for ShenCorp, a startup company that grew out of a research lab at the University of Bristol and is still based in offices at the top of Park Street. Their primary work is zoological research through phenomenautic projection. There are two main areas of scientific activity here. The first is the ability to grow ResExtendas (Ressies), artificial animal bodies that have most of the physical characteristics of the real thing but are not, themselves, alive. The other is the projection of human consciousness into those bodies so that the researcher can see the world through the senses of the Ressy and, with any luck, mingle with natural populations. It is, if you like, the ultimate hide.

As a phenomenaut, Kit’s job is to become an animal and find out how it operates in the world. How important is it to have a sense of smell far beyond normal human imagination? How do social interactions between animals work? There’s a huge amount of valuable research to be done, and that is all the more important as so many of the Earth’s animal species are on the verge of extinction. Kit works closely with Buckley Maurice, her Neuro, the scientist whose job it is to monitor her projection, record her observations and activities, and make sure that she can Come Home to her Original Body at the end of the experiment.

Kit’s primary specialism is with vulpines. She is helping ShenCorp understand the lives of urban foxes — where they go, what they do, what do they eat? She has even, in her fox life, adopted an orphan cub, whom she calls Tomoko. She knows enough about fox life now to teach the youngster to hunt and scavenge. She and Buckley have written some ground-breaking papers off the back of this.

Of course great advances in science don’t come easily. There have been a few problems along the way. ShenCorp recruits phenomenauts as teenagers because young people’s brains are much more plastic and able to cope with the stresses of projection into animal bodies. Mostly they don’t last very long in the job. Continuous psychological monitoring ensures that they suffer no permanent damage, but many of them have to retire after only a few years in the role. It’s for their own good. Kit, with seven years under her belt, is the most experienced phenomenaut in the company.

That’s because she has learned how to be careful. She knows how to hide herself, to not give anything away. It pays to be cautious around humans. They might leave food out for you one day, but turn on you the next. They can’t be trusted.

One of the least trustworthy of the humans is Mr. Hughes, the man who manages ShenCorp now that its founder, Professor Shen, has taken an extended sabbatical. Mr. Hughes has big plans for the company. Scientific research is not very profitable. Hughes thinks that the projection technology has lots of commercial potential. He’s relying on his most experienced team to make his plans work. What this means for Kit and Buckley is not clear. Kit thinks that something bad is being planned. She’s also worried about whether, if it comes down to it, Buckley will be loyal to her, or to the company. He is, after all, human.

Bloomsbury is marketing The Many Selves of Katherine North as literary fiction, aiming at the same market that lapped up Station Eleven. The book is, however, a solid piece of science fiction. Emma Geen confesses in an afterword that she may not have always got animal abilities right. That’s because, after reading a ton of academic papers, she couldn’t always find a consensus among the scientists. In effect the book is cyberpunk, but cyberpunk with a strong environmentalist tinge to it. It is also beautifully written, and perfectly passes muster in its literary mufti.

Emma is one of the products of the Bath Spa University creative writing program where Colin Harvey studied. Jack Wolf has also been involved with them, and of course many of their graduates go into other fields of literature as well. I’m impressed with what they are turning out. And I am really impressed with this book. Don’t miss out on it just because it isn’t being marketed at us.

book cover
Title: The Many Selves of Katherine North
By: Emma Geen
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

The Wild Robot

069, Movie Review

Air Canada’s offerings on my trips this month were underwhelming. That wasn’t for any lack of choice. There were huge numbers of films and TV shows that I could have watched; but there were very few that I actually wanted to see. I mean, I could have re-watched the entire Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings series which, with the addition of The War of the Rohirrim, is now up to 7 films. I could have re-watched all four Matrix films. I did re-watch Jupiter Ascending, but only once out of four flights. What was lacking was something new that I actually wanted to see, and that was as much the fault of Hollywood as anyone else.

The one new-ish film that I did watch was The Wild Robot. People on BlueSky recommended this one too me, but I wasn’t hugely impressed. It is basically something that riffs off the emotional notes of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ and ‘Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’, with a lost robot thrown in for good measure.

The main character is Roz, also known as Rozzum 7134, which is a clear reference to the Capek play, Rossum’s Universal Robots, for which the word ‘robot’ was coined. A container ship carrying Roz is shipwrecked on a remote island inhabited only by animals. Searching a client to serve, Roz ends up parenting a baby goose called Brightbill, with the aid of a sly fox called Fink who starts out planning to eat Brightbill when the young goose is bigger, but slowly comes to love the kid.

There is plenty that is quite silly about the film, most obviously the idea that all of the animals on the island share a common language which Roz is able to learn. If you can get past that then the film is competent, if very predictable. It hits all the right tear-jerking notes.

The highlights for me were the performances of Pedro Pascal as Fink, and Mark Hamill as Thorn, a giant grizzly bear. Catherine O’Hara as Pinktail, an opossum with a large and boisterous brood of children, is also a lot of fun.

I’m glad I didn’t spend money to see this film in the cinema, but as a piece of light entertainment on a long flight it did the job.

The War of the Rohirrim

069, Movie Review

Now that the rich mine of Middle Earth has been opened up for exploitation, the corporations that have rights to exploit it are keen to do so as rapidly as possible before the movie-watching public gets bored. Rings of Power is at least nominally based on the events chronicled in The Silmarillion. The War of the Rohirrim is mostly just shameless recycling of previously used material.

The idea was attractive. With live-action movies being expensive and much of the sets from the Lord of the Rings movies having been dismantled, Peter Jackson and his collaborators have turned to animation. Specifically they brought in a well-known anime studio. That would give a very different look to the film.

I am not a great expert on animation. I gather that the film was put together at breakneck speed. I have seen suggestions that the resulting work is of poor quality. Whether this is true, or is simply a bunch of dudebros having a hissy fit over the feminist elements of the plot, I don’t know. It looked OK to me.

What was not OK was the plot. Yes, it was simplistic and clichéd. I can cope with that. Yes, in theory, it was set in the past and about wholly different characters. But the extent to which it recycled themes from LotR suggested a stunning lack of imagination on the part of the scriptwriters. Let us count the ways:

  • Aged and foolish king of Rohan who comes good in the end
  • Willful princess who wants to be a warrior
  • Miranda Otto (Eowyn in the movies) narrating just in case we have forgotten what this is about
  • Advisor to the king who turns out to be a traitor
  • Bad guys using Isengard as a base
  • Our heroes besieged in Helm’s Deep
  • Eagles to the rescue (but only at the last minute)
  • Idiotic downhill cavalry charge
  • Gratuitous guest appearance by Saruman just in case we have forgotten who will move into Isengard

There are probably others, but the downhill cavalry charge was the single most idiotic element of the LotR movies (which, for the most part, I loved). This film has taken it, and made it even more stupid. I despair.

Editorial – March 2025

069, Editorial

As predicted, this issue was late. I did manage to get some work done on the train home from Heathrow, but Tuesday was mainly spent in a state of slumber. In other news, Canada was lovely. Kevin and I had a great time. There was a lot of anti-American feeling on show, but much sympathy for individual Americans.

This month is Eastercon, and I’m delighted that Fight Like A Girl 2 is up for a BSFA Award. Roz and Jo can’t make it, so it will be down to me to turn up at the award ceremony. It would be astonishing to have two wins in consecutive years, but I can but hope.

Lots of Wizard’s Tower work is going on in the background, but I can’t talk about much of it right now. Suffice it to say that we have 8 books in the pipeline for this year or early next, with probably more to come.

I note that today is a day of protest by The Society of Authors against the wholesale theft of millions of copyright works (including some of mine) by the pirates at Meta. I doubt that the government will be willing to stand up to them, but here’s an example of the protest material.



And I must rush as I am off to a writing retreat for the weekend in a lovely part of Wales that has No Internet.

Issue #68

Issues

This is the February 2025 issue of Salon Futura. Here are the contents.


  • Cover: The Dragon’s Den: This issue's cover is by Sedgwick and comes from Among the Gnomes. An occult tale of adventure in the Untersberg by Franz Hartmann

  • The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain: Sophia Samatar's novella is set in space, but is very much about the here and now

  • Kaos: Netflix does Greek Gods in a way that Classicists will love, but probably left the studio bosses scratching their heads

  • The Dead Cat Tail Assassins: In P Djèlí Clark's new fantasy world there are dead cats that are not cats and do not have tails

  • Adwaith – Solas: Carmarthen's finest launch their latest album in front of their adoring home fans

  • Mapping Middle Earth: From the Glasgow University Fantasy Centre comes a fascinating look at the maps of Tolkien's Legendarium

  • The Substance: Paul Driggere takes a look at the latest horror movie senasation so that you don't have to

  • Gŵyl y Golau: Cheryl and friends usher in spring in traditional Welsh fashion

  • Fantasy News & Lifestyle Magazine: A German magazine about fantasy is newly available in English. Cheryl checks it out.

  • Hugo Voting Time: It is award season again, and Cheryl has some recommendations

  • Section 31: OK, you were all right, it was terrible

  • Editorial – March 2025: Cheryl has a lot of travel plans, which may or may not be interrupted by the insanity of global politics

Cover: The Dragon’s Den

068, Art

Continuing our theme of raiding the free image collection provided by the British Library, here we have a fantasy-themed cover. The image is titled, ‘The Dragon’s Den’ and it comes from Among the Gnomes. An occult tale of adventure in the Untersberg by Franz Hartmann. The book was published in 1895 by T Fisher Unwin. The illustrator is known as Sedgwick, but I haven’t found out any more about them. There is a version of the book available on Project Gutenberg should you want to know why a bunch of gnomes are oggling a mostly-naked girl.

As usual, there is a larger copy of the image below.

The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain

068, Book Review, Sophia Samatar

The title of this novella from Sophia Samatar gives you no clue as to what it is about. The cover does not help. In starting to read through you understand that the book is set on a space ark of some sort. That is not what the book is about at all.

Our two main characters are the boy and the professor. The boy is an inhabitant of The Hold, spending his life in the dark attached to a Chain. He has significant artistic talent. The professor lives in the main part of the ship. She is not chained, but her father was. She wears an anklet. She is on probation. Which makes it all the more brave of her to advocate for the rights of the inhabitants of The Hold, and to believe that they can be educated.

Naturally she is hopelessly naïve. Having not grown up in The Hold, she has no idea what it is like, nor how to relate to someone who has never lived anywhere else. Equally, she has no idea how much contempt the free inhabitants of the ship have for people like her, or how ruthlessly they will protect their privilege.

The Practice is a way of thinking and being put forward by an old man from The Hold known as The Prophet. The boy is a disciple of sorts, but will eventually surpass his master.

The Horizon is something that the Ship does not have. It embodies a way of thinking that those who have grown up on the Ship are unable to contemplate: that there are directions other than up or down.

The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain is a book about living on Earth. It is about how those with power and wealth view those without as infinitely disposable, and whose reaction to any sort of crisis is not “what should we do for the best”, but “what’s in it for me.” It is very much a book about the here and now.

book cover
Title: The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain
By: Sophia Samatar
Publisher: Tor.com
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Kaos

068, TV Review

I’m a bit behind with this one due to the large quantity of interesting TV demanding my time. When it first came out, my Classicist friends were absolutely delighted about it. I can see why. I can also see why it was not renewed.

For those that don’t know, Kaos is a heavily re-imagined story of Greek gods in modern dress. Zeus is worried about a prophecy that suggests that Olympus will one day fall. As he becomes increasingly paranoid and vicious, the other gods realise that he is in danger of bringing about the very disaster he is trying to prevent.

Alongside the heavenly drama there is action in the mortal realm of Krete, where the Trojans live as unwanted refugees and President Minos uses the threat of the Minotaur to keep power. His daughter, Ariadne, has a crush on her bodyguard, Theseus. Everyone loves Krete’s favourite rock star, Orpheus, except for this wife, Eurydice.

Whoever saw Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok and decided that he would be a perfect paranoid Zeus deserves a medal. Much of the rest of the casting is fairly meh, but I did appreciate seeing Suzy Izzard getting a staring role as Lachesis, one of the Fates. Also Billy Piper is great as Cassandra.

I’m not sure how this show was sold to Netflix, but I suspect it was a combination of “sex and violence just like Game of Thrones” and “Classical re-tellings are all the rage at the moment.” There is apparently an Odyssey movie in the works, which would have been sold the same way. However, that is not what Kaos delivered.

What we actually got was a very innovative and imaginative re-telling that will have those who only know a bit of Greek myth saying, “but it didn’t happen like that,” and those who know those myths well punching the air in delight. The result is a clever satire about authoritarian rule that has a lot in common with Sophia Samatar’s The Practice, The Horizon and The Chain.

Naturally my favorite character in the show is Caeneus. He’s a little-known character from myth. The original story has Poseidon raping a girl called Caenis, after which he turns her into a man and a great warrior. Why this happens isn’t clear, though it is very un-Poseidon-like. He was more likely to turn his victims into a snake-headed monster. Some versions have the god taking pity on Caenis, others say she asked for the transformation as a favour to avoid pregnancy. Nowhere is it suggested that Caenis identified as a boy before the rape.

In Kaos, despite what you might have read on the internet, Caeneus is portrayed as intersex. Specifically he appears to be someone with the trait known as 5-alpha reductase deficiency, whereby a child is born appearing female, but develops male genitals during puberty. Such children often identify as boys when young, or behave in a boyish manner. Parents of such children often say they could tell from an early age that something was different.

It is a bold move by the show, and one that was doubtless part-responsible for its demise. But the thing I like best about it is the suggestion that the gender binary is somehow ‘divinely’ mandated (by Zeus and his bullying family), and that Caeneus’s transformation somehow offended the gods. It also, very clearly, offended the female-separatist Amazons, who seem very TERFy. In other words, Caeneus’s transformation is presented as pissing off a bunch of awful people, and therefore as a Good Thing.

Here now is an example of why Classicists love this show. In the scene in which young Caeneus meets his childhood friend, Leos, he is shown carrying a dead hare. In ancient Greek culture, a present of a dead hare was a traditional gift between same-sex lovers. There are several vases showing such a gift between men, and one very famous one showing two Amazons. You have to be pretty heavily nerdy about Greek myth to know such a thing, but the showrunners did know it, and thought to put it in.

Sadly the show was much too ingenious and obscure for the money men at Netflix. The clever references will all have gone completely over their heads. They will have seen the social media blow-up about Caeneus being “trans”. I’m not surprised that they cancelled the show.

Having said that, it did wrap up fairly well. I would have liked to know what Hera and Artemis were going to do with their Amazon army. I was also looking forward to Dionysius and Ari getting together, because that’s the closest that actual Greek myth comes to a happy ending. Maybe Netflix can be persuaded to let someone write a novelization, with sequels.

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins

068, Book Review, P Djèlí Clark

In the prosperous merchant city of Tal Abisi there is a flourishing trade in assassination. Among the guilds of assassins, the Dead Cat Tails are generally acknowledged to be the best. And among the Dead Cat Tails, Eveen the Eviscerator is one of their star performers. This means that she gets some of the most interesting and challenging commissions.

Even Eveen, however, did not expect to get a commission to kill herself. You see, the thing about the Dead Cat Tails is that they are not cats, nor do they have tails, but they are, most assuredly, dead.

Whether P Djèlí Clark is a fan of Deadpool or not is open to question. What is certain is that similar considerations apply. Being dead, Eveen and her fellow assassins cannot be killed. Being magically re-animated, they heal ridiculously quickly. Which makes them highly formidable fighters. It also allows the author to craft the most fabulously over top fight sequences. After all, written fiction still has far fewer constraints than even the best CGI. If an author can imagine it, they can write it.

However, back to Eveen and her mysterious commission. The person that she is sent to kill is not exactly herself, but rather her younger self pulled through time for the express purpose of being killed by her. What the effect of this young woman’s demise will be on Eveen is unclear. What is clear is that, should she fail to carry out her commission in a timely fashion, she will have violated the third and most important of Clark’s Three Laws of Assassins. (Sorry, they are actually called the Three Unbreakable Vows, but I couldn’t resist the temptation.)

Breaking the Third Unbreakable Vow has consequences. Aeril, the Goddess of Assassins (and Chefs, and anyone else who likes playing with Very Sharp Knives) will notice. Not just Eveen, but her entire guild, will be in deep trouble.

So here we have a lovely set-up. Eveen has just a few hours to work out what the heck is going on, and to avoid the wrath of her fellow Dead Cat Tails and their goddess. Along the way, there can be some fun fights between Eveen and her co-workers.

Clark is clearly having fun here. No more so than when we get to this bit:

“There are three … fools, she spoke at last. “With grand ideas of doing forbidden magic.”
“Edgelords,” Tamu spat with disgust.
“Edgelords?” Sky asked, looking truly puzzled.
“A bunch of privileged pricks,” Eveen answered. “Usually from well-off families who got themselves kicked out of decent colleges. Like to find banned texts or unsanctioned thaumaturgy. The riskier the better. Claim to be freeing magic from restrictions, pushing it to the edge.”

Later in the book we get to meet one of these idiots. And yet, he does tend to start every sentence with the words, “well, actually.”

If that’s not sufficient recommendation for you, I don’t know what would be.

I should also note that The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is a short book, only 213 pages. Clark describes it as a novella, but Locus has decided that it is a novel which presumably means it is just a few words over the 40,000 word limit. I have complained about this sort of mindless adherence to word limits before, but no one seems to care so a Very Short Novel it is. Regardless, you can read it quite quickly.

book cover
Title: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins
By: P Djèlí Clark
Publisher: Tor.com
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Adwaith – Solas

068, Adwaith, Music Review

Adwaith are a three-piece all-girl band from South Wales. They were founded by Hollie Singer and Gwenllian Anthony, who were school friends in Carmarthen. With a couple of successful albums behind them, some appearances at Glastonbury, and support work for the likes of the Manics and Idles, they have done that thing that many newly successful bands do: spend two years in the studio.

The result has been a double album, Solas, which the band are now taking on tour. For their opening night they played the entire album straight through in front of their home crowd at the Lyric in Carmarthen. Jo, Chris and I went along, and were thoroughly entertained.

It was an interesting crowd. Because they are a local band, there were parents, grandparents, neighbours and so on. I was by no means the oldest person in the audience, which was unusual for a rock gig.

There was a support band: five lads who could certainly play but had little in the way of stage presence or an act. They were very shoegazy, but listenable. Hopefully they will learn to perform better in future. I never found out their name.

In stark contrast, Adwaith were very obviously A Rock Band. The core of their sound is provided by Gwenllian’s base guitar and Heledd Owen’s furious drums. Hollie, appropriately given her name, provides vocals, and also lead guitar. There was one number where Hollie and Gwenllian swapped roles and Gwenllian did a decent impression of Liza Minelli in Cabaret, but for the most part the pyrotechnics are provided by that classic base and drum sound.

I have the band’s two previous albums, but the songs on Solas were all new to me. Foolishly I ignored the queues at the Merch table after the gig, only to find out when I got home that the album is not yet on Bandcamp and their record label has sold out of the initial pressing. Argh.

Anyway, there were some really great songs. The one that opens side three was particularly memorable as it is a real head-banger. I’m looking forward to listening the album again when I can get a copy.

Adwaith’s lyrics are entirely in Welsh, which is why you have never heard of them. They are very good. Most of the tour will be over by the time you read this, but they are at the Oslo in London on March 6th and the Louisiana in Bristol on the 7th. Go see them, they are fabulous.

Mapping Middle Earth

068, Anahit Behrooz, Book Review

One of many great things about the Perspectives on Fantasy series from the Glasgow University Fantasy Centre is that their contract with Bloomsbury requires the publisher to produce paperback editions at affordable prices. You have to wait a year from initial publication for the paperback to appear, but once it has you should be able to get it for around £25. Or, having waited a year already, you can wait a little longer for Bloomsbury to have a sale. Which is how I ended up getting a copy of Mapping Middle Earth for just over £20.

The book is the product of research done by Anahit Behrooz for her PhD. As the title suggests it examines Tolkien’s use of maps in his Legendarium. In many ways it builds on Stefan Ekman’s ground-breaking study of fantasy maps, Here be Dragons. Behrooz, however, is interested in only a very small, albeit very famous, subset of the fantasy genre, and that allows her to go into much greater depth.

I should start, as Behrooz does, by noting that all maps are political. We should all know that. I presume that most of you know that the well-known Mercator projection of Earth over-states the size of land at the poles, and under-states the size of land at the equator. That has been all over social media of late, as people have gleefully pointed out that Greenland is nowhere near as bigly as Donald Trump thinks it is.

Behrooz situates Tolkien’s maps between two traditions: the mediaeval map (such as the famous Hereford Mappa Mundi), and the modern map (typified by the UK’s Ordnance Survey). Mediaeval European maps are mostly religious in nature. They generally have Jerusalem at the centre, and are oriented towards the East, where the Garden of Eden was believed to lie. Tolkien’s maps of Middle Earth in the First and Second Age are much more like mediaeval maps. Prior to the sinking of Númenor, Middle Earth was flat and it was possible to travel directly to Valinor. So the heaven of Middle Earth was literally on the map.

The Ordnance Survey, as the name suggests, was originally a military project. Specifically it was created by the English army to help them find their way around the Scottish highlands, all the better to round up any Jacobite resistance. Military maps need to be highly accurate, and while that has been a great boon for later generations of hikers, we still have to remember that the maps were created as a tool of military conquest.

Personally I think that Behrooz has missed a trick here. I suspect that the maps of Middle Earth are in large part influenced by the work of Thomas Moule, a Victorian producer of faux-antique maps. Moule’s work was very popular, and I’m sure that Tolkien would have been familiar with it. The maps use the Ordnance Survey as a basis, so are highly accurate, but are also decorated to look like something much older.

Behrooz then goes on to talk about Tolkien’s relationship to the environment, and his representation of the non-human on his maps. We are all familiar with the Ents and Huorns, with the grumpy old mountain, Caradhras, and with Old Man Willow. The Legendarium gives a voice to many non-human characters, and not just members of races other than mankind. The maps represent places like Mirkwood and Lothlorien, and give some indication of their character.

This section led me to a grudging acknowledgement of the necessity of Tom Bombadil. Behrooz points out that his function in the story is to disabuse the naïve Hobbits of their simplistic views on life, and introduce them to the world outside the Shire. I can see that is an important story function, though I still don’t see why he also has to be a purveyor of terrible poetry.

The next section is all about geography and geology. There is a lot of focus on Númenor’s Atlantis-like fate and how Tolkien sought to navigate between this essentially mediaeval view of history, punctuated by god-sent disasters, and the modern scientific view of deep geological time with its fossils and continental drift.

Finally we come to a section on Imperialism and Race, where Behrooz looks at how maps are used as a function of imperialist projects, erasing the existence of indigenous peoples and replacing them with “unexplored” lands to be conquered and assimilated. This also happens in Middle Earth, as various human societies, mostly notably Númenor, seek to expand their territory at the expense of both other races and of the natural world.

What I particularly like about this book is how it zeroes in on the contradictions in Tolkien’s work. He’s pro-environment, but also pro-Hobbit, and the Hobbits are very much managers of their environment. He has written a religious history of his world, but is also aware that science has moved on since mediaeval times. And he is concerned about the destruction of cultures by industrialisation, but is also a product of the British Empire and its educational system. Behrooz writes:

Readling Tolkien, I am struck continually by the contradictions of his approach: the moments where he edges towards a strikingly anti-colonial mindset, the moments where he falls back on the harmful racialization that characterized, and indeed fueled, the gutting force of the British Empire. To place Tolkien within a context is to place him inevitably within an imperial context, which is to say, inevitably within a racist context. What can looking fearlessly and unbiasedly at his work tell us about the necessities of understanding the entanglement between human and non-human harm? What can it tell us about an author who was suspended, constantly, between past, present and future?

And that sort of thing is why I like reading academic books. They can be so much more interesting than the simplistic takes you see on social media, or even in blog posts.

The book has also got me looking forward to the forthcoming seasons of Rings of Power, as the story should get much more interesting, if the script follows what Tolkien wrote.

book cover
Title: Mapping Middle Earth
By: Anahit Behrooz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

The Substance

068, Movie Review, Paul Driggere

I’m going to make a new movie list called “One-Watch Masterpieces”, and I’ll tell you why. There’s not many lists out there like that. Sure, there’s probably a WatchMojo video out on YouTube already that claims a Top 10 or Top 20 “Movies So Good Yet You Can Only See Them Once”, and if so, hey, hats off to them for expanding their repertoire.

In the vein of body horror such as Audition or the vintage gem Freaks, and the warped, mindless reality distortion from epics like Brazil and Eraserhead comes Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, which recently became my Top #1 movie I can never watch again.

The Substance is a provocative body-horror film that delves into the societal obsession with youth and beauty. The movie follows a washed-up Oscar winning actress named Elizabeth Sparks (played with absolute perfection by Demi Moore). On her 50th birthday, after years as an aerobics star icon, she realizes her age is catching up to her. Her show producer, played brilliantly by Dennis Quaid, agrees and fires her on the spot, seeking a younger, fresher face for the screen.

When Elizabeth happens upon a rejuvenation advertisement known as “The Substance”, she boldly and foolishly takes the plunge and orders this possible solution to her problems. This leads instead to a nightmare of visceral explorations of identity and self-perception, as a much younger Elizabeth Sparks (Margaret Qualley) emerges – literally.

The struggle between Sparks and her alter-ego starts out as a playful, comedic tug-of-war for dominance of the self. Sparks convinces her producer that her alter-ego is someone else entirely. But soon Elizabeth can no longer control the alter-ego. There is gut-wrenching horror watching the fight escalate between the two selves until there is little choice but to become the only self.

I know people label this as a horror movie and, because of this, it doesn’t have a shot at the Best Film award. But the strange thing is, it’s really NOT a horror movie. I’d call it more of an outrageous comedy, a journey into mind-bending surrealism laced with glimpses of heavy satire. In fact, when you get towards the end of the movie, in some ways it could be seen as a dream sequence, and perhaps Sparks will wake up sweating in her bed.

That’s sort of what I thought would happen, but Fargeat blew me away with the ending all the same. As it turned out, there was one more mind-blowing sequence I can’t ever forget – or watch again.

I can’t understand why she wrote this particular screenplay. I have absolutely no knowledge of the body politics when it comes to women or what they want. Perhaps the movie teaches us, again, the wise words “be yourself”. I’d like to think Fargeat also wanted to illustrate the lengths women go to in remaining attractive to others, and whether it’s really all worth it. Do women want to look good for others – or for themselves? Why is there such an attraction to attraction?

In retrospect, The Substance is clearly designed to shock – with some of the most grotesque special effects ever put to screen. (And I saw In A Violent Nature, which made me cringe in parts.) The movie pulls no punches with its body horror and still leaves you breathless with laughter.

After Fargeat’s critical success with Revenge (2017), about a woman who gets even with a group of lawless men in the desert in extremely violent fashion, she is quickly becoming the Gratuitous Violence Queen of Film.

Check out The Substance, if you can stomach it. For all the graphic horror, there is a brilliant story, a fantastical, satirical comedic journey, and perhaps a lesson for us all.

Be yourself.

The Substance is currently available for streaming on Mubi and various VOD platforms. Given its graphic content, viewer discretion is advised.
Well, duh.

Gŵyl y Golau

068, Music Review, Simmy Singh

When people think of the Celtic religious calendar (which is largely a modern artefact), they tend to think in terms of Irish festivals. Thus February 1st is known as Imbolc (or for Christians, Saint Brigid’s Day). But Wales has its own traditions which do not map exactly onto the Irish ones, and which have their own names.

Thus Hallowe’en in Welsh is Nos Calan Gaeaf, the night of the start of Winter. Relatedly, February 1st is Gŵyl y Golau, the Festival of Light, which marks the beginning of Spring.

It so happened that one of the regular writing retreats that Roz & Jo run fell on the festival weekend. It also happened that an event was taking place at Dinefwr, a National Trust property just up the road from us. These days Dinefwr is known for a stately home, Newton House, but the grounds also contain the sites of two Roman first (now entirely buried) and a ruined mediaeval castle that was once home to the kings of Deheubarth (including the famous Hywel Dda). There are Iron Age structures under the castle, but that makes them hard to excavate so we don’t know much about them. All of this makes Dinefwr an ideal place for traditional festival celebrations.

This year the event was extra interesting because of who was performing. Simmy Singh is a wonderful Welsh violinist who works in a variety of genres including Classical, Jazz and Rock. Last year we saw her lead Sinfonia Cymru in a fabulous rendition of the Four Seasons. She has collaborated with artists as varied as Coldplay, Lewis Capaldi, Michael Buble and Burt Bacharach. And she also happens to be friends with Roz & Jo, and with my hairdresser, Sarah. Wales is a small world.

Simmy loves working with others, and the Gŵyl y Golau event saw her team up with two amazing musicians — Bethan Lloyd and Nigel Shaw – plus folklorist Angharad Wynne.

Bethan is a vocalist. If you are into the likes of Dead Can Dance and The Cocteau Twins you will almost certain like what Bethan has to offer. She’s on Bandcamp.

Nigel is a self-confessed flute nerd who owns, and indeed makes, many such instruments. His collection includes 3D printed reproductions of Neolithic bone flutes, which apparently sound great. He and his partner, Carolyn Hillyer, run Seventh Wave Music from a small village on Dartmoor. They do a lot of Neo-Pagan stuff.

No one knows how Gŵyl y Golau would have been celebrated in ancient times, though clearly marking the beginning of spring would be important to farming communities. Angharad, however, presented us with an intriguing theory. We know that Mari Lwyd is active over winter. The events in which she features generally centre around midwinter. But she is awake from Calan Gaeaf until Gŵyl y Golau. Angharad suggested that perhaps Mari is an incarnation of Rhiannon, the horse goddess, who is spending the winter dead. When spring comes, her ghastly skeletal form is shed, and she becomes a flesh and blood goddess once more. Again there is no proof of this, but I do like it as an idea.

That was our entertainment for the evening, which took place partly in the living room of Newton House, and partly around a brazier in the gardens. A fabulous time was had by all.

Fantasy News & Lifestyle Magazine

068, Magazine Review

I don’t often post magazine reviews here, but Fantasy News & Lifestyle is new and from Germany. There are seven issues available in German, but the two most recent are also in English. So what’s going on in Fantasy in Germany?

The first thing that pops out at you is that title. Lifestyle? Really? Are they going to be running articles about recipes and home decorating? Well no, but the first English issue contains a report on the World Cosplay Summit and on a games convention in Taipei. The magazine is very much geared towards fans and, as they saying goes, ‘fandom is a way of life.’

That said, this is not a media-obsessed publication. The two issues also include author interviews, and the first issue has a piece about a much-loved German bookshop. The second issue has an article about SFWA, and one about the Leipzig Book Fair.

Although the magazine is originally written in German, the English translations are entirely understandable. There’s the occasional unnecessary apostrophe (e.g. a column titled “Tips for Author’s”), but that’s probably the fault of online translators or grammar checkers and anyway you see far too much of that from native English speakers.

My only serious reservation about the magazine is that the first issue contains a glowing article about the benefits of AI, particularly with respect to art. It occurs to me that some of the art in the magazine may be AI-generated. This is unfortunate. I have no idea what the state of the debate over AI is in Germany (hello, Cora, are you reading this?), but I would be surprised if German artists are not as furious about AI as those in the Anglophone world.

Regardless, Alex Struever clear puts a huge amount of effort into the magazine, which is beautifully laid out. If you want to check it out you can find it here.

Hugo Voting Time

068, Awards

OK, so Hugo voting is now open. So is the Locus Poll. I should have some thoughts, despite the fact that I still have a whole lot of books that I want to read.

Novels

The book that I would love to see on the ballot but won’t be is We are all Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson. It is genuinely innovative, beautifully written, and full of heart. But most Hugo voters will not have read it. Thanks to support from another UK contributor, it is on the Locus Recommended Reading List. Hopefully that will help.

The best 2024 novel I have read this far is Space Oddity. I am, of course, a die-hard Cat Valente fan. You may have a different opinion, but you are wrong, unless you are suggesting The Book of Love by Kelly Link which is also wonderful.

Another book that has been very popular is Malka Older’s The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles. You might think that it is a novella, but Locus has decided that it is a novel so that is how it will get treated for award purposes. See also The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P Djèlí Clark, though that might not make my list.

I still need to read Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer, Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson and at least one of the very many novels that Adrian Tchaikovsky had out last year. I’d love to vote for Mike Carey’s Echo of Worlds, but sequels rarely win anything.

Novellas

Two of my favourite novellas of the year have been bumped into the novel category, but there is still a lot of choice. What Feasts at Night by T Kingfisher and The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo are both automatic picks, being part of favourite series. There is a new Wayward Children book from Seanan McGuire that I haven’t read yet (and another for this year).

In stand-alones, I was very impressed by The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohammed. I was surprised to find that Ray Nayler’s The Tusks of Extinction is a novella and will seek it out. Aliette de Bodard has a couple of new books that I haven’t read yet as well.

Sophia Samatar’s The Practice, The Horizon and The Chain is probably the best of the bunch. I shall be disappointed if it doesn’t win some awards.

Short Stories and Novelettes

As usual, I have read almost nothing, and will read almost nothing until the short lists come out. Then I will hate them all. The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke is worth voting for, though.

Semiprozine

This may not be on your radar, but I would encourage you to take a look at Alex Pierce’s Speculative Insight. It would be great to have a non-fiction magazine on the ballot.

Dramatic Presentations

This year’s crop of movies has been pretty meh, but I shall be voting for Dune 2 because it is beautiful and has a superb soundtrack.

In contrast we have had two amazing animated TV series from the Star Trek team. I very much hope to see both Prodigy: Season 2 and Lower Decks: Season 4 on the ballot, though exactly how and what episodes if they are in Short I do not know.

Eligibility

I do not expect to be on any award ballots this year, but just for completeness’ sake here is the list:

– Short Story: “More Trouble Than She’s Worth” from Fight Like a Girl 2 (Clark/Hall)
– Fanzine: Salon Futura
– Fan Writer: me.

More importantly I want you to all write in The Green Man’s War for Fantasy Novel in the Locus Poll, because Juliet deserves the recognition and no one at Locus will listen to me on this subject.

Section 31

068, Movie Review

Well I can’t say that y’all didn’t warn me. But I watched it anyway. You were right, Section 31 is terrible. Let me count the ways…

  1. The totally predictable ‘shock’ prologue
  2. The awful Mission Impossible pastiche opening
  3. The worst Irish accent in the history of fake accents
  4. The major influence in Giorgiou’s life that she somehow never mentioned before
  5. The over-long and dull fight scenes
  6. The complete waste of Melle as a character
  7. The fact that it sneers at Trek rather than making fun of it lovingly as Lower Decks does
  8. The complete waste of Michelle Yeoh’s outstanding talent
  9. The chickening out at the end

You can probably think of more.

Rather than dunk further on something that deserves to be consigned to the same fate as those lost episodes of Doctor Who, I will mention two small positives.

Rachel Garrett is not just some random Starfleet officer. She’s a future Captain of the Enterprise who has already featured in a Next Generation episode, and who was to have a statue erected in her honour at the Starfleet Recruitment Center on M’talas Prime. Sadly the statue was destroyed in the attack on that facility in the final episode of Picard. But hey, woman Captain of the Enterprise, and seemingly a fun one at that. I liked her.

Also the ending could be interpreted as indicating that the Mirror Universe has been destroyed. We can but hope. Knowing the way that Hollywood works, someone will find a way to bring it back sooner or later. But for now, rejoice! Section 31 did get one thing right.

Yeah, OK, I will miss Captain Killy, but really, the Mirror Universe was never a good idea.

Editorial – March 2025

068, Editorial

This one is a few days late because I have been traveling over the past few days. First there was a trip to London to talk to some Plaid Cymru MPs about trans rights. I combined that with a visit to the Mediaeval Women exhibition at the British Library, about which more next issue. Then I headed up to Aberystwyth to give an LGBTQ+ History Month talk for the lovely people at Aberration. It has all been a bit busy.

Next month will have sumilar issues because Kevin and I will be spending the last week of March in Victoria, BC attending the Moving Trans History Forward conference. I’m hoping to catch up with Guy Gavriel Kay and Nalo Hopkinson while I am in Canada.

There’s not a lot else I can say at the moment. It looks disturbingly like the world is rushing headlong into a major war, so I’m trying not to plan too much in advance. I am hoping to be at Eastercon in April, an academic conference in Copenhagen in May, and the Eurocon in Finland in June. Whether any of that will be possible is another matter.

Issue #67

Issues

This is the January 2025 issue of Salon Futura. Here are the contents.


  • Cover: The Angel of the Revolution: This issue's cover is an interior illustration the the 1893 novel, The Angel of the Revolution, by George Griffith. The artist is F T Jane.

  • We Are All Ghosts in the Forest: In the forests of Estonia, after the collapse of civilisation, Lorraine Wilson's heroine is haunted by the ghosts of the internet

  • Triggernometry Finals: It is showdown time for Stark Holborn's desperado sumslingers. Have they met their equals at last?

  • Sundown in San Ojuela: Ghosts and an apparent werewolf haunt Southern California in M M Olivas's debut novel

  • The New Moon’s Arms: A look back at a classic piece of Caribbean fiction from Nalo Hopkinson

  • Skeleton Crew: Avast there me hearties, Star Wars has gone all piractical. Arrrr!

  • Aquaman 2: The fishy King Arthur is back. Will there be more Giant War Crabs? Or just crabby viewers?

  • What If? – Season 3: Marvel's alternate universe animation series has come to an end, and not before time

  • Editorial – January 2025: In which Cheryl's internet is misbehaving

Cover: The Angel of the Revolution

067, Art

This issue we continue with the new practice of finding covers amongst the British Library’s collection of illustrations from old books. The picture in question was included in a 1893 novel called The Angel of the Revolution: A Tale of the Coming Terror by the British writer, George Griffith. It tells of an war fought with flying machines, between the Anglo-Teutonic Alliance and the Franco-Slavonian League, and features bombing of civilian targets. This was written well before WWI, let alone WWII.

The pictures are of interest because they were drawn by the pioneering wargamer and military nerd, Fred T Jane, most famous for his book, Jane’s Fighting Ships, a comprehensive catalogue of the world’s navies. The title was, of course, subtly changed for Jane Dennis’s fanzine, Jane’s Fighting SMOFs. Jane wrote science fiction as well as illustrating it.

A larger version of the British Library image appears below.

We Are All Ghosts in the Forest

067, Book Review, Lorraine Wilson

In the east of Estonia, not too far from the Russian border, is a small village. When the world fell apart, and she could no longer earn a living as a photographer, Katerina went there to live there because the village had been her grandmother’s home. There was a house there she could have. And perhaps neighbours.

The villagers welcomed her cautiously. Katerina’s grandmother had been an honoured member of their community. But in the world that had vanished, young people moved around. They married outside their community. Katerina’s skin is brown, courtesy of an Indian parent. It marks her out as different. Fortunately, thanks in part to books left by her grandmother, and in part due to her intellectual curiosity, Katerina is good with herbs. She can make medicines, which are sorely needed. She can advise on keeping pests away from crops. And she can help get rid of ghosts.

There are ghosts, of course. They used to live in the internet. That, like so many things, is no longer what it was. But things linger: adverts, a stray character from a streaming drama, an audiobook. You don’t want them near your house. Well, most people don’t anyway. Katerina remembers the internet and used to live by it. The ghosts don’t scare her. She has a cat called Orlando. She feeds him copper filings because that helps him stay solid and real. Orlando, being a cat, accepts what is due to him.

Hmm, let’s see: a woman who is good with herbs, who looks different to the rest of the villagers, and has a ghost cat as a pet. There’s a word for that sort of person, isn’t there.

It is no accident that the two villagers who make Katerina most welcome are Elisabet, who is autistic, and Jaakob, who is gay but doesn’t let that be known to any but his most trusted friends.

What really disturbs the villagers, however, is Stefan. Katerina is away trading: exchanging medicines for ingredients she can’t get at home. In a busy marketplace a teenage boy approaches her. He is mute, but he gives her a note.

My dear Katya,
Take care of Stefan. I have no one else to ask, no one else I would want to, and I know that you will keep my son safe through what is to come.
Yours always,
Aleksander

Katerina has no idea who Aleksander is, has never heard of him before, but the boy needs help so she can’t turn him away.

This, then, is the set-up for We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson. It is a fabulous story: weirdly imaginative, lightly creepy, ultimately tear-worthy. Wilson is, I think, one of the brightest new talents that we have in the UK at the moment. She has now graduated to mainstream publication. All that is left is for the awards to start coming in. She already has a British Fantasy Award, for a short story in Strange Horizons. Those of you outside of the BFS circle should start taking note.

book cover
Title: We Are All Ghosts in the Forest
By: Lorraine Wilson
Publisher: Rebellion
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Triggernometry Finals

067, Book Review, Stark Holborn

All good things must come to an end. In the case of an extended pun that has already produced two short books, Triggernometry is probably more overdue than most. And yet, somehow Stark Holborn has managed to squeeze a little more life out of a very silly idea.

The set-up, in case you don’t remember, is that, some time in the Old West, the study of mathematics has been outlawed. Therefore mathematicians have become outlaws, and alongside their guns they also sling protractors and slide rules. The Triggernometry books tell the story of their fight for justice, and the freedom to write long and boring books full of complex equations.

The hero of the books is Malago Browne. She and her partner, Pierre de Fermat, are wanted in every town in every state of America. Life has got too hot, even for them. But then the legendary Carl Friedrich Gauss comes to them with a mad plan, something that could put an end to their outlaw status forever.

As is traditional, we get introduced to new mathematician heroes. John Napier, happily playing with his bones, has become a necromancer. The Bernouilli Brothers are working in a circus. You get the idea.

There’s not a lot more that I can say, because the book is very short. Triggernometry is a very silly idea, taken expertly to ridiculous extremes. Triggernometry Finals is fitting conclusion to a joke that could have been a social media post. Total respect to Stark Holborn for wringing so much out of it.

book cover
Title: Triggernometry Finals
By: Stark Holborn
Publisher: Rattleback Books
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Sundown in San Ojuela

067, Book Review, M M Olivas

Horror is not normally my thing. I very rarely read it. But the prospect of a book by a Mexican trans woman was too much to resist. Besides, MM Olivas has been mentored by none other than Nalo Hopkinson. She has to be good, right?

Lizzie Remolina is an ordinary Latina teenager from Southern California, except that one day La Muerta appears and tells her that she no longer has a soul. In return, Lizzie has acquired the power to see the dead. It is cool, in a goth kind of way, and Lizzie is a goth kind of kid. But really, it is not ideal for a teenage girl.

Obviously there has to be some reason for this. Matters come to a head when Lizzie’s beloved Aunt Marisol dies. Lizzie and her younger sister, Mary, get dragged down to the country town of San Ojuela where Marisol lived in a rambling old hacienda called Casa Coyotl. Much to her surprise, Lizzie finds that Aunt Marisol has left the house to her.

Casa Coyotl is an ancient house with a history dating back to the days when California was part of Mexico and conquistadors roamed the land. It remembers the days of the Nahuatl and the glory of Tenochtitlan.

Lizzie’s story is cut with that of two others. The first is Lucas Jackson, the local sheriff. He’s Latino by birth, trying to make his way in the Anglo world by hunting down his own people on the border. Lucas desperately wants to be a hero of law enforcement, but he may have learnt too well from his violent father.

The other viewpoint is that of Julian Zavala. When Lizzie and Mary were young, they lived with Aunt Marisol for a while. Julian and Lizzie became firm friends. But then Mrs. Remolina took her children away, preferring to raise them in a whiter environment. Julian, being a local, had nowhere to go.

There are other characters of importance, but the most significant is Xolotl, the dog-headed god of fire and lightning. In Nahuatl mythology the twin gods, Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl are guardians of the Sun. The Feathered Serpent is a god of light who guides the Sun on its path through the sky. At dusk, when the Sun descends into Mictlan, the underworld, Xolotl takes over as its guide. The book is called Sundown in San Ojuela for a reason.

Lucas, of course, knows nothing of this. He thinks he is hunting a werewolf. But Julian knows. It is in his blood. And in Lizzie’s too.

While this is a great horror set-up, the book is also very much about Southern California and the tensions between the white and Latin populations. It is probably far more relevant now than it was when it was written. But it would have been written in the previous iteration of the Dark Times when all we had to worry about was a silly wall.

One slightly odd thing about the book is that the main viewpoint characters are treated very differently in their views. Lucas’s chapters are all written in first person, perhaps to help us get inside his very conflicted head. Julian’s chapters are second person, perhaps because he is consumed with guilt and the constant “you” references reinforce this. Lizzie’s chapters are all third person. It is a bit jarring, but I think it works.

I should note also that there is strong queer representation in the book. Not all of the queer characters have happy endings, because this is Southern California, but the book cares about them all in the same way that it cares about Mexican-Americans and their Nahuatl ancestors.

This is a debut novel, and a very impressive one. I think it would appeal strongly to fans of Liz Hand. I hope it does well, because Olivas has a very different voice to what we normally get served by US publishers. I’d love to see more books from her.

book cover
Title: Sundown in San Ojuela
By: M M Olivas
Publisher: Lanternfish Press
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

The New Moon’s Arms

067, Book Review, Nalo Hopkinson

I was looking for some SF&F to recommend to some local PoC friends, and naturally one of my first thoughts was of Nalo Hopkinson. Given that said friends are also a lesbian couple, and one is from the Caribbean, I zeroed in on The New Moon’s Arms. Then I discovered that I had never reviewed it, so I re-read the whole thing.

Yes, seriously. Cheryl read a book for a second time. I know it is a bit of a shock, but it can happen.

First up, a word about the title. It comes from the phrase, “the Old Moon in the New Moon’s arms”, which describes the phenomenon of being able to see the full globe of the Moon while only a thin crescent is lit. What I think Hopkinson intended was to signal that this is a book about an unpleasant older person who becomes better thanks to the love and care of the younger people in her life.

Calamity (a name she gave herself because she hated being called Chastity) has not had an easy life. Her mother disappeared when she was young, and island gossip has always held that Calamity’s father murdered her. Calamity became a single mother as a teenager, in part because the boy she was sweet on was gay and didn’t want to marry her. It is easy to see why she fell so easily into homophobia.

But Calamity has always had a talent for finding things. Lost stuff just turns up. Following her father’s funeral, this magical power ramps up notch or two. When she finds a half-drowned boy on the beach, she decides to adopt him. Clearly she cannot manage this on her own, so she is forced to ask for help from family and friends. This means her daughter and grandson. It means her daughter’s father and his husband, who make far better parents and grandparents than Calamity has ever done. It means people who tell Calamity off for being a terrible bigot.

All of this comes to a head when we put together the mysteries of Calamity’s mother’s disappearance, the boy on the beach, and the legend of the (now extinct in our world) Caribbean Monk Seal. There is a lovely blend of Scottish folklore, marine biology and Caribbean sociology. It is very clever. It is also, I think, a book that wants to teach some of Hopkinson’s fellow Caribbean people to be better. I hope the message got through to some of them.

book cover
Title: The New Moon's Arms
By: Nalo Hopkinson
Publisher: Warner US
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Skeleton Crew

067, TV Review

Kudos, I guess, to the Star Wars folks for trying something different. And lots of people seem to have enjoyed Skeleton Crew. My take on it is somewhat more ambivalent.

When I see such things (books as well as TV) I tend to wonder who they are intended for. If Skeleton Crew was intended for kids, I think it is probably for quite young kids. Teenagers, even teens the age of the characters in the story, are likely to spend much of the time rolling their eyes and how adult scriptwriters think teenagers behave.

If it is a story intended for parents to watch with their children, some of the parents are going to have a fit when they get to the episode set on a brothel planet.

On the other hand, if the series is intended solely for adults, they may well bail early on because the kids are so annoying. I watched the first episode and hated it. I would not have gone back to it had it not been for the rave reviews the series was getting on social media.

I’m glad I did, though, because Jude Law is magnificent. He’s even more cartoonishly villainous than he is as Yon-Rogg in Captain Marvel. And yet we still end up feeling sorry for the rogue. His character is, of course, based heavily on the character of Long John Silver from Treasure Island, so he has excellent source material to work with. Even so, it is a job very well done.

For those counting the pirate references, the droid, SM-33, is based on Mr. Smee, the boatswain from Peter Pan, though Tak Rennod is more like Captain Flint than Hook. Wim is Jim Hawkins. There are doubtless many more morsels of pirate lore buried in the script if you bother to look for them.

I should note that at times the plot makes no sense whatsoever. But then it is Star Wars, so it doesn’t have to.

One thing the series does do is give further credence to the theory that the quality of a Star Wars product is inversely proportional to the number of Jedi in the story.

Anyway, it was fun. Don’t expect anything more from it.

Aquaman 2

067, Movie Review

I did not go to see this film in the cinema. I waited to buy it on disc until it was a bit cheaper. I did not have high expectations, but I hoped that there would be more giant war crabs.

My lack of expectations was not disappointed. My hope for crabs was.

To be fair, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was probably doomed from the start. There was, of course, the huge fuss over Amber Heard. I’m pleased to see that she kept her role as Mera, though she did quite literally spend much of the film holding the baby. Now that we have the Blake Lively story to consider as well, maybe people will re-examine their opinions of Heard, and not just assume that beautiful women are guilty until proved innocent above and beyond all reasonable doubt.

Then there was the take-over of the DC Movie Universe by James Gunn. There is, we understand, to be a complete re-boot. No one quite knows what that means, but there is no guarantee that anyone who had roles in the past will keep them. Jason Momoa has apparently been cast as an anti-hero character in the forthcoming Supergirl movie, so Aquaman’s place in the Gunn regime must be in doubt.

The film’s creative team probably knew they were marooned on a raft in some lost corner of the DC universe with little chance of rescue. They may have decided to ham things up a bit. After all, they had a star who is very good at doing just that.

James Wan, the Director, talks enthusiastically in the extras about how they worked hard to recreate the look and atmosphere of the 1950s pulp era Aquaman comics. I’m sure they did, but was that of any interest to the cinema-going public? I suspect not.

As to the script, it is about as corny as they come. The bad guys threaten Atlantis and the only way that King Arthur (they never call him that in the movies, but that’s obviously his title) can foil them is by enlisting the help of his half-brother, Orm, who is currently in prison for doing lots of bad things in the first movie. It is a bromance team-up movie, except of course they can’t actually fall in love because they are half-brothers. To add to this, there is the small matter of the bad guys wanting to sacrifice Arthur & Mera’s baby son for purposes of Evil Blood Magic.

Adding to the corniness is the fact that the baddest of the bad guys lies sleeping under the ice in Antarctica surrounded by some suspiciously Lovecraftian monsters. I don’t think we can blame the scriptwriters for this. As I understand it, the whole Lost Kingdom concept was taken from the comics, so whoever wrote them was presumably the Lovecraft fan.

Then we discover that the bad guys have decamped from Antarctica and now live in an actual secret volcano lair on an island in the South Pacific. Seriously.

One of the characters (I think Orm) mentions that the base must have a lot of shielding to not show up on satellites. But the volcano has a massive plume of green smoke coming out of it…

Because they probably know what a mess this is, the script team have also thrown in a bunch of references to other movies. The scene where Arthur and Orm visit an undersea crime lord is clearly based on Jabba the Hutt and Mos Eisley Cantina. Arthur’s final big speech is a combination of T’Challa’s speech to the UN and Tony Stark’s “I am Iron Man” press conference. There are probably others too.

All of this is a little bit sad because lurking in the background of the film is a lot of good messaging about climate change and saving the planet. I suspect that good work was largely wasted.

There were no giant war crabs.

What If? – Season 3

067, TV Review

This is the final season of Marvel’s What If? animation series, and not before time because the creative team has clearly run out of steam. Where the series used to do interesting things with existing parts of the MCU, it has now been relegating largely to promoting forthcoming bad ideas (Thunderbolts) and past disasters (Eternals).

There’s an episode in which there is a legion of kaiju Hulks opposed by Avengers wearing giant mecha suits. Why?

There’s an episode in which Howard the Duck marries Darcy Lewis and everyone is trying to kidnap their egg. Why?

Kate Bishop and Shang Chi reimagined as wild west heroes? Scraping the barrel here, aren’t we?

The point is that, instead of taking the existing characters and timelines, and doing something slightly different with them, after the manner of an alternate history novel, they are now just picking genres from elsewhere and plonking a random selection of Marvel characters into them.

Given that this series appeared in the winter, it is a marvel (pun intended) that we did not get an episode in which the ghosts of X-Men past, present and future visit stingy old Erik Scrooge and persuade him to do more for poor, blind Scott Cratchit and his son, Tiny Charles, who can’t walk.

I haven’t seen the final two episodes. I’m not sure that I can be bothered.

Editorial – January 2025

067, Editorial

It has been a while. As planned, the holidays allowed me to get more books read. Most of them were intended for Wizard’s Tower, not for review. Sorry about that. You’ll be seeing some of them eventually.

I’m somewhat relieved to get this issue out, becuase this week has been a bit of a disaster. My internet died on Saturday, and has been dodgy ever since. Zen and OpenReach are blaming each other, and I have swapped every piece of kit I can. Nothing fixes the problem. It is fine for email and occasional web browsing, but for anything else, including putting this ‘zine together, I have to tether off my phone. And the phone signal here in Darkest Wales is pants.

February is a short month, and I’m normally quite busy with LGBTQ+ History Month (which is February in the UK), but I should be able to get an issue out. It may be a few days late as I have to do a thing in Westminster on the 26th and another thing in Aberystwyth on the 28th.

And there are books to make. Expect a press release or two in February.

Issue #66

Issues

This is the November 2024 issue of Salon Futura. Here are the contents.


Cover: The Conquest of the Moon

066, Art, George Roux

There’s a change of policy with the cover art this issue. Sadly the free art on PixaBay has been swamped by AI crap, and there doesn’t appear to be any easy way to filter it out in searches. So instead I am using art from the public domain images collection of the British Library. The plan is to find illustrations from science fiction and fantasy books. I hope you’ll find the results interesting.

This issue’s cover is an internal illustration from a book called The Conquest of the Moon: a story of the Bayouda by André Laurie. The art is by George Roux. The book was originally published in French in 1887 under the title, Les exilés de la Terre, Séléne Company Limited. The English translation, from which the illustration is taken, was published in 1889.

Laurie was a pen name of the Corsican author, Paschal Grousset. He was a contemporary and friend of Jules Verne. Indeed, he wrote the original book that Verne turned into The Begum’s Millions. A committed supporter of the Paris Commune, Grousset wrote that book while living in exile in London.

The devices in the illustration are not radio telescopes, they are giant magnets. In the book, a commercial operation plans to drag the Moon down to the Sahara Desert where it can be mind. Unfortunately for them, they end up being dragged to the Moon instead.

More information about Laurie/Grousset is available at the SF Encyclopedia. The book, The Conquest of the Moon, is available in paperback and ebook editions from British Library.

The Tapestry of Time

066, Book Review, Kate Heartfield

I’m a sucker for a good secret history. There are, of course, a lot of bad ones out there, but I’m happy to report that the latest novel from Kate Heartfield is a fine example of the genre.

The book is set mainly in occupied France during WWII, which gives plenty of opportunity to explore women’s history. To start with, Paris before the war was pretty much World Lesbian Central. Heartfield declines the opportunity to feature real members of that community who were involved in the Resistance, such as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, but a lesbian relationship is very much central to the plot. To my delight, Heartfield manages to make the romance fiction tropes work in the book, rather than shoehorn the characters into them.

Thus we have our main character, the bookish Kit Sharp, who is an art historian working at the Louvre, and Max Yardley, her headstrong and adventure-loving childhood friend. Kit’s father is also an historian, and has an obsession with the Bayeaux Tapestry. Max’s father is an MP, and therefore deeply involved in the war effort. Both have major roles to play in the story.

Next up in our tour of early-mid 20th Century women’s history we have the Special Operations Executive. This was a special forces unit that worked closely with the Resistance. Many of its members were women who were parachuted into occupied France to work as spies and radio operators. Kit’s youngest sister, Ivy, forever trying to prove herself in a family where she will always be the baby, ends up joining the SOE.

Ivy doesn’t just get to punch Nazis, she kills them.

Kit has two other sisters. One, Rose, is heavily into mathematics and music. She ends up working at Bletchley Park, another way in which women contributed to the war effort. From the book’s point of view, she gives out heroines access to information that would normally be Top Secret.

Finally we have Helen, who so desperately wants to fit into her society’s view of a proper woman (wife and mother) that I kept wanting to slap her. She ends up working with the Land Army (which you may be familiar with from Tiffani Angus’s Threading the Labyrinth), until she gets pregnant by her soldier boyfriend.

The other main character in the story is the Bayeaux Tapestry (famously not a tapestry but an embroidery). Given that it depicts a successful invasion of England, the Nazis were keen to use it as a propaganda tool. Himmler was particularly fascinated by it, and shoehorned the story of William the Conqueror into his Aryan ideology. It is a bit of a weird thing to have done, given that the people whom William defeated were the Germanic descendants of the Angles, Saxons, etc.. But William was a Norman, and therefore of Norse descent. And in any case, Nazis have never been big on actual facts.

The missing piece is the fantasy element. Himmler, of course, was deep into occultism. Heartfield gives us our fantasy element in part through the mysterious character of Aelfgyva whose presence in the Tapestry is a subject of much debate amongst historians. In the book, Himmler believes that the Tapestry can be used, through magic, to manipulate the future. Of course he reckons without plucky English gals who can also tap into that magic.

The Tapestry of Time is a book that is dripping with excellent historical research, and a deep respect for the roles played by women in WWII. Of course I loved it. I hope you will to.

book cover
Title: The Tapestry of Time
By: Kate Heartfield
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

The Nightward

066, Book Review, RSA Garcia

I’m delighted to see the career of RSA Garcia flourishing. Aside from her being an SF&F author, we talk a lot about cricket on social media. She won this year’s Sturgeon Award for ‘Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200’, an engaging tale of an old lady, a farm robot and a goat. The Nightward is her second novel. The first was Lex Talionis, about which I interviewed her for Ujima Radio some ten years ago. You can find that interview here.

While Lex Talionis is science fiction, The Nightward is clearly fantasy, at least at first look. It has a map, and people who do magic. The publicity for the book connects it to The Witcher. That’s primarily because it shares the concept of forces of chaos erupting into the world and unleashing bizarre monsters on the unfortunately human kingdoms. (Well, not kingdoms, queendoms. More of that later.)

Something else that the book shares with The Witcher is a rather freeform approach to worldbuilding. While the society is broadly mediaeval in nature, Garcia brings in Caribbean mythology, names from ancient Greece and modern Europe, and a whole lot else. The map is, well, odd. I’m not an expert in geography, but it seems weird to me. All of this may be off-putting to people who are heavily into fantasy worldbuilding. Please don’t let this be you.

One of the clichés of this sort of epic fantasy is that there is an Evil Overlord whom the good guys must overcome. Garcia has avoided that simplistic approach. While the book does open with an act of great villainy, we soon discover that the supposed bad guys all have reasons for what they have done. Only one is a genuinely selfish megalomaniac.

Our heroine, meanwhile, is something of a Disney princess. But Viella is a young teenager when the book opens, with very little understanding of the world and a headstrong selfishness born of privilege. She’s a good kid, but she has a lot to learn.

I promised you queendoms. The other fascinating aspect of the book is the gender politics. This is a world ruled by women, save for one small part of the map where men rule. These are not separatist communities, and that inevitably destabilises the politics. When the book opens, Viella’s mother, High Queen Elise, is about to enact legislation to give men more rights. This is too radical for the conservative elements of society, and not radical enough for others.

The world of book is also one in which magic is primarily done by women. Men who have magical powers are often seen as dangerous. However, there is a particular dangerous class of magic users known as the Unbound, and they are dangerous (and powerful) precisely because they are not bound to one binary gender or the other.

Finally I should note that this is not exactly fantasy. It becomes clear very early on in the book that what we are seeing is an post-scientific world, in which all sorts of ancient technological secrets are there to be discovered. The magic that the various characters do may all be uses of technology that they do not fully understand. The goddess Gaiea, whom all the queendoms revere, may be one of these ancient scientists, or a product of their messing with genetics. We’ll have to read book 2 to find out.

As you can see, there is a lot going on in this book. And Garcia throws in a bunch more ideas right at the end. As I said before, the worldbuilding is very eclectic. But sophisticated worldbuilding is not what Garcia is trying to do here. She is much more interested in a good story, and in thinking about gender politics.

The other point that I must mention here is that Garcia has achieved all of this while battling cancer. Healthcare in Trinidad is not cheap. She has a fundraising page to help with the expense. If you read and enjoy this book, do please consider donating so that she can write more.

book cover
Title: The Nightward
By: RSA Garcia
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura

Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins

066, Book Review, Claire Fayers

Waterstones has an award for Welsh Book of the Year. Who knew? Not me, until this year, when the winning title was clearly something of interest to me. Much of the credit here should go to Stephanie Burgis who has been enthusing about the book for some time. I think she also knows the author, Claire Fayers.

According to Amazon the book is suitable for readers of 8 years and above. That seems about right to me. My first impression of the book is that it is something you could read to children. That is, unless you are the sort of person who rails against ‘the woke’ and would never subject your children to anything more progressive than Enid Blyton.

Given the title of Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins you have probably guessed that the book is a collection of folk story re-tellings. That is certainly true, but Fayers has not simply made ancient tales acceptable to a modern audience, she has put her own spin on all of them.

The conceit of the book is that Idris the Giant, having inherited his father’s throne as King of the Giants, is fed up of all the court nonsense. He decides to take a sabbatical and go off in search of stories. Eventually he will end up at Cadair Idris looking at the stars and dreaming, but he encounters many interesting stories along the way.

My favourite part of the book is the re-telling of the tale of Culwch and Olwen from The Mabinogion. It has a very unusual twist, which I won’t spoil for you. I was also quite taken by Amethyst, the coblyn princess, who wants her father to get her a pet human.

From an adult point of view, the main interest of the book is in the range of folk takes that Fayers has researched for the book. There are no end of interesting magical creatures in the British Isles, and Wales has a full share of them. Fayers give good notes as to where she got her stories from.

The book is also beautifully produced, and consequently would make a fine present for a young person of your acquaintance. It is, after all, that time of year.

book cover
Title: Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins
By: Claire Fayers
Publisher: Firefly Press
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Bookshop.org UK
See here for information about buying books though Salon Futura
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