Geeking Out About.com – Design Previews

13 Days of Daredevil: “Bang” (spoilers!)

Posted on 20 March 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

The irony being that this line could apply to either character in this scene. © Marvel Studios/Netflix

As every Marvel Cinematic Universe fan knows, the second season of Daredevil hit Netflix on Friday, driving many superhero fans indoors over the weekend. I really enjoyed watching the first season at a clip of one episode a day, so rather than binge-watching like many of my friends have decided to do, I’m going to go through these episodes one at a time and let you know my thoughts. And yes, there will definitely be spoilers, but there will also be some caveats as well.

Given that I still haven’t seen “Marvel’s Jessica Jones,” Season 3 of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” or either season of “Marvel’s Agent Carter,” I’d appreciate it if any responses to rhetorical questions I have that can be answered by those shows be limited to a simple, “That’s answered elsewhere.” I am caught up on all the Marvel movies, but I haven’t read any of the corresponding comic books; same deal applies.

Enough with the blather, on with the show!

I appreciate the little recap before the episode started because it does hit all the high points from the season as well as reminding me of the awesome corridor fight from “Cut Man” which I am likely to go back and watch again. Also, I’m also very glad to know what “moodak” means in Russian.
I am not in love with the vocal song at the end of the recap, however. I hope it doesn’t stick around.
I like a good foot chase and establishing action scene as much as the next gal, but why didn’t these mooks have a getaway driver?
“That’s the tragedy of you being blind; you haven’t seen me dance.” I really hope that they pick this up somewhere in the season. Is there a TV Tropes listing for Chekov’s Artistic Ability yet?
Karen’s pause after the bar fight client calls her a badass? Nice bit of subtle acting there.
I’m so very glad that the curse word “shite” is finding its way into American vernacular through this scene. It definitely establishes the scene well. I’m wondering, however, if the plates of ham, potatoes, and cabbages I saw on the table were perhaps just a bit too stereotypical. Also, wasn’t it the Italian mafia who ran Hell’s Kitchen back in what Nesbitt’s day was, leading up to the rise of Wilson Fisk?
Karen is such a badass right now, spinning up that cover story like fine yarn. Evidently, whatever amount of time passed between the “Daredevil” episode and now was enough for her to come to grips with what she did to save herself in “The Path of the Righteous.”
And while we’re on the subject, I am metaphorically pouring one out for Toby Leonard Moore’s James Wesley. I hope there’s a new character this season who has a similar kind of rational evil.
Okay, so I’m not sure yet what Foggy’s got planned going into the Dogs of Hell’s club, but I love how this scene showcases that Foggy is just as much of a badass as Matt Murdock because he’s willing to go into dangerous situations without super powers because he knows it’s the right thing to do and he wants to protect someone he loves.
Maybe I have my critic’s brain screwed in a bit too tightly, but the dude who crossed the alley just before Karen and “Steve” burst out of the fire escape stairwell? The fact that he didn’t react to either the alarm or them bolting across the street is very shoddy extra directing.

So thanks to media, advertising, and the episode recaps on Netflix being what they are, I know that the mystery man who’s shooting up all the bad guys is none other than Frank Castle, aka the Punisher. And yet, this episode did an absolutely fabulous job of keeping it a bit of a mystery throughout this first episode. Also, I know that a confrontation with Elektra is in the future as well; I’m hoping that they treat that character’s arrival with as much delicacy.

Road to the Hugo Awards: Fight the Future for Best Fancast

Posted on 1 March 2016 by admin 1 Comment

Fight the Future
Hosted by: Dan Saunders and Paul Saunders
First Published: March 30, 2015
Rating: For teens, with light swearing; one episode has a trigger warning
Update Schedule: Fortnightly
Current Status: Final episode airs March 29, 2016 [Updated with new details]

Spout-Approved Hugo Noms_Fight the Future — Canadian brothers Dan Saunders and Paul Saunders read books and watch movies so you don’t have to! © Loading Ready Run

Not long after I published my list of what kinds of works should receive the Geeking Out About… seal of approval for celebrating inclusivity and diversity, I read a notice on the message board for this podcast that it was going to be going to be ending this year. This prompted me to fire off an email to Paul Saunders asking him if I could include the podcast as one of my platform planks because even though I was an infrequent listener (due to my not having read or seen all of the works they were reviewing), I really enjoyed the premise of the podcast and what it was attempting to achieve. His response was to be flattered but wonder if they were even eligible, something about which I was quick to reassure them. And yet, I am totally not surprised to know that was the first reaction from him, seeing as he is a member of my favorite Internet sketch comedy troupe Loading Ready Run.

The Five-Sentence Synopsis

Canadian brothers Dan Saunders and Paul Saunders (and their guests) first introduce, then recap the entire plot of a young adult dystopian science fiction movie or book as objectively as they can, perhaps with some comedic asides. Next, they discuss the plausibility of the worldbuilding as well as how scary the world is for its fictional characters. There’s a section where they talk about what kind of characters they would be in the fictional world, and then using either clues left by the creators or information from official sequels, they talk about what hope there is for the characters in the fictional world beyond the end of the book or movie. Finally, there’s either a snippet of a scene from the movie or a song which they feel illustrates the work the best, and a final summary from the hosts before the sign-off.

What Works

There are many podcasts out there which are dedicated to reviewing books and movies from a critics’ perspective. However, I believe this is one of the first podcasts I’ve heard of which reviews the actual worlds in which the books or movies take place. Of all the episodes I’ve heard, there are very few instances in which I feel that either Dan or Paul or their guests know or care too much about the current science fiction/fantasy literary blogosphere’s opinions of the works, its creators, its production team, or the actors portraying the characters. They are just there to discuss the work and only the work. When they do bring in references to other works or the greater outside world, they do it either near the beginning or near the end so that the discussion of most of the episode is focused on just the world inside the movie or book. It’s both fan discussion and literary criticism in its purest form, where the only clues you have are the work itself, the world you currently inhabit, your personal experiences, and that’s it. From the very first episode, I loved this premise and found myself wanting to join in on the discussion in either the forum threads or the comments on the YouTube version of the podcasts. (It’s also available on iTunes and well as having its own RSS feed as well.) They are never mean or cruel when they point out major flaws, which is very much in keeping with the whole Loading Ready Run ethos which I love. They’re also not slavish in their approval or disapproval, which I really appreciate. I even love the original theme song, composed by Bradley Rains.

Selected Highlights

Episode 8 – A Boy and His Dog: Dan reads out the email Paul sent to him with his concerns about how they’ll cover the movie. (“It ends with the hero KILLING HIS LOVE INTEREST AND FEEDING HER TO HIS DOG!”)

Episode 15 – Battle Royale: Dan and Paul pick out which of their former 15-year old classmates would they kill or be killed by. (“I see all these cute faces and I see them all as potential killers.”)

Episode 23 – The Knife of Never Letting Go: Guest host Emily explains why this dystopic world is particularly horrific to her. (“It’s pretty much my world anyway.” “It’s called ‘The Internet.'”)

What Doesn’t

As I begin to evaluate works for my platform, I’m starting to realize that just like the Bechdel or the Mako Mori test, just because a work can stand on my platform on a superficial level, it doesn’t mean that the work is a perfect example of a truly diverse work. In my email correspondence with him, Paul Saunders admitted that the podcast isn’t very diverse. “We have tried to get as many different special guests with different points of view as possible,” he wrote in an email, “but obviously the pool of people in our social circles that are available and have an interest in the topic is not that big.” My reaction to that is a hope that for any future podcast they do, he and/or Dan are able to reach out to members of the YA dystopia fiction community at large who can recommend more works by non-Caucasian, cisgendered Canadian authors and/or filmmakers or more guests who aren’t from just North America.

Final Thoughts

At last year’s CONvergence, the theme was all about dystopian futures. While at a MetaFilter meetup, I mentioned Fight the Future to a person I was meeting in person for the first time and extolled its virtues. Months later, she asked me about the podcast because clearly the idea of it was something that had stuck in her mind after all that time. Fight the Future is a podcast which was sadly limited in its length and lasted for only a year, but should be pointed out as one of the best productions of 2015. That’s why I’m nominating it for a Hugo Award this year and next year, and I hope that many of you agree.

Road to the Hugo Awards: Selected Fancasts, part 2 – The “Professionals”

Posted on 28 February 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

Road to Hugo Award Header_Part 1 Continuing to go through the Best Fancast Hugo Award eligibility list on this Google Spreadsheet, there’s something I noticed which I thought was interesting: For a category called “Best Fancast,” there are an awful lot of “professionals” on it.

This is not to say that someone who gets paid to write and/or edit and/or create science fiction and/or fantasy works by another company can’t be a fan and talk about the industry, the genre, and/or the people who are involved in it. It does set up a potentially unrealistic expectation about the quality of said works, and/or that the hosts have access to better equipment and a higher caliber of guests or material.

As a result, there’s a chance that as I review these “Best Fancasts” further, I may be a bit more critical of certain shows than others; I certainly hope that’s not the case. So here’s round two of my reviews of Hugo Award-eligible works for “Best Fancast”:

Hugo Fancasts_WhosRound Toby Hadoke’s Who’s Round
Episode 127: July #01 (feat. Keith Hodiak)
Hosted by Toby Hadoke
Date Published: July 3, 2015

First Impression: This is precisely the kind of stunt podcasting that I like. The premise behind British comedian Hadoke’s podcast is that for the 50th anniversary year of the BBC series Doctor Who he would attempt to interview as many people as he could who were involved with the show over its lifetime. For this episode, he caught up with dancer/actor Keith Hodiak who played the Raston Warrior Robot who annihilated a bunch of Cybermen in the 20th anniversary special episode “The Five Doctors”. Not being a true Whovian, I had no idea why Hadoke was so enamored of this minor character; subsequent research and some time watching YouTube clips has revealed that because the Raston Warrior Robot moved so differently and destroyed its enemies so completely in such a short amount of time, it instantly became a favorite Monster-of-the-Week for fans of the show. For a podcast with such a limited scope, Hadoke is a deft interviewer, starting off with questions and anecdotes about the filming of the episode, segueing into Hodiak’s post-Who career filming Full Metal Jacket with Stanley Kubrick and the genesis of his career as a modern dancer who was given a scholarship to a prominent British school, and then circling back around to the Doctor Who theme of the show to end the interview. It was very well-done, and I hope that Hadoke may eventually branch out into doing interviews with non-Doctor Who actors, too, for other British sci-fi franchises. Another thing I noticed that was a point against it was that for a podcast which had excellent audio for an interview being held inside a restaurant before and after a meal, the end bumper before the preview of the following episode had terrible audio. How does that happen?

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: For a specific, single-subject podcast, sure.

Hugo Fancasts-Unattended Unattended Consequences
You’re Gonna See Some Hogs
Hosted by Patrick Rothfuss and Max Temkin
Date Published: August 4, 2015

First Impression: While I know that Rothfuss is “not [my] bitch” and I’m sure he’s heard every joke under the sun relating to when the third book in the Kingkiller Chronicles trilogy will be published and out in the wider world, it is certainly no coincidence that the episode I picked to review would be the one where he and Cards Against Humanity co-creator Temkin talk about procrastination. As mentioned in a previous review, this podcast greatly suffered from a descriptive error because for about half of the time, Rothfuss and Temkin talked about GenCon, a convention for board and tabletop games which now has a writers’ track attached to it. There was also a brief segue where Rothfuss talked about the state of Wisconsin (the original home of the convention) and how excited he gets whenever a mainstream media product mentions the state and does a really excellent job of depicting the state and its people how they really are. Wow, I thought to myself, on another show, this would be an excellent way to get into the discussion of under representation in mainstream media and genre fiction for non-Caucasian people. But of course, Rothfuss and Temkin aren’t creating that kind of podcast; to me, this feels more like the All Work, No Play podcast created by voice over actors Liam O’Brien and Sam Riegel where they talk about the voice work they’re currently doing (which they really can’t talk about due to non-disclosure agreements) and try to find ways to have fun while having lives and raising families in Hollywood. There was a different weird turn to the conversation when Rothfuss was talking about how GenCon used to be a convention where there would be so few women that one easily could play the game “Where’s the Girl?” by taking a photo of the convention hall or one of the gaming rooms and trying to figure out where the lone female gamer was in the crowd. I expected the next words out of their mouths to be that of course now there are several women playing games in the halls and showing off their own games in the exhibit hall, but the next words were actually extolling the virtues of the kid-friendly options for GenCon. That was such an awkward transition because it made it feel like Rothfuss and Temkin were saying that because the con is more open to casual play and kid-friendly now, it’s now okay and welcoming to women, as if women couldn’t also be the “dark” rules-lawyering, uber-competitive nerds who used to comprise all of GenCon’s audience, or that it would be the “women’s” job to bring the kids to the conventions. It wasn’t until 30 minutes into the podcast that they actually started talking about procrastination, and the main takeaway I got from it was that while I was very glad that Rothfuss really understands the mindset of someone who works as someone else’s assistant for a living, I didn’t get a sense that he wasn’t about to make the same kind of leap which YA author John Green did last year in removing himself completely from most of his non-writing obligations in order to finish his next book. I hope he’s able to come to that kind of conclusion soon, if only for the sake of being able to spend more time with his young kids and his partner—and also so that he can finish his book.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Nope, as it is only barely about the genre and/or even the life of a genre author.

Photo by Bruce Press Ditch Diggers
Episode 10: Featuring Guest Host Gail Carriger
Hosted by Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace
Date Published: April 30, 2015

First Impression: Despite the fact that I have known and loved Hugo-award winning creator Ursula Vernon’s work for a very long time, I did not choose to review the episode featuring her because I know that she and Lafferty are great friends in real life. Instead, I chose to review an episode featuring a writer with whom I’m not familiar, despite the episode notes stating that she is a New York Times bestselling author. Imagine my “surprise,” when it’s revealed that not only are Lafferty, Wallace, and Gail Carriger also good friends, she was also part of the impetus behind the creation of the podcast. And therein lies a bit of a problem. Listening to this conversation, it made me feel and really believe that there is a secret cabal of science fiction and fantasy authors who all know each other and support each other to the exclusion of others. There’s a verbal shorthand that they have with each other which to a longtime listener and fan sounds chummy but to a new listener feels a bit alienating. At the same time, this is the kind of “professional” podcast which both readers and aspiring writers need to have on their podcast rotation. For both audiences, it not only pulls back the curtain to show off the real life of a working writer, it also turns on all the stage lights and peers into the dressing rooms during intermission as well. The bits from Carriger I was fascinated to learn was that like me, she can’t stand when a book is poorly edited and has purposefully stopped buying books or reading some authors’ work because of it. She also revealed that she was able to circumvent her publisher Orbit’s usual “two-book contract” by deliberately dropping a cliffhanger into her second novel Changeless (which was the first one to hit the NYT list), just so her editor would want to ask her about the next book in the series. I also loved hearing her reaction to what she called the most polite piece of hate mail regarding two homosexual characters in the series, from a reader who had bought all five books but was disappointed by her positive treatment of the two characters. But perhaps the part of Carriger’s interview that I loved the most was when she mentioned that writers should not overly denigrate other writers whose books are bestsellers but not to their own particular taste because the sales of those books are paying for their advances with the same publisher. It’s a very business-first sentiment, and one I had not heard many other writers speak of before; now that I’ve heard it, it makes total sense to me. For their part, Lafferty and Wallace mostly let her speak her mind and helped the conversation along in a helpful way, except for one part about halfway through the episode where it felt like Wallace was re-explaining something Carrigan had just finished saying about how she tailors her social media presence to her established brand and what she knows her audience expects to see from her. He even lampshaded his own mansplaining (“I didn’t want to seem like I was regurgitating what Gail says…”) but to someone who’s never heard him speak before, that’s totally what he just did. The end of the podcast focused on listener questions about things such whether or not it’s a detriment if a person can’t afford to pay for something like the Clarion workshops or how viable the short story market is for a new writer, all of which was very interesting to hear. It was great to listen to this casual conversation between friends, and yet at one and a half hours, I think it was perhaps a bit too long—something which Lafferty, a veteran podcaster since 2004 should have known and tried to prevent.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yes, and bits of this should definitely go into their highlight reel.

Road to the Hugo Awards: Selected Fancasts, part 1

Posted on 13 February 2016 by admin 4 Comments

Road to Hugo Award Header_Part 1 Finding the time to listen to hour-long episodes of podcasts which are eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards wasn’t easy for me, but that’s what today’s article is about. The eligibility requirements state that the podcast must be a “non-professional” production—that is, no other company paid the podcaster(s) to make it—and at least one episode has to have been produced during the calendar year in question.

As such, then, I decided to pick one episode from a currently eligible podcast whose description interested me the most and I’ll be basing my recommendations on just the one episode. Unlike the “three episode rule” which I’m borrowing from former GOA contributor Kara Dennison, I think that I’d be able to tell what’s going to be on my nomination and/or platform lists before March 31 from just one episode.

Once again, in no particular order, here are my impressions of podcasts which are currently eligible for the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Fancast:

Black Girl Nerds
Episode 43: Brotriarchy, The State of Sci-Fi, and NekoCon 2015
Hosted by Jamie Broadnax
Date Published: November 11, 2015

First Impression: This episode was a mixed bag for me, mostly because of the expectations which were raised due to a titling error. For an episode whose title claimed that it would talk about the state of the sci-fi genre, there was only a somewhat cursory examination of it. The episode began with a lively discussion between Black Girl Nerd website creator and podcast host Broadnax and contributor Lauren Warren, whose think piece for the website about how to fix Project Greenlight after Matt Damon’s “white mansplaining” gaffe to African-American producer Effie Brown caused a bit of a sensation. I appreciate how Broadnax and Warren talked about how the piece was written and that it went beyond hollering what was wrong about the gaffe but moved past and talked about how to fix the problem, something with which I’m very familiar. I loved the lengthy interplay between these two colleagues whose discussion ranged far and wide across the pop culture and media landscape, which was why I was surprised with Broadnax’s more laid-back approach to her interview with “Out of Time” webseries creator Steve Kasan. I appreciate that she allowed him the space to talk about how he felt about diversity in genre media, but to go from such a light-hearted and engaging conversation between equals to a more stilted and less conversational interview was jarring to me. It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t sound like Broadnax even watched an episode of the series at all. Why didn’t she ask more about the thought behind the diversity of the characters? Or how Kasan and co-creator Rodney V. Smith’s take on time-travel in sci-fi works and how it’s different than other people’s take? Those are the kinds of questions I would have asked myself as an occasional podcaster, and I’m disappointed that they weren’t asked. The final segment on NekoCon was another bit of a letdown for me because while her conversations with attendees were interesting for getting a perspective on diversity at anime conventions from the average fan, she never had her interviewee’s give their names or handles. And that’s a big no-no from a journalism perspective because as Sir Terry Pratchett commented in The Truth, getting the names of the people you interview helps you “sell” your work more.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: No, but I’m sure this would win several other awards in general geekery and lifestyle podcasts categories.

I Don’t Even Own a Television
Episode 44: Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon
Hosted by J.W. Friedman and Chris Collision
Date Published: December 9, 2015

First Impression: Instantly my back was up despite the excellently-produced original theme song because as the description states and as they say in the intro, this podcast is dedicated to talking about bad books. And even though I’ve read other Spider Robinson books and I don’t recall if I’ve read this specific one, I don’t think that Robinson is the kind of person you’d call a “bad” author. This meant that I was instantly inclined to think that this podcast was not for someone like me. And yet, I was completely surprised how fair they were with the material. Friedman and Collision gleefully point out the problems with tone and the problems with misogynistic and/or sexist attitudes towards women; listening to them talk about it in a completely fair and open way made me think about how I might be perceiving the book and its author through rose and nostalgia-tinted glasses. Another thing that I appreciated about this podcast was how both Friedman and Collision were unafraid to state that they thought a part of the book was bad, but then they thought a bit longer about it and changed their mind. The last 15 minutes of the podcast is dedicated to answering listener email, which shows that this show has definitely reached a critical-growth stage to where they actually have long-time listeners and fans. After finishing up this episode, my instant reaction was to wonder if they would ever read Lady Slings the Booze, just so I could see what they think of the characters in that Spider Robinson book.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yes, despite the fact that they denigrated the pun wars in the book.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show
Episode 250: Emily Jiang, John Chu, and E. Lily Yu at ICFA
Hosted by Shaun Duke and Julia Rios
Date Published: February 4, 2015

First Impression: Unlike the co-hosts in this episode, I’ll put my disclaimer before the review: One of the contributors to this podcast is Mike R. Underwood, and he and I were on “The Smurfette Principle in Marketing” panel at CONvergence 2015; since then, we’ve followed and ReTweeted each other a lot. I deliberately chose to listen to this particular episode because I know that my reading shelf is very sparse when it comes to works by Asian and Asian-American authors. One of the things I immediately liked about this episode was how much it was like a casual, free-flowing conversation. Each of the guests were engaged on their own, but also allowed to chime in and comment on what the other guests were saying. Also, like the best in talk radio, there were several times where I wanted to join in the conversation as well; I credit this to co-hosts Duke and Rios’ skills as interviewers who except for two awkward bits (one with Yu and one with Chu) were able to manage this five-way conversation with ease. Based solely on her appearance in this episode, I got the impression that Yu’s author persona is gruff and prickly; both Duke and Rios were able to work with it and get her to open up when they asked her what her reaction was to getting the call that she was nominated for a short story Nebula in 2012. From a hindsight perspective, it was also very fun to hear Chu talk about his experiences as a beta-translator for Ken Liu, whose translation work for The Three Body Problem helped that book win a Hugo in 2015.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yes, despite the low fidelity of their recording. But if more people subscribe to their Patreon, I’m sure they could fix that.

Road to the Hugo Awards: Presenting The Geeking Out About… Platform

Posted on 9 February 2016 by admin 8 Comments

Geeking Out About Spout © Geeking Out About

As I’ve mentioned before, I became a sci-fi fan when I was in college. However, even though I was interested in writing sci-fi (and the one short story I’ve had published had been written during this time) I didn’t really get into the world of being a sci-fi writer until I learned who author John Scalzi was, thanks to Wil Wheaton. His writing about what it’s like to be a sci-fi author drew me into wanting to learn more about the fandom and the genre, to the point of where I now actively follow several prominent authors on Twitter and know the names of several more.

(I also “stuck my oar in” like almost everyone else did during the whole SFWA Bulletin #200 thing and was issued a DMCA takedown request as a result, but that’s almost ancient history now.)

When word first broke on how a vocal and reactionary segment of the sci-fi/fantasy fandom managed to rally its supporters over the years into jamming works they liked into the nominations list for the Hugo Awards, culminating in a near-total overrun in 2015, I was amused at how it began, appalled and how it progressed, and ultimately impressed at what they managed to pull off.

Which makes me think that if a group of terrible people can push forwards works they think epitomize the best in science fiction and fantasy, why can’t someone like me who is not completely terrible do the same thing?

Here then are the planks of the first-ever “Geeking Out About…” platform for the 2016 Hugo Awards season:

1. All works which are being promoted must be created by people who believe that genre fiction should contain diverse characters and perspectives.
2. All fictional works which are being promoted must contain at least two characters whose gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity is substantially different from the creator’s and also:
a) Has their own agency within the plot.
b) Has a scene with another character who is also of their same gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity where they don’t speak about the main protagonist but do advance the plot.
c) If there is a love interest for either or both of the characters, it is not the same character as the main protagonist.
d) If the characters die, the deaths are meaningful.
3. All non-fictional works which are being promoted must contain references to and/or significant discussion about diversity in genre fiction, and also:
a) If a web article written by one person or solo podcast or web series, must contain links to other articles or references to other work where the gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity of those creators/authors is substantially different from the solo creator’s.
b) If a multiple-creator podcast, article, or web series, one of the authors/creators or a guest speaker must be a person whose gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity is substantially different from the other creators.
4. All visual works which are being promoted which depict humanoid beings must contain imagery which does not demean individuals who are not of the same gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity of the creator.

As you can see, the “Geeking Out About…” platform is all about inclusivity, diversity, and reaching outside of a creator’s comfort zone to encompass new points of view into their own work. It’s all about promoting works where the creator has made a conscious effort to reach out not just to an audience who is just like them but can transcend their own cultural/physical identity and reach an audience which are not like them in substantial ways. I hope it goes without saying that all of the works I’ll be promoting must be things which I think are “good,” but that’s more of a subjective standard than an objective standard, so I didn’t include it as a plank.

Now that I have the terms of my platform all set, I’m definitely more eager to continue reading and experiencing more Hugo Award-eligible science fiction work as well as naming the first entry on my recommended list. Also, if you know of a work which you think I should consider, please drop a note in the comments and I’ll be sure to take a look at it.

Road to the Hugo Awards: Selected Science Fiction Short Stories, part 1

Posted on 7 February 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

Road to Hugo Award Header_Part 1 Following up on my last post wherein I said that I’d be reading (or listening to) as many 2016 Hugo Award-eligible works as possible before the nomination deadline, the first thing I did was to set a bookmark for this Google spreadsheet because it seems to be a pretty good place to start when it comes to finding works that were published in 2015 and are eligible to be nominated.

What I like about this spreadsheet is that it’s not curated: If someone read (or listened to, or saw) a piece that was eligible and they think it is a good or great piece, it goes into the spreadsheet. This allows for the most widest possible range of works to be listed and it’s done in a very egalitarian way. There also aren’t any synopses available which means that when you click on a link to a short story, you’re diving right into the work blind without any preconceptions as to what the work is about.

As I started to go through the short stories on the spreadsheet, I soon realized that there’s a vast difference between a piece of work that I like and a piece of work that I think should be nominated for a Hugo Award. It will be pretty easy to tell which stories fall into which categories.

So without further ado and in no particular order, I present to you the first in several reviews of Hugo Award-eligible science fiction short stories:

Illustration by Gustavo Torres © 2016 Vice Media LLC

“A Song for You”

By Jennifer Marie Brissett
Date Published: May 11, 2015

First Impression: For an adaptation of Greek mythology, this one was pretty good. By about the halfway mark, I could tell that this was an adaptation of the Orpheus myth, with Orpheus being transformed into an android and his wife Eurydice becoming a human member of the crew of a spaceship called Calliope. Once the key to this story was “unlocked” the plot became less interesting to me because I was waiting for all the major points to be hit. The things I did like about the story was the amount of worldbuilding that took place regarding the war in which Eura died and what happened to the Maya character after she left the android’s head for the second time. However, all of this was “told” to the reader without the reader becoming immersed into it.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: No, because the underpinnings are too apparent.

“How to Survive the Apocalypse”

By Rhiannon R.S.
Date Published: September 18, 2015

First Impression: I don’t recall when zombies became the new vampires, but one of the results of the rise of zombie fiction is the corresponding increase in video games devoted to the subgenre. After all, because they’re non-sentient and dead (as opposed to charismatic and dead) it’s very easy to feel jubilant about slaughtering them in large amounts. This short piece is a deconstruction of what it’s like to be a fictional character in an apocalypse which features zombies, and it’s fairly amusing. I like how even though the illustration is of a Lara Croft-ish character running away from a feminine zombie with makeup in her hands, the fictional character in the piece can be assumed to be male or female.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: No, because video game commentary isn’t evergreen. (But this would be a good candidate for the Related Work category.)

“Broken”

By Jason Kimble
Date Published: November 3, 2015

First Impression: While reading this, I got a real “Flowers for Algernon”-type of vibe, except more cyberpunk in style. The amount of worldbuilding that was done for this story is amazing. What is “the Skew”? What happened to make dual-births so uncommon? These details are nicely slotted into place for a story which deals with mental illness and developmental disorders, according to Kimble’s blog post about this story. I like that he’s thought so much about this world and is telling just one story in it. I’m almost sad that I went searching for Kimble’s explanation about his thought process for writing this story, but at the same time I’m glad I did.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: It’s certainly going onto my short list.

“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”

By Aliette de Bodard
Date Published: January 2015

First Impression: One of the greatest things about writing science fiction (and possibly by extension, fantasy) is that an author can take something unfamiliar such as a future world and ground it in the familiar through universal themes. On the surface, this story is about what happens when after a brilliant biogeneticist dies and there’s no one around to continue her work, but as referenced in the title, this story is about three ways of looking at and dealing with grief. At no point does de Bodard give an opinion as to which way is best, but instead offers up these vignettes as examples. There is really no protagonist or antagonist in this story and that’s fine because that’s not how grief and mourning operate either. After wondering why de Bodard’s characters and universe were Asian-flavored, I discovered that this short story is set in her Xuya universe and I now want to read more.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yep, also going onto the short list.

“I am Graalnak of the Vroon Empire, Destroyer of Galaxies, Supreme Overlord of the Planet Earth. Ask Me Anything.”

By Laura Pearlman
Date Published: April 2015

First Impression: Normally, I’d relegate stories that are styled to look like a message board thread or Facebook post or other current Internet trend to be gimmicky and not worth a second look. And then my English literature training kicks in and I remember that The Color Purple is also an epistolary work and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1983. As entertaining as this piece is, though, it’s definitely not on that novel’s level (or even the aforementioned “Flowers for Algernon” which was also epistolary in style). It’s clever in how it uses the current Reddit nomenclature and discussion style, but the underlying plot of how a brutal dictatorship is overthrown through the use of disinformation feels like it wrapped up too quickly. Ultimately, this is a very nice and brief humor piece and definitely a good example of how the epistolary style has changed with the advent of new publishing technologies, but not a story for the ages.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Only if there’s a subdivision for humor pieces versus serious pieces.

Setting on the Road to the 2016 Hugo Awards

Posted on 31 January 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

As with almost everything genre-related in my life, the reason I became interested this year in reading as many Hugo Award-eligible works as I can before March 28 this year is all thanks to my former college professor Dr. Atara Stein (may you rest in peace).

As a young undergrad at Cal State Fullerton, I had taken her Science Fiction literature class because I’d become interested in learning how other people have written science fiction in the hopes that I would be able to write my own. One of the first things she told us on the first day was that because even the science fiction genre encompassed a wide breadth of topics and themes, we would be focusing on what to her embodied what science fiction was as its very heart: What does it mean to be an intelligent “human”?

Through the clarifying lens of the “artificial intelligence” theme, a partial list of everything I read that school year is as follows: Neuromancer, Frankenstein, “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and He, She and It. We also watched the director’s cut versions of Blade Runner and Terminator 2 as well as the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man” (because she was also a secret Trek fanfic writer on the side).

It’s because of her college course that my philosophy about what makes “good” science fiction has to flow from satisfying at least two of these three criteria:

Does the work examine what it means to be “human” in some extensive way?
Is a very important part of how the plot and/or setting works tied to the use of technology created by sentient beings?
It is very improbable that the events in the setting of the book will happen during my lifetime?

This is a rubric which I’ve been following both consciously and sub-consciously my entire life, and it’s the rubric by which I plan to read and critique as many science fiction comics, short stories, novellas, and novels as are eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards as I can before the nomination deadline of March 31.

Because this year, I have a Supporting Membership to the 74th WorldCon, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Geekly Speaking About… Planning an Intervention

Posted on 11 August 2015 by admin 1 Comment

Words of wisdom from con runner Onezumi Hartstein. © Onezumi Events, Reimagined by Geeking Out About

As a newbie geek, a major event you learn about is the genre convention. When I started out, I thought it pretty amazing there was a gathering where you could leave your home and go to geek out with your friends or make new ones while enjoying the thing you loved.

The more I went to conventions as a journalist—first for Sequential Tart and then Anime Insider—the more I became interested in how they were run. It wasn’t long before I was volunteering first in the publications department, then later becoming a senior staffer in the guest relations departments of some East Coast anime conventions.

I’ve since returned to my roots as an attendee, but after being a panelist for six panels(!) at the recent CONvergence in Minneapolis, MN, I started to wonder: What’s it really like to be on the planning committee of a genre convention? What changes have taken place while I was “away?”

I asked Intervention Convention’s founder Onezumi Hartstein and its social media manager (and former Geeking Out About contributor) Kara Dennison to chat with me over Skype about what it takes to run a pan-fandom convention in the 21st century.

Secret Origins of a Convention Runner

As the three of us knew each other from the East Coast anime convention scene, I had an idea that going to genre conventions was a huge part of their lives, but I didn’t realize how much of an influence it was.

Dennison first started attending local sci-fi conventions and then later branched out to anime cons with the William and Mary Anime Society club in 2000. She said, “I sort of fell into staffing, as you do,” and starting with stints with the karaoke and cosplay masquerade departments, Dennison thinks she’s been involved in every major department of an anime or sci-fi con which doesn’t involve A/V or other tech.

Hartstein’s first conventions were sci-fi cons, comic book conventions (for which she cosplayed and won first prize), and a Xena: Warrior Princess ‘zine fest. That was her first experience as a staff member at a convention. Her later staffing experiences came in 2006 when she became the head of the webcomic guests branch of Guest Relations for Katsucon. “I entered staffing as a department head. I didn’t do any of the lower-level [jobs like] security, gophering, badge-checking,” she said.

And what have they learned as a result of being both convention attendees and staffers?

“[A] big thing I learned is that one should staff for a lot of conventions in the same region,” Dennison said. “A lot of cons will have the same staff in different positions. I’ve worked with the same people at Anime Mid Atlantic as I’ve worked with at Katsucon and Nekocon. I’ve worked with the same people at Marscon as I’ve worked with at Raven Con. The cons don’t have to be literally connected to share the same staff and the big thing I’ve learned is that [how] to ‘swap out the captain’s chair’,” she added, laughing.

Hartstein takes a different approach to convention staffing. “For me, I think staffing cons was the key to getting my career [to] where it is today because I actually learned how to approach my business relationships as a collaboration after I started staffing,” she said. “I tell every artist—and a lot of them don’t listen to me—to staff a con at least once [so they can] understand what the staff is going through. Some exhibitors and artists can be unrealistically demanding to the point where it’s ridiculous and they don’t realize they’re being that way. [Things like] blaming the con for their failings [when] they haven’t even done the first step in it, where they have to at least participate in the collaboration. That really gets on my nerves.”

When asked to elaborate on what “participating in the collaboration” means to her, Hartstein explained by email:

When an artist doesn’t promote their appearance in advance and isn’t interested in actually participating with the convention’s programming their weekend at any con will suffer. The best way to increase sales and increase visibility for your brand is to leverage your current fans and followers in concert with the convention opportunity. It’s a clear win/win. You help the con and the con is helping you in return. The reason I’ve been able to land some high-paying and high-visibility opportunities is because when I exhibit at an event I make sure to tell my readers that I will be there and ask that they join me. Then I have multiple people at the con talking about me from the beginning and that in turn gets me more new people.

It’s even better if I can participate in any panels. Those immediately showcase the panelists as experts. The way I approach this also makes me more desirable as a paid guest speaker because every event knows that I am looking out for them just as much as I am looking out for myself. I bring as many people as I can in the door and they do their best to run an event that will allow me to show my work.

This may all seem like basic stuff, but I often hear artists get nasty and demanding toward conventions while simultaneously bringing nothing to the table and not wanting to participate in anything. I’ve worked both sides. I’ve been an exhibiting artist for over 10 years and a con runner for almost that many years. I am well aware of how it feels to be an artist trying to be seen. I am also aware of how it feels to be a con staffer who has suffered greatly to make an event run well [only] to get crapped on by an artist who didn’t promote their [own] appearance — yet somehow in their mind it’s not their fault but the event’s fault.

I freely admit I was one of these people back in the day before I realized how horrendous I was being. I am glad I realized it and stopped before it ruined my career. Artists should be treated with respect, but on the flip side, con runners are not that different from artists. They are making something difficult on a small budget for free. They shouldn’t be disrespected either.

A lot goes into running an event, so usually what you are seeing on the surface has a larger story. It’s really uneducated to blame someone without knowing everything that happened. For example, perhaps they were late setting the tables up. That doesn’t mean they are awful people or bad at their jobs. It could mean that someone’s mom was rushed to the hospital right when setup was to start, and now you are yelling at that same person who rushed back from the hospital in order to make sure the artists were taken care of.

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Trisha’s Take: How to depict female characters in webcomics

Posted on 8 July 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Who says feminism and genre works can't be fun and forward-thinking? © Danielle Henderson — Who says feminism and genre works can’t be fun and forward-thinking? © Danielle Henderson

At this most recent CONvergence Con (a sci-fi/fantasy-based convention in Minneapolis, Minn.), I was one of the panelists on two different panels that sought to speak about where and how women can exist in formerly male-dominated genres and spaces.

In The Smurfette Principle in Marketing panel, we tackled the idea that there isn’t often a lot of merchandise available for girls and women because there is often only one woman or girl in a group of men or boys in any given genre show, book, or movie. In the Genre Feminism panel, we spoke about why it was important to increase the visibility of women or girls in a genre show, book, or movie (along with other visible minorities as well) and how people as creators and consumers can promote these ideas.

Specifically to creators, I talked about Geena Davis (whose name I couldn’t remember at the time; apologies, Ms. Davis!) and how back in December 2013, she wrote a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter about how easy it can be for screenwriters to increase the number of roles in film and on TV for women and girls:

Step 1: Go through the projects you’re already working on and change a bunch of the characters’ first names to women’s names. With one stroke you’ve created some colorful unstereotypical female characters that might turn out to be even more interesting now that they’ve had a gender switch. What if the plumber or pilot or construction foreman is a woman? What if the taxi driver or the scheming politician is a woman? What if both police officers that arrive on the scene are women — and it’s not a big deal?

Step 2: When describing a crowd scene, write in the script, “A crowd gathers, which is half female.” That may seem weird, but I promise you, somehow or other on the set that day the crowd will turn out to be 17 percent female otherwise. Maybe first ADs think women don’t gather, I don’t know.

It’s not often that I get to see the fruits of efforts like these so soon after I talk about them, and from a formerly problematic source as well.

Anyone who’s read this blog for any period of time knows I have a love/hate relationship with Penny Arcade creator Mike Krahulik. On one hand, he’s an intensely creative individual who helped pioneer innovations in cartooning, comics, and the marketing thereof. On the other hand, he’s a self-proclaimed asshole who has a lot to learn.

I’m quite pleased to be able to say that after the most recent iteration of the Dickwolves Debacle, the same Mike Krahulik who felt compelled to make a $20,000 donation to the Trevor Project after he made some uneducated remarks about transpeople seems to be also leveling up when it comes to how he depicts characters who aren’t like him in his art.

Recently, Penny Arcade debuted another one of their “one-page worlds.” This one is called Nightlight, and it’s about a first-time father who is told by an Ancient Keeper-type that now that he’s become a parent, he must definitely kill any monsters he finds under his child’s bed.

In his news post for the strip, Krahulik talked about the genesis for the world, but was quick to add: “We’re focusing on Dad’s specifically but honestly the role of a home’s monster hunter can fall to anyone really. I kinda want to meet that big sister.”

Child’s Play community manager Jamie Dillon followed up in the comments to the comic by saying: “We just had a long neat chat about it at lunch, and the world is so cool. Single moms, grandparents, siblings — whomever is the protector of the house is the one who can see the monsters and fight them. I’ll let the guys share other details as they want, but it’s not exclusive to dads.”

But perhaps even better is the news post from Monday, showing that not only are they going to do a longer-form story in this universe, but that Krahulik is taking the time to accurately depict the young girl who will be in this story:

A big sister protects her little brother from the monsters under his bed. © Penny Arcade / Click to embiggen! — Grace protects her little brother from the monsters under his bed. © Penny Arcade / Click to embiggen!

I wanted Grace to feel authentic. I wanted her to be a real little girl and I have zero experience with little girls. I have two boys of my own and more often than not my house is packed with 10 year old boys. Tycho gave me a hard time when I told him about all my Google searching. “They just wear shoes” like everyone else he told me. I know that girls wear shoes…what I don’t know is what kind of shoes Grace wears. Does she wear flip flops? Boots with tights? I don’t know what kinds of outfits she wears. Is she a hoodie and jeans girl or does she like skirts and dresses? I don’t know how she likes to comb her hair or if she wears any jewelry.

The fact that he’s doing this research and thinking this deeply about this character is awesome. In addition to his own spouse as a resource for what young girls are like, he’s also got the experiences of Dillon and Child’s Play project manager Kristin Lindsay, as well as any of the other PA staffers who have female children or nieces or cousins or siblings. He’d be foolish not to tap their resources and experiences.

It’s a little thing, but it’s a start. At the end of this month, I can’t wait to see what kind of Home Protector Grace is for her little brother.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: The secret to Christina Applegate’s success

Posted on 6 June 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

The way I like to operate is to always be professional, period. It’s not that I’m trying to act professional, it’s that I really do believe that you don’t show up late to things. That’s just rude and it ruins everybody else’s operation. There are set [production assistants] PAs who’ve been there for hours before you even get there at four o’clock in the morning. Don’t complain and don’t be late. That’s just respect. Each and every person is such an integral part of what you’re doing. … Nobody’s job is less important than anyone else’s because you take one piece out of that puzzle and the whole thing collapses. For me, it’s about always being kind and loving. It’s much nicer to be happy and have a loving set than it is to have some dick running it. And I’ve been there too and it’s very uncomfortable.

—Christina Applegate, on her first major movie role in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, via Buzzfeed

Just before reading this article, I was listening to the most recent episode of the Magnum Rewatch podcast from the folks at Loading Ready Run because it’s interesting to me to hear folks who are younger than I am talk about things I remember experiencing first-hand while I was growing up in the 1980s. The movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead is one of those thing I also remember watching, probably in the theaters because we had a great second-run theater near our home and my parents enjoy light-hearted movies.

In reading this article, I realized that this attitude that Applegate has towards work is one of the reasons why she’s been in show business for as long as she has. Like several other ingenues of the age, she could have flamed out or fallen on hard times, but as Jarett Wieselman writes about her work after this movie came out, Applegate “was nominated for a Tony award, three Golden Globes, and four Emmys (one of which she won in 2003 for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy on Friends).”

Kinda makes me wonder what she’ll be working on now and how soon I can get to see it.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: Reaping the consequences of being a dick

Posted on 29 May 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

As a geek of the new age, most people know that the first law of writer/actor Wil Wheaton is “Don’t be a dick.” However, if you’ve ever wondered what Wheaton does when someone he personally knows and likes violates that law, you need to start reading his Tumblr ask responses.

In a follow-up response, Wheaton stated that he wouldn’t be participating in any future Acquisitions, Inc. adventures and encouraged people who wanted to see him introduce a continuous RPG campaign to his web series Tabletop to start watching the Geek & Sundry channel on June 9, when the IndieGoGo-funded campaign called Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana will start airing weekly on Tuesdays.

At least this answers the question of, “Will we ever get to see Aeofel and Viari have a contest over who is prettier?” But what I think Wheaton’s response to Kurtz’ actions also does is introduce a model of what other people can do whenever people in their lives are behaving in ways that make them extremely uncomfortable. I doubt Wheaton came to that decision very easily, but it does seem as if he and the people in his life who were hurt by Kurtz’ actions are better off for it.

Trisha’s Take: Analysis of a rape allegation

Posted on 20 February 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

[Editor’s Note: Before I start, I’d like to preface this by saying that I was acquainted and friendly with both the accuser and the accused while I was first a guest relations, then publicity staffer at an East Coast anime convention from about 2004 to 2008. Until recently, I had not spoken or corresponded with either of them since I left New York City in 2012. Any and all opinions are my own unless otherwise stated, and all anonymous sources shall remain confidential.]

A question I never want to need to ask ever again. © Geeking Out About

If you’re into geek feminism and women’s issues, it’s been an interesting couple of years. Recently, we had the debacle at the TechCrunch awards ceremony, the Gamergate saga in the video game world, the first-person account of how to report sexual harassment at a science fiction convention, and the reveal that a prominent sci-fi/fantasy author participated in abusing her own child.

Each time I read another report, I thought to myself, “Well, that’s truly horrifying, but I don’t think things like that have happened in my anime fandom.”

That is, until now.

Two days ago, I woke up to see mentions of a Facebook post where someone whose name wasn’t immediately familiar to me accused someone else I knew of rape. The post from Amber Marie Frazier read in part:

I was raped last year at Anime Boston by Tom Wayland. I trusted him, as a friend, colleague, and a guest [whose] needs I was charged with taking care of. That is why you have not seen me around, and when you have I have been so different. That is why I am not doing anime shows or anything that involved crowds.

Frazier continued:

I wanted to tell all of you for two reasons. First, because you all know and love me, and you are not fools, and have noticed there is something wrong. I need your love and support if I am ever going to be anything like the woman you knew before. Secondly, so you can TELL EVERYONE. If you don’t tell everyone, he can do it again to someone else who trusts him. I have reason to believe that I am not the first, but I will be the last if I have anything to do about it.

According to Frazier, Anime Boston was made aware of her accusation and they’re not allowed to publicly comment. She also confirmed that they removed him from their list of invited guests. Interestingly, she also stated that she would share the information which she had told to Anime Boston and the police, but cautioned people against wanting to know that amount of detail. The last statement was the most interesting of all:

Don’t worry about slander or libel, I checked with my lawyer, and it is only that if it is not true.

My first reaction was, “Oh my God.”

My second reaction was, “Well… under certain circumstances, I think I can see how that could happen.”

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Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “T.R.A.C.K.S.” (spoilers!)

Posted on 21 December 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

This is the face of someone who is going to eviscerate you via your nostrils. © ABC/Marvel Studios

It’s less than a week until Christmas, so let’s dive into another episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., fresh off of my Netflix streaming queue:

And now, we’re kicking it “mystery on a train”-style. Because it wasn’t enough for Joss Whedon to have one episode of a tight-knit ensemble TV series set on a train, right?
I love the way May casually reveals to Ward that she told Coulson about their affair, especially when how she revealed it in the previous episode wasn’t so casual. And from his reaction, it’s almost like he wanted to either be found out a different way or that he was upset that she told Coulson first without consulting him.
Gyah, I love Fitz’ fake American accent. Knowing how the entertainment industry works, I’m not surprised that a Scottish actor like Iain De Caestecker would have an American accent in his back pocket. And it makes sense from a character perspective that Skye would not have a similar Scottish accent in her arsenal; here’s hoping the same isn’t for Chloe Bennet.
I had to turn the subtitles on for the beginning of the next scene because I wasn’t sure at first what Fitz was upset about. But then I realized that he was upset that he couldn’t “show off” in front of his crush and that Skye’s getting more Operations-savvy rather than Tech-savvy. Her comment about him building things with his hands isn’t the soother that she thinks it is. I gather that his outing with Ward gave him a real confidence boost in his abilities as an Agent, but to be busted back down to being the “gadget guy” in her eyes could be seen as being real condescending.
Yeah… love that Stan Lee cameo. But you have to admit that it was very jarring (no pun intended) to have it happen, and then the diversion. It’s almost as if they were diverting us from the diversion.
I think I rather like how they played a little bit with time to show how things happened from Coulson’s perspective, then from Ward’s. Also, I wonder if May’s the one who hot-wired the truck, maybe. But I don’t know why she would have left it there.
Oh, Ward… this is why Ops and Tech need to be better friends and learn how to do things that the other divisions know how to do.
“If it’s really just sex, Ward, you should really get comfortable using the word.” Aw, yeah, Papa Coulson.
I’m not sure if I’ve said this before, but I think I love how in their “no benefits” relationship, Ward is really not getting any benefits at all. I believe that Coulson’s comment about combat ops was meant to reassure May that he didn’t mean for them to get involved in this kind of sticky situation, the kind that earned her the nickname “the Cavalry.” It was a great moment between two veterans, and then Ward came into the infirmary and made it seem like less than that. He’s being pouty and sulky, and it makes him just a little more likable.
I rewound the fight scene in the baggage car three or four times and I still can’t figure out if the assailant grabbed Simmons or if she grabbed him to try and shield her team from the grenade. If the latter, my respect for her has gone up trillions.
My heart was pounding really loudly while Skye was going down the stairs. Great job of establishing that atmosphere. However, she split the party and didn’t wait for backup, so that’s negative points for her.
And now I’m wondering if Quinn’s got an eye-cam as well. That would kind of make some sort of sense. But what I don’t understand is why the whole deal went south.
Ah, I see the stinger is for hardcore comics fans and people like me who like looking stuff up after the show’s over. Nice.

Unlike last week, I really want to know what happens next, especially given that we know that Coulson was brought back to life by S.H.I.E.L.D.’s technologies.

Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “Seeds” (spoilers!)

Posted on 4 December 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

The kids from Pacific Tech only wish they had an underground club this cool. © Marvel Studios/ABC

Once again, it’s time to check in with Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., thanks to the kind folks at Netflix.

For a second there, I thought the girl they were calling “Callie” was actually Skye. Perhaps this means there are too many brunette or darker haired women on this show.
Yay! An episode set at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy! Or at least one of the Academies. Makes sense that there’s a huge rivalry between the Sci-Tech and Operations divisions. And yet I wonder why more emphasis or respect isn’t placed on Communications or Data Analysis. Ops can’t do stuff without analysis. Sci-Tech may not know how the data they’re collecting meshes with everything else. I also wonder if the Academies promote these rivalries.
Of course it makes sense that a Sci-Tech-driven investigation isn’t going to turn up the culprits. What else would Ward and Skye have to do in this episode? And given what happens in Winter Soldier, and this episode originally aired two months prior to that film’s release, it nicely sets up the fact that there are whole parts of S.H.I.E.L.D. which don’t know what the other parts are doing.
At first I thought that the guy in the car on the phone was the same person as the partner of the dead Agent who dropped Skye off. This is what happens when you cast too many people who look alike. Let’s get some diversity in here, people! Am I really the only person who is having this problem?
“These aren’t my big ideas.” Oh, why did I feel a sudden frisson of unease when he said that? (I’m very proud that I didn’t say I felt a chill— dammit!)
Okay, I’m not sure what May and Coulson’s plan is here. They know that someone in Mexico took a selfie and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s facial recognition software pinged it as being their man. They know where the picture was taken. Are they really going to do a stakeout on the shop and hope that he randomly walks by there again? Or has he been seen elsewhere in the town and they aren’t conveying that information to us well?
“I’m tired of secrets. I’m glad we’re here. We need to root out all the secrets.” Oh, I cannot wait until I start seeing the post-Winter Soldier episodes. Break the Cutie, indeed.
Yes, Coulson is a cutie. At least in this context.
Aw, and magical Skye (whose “power” we don’t know of yet) makes Coulson all better again. In a way, I’m glad that he was the one to deliver those lines because if they’d come out of Skye, I think I might have thrown something at my computer screen.

Onward to the second half of the show!

Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “The Magical Place” (spoilers!)

Posted on 23 November 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

And yet, he still didn't reveal a thing © ABC/Marvel Studios/Netflix — And yet, he still didn’t reveal a thing © ABC/Marvel Studios/Netflix

You have no idea how freaking happy I am that Netflix is streaming the entirety of the first season of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” right now. I was afraid that due to living in a cord-cutter household and being on a very tight budget, I wouldn’t be able to justify spending the money to get the series on iTunes. And I couldn’t justify the ongoing cost of a Hulu Plus membership either. But now I can at least watch the whole first season and get caught up, so let’s pretend that an entire season and a bit hasn’t gone by, okay?

Again, the “Previously on” is well-edited and after seeing it, I feel the same sense of satisfaction and excitement I did almost a year ago when I stopped watching the show.
And let’s talk about May saying that “Fitzsimmons” was up. I’m not sure what to make of Fitz’s newfound steely-eyed nature when using his scanner drones as weaponry. Simmons’ dismay at the same thing is also a very nice character point for her.
Victoria Hand is back! Thanks to a friend on Facebook, I now know why so many Marvel fen squealed in excitement when she showed up in “The Hub.” And now, I’m appropriately excited, too.
I’m going to make a prediction that the reason why May answered “No” when she was asked if Skye would be an asset on the plane is that she knows that Skye works best when she’s not surrounded by the type of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are currently with Hand on the plane.
Aww, I love how this team has bonded, even to the point of where they’re willing to bend a few rules in order to let Skye have her shot at finding Coulson.
Some points of order and questions regarding Skye’s escape sequence: 1) All of that? Took longer than 12 minutes. 2) I forget the reason why she can’t just take the bracelet off. Is it connected to her somehow? Is there a magnetized chip embedded in her skin under it, keeping it in place? 3) Why did she need the jacket? 4) Wouldn’t a newspaper have more recent intelligence on whose vehicle she could steal? 5) Why didn’t the air bags deploy in the SUV?
Ugh, and now I remember why I have a love/hate relationship with this show.
Aha, so that’s why she needed the jacket. And I love how the mark isn’t exactly dumb either, triggering the silent alarm like that.
“No single agent is that important.” “Coulson is.” I think I love this conversation because it reveals a lot about how segmented S.H.I.E.L.D. itself is and how—spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier—HYDRA was able to infiltrate it so deeply.
Boom. I love it when I’m right about characters in general, and Melinda May in particular.
It makes sense that Raina’s power (if we’re calling it that, and why not?) is that of persuasion. How else could she get reasonable people to agree to become Centipede’s playthings?
Ron Glass! I’m glad that he’s back and that his character wasn’t in this just for the pilot.
Why am I not surprised that S.H.I.E.L.D. has 3D brain matter printers? Also, is this the MCU version of a Life Model Decoy? If so, that’s pretty rad.
No lie; my heart was racing during the entire sequence where Coulson confronts Ron Glass’ Dr. Streiten (Doctor Straighten?) about what happened to him. The “thunk” as the scene faded to the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo made me jump.
When I think about it, I shouldn’t be surprised that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been working or has this kind of technology. How were they able to get Captain America out of his cryostasis without significant nerve and tissue damage, if they didn’t? However, it’s through reading other science fiction—specifically Old Man’s War by John Scalzi—that I’m able to accept the idea of consciousness being something that can be stored and moved or re-implanted somewhere else.

I think I’ll go ahead and make Sunday nights my time to review episodes of this and other TV shows going forward. Tune in next time to see what else I’m watching!

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