pinned post: some important posts and guides and stuff on this here blog

This is a guide to the guides, as it were, as this blog has several listings of things that folks might want to refer to. This post will remain pinned to the front page.

• the compleat bibliography of Keith R.A. DeCandido — all my work listed in one place (updated as of 11 April 2024)
• guide to my reviews of new Star Trek — I’ve been reviewing the new Trek TV series (Discovery, Short Treks, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds) on Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access) for Reactor Magazine (formerly Tor.com), and this post is regularly updated with each new review as they go live
• guide to KRAD readings — during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, I started up the YouTube channel “KRAD COVID readings,” renamed “KRAD readings” in 2023, and this post is a guide to all the stuff I’ve been reading as part of it, regularly updated with each new reading
• guide to 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch — I rewatched every live-action movie based on a superhero comic book each week from August 2017 to January 2020 for Reactor Magazine (formerly Tor.com), and now the feature is occasional, with me looking back at new movies that have been released every six months to a year or so; this is an alphabetical guide to all the movies I’ve covered or plan to cover
• the Dragon Precinct chronology — a listing of the chronological sequence of the stories, vignettes, and novels in the world of my fantasy/police procedural series that started with Dragon Precinct
• guide to the tales of Cassie Zukav, weirdness magnet — I’ve written a cycle of urban fantasy short stories taking place in Key West that involve scuba diving, Norse gods, folklore, rock and roll music, and beer drinking, not necessarily in that order; they’ve been published in a variety of sources, and this post gathers them all in one place, complete with links that give you the means to acquire/read them
• guide to my Patreon content — this lists the TV and movie reviews, vignettes, and commentary I’ve written for my Patreon supporters

Star Trek: Discovery’s “Erigah”

The Breen have long been mysterious and dull. This week, we find out more about their culture, and now they’re explained and, um, still dull. Alas. But there’s some fun negotiating and politicking and the like, at least. My review of Star Trek: Discovery‘s “Erigah.”

An excerpt:

But the Breen culture we get is one of factions all vying for power, and didn’t we already do this with the Klingons in season one? And L’ak is important because he’s a scion of the royal family, so we get yet another alien species that has futuristic technology alongside medieval notions like primogeniture and the political importance of genetics and bloodlines over more relevant criteria, and bleah. It’s been done before and nothing interesting is done with it here.

On top of that, we get some other tired clichés here, including one of my least favorite: Incompetent Starfleet Security. Moll moves to escape sickbay after L’ak distracts everyone by overdosing on tricordrazine. (How the super-duper 32nd-century technology can allow a patient to possibly overdose themselves is left as an exercise for the viewer. Especialy since it winds up killing him.) The two nameless security guards are taken out in nothing flat, and then Culber tries to stop her and he actually does better than the trained security personnel, mostly because he’s an opening-credits regular and therefore a bigger badass than the trained security personnel. Sigh.

Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Mind War”

We meet the Psi Cops in general and Walter Koenig’s Bester in particular. Alas, the other guest casting is less good, which does a lot to sink the episode. The Babylon 5 Rewatch fights a “Mind War.”

An excerpt:

[Bester] creates quite a strong impression here, though a big part of it is seeing a very familiar actor in a most unfamiliar role, as Bester is absolutely nothing like Chekov. Which is fabulous, as he’s a very effective villain.

Certainly more so than his sidekick, as Felicity Waterman is dreadful as Kelsey. In that, she’s matched by the episode’s primary focus, which is Jason Ironheart—a dopey name for an awful character. William Allen Young plays him with all the charisma of a dead fish, utterly failing to convey the anguish and torment the script calls for, which takes the episode out at the knees, sadly. Not that the script helps overmuch, trying to make Ironheart out to be a tragic figure and a victim, hoping we won’t notice that (a) he slept with one of his students, and (b) he committed several murders, only one of which he was able to even remotely justify. Indeed, the glossing over of the death of the Starfury group at the top of the episode is galling. And having Bester imitate the denizens of the Village in The Prisoner was a little too cutesy.

Star Trek: Discovery’s “Whistlespeak”

It’s a Prime Directive story! But unlike a lot of PD stories, this one didn’t piss me off! Burnham and Tilly go undercover and try not to die, while Culber tries to deal with things and Adira tries to get used to being on the bridge. My review of Star Trek: Discovery‘s “Whistlespeak.”

An excerpt:

We start this week with the Discovery crew doing what it does best: working its way through a scientific problem. Back in season two, Ethan Peck’s Spock matter-of-factly stated “I like science.” (Peck himself owns a T-shirt with that saying on it that he has worn to many a public appearance.) That’s pretty much the Discovery ethos, and some of the best scenes in this show’s five-year history have been various crewmembers tossing ideas around to figure out a problem. In this case, it’s Stamets, Adria, Tilly, and Burnham trying to determine what the clue they found last week is supposed to mean—which is hard, as it’s just a vial of distilled water with some scratches on it.

updated HELIOsphere schedule

I’ve updated my HELIOsphere schedule, as I’ve added a reading and also included all my fellow panelists for each item.

See folks this weekend!

cover reveal: new edition of A Furnace Sealed

For a variety of reasons not worth going into publicly, and all of which are completely amicable on both sides, WordFire Press and I decided to part ways with regard to the Adventures of Bram Gold series. It’s being taken over by eSpec Books — who publish my “Precinct” series, and several other works of mine — who will be reissuing A Furnace Sealed and publishing the second book in the series, Feat of Clay, later this year.

To start building anticipation, eSpec has released the new cover to Furnace. Ain’t it nifty? And yes, that riff on the tapestry called The Unicorn Rests in a Garden — sometimes also known as The Unicorn in Captivity — is quite deliberate. (The tapestry, one of the most famous in the world, is in The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park, a satellite of the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York.)

Babylon 5 Rewatch: “The Parliament of Dreams”

Lennier and Na’Toth finally show up, we get to see Minbari and Centauri religious rituals, and someone’s trying to kill G’Kar. The Babylon 5 Rewatch covers “The Parliament of Dreams.”

An excerpt:

Seeing the different religious ceremonies was fun. It’s a little to Planet of Hats-ish to see only one Centauri ceremony and one Minbari ceremony but then have Earth show off how many religions there are. Having said that, the ceremonies are definitely appropriate: the Centauri eat, drink, and are merry because they’re not dead yet, and the Minbari are all ritualized and sedate and ceremonial and stuff. Each is very fitting. For that matter, the Narn not participating is also very fitting, as even at this early stage it’s obvious that the Narn play things close to the vest and don’t reveal much to outsiders. (Indeed, G’Kar’s reluctance to let any non-Narn in on his crisis is a plot point.)

my HELIOsphere 2024 schedule

As I have been every year since it debuted in 2017, I will be an author guest at the HELIOsphere convention, which will be back at the Holiday Inn Piscataway in New Jersey this coming weekend, the 3rd through the 5th of May.

EDITED TO ADD: I’ve now included my fellow panelists on the Friday and Sunday panels.

EDITED TO ADD SOME MORE: a reading Saturday morning!

I will have a table in the dealer room and I’ll also be doing a mess of programming:

Friday

3.30-4.45pm: “Multi-Author Universe,” w/Bjorn Hasseler, Hildy Silverman, and Michael A. Ventrella (Salon C)

Saturday

10-11.15am: reading, w/Bjorn Hasseler and David Harten Watson (Salon E)

11.30am-12.45pm: “Interview with David Gerrold,” where I’ll be interviewing the con’s Special Guest (Salon C)

1.40-2.10pm: group autographing session (Salon D)

7-9pm: “eSpec Books Launch Party,” w/Marc L. Abbott, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Ef Deal, Jennifer Della’Zanna, Teel James Glenn, Bjorn Hasseler, Carol Gyzander, F.R. Michaels, and Hildy Silverman (Salon E)

10pm-whenever: “Laura Antoniou and Keith R.A. DeCandido Babble” (it’s actually listed as the “Deep Space Nine Appreciation Panel,” but really it’s gpnna be me and Laura babbling for as long as they’ll let us) (Salon E)

Sunday

1-2.15pm: “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Detective’s Popularity,” w/Kathleen O’Shea David, Lawrence Kramer, HildySilverman, and Caitlin Rozakis (Salon E)

Hope to see folks there!

Star Trek: Discovery’s “Mirrors”

After 27 years, we finally find out what a Breen really looks like. We also get some intriguing hints at the history of the Mirror Universe and a cheap-ass way to reuse some Strange New Worlds sets. Most importantly, we get the Secret Origin of Moll and L’ak! My review of Star Trek: Discovery‘s “Mirrors.”

An excerpt:

Ah yes, the Cleveland Booker connection. The prior iteration of the Dread Pirate Booker had promised Moll and her mother that they’d be able to retire to a planet in the GQ. (Presumably accessed via the Bajoran Wormhole?) But he never returned home. Moll, of course, hates his guts, which torpedoes Book’s plan to appeal to their mutual relationship with her Dad.

Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Infection”

It’s an utter waste of David McCallum, which is but one of many sins committed by this, one of the absolute low points of the entire franchise. The Babylon 5 Rewatch gets an “Infection.”

An excerpt:

It’s never a good sign when an episode of B5 doesn’t have any of the three most interesting characters in it. Delenn, G’Kar, and Mollari are the heart and soul of this show, and that none of them appear in this episode is but one of a billion problems with it, the biggest of them being that it’s awful.

see me at C2E2 this weekend!

For the first time in 14 years, when I attended the first-ever C2E2 under the auspices of BOOM! Studios to promote the Farscape comic book, I will be a guest at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, a.k.a. C2E2. This time around, I’ll be in the Writers Block, a section of the exhibitors’ floor that is just for me and my fellow word-slingers.

I will be at table WB-9, where I’ll have a mess of stuff for sale, notably Alien: Isolation, Supernatural: Nevermore, Supernatural: Bone Key, Sherlock Holmes: Cases by Candlelight Vol. 2, Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours Omnibus, Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness — The Beginning, Young Hercules: Cheiron’s Warriors, Young Hercules: The Ares Alliance, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars, Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda: Destruction of Illusions, Ragnarok and Roll: Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet, The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, Without a License: The Fantastic Worlds of Keith R.A. DeCandido, Systema Paradoxa: All-the-Way House, The 18th Race Omnibus, Phenomenons: Every Human Creature, Phenomenons: Season of Darkness, all seven of the Precinct books, the newly released A Cry of Hounds, and one or two other things.

With me in the Block will be Paul Barile, Dan Birk, Lisette Blythe, Christopher Brimmage, BumBumBooks, M.C. Burnell, Alexis D. Craig, Rick Heinz, Lauren Jankowski, N.D. Jones, Megan Mackie, Lisa Maggiore, John Jackson Miller, Brendan Noble, Charli Rahe, K.N. Salustro, H. Gorlitz Scott, Christopher D. Schmitz, Brian John Skillen David Joel Stevenson, Ariel Sylvester, Mason Thomas, Rod Van Blake, Phoenix Williams, and the Chicago Chapter of the Horror Writers Assocation.

Hope to see folks there!