Because there’s an obvious conflict of interest in Discovery going after Book and Tarka given the relationship between Burnham and Book (and, indeed, between the ship’s entire crew and Book), Vance sends in someone to backstop Burnham: Nhan.
This is a brilliant move. Because of the spore drive, Discovery is the only ship that can get to Book and Tarka in time. And they can’t just replace the entire crew. So they send Nhan—last seen in “Die Trying” last season, and now back in the saddle as part of Federation Security, a welcome return of Rachael Ancheril to the show. She’s someone Burnham (and the rest of the crew) knows and trusts, she doesn’t really know Book all that well, and she’s security, so she’ll do what’s right.
Mavis Staples has been one of the great gospel singers since the 1950s, both with other members of her family and solo. Here’s her version of the classic “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” from her 2004 album Have a Little Faith.
It’s always nice, especially given that this episode aired during the early days of the “creation science” movement, to see Star Trek reiterating the reality of evolution, but it’s undermined by them so totally not understanding how evolution works. Evolution is not a predestined set of outcomes. Rick Berman-era Trek has been particularly inept in this regard—e.g., the otherwise-excellent Voyager episode “Distant Origin,” in which the EMH is able to extrapolate how one species of dinosaur would have evolved over millions of years. That is utterly impossible to properly extrapolate because evolution is not a set, predetermined process. And one of the major factors in how a species evolves is its external environment, which can change. (As an example, most dinosaurs were rendered extinct, not because they were an evolutionary dead end or anything like that, but because a big rock unexpectedly hit the planet.)
Nineteen years ago, the Farpoint convention was snowed in by an uncharacteristically-heavy-for-Maryland blizzard that left everyone trapped in the hotel for several days. (The only roads to and from the hotel were completely impassable.) Inspired by that extended weekend (in which Erin Gray taught yoga classes and Armin Shimerman held acting workshops), Peter & Kath have put together this nifty Canterbury Tales-inspired anthology, in which VastiCon 40 is snowed in, and so 38 cosplayers sit in the bar and each tells a story in character for who/whatever they’re cosplaying as.
Here’s the full table of contents:
THE GREAT BRITISH DETECTIVE’S TALE By Aaron Rosenberg
THE HOUSE STARK FAN’S TALE By Robert Greenberger
THE BASEBALL FAN’S TALE By Michael Jan Friedman
THE SPACE OPERA FAN’S TALE By Mary Fan
THE FANTASY WESTERN FAN’S TALE By Jo Duffy
THE AMAZON’S TALE By Rigel Ailur
THE CONSPIRACY THEORIST’S TALE By Ian Randal Strock
THE OLD TOWNIE’S TALE By Patrick Storck
THE BOUNTY HUNTER’S TALE By Susan Hillwig
THE PARLIAMENTARIAN FAN’S/OWL’S TALE By Brenda Huettner
THE DADAIST’S TALE By Robert Jeschonek
THE H.P. LOVECRAFT FAN’S TALE By C.J. Espinoza
THE FILMATION FAN’S TALE By Paige Daniels
THE QUEER SF DETECTIVE’S TALE By D.M. Rasch
THE FANTASY FOOTBALL FAN’S TALE By Eugene Ramos
THE SAM BECKETT FAN’S TALE By Steve Nagy
THE GROGNARD’S TALE By Ian Harac
THE ANIMATED MYSTERY FAN’S TALE By Rande Goodwin
THE PULP FICTION FAN’S TALE By Martin A. Perez
THE PRO’S TALE By John Trumbull
THE CAPED CRUSADER’S TALE By Christopher J. Valin and Steve Beaulieu
THE GHOST’S TALE By John J. X. Cihon
THE SPACE OPERA FAN’S TALE By “Uncle” Wes Nicholson
THE FOUR HORSEMEN FAN’S TALE By Raphael Sutton
THE EYE OF ARGON FAN’S TALE By Laura VanArendonk Baugh
THE PRINCESS’S TALE By Susan Stanelow Olesen
THE CYCLIST’S TALE By R.P. Steeves
THE CARPET’S TALE By Keith R. A. DeCandido
THE RED RANGER’S TALE By Isaac Sher
THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST FAN’S TALE By Denise Sutton
SANTA’S TALE By Andy Allard
THE ZOMBIE FAN’S TALE By Glen Cadigan
THE MASH-UP FAN’S TALE By John Peel
THE BRITISH INVASION FAN’S TALE By James Ryan
THE SUPER-VILLAIN FAN’S TALE By Josh Pritchett
THE PARALLEL LIVES FAN’S TALE By Steven L. Rosenhaus
THE CAPER FILM FAN’S TALE By Bev Vincent
THE ROBIN HOOD FAN’S TALE By Peter David
Yes, I did the carpet. THE CULT OF THE MARRIOTT CARPET LIVES!!!!!!!
Great execution can make up for a terrible idea. “All In” does not have great execution, but it is good, and there’s something to be said for a dopey fun cliché-ridden sci-fi story, especially since it provides some good character bits for Burnham, Book, Tarka, and Owosekun, as well as Rillak and Vance, and it’s fun to get a glimpse into Burnham and Book’s year of Courier-ing between “That Hope is You, Part 1” and “Far from Home.”
For a guy who works from home, I haven’t been home much this week. On both Monday and Tuesday I got to play chauffeur for my mother, who had various and sundry doctor’s appointments in Manhattan. These involved me dropping her off, parking the car in a lot, and then finding somewhere to sit and work on my laptop until she was done. Monday it was at Rocky’s, a fantastic pizza place on 2nd Avenue and 33rd Street; Tuesday it was at Variety Coffee Roasters on 7th Avenue and 25th Street. (Variety’s coffee is a little too bitter for my tastes, but their cookies are yummy…) Still got lotsa work done, though I also spent a certain amount of time driving in NYC traffic, fun fun fun.
And then there was the frustration of reserving parking in a lot that turns out to be full. I generally use the Best Parking app to reserve lot space when I drive into Manhattan. But when I arrived at the garage that I’d reserved the spot for, there was a sign saying the lot was completely full. The good news is that I called BP and they refunded my money right away. The bad news was, I wound up parking in another garage that was more expensive. Le sigh.
These were both pretty much all-day things, which meant I wasn’t home much during the day, and then I had karate Monday night and on Tuesday we had dinner with our dear friends Rebecca and Patrick (who are moving to eastern Pennsylvania, foregoing their Manhattan apartment for a spacious home with land).
Wednesday I spent some of the day home, but I also had to do some laundry, as all my karate stuff was dirty and I needed something to wear to teach my afterschool thing, which takes up most of Wednesday afternoon. I also had to write up this week’s Discovery (which will go live on Tor.com later today).
Let me state for the record that I love where we live. It’s a great space, it’s right down the street from my parents (this is important, as all four of them are in their seventies and only one of them can drive, so I’m often needed for chauffeur duties like what I did for my mother earlier this week), it’s got tons of closet space, it’s really magnificent in so many ways — plus we can afford it on two freelancers’ incomes.
But it has two flaws: no dishwasher, and no laundry facilities that we can use. Which means laundry has to be done at a (very good, mind you) laundromat down the street. For my karate stuff, it means I have to wait until all four of my gis and my fighting gear is all dirty before it’s cost-effective to do a whole load. (I don’t want to spend three bucks in quarters on just one gi…)
In related news, today I have to do laundry. Le sigh once again.
One bit of good news is that we may soon be paying rent on one freelancer’s income and one full-time permanent salaried employee’s income. Wrenn is currently working a job in Manhattan, but it’s a five-month gig that will go away by the end of April. How-some-ever, she has an interview for an actual full-time position on Tuesday — one that’s full-time remote, too, so she will still be working from home, and which will pay quite handsomely, and would solve a lot of our financial-security issues. So please, send your happy thoughts in her direction come Tuesday.
Now to put some laundry in and get some damn writing done……………………….
Robert Johnson is one of the greatest blues musicians that ever was. It’s safe to say that many rock-and-rollers owe their careers to Johnson — Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, The Who, and many others were hugely influenced by Johnson, just for starters. The story is that he sold his soul to the devil to become a great guitarist, which has been the stuff of legend and fiction forever. (I myself used it in one of my Cassie Zukav stories, “I Believe I’m Sinkin’ Down,” and Supernatural made use of the legend in the episode “Crossroad Blues.”) Here’s a song that has become a standard at home games of Windy City sports teams, “Sweet Home Chicago.”
Still, a lot of the episode falls a bit flat. For one thing, there was no indication prior to this that Enterprise went out underequipped. In fact, the whole argument at the top of “Broken Bow” was that Enterprise was past ready, but the Vulcans were trying to delay the launch further.
Even if we buy the premise that—like the third Federation starship to bear the same name—it went out before everything would be installed on Tuesday, if they had the fixin’s to install at least one phase cannon on board, why the hell didn’t they do it after they got their asses kicked in “Fight or Flight“?
KRAD's Inaccurate Guide to Life 