I’ve become more and more interested lately in good shifter stories, especially with a kick-ass heroine at the helm. So when I received “Frayed – A Madison Lark Novella” from new author (and fellow reviewer over at BookCountry), Blakely Chorpenning I was happy to find that kind of heroine in Madison “Fray” Lark, a leopard shifter. This novella starts off something that could turn into a long-running and interesting shifter series.

(Disclaimer for FTC regulations – I have received this Advanced Reader Copy at no cost)

Fray loves being a semi-pro fighter and free spirit. However, when a deadly faction begins abducting supernatural teens in the Blue Hills of North Carolina for excruciating experiments, she quickly learns there is more to life than glitzy opponents and late night trysts. Fray and a crew of unlikely allies must rescue the children before they are dissected alive. Being a leopard shapeshifter helps. Confronting personal prejudice and traversing feelings for a tempestuous ex do not mix. But Fray is willing to go all the way to stop her world from changing. That is, until the ultimate sacrifice forces her to realize just how overdue change is.

Her most shocking discovery: Everyone’s human. At least a little…

I think my favorite part of the novella really comes down to Fray. She’s not one for overly-sentimental fluff, but yet she still has a large, open heart. It’s not easy to run that fine line of making your heroines both without treading into trying to pander to both the extremes and making your heroine completely unsympathetic. Ms. Chorpenning doesn’t fall into that trap, and you still see a true growth in the character without throwing you out of the story.

The story holds up to its lead character quite well. She establishes the shifter world that Fray is a part of by addressing the main plot of the missing shifter children that come from different packs. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a well-detailed in in-depth plot from a novella, but I think it would have not been as well-paced as a full novel.

That said, I did have a few times of having a hard time following the story due to a bit of overwriting. I could carry through the plot without too many of these hiccups, but I felt as if these were the parts that could have completely blocked me from finishing the novella if the majority of the story weren’t so good.

On the whole, I highly recommend this novella for anyone who loves a complex shifter story. I really enjoyed this novella, and I look forward to seeing more set in this world.

Blakely Chorpenning has all of the formats that you can purchase her novella listed on her site.

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FanaticSpace - Everyone loves something.

A while back I was sent a review copy (Disclosure: At no cost to myself.) of The Settlers of Catan by Rebecca Gable (translated into English by Lee Chadeayne). To be honest, this review should have gone up already, but for some reason I thought it was coming out next week. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know how I got that idea. My apologies to the kind folks at Wunderkind PR.

The book is based on an ingenious strategy board game called, duh, The Settlers of Catan created by Klaus Teuber. The game sets itself apart from other strategy board games by encouraging cooperation. Winning isn’t achieved by defeating the other players, but by working with them to grow your settlement.

Story

A raid on the coastal village of Elasund, followed by a particularly harsh winter, pushes the Elasunders to face some hard facts. Their village can’t support them all. The rocky fields and its poor soil can’t supply enough grain, nor the sea enough fish to feed them year round. If they face another winter as hard as this one, many will not survive. After seeking the wisdom of their gods, they decide to search for a new home.

My Opinion

I was a bit concerned that there would be references to the board game that I wouldn’t get, since I haven’t had a chance to play. There may be references to the board game, but I never felt like I lacked any knowledge while reading. You don’t need to be a fan of the game to enjoy the book, and you will enjoy the book.

There are a fair number of characters, but the book focuses on the choices and fortunes of a handful available, much like the TV series LOST. I thought this was a great way of handling what has to be a fairly large group of people.

Candamir and Osmund, foster brothers and close friends, are the main players. The pair, along with members of their respective households, set out with the other settlers to find a new home. These characters change quite a bit over the course of the book. Their decisions, and the motivations behind them, seemed very realistic. You could see the paths they were taking in life, and where those paths could have changed.

A large chunk of the book is devoted to the hard winter following a raid on the village of Elasund. Far more than I was expecting. I’m glad the story was structured this way. We get to see the characters in their native environment, and get to know them pretty well, before they find their new home. Giving us that background lets us see how the journey, and their new lives in Catan change each man. These changes really drive the book and make the characters seem real.

I only had 2 complaints about the book, but since the first was just a nit-picky problem with one instance of word choice, I’ll skip that one. The biggest problem I had with the story, is that there isn’t more of it. I’d love to see a series of books continue where this one left off.

Verdict

I loved The Settlers of Catan, it’s a great fantasy book. Elesund and the long voyage to Catan would have been a great book in and of itself. Rich description and realistic hardships combined with characters you get to know and care about make this one a winner.

Once the settlers reach Catan this story gets really good. As each character rebuilds their life along with the new village, conflicts spring up like weeds. New circumstances and old animosities make The Settlers of Catan a pleasure to read.

If there are any more books about Catan, and I hope there are, I can’t wait for the translations to be done.

I highly recommend this book.

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I really enjoy a good vampire yarn (without the sparkles, please), so when I received Nocturne by Syrie James, I was very intrigued. Ms James, who decided that she wanted to continue in the Paranormal Romance genre after writing Dracula, My Love, has her history down. And while I’m more of a dark, urban fantasy kind of girl, I do enjoy a good paranormal romance that can hook me within the first few chapters.

When Nicole Whitcomb’s car runs off a Colorado mountain road during a blinding snowstorm, she is saved from death by a handsome, fascinating, and enigmatic stranger. Snowbound with him for days in his beautiful home high in the Rockies, she finds herself powerfully attracted to him. But there are things about him that mystify her, filling her with apprehension.
Who is Michael Tyler? Why does he live alone in such a secluded spot and guard his private life so carefully? What secret—or secrets—is he hiding?
Nicole has secrets of her own and a past she is running from—but Michael understands her better than anyone she has ever known. Soon, she is falling as deeply in love with him as he is with her—a profoundly meaningful experience that is destined to change their lives forever.
As the sexual tension between them builds, however, the clues mount up. When Nicole learns her host’s terrifying secret, there is nowhere for her to run but into the blizzard raging outside, and Michael may be the only one who can save her life.

To begin with, I love the structure that Ms. James has set up with only having two voices total in this story, Nicole and Michael. Speaking as a writer, it is very difficult to keep up the tempo with only two people in your entire cast for anything longer than a novella. But she does this quite well, and I didn’t really notice until reading the Author’s Note at the end of the book that while the two characters talked about other characters, the only two people you as the reader see are Nicole and Michael. It works without any real push towards the reader, though the setting, of course, helps in making it a natural progression.

I really should have liked this book more than I did, though. So many things were working in its favor. The plot works, the setting works, and the ending completely astounded me in how real it felt, how right it was for the story. My only problem with the entire book was that the characters were too perfect for each other. All of their hobbies were shared, all of their feelings were identical, and I just couldn’t get that enveloped in the story to the point that wasn’t jumping off of the page every time they turned around. Maybe it comes down to the idea that while the force of the story was true love, I don’t believe that true love means that you’re the same person. I want my heros and heroines to be more realistic, with different thoughts and feelings on the same topics.

That said, the ending really did make up for my unease at the characters. I was surprised in the way that she ended the story, but happily surprised that she didn’t treat it as a standard HEA (that’s Happily Ever After for the non-romance crowd). It was real, and it was right. Though I don’t know if her Author’s Note was more of a “it’s nice to think of it moving on” or a hint at a sequel in the works.

On the whole, if paranormal romance is your bag, I recommend this book, even with the characters not being my “thing”. The writing is well-paced, and I really loved the story as a whole. If you’ve not previously been a fan of paranormal romance, I’m not really sure if this book will be good as a first run into the genre.

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“Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” — Henry Van Dyke

Official Review

GAFilk 2011 was less well attended than my last visit, two years ago, mostly reflective of the current economy.  That said, there was no lack of enthusiasm visible to our “posse”.

Four of us official Dragon*Con filk staff types and one unofficial (that would be you, Chip) member met up to do what filkers do, and put a current face to the (oft cursed name) of Dragon*con Filk.  For our fearless leader, Robby Hilliard (a relative newcomer to the filk world at under a decade ), along with Alex Boyd,  it was a chance to see some of the icons of classic filk for the first time.  For others of us, it was a chance to renew our unholy alliance, and savor some “old school filk”  juxtaposed with a variety of other styles and eras.

My pseudo-niece, Amber , and I arrived at GAFilk on Friday, exhausted between a combination of my air travel glitches (my six hour trip took 12 hours) combined with a catching up on news and her having to work bright, early, and all day Friday.  The highlight of Friday was definitely the ConCom’s Choice concert, featuring Antithesis,  a trio with two onstage performers, and one who refused to budge from the audience.  Teri “Aunty Quated” Wachowiak and Linda “Aunty Binary” Walsh, along with “closet” lyricist Barb “Aunty Social” Bowen lived up to the GAFilk website hype “”the Indigo Girls meet The Smothers Brothers — in the middle of a Warner Brothers cartoon.”  They almost energized us enough to go to the Friday night Open Filk, but we just couldn’t manage it.  After mingling for a bit after the concert, we opted out until Saturday.

On Saturday, we arrived in fine form just in time for Toastmaster and Pegasus Award winner Matt Leger’s stellar performance.  His original songs, as well as his covers, both filk and non, made this a “must see”.  He was ably accompanied by his elusive Songbird and well known filker, Gary Ehrlich.

Howard Scrimgeour, the Interfilk guest, whose fine musical delivery was accompanied by insightful and amusing filk history narrative, followed Matt.  We missed the first part of Pegasus Award winner and Campbell Award winner GOH Seanan McGuire’s performance.

She did not disappoint, with her enthusiastic, tuneful and often downright fun performance style. Several filk luminaries skillfully backed her up.

This was soon followed by the 2 X 10′s (two songs or 10 minutes).

Among the familiar filk figures performing was the much beloved Paul Goode, man of many filks.

Our own Alex Boyd, billed as “the Lone Gunman”, performed; and we had our first chance to see Dene Foye on stage.  Bill Roper has a knack for making it all look easy, and in his 2×10 he did just that…unruffled even when my new cellphone Munchkins loudly ringtoned (I thought I’d put it on vibrate, grrr) “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” while I stared in horror at it (thank you, Amber for jogging me out of my transfixion, “Turn it offffff!“).  Oh my. There were a couple of outstanding Harry Potter filks done by a duo (backing each other up on their solos) whose names I didn’t get (BAD reviewer, bad, bad).

We didn’t attend the sold-out Dinner Dance, thereby missing Play it With Moxie.  Having seen them before, I can say they surely swung the house. Later, Part 1 of the The Interfilk Auction occurred, and while our fearless leader, Robby, and I both bid on Matt Leger’s earlier performance audio, our paltry bids didn’t approach the $450 it finally garnered.  Generous bidding means that the Interfilk organization will get a nice fat check from GAFilk.  They raised nearly $4000!  Well done!

The Saturday night Open Filk was crowded in the Main programming room.  A few uniformed deploying US Army soldiers on their way back to Afghanistan were invited to listen, and created quite a stir in the room by their presence.  As the mother of two Iraq veterans, I quietly wished them well (as did some others).

Over time, our crew migrated into an overflow room, and stumbled upon author, Nebula Award winner, Filk Hall of Fame (FHOF) inductee and Pegasus  award nominee Juanita Coulson , a rare treat for us!  Amber and I lost no time in grabbing a couple of chairs. The venerable FHOF  and Pegasus Award winning Suttons soon came in, as did Pegasus Award winner and FHOF, Bill Roper,  and FHOF & Pegasus Award winning Decadent Dave Clement and friends, as well as Pegasus Nominee, Paul Estin.

Amber and I were a little nervy in this august company, but we managed to get a song or two in, including one a capella Lady Gaga parody we hadn’t performed in public before. Juanita Coulson treated us to her The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and a darkly humorous cum sinister cover of Daniel Glasser’s Close Your Eyes. Paul Estin played off our own Gaga parody with one he’d found on YouTube, among other fine numbers.  Alex Boyd played a couple of tunes, including a Dinosaur Filker song (RAWR). With chaos being the order of the filk, it was both interesting and challenging to keep up. Juanita intervened once to make sure everyone had a chance to participate.  Paul Goode joined us, as did the Kronengolds Joshua Kronengold and Lisa Padol (though we didn’t hear nearly enough from them).  I apologize for anyone left out in this review, but I was a little pixilated (the pixie kind, not the pixEL kind) as the hour grew later.  The Decadent Dave contingent moved out to the lobby to hold lively court until the wee-er hours, and the official filk rooms wound down.

A winter storm was bearing down on Atlanta on Sunday.  For many of us, the day was more or less a non-starter as people scrambled to change or update travel plans.  We said our goodbyes and went on our way.

Personal Filker’s Eye View

I had attended GAFilk a few of times before, missing last year.  For someone who is not in the “inner circle,” GAFilk can be a lonely place. It’s a close-knit community, and it’s completely understandable that they want to meet and greet old friends and acquaintances.  It’s a lot more fun if, as we did this year, you meet up with a gaggle of friends.  If I had one single personal observation to make, it would be that the GAFilk organizers sometimes forget they are host to filkers and fans from far and wide, of all shapes, colors, sizes, ages, and abilities.  That said, this year was less clannish, perhaps because attendance was down, and the registration folks were friendly.  Even so, there are the occasional “who the hell are you” looks and some occasional filk hogging (though not as much as the last time we attended in 09).

There have been and continue to be notable exceptions to the clique tendencies.  Teri Wachowiak was, in fact, the only person to speak to us (outside of business in the Dealers Room) the entire weekend at our first GAFilk several years ago (before we were even members of the oft cursed Dragon*Con Filk track).  That year we had no opportunity to play, as we were repeatedly overridden in an unfriendly fashion each time we tried to start.

The last time we attended, in 2009, my youngest son, on leave from Iraq, came with us.  He’s not a filker, but a longtime fan who literally cut his teeth on filk.  Such was the unfriendliness he experienced that he finally stayed in our hotel room, and said he would never EVER return to a GAFilk.  Amber and I did get to play in the Open Filks, thanks to Tom Smith and Bill Roper.

Fast forward to this year:  I was not inclined to return since battling for a chance to share music is not my idea of fun.  Yet we Dragon*Con Filk staffers made a pact to attend together this year and see how it went.  This was in no small part due to the welcoming attitude of Toastmaster Matt Leger and longtime filker Paul Goode.  On a personal level, GAFilk had lost me, my son, and the 1-2 friends with whom I’d attended before.  On Friday, Amber and I thanked Teri for her friendliness when we were there alone.  As East Coast filkers from old, we’d come up when all Filkers were like extended family.  The difference in tone between “who are you?” and “who the hell are you”? is subtle but significant.  As a filker, I personally can sing and write fairly decent songs (both filk and folk), but will never be more than a mediocre guitar player (when in practice!).  Many others play better than they sing, or write better than they play.  To me, as a fan and a filker, that’s part of what makes it all interesting and fun.  I hope that GAFilk will continue to become a more welcoming place as time goes by.  Next year?  I will think about it after Dragon*Con.

** Photo Credits: Robby Hilliard and Chip Brazell (used by permission)

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I was very excited when I received the email wondering if I was interested in receiving an early copy of Wolfsbane, the sequel to Patricia Briggs’ fantasy novel Masques. I was entertained reading the first book, and I really hoped to get a chance to read the sequel after finishing the first. Slipping back into the high fantasy world that Patricia Briggs created so long ago was so easy and I didn’t have anything to be worried about that distance between when she wrote the first to the second.

(Disclaimer for FTC regulations – I have received this book at no cost)

Wolfsbane opens not long after the end of Masques, bringing us into Aralorn’s world and thoughts as she makes the journey to her family’s home in the North for her father’s funeral. When she returns to her family’s home, though, she and Wolf discover that her father is not dead, but has been placed under a spell to trap them, more than likely by the also thought-dead ae’Magi. Is it actually the ae’Magi or someone under his power after his death that is trying to get rid of Aralorn and Wolf?

Briggs has been keeping this story in the back of her mind for some time now, saying that after she had finished the original run of Masques, the character of Wolf just would not leave her alone so she had to write it for no one else other than herself. After tossing around the idea of a reissue of Masques, she decided to take another look at Wolfsbane as well.

With that in mind, I took out the unpublished sequel, Wolfsbane, blew off the dust, and did an extensive polishing run. I sent the result to my editor and asked about reprinting Masques and publishing Wolfsbane. She agreed and asked me if I wanted to revise Masques before they released it. Absolutely, I said. Please. And that was about the time I got a call asking me if I’d like to try my hand at an urban fantasy first. With the subsequent success of the Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega novels, Masques and Wolfsbane got put on the back burner for a few years.

While I did have some problems with the initial set up on this, I think it was more a “me” thing to get back into that high fantasy mindset than it was the book itself. After November and the NaNoWriMo insanity that I put myself through, I may go back to this book and give it a try again to find out. After the first chapter though, I was back in that world that Briggs took me to in Masques, but with much tighter writing and plot structure than the previous book. I was genuinely surprised at the layers in the plot this time around versus the rather straight story of the first book.

I highly recommend both Masques and Wolfsbane as a lovely time playing around in the high fantasy sandbox, but don’t take my word for it. Just as she has done with Masques, Patricia Briggs has put a sample chapter online for you to get a taste of what you’re in store for with Wolfsbane.

Wolfsbane is available in mass market paperback on November 2, 2010.

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FanaticSpace - Everyone loves something.

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FanaticSpace - Everyone loves something.

Unlike many movie soundtracks, James Newton Howard’s, The Last Airbender soundtrack stands alone.

Just because the guy has scored a few films (well, a few more than 100, and all of M. Night Shyamalan’s   films), has a few Oscar nominations (okay, he has eight of them),  is classically trained as well as pop & rock n’ roll credentialed…well just because of all of that, doesn’t mean that I would like this soundtrack!  Yeah, who does this guy think he is, anyway?  Time for a close encounter with a potential audience member:

My almost eight-year-old grandson, who is a serious fan of the animated series , donned his warrior pretend stuff and whirled around two rooms while I played the soundtrack.  Doing his best “bending” moves, he was completely caught up in the music.  Every now and again he would identify what he considered an element in the music and speak it, then act it out.  I asked him if he would listen to these tracks if they were on his mp3 player, and he said, “YES!”   Test Passed.

To me, the soundtrack has both the individual properties of the four elements (earth, air, fire, water), as well as a unifying uber-thematic quality that transcends each of those elements.  Okay, that’s about as geekorific as I am going to get.

The sound is BIG.  That’s the technical term for it.  Here are a few of the 12 tracks that were most notable to me.

Newton’s Airbender Suite with tribal drums and choral overlays was reminiscent of  Howard Shore’s, The Lord of the Rings, without being derivative.  (Rumor has it that more choral overlays from the Airbender film are missing from this soundtrack.)

Landing in the Earthbenders track, I could feel the music pounding from the feet of said Earthbenders, then smoothly moved into a quiet finish.

The Avatar Has Returned:   I’m assuming this corresponds to the Boy in the Iceberg animated episode, but who knows?  It gets a little creepy and Zelda-ish in tone in the beginning, but musically the effect works to make you apprehensive.  Then we moved into some pastoral orchestral and flute measures.

The Four Elements Test: This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road in my book.  Nuanced, suspenseful, and evocative, this was one of my favorites!

Journey to the Northern Water Tribe: Big sound again.  This music makes me cold just listening to it!  It’s a tune for a swift, cold journey that morphs into a majestic march and fade (where is my sweater?).

The Blue Spirit: A track that combines the sense of impending threat with the mystical to produce a powerful backdrop for visuals, either cinematic or imaginary. (If you follow the animated series, you may have an idea of what’s coming in the film here).

We Could be Friends: This track dances perilously close to Star Wars and Darth Vader,  but pulls out of it and moves on to weave back into itself and the clash of cymbals (and symbols, no doubt) hurls us into another quiet, somber space.

Flow Like Water is a grand finish to this soundtrack of the first film book of the trilogy.  It is to this soundtrack what the finale for John Barry’s Dances with Wolves was…layered and rich in sound (yes, big), but personal and tugging at heart-strings.

Avatar, the Last Airbender soundtrack is definitely worth hearing.  I don’t generally go to films when they first arrive in theaters.  Yet the Last Airbender soundtrack inspired me to buy tickets to the very first showing here, at 10:30 AM on Thursday, July 1st.  Mr. Howard, my virtual hat is tipped to you for that first.  I’ll let you know if the first movie lives up to the soundtrack!

Please note that all copyrighted media content in this post was provided by Cinemedia specifically for the purpose of this review.

Some Movie Links:

Official Film Site

Northern Water nation clips (not soundtrack music)

Aang training with Pakku

Appa!

Momo!
(also, supposition about where the soundtrack fits into the movie.)

Clips of the film

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FanaticSpace - Everyone loves something.

Story

From the cover…

They call them revivors – technologically reanimated corpses – and away from the public eye, they do humanity’s dirtiest work. In the near future, where a never-ending war drones on, they are the infantry. Back home, they sustain a black-market trade in labor and pleasure models.

Nico Wachalowski is an FBI agent investigating the revivor black-market. While undercover to bust a smuggling ring trading in revivors for the sex trade, Nico uncovers something far more sinister.

Someone wants to start a war, and the best front line troops are the ones that are already dead.

(Ed. Note: I received a copy of this book for review at no cost to me. )

My Opinion

State of Decay doesn’t really strike me as a zombie story. The revivors are more like meat puppets, a classic sci-fi concept recently explored in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. Though, admittedly, this version is slightly creepier than Eliza Dushku.

The good news for fans of the undead is that there are some great zombie mythos elements included. For instance, there’s a good explanation for the cannibalistic behavior exhibited by older models of walking dead. That problem has now been solved. If you want your army of reanimated corpses to strike fear into your enemies by devouring flesh, there’s a simple, and illegal, modification.

Yes there are flesh-eaters, one of the main characters has the scars to prove it, but the necro-ambulism isn’t contagious. The dead are revived by science. (Science! Muwahahahahahaha!) It seems to take a lot of very high level technology, and a couple of quarts of synthetic blood. Overall the revivors come across as an unsettling, and sometimes frighteningly human, hybrid.

Some of the science is a little wobbly. I’m not talking about the fictional future science either, but the stuff we already know. For instance, there is a substance in the book that dissolves necrotic flesh. It’s used to melt the revivors if things get out of hand. The problem is that there’s nothing left behind. Where did the mass/matter go when the bodies melted? They should leave something behind. It could be ash, sludge or vapor, but some sort of residual matter should be left.

Characters

James Knapp uses characters type to great effect. They are very familiar, because we’ve seen characters like them before. That’s not a bad thing. Since we have a pretty good idea what they’re like, then all we need are a few details to round them out. We don’t have to spend a lot of time getting to know them. We can use that time learning about the zombie-tech and it’s history. That helps to get the story going and keep it moving.

• Federal Agent With A Dark Past.
  Nico Wachalowski is a federal agent and a First Tier Citizen thanks to his military service. Nico got more than top level citizenship out of his tour, he also got some hard lessons and some scars, and scars like those come with nightmares.

• Female Cop.
  Faye Dasalia is a homocide detective investigating a very strange string of murders. Faye takes her job very seriously and works hard, maybe too hard for her own good.

• Tough Chick.

  Calliope Flax is a Third Tier Citizen fighting to get by, literally. She makes her living inside a cage, fighting for a screaming crowd. She’s lived a hard life, and she has become hard because of it.

• Psychic Shut In.
  Zoe Ott is different from other people. She sees things and, even worse, she knows things. She’s not crazy though, she’s not that lucky.

Verdict

State of Decay is worth picking up. James Knapp has written an engaging story with characters that grow from their experiences, the ones who survive anyway… and maybe even a couple that don’t.

I’m looking forward to reading more books in this series. There’s more to this story and I can’t wait to see how things will turn out.

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SPOILER ALERT!

It’s time for Season 3.5 of Eureka: Eureka, the town that Global Dynamics built, affectionately called GD in the hamlet peopled by scientific eccentrics and iconoclasts.  It’s the town that we love to call home.

Flashback to Season 3:  When last seen, our beloved and much maligned Sheriff Carter was fired.  He helped Eva Thorne, the Fixer, to sneak out of town on a bus, after she shape-shifted into a most putrid stereotypical icon: the Corporate Hooker with a Heart of Gold.  I couldn’t bring myself to review the mid-season closer here on  Fanaticspace.  It was revealed that Eva Thorne was 107 years old. Surprise!  She was “A victim” too.”  The writers had two scripts nixed by the network, and were forced to write the script as they went along.  I had a little more sympathy after I read their explanation.  Still, the mid-season finale was a cop-out.  But enough!  Time to get over it.  Farewell, Eva.  Farewell Frances Fisher.  Farewell Sheriff Carter.  What?  Nah, we all knew they couldn’t actually say buh-bye to Carter.  Didn’t we?

Colin Ferguson does a brilliant job on Eureka as Sheriff Carter, no doubt about it.  His Everyman persona permeates the entire show, and that’s fine.  I personally would like to see a little more of the old Eureka style story threads with some juicy stuff for the rest of the ensemble cast.  But what do I know?

The Season 3.5 premiere episode, Welcome Back Carter has an obvious homage in its title.  It also introduces Sheriff Andy, Carter’s android replacement (played by Ty Olsson, no stranger to sci-fi).  That Andy is doomed to fail somehow at some point is obvious from the beginning.  This makes it no less entertaining to watch Sheriff Andy bumbling along on his less than Data, and more than A.I. fashion.

The scene in the Sheriff’s Office when we first meet Sheriff Andy is ideal, including Jo’s refusal to work for “a thing.”  She’s no Eurekan Barney Fife!  That would be Fargo, who compares the new Sheriff to a Furby, then steps up with a smile to shake hands with the DOD appointed droid.

With such a ripe garden for corny homage already set up, why didn’t they exploit it a little more?  Absurdity is common, even revered in Eureka; why not this time?  Ah, opportunities lost...

Dr. Fielding and Lexie are experimenting with a gravity reduction chamber for Lexie’s twin home birthing.   After an awkward handshake between the former Sheriff  and Fielding, we move on briskly with an emergency phone call.

Trees are falling.  That is, they have fallen and blocked the road, narrowly missing taking out Allison and her unborn.  Carter arrives on the scene before Sheriff Andy, and shields Allison from yet another falling tree.  Sheriff Andy takes over, and guilelessly investigates the “accident.”  Jack is officially shut out of the process, but continues to investigate, with the help of Jo and informants who defy federal law.

A convenient plant geneticist is circumstantially implicated for a little while.  The answer is not so simple as collateral damage from a science scion.  Instead, there’s plenty to interest us closet physics fans: tonight’s episode is about “gravity wells.”  Gravity wells, it seems, are popping up around Eureka.  Sheriff Andy is the target of specific gravity wells.  He endures two assassination attempts.  Carter is not amused.

What the heck is a gravity well, you might ask?  That’s part of the fun of Eureka.  Even if I weren’t going to completely geek out and smack myself in the head repeatedly to understand what it is, I could still enjoy the story with the thin explanation given on camera.  However, a quick perusal of the wikipedia page with high-flown formulas sent me to dig deeper. As an English speaker, I use my inferior parietal cortex (among other regions) to understand the math.   Sadly, my parietal cortex is more inferior than most.    I don’t entirely understand gravity wells, but this is a pretty simulation.

Doctor Fielding’s infant low gravity chamber seems to be the problem.  Fielding is duly called upon to fix his gravitational gaff.   This is going to be a typical “oops” episode, right?  Not this time.  After a botched attempt when everything is nearly FUBAR, Global Dynamics denizens discover that Fielding was not working alone.  Enter the cyber scientist, and Fielding’s mentor/crush, Marguerite Von Dieter.

Meanwhile, there are a few entertaining moments when Sheriff Andy’s databanks are scrambled after his catastrophic damage.  He scrambles names, and he speaks supposed Dutch.  It soon becomes apparent that SARAH is aka Marguerite Von Dieter.  She’s targeting Sheriff Andy to eliminate him, and keep Zoe and Jack around.  “I apologize, I let my artificial emotions get the best of me.”  You GO, GIRL.

Henry Deacon, not only the smartest man in Eureka, but also the Mayor, tells us: “Gravitational wells are coming together into a single massive event.  IF that happens, they will suck in any matter that comes close.”  Yes, indeed…a black hole.  Apparently, a black hole is like gravity well without a bottom.  Throw all the pennies in it that you want, and you might get your wish, but you’ll never see the pennies again.  Now imagine the west coast of the US as the pennies, and you get the idea.

SARAH admits, “I no longer have graviton guidance.   Doctor Fielding’s misguided attempt at a solution made the problem grow far beyond my control.”  It’s at this time that Henry further geekificates: “If these wells come together into a singularity, then evacuation won’t help.”

Carter, ever the cop, suggests, “If a bullet won’t work, how about a bomb?”

The roller coaster ride finally begins.  A graviton pulse explosion is required to return to normal gravity. Overloading a tensor field is apparently just the ticket.  Are your eyes crossed yet?  No fear.  A tensor field is essentially expansion and compression.  Hence Zoe’s nearly gleeful, “If you overloaded the tensor field, it could make a wicked gravity bomb”

Carter is ready to go, but Henry exclaims,  “Birds will be hitting the ground like cannonballs.”  Everyone assumes Sheriff Andy will come to the rescue of Mayberry, uh, Eureka, but it’s not to be.  Sheriff Andy’s Eureka database tells him that he’s not required to participate because it’s 93% likely he’ll be destroyed in the process.

Carter thinks those aren’t bad odds for Eureka, and Dudley Do-Rights it into Fielding’s lab, where all the little gravity wells are coalescing into one big ‘un.  A gravitational well takes the extra power source battery in Carter’s hands and weighs it down until it is dropped.  Carter can’t move because he effectively weighs many hundreds of pounds now, and yet his internal organs don’t collapse.  Amazing.  Sheriff Andy rides in like a toaster, and with A.I. feeling, saves the day, despite the risk to his person, um, cabinet, uh, housing.  Whatever, anyway, the two are blown back not quite to Kingdom Come, but near there, and Eureka is safe once again.

Sheriff Andy ends up riding his blender into the sunset, but not before helping Mayor Henry Deacon to reinstate Carter, who was terminated against the rules of Eureka’s charter.  I’d like to see Sheriff Andy return to Eureka again.   Deputy Lupo returns to duty, despite being unfairly bypassed by man and machine, and status quo is status in Eureka…EXCEPT that there is a signal coming from the outer limits in space, beyond the final frontier, and it’s headed straight for Eureka.

There are plans for yet another love interest for Carter in the person of Dr. Tess Fontana.  It’s generally thought that Allison can’t have a love life while pregnant with her dead husband’s progeny.  (Yes, she was really pregnant during the filming.)  Stark is now a vampire on another network, so he won’t be coming back to Eureka this season.   That wraps it up for this time, and my TV hometown is asleep in Warehouse 13 for another week.

Wait, wait, excuse me!  If SARAH was targeting Sheriff Andy, and so no one else was in danger until after Fielding’s botched Mr. Fixit attempt, WHY DID THE TREES NEARLY GET ALLISON?  Hellooooo, can anybody hear me?  Hello?

(Note: All images contained in this post are screen captures)

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Once upon a time, Chattacon was held at the Read House in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was a good-sized regional convention with attendance in the 1500 range.  I don’ t know what their numbers were this year, but it seemed sparse.  Chattacon now makes its home in the Chattanooga Choo Choo Holiday Inn.

Chattanooga Choo Choo Locomotive

The Choo Choo is a converted railway station on 24 acres, with a decommissioned wood-burning locomotive on display.  (I’m told the train was built in 1880, and last used by the Smoky Mountain Railroad in 1940s)  There are passenger cars that have been converted into sleeping rooms.  The accommodations are spread out, but the staff is helpful and cheery.  We were in “Hotel III”, and aside from having a wait for the bell cart and attendant, it was a painless check-in.

We had a mutual brain TILT moment when we first entered the hallway of Hotel III.   The long, narrow corridor was brightly decorated, and strangely reminiscent of The Shining.  Fortunately for us, there were no Twins in that corridor.  They only appeared in our imagination, and our fingers remained mute and still.  The secure wireless connection sucked wind, but other unsecured connections were available.

In the Beginning was Registration…

Rats in a Maze

I have many expletives in mind regarding the Registration process.  We were lab rats in a maze.   My compadre, Amber, had pre-registered.  I had not.  We went into the hotel lobby, and entered Pandelerium.   What at first appeared to be the end of long lines in front of registration tables were actually clusters of folks (say that very fast) waiting….  A lovely lady from Registration emerged from the tables to shepherd us On Site registrants to actual tables.  It was only then that it became apparent what we were all waiting for…

“I Don’t Have to Show You any Stinkin’ Badges”

Ah, but yes you do, if you want to get into the convention areas.  There’s the proverbial rub.    Computer glitch after computer glitch meant that I waited for my badge from 6:00-9:15PM.  Yes, Virginia, I waited for 3 hours and 15 minutes.   That’s not the end of the story.  You may recall that I said Amber was pre-registered.  During a system hiccup, her pre-registered check-in was lost, and she had to start over again.  She discovered this when my badge printed from one of the lovely parallel-ported printers. Then, she was told, in 30-90 minutes, she’d get her badge.  It was 6:00 PM déjà vu all over again, except that it was 9:00 PM now.  They were out of Program schedules and Program Books.

While Waiting for Badgot…

We spent our time socializing with friendly fen in waiting, including my old pal, writer Wendy Webb.
At 10:40PM (yes, that would be 4 hours and 40 minutes!), Amber got her badge.  However, they were out of lanyards,  schedules, and Program Books.  We did obtain a map with helpful designations, such as “Mundanes.”  The badges were LOVELY works of art.  We missed the entire Friday night schedule of programming because we needed our stinkin’ artsy fartsy badges!!!

We were so exhausted by the time we were done that we didn’t even go to the Con Suite to get free beer or attend any of the advertised room parties.

It’s a New Day!

We spent Saturday morning with Robby, the Fearless Dragon*con Filk Track Director, having our first Filk Track meeting.  Feeling fairly excited and upbeat, we left chanting, “Gimme an F…gimme an I…”

Tom Smith in Concert

Tom Smith also did a fun, crowd-pleasing concert, and even perpetrated (um, I mean performed) his material to many new listeners.  He was a busy guy, as he MC’d the tiny Masquerade on Saturday night.

Author guests Katherine Kurtz and David Weber were easily found, and regional writers participated in panels on the craft and business of writing.  It was a full day’s programming.

The Dealers Room was decent, and we made our first drive-by of it to see what we might want to buy later… ALL the Dealers were friendly.  ALL OF THEM.  What a nice surprise to feel as if they actually wanted our business!  Sadly, we never made it to the art show.

Many of us who did other stuff during the Masquerade and planned to return to the open filk afterwards were disappointed to find the Conference Center hallways rolled up and silent by 11:00 PM.  Arc Attack (the Tesla Coil music folk)  was giving a concert in the Con Suite building…and the free beer was flowing.

The Warriors

The Choo Choo

Every Day is Like Sunday…

It was time to pack up and check out all too soon.  The Bell attendant couldn’t find a cart.  Soooo he came up and helped us to carry our stuff to a golf cart, and drove us to our car!  YEAH!  We made Choo Choo gift shop purchases for kids, and unsuccessfully attempted to get breakfast (they were setting up for lunch, but not ready).  We went back to the Dealers Room and did a little more shopping.  We had another brief conversation with Tom Smith, and ran into writer Rob Sommers.  Then we had to make the difficult choice between attending the final guest panel, and feeding our faces away from the hotel.  Our faces won.  We took off.

The only thing not to like at Chattacon was the registration madness.  In many other ways, it reminded me of conventions of old, where fans talked to each other “just cuz”.  In fact, that’s the single biggest factor that causes me to say I would return to Chattacon.  EVERYONE was friendly, whether staff members or fans…sober, drunk, or tired.

About the badge problem:  I volunteer to bring the magic markers next year!!  Who’s up for bringing the perforated cards or stick-ons?

Official photos of Chattacon

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