Fiction, Reviews

New Avengers: Everything Dies and Infinity

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I mentioned a few days ago that I was reading a series called New Avengers, and when I began considering what I could say that would be worth reading (a barrier to entry that you might say hasn’t stopped me before) I remembered some gaping plot points. A war is started and then shrugged off. A major cosmic villain appears and is suddenly neutralized behind the scenes. What am I missing?

I am missing another entire series that fills in the story. Why isn’t there a note at the end of one issue that the story continues in another series’, because when you finish issue 6 and pick up issue 7, you tend to expect the story to pick up with you.

Avengers Everything Dies

I’m reading the 2014 New Avengers series by Jonathan Hickman, a four volume set. This is the first cover, showing Steve Epting’s excellent artwork. Each volume has a different lead illustrator; all of them impressive. In Everything Dies, seven heroes who aren’t necessarily Avengers, if that term means something, gather as the secret rulers of the known universe, the Illuminati (which is the only name that can be given to that sort of group, even if no one ever uses it).

They meet because Black Panther witnesses a woman, calling herself a black swan, jump to our planet from another one that hung perilously above. She then detonates the first one, and swoosh, all returns to normal. She claims there’s a natural order to the multiverse (infinite parallel universes, infinite parallel realities), and while everything will eventually die, something happened on an Earth in a universe somewhere that caused it to come to an untimely end. That weakened the walls between universes apparently, because it led to two universes touching each other at their point of Earth. As you’ve likely seen in the news, when two universes reject social distancing guidelines, they eliminate each other.

When universes are eliminated, it bothers people, particularly those who wear the same form-fitting suit to work everyday.

The other Earth that the black swan dropped from was an Earth in its own universe. Soon another one will appear in the sky, and if one of the two planets is not destroyed quickly, both universes will perish. The heroes begin work on an early warning system, hoping to give themselves eight hours to save one or both universes. And then someone remembers he has an old infinity gauntlet in his car trunk, and since they have all the infinity gems already, why not try using it?

Continue reading New Avengers: Everything Dies and Infinity →
Fiction, Reviews

‘Hubris,’ by Pete Brassett

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I’ve been reading Pete Brassett’s Inspector Munro mysteries for a while. I’m not sure I’m entirely on board with the new turn the series has taken, though. Our former hero, heretofore a paragon of physical fitness (mountain running was one of his favorite sports) has suddenly grown old. He’s had a heart attack and is retired – though he’s happy to assist his former subordinates on his own time.

So now the central character is Inspector “Charlie” West, a woman from London who overcame alcoholism after moving north to Scotland. She’s not a bad character, but it seems like everybody’s doing female detectives these days, and it annoys me.

Anyway, the latest book in the series, Hubris, involves a beached fishing boat which a farmer discovers on the shoreline of his property. Looking inside, he finds a man in the hold, gutted like a fish. Forensic evidence indicates the presence of drugs.

Meanwhile, that same farmer’s daughter has gone missing. Why did the family wait to alert the police?

Unsuspected connections will tie the two cases together, and old secrets will resurface to devastate lives. But the detectives are on it, and Inspector Munro will be on hand to provide guidance as well.

Hubris is a good, workmanlike police procedural, with only minimal objectionable content. The series is worth following.

Fiction

Robin Hood, To Tell the Truth

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Host: Would the real Robin Hood, outlaw of Sherwood Forest, Duke of Lockesley, please stand up? Psst, one of you should stand. Who’s the original?

(All three subjects stand.)

Host: Ha, ha! They’re still playing with us, folks. Okay, that’s swell. Now, two of you sit down and the genuine Robin Hood remain standing. Come on, now. We’re running out of air time.

Shout from audience: Let ’em shoot it out with arrows!

Blackthorn and Stone has written about the changing character of Robin Hood and how the original stories aren’t the most important thing about him. Was Robin an actual person who lived over 650 years ago? No, he appears to be have been a commonly beloved folk hero.

Interesting to note about the early Robin Hood-esque character is that Hereford’s noble status and inheritance problems don’t feature in the country pageant version of Robin Hood—however, they do turn up again in the Tudor period and have stuck with us ever since.

Did the Tudor era reinvent a Robin Hood for their purposes, or were they actually harkening back to the original conception of the rogue? Evidence for the interpretation of Robin Hood as an archetype, rather than a person, is found when looking at where the vast majority of Robin Hood pre-1600 source material comes from: plays and festivals.

Blackstone and Stone, “An Outlaw Hero for Every Age“

Music

A dishonest ad

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Public school in Anacortes, WA, 1904. Photo in public domain.

In the time of quarantine: My private peeve today: A public service ad on IMDb.

I’ve been streaming TV on Amazon Prime, which also gives me limited free access to the IMDb channel. Only you have to put up with ads. I can live with ads.

But there’s one public service ad they’ve been running that annoys me. I don’t know if it’s been running anywhere else.

It’s an ad for some kind of educational organization. It features various colorful vignettes of little kids having a wonderful time learning in school.

My tolerance for cute kids is limited, but I can handle that. It’s the music that annoys me.

What they play over the ad is Pete Seeger’s classic folk/protest song, “What Did You Learn in School Today?”

The overall effect of the ad is to say that public schools are magical places, where the kids learn good, wholesome things.

Which is pretty much the opposite of what the song is about. The song goes back to the 1960s. Pete Seeger, the composer, was the godfather of the American folk music movement, which was really huge in the early ‘60s. I was a big fan. I wasn’t, however, aware back then of the basic purposes and motivations of the movement. Most (if not all) of its leaders (especially Seeger) were communists and fellow travelers.

The lyrics of the full song portray a dialogue between a parent and a little boy who has come home from school. Asked what he learned in school today, the boy tells about how he learned that “Washington never told a lie.” And how war is glorious and relatively safe, and “someday I might get my chance.”

In other words, according to the original song, the public school is a brainwashing center that indoctrinates children into unthinking loyalty to the capitalist system, and prepares them to be cannon fodder in useless, imperialistic wars.

The ad I’ve been seeing on IMDB is dishonest on two levels. First of all, it pretends that the song is not satirical, but sincere.

Secondly, now that the Left has taken over the educational system, it attempts to use a protest song as propaganda for perpetuating a new establishment.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Into the Fire,’ by Gregg Hurwitz

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“I understand you think that,” Evan said. “And your track record has given you good reason to believe that you’re scary. You’ve got the look down. The manicured tough-guy beard. The handiwork carved into your skin. But I want you to do something. Look at me. Look at me closely. And ask yourself: Do I look scared?”

First of all: I. Loved. This. Book.

You may have seen my earlier reviews of Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X novels. Orphan X is Evan Smoak, formerly part of a top secret, very elite group of special agents for the US government. Recruited from orphanages and given new identities, trained for stealth and secrecy and lethality, they were the ultimate deniable weapons. But Evan managed to get free of the program, and now he lives a secret life. He lives in a secure penthouse in Los Angeles, but officially does not exist. As a kind of personal penance, he rescues people from impossible problems. When a job is done, he gives each rescuee a secret phone number. They are to find one – only one – other person who needs similar help, and give them the number. But now Evan feels he’s ready to start a new chapter. His next rescue will be his last.

It will also be the toughest he’s ever faced.

Max Merriweather, the client in Into the Fire, seems like an unlikely character to be involved in anything important. He’s a broken man, living a marginal life as a manual laborer. Once he had a marriage and hopes for the future, but it all fell apart on him.

Even his own family ignores him, leaves him out of things. So he was surprised when his cousin Grant, the golden boy of the family, entrusted him with an envelope. In the event of his death, Grant said, Max is to deliver that envelope to a certain reporter.

But events have made that impossible now.

So Max slips into a café to think about his problem. And there a young man sits down across from him and says he’s noticed he’s upset. And if he is, if he has an impossible problem, he knows someone who could help. So Max calls The Number, and Evan answers.

Ever have one of those days when you do one job, and it uncovers a bigger job that also needs doing, and that one reveals an even bigger one, and so on? This case is like that, only each problem involves bigger, more powerful criminals and greater dangers. And along the way, Evan somehow suffers a concussion, and so has to operate in such a way as not to hit his head again. Sleep would help, if he had any time for sleep.

Other readers may not respond to Into the Fire the way I did. This book seemed calculated to push all my personal buttons and elicit profoundly personal responses. I was terrified at some points, and my spirit soared at others. This book isn’t just about uncovering crime, it’s about people overcoming trauma, moving out of their comfort zones, and opening their hearts to risk-taking.

I give Into the Fire my highest recommendation. You should be aware of obscene language and intense, violent situations.

Music

Requiem for the Living

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Before we all got sent to the bench for several games, before we started murmuring about whether we’d get to play again this season, the choir in my church had been preparing to join other choirs for a late April performance of Dan Forrest’s marvelous Requiem for the Living. Now as ever, mankind must to recognize his need for good, restorative rest.

I have loved John Rutter’s Requiem for many years. I bought the CD in college, when I was buying music like that, and maybe I heard it on the radio prior that, I don’t remember. It’s enchanting. Forrest’s piece will be second favorite now. I hope you enjoy this recording.

The composer writes that his piece tells “a narrative just as much for the living, and their own struggle with pain and sorrow, as for the dead.”

The opening movement sets the traditional Introit and Kyrie texts- pleas for rest and mercy- using ever-increasing elaborations on a simple three-note descending motive. The second movement, instead of the traditional Dies Irae, sets Scriptural texts that speak of the turmoil and sorrow which face humanity, while yet invoking musical and textual allusions to the Dies Irae. This movement juxtaposes aggressive rhythmic gestures with long, floating melodic lines, including quotes of the Kyrie from the first movement. The Agnus Dei is performed next (a departure from the usual liturgical order) as a plea for deliverance and peace; the Sanctus, following it, becomes a response to this redemption.

The Sanctus offers three different glimpses of the “heavens and earth, full of Thy glory”, all of which develop the same musical motive: an ethereal opening section inspired by images of space from the Hubble Space Telescope, a stirring middle section inspired by images of our own planet as viewed from the International Space Station, and a closing section which brings the listener down to Earth, where cities teem with the energy of humanity.

The Lux Aeterna which then closes the work portrays light, peace, and rest- for both the deceased and the living. 

from the program notes shared on danforrest.com

The words are latin. Here’s the translation pulled from this recordings page.

Continue reading Requiem for the Living →
Fiction, Reviews

‘One Minute out,’ by Mark Greaney

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I think a moment about my own actions, then say, “I’ve learned something in my years doing what I do. If you don’t feel guilt, then you can’t change. Guilt can be a driving force for good, for doing what’s right. Or it can be a limiting force. Something that causes you to throw away right and wrong, to justify yourself. That’s the weak way to deal with your conscience. The determining factor in whether guilt locks you into evil or spurs you on towards good is your own inner strength. Your own good moral compass.”

The greatest trope of the thriller genre is perhaps its most improbable – the man of violence who somehow keeps his moral center, who is not corrupted by his bloody work.

No thriller hero exemplifies this principle more than Court Gentry, hero of Mark Greaney’s “Gray Man” series. Court is a former CIA asset, trained and employed for many years as a dark ops assassin. He managed to escape from that life and now operates on his own. Except that he ended up having to call on his old handlers for assistance, and now he owes them favors. So he works for them occasionally again – off the books.

But he has one supreme rule: he only kills bad guys.

It’s a freelance job he’s on as One Minute Out opens. He’s in Croatia, assassinating a former war criminal. Simple job, easy in, easy out. Only he discovers what his target is doing – he’s guarding a group of young women who are being trafficked as sex slaves. He wants to liberate them all, but they refuse. If they run away, their families will be punished, they tell him. And now they themselves will be punished, just because he was here and caused trouble.

Court ought to just go home and forget it, but he can’t. Once he’s seen this evil, he has to do something about it. Along the way he will meet a remarkable woman, sister of one of the captives, on her own crusade against human traffickers. But they have no idea what kind of power and influence they’re up against.

One Minute Out is a fascinating story, but (like most thrillers, but here more than usual) the story suffered (for me) through its sheer improbability. It’s a smart fictional technique to stack the odds against the hero to seemingly impossible heights. But here the challenges pass the limits of the plausible (for this reader). I have limits in my suspension of disbelief, and this book came pretty close to them. Still, I’ll probably read the next one.

For all my quibbles, One Minute Out was a rousing tale, with lots of optimism built in. Cautions for language and disturbing themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Bloody Genius,’ by John Sandford

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Virgil had never seen a purely ideological murder, Republicans being too cautious, Democrats generally being bad shots.

I don’t like John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers character as much as I like his more famous detective, Lucas Davenport. But I quite enjoyed Bloody Genius, the latest in the Flowers series. I notice that it’s gotten a lot of poor Amazon reviews, but I had a good time.

Virgil Flowers is a deceptively laid-back agent for Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He dresses like an aging rock musician, and goes fishing on company time, but he closes cases.

This time he’s called to Minneapolis (which he hates; rural Minnesota is his stomping grounds) to investigate the murder of a famous genetic researcher at the university, who was battered to death in his study carrell in the library. No motive is apparent, and the murder weapon is uncertain – though his heavy laptop computer is missing.

Virgil probes the murky waters of academic rivalries, and the victim’s sexual escapades, and his family relationships. But the real culprit and the real motive will be new ones in his experience.

As often happens with these books, they take me to places I’m familiar with, at least to some extent, and I enjoy that. And I like Sandford’s observations of the world, though Flowers’s eyes – quite often they’re politically incorrect.

I was surprised by the observation, at a couple points, that the University of Minnesota’s team colors are red and gold. Even I, the opposite of a sports fan, know they’re maroon and gold.

But I particularly liked Harry, an old guy Virgil meets in a bar. Harry informs Virgil that he can recite “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and “Gunga Din.” As it happens, those were my performance pieces back in the day. Harry might almost be me, except that I don’t hang out in bars.

As always, cautions for lots of foul language and adult themes.

Reviews

Amazon Prime Review: ‘Bosch,’ Season 6

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Barrel, Bosch, & Crate, photo credit: Lacey Terrell, IMDb

Has it actually been six years we’ve been enjoying Amazon Prime’s outstanding Bosch series? This isn’t exactly the world, or the characters, you’ll find in Michael Connelly’s bestselling crime novels, but it’s true to the spirit of the exercise. And Titus Welliver, as I’ve often said, has the character of Harry Bosch nailed.

This season, like the previous ones, is based on more than one book. So you’ll need to pay attention to keep the multiple story lines straight. Plot lines include the murder of a scientist near the famous Hollywood sign, which at first looks like part of a terrorist act by right-wing extremists. But it’s a lot more complicated than that, and police mistakes lead to serious blowback. There’s also a cold case, one of Harry’s “everybody matters” crusades, in which he tries to find the murderer of a teenaged street prostitute, attempting to give her mother some closure. And Harry’s partner Jerry Edgar is deep in an investigation of Haitian street gangs, which brings up bad memories of his own childhood in Haiti and leads him to contemplate crossing some lines.

It’s all intense, and fascinating, and compelling. A couple of points linger with me. I appreciated the expanded role for the Mutt ‘n Jeff detective team known as “Crate and Barrel,” older guys who started out pretty much as comic relief, but are now being permitted to demonstrate the qualities that earned them their gold shields in the first place.

Also the series took an interesting approach to its Alt-Right extremists. Although they’re clearly in the wrong, they’re given a chance to make their case, and they’re not entirely unsympathetic. Also – very oddly – they’re depicted as a multiracial group. I appreciate that touch, though I don’t find it very plausible (could be wrong).

Anyway, I consider Bosch one of the best series on any entertainment delivery system at the present time. Extreme cautions for language and mature themes.

Writing

Heroes in Their Own Story

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In the bonus material on the back pages of Justice, author Jim Krueger praises Bob McKee and his story seminar for teaching him this pivotal idea: every good villain must believe himself to be the hero of his story.

You can see that idea played out best in my description of Luthor’s motives. He wanted to raise up a new, stronger humanity that didn’t lean on the crutches of overpowered non-humans like Superman and the Martian Manhunter. He’s still a villain because of the path he’s willing to take to get there, but you can see how calling him a hero of his own story could work.

Wilson Fisk (Kingpin) in the Daredevil series would easily fit here too. He spoke of remaking the city into a better, safer neighborhood. But he also knew what goodness and moral truth were, at least, something of them. In this clip, which is one of the best of the season, he talks through his thinking process probably for dramatic effect, not from a fit of honesty.

Krueger says good villains don’t roll out of bed wondering what new terrors they can unleash, except some of them do. Some men just want to watch the world burn, as Alfred in another story put it, and even Krueger’s story demonstrates that

In Justice, dozens of villains collaborate on a single, grand cause because they are being manipulated by their leaders. I won’t tell you how to avoid the spoiler, but they do not share a distorted view of some common good that has pressed them to put aside differences. Their only good is their own profit, power, or pleasure. Their leader is using them to wage war for as long as he can until he disposed of them. Nothing about that can be called good.

Heroism is about saving people. In the New Avengers series I’m reading now, their compulsion to save people is almost a weakness. They will not let go of the possibility that they could defeat what at the moment appears to be indefeatable. They must try while they still can. Villains think about using people and saving themselves, which isn’t good just as abuse of all types is heroic.

Macbeth may be the hero of his story. Hamlet is. Many others just want the thrill of dropping the match that sets the world aflame.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture