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Consider the Ray Gun: John Christopher’s The Tripods Trilogy

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Consider the Ray Gun is back, and this time I’m joined by Kit Power, who has had an increasing presence on the EP podcasts as of late, having appeared on Pex Lives, a previous Oi! Spaceman, and the most recent Shabcast. We’re discussing a book trilogy that meant a lot to him as a young man, John Christopher’s Tripods Trilogy, which are comprised of The White Mountains, The City of Lead and Gold, and The Pool of Fire. There was also a BBC production in the eighties of the first two books, which I haven’t seen but from which I stole the image you see to the right. Because that’s how I roll here.

I had never heard of the trilogy before Kit recommended them, so I’ve included a brief synopsis of what you need to know at the beginning of the podcast episode. We have a wide-ranging conversation, covering not just structural details of the trilogy and the nature of the shithead protagonist Will, but also the meaning of religion in people’s lives, the horrors of chattel slavery and the Haitian Revolution, and of course there’s a brief Adric mention. …

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The Nattering II/One Week Left in the Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll

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First off, because I forgot to announce it last week due to going “oh shit it’s our one year anniversary I should do a thing,” there’s a new not-quite-a-Pex-Lives out, The Nattering II, featuring James talking with Jack, Daniel, Kit Power, Gene Mays, and Kim Karr. Get that here.

Second, there’s a week left to vote in the Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll. We’ve already got 296 entries (though I invalidated the one that voted for the TV Movie nineteen times followed by The Unicorn and the Wasp) and 706 separate stories in the tally (though there’s probably a few duplicates in there to clean up), but that can easily grow. And while first and last place are probably set in stone at this point, there’s still loads that’s close. Submit your vote here. Polls close at the end of September.…

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Where No Book Launch Has Gone Before

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After a maddening series of missed deadlines and technical setbacks, I am very pleased (and somewhat relieved) to announce that Vaka Rangi Volume 1 is finally available as a physical book you can actually purchase and own: My acknowledgment of Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary this month.

This volume collects the Vaka Rangi essays from 2013, which covered the first decade of Star Trek’s history from just before “The Cage” in 1964 to the end of Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1974. So inside you’ll find critical essays on every episode of both of those shows and a re-evaluation of Star Trek’s emergent fandom in the 1960s and 1970s alongside “Sensor Scans” on pop culture artefacts of the time apart from Star Trek. Speaking of, one of those Sensor Scans back in the day was of the German cult classic TV series Raumpatrouille Orion that debuted at the same time as Star Trek and had a very similar premise, but was nowhere near as well-remembered. The book version of Vaka Rangi Volume 1 includes a brand-new section on Raumpatrouille Orion, with new essays for each of that series’ episodes as well.

Apart from the new Raumpatrouille chapters, every other essay in the book has been completely revised and edited, and, in some cases, wholly rewritten from the ground up to accomodate new information I’ve gotten or my own changing perspectives. In fact, I’ve changed my tune entirely on some episodes, and cast aside some of my earlier theses and arguments. That tends to happen with three years of hindsight. With that in mind, here’s some of what you can look forward to in this volume:

  • See how Star Trek began as a pop culture phenomenon for teenage girls of the 1960s counterculture. More often than not, sadly, in spite of itself, not because of it.
  • See how William Shatner’s approach to acting and conception of performance art actively contributed to Star Trek’s early success.
  • Ask the question: Is “Space Seed” the worst fucking thing in existence? Or are “Who Mourns for Adonais?” and “The Apple” actually worse?
  • Marvel at the spectacle of one of the worst writers known to mankind.
  • Learn how Raumpatrouille Orion became a better Star Trek than Star Trek, but still couldn’t manage to escape the shackles of its heritage.
  • Discover the arcane and occult secrets of Star Trek‘s oft-overlooked, though obviously present (and almost certainly unintended) mysticism.
  • Tribbles.
  • See how Gene Roddenberry accidentally wrote a sympathetic portrayal of gender fluidity in contrast with internalized misogyny in Star Trek‘s series finale.
  • Wonder what Alice has to do with a critical history of Star Trek and voyaging starships in fiction.
  • Learn how D.C. Fontana and Gene Coon, took a ropy, unsustainable, self-contradictory oxymoron of a TV show and who, alongside their fans, helped transform it into something that has lasted the ages.
  • Discover the real story behind the Mary Sue, and learn the origins of slash fiction.
  • Flying Space Abraham Lincoln.
  • Uncover a secret war that has raged since the beginning of the universe fought on a battlefield that is the entire span of history and whose combatants seek to control the flow of time itself.
…

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Tricky Dicky, Part 8: Margaret on the Escalator

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In Richard III, the deposed former queen, Margaret, widow of Henry VI, though notionally banished, continues to haunt the new Yorkist regime of Edward IV.  She has no role anymore, no status.  (In most theatre productions she literally has no role – she is cut from the play for time reasons).  She is a defeated enemy.  An enemy, moreover, who is directly responsible for the death of the new Yorkist king’s father.  Even so, the Yorkists are content to let this relic of the defeated Lancastrians carry on perambulating around the court, snarling at them, cursing them, and wailing of her unjust plight at their hands.  They occasionally grumble that she should be gotten rid of, but nobody does anything about it.  Not even openly taunting and cursing the new queen, her replacement, can earn Margaret more than a verbal rebuke.  Margaret haunts the outskirts of the play like a bad conscience, the bad conscience of all the other characters.  That’s certainly how she thinks of herself: as a living rebuke to those whose triumph is also her desolation.  And it’s hard not to think that they see her that way too, despite the fact that she has plenty to have a bad conscience about herself, as they remind her. 

Margaret is one of the largest and important roles in all of Shakespeare, and is also one of the most neglected.  (She is undergoing rediscovery these days, partly thanks to Sophie Okenado’s portrayal of her on TV in the second series of The Hollow Crown.)  She is clearly one of the most crucial characters in the entire First Tetralogy.  She is a major character in the middle two plays, an important minor character in the first, and an absolutely vital thematic presence haunting the last – the one from which she is usually excised!  Through the cycle she goes from being the young (virtually kidnapped and bartered) foreign bride of the English king, to being the fiercest warleader of the Lancastrians in their battle against the house of York, to being Lancaster’s defeated and bereaved last remnant.  She is capable of extreme cruelty, ruthlessness, and spite, but also sympathetic as a woman essentially fending for herself against the entire tide of history as it smashes her world to pieces.  She is one of young Shakespeare’s major triumphs as a dramatist, and (these days) clearly one of the great theatre roles for women.  She is both victim and villain, winner and loser, young and old, powerful and helpless.  And yet she is virtually forgotten.  In a perverse way, this is apt, since she is, to her core, a paradoxical, contradictory, liminal presence.  And she is a tragic heroine.  Fintan O’Toole, in a wonderful book called Shakespeare is Hard, But So Is Life, says that Othello is as much Iago’s tragedy as it is Othello’s.  There is no requirement that a tragic hero be morally perfect, or even good on balance.  Look at Macbeth.  Like him, Margaret is deeply ambiguous.…

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Comics Reviews (September 21, 2016)

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Seven to Eternity #1

A decent start to this – certainly Remender lacks the numerous irritating lapses in storytelling that mar a lot of Image #1s. This unfolds its premise well and keeps the focus tight so that it’s easy to invest in. There’s not necessarily a lot of interesting ideas to it, and Remender’s “explain the themes” tendency in the backmatter doesn’t do it any favors. But it’s got a nice visual style and is solidly written, and is worth checking out if it’s your thing. (In this case, one part Princess Mononoke, one part Weird West.)

Patsy Walker, AKA Hellat #10

A perfectly solid but mostly unremarkable issue. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing that particularly sparks as clever or insightful either. Just sort of there.

Britannia #1

Peter Milligan and Juan Jose Ryp is a plausibly attractive combination, and this weird fiction/Roman mystery story about Pagan Britain and Vestal Virgins is a good match for them. It doesn’t hit any heights of outright genius, but it’s at least Milligan in his “actually deserves the hype” mode, and Rubria, the chief Vestal Virgin, is an entertaining blend of enigma and practicality. I at least vaguely intend to buy the second issue of this, though we’ll see if I remember on the week. 

Karnak #5

The clouds part and another issue of this wanders out. This one involves turning the focus onto Karnak a bit instead of capsule form summaries of specualtive realism, and so ends up far more interesting than the last few. It’s Ellis in fine form doing a tense and mutual interrogation scene with some spectacular visuals from Roland Boschi to boot. The momentum of this has stalled hopelessly and Marvel’s larger problems with the Inhumans aren’t doing it any favors, but Ellis is clearly having fun, and that’s what really matters in life, no?

The Wicked + The Divine: 1831

I’d have this at the top of my list for the decision as to what god Blake was and the gloriously WicDiv variation of one of his most famous quotes alone. But on top of that it’s a brilliant use of the interstitial special as a format, adding thematic depth and new mysteries to the mix by dint of its variations on the series’ usual metaphors. Children, creatures, and monsters are all interesting concepts to have resonating around the series, and aren’t necessarily ones the 2014 setting was going to serve up. Stephanie Hans takes to the art like she owns it, feeling as perfectly suited to Romanticism as McKelvie is to pop. Simply phenomenal.…

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Myriad Universes: Requiem Part 2/Hearts and Minds Part 0

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Major Kira is convinced Malor Ti is still alive, and pages Commander Sisko in the middle of the night to ask if they can set up a team to search engineering for her. Ben is skeptical, but cautiously optimistic and agrees, and has the Major get Odo to assemble a team and allow him to pull anyone from engineering who isn’t currently working on the reactors. In engineering, a stressed Chief O’Brien and Dulath snap at each other, both aware of what’s going to happen if they can’t get the backup reactors online, but they soon calm down and split up to cover more ground.

Odo tells Kira he’s going to personally spearhead the search for Malor Ti, because Kira is “the closest thing” he has to family, but is curious why she’s so important to her. Kira explains that she sees herself in Malor Ti, or rather she sees herself as a young girl, and tells a story about how once when she was seven she witnessed a Bajoran fighter explode in the skies outside her house. Her parents were away at a secret resistance meeting and didn’t tell her in order to protect her, but until they came back Kira thought she had been orphaned and alone. Odo explains that sometimes it’s nice to have a past at all, even if it’s painful one before he turns into a hare and jumps into an air vent to begin the search.

Back in engineering, Miles has called Commander Sisko down to show him something concerning. Namely, that there’s a bomb wired into one of the reactors that was shielded from internal sensors. Had the reactor been activated, the bomb would have ripped the station apart. The senior staff now have the unpleasant task of figuring out who would have been in a position to place the explosive device…Besides Dulath. Sisko and Odo are suspicious of the Cardassian engineer, but Kira and O’Brien don’t think he’s the kind of person who would have done it. Though he’s sympathetic and wants to believe that Dulath is innocent, the Commander will need harder evidence to dispel the shadow cast by all the circumstantial evidence against him. But before they have time to continue the debate, a massive explosion rocks Deep Space 9 as the backup reactor gives way, leaving the station adrift in space.

As Kira, Odo and Bashir rush to handle the chaos on the promenade, Deep Space 9 prepares for general evacuation. But with only three hours of reserve power left, they won’t have enough time to get everyone out safely. Miles heads back down to the engineering section to try a power test of reactor five, but begs Commander Sisko to let Dulath help him: The engineer knows it was his room longer, and nobody knows the station’s schematics as well as he does. With no objections from the rest of the staff, the two engineers make haste, Dulath reminding O’Brien that the station’s survival depends on his instincts being right, and asking him why he trusts a Cardassian.…

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Super Size Kitty Fries

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So, yes, we’ve got another Giant Woman podcast on tap for you.  Woo hoo!  But I’m struggling to find good pictures of giant women from pop culture. Too many are simply objectifying; others fall into a warrior aesthetic that really doesn’t capture our take on Steven Universe.  If any of our faithful readers have some clever ideas, drop them in the comments, or contact me and Shana on twitter (@JanieCampbell23 and @inkyosa, respectively), and we’ll adjudicate appropriately.

In the meantime, of my own accord, I present you with a plushie — a side order of fries in some kind of fusion with Hello Kitty.  Because the episodes that we cover in this podcast are Frybo and Cat Fingers.  Also, I’m hoping this image captures some of the charms of late capitalism, not that we’d ever cover such territory in a Steven Universe podcast.  Nope.  Not happening.  Even if we did manage to invoke Jack Graham a half-dozen times in the first half alone.  Just a coincidence, promise.

Finally, a note on content: there’s some stuff in here on body discomfort and alcoholism. Just so you know.

You can get the episode here.…

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Stay Off My Side

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So, this meme got itself onto Twitter, and has been retweeted by people who should know better:

Nick Robinson is no longer the BBC News political editor. It’s now Laura Kuenssberg (who is an issue all to herself).

It’s true that Robinson is palpably right-wing and has a long history of involvement with the Tories.  He rose through various senior positions in young Conservative organisations through his younger years.  I can’t find out for sure (without doing more than the cursory google search I just did) if he’s still an actual “paid up” member of the Conservative Party.  He may well be. The BBC allows its journalists to be non-active members of political parties. But if I can’t find out from a cursory google search, I’m sure the person who created this meme didn’t do any better.

He didn’t go to Eton.  He went to Cheadle Hulme.

It’s true that he and Cameron both went to Oxford but they were in different colleges, presumably in different years.  Robinson attended University College; Cameron was at Brasenose.  Robinson is three or four years older.

It is not a “FACT” that the BBC is “controlled” by the Tory government.  That’s ridiculous conspiracyballs, and is an utter strawman of the sophisticated arguments made by the Left about systemic and structural bias.  Yes, the BBC is part of the establishment in the broad sense.  Yes, there are revolving doors.  Yes, the BBC often functions as an organ of state propaganda.  Yes, the BBC tends to be biased towards C/conservative viewpoints.  None of that means it is “controlled” by the Tories.  That’s a vulgar travesty of the reality.

It’s true that a high proportion of senior BBC executives and newspeople went to public school. but it’s not 78%, certainly not 78% of “BBC staff”, which is a very all-encompassing term. As far as I can see, something like a quarter of BBC executives went to private school.  This is bad and telling enough, given that only about 7% of the UK population has that privilege.  We don’t need to make shit up and make ourselves look childish.  Source.

I can find no source for the claim that Robinson ever said “I hate all poor people”.  (If a source exists, please tell me.)  It seems a tad unlikely; a bit comedy villain.  I mean, what did he do next?  Tie a virginal and virtuous pauper girl to some railway tracks for refusing to sleep with him?  He has behaved disgracefully at times – grabbing and smashing protestors’ placards, for instance – but we can tell the truth about that, and about his bias, without making him out to be a cross between Ebeneezer Scrooge and Baron Hardup.  Unless he did say it, but again… evidence?

Bollocks like this doesn’t help the Left or the Left’s causes.  It just makes us look stupid.  If I were paranoid, I’d say that’s probably what it’s for.

You could argue that I’m just giving it more exposure… but I’m hoping to stop otherwise good people from having a silly moment and retweeting it.…

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These Shadows Keep On Changing (Castlevania: Dracula X)

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It’s more than slightly fitting that there should be a haunted Castlevania game. Like most hauntings, of course, Dracula X is ghastly. This was fairly obvious even at the time, when the game got lackluster reviews. Indeed, a new Castlevania game is the sort of thing that could plausibly have gotten me to buy a SNES game in 1995, and certainly could have been good for a rental, except that it appeared in all regards to be a step back from Castlevania IV. No multi-directional whipping, comparatively garish graphics, and in general an approach that looked like it was rejecting all the progress made in the series over the years. And that was beyond stuff like the seemingly pointless and meaningless title. I mean, Mega Man X was one thing, but this was just silly.

And truth be told, it’s a bad game. Most obviously, it’s stupidly difficult, and difficult in fundamentally mean-spirited ways. The most revealing example comes at the start of the second level, which combines a lengthy stretch of crumbling platforms with a chain of Mermen that jump up to attack you, which essentially means that any time you get hit it’s a fatal one. The section’s very early in the level, but the effect is still to make it so that you’re overwhelmingly likely to be down one or more lives when you get to the rest of the level, which isn’t exactly massively forgiving either.

But more than that, there’s just not much to the game. It gives the ugly impression of being shovelware – a Castlevania game rushed out for no reason other than that the Super Nintendo was still the dominant console and there hadn’t been one in a while. Which is almost but not quite what actually happened. In reality Castlevania: Dracula X was nominally a SNES port of Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo, released on CD for the PC-Engine, the Japanese version of the Turbografx in 1993, and more commonly known in English as Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.

Unlike Dracula X, Rondo of Blood is a good game. For one thing, it’s a sensible follow-up to Castlevania IV. It’s still in a starkly different mould, but instead of feeling like a step backwards it feels like a reasoned and deliberate move in a different direction. Which is perfectly fair – Castlevania IV probably took its approach as far as it was worth taking it. Instead of offering marginal refinement to its predecessor, which at this point simply wasn’t what Castlevania did with its sequels, Rondo of Blood defined its own. Castlevania IV was lushly beautiful and reveled in the possibilities of Mode 7, but was also a relatively slow game. Rondo of Blood, on the other hand, is fast and action-packed – more interested in adrenaline than atmosphere. It also expanded on the handful of secret areas in Castlevania IV and linked them back to Castevania III’s multiple paths structure to create levels with multiple paths and, at times, multiple bosses and exits that lead to different levels.…

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The Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll

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So it snuck up on us, but Eruditorum Press celebrated its first anniversary yesterday. Consider this the standard and deeply sincere post where I thank everybody – our original crew of Jack, Jane, Kevin, and James, the newer gang of Josh, Daniel, and Shana, and our Web Doll Anna. I couldn’t ask for a better team of weirdos to help me forensically diagnose the state of late capitalism via idiosyncratic pop culture thinkpieces. And thanks to the readers and commenters who make this such a fantastic community. It’s been an absolute pleasure running this site for the past year. I couldn’t be prouder of everyone, and I hope my stupid natterings don’t unduly lower the class of the joint.

I’ve got revelries, but first I want to do the obligatory cup-shake. The Eruditorum Press Patreon runneth low. I understand this – A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones was unpopular to say the least. I’ve been bad at some Patron obligations like bonus posts. So I’ve restructured the Patreon a bit. Bonus posts are a thing of the past because apparently I suck at them. So here’s the new reward structure. At $1, you get a preview of Monday’s posts as close to a week early as I can manage. At $2 I’ll send you occasional short reviews of movies, books, and albums I listen to and like. Think 2-3 paragraphs a couple times a month on things that catch my fancy. And at $5 you get writers notes behind the scenes commentaries on major pieces. September’s were on “The Blind All-Seeing Eye of Gamergate.” There’ll be ones on Last War in Albion Volume 1, and “Theses on Trump” in October, as well as on new Last War in Albion chapters. (Which I have one of ready to go along with Volume 1 when it launches, which will be any week now – I just need to find a 2-3 day stretch to work on it basically.)

I’ve also added a goal at $300 per week whereby I’ll review Class episode by episode. 

Right. So now for the fun. We did a big Last War in Albion Twitter Tournament back in March (From Hell won), so as we near election season in America it’s clearly time for a Doctor Who one. So we’re proud to announce the Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll – our bid to codify the taste of whatever faction of Doctor Who fandom we represent. (The alt-frocks?) Anyway, here’s how we’re doing it. You’re going to name your personal top twenty Doctor Who stories. One of them you’ll designate your all-time favorite. That one will get five points. Your other nineteen will get one point. I’ll create a ranked list, with ties broken according to my personal preference because it’s my site. You do not have to offer a full list – as many stories as you like, up to twenty. But you do have to pick a favorite.

“Doctor Who Story” is defined however you like. For the sake of settling likely-to-arise issues when counting votes, there are a couple of Official Clarifications at the end of the post.…

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