Eruditorum Press

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Recursive Book Launch

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It is my pleasure to announce that Recursive Occlusion, also known as the Logopolis book, is now available for sale. You can buy a copy here if you’re so inclined.

If you pre-ordered the book via the old Hartnell Second Edition Kickstarter then assuming you also provided me with updated address information, your book has been ordered and is either on its way to you or to me so that I can sign it and send it to you. If you’re owed a signed copy of Volume V, that will be in the same package. If you haven’t sent me updated address information, check your Kickstarter messages for information.

If you have not pre-ordered the book, things are going to work a little differently this time than some of my other books. For one thing, the print edition is the only edition. I’m not ruling out an ebook edition in the future, but for now there are no active plans. The print edition is also available exclusively via the Createspace store, which is to say, via direct order from the print on demand company I’m using. I’m also not ruling out an eventual general sale via Amazon and the like, but for now, again, there are no active plans.

The book is about 120 pages, and the $15 price was picked in part because I didn’t want to sell it for cheaper than I did to pre-ordering Kickstarter backers nearly two years ago, and in part to highlight the fact that this is very much book-as-art-object.

Basically, this is the sort of book that, under traditional publishing, would be called a “limited edition” or something, although given that it’s print-on-demand that’s kind of the exact wrong phrase for it. Nevertheless, the point of the book is very much to be an interesting and compelling physical object. Both Alison and I, in editing and typesetting the book, and James, in doing the cover design, worked hard to mimic the design of vintage Choose Your Own Adventure books, and, if I may be so bold, the book is a real pleasure to just pick up and play with. (James’s account of designing the cover is up here.)

Content-wise… this is a strange one. It is loosely based on the essay “Recursive Occlusion,” the TARDIS Eruditorum entry on Logopolis that is reprinted in Volume 5 of that series. That essay is structured as an interactive set of branching paths akin to the Choose Your Own Adventure books, and consists of a total of 33 separate nodes. But Recursive Occlusion the book is almost completely rewritten – only two of its 34 notes originate in the old Logopolis entry, and the other 32 are completely new and exclusive to the book. These include two lengthy essays explaining the format of the book and some of the philosophical ideas underlying it, although you’ll have to successfully find them within the book’s narrative.

Recursive Occlusion is my definitive statement on one of the major themes of TARDIS Eruditorum, namely the intersections between occultism (and particularly alchemy) and Doctor Who.…

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 1.04: Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones is generously funded by my backers at Patreon.
The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:
Direwolves of King’s Landing: Eddard Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark
Stags of King’s Landing: Robert Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon
Lions of King’s Landing: Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister
The Direwolf Catelyn Stark
Dragons of Vaes Dothrak: Daenerys Targaryen, Viserys Targaryen
Bears of Vaes Dothrak: Jorah Mormont
Mockingbird’s of King’s Landing: Petyr Baelish
Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow
Direwolves of Winterfell: Robb Stark, Bran Stark
Kraken of Winterfell: Theon Greyjoy
Dogs of King’s Landing: Sandor Clegane
And the Lion of Winterfell, Tyrion Lannister
The episode is in twelve parts. The first runs five minutes and is set in Winterfell; the first shot is of a raven flying through the castle as Bran stands drawing a bow. 
The second runs three minutes and is set on the Wall; the transition is deceptive continuity, with a cut from Theon watching Tyrion ride away to an overhead shot of a man on horseback who turns out not to be Tyrion. 
The third runs seven minutes and is set in Vaes Dothrak; the transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Daenerys Targaryen.
The fourth runs seven minutes long and is in two sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is two minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Viserys talking about the Red Keep to Sansa and Septa Mordane walking into it. The other is five minutes long; the transition is by family and dialogue, from Sansa talking about her father to Ned. 
The fifth part runs two minutes and is set on the Wall; the transition is by family, from Arya and Ned Stark to Jon Snow.
The sixth runs six minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Ned Stark. The transition marks the halfway point of the episode. 
The seventh runs three minutes and is set on the Wall; he transition is by hard cut, from Jory walking away from Jaime to people dining in the mess at Castle Black. 
The eighth runs one minute and is set in Vaes Dothrak; the transition is by dialogue, from Thorne talking about sniveling boys to Viserys, and by family, from Jon Snow to Viserys and Daenerys. 
The ninth runs six minutes and is set on the Wall; the transition is by dialogue, from Daenerys saying “hands” to a shot of Sam’s hand scrubbing a table.
The tenth runs one minute and is set in Vaes Dothrak; the transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Daenerys Targaryen.
The eleventh runs six minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by dialogue, from Daenerys talking about her brother possibly taking back the Seven Kingdoms to a shot of Robert. The scene features the death of Ser Hugh of the Vale, killed by Gregor Clegane in the joust. 
The last runs three minutes and is set in an inn on the Kingsroad in the Riverlands; the transition is by family, from Ned Stark and Cersei Lannister to Catelyn and Tyrion.
…

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“The Duke”: Allegiance, Captain’s Holiday

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Pictured: Not Captain Picard.

With the show’s newfound brief to focus on character interiority, we’ve seen the creative team work hard to come up with a specific conception of who exactly these characters are. Now, it’s more than possible to argue that our main cast already had characterization, it was just characterization that was different then what this team eventually decided on and made canon (indeed, I think that’s precisely what happened), but regardless, the fact is the third season has had a series of episodes dedicated to nailing down a new set of personality traits for the Enterprise crew: We had “Evolution” for Wesley, “Booby Trap” for Geordi, “The Enemy” and “Sins of the Father” for Worf, “The High Ground” for Doctor Crusher, “The Ensigns of Command”, “The Defector” and “The Offspring” for Data, “The Vengeance Factor” and, uh, “A Matter of Perspective” for Commander Riker and, um, “The Price” for Deanna Troi.

Yeah, that doesn’t look so hot all laid out on paper now, does it?

The thing about this is that while this season in general and these episodes in particular get credit for “fleshing out” previously vague characters, I happen to think all that happened is that people like Ron Moore and Ira Behr got to completely reconceptualize the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation and they just happened to get lucky that theirs were the interpretations that wound up taking. Either way, perhaps surprisingly, the one character this team has had a particularly hard time nailing down has been Captain Picard. He’s been written particularly changeably this season, and upsettingly so as there seems to have been a trend to depict him as very tight-laced, stringent, stodgy and reactionary (I’m thinking particularly of “The High Ground” and “The Offspring” here, though he has had good moments in stories like “The Defector” and “The Hunted”).

To me, this is writing him horribly out of character. The Captain Picard I know, the one derived from the best moments of the first two seasons, is a boldly progressive and highly principled explorer infatuated with travel and the universe. He’s a romantic at heart, yet someone who is also in possession of a fierce moral code and still a bit socially awkward in places. Even so, Captain Picard should be the first person to stand up against the banal evil of the Federation and to remind humanity that its place is amongst the stars. He embodies all of the ideals the Federation lies to itself by claiming as its own. The Picard of “The High Ground” and “The Offspring” cannot possibly be the same person who stood firm against Federation neo-imperialism in “Too Short a Season” and “Conspiracy”, who made regular trips to the Holodeck to play games with his friends and who went to the hilt for Data in “The Measure of a Man”. He’s not even the same person who chatted with the crew about ships in bottles in “Booby Trap”, directed Henry V or took up painting.…

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Saturday Waffling (February 28th, 2015)

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Hey, so, first off, check out Ian McDuffie’s Patreon for his webcomic FEELS. And, for that matter, his webcomic FEELS. Really nice, sweetly funny and dryly sad comics about people having emotions about one another.

In other news, barring an absolutely massive swath of votes in the final twenty-four hours, the next bonus post as voted on by Patreon backers will be on Russell T Davies’s produce triptych Cucumber/Banana/Tofu. That’ll be in just about two weeks, once the whole thing airs.

But man, if you’re not watching it, check it out. It’s really, really good. Episode 6 of Cucumber is titanically, breathtakingly good, although for the most part I think Banana has really been the best show.

So, given how good episode six of Cucumber was, let’s have an open thread on it. I’ll talk about it in detail in two weeks time, but for now I’ll just say… holy shit that was amazing.

Also, if you missed it, the commentary track Jack Graham and I did for the second episode of The Rescue went up on Wednesday. These have gotten super low download numbers according to my stats tracker. Like, apparently only eleven people downloaded episode two, down from sixty-eight on episode one. Will at least do The Mind Robber, though will probably take a week off before that, and maybe a new series track to see if that does a bit better, but I’m officially flagging that project as in serious danger of cancellation. In case my stats tracking is wrong, though, if you downloaded episode two, please say so in comments.

Finally, there’ll be a post on Tuesday this week. The title will be Recursive Book Launch.

Currently working on: A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 1.09: Baelor…

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Devoted to Joy (The Last War in Albion Part 85: Garry Leach’s Marvelman)

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This is the thirteenth of fifteen parts of The Last War in Albion Chapter Nine, focusing on Alan Moore’s work on V for Vendetta for Warrior (in effect, Books One and Two of the DC Comics collection). An omnibus of all fifteen parts can be purchased at Smashwords. If you purchased serialization via the Kickstarter, check your Kickstarter messages for a free download code.

The stories discussed in this chapter are currently available in a collected edition, along with the eventual completion of the story. UK-based readers can buy it here.

Previously in The Last War in Albion: Following the cessation of Captain Marvel stories on the part of Fawcett Comics, L. Miller & Son, a British company that had been publishing reprints of Fawcett’s material, created a transparent knockoff of Captain Marvel called Marvelman. In 1981, Moore pitched a revival of the character for Warrior, with the idea that Mickey Moran, Marvelman’s human alter-ego, had forgotten his magic word, and indeed that he was Marvelman, until one day he was taken hostage by terrorists.

“He was mad. He devoured Nietzsche’s writings, enamored of the idea of the superman being devoted to joy, and bringing joy by dint of his existence.” -Warren Ellis, Stormwatch
Figure 649: The iconic panel of Marvelman’s
return as reworked by Alan Davies. (Written
by Alan Moore, art by Alan Davies after Garry
Leach, from “The Yesterday Gambit” in Warrior
#4, 1982)
Moran, held hostage, sees the word “ATOMIC” reflected in a door, and reads it backwards, out loud, suddenly transforming into Marvelman. The terrorist next to him simply drops dead, burnt to death in the force of Marvelman’s transformation. Seven feet tall and blue, he trivially cleans up the terrorists and flies away, joyful at being a superhero again. Moore then goes on to outline some future plots, starting with one in which Kid Marvelman turns out also to have survived, but in his superhero form, which he remained in, growing rich and powerful with his secret abilities and becoming, in Moore’s words, “a nasty amoral son-of-a-bitch.” He also suggests an arc in which Gargunza’s employers take an interest in the newly returned Marvelman after he visits the grave of Dicky Dawson, Young Marvelman, followed by one in which Marvelman confronts Gargunza himself. “This should take us well into the stage where we’re selling the film rights and printing up the T-Shirts and similar,” Moore quips, although this would more or less have been true save for a series of creative conflicts and poor investments. “I’ll worry about what comes next when I get that far.” Moore then suggests Dave Gibbons or Steve Dillon as artists – both had in fact already been sounded out but were uninterested – and notes that he could rework the idea with a Marvelman pastiche, perhaps called Miracle Man, if the rights prove unavailable. This pitch sufficiently impressed Skinn that he asked Moore to write a first installment on spec that, if Skinn liked it, would land him the job.
…

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“…the most offending soul alive”: Sins of the Father

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What “The Enemy” was for the Romulans, “Sins of the Father” is for the Klingons.

This episode is frequently held up as an important turning point for the series and rightly so, as it defines a lot about what Star Trek: The Next Generation (and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine too, for that matter) is going to look like going forward. But “Sins of the Father” is also the kind of episode that’s exceedingly difficult for me to write about as it’s been extensively analysed and historicized by just about every major publication to cover the franchise. This is the kind of episode I hate because it leaves me with perishingly little new erudition to add to the glut of discourse that already exists. Yes, yes, this episode sets in stone pretty much everything we think of when we think of Worf and the Klingons, yes it’s a strong character piece and yes it’s a major step in the development of more explicit serialization in episodic Star Trek. Yes, the award-winning set design and matte paintings are all gobsmackingly good. And yes, it sets up “Redemption”, about which I have a lot to say, but I’ll save for the fifth season. That’s all true to be sure, but it’s also blindingly and bluntly obvious to the point I don’t even think it’s really worth taking the time to talk about.

But then what is there left to say about an episode like “Sins of the Father”? I could be my usual grouchy self and dispel some myths about the backstage stuff: This episode is frequently touted as being the moment where real characterization, serialization and world building was introduced to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Which would be true except for the minor fact it does none of those things. Maybe it’s just me and my judgment is clouded by over 25 years of familiarity with this show, but I haven’t had a hard time piecing down who people like Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Geordi or Data (or, much as I hate him, Wesley) are so far. The only characters who did seem to lack a bit of detail were Doctor Crusher (who got better) and Tasha Yar (who isn’t around anymore to complain and thus doesn’t matter anyway). So then the argument goes this is the first time a so-called “second tier” character like Worf got a large-scale story arc all to themselves, which would be a fine argument if you chose to conveniently ignore “Heart of Glory” and “The Emissary”. Yes, those particular story threads weren’t ever fully developed on after those episodes, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have been had the creative teams that worked on them stuck around for longer than one season apiece.

Then there’s the argument that “Sins of the Father” was the first episode to introduce serialized, arc-based storytelling to Star Trek and that this was manifestly a Good Idea.…

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More Audio News

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Phil Sandifer and I have started to record commentaries for Doctor Who episodes.  So far we’ve only done ‘The Rescue’, but the plan is to do some more.  We’re both quite happy with the ones we’ve done, and I think they’re a lot of fun. 

‘The Rescue’ Episode 1 can be downloaded or heard here.

‘The Rescue’ Episode 2 can be downloaded or heard here.

I’m so pleased with the result that I may use the ‘natter while watching’ format for future Shabcasts.

Shabcast 1 was a roaring success, by the way… at least in terms of numbers of listens/downloads.  Many thanks to Phil (again), and the Pex Lives boys (again) and to all the people who listened or downloaded.  If you did so because you’re a reader of mine rather than a regular Pex Lives listener, then

a) thanks, and

b) you should listen to Pex Lives, because it’s great.

The next Shabcast is being planned as we speak, and looks set to be just as good as the first one.  Look for it some time next month.…

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Comics Reviews (February 25, 2015)

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First off, the second part of the commentary track for The Rescue. Next up will be The Mind Robber, although whether that starts the first or second week of March is still unclear – trying to schedule it with Jack. Watch this space. Part one is still available here. 

Also, Logopolis book update, I just ordered my proof copy, so expect an announcement early next week. Tentatively, let’s say it’ll be out on Tuesday the 3rd. Details will be up here, but broadly, the plan is a limited release exclusively through this site and my print on demand publisher, at least for the first few months, with a possible broad release/ebook version to follow. 
Finally, comics.
Chew #46

This just left me totally cold for some reason. Whatever is meant to be interesting about this latest plot arc doesn’t really present itself yet, with the death of Poyo yet to actually have any interesting consequences, and the vague sense of “well, I’ve bought forty-six issues, I may as well follow it til the end” back in force here. 
New Avengers #30

The sense that Jonathan Hickman is just Grant Morrison without a sense of humor is strong in this book. Can’t say I’m wild about destroying the entire Captain Britain mythology casually and without a “Last Days of the Captain Britain Corps” mini or anything. Actually, I can’t say I’m wild about anything here. It feels like Hickman doesn’t trust his own ideas enough to carry a story, and is just going all out in explaining his wild multiversal philosophy. Comparisons to Multiversity do Hickman no favors, and I don’t even like Multiversity that much.
Amazing Spider-Man #15

I can’t honestly say I care much about the status quo coming out of Spider-Verse, not least because the status quo coming out of any Marvel event right now is a bit of an odd thing what with time running out and everything ending. Much of this served as a resolution of the Superior Spider-Man plot, which I skipped, so that didn’t really work for me either. I’d say I’m really considering dropping this, but my position on Marvel right now is that it’s kind of silly to make any major changes to my pulls given that I’ll be redoing them all in the wake of Secret Wars anyway. 
Thor Annual #1

A triptych of small tales, all on the sweet/funny end of the scale. Harmless, and no bad tales, but a classically inessential annual at $4.99.
All-New X-Men #38
I read this and the preceding installment of Black Vortex this week, having accidentally left Star-Lord on the shelf last week. The pace of the start of the crossover has thoroughly dissipated, and we’re now left in decompressed wheel-spinning of the sort that blights crossovers reliably. The “evil versions” of characters are as dull as I feared, and I’m not a fan of Sorrentino’s art, which is, for me, a textbook case of exchanging clarity of storytelling for prettiness. But at least Bendis is at home with decompressed middle chapters, they being essentially his default form, so this rolls along pleasantly.
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“Reproductive futurism”: The Offspring

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“The Offspring” sees us introduced to another new face who will become a reoccurring figure on Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond. Not, perhaps controversially, Data’s daughter Lal, but the story’s writer René Echevarria. Like Ron Moore, Echevarria is another success story of the open submissions policy, discovered on the back of his spec script (this one) and then asked to come out to join the writing staff by Michael Piller. It just takes a little bit longer with Echevarria, who doesn’t come on full time until next year, despite having one more submission this season.

Indeed it’s a something of a miracle he managed to last even that long, considering he’s another in a long line of writers who, by his own admission, waltzed into the writer’s room convinced he was going to teach them how to write Star Trek because he was a die-hard Original Series fan unreasonably upset at Star Trek: The Next Generation. Ira Behr jokingly recalls his first impression of his future collaborator being that of a “pretentious” New Yorker whose only experience was in theatre. But, once aboard, Echevarria stays with Star Trek for the next decade, penning some of the franchise’s best and most memorable stories.

It’s somewhat endearing then to learn that his debut story is as much the result of early career jitters as it is his obvious talent: In regards to “The Offspring”, Echevarria recalls how Michael Piller openly called it the single best spec script he’d ever seen in his career to that point, but he was disappointed in the revised version enough to do an uncredited rewrite on it with Gene Roddenberry and the outgoing Melinda Snodgrass. The behind-the-scenes story is especially interesting here, as it reveals a lot about Michael Piller’s philosophy as it pertained to Star Trek: Piller recalls that his big issue with “The Offspring” as originally conceived was that it was all about Lal, her journey and her interiority, and since one of Piller’s big rules is that every story had to be fundamentally about the regulars in some way, it needed to be rewritten to be primarily about Data and his experiences with parenthood.

I both agree and disagree with this. While obviously I think it’s important to have the characters you actually get to see every week be involved in the action to some degree, I also think it’s important to not swing too far to the other side with this and remember that the regulars are ultimately ideals, and a big strength of Star Trek: The Next Generation to date has been its ability to help its guest characters solve their problems and grow in a healthy and constructive way. On the other hand, it’s both noteworthy and praiseworthy that neither Piller, nor Snodgrass nor Roddenberry put their names on the finished product: As Ron Moore would later recall, the attitude was always that the because the writing staff had far more power and money than the freelancers (not to mention better job security), it would be unbecoming to take their credit and residuals as well.…

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 1.03: Lord Snow

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones is generously funded by my backers at Patreon. If you enjoy it, please consider, for just $1 a week, supporting both this project and my compulsive “having a roof over my head” habit.

State of Play
The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:
Direwolves of King’s Landing: Eddard Stark, Catelyn Stark, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark
Stags of King’s Landing: Robert Baratheon. Joffrey Baratheon
Lions of King’s Landing: Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister
Dragons of the Dothraki Sea: Daenerys Targaryen, Viserys Targaryen
Bears of the Dothraki Sea: Jorah Mormont
Mockingbirds of King’s Landing: Peter Baelish
Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow
Direwolves of Winterfell: Bran Stark, Robb Stark
And the Lion of the Wall, Tyrion Lannister. 
The episode is in fourteen parts. The first runs fourteen minutes and is in three sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is nine minutes long; the first shot is the Stark bannermen riding through the gates. The second is three minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Varys saying they serve at Lord Stark’s pleasure to Cersei treating Joffrey’s wounds. The last is five minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Cersei and Joffrey talking about the Starks to the Starks. 
The second part runs three minutes and is set in Winterfell; the transition is by family, from Ned and Arya to Bran. The cliffhanger is resolved sixteen minutes in, when Bran appears for the first time. 
The third runs three minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by family, from Robb and Bran to Catelyn. 
The fourth runs one minute and is set on the Wall; the transition is by dialogue, from Littlefinger talking about Tyrion to Tyrion. 
The fifth runs two minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by dialogue, from Jeor Mormont talking about the Starks to Ned. 
The sixth runs two minutes and is set on the Wall; the transition is by family, Ned Stark to Jon Snow.
The seventh runs eight minutes and in four sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is one minute long; the transition is by dialogue and by family, from Tyrion informing Jon Snow that Bran has woken up to Ned and Catelyn in Littlefinger’s brothel. The second is one minute long; the transition is by dialogue, from Littlefinger and the Starks talking about the assassin’s attempt on Bran’s life to Jaime and Cersei talking about theirs. The third is two minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Jaime saying he’ll kill Ned Stark if need be to Ned Stark. The last is five minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Ned talking about Robert to Robert. At the episode’s halfway point, Ned and Catelyn are saying goodbye for the last time in their lives. 
The eighth part runs three minutes and is set in the Dothraki Sea; the transition is by dialogue, with Jaime talking about killing Aerys Targaryen to Daenerys Targaryen. 
…

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