The Haunting of Hill House SPOILERY

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I really enjoyed this mini series. The most fun thing about it to me was trying to piece together the history of the house from the tidbits we were given episode by episode. With that in mind here are some thoughts about the history of Hill House and how it went down.

SPOILERS (obvs)

At first we had the Hill family, who made all their money in bootlegging and then at some point the patriarch of the family died leaving his wife Hazel and son Walter with the house. Walter went crazy (more than likely caused by the house) and was institutionalized where he met Poppy (a special kind of crazy that turned malignant). Poppy and Walter had a son and a daughter. The story told by Poppy suggested that the daughter died of some respiratory ailment and the son of what sounded like some form of muscular dystrophy  (or they could have been ill and Poppy killed both of them which isn’t completely out of the question). Walter went crazier and walled himself in the basement after the death of the children and if I had to bet at that point Poppy killed herself. Hazel died of old age-itus and that was it for the Hills.

If Poppy killed both her kids and then herself there is a very good chance Walter saw all of it go down but for some reason felt he couldn’t do anything about it (from Poppy’s story – he found himself walled in with the sisters – shame and guilt) and it made him feel small. Which is why ghost Walter is so freakishly tall.

Poppy, dead and alive, was an awful type of evil, I think ghost Walter really is just curious about the living residents of the house, and dead Hazel seems down right helpful. We see ghost Hazel meeting the dead little girl in a ghost form that approximated her living form at the end for example.

As a side note, Hazel might have gone through a spiritualism phase where she was trying to talk to her deceased husband. There was a brief throw off line about the ouija boards etc. that were discovered in the drawing room. That may have been some more of Poppy’s crazy though. That one’s hard to guess. But there was a point of time where the dead weren’t quite as chatty in the house it seems.

Going by the number of ghosts standing behind Steven when he leaves the house as an adult, and counting the clock repair ghost there is a sense there were additional deaths at the House. Workers dying in “accidents”, kids in the community being drawn to and consumed by the house and so on.

As for the house itself it sounds like it was sort of a 1408/unhallowed ground sort of thing. It was just a bad place that gave birth to a bad building. Anything more than that didn’t really feel necessary to me.

Kaboul; Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the End Times

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The French and so far only edition of Michael Moorcock’s Kaboul found it’s way, direct from Paris, into my happy hands.

This gorgeous volume with magnificent illustrations by Miles Hyman collects six stories from the My Experiences in the Third World War sequence, three previously published stories plus three new tales. The brilliant series tells the story of World War III through the eyes of the Russian KGB spy, Tom Dubrowski, who poses as antiquarian cover, a discreet Jew in a world not devoid of anti-Semitism.

The first of these stories appeared in 1979 with the latter two in 1980 and offered a  Moorcock at perhaps his most prescient. Years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he predicted the world of post-Soviet Russia with it’s oligarchies, territorial rivalries, and attempts to remain relevant on the world stage. On a more individual level, Dubrowski struggles with what it means to be a citizen of the world, one who understands much of the reality that swirls around him, but feels powerless to do anything about it. In other words, for most of us, a lot like living in the 21st century.

The previously published novellas (“Going to Canada”, “Leaving Pasadena”, “Crossing into Cambodia”) are all currently available in The Best of Michael Moorcock. The new stories (“Kabul”, “Odysseus Came Home”, “Dancing in Rome”) appear here for the first time. Yes, in French. I believe this is the first major work of Moorcock’s to appear initially in French.

I’ve been lucky enough to have read the new stories in English, natch. All three of them were written within the last decade and when combined with the previous, make up some of the best work of Moorcock’s illustrious career. He maybe writing about the end times, but after nearly seven decades, these stories showcase a creator at the peak of his skills, who does not appear near his creative end. I only hope the final three stories will find their way into an English-language edition so everyone else can share in the experience.

Sci-Fi Book Probe: Drizzt, Pathogen Protocol, Secret Scouts

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RevolutionSF’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Probe provides you with new books, eliminating all that troublesome freedom of choice. Book Probe’s choices are best. Book Probe is your friend. 

Timeless: A Drizzt Novel by R.A. Salvatore

RA Salvatore has done more for Dungeons & Dragons than the 20-sided dice industry, and now he’s doing more with his most famous character, the dark elf Drizzt.

These stories are epic fantasies, with all that the genre requires: magic, monsters, fighting. All good things. The immense world of D&D’s Forgotten Realms is put to excellent use, again, and I found myself flipping through player’s handbooks, DM’s guides, and Monster Manuals as I read.

These books will make you want to start up a D&D campaign. If you already are playing or running one, they will make you want to stop what you’re doing and get back to it.

For veterans of the Drizzt stories, this one is a welcome return. All the parts still work great.

For folks reading the Drizzt character for the first time, the book works great, too, which is nice. Also nice: Those folks will now have a few dozen other Drizzt appearances to catch up on, once they get pulled in.

 

 

A Deep Horror That Was Very Nearly Awe by JR Hamantaschen

You need more weird fiction, and this book has it. This one is a collection of 11 short stories, all of them crammed with horror, suspense, humor, and an underlying sense of disquietude. I mean that as a compliment.

Hamantaschen also has a particular skill with story titles that I wish others would emulate. Far from using one word (“Dark,” or “The Tunnel” are two books I just made up but probably exist) or from clearly describing what is going to happen in the book, Hamantaschen gets goofy. And by that I mean, excellent.

For example, “No One Cares But I Tried.” “I’ve Read With Some Interest About…” Here is my personal favorite: “Story Title Revealed About Halfway Through.”

My favorite story is “I Will Soon Be Home and Never Need Anyone Ever Again.” I hope it’s embarrassing for Hamantaschen to hear this: but this story is sweet. Its characters are outright charming. So, unlike many stories that call themselves “weird fiction,” not every story here ends with staring into the gibbous moon while the abyss consumes your mortal soul.

Just give it a read. You’ll dig it.

Secret Scouts and the Lost Leonardo by Mr. and Mrs. Kind

This book both made me feel smarter and reminded me of 1980s movies, so that’s a double-thumbs up from me.

It’s about a gaggle of kids, who, as kids in 80s movies were prone to do, stumbled onto a mystery. In this case, it’s a mystery about Leonardo Da Vinci, and the book proceeded to school me on Da Vinci stuff that I did not know about.

Sure, Dan Brown named a whole code after Da Vinci, but there’s more. Da Vinci kept busy.

The story’s setup is very much in the style of Explorers, or even E.T., and I mean that as a compliment. It’s also crammed full of factual stuff, which is a good way to cram education into a book about kids and historical mysteries.

This book, the first in a series, is fun for the young ones and the old ones and any variety of age, really. It’s just fun.

For more about the series, check out Secret Scouts. 

Pathogen Protocol by Darren Beyer

This one is a hard-science space adventure story, crammed with true-to-life space science details by someone who would know: Author Darren Beyer, has been a Space Shuttle experiment engineer, who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope launch and was part of Shuttle recovery crews.

Beyer knows his stuff, but also can tell a terrific story. That’s a drawback that faces some folks with real science experience: how do you translate the one thing into the other? Beyer does it by having the real science parts as the launch pad for the sci-fi adventure parts.

It’s part 2 of a series, so you’ll need to pick up part 1. But that’s a good thing in this case. It’s just more neat stuff for you to read. I’m anxious to see what’s next.

Barren by Peter V. Brett

 

This one is a novella set in the author’s “Demon Cycle” storyline. You need to check those out for the covers alone, but inside the covers are cool stories about good guys fighting demons. “Barren” is also that, with an excellent female hero and a story that could be a TV series. By that, I mean, I wish it was a TV series, right now.

If you’re just discovering Brett with this book, you’ve got lots more to read ahead of you. Get on that. If you’re a “Demon Cycle” fan already, well, I don’t need to tell you to pick this up.

Book Probe: The Wild Dead, Nuomenon Infinity, Metal Chest

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You need new geek-centric books. These are the books you need. Get them at the linkage. No thanks necessary.

The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn


The Wild Dead is another book set in the post-apocalyptic world of Carrie Vaughn’s “Bannerless,” which I described as a “Reese’s Cup style combination of two great tastes… murder mystery and post-apocalypse.”

This one is a crime drama that happens to be set after the apocalypse. Amid the post-apocalypse, when do people find a space in their schedules for murder? That’s just not good time management.

In spite of all the murder and the post-apocalypse, this story is surprisingly optimistic and sweet. Author Carrie Vaughn digs into her heroes and finds goodness and persistence, not fatalism and pathos.

I admit, I was a little bummed out that my advance review copy promises “map TK.” I love maps of fantasy & sci-fi worlds. So this one will be even better when it goes on sale for normal humans, because of the maps, I’m sure of it.

Metal Chest by Chris Yee

Metal Chest is a story about a robot and a guy roaming an apocalyptic wasteland (that’s the best kind of wasteland.)

But it feels like a Western, and the characters behave like they’re in a Western. By that, I mean the characters and the setting are clearly established through dialogue, which is such a refreshing change from paragraphs and paragraphs of descriptions.

Here’s an example: “Clunkers like you won’t get very far if you stick to being friendly all the time. You got to look after yourself. Put everybody else second. They’ll all leave you dead in the dirt.”

That tells you everything you need to know about the speaker and the one he’s talking to. And it’s just one line. The book contains lots more than one line.

The whole thing is a terrific exercise in subverting tropes. More than that, it celebrates Westerns while also being a fine example of one.

I’m going to need to see more from author Chris Yee. But in the meantime, Metal Chest is worth a reread, preferably with your boots kicked off by a campfire.

Nuomenon Infinity by Marina Lostetter 

Nuomenon Infinity is a second book in a series of mosaic novels, containing shorter stories that all take place in the same world.

In this case, it’s about two space convoys, one launched by a space consortium and another a ragtag fleet thought lost, both of which address the story from different directions.

And now that 70s song “Convoy” is stuck in my head.

Both stories are thrilling and crammed with action, with echoes of “Firefly” and “Battlestar Galactica.” Like those shows, these books are surprisingly, effectively human. The story really sticks it to your emotions. I cried a time or two. Then I read in the author’s afterword that she named one character after the Orlando nightclub shooting victims, and cried again.

That’s good stuff, right there.

Astroball by way of Lovecraft

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I was very excited to get my copy of Ben Reiter’s Astroball, which chronicles the Astros rise from the being the worst team baseball to the best. After all, Reiter was the brain child behind the prophetic June 13, 2014 Sports Illustrated cover featuring the image of then-rookie George Springer and proclaiming “YOUR 2017 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS”. The previous three seasons, the Astros become the only team in MLB history to lose over 100 games seemed ludicrous. The Astros, of course, won the 2017 World Series with Springer honored as the series MVP.

 

 

I eagerly opened up the book and starred with amazement, disbelief, and shock at the epigraph.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
– H. P. Lovecraft, “Call of Cthulhu”

Yes, THAT Lovecraft. The one whose seminal works inform much of modern horror and science fiction.

That certainly was far from the first book that I’ve read that offered an HPL quote but certainly my first such occurrence in a baseball history.

Weird stuff.

 

Weird Tales – February 1928 with the first publication of “The Call of Cthulhu” by H. P. Lovecraft

The second quote was almost as surpring.

“A mix isn’t done ‘til I feel it in my gut.”
– Dr. Dre

Both quotes are apropos to the subject.

Astroball definitely moves to the top of to be read pile.

Book Probe: Robots of Gotham, Spaceship Next Door, The Poppy War

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Book Probe is where new books come to get found. Your next enjoyable book is right here, without the hassle of having to pick one yourself. Trust Book Probe. Book Probe is your friend. 

Robots of Gotham

This is good stuff, exploring society in a very “Terminator” future after the puny humans make peace with the machines.

As you can imagine, it doesn’t go well.

The whole story is a thrilling action flick in book form, with cool robots and conspiracies and things blowing up. Read it while walking in slow-motion away from an explosion.

I’m also very pleased with the extensive backstory, with the 2083 Sovereignty Matrix explaining what countries are ruled by which robots (my home state of Alabama is still ruled by a human! That’s a refreshing change (sick burn directed at my own home state.)

One quibble: The title “Robots of Gotham” sounds like it would be an awesome Batman story. The word “Gotham,” perhaps, should be off limits. People may expect certain things from such a story. Well, one certain thing.

Granted, if the title gets one person to pick it up thinking “Batman,” but delivers robots and conspiracies instead, that’s not a bad tradeoff.

The Spaceship Next Door

This one could have been a movie in the 80s; it has the same tone as “Goonies” and the same sense of amazement as “Flight of the Navigator.”

It stars a fearless teenager in a town where a spaceship landed, and then didn’t do anything for years.

It’s the “for years” part where everything gets good. Of course, the spaceship finally does stuff.

This story is thrilling, funny, and heartwarming.

 

Uncorking a Murder by Michael Carlon

This is a murder mystery that is in tune with current culture, the idea of which blows my mind.

Most standard-issue murder mysteries exist outside of a time period, but this one is so of the moment, and also so good.

It’s about a murder investigating podcast, like Serial and others of its ilk. For story purposes, naturally, hijinks ensue and the host gets involved with a real life case.

The story goes down a dark corner after that, into intensely thrilling action, drama, and conspiracy stuff. It’s a quick, fun read.

And conveniently, unlike podcasts, you don’t have to use your ears for anything.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Author R.F. Kuang has introduced a fantasy world bursting at the seams with imagination.

As I read, I could see the wheels turning in Kuang’s head, as if the author could not wait to tell the reader about the next thing.

The story is inspired by Chinese history, and presents an epic fantasy world of war, gods, and a female hero’s journey from poverty.

The Poppy War is a delight. I’ve already recommended it to a dozen people. I can’t wait for more from this world and this author.

RevSF Review: Personal Space (2018 Series)

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Personal Space is just plain fun.
It’s a sci-fi comedy-drama in 28 five-minute episodes, and it’s streaming on Amazon Prime right now. Five minutes is the kind of time investment that I can really get behind.

Check out Personal Space on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079SJZBYX/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0

Personal Space is about a crew on a generation ship that talks to a therapy computer– but since the ship launched, reality show makers bought the ship from the space program, and are broadcasting it to Earth. Some serious stuff on the ship is juxtaposed with the very funny, goofy reality show parts that are happening on Earth, unknown to the crew.

The crew serves in 25-year shifts, but this time the leader of the previous crew– the late, great Battlestar Galactica star Richard Hatch– doesn’t want to pass the baton to the new captain. Naturally, hijinks ensue.

The ensemble stars Nicki Clyne, who was Cally Tyrol on the revived Battlestar Galactica, as well as Kurt Yaeger, Greg the Peg from Sons of Anarchy, Tim Russ from Star Trek Voyager, and Cliff Simon, Ba’al from Stargate SG-1.

The show is dedicated to Mr. Hatch. I met him a handful of times at Dragon Con’s American Sci-Fi Classics track, and he was unfailingly brilliant, funny, and personable.

In a way, it’s tough to watch Personal Space because of Hatch’s passing. More so, though, it’s cool to see him here. He’s clearly having a ball along with this really cool cast.


The creators thought too hard about the intricate details and backstory of the show, and I mean that as an extreme compliment. The story establishes in a timeline where humans went to the stars in the 1990s, complete with a Ronald Reagan voiceover.

The 28 episodes range from silly to serious, then back to silly, in each episode. It’s well worth the binging vortex you will find yourself in.

Stream the whole series now on Amazon. 

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Movie Probe: Prodigy (2018)

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Movie Probe eliminates troublesome freedom of choice from your movie watching experience. Prodigy is good. Watch it now. See? Totally easy. 

Prodigy (2018) 

Watch this movie with a friend, preferably one who is not easily terrified.

Prodigy is a thriller starring an analyst talking to a creepy kid. Well, that’s how it starts.

It’s the kind of story that might have been at home in 20-something minutes on The Twilight Zone. But here, it plays out slowly over the course of a feature-length span. It’s not padded; it’s deliberately drawn out, exploring all the angles of the Creepy Kid-style story.


However, unlike the usual method in those movies  — showing zany examples of how crazy the kid is– it delves into the psychology of it all.

It’s deep human drama laced with horror and sci-fi that I was not at all expecting.


Savannah Liles, who plays the kid, is a superstar. She is terrifying. I mean that as a compliment.

The film is essentially a two-person discussion. It could be a stage play. The analyst and the kid put on a master-class performance that evolves and unravels .

 In other words, see this now. Do it. Have you seen it yet?

Prodigy will be available on iTunes March 13. 

Black Panther: 4-Word Movie Reviews

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Full-length movie reviews are the worst. Four words? We’ve got plenty of time for that. Especially when we’re talking about BLACK PANTHER. 

 

Shuri = rules.

When is Shuri’s movie? — Tegan Hendrickson, @artfulusername

Representation that matters. Finally! — Jessa Phillips, @SultryMinxZoe

M’Baku is my cuddle-bunny.   –– Shaun Rosado, @Pneumaz

Genuine epic. Visually stunning. — Jennifer Hartshorn, @ThatJenHarts

Dora Milaje movie, please!  — Tegan

Gorillas save the day!  — Mark Finn, @FinnsWake

Killmonger was not wrong. — Jennifer

Where’s the brass frog?  — Michael Gordon, @NewLegendMike

Wakanda out-cosmics Asgard.    — Van Allen Plexico, @VanAllenPlexico

Suck it, white supremacists!    — Deanna Toxopeus, @UbalStecha

 

Book Probe: Indie Science Fiction Cinema Today: Conversations With 21st Century Filmmakers

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Book Probe eliminates an issue that most humans must face constantly: freedom of choice. Book Probe eliminates freedom of choice, providing you only with options that are good for you. Obey Book Probe.

Book Probe: Indie Science Fiction Cinema Today


With advances in tech and advances in ways to get your stuff out to the public, it’s an incredible time to be a fan of science fiction and of movies and TV in general.

Today, you can make a thing and get your thing out to an audience in ways that makers for decades have dreamed about.

Kathleen Fernandez Vander-Kaay and Chris Vander-Kaay, the authors, talk to those people who are getting out there and making things, and their stories are fascinating.

I’ve had the opportunity here at RevolutionSF to talk to some people who are doing these things and to experience their work, and this book provides a critical mass of their experiences and enthusiasm all in one place.

I’ve already seen and loved “Iron Sky” and “Turbo Kid,” as well as a couple others profiled in the book; literally, a couple of others, out of the dozens profiled.

I thought I was fairly well-versed in these things. I literally had never heard of the overwhelming majority of these movies. I can’t wait to see them.

This book will make you want to get off your duff.

You will discover approximately a zillion new creators and their productions that are waiting out there for you to binge upon. If you get started now… well, you’ll still never finish. After all, you have your own stuff you need to make.

Watch This: