Ryan Labay

The "Bond girl" is still something of a sacred title. It's the chance to, onscreen, be the sexual conquest of one of cinema's all-time most promiscuous men. It also means getting noticed in a big film and receiving a massive boost to your career. Many women have jumped at the chance in the past, and while most have failed to make James Bond settle down and start a family, they've nonetheless gone on to do great things. For the next Bond film, however, producers are reportedly looking to add some class by considering a woman who is already on her way to making it.

Schmoes Know recently revealed that none other than Lea Seydoux is a contender for the next James Bond film. If you do not know the lovely Ms. Seydoux, well, you need to step up your world-cinema game. She earned attention last year for the intense romantic drama Blue Is The Warmest Color. Before that, she was one of the cinema's loveliest faces, starring in Catherine Breillat's The Last Mistress, Raul Ruiz's Mysteries Of Lisbon and Ursula Meier's Sister. If you're not a Francophile, you may have noticed her in Inglorious Basterds and Midnight In Paris. Or perhaps you've already seen her do the spy thing, tangoing with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. Here she is brawling with Paula Patton.



Here's where things get interesting: SchmoesKnow also claimed awhile back that there was a casting notice sent out for the new film specifically looking for an actress aged 30-40 to play "Miranda Frost." Hm, that just might be the same Miranda Frost from Die Another Day, isn't it? As played by Rosamund Pike, she was a Bond ally who later turned out to be a double agent working for the villains. Don't remember that movie too well, do you? Lot of ice? Wind-surfing? Halle Berry? Ringing any bells? Brosnan? You know, PIERCE Brosnan?



Whatever the case, Seydoux is both absolutely stunning and a wondrous talent, and Bond will have his work cut out for him keeping up with her, given that she's 29 and he's 46. Oh wait, this is James Bond. He's all about younger ladies. Bond 24 (probably not the final title) is currently undergoing a re-write, but it will hit theaters November 24th, 2015.



Source

Love it!! That's my girl!

“Defiant”
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Cliff Bole
Season 3, Episode 9
Production episode 40512-454
Original air date: November 21, 1994
Stardate: 48467.3

Station log: Kira is having a really crappy day filled with report requests, schedule changes, cargo requirements, and other nonsense, culminating in her blowing up at Bashir, who diagnoses her with stress, borderline exhaustion, and in need of a day off. He marches her over to Quark’s and gives her gambling tokens, a holosuite program, a jumja stick, and a drink. Bashir’s prescription is that at least two of those must be enjoyed before she leaves the bar.

After Bashir goes off (and Quark promises to give the doctor a full report), Kira is joined by a familiar face: William T. Riker. They sit and talk for several hours. The next day, Riker reports to Sisko: he’s just passing through on his way to a vacation on Risa, but he thought he’d spend some time at Quark’s. Sisko invites him to dinner with him and Jake, while Kira insists to Dax that they just talked and they’re just friends, and besides, she’s seeing someone.

[“Tough little ship...”]

Later, when Kira’s off duty, she offers Riker a tour of the station, which eventually includes the Defiant. O’Brien surprises Kira by being on board doing some extra work, and Riker surprises everyone by saying he has nothing to say to O’Brien. The temperature in the room goes down a million degrees or so. Kira then shows Riker around the ship, and he gets her to take off the bridge lockout.

As soon as she does, Riker shoots her. Then he beams two Maquis members on board. They fake a warp-core breach to get Sisko to release the docking clamps and then go to warp. Kalita, one of the Maquis, says, “You did it, Tom,” as he removes the sides of his beard, revealing a simple Vandyke. (Some things never change...)

Sisko summons Dukat to the station. After Odo reads the Wikipedia entry for “Second Chances,” he says that Thomas Riker showed Maquis leanings while serving on the Ghandi. Dukat is understandably appalled at the notion of the Defiant being in the hands of Maquis terrorists. Sisko insists that any search operation be jointly done by Starfleet and Central Command, and to sweeten the deal, Sisko offers to go to Cardassia with Dukat. He helped design the Defiant, he can help find the ship, and he knows her weaknesses. Dukat brings him to a mission control center on Cardassia Prime, where an observer from the Obsidian Order named Korinas is also present. Sisko tells the Cardassians about the cloaking device, at which point Korinas says that the Order already knew about it. Central Command, however, did not, and Dukat’s more than a little pissed that the Order kept that intel from them. Sisko also tells them about the antiproton beam the Jem’Hadar used to penetrate the cloak back in “The Search, Part I.”

Thomas, meanwhile, is keeping Kira prisoner in one of the crew cabins while they rendezvous with more Maquis vessels to get a full crew on board, and then head for the Cardassian border under cloak. They send a decoy ship to mimic the warp signature of the Defiant to draw their patrols off. Sisko sees through the deception—the power output’s not right—but it’s too late. The Defiant destroys a Cardassian outpost. Korinas thanks Sisko for his tactical acumen, also making a snide remark at Dukat in the process.

Kira manages to sabotage the plasma conduits, burning herself in the process, which keeps the Defiant uncloaked for a half an hour while they effect repairs. She also questions Thomas’s commitment to the Maquis, since he doesn’t live in the DMZ. Thomas brings her to the bridge to keep an eye on her.

Sisko and Dukat bond over fatherhood—Dukat had to not take his son to an amusement center on his eleventh birthday to fulfill this mission—while repairs are completed on the Defiant. Thomas reveals to Kira what their actual mission is: they intercepted an intelligence report that there’s a secret buildup of Cardassian ships that even Central Command doesn’t know about in the Orias system. The Maquis believes that it’s a fleet being constructed to invade the Federation and destroy the Maquis. Kira then takes Thomas to task for his actions. He’s not acting like a terrorist, he’s acting like a Starfleet officer—like a hero. “Terrorists don’t get to be heroes.”

Sisko figures out that the Defiant’s attacks are designed to shift Cardassian patrols away from the Orias system. Dukat doesn’t see why that’s a big deal—there’s nothing there and only one M-class planet that’s uninhabited—but he orders a ship there. Korinas then informs him that the Orias system is under the Order’s purview, and no ships will be sent there, and any vessel that enters the system will be fired upon.

The Cardassians pick up a neutrino leak—courtesy Kira’s sabotage—heading for the Orias system. Despite Korinas’s apprehension, Dukat sends ten ships after the Defiant, which leads them right to Orias. Then three Keldon-class ships come from Orias, which Dukat doesn’t recognize—which means they belong to the Order, who aren’t supposed to have military equipment of any kind. Korinas just smiles and walks away.

Sisko makes Dukat an offer. The Defiant had to have scanned Orias, and Dukat obviously wants to know what’s going on there. He offers the sensor logs in exchange for getting the Maquis, the Defiant, and Kira back. Dukat insists that they bring at least Thomas into custody, as there must be a scapegoat brought to Cardassian justice, and he led the mission.

Thomas manages to disable two of the Cardassian ships pursuing them, but three more come out of the Orias system. Dukat and Sisko then call with the deal offer. Kira convinces him to be a Starfleet officer one last time and think of his crew. There’s no way the Defiant can defeat more than a dozen ships. Sisko tells him to surrender to one of the ships behind him, as the ones in front aren’t under Dukat’s command. Thomas beams to a Cardassian ship—after getting a quick smooch with Kira—and Kira then takes the Defiant home, after promising to get Tom out of there.

Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Apparently you can use the wiring under the replicator panel to set off an explosion that will damage your ship. Some of this is Kira’s general awesomeness and using her mad terrorist skillz to commit acts of sabotage but it’s also appalling how easy it is to bring a warship to a dead stop from the crew cabin.

The Sisko is of Bajor: “Emissary” established that Sisko’s previous post was the Utopia Planitia shipyards, so the revelation that Sisko helped design the Defiant isn’t much of a surprise. He also shows impressive tactical acumen, anticipating Thomas’s moves, and remaining a step ahead of Dukat and the other Cardassians.

Don’t ask my opinion next time: Thomas uses Kira to get on board the Defiant, but then is stuck with her, so she gets to be his conscience. Her speeches to him on the subject of terrorism are magnificent, and she sees through his desire to help the Maquis for what it really is: being something other than William Riker.

The slug in your belly: When Will Riker visited the station and cleaned up at Quark’s, Dax lent him a couple of strips of latinum during a losing streak.

For Cardassia! The civilian government of Cardassia, first mentioned in “Cardassians,” is given a name: the Detapa Council. “The Wire” and “Second Skin” established that the Central Command and the Obsidian Order share power, and Dukat states outright that the Detapa Council’s functions are mostly ceremonial.

Tough little ship: Hilariously, I had chosen this header for the section on the Defiant based on Will Riker’s line in First Contact, having completely forgotten that Tom Riker said the exact same thing about the ship in this episode. Ronald D. Moore scripted both movie and episode, so the movie line was probably a deliberate callback. Either way, it fits, as the Defiant destroys an outpost and two ships with only minimal damage to itself. (Kira does more damage with her sabotage, truly.)

Also we get our first mention of quantum torpedoes, which are apparently bigger and badder than photon torpedoes....

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Kira and Thomas spend three hours talking in Quark’s, which Kira insists isn’t romantic, despite Dax’s egging on the next morning. She also volunteers a tour of the station on her off-duty time—which leads directly to Thomas stealing the ship, though one suspects he would’ve gotten on the Defiant one way or another. At the end, Thomas is rewarded for his selflessly letting himself be imprisoned in exchange for his crew being tried by the Federation rather than Cardassia by getting to smooch Kira.

Keep your ears open: “The last time I was here, I was only able to spend a couple of hours in Quark’s. But by the time I left, I had all of his latinum and a date with one of his dabo girls, so I thought I might try my luck again.”

“You be careful. Quark’s dabo wheel has been a little stingy lately, and one of his dabo girls is dating my son.”

Thomas pretending to be Will, and Sisko making it clear that dating the dabo girls may not be such a hot idea this time.

Welcome aboard: Past TNG guest star Tricia O’Neil (Captain Garrett in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and Kurak in “Suspicions”) plays Korinas, while Shannon Cochran reprises the role of Kalita, the Maquis member she played on TNG’s “Preemptive Strike”; she’ll be back in “You Are Cordially Invited...” to play Sirella and the movie Nemesis to play Senator Tal’Aura. And Marc Alaimo returns as Dukat.

But the big guest is, of course, Jonathan Frakes, appearing to reprise his TNG starring role as William Riker, but truly reprising the role of Riker’s “transporter twin” Thomas Riker from TNG’s “Second Chances.”

Trivial matters: This episode serves as a sequel to TNG’s “Second Chances,” with Thomas mentioned as serving on the Ghandi, the ship he transferred to at the end of that episode. It also takes place shortly prior to Star Trek Generations, and in fact aired the same week that movie was released (timing that likely was not coincidental).

Riker was established as having cleaned up at Quark’s Bar in TNG’s “Firstborn.” It’s unknown when he did so, though it could have been when the Enterprise visited the station in “Birthright I.”

The Double Helix novel Quarantine by John Vornholt serves as the bridge between “Second Chances” and “Defiant,” showing how Thomas came to join the Maquis, and also featuring Voyager’s Chakotay, Torres, Seska, and Tuvok. The novel ends with Chakotay suggesting the mission to steal the Defiant to Thomas.

While the show never picked up on Kira’s promise to get Thomas home (though it was discussed in later seasons), several novels and comics told varying stories about Thomas’s fate, among them Triangle: Imzadi II by Peter David (which takes place very shortly after this episode), the 29th and 30th issues of Malibu’s DS9 comic written by Mark Paniccia, the Millennium trilogy by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and the Titan novel Fallen Gods by Michael A. Martin. Thomas’s fate is also part of both the Dominion Wars and Star Trek Online videogames.

Though Thomas doesn’t appear in the eBook A Weary Life by Robert Greenberger (part of the Slings and Arrows miniseries), Kalita does, and Thomas’s actions kind of hang over the events of the storyline.

Jonathan Frakes will go on to play a person who was born with the name William Riker in all four Star Trek spinoffs as he’ll play William Riker in Voyager’s “Death Wish” and Enterprise’s “These are the Voayges...,” making him the only opening-credits Trek regular to appear on three of the remaining four shows (Ethan Phillips, Tim Russ, Armin Shimerman, and Marina Sirtis appeared on two other shows; all the others only appeared on one other, if any—Rene Auberjonois, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Siddig el-Fadil, DeForest Kelley, Robert Duncan McNeill, Colm Meaney, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Picardo, and Sir Patrick Stewart).

The truth behind the fleet the Obsidian Order is constructing in the Orias system will be revealed in “Improbable Cause” and “The Die is Cast.”

Walk with the Prophets: “Maybe that’s what Will Riker would do.” A tense, exciting little thriller with echoes of Fail-Safe and The Hunt for Red October, a nice use of a familiar actor playing a slightly less familiar character, a nice sequel to a stronger-than-expected TNG episode, a good insight into the characters of Sisko and Dukat, lotsa Cardassian political thingie stuff, and some great insights into the differences between terrorists and heroes from Kira. Plus we make it clear that, even though the work has been done to set up Voyager with the Maquis, just because Chakotay’s gang is trapped in the Delta Quadrant doesn’t mean the organization isn’t still a thorn in everyone’s side.

This story continues the work done in “The Maquis” two-parter and “Civil Defense” in making Dukat a more rounded character. He’s actually completely sympathetic here, and if you watch “Defiant” without ever having seen another episode of the show, you’d think he was one of the good guys. Marc Alaimo and Avery Brooks continue to sparkle in their scenes together, and their bonding over fatherhood is one of the best scenes in the series history.

And then we get the politics, as the contempt that Central Command and the Obsidian Order have for each other is seen again, as it was in “Second Skin,” only with Dukat and Korinas in the Ghemor and Entek roles this time. Tricia O’Neil is magnificent as Korinas, her smile just radiating sleazy evil. She’s a good foot shorter than Alaimo, yet when Dukat confronts Korinas, there’s no doubt who has the power in the room, and it ain’t the gul.

Brooks also lets Sisko shine here, showing us what a talented tactician Sisko is, and also how you really shouldn’t mess with his stuff. He doesn’t hesitate to go deep into enemy territory to help track down the Defiant, because he knows the stakes. He also doesn’t hesitate to do everything he can to save lives, including a very clever use of Dukat’s desire to know what the hell’s going on in Orias to broker a peaceful solution. Though it’s never mentioned, you get the feeling that Sisko’s still feeling the sting of Cal Hudson’s betrayal in “The Maquis” two-parter and won’t let someone else in that uniform betray him. (Not to mention kidnapping his first officer...)

Speaking of Kira, Nana Visitor comes very close to owning this episode—no mean feat in a story that has so much Dukat-and-Sisko goodness. In her speeches to Thomas, we see the real sting of the betrayal of Starfleet’s values that the Maquis represents. Hudson never gave a good goddamn about being a hero, and was more than happy to blow up ships and kill people just to prove a point. He stopped being a Starfleet officer as soon as he joined the Maquis and phasered his uniform to prove it. Tom Riker, though, never takes his uniform off. In fact, it’s not even his uniform, it’s Will’s he’s wearing, as if trying desperately to prove that he should’ve been the one to wear it, and if not, he’s going to seriously disgrace it.

But Kira’s right in that he’s not acting like terrorist. He’s not trying to help the colonists in the DMZ, he’s going on a covert ops mission to save the Federation. That’s what heroes do, but it’s not what terrorists would do. Kira details in great depth what she’d do if she had the Defiant when she was in the resistance, and it boils down to “not what you’re doing.”

To make matters worse, it’s a plan that fails, because the intelligence report he’s basing the mission on sold the Orias system short: they’ve got at least part of a working fleet, and even the Defiant can’t handle that many ships.

If anything, the episode could’ve afforded more of a look into Thomas’s psyche—did he really have a death wish? And the other Maquis seem to just go along with things, giving us only Shannon Cochran looking constipated every time Thomas gives an order she doesn’t like. But still, it’s a nicely constructed episode about some hard choices with some lovely moving forward of various bits of galactic politics.

I do recall several fans complaining at the time the episode aired about the way O’Brien was treated. People kept thinking they missed something or the script left something out, because O’Brien went along with Thomas dissing him like that, so it must have been something that really happened. But it really wasn’t. O’Brien is the one person on the station who knows Will Riker well, and so was the most likely to see through the deception. Thomas had to get rid of him as fast as possible, and he knew that O’Brien, as an enlisted man, would never question a high-ranking officer who told him to screw off.

 

Warp factor rating: 8

---

Keith R.A. DeCandido in retrospect wishes he had worked Korinas into his novel The Art of the Impossible, especially since Rachel Garrett, another Tricia O’Neil part, was in the book. He’s also extensively written O’Neil’s third Trek role, Kurak, in his various pieces of Klingon fiction.

defpro:

Lynda Carter - Best Wonder Woman

The longest it ever took me to read a book was a year. Yes, A YEAR. One would have thought I was writing the book rather than reading it (which I wouldn’t have minded doing considering how many copies it sold, and the mini-series that spawned from it). Why did it take me a year to read the book, you might ask. Was it particularly difficult/long/in a foreign language? No, nope, and not so. And guess what? It wasn’t even boring. In fact, it was gripping. So WHY?!

Here’s the truth, I am a notorious book slut. However, to be fair I can easily finish a book quickly if I’m gripped by it – and I was by this book. What I think happened: when I had my face in the book, I was glued to it, but didn’t feel the need to drop everything and get back to it, and also, I wasn’t ready to leave it. Do those two things sound contrary? They’re not. A book can be exceedingly enjoyable yet not have you skipping meals to stay with it. Also, sometimes you immerse yourself so completely into the written world that you take breaks just so it doesn’t disappear from you.

Alas, on a summer-long trip through Europe, packed in a carry-on and hopping flights and trains, I only allowed myself a couple of books – this one among them (this was in a time before ereaders existed). I wasn’t at all interested in the other, so this was my lone read throughout the trip. My reading time only consisted of travel hours, an occurrence that wasn’t pleasing to my travel partner, as I made for a boring seatmate with my eyes glued to the pages. As I neared the end of the trip, I reached the end of my book, and I literally grieved the finishing. The book wasn’t profound. It hadn’t changed my life, but I realized that I had started it the previous fall and was coming to the conclusion at the end of this following summer. I had also been traveling through similar parts of Europe as the characters and somehow felt like we were in it together. This sounds strange, I know… I can hear that now, but I overwhelmingly felt this way five years ago when this happened.

I’ve never again taken that long to finish a book. There hasn’t been the need, which solidifies this book as important to me and as one of my favorites. It means more to me than just the story between the covers because it holds the story of that entire year of my life. When I see it now on my shelf I am taken back in time – I remember the relationship that started that fall as I started the book, that faltered as many times as I put the book down, and that was picking up speed again as I picked up speed in the reading. I can remember the events of the world from that winter as I distracted myself with the story, and the promotion at work that spring that kept me busy and away from the book. I remember the planning of that particular summer trip to Europe, and the choosing of the book. I can even remember which train, plane, and country I was traveling on and through during different points of the plot. I haven’t re-read the book, though I think about doing so from time to time. I wonder to myself if the magic would be gone; if it was just the right book at the right time; if I want to paste over the memories that are embedded in the pages with new ones. I’m not ready to find out the answers.

I’m purposefully not telling you the name of this book, because this anecdote isn’t about how fantastic this particular story was (though, it was pretty great). It’s about honoring the time we spend in what we are reading, why some books last in our minds and others don’t, and how sometimes a really great book can make for a really interesting year.

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We asked our contributors to share the best book they read this month. We’ve got fiction, nonfiction, YA, memoir, and more. Some are old, some are new, and some aren’t even out yet. Enjoy, and please tell us about the highlight of your reading month in the comments.

& Sons by David Gilbert 

I am super skeptical of book blurbs, but when John Irving says, “the writing is gorgeous – not only the prose but the power of David Gilbert’s observations,” you can’t get me a copy fast enough. This book is about the relationships between fathers and sons and how those relationships define generations…which is not something you get too often from the male perspective. It’s complex, touching, funny, and really damn smart. Reclusive author A. N. Dyer gives a eulogy at his childhood best friend’s funeral and realizes he has a lot of years to make up for with his sons. Told from the perspective of Philip Topping, the childhood best friend’s son, Dyer must make amends with Richard, Jamie, and Andy while the sons examine their own lives.

- Emily Gatlin 

 

 

 

Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins

This collection of short stories is so impressive, so breathtaking, that I hardly feel up to the task of describing it. But to keep quiet about them would be a worse crime, so. A young woman who shares the author’s name (I love it when writers play with this blurring of memoir and fiction) occupies a desert boarding house with a fellow tenant who could be her half-sister, conceived during her father’s days as a member of the Manson Family. Two girls take a night off from their jobs at a pizza parlor for a quick trip to Las Vegas, where they meet a group of bad boys who do what bad boys do and change their lives forever. A middle-aged gay man working as a madam in one of Nevada’s legal brothels longs for a human touch and lusts after a European tourist who turned up after his friend allegedly got lost hiking. A new mother struggles with grief for her old life and an inability to connect with her child, her husband, and her old friends. This is devastating stuff. And so it goes.

Claire Vaye Watkins’ prose is elegant and her economy of language remarkable. These stories are as spare and beautifully austere as the landscape of the American Southwest where they are set, the same landscape that shapes and hardens the characters and refines them down to their fundamental elements, working them until they are all sinewy muscle and steely resolve. This is a stunning debut from an important young writer, and if it is a promise of what’s to come in the future of American fiction, we are in very good hands indeed.

-Rebecca Joines Schinsky

City of Thieves by David Benioff

If you like Russian humor, eggs, war stories, Hellboy, and Game of Thrones, and you’ve never listened to an audiobook before, you should probably lose your audio virginity to City of Thieves by David Benioff, read by Ron Flipping Perlman. It’s a perfect book read by the perfect narrator. Lev and his unlikely friend Kolya are sent on a madcap quest for a dozen eggs through Nazi enemy lines smack dab in the middle of WWII’s Russian invasion. It’s a buddy comedy, love story, war epic, and Russian literary history all rolled up into one. Benioff, who is the co-creator of Game of Thrones on HBO, perfects the ratio of pathos, comedy, dialogue, action, and gore. His screenwriting background makes City of Thieves even better read aloud, and Ron Perlman, the actor behind Hellboy, is the perfect guy for the job. I can’t put into words how much I loved this.

-Rachel Smalter Hall 

 

 

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin’s Griffin, September 10)

Full disclosure: I also picked Eleanor and Park as one of my favorite books of the month. But, I mean, that was before Fangirl. I am Fangirl. You are Fangirl. We are all Fangirl. The story centers around the quiet twin, Cath, and her first year of college. She’s not so well known in the real world, not like her party-ready sister Wren, but she is a huge deal online. Particularly in the Simon Snow fandom, where her fanfiction is read by thousands of people all over the world. To say Cath is a Simon Snow fan is incorrect. Cath is one of the Simon Snow fans. And who cares about the real world anyway? Wren doesn’t want to be roommates? Fine. Cath’s brash roommate always has her weird (and weirdly cute) friend Levi over? That can be avoided. Her fiction writing professor wants her to write original fiction? Please. She has an epic Simon Snow story to finish first. Rainbow Rowell writes another side of the collegiate experience. I can’t imagine how comforted I would have been by this book had it come out when I was a teenager. This is a story more relevant than ever (I’m looking at you, hordes of Tumblr teens), when fandom is running rampant. And it is so much more than a funny story about a nerd in college. One of the best parts is the family drama. Cath’s father is flawed and believable, and her absentee mother is heartbreaking. I have to stop talking before I tell you everything, but go read this book when it comes out in September. Do it.

-Preeti Chhibber 

 

 

Franny’s: Simple, Seasonal, Italian by Andrew Feinberg, Francine Stephens and Melissa Clark

Ever since this cookbook arrived as a surprise gift, I’ve been reading it like a novel. Each chapter (straightforwardly titled Fish, Vegetables, Pasta, etc.) starts with a deeply evocative description, plus a few personal anecdotes and cooking tips that give you a moment to pause, collect yourself, and wipe the drool from your chin. Better yet, nearly every recipe starts with a chewy chunk of text that tells the story of the dish: why its flavors work well together, useful ingredient substitutions, what to look for at the market. A welcome contrast to the useless blurbs often seen in cookbooks, airily blathering about how good a dish tastes. (We can assume it’s good; why would you print it otherwise?)

I love that husband-and-wife team Andrew Feinberg and Francine Stephens have strong and occasionally different opinions on making a dish and will chime in with special notes. And I’m ringing the bell for a Melissa Clark Appreciation Moment: Not only is she a great writer, but also a terrific co-author, a rare combination. Stephens and Feinberg may come across as the primary “we,” but the cookbook’s clarity and warmth are distinctively Clarkian. Together, they’ve made Franny’s an even more irresistible summer read than Grace Coddington’s memoir.

-Jennifer Paull 

 

 

Give Us a Kiss by Daniel Woodrell

Any time I read a Woodrell book it is very likely to be my favorite book of that month, and Give Us a Kiss was no exception. As with most of his books, Woodrell pulls us right in with the opening line. “I had a family errand to run, that’s all, but I decided to take a pistol.” The book then tells us about the trouble Doyle Redmond gets into as he goes in search of his older brother Smoke, hiding out in the Missouri Ozarks to evade the law. It involves guns, certainly, but also hillbilly love and past-life experiences.

Give Us a Kiss is different from Woodrell’s recent novels in that there is less focus on the pretty prose (though the prose is all sorts of good) and more focus on moving the story along. We are still in familiar territory, with unsavory characters in the Missouri Ozarks up to no good, and we just can’t help but love all the misfits Woodrell drags onto his pages. There is a point in the book where Redmond describes how he sees himself as a writer, and this so mirrors how I imagine Woodrell sees himself as a writer that I felt a pinch of vertigo for a moment, like I was having an out-of-book experience:

“I always get called a crime writer, though to me they are slice-of-life dramas. They remind me of my family and friends, actually. I hate to think I’ve led a ‘genre‘ life, but that seems to be the category I’m boxed in.”

Loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

-Johann Thorsson

 

 

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little Brown and Company, October 22)

First off: I refuse to get involved in a “Is it better than The Secret History?” discussion, because it’s a completely different book, and also because I have read The Secret History (Tartt’s first book) once a year since it came out, so it isn’t fair to compare a book I’ve just read against one I have scanned through my brain twenty-one times. It’s ingrained in my membranes. So, that said, let’s talk about The Goldfinch. The novel is about a teen boy named Theo who lives in NYC with his single mother. When his mother is killed in an accident, and with his father AWOL, Theo is shuffled off to various places to be looked after. And at the center of the book is a famous Dutch painting called The Goldfinch. There’s gangsters, and antiques dealers, and Las Vegas, and truckloads of substances, and holy cats is it wonderful. It is a wildly ambitious, sprawling, gorgeous novel that is deeply flawed in places (much like The Secret History) but still succeeds in a big way because it has so much effing heart. It made me sob like a wild woman. I’m madly in love with it. I didn’t want it to end. Completely worth the twelve year wait. TEAM TARTT!

-Liberty Hardy

 

 

The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker

To most people, Ahmad and Chava look like your average new-to-America immigrants struggling to find a place in their new country, but they are anything but average. Ahmad is a Jinni made of fire and recently released from centuries of captivity in a copper bottle. Chava is made of clay, a golem fashioned by a no-good Rabbi for a wealthy customer who dies while Chava and he are on their way to America. In bustling, turn-of-the-century New York these two magical creatures happen to bump into each other late one night (neither creature needs to sleep) and instantly notice the other’s “otherness.” They forge a strange and alluring sort of relationship, bonding over finally being able to be their “true” selves. Of course, things go awry and even though the golem and the jinni try to live apart they are drawn together by the same dark master/creator. The first ⅔ of this book is all New York, folk tales, and romance. The last third is a sort of fast-paced, clock-ticking thriller. All together, a pretty satisfying read.

-Jodi Chromey

 

 

The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan

This is going to sound super dorky, but the book(s) I loved most this past month were Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus series, which follows after the original Percy Jackson series, and which is set to wrap up with the 5th book in 2014. When I worked with 7th graders, they literally could not get enough of Rick Riordan, and being able to talk Greek demigod with them scored you major cool points. But let’s be honest, I would have loved Percy Jackson even if I didn’t work with teenagers. I finally picked up The Lost Hero, the first in the Heroes of Olympus series, earlier this month just to inject some light fun into my reading schedule because gosh darn it, we all need some fun in our reading schedules. And I had forgotten how fun these books really are. I ended up pushing aside other books to also zoom through The Son of Neptune, and am now in the middle of The Mark of Athena. These books are all heftier than the Percy Jackson ones, but include the same sense of humor and page-turning action, as well as many of the same characters and gods. Except this time, the Roman incarnations of the gods are rounded up along with the Greek, which I find fascinating, and some fantastic new demigods are introduced, all of whom make for a much, much more diverse cast of characters than the original series, which is probably why I actually like this series more. There’s a reason Riordan is one of the top-selling authors on the planet right now. Fun, good stuff.

-Jill Guccini

Lexicon by Max Barry

Smart. That’s the word that keeps popping up when I try to describe this tightly constructed, fully realized thriller about gifted individuals – called poets – who are trained to use words as weapons by tapping into their ancient and inherent power. Lexicon is the perfect mixture of high concept Sci-Fi and propulsive storytelling, deftly brushing aside any ridiculous barriers between genre and literary fiction. The prose is smart, the characters are smartly written, the plot is smartly unfurled so that mysteries are solved just when Berry wants you to solve them (except for one, which I feel like is kind of telegraphed, although that may be intentional). Rebecca tweeted that Lexicon is X-Men meets Lev Grossman’s The Magicians. I’ll see that description and raise her an Inception. The persuasive potential of words may not sound like the raw material from which a truly thrilling thriller could be made, but Barry got the alchemy just right with Lexicon.

-Josh Corman

 

 

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (Nan A Talese, September 3)

I wasn’t sure about MaddAddam when I received my review copy of it. I was already a huge Margaret Atwood fan, but I hadn’t yet read Year of the Flood and I had thought Oryx & Crake was just an okay book. But I like Atwood too much not to try, so I got a copy of Year of the Flood and went from that into MaddAddam. It turns out I had nothing at all to worry about. Not only was Year of the Flood a remarkable and exciting book, but it also retrospectively redeemed Oryx & Crake and made me love that novel. AND best of all was that I then dove into MaddAddam and discovered that it’s not only as brilliant as the previous book, but they fit together into one seamless construction, building and enhancing each other until all three books kind of form one towering whole work of fiction. By the time I was done with MaddAddam, which picks up right where the previous book left off (and about which I want to spoil nothing), I was thrilled to discover that it was my favorite book by Margaret Atwood to date. There’s nothing so exciting as an author’s latest book becoming your favorite. It means the amazing work is still happening!

-Peter Damien 

The Never List by Koethi Zan 

There are a few problems with this book, but the interesting premise makes up for those flaws. The story focuses on Sarah, a girl that was kept prisoner in a madman’s cellar for three years along with two other girls and her best friend, Jennifer. The fact that the two friends find themselves in the cellar is somewhat surprising, given the lengths that they go to in order to keep safe.  They have lists of things that they must never do. One day, though, their list fails them. Sarah finally manages to escape, and she sends help for the other two girls. As far as she knows, Jennifer died some time before. Ten years later, Sarah goes by a new name, lives in New York City, and keeps herself completely shut off from the world, except for visits from her therapist and food deliveries from her doorman. She wouldn’t even be considering leaving the apartment now, except that the man who tortured her is up for parole. What follows is a cross-country journey that thoroughly creeped me out. Discovering the truth of what she went through and seeing her fellow captives again after so much time apart really messes with Sarah’s head, but it may be just what she needed.  The problems that I mentioned earlier come toward the end. It’s all over a bit fast for me. But that’s a minor inconvenience. If you’re looking for a good summer thriller, then The Never List will more than scratch your itch.

-Cassandra Neace

 

OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu

I’ve read a lot of mental illness stories, but rarely are the books an actual experience of mental illness. They’re instead a diagnosis and a going-through-those-motions. But this book is different. Bea doesn’t accept her diagnosis because her OCD doesn’t manifest in the ways she’s been led to believe OCD appears. She’s not compulsive or obsessive. She doesn’t have patterns or rituals she clings to. Except that she does — she becomes fixated on people and stalks them. She keeps notebooks and scrapbooks about other people’s lives. She follows them home. She makes their lives her own. Bea also worries about sharp objects and regularly soothes herself through pinching her thigh. It feels at times as a reader you’re playing the role of voyeur right along with Bea….because you are.

There’s just enough romance in here to justifying saying there’s romance in this YA book, but it’s really much more of a love story. Both from the perspective of someone who has OCD and doesn’t conceptualize love on normal terms and from the perspective of Bea loving herself enough to realize she can accept she has a problem. Big bonus points to this book for not having a magical resolution. Impressively realistic with solid writing and skin-crawly as a result.

-Kelly Jensen

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman

It may be my innate narcissism, but there are countless echoes of my own childhood in Gaiman’s latest. Aside from the part about creatures from another dimension attempting to rip my existence to shreds. And the old lady down the road who can remember the creation of the universe. And the shape-shifting temptress that invades the family home and turns my father against me. But the bits about being seven and reading by the light coming through the crack of the bedroom door, that was me. As was being unaccountably terrified of being left alone. And of using books as both a manual for the real world and an escape from it. This book has done that rare thing and reawoken long slumbering memories of what it feels like to be a child.

-Edd McCracken  

 

 

 

One Thousand Years of Painting by Stefano Zuffi

Subtitled An Atlas of Western Painting from 1000 to 2000 A.D., this could be a top ten all-time coffee table book. Hundreds of full-color, double-page spreads–from 11th century Spain to Jean-Michel Basquiat–feature seminal and/or masterworks supplemented by overviews and brief explication. One Thousand Years of Painting is like having a museum (complete with Zuffi’s helpful curation) right in your home.

-Loyal Miles

 

 

The Salaryman’s Wife by Sujata Massey

I love books set in Japan, so when I heard about The Salaryman’s Wife I knew I had to try it. It’s a murder mystery whose main character, Rei Shimura, is a 20-something art historian living in Tokyo. She decides to take a short vacation for New Year’s, which turns into the worst getaway ever when one of the fellow guests at the hotel dies. Although the police believe the salaryman’s wife, Setsuko, committed suicide, Rei’s convinced it was actually murrrrderrr. The Salaryman’s Wife takes the reader from a remote mountain village to Tokyo’s grimiest and ritziest neighborhoods, to peaceful suburbs. It’s not so much a mystery (which was super-easy to figure out) as a coming of age novel. The story is never boring, there’s a romantic subplot with a hot Scotsman, paparazzi, yakuza, energy efficient laptops, floppy disks (it was written in 1997, so slightly dated), octopus corn pizza, discovered treasure, hostess bars, designer dresses, and insanely tiny apartments. Basically everything you could want in a novel! I also loved Massey’s voice and may slightly overidentify with Rei. I’ll definitely be reading the other books in this series.

-Tasha Brandstatter

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

I read a lot of books at once (three is the current count right now), so when I find a book that can hold my attention for its entire length, I know I’ve got a good thing. Moreover, Beukes made me wish my train ride to work was longer so I could keep reading! She made me want to spend more time on NJ Transit! Insane!  Anyways, The Shining Girls tracks a time-travelling serial killer through decades as he chases the one girl who got away. Along the way, you get little peeks into the lives of 1930s abortionists, women working in war-time factories, the floor of a Chicago newspaper, and other quick, vivid vignettes. It’s really a crime novel for someone with an active imagination, but limited attention span. This one will definitely get a reread in a few months.

-Caitlin Van Horn

 

 

 

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

This debut novel by Alissa Nutting is a mindfuck of the highest order. If you’ve missed a synopsis of this buzzy book, Tampa is the story of a young woman who has become a middle school teacher for the express purpose of seeking out a 14-year-old boy to become her lover. Her particular penchant for prepubescent boys is not something she is ashamed of or that she makes any apologies for. Her every move is about targeting a boy whose parents are inattentive and who would be unlikely to brag to his friends that he’s schtupping the English teacher. Celeste is a smart, calculating predator, a predator whom no one would suspect because she’s pretty, female, and married to a hunky cop.

The language of the book is graphic, to say the very least, and many readers will have a tough time getting past this explicitness to see the larger picture. Taking on such a topic in such a way, Nutting reveals a seedy truth about how we as a society view sexuality, consent, and gender. I finished the novel, and after I shook all the ickiness off, I wondered how the story would’ve changed had the genders been flipped. If this had been a young man in his twenties, targeting 14-year-old girls, the narrative and the story would’ve been completely different. Which in and of itself is a totally different mindfuck. And a compelling one at that.

-Rachel Manwill

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

This book is pretty much everything I love combined into one near-perfect book I didn’t want to finish reading. You’ve got your teen angst, in the form of a diary written by Nao Yasutani, a Japanese girl who spent her childhood in America and is ostracized and bullied by her peers when her family moves back to Tokyo after the dot-com bubble bursts. You’ve got your wise elder, in the form of Nao’s great-grandmother, Jiko, the “famous anarchist-feminist-novelist-turned-Buddhist-nun of the Taisho era,” whose story Nao sets out to tell in her diary. You’ve got your formerly-urban novelist, Ruth, who is having trouble adjusting to living and working in rural Canada with her artist husband and trying to write the story of her mother, who has recently died. And finally, you’ve got your WWII history from the Japanese side, as we learn about Nao’s great uncle, who was a philosophy student turned kamikaze pilot. Nao’s diary and some other artifacts wash up on Ruth’s beach in a freezer-bagged Hello Kitty lunch box, presumably after the 2011 tsunami, and Ruth gets lost in the story. As did I, from the very first page, and loved this book until the end, which came too soon. As a bonus, A Tale for the Time Being also contains my latest hypothetical future literary ink: “Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories.” So. Good.

-Jeanette Solomon  

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Hey guys, Anna here. We are super-duper excited to have a SPECIAL REPORT from an expert in one of my personal favorite things, BEARDS. Art Allen will fill you in on his credentials below. Please enjoy this foray into the follicular landscape of the faces of our favorite crew.

Well now, what’s this bearded man doing writing for a fashion blog? Well, I do a beard contest every year, and I have watched Star Trek: The Next Generation basically all the time since I was six. So excuse me for having opinions, because I do.

Plus, beards are a sort of fashion piece. Beverly even says so in the episode “The Quality of Life” when Geordi grows a badass beard.

The producers knew if they let him keep the beard they’d have to give him top billing and name the show “Geordi Laforge and His Bitchin’ Beard in Star Trek: The Next Generation”

But not all beards on TNG have been badass.

This is a facial hair style that has yet to catch on, even in Minneapolis.

Take, for example, this dude.

This is Argyle. You don’t know this about him, because they only insinuate it through body language, but Argyle is actually the product of this one time when O’Brien and Riker traveled back in time, managed to get into some Aldebaran whiskey, and Riker said to O’Brien, let’s make a baby, and now their child now works on the Enterprise with them/is the same age as them. That’s who that dude is.

And even Riker’s beard isn’t exactly exciting. Thomas Riker’s beard is better.

See how it goes up his cheek? Why wouldn’t you always do that? Come on!

But let’s talk about Thomas Riker’s beard for a minute. And really, let’s call him what he really is: Cave Riker. When Cave Riker was trapped in his cave, he was clean shaven. It’s clear that’s not an eight year beard, because even Borg Universe Riker (presumably growing for only four years) has a much longer beard:

What actually happened was the Borg just made everyone move to Portland.  

But when Cave Riker is rescued from his cave by his replicant, his beard is nice and trimmed. Even his neckline is nicely trimmed!

Chin beards are out in 24th century cave culture.

When a Starfleet officer is stranded, he is advised to keep a neat neckline in case he meets Space Hotties.

Even the back of Cave Riker’s neck is neatly trimmed. I’m pretty sure he found a talented barber elsewhere in the cave, but things were too weird with meeting his replicant so he didn’t have time to recommend him to everyone else.

But really, Riker just has a regular beard. It’s boring. It has a flat edge, which doesn’t anger but also doesn’t dazzle.

The most overlooked beard on TNG is Worf’s. In that same poker game where Beverly Crusher says beards are an affectation, Worf says, I’m not concerned with fashion. To a Klingon, a beard is a symbol of courage.”

Bullshit. You know who hasn’t overlooked Worf’s beard? Worf.

Liar!

[Note from Anna: I think I speak for both Charlie and myself when I say that we likely would have captioned this with a WERRRRRKK or a HEY GURRRRL]

Worf is so concerned with fashion that he spends his idle time sitting five feet off the ground (presumably so Alexander can’t see what he’s doing up there) starting at himself, twirling his mustache. Worf wants so bad to be evil that he actually has to practice it.

That’s a chair, Worf. Chairs are for sitting. Beds are for lying.

The absurdity of that chair has been discussed, but let me just put a point on it and say that chair is only used by Worf for twirling his mustache, and you know what? I think he deserves it. It’s an unconventional style, sure. But Worf loves this mustache style so much, it reminds him so much of Kronos, that he wears it for fifteen years without changing it up. Let that Klingon twirl his mustache without judgement, Beverly.

I’m going to put Klingon-strength Rogaine on your phaser hair remover, Doctor.

Look at that thing. Or should I say: look at those things. Worf’s ‘stache-nubbins are stout and far apart enough to each be considered on its own. Presumably one indicates Worf’s warrior status and the other symbolizes honor in death, but I’ll be damned if Worf ever lets us know which is which.

I do have a theory for why Worf’s mustache—and indeed all Klingons’ mustaches—exist only at the sides of the upper lip, and it is this: Klingons, like humans, breathe through their nose; however, Klingon breath is so foul that is burns the hair right of the skin.

But you know who else doesn’t think beards are an affectation? Everyone, eventually.

The dream of Portland is alive in the 2390s!

A fine, distinguished Everyone’s Dad in 1986.

That’s right. Even Data grows a beard, because he know’s it’s the thing to do. But both Troi and Geordi are so overcome with sexual lust that manifests itself as giggles that they must remove themselves, and in a scene cut from the aired version of the episode, Picard orders Data to remove the beard because it’s too pleasing.

And Data’s good luck streak with facial hair continues when he wins the shit out of this guy, who thinks he’s all that but does not realize that, in fact, Data is.

I say, is it the heat, or would that android look better with a beard?

But Data does not always have good luck with facial hair. When he got amnesia, he lost the ability to be on the lookout for a grumpy-looking man with a thick mustache.

Dude. You helped Wayne, why you gotta be mean to Data? They both want the same thing: to be human.

And everyone saw it coming. That man’s face is in a permanent frown, and that centurian slug is the exclamation point of his ever burning rage. 

As is this trimmer, summery centurian slug.

I got this mustache from the Dollar Store. I only paid a dollar for it!

Art Allen is a writer and beard contest (among other things) producer in Minneapolis. He loves beards and Star Trek. Follow him on Twitter: @punsultant

“The Circle”
Written by Peter Allan Fields
Directed by Corey Allen
Season 2, Episode 2
Production episode 40512-422
Original air date: October 3, 1993
Stardate: unknown

Station log: We open with some scenes from “The Homecoming,” followed by Sisko meeting with a confused Jaro. The minister thought Sisko would be doing cartwheels, as he was under the impression that Kira’s been a pain in his ass, prompting Sisko to snap, “Who gave you that impression?” He makes it clear that he doesn’t appreciate having one of his officers dismissed without consulting him, at which point Jaro makes it clear that this is a promotion for Kira as a reward for bringing Li Nalas home. Speaking of Li, part of the reason for assigning him to replace Kira is because it’s safer on the station. The Circle’s activities have escalated to assault on one of Jaro’s fellow ministers. Besides, who could be a better liaison officer than the hero of the resistance?

Jake then calls Sisko, having found the Circle’s logo graffiti’d on the door to their quarters. They’re upping their game.

[“You’re a deputy or you’re a prisoner.” “I’m a deputy.”]

Odo visits Kira in her quarters, and is shocked to find her packing. He expected better of her to just surrender to Jaro’s order, and he’s pissed that she hasn’t even asked Sisko for help. She also assures him that Li is up to the job.

In rapid succession, Dax, Bashir, O’Brien, and Quark all enter. Dax wants to return lotion, Bashir and O’Brien want to wish Kira well, Quark thinks it’s a party (he even brought Kira’s favorite synthale), and Odo’s spending the entire time being pissed at Kira’s enforced departure.

When the doorchime rings again, this time it’s Vedek Bareil, who asks if he’s interrupting. Kira says no, then hesitates and simultaneously says and realizes that these are her friends. She’s surprised that Bareil’s here, but he says it’s best not to announce one’s movements these days—the violence on Bajor has escalated. The provisional government has told Kira to take a few days off before they decide on her new assignment, and Bareil offers his monastery as a place for her to collect herself and explore her pagh.

Kira takes one last trip to ops, where she meets up with Li and Sisko. Li says he didn’t want this job, and Kira smiles and says, “Neither did I.” Sisko promises that he’s going to get her back.

Later, Kira is at the monastery trying and failing to make a path of rocks across a stream. She has no artistic talents, and the best she can do is destroy the arboretum one stream at a time. She hates being useless, though Bareil thinks being useless might be an interesting thing for her to try.

Then, to Kira’s shock, he takes her inside to have an orb experience, something she’s wanted her whole life. Bareil leaves her with the Orb of Prophecy and Change, which gives her a vision that includes Kira in the chamber of ministers, alongside Dax dressed as a vedek; then she’s surrounded by Jaro and Vedek Winn, who tower over her; then Bareil arrives in a Bajoran Milita uniform; then Kira’s naked; then Bareil’s naked. Throughout there are voices that she can’t make out; Jaro says they’re speaking to him, but Dax and Bareil both insist they’re for Kira.

Kira doesn’t really want to talk about her vision, at which point Bareil confesses that he saw Kira in the last vision the orb gave him. That was why he invited her down. Kira then lies and says Bareil wasn’t part of her vision at all.

Just as Bareil and Kira hear gunfire in the distance, Winn shows up and snarks them off a bit, making her contempt for both of them abundantly clear.

A friend of Odo’s in planetary security tells him that the provisional government is bringing troops into the capital city, since every other attempt to stop the Circle has been stymied. The Circle has friends in high places, warning them about attempts to capture them. Quark then arrives convinced that it’s all over. The Circle, he insists, isn’t just a bunch of thugs, they’re a bunch of very, very, very well-armed thugs. Quark has learned that the Kressari are providing the Circle with a crap-ton of weapons.

Odo needs more information, so he deputizes Quark and tells him to find out where the weapons are being delivered. Quark refuses until Odo threatens to arrest him for an impeding an investigation, since he obviously won’t reveal his sources.

In light of this new information, Sisko is traveling to Bajor, leaving Li in charge, and asking him to see if he can find out how much support the provisional government really has. Li is sure that he’ll have help with any difficulties—“I can’t even sneeze without three people handing me handkerchiefs”—and he also suggests a curfew.

Sisko meets with General Krim, who’s in charge of the forces defending the capital city. Sisko has noticed that the military has avoided direct confrontation with the Circle, and also tells Krim about the Kressari. After promising Krim to provide him with any further information about the weapons shipments, Sisko asks Krim about Kira, hoping to get her reassigned back to DS9. Krim, however, can’t help him, as that’s out of his purview. Krim also notes that Sisko could have traded the information about the Kressari for the favor regarding Kira, and Sisko just smiles and says he wouldn’t do that. “I’ll remember that about you,” Krim says with respect.

Sisko’s next stop is the monastery to visit Kira, letting her know that he thinks the Circle is arming for a coup and that the military isn’t necessarily going to support the provisional government. He reiterates his promise to get her back.

After Sisko leaves, Kira is kidnapped by masked members of the Circle. They bring her to an underground cavern, where she is met by Jaro—who is, in fact, the head of the Circle. He wants the Federation gone, carrying the same view Kira did in “Emissary,” to wit, that they’re no better than the Cardassians. He also wants information from Kira as to how the Federation in general and Sisko in particular will react when the Circle’s endgame becomes clear. Kira, of course, refuses to talk, leaving Jaro to resort to torture.

When the Kressari ship arrives, Li, Dax, and O’Brien blind them with bureaucratic nonsense as a pretense to inspect the cargo containers. Eventually, the Kressari disembark from the station, albeit with Odo as a rat-shaped stowaway. After they clear the station, a Cardassian gul beams aboard the ship and approves a weapons shipment.

Upon Sisko’s return to the station, he learns of Kira’s disappearance from Bareil. The newly (and grumpily) deputized Quark announces that he’s learned that the Circle is headquartered in caves under the Perikian Peninsula. Sisko leads a rescue party that includes O’Brien, Bashir, a security contingent, and Li—the latter at his own request. He doesn’t know what it means to be a navarch, but he can fight in the trenches, he takes orders well, and he owes Kira.

The team beams down from the runabout—O’Brien remaining behind to pilot and beam people back at the drop of a hat—with Sisko handing everyone a combadge to pin on Kira as soon as they find her. They also see that the Circle has just received a new shipment of weapons.

Those weapons get used in a firefight quickly, but Bashir finds the badly injured Kira while the two sides exchange phaser fire and they beam out.

While Bashir treats Kira in the infirmary, Odo returns with the evidence that the Cardassians are the ones secretly supplying the Circle via the Kressari. Once the Circle gets rid of the Federation, the Cardassians can waltz right in and take Bajor—and the wormhole—back.

Unfortunately, the coup has now started. All communication with Bajor has been cut off.

Jaro meets with Winn, and they broker a deal, where she’ll throw public support behind him, saying the Prophets bless his coup, in exchange for his full support in making her the new kai.

O’Brien informs Sisko that two assault vessels are on course for the station from Bajor, and they’ve given all non-Bajorans seven hours to evacuate DS9. Sisko talks to Admiral Chekote, who makes it clear that this is an internal matter to Bajor. The Cardassians may get involved in other people’s civil wars, but the Federation doesn’t, and Chekote orders Sisko to withdraw from the station.

Sisko asks O’Brien how long it would take to evacuate the station—not just the people, but all Federation property of any kind. O’Brien says it would take days, and the assault vessels will be there in seven hours.

“Then I guess some of us won’t quite be done by the time they get here.”

To be continued...

The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko gets to verbally fence with both Jaro (whom he obviously doesn’t respect or trust, especially given the story he tells about the politician full of hot air) and Krim (whom he does respect, and that favor is returned to a degree, which will come into play in the next episode). And he comes away from both those meetings learning more from what the two men didn’t say than what they did.

Don’t ask my opinion next time: Full episode for Kira: she realizes how important the people on the station have become to her, she tries and fails at peaceful meditation, she has an orb experience, she finds out the truth about the Circle, and she gets tortured.

Rules of Acquisition: Quark is able to find things out from people who, as he says to Odo, “don’t talk to people like you,” thus learning how well-armed the Circle is. He’s actually the linchpin of the plot, as our heroes only realize the Circle is a force to be reckoned with (and eventually that they’re being supplied by Cardassia) from Quark’s info.

For Cardassia!: Cardassia’s reasons for not wanting to rock the boat in terms of their relationship with Bajor in “The Homecoming” come into focus here: why start a conflict over Cardassia IV’s labor camp when they plan to take Bajor back as soon as the Circle kicks the Federation out?

Preservation of mass and energy is for wimps: Odo turns into a panel surface on a container in order to stow away on the Kressari ship, then remains on board as a rat.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Sparks fly like whoa between Kira and Bareil, and that’s before the Prophets provide Kira with a wet dream about the two of them.

Similar sparks fly between Jaro and Winn—it’s pretty damned obvious that, if they’re not sleeping together now, they absolutely have in the past. (Jaro’s small smile followed by an almost-playful, “Don’t tease me,” pretty much confirms it.)

Keep your ears open: “Is this a joke? Did you plan this?”

“Nobody could have planned this.”

Kira and Bashir commenting on the chaos in her quarters as half the station comes by to wish her well.

Welcome aboard: Back from “The Homecoming” are Richard Beymer as Li and a still-uncredited Frank Langella as Jaro. Back from “In the Hands of the Prophets” are Philip Anglim as Bareil and Louise Fletcher as Winn. Bruce Gray makes his first of two appearances as Admiral Chekote (he’ll return in TNG’s “Gambit Part 1” a week later) and Stephen Macht makes his first of two appearances as General Krim (he’ll be back in the next episode, “The Siege,” in a much larger role).

And then we have our Robert Knepper moment: I had no idea that was longtime character actor Mike Genovese (a favorite of mine since his role as Lieutenant Garfield on The Flash way back when) buried under the Kressari makeup.

Trivial matters: This obviously continues the story begun in “The Homecoming” and will continue in “The Siege,” this being Trek’s first three-parter.

The opening of Act 1 in Kira’s quarters is a deliberate homage to the classic stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera. All that was missing was Quark asking for two hard-boiled eggs, then Morn honking and Quark adding, “Make that three hard-boiled eggs.”

The orb Kira experiences is identified by Bareil as the Third Orb, and also as the Orb of Prophecy and Change (the latter providing the inspiration for the title of the tenth anniversary DS9 short story anthology that your humble rewatcher contributed to). It’s unclear whether or not it’s the same orb that Sisko and Dax experienced in “Emissary,” but since they received flashback visions rather than prophetic ones, it might have been a different one. Only four of the nine original orbs will be identified by name in the show, the others being the Orbs of Wisdom (“Prophet Motive,” “In the Cards”), Time (“Trials and Tribble-ations,” “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night”), and Contemplation (“Tears of the Prophets”). The post-finale DS9 novels identified the other five as the Orbs of Memory (Avatar Books 1-2, Unity), Destiny (Cathedral, Raise the Dawn), Souls (Cathedral, Fearful Symmetry, The Soul Key), Unity (Cathedral, Unity), and Truth (Day of the Vipers).

Your humble rewatcher provided some history for the Perikian Peninsula in the novella “Horn and Ivory,” collected in both Gateways: What Lay Beyond and Twist of Faith.

Krim only appears in this storyline on screen, but he returns in the novels, being named Bajor’s representative to the Federation Council after Bajor joins the Federation in Unity. He’s assigned in the Bajor portion of Worlds of DS9 Volume 2 by J. Noah Kym and is also seen in the role in your humble rewatcher’s Articles of the Federation.

Walk with the Prophets: “I’m sure I could destroy your entire arboretum.” Unlike the previous episode, which actually had some closure in the revelation of Li’s true story and his agreeing to become navarch, this episode is entirely setup, ending with a much nastier cliffhanger, as Starfleet is basically being kicked off the station.

But it’s really good setup, as we get the sense of things escalating on Bajor, and it’s told effectively and subtly: Bareil’s need to travel in secret, the sound of gunfire frighteningly close to the monastery, and the revelation that Jaro’s behind it all, which is less surprising given that, well, the guy’s played by Frank Langella, for cryin’ out loud.

Langella also sells Jaro as an understandable (if not sympathetic) character. As Krim says at one point, “We’re all patriots, Commander,” and Jaro truly believes he’s doing what’s best for Bajor. What he doesn’t sell, because the script won’t let him, is why so clever a character can’t see the long-term implications of kicking the Federation out. Even if the Cardassians weren’t the ones arming the Circle, their goals still play right into the Cardassians’ hands, as tossing Starfleet paves the way for Cardassia to come back and claim the wormhole (which is probably a much bigger prize to them than a planet they already abandoned).

Stretching the storyline to three parts not only helps add to the scope of the story (the episode obviously takes place over the course of several days, too), it also gives time to focus on the most compelling character in all this: Kira. Her reassignment and replacement by Li serves two purposes for Jaro: punishing Kira for disobeying orders (the public reason) and getting Li out of the way so he won’t distract the public from his coup. The extra length of the story allows the entire first act and half the second be entirely about her, and Nana Visitor is, as always, completely up to the challenge. I particularly love her moment of realization when she introduces Odo, Dax, O’Brien, Bashir, and even Quark to Bareil as her friends.

Most of the guests comport themselves well. Richard Beymer gets less to do, but his helplessness in the nigh-meaningless role of navarch is entertaining to watch. Louise Fletcher returns as Winn, and her “bless your heart” conversation with Kira and Bareil is a symphony in sweet sarcasm, followed by a delightful Evil Meeting Of Evil between her and Jaro. Stephen Macht shows tremendous gravitas as Krim, setting up his larger role in the following episode. The only weak link is Philip Anglim, whose serene presence in “In the Hands of the Prophets” is subsumed to a somewhat creepy fascination with Kira, his intense stare just barely holding back from being a leer. (Having said that, the conversations between him and Kira are beautifully done.)

I particularly like that Kira’s character evolution is really what undoes Jaro here. His entire plan is predicated on the outdated information that Sisko would dance a jig at the notion of being rid of Kira and also thinking that Kira’s contempt for the provisional government would make her an ally of his.

 

Warp factor rating: 8

Rewatcher’s note: I’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign for a graphic novel based on the universe of my novel Dragon Precinct and its sequels. Art will be by JK Woodward, (the artist on the Star Trek/Doctor Whocrossover comic book). Please check it out and spread the word!

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Keith R.A. DeCandido is a writer and stuff.

Warmer... warrrrrmer... cold. Coldish?

UnderRepped Clothing has teamed up with the Roddenberry Foundation to offer an exclusive Gene Roddenberry t-shirt.

This latest t-shirt line by UnderRepped Clothing is being funded via a Kickstarter campaign.

The Roddenberry t-shirt is part of a new campaign by UnderRepped Clothing, which “focuses on the names and faces people aren’t always celebrating publicly — but should be.”

“We have chosen people who’ve worked in science, medicine, art, writing, and television,” said UnderRepped Clothing Founder Paul Leonard. Some of the t-shirts (including some that are already sold out) include: Langston Hughes, Gregor Mendel, Gunpei Yokoi, Rene Laennec, Nikola Tesla and Ada Lovelace.

The new shirts will include: Roddenberry, Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes, Gregor Mendel, Alan Turing, and Gunpei Yokoi (Inventor of the Game Boy).

The Roddenberry Foundation permitted Roddenberry’s likeness to be used, in spite of their general caution about permitting his image to be used. “We have always been somewhat reluctant when it comes to exploiting Gene’s likeness and imagery,” said Trevor Roth, chief operating officer of Roddenberry Entertainment. “But when the folks at UnderRepped approached us and explained that our participation would be part of bringing to light the likes of Rene Laennec — the inventor of the stethoscope — Adolph Rickenbacker — the inventor of the amplifiable guitar — Billie Holiday and more, we really wanted to support the endeavor.”

The Kickstarter campaign can be found here. The original goal of $7,500 has already been met, but a new goal of $14,000 will enable the company to “add blurbs on the back of each shirt, highlighting the figure on the front.”

Tomorrow is the last day of the Kickstarter campaign.

Thanks to Michael Hinman for the tip!

The first products in QMx's new Trekkies range, the super-cute "Q-Pop" figurines of Kirk, Spock, and Uhura, are due to launch any time now. But it seems it won't just be the noble crew of the USS Enterprise getting the Trekkies treatment, there's also a mirror universe visitor sneaking about: Coming as a San Diego Comic Con exclusive will be a mirror-Spock Trekkies figurine, like the other characters he features a miniature white-board speech-bubble, so you can write in your favourite quotes, quips, puns, or sound-effects:


Fortunately QMx are a nice bunch, so if you're not going to Comic Con they're still offering an opportunity to get a mirror-Spock, from a limited supply they are holding back to sell online. They suggest signing up to the waiting list if you want to get one.

She's coined new terms like 'smize,' 'tooch' and 'flawsome.'

And even when she's not neologising, Tyra Banks is bringing new swagger to existing words like 'fierce' as she storms her way through series after series of America's Next Top Model.

Season 20 of the hit show - yes, 20 - hits our screens this summer and Tyra sat down with Fault magazine to talk about what's in store.


The 39-year-old explained: 'It is very exciting! It is our Anniversary 20th Cycle and we are featuring male and female models.

'So, aside from a whole new type of modeling from the men, there’s lots of love connection drama and edgy photo shoot themes.

'It’s also really important to me to stay on the cutting edge of trends in photography and technology. In addition to still having ANTM fans as the fourth judge; we’re doing some exciting new things that fans will see during judging that will really wow them.

'I think it is crucial to keep moving forward in the world of modeling and photography; there are so many innovative things that can be done that have not been fully adopted by those worlds yet.

She also touched upon her contribution to the English language via the show.

Tyra said: 'It’s great because it means that when words like “smize,” “tooch” and “flawsome” are penetrating people’s psyches, so is the larger messages behind them.

'Anybody can perfect the smize and give that model look. You can “tooch” your booty and work it no matter your shape or size. And being “Flawsome” is embracing yourself and your uniqueness, flaws and all. It’s really cool to hear those words used so mainstream now. Look out for the newest catch phrase, inspired by the 20th Cycle of America’s Next Top Model: the “booch” or “boy tooch.”

And finally she summed up her own appeal in four words with : 'Fierce, flawsome, beauty and booty.'

Before explaining that her fault is: 'Making crazy faces and not giving a damn because perfect is boring.'

Source

Can't wait to learn to perfect my booch this season!!

The BBC have released a publicity photo of David Bradley as William Hartnell in costume as the first Doctor, taken from the forthcoming drama An Adventure in Space and Time, which will be broadcast in the Autumn as part of the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary celebrations.

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A panel took place last weekend at Comic Con France featuring writer and executive producer Mark Gatiss, during which a special minute-long trailer was shown to the audience highlighting Bradley's Hartnell, plus clips of the production of Doctor Who including those featuring Daleks and Cybermen. Talking about the drama, Gatiss said:
As previously reported, the drama's recreation of the TARDIS console was on display over the weekend. Gatiss commented:

The Liancort Rocks are a group of small islands between South Korea and Japan. Both nations claim ownership of the islands. A group of Korean activists plan to erect a statue of Robot Taekwon V, a giant mecha that appeared in the 1976 movie of the same name (which was heavily derivative of the 1972 Japanese animated series Mazinger Z). Why? Because Robot Taekwon V has become a popular symbol of Korean nationalist sentiment. Korea Times reports:

The 13-meter-high installment is intended as a statement toward Japan, which continues to argue that it has historical claim over Korea’s easternmost territory.

It can be said that the nationalist activists picked an awkward cultural icon for the job. The creators of Taekwon V have openly admitted that their character, first seen in a 1976 movie, borrowed heavily from Japanese robot animation of those times, particularly ''Mazinger Z.’’

The Taekwon V sculpture will be revealed in a Liberation Day ceremony on Aug. 15, a holiday that marks Korea’s independence from Japan at the end of World War II. It will be moved the next day to a museum on the adjacent Ulleung Island, where it will be permanently displayed.

Link -via Rocket News 24

“The Homecoming”
Written by Jeri Taylor & Ira Steven Behr
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 2, Episode 1
Production episode 40512-421
Original air date: September 26, 1993
Stardate: unknown

Station log: Quark meets with a Boslic freighter captain who was given a Bajoran earring by a maintenance worker on Cardassia IV, and was told that any Bajoran would understand its significance. She’s not making it to Bajor this trip, so Quark takes it to Kira, who recognizes it as belonging to Li Nalas, one of the heroes of the Bajoran resistance.

Kira goes to Sisko for a runabout. Sisko has heard the stories of Li’s great victories, but also thought he was reported killed; Kira says his body was never found. She’s already scanned the dermal residue on the earring, which matches Li’s DNA, and she’s already gone to the provisional government, and they’re not willing to go to war with Cardassia over an earring. But Bajor needs a leader—since Opaka was lost, the factionalizing of Bajor has deteriorated, there are religious riots and an extremist group calling themselves “the Alliance for Global Unity,” or, simply, the Circle, causing problems (O’Brien finds graffiti of theirs on the station), and the provisional government is filled with political opportunists. Kira insists that Li can be the leader Bajor desperately needs.

[What you did today, Major, was declare war on Cardassia. Thankfully, they declined the invitation...]

Sisko promises to think it over. He talks to Dax, who thinks he should give Kira the runabout if for no other reason than to expose the fact that there are still Bajoran prisoners in Cardassian space—they claimed to have released them all. Sisko agrees, and authorizes the trip, once O’Brien has refitted the runabout so that it’ll come up on Cardassian sensors as a Lisseppian transport. (O’Brien had already given this considerable thought, to Sisko’s annoyance, realizing that Kira had talked to most of the senior staff about this.) Sisko also wants O’Brien to accompany Kira, who refuses the help at first, but Sisko insists. Kira makes it clear that they’re coming back with Li or not at all, and to Kira’s obvious surprise, O’Brien agrees readily.

Kira bluffs her way past a navigation control post, and then they make it to Cardassia IV—but they’re reading a dozen Bajorans down there. Plan A—to beam Li up—just became impossible, as they can’t tell which of the twelve is Li, and Kira wants to rescue all of them. So they land outside the force field (which apparently only covers the ground, since beaming from orbit was an option), and approach. Kira claims to be a comfort woman, with O’Brien as her pimp—she’s got an appointment with the prefect. The overseer wants to know how much it would cost him for an appointment, and lets Kira (but not O’Brien) inside the force field so he can inspect the merchandise. Once he gets close enough, Kira decks him. She and O’Brien take down the other two nearby guards with their phasers, but there are plenty more, and they get pinned down behind a ridge. Four of the prisoners offer to stay behind and hold them off so Li can get back to Bajor safely. Li himself, who’s wounded, refuses to allow that, but everyone insists. Kira leaves them her phaser and the remaining prisoners all go back to the runabout.

They try to wait long enough for the other four to make it back, but there are two warships in orbit, they have to go now. They make it safely back to DS9, and the prisoners are brought to the infirmary, where Li is far more concerned with the well being of the others than with his own wound.

When Kira reports to Sisko, she finds him on subspace with Dukat, who informs them both that Cardassia formally apologizes to Bajor for the labor camp on Cardassia IV; the prisoners Kira and O’Brien were forced to leave behind are en route to Bajor as well. After Dukat signs off, Sisko congratulates Kira on a successful mission.

In the infirmary, Li cuts off Bashir’s attempts to discuss his history with the resistance, including his victory in hand-to-hand combat against Gul Zarale. After he cleans up, Sisko and Kira take him on a tour of the station. Lots of Bajorans openly gape at Li, who is obviously uncomfortable with the attention.

Minister Jaro arrives on the station, greeted by Kira. Jaro tells Kira that she made some enemies in the chamber of ministers, and he also officially chastises her for disobeying orders. But as a private citizen, he thanks her for bringing Li home.

The gaping has turned into a crowd-control issue, and Li finds himself all but trapped in the replimat with Sisko, who tells him that they’re not going to leave without him saying a few words. “If that’s what it takes,” Li says reluctantly, and addresses the crowd haltingly, then is saved by Jaro, who welcomes him home and asks if he can speak to the crowd. (“You can’t expect a politician to give up an opportunity like this.”) Li eagerly tells him to go right ahead.

Sisko escorts Li to his quarters, saying he hopes they’re sufficient. For the first time, Li smiles—he just spent a decade in a Cardassian labor camp. The guest quarters on DS9 is luxury beyond his wildest dreams. He’s also surprised that people even still remember him. He’s gone from slave to hero in less than a day—what’s more, he has learned that Bajor is free (a fact obviously kept from the prisoners on Cardassia IV). He asks Sisko what the newly freed Bajor is like, and Sisko then tells him about the planet’s lack of strong leadership, and why Li is needed.

Quark is assaulted by the Circle, and branded with their symbol on his forehead. When Kira explains to Li what the Circle is about—that they want all non-Bajorans gone from Bajor—he’s appalled. So appalled, in fact, that he tries to run away to the Gamma Quadrant by stowing away on a vessel headed there. He’s caught and brought to Sisko.

Li at last tells his story. He was part of a minor resistance cell, all but three of whom were wiped out by the Cardassians. He and the other two survivors fled to the hills. Lack of food or water led them to venture into a valley; Li, as the only one who was armed, scouted ahead, where he literally stumbled on a Cardassian bathing in the lake. Li managed to shoot him before he shot Li, and the Cardassian fell on him. His cohorts found him with a naked, dead Cardassian on top of him, recognizing the victim as Gul Zarale, who’d killed many a Bajoran. They immediately spread the story of his glorious victory over Zarale. Li kept trying to demur, but no one would let him, and his legend grew. He was just a guy who was lucky enough to survive a massacre and who then became the hero of the resistance because he shot a Cardassian in his underwear. He’s done being a slave to his reputation, and he wants out.

Sisko, though, won’t let him off that easy. Bajor needs a symbol right now, not a man. Nobody’s going to ask him to lead troops into battle or kill a hundred Cardassians with his bare hands. But the Bajoran people look at him and see the best in themselves. Li returns to Bajor with Jaro, where the chamber of ministers unanimously elect him to be given the title of navarch—an existing title was deemed insufficient, so they made one up. Jaro and Li then return to the station, as Navarch Li is the new Bajoran Liaison Officer to Deep Space 9. When Sisko points out that he already has one, Jaro says that Kira’s no longer assigned to this post and has been recalled to Bajor.

To be continued...

The Sisko is of Bajor: In contrast to a year ago, Sisko is very invested in Bajor and its ongoing stability. His reasons for agreeing to give Kira the runabout are as much for his own mission, as given to him by Picard in “Emissary,” as they are to help Bajor, though both goals are similar.

Don’t ask my opinion next time: Kira marshals support from Dax and O’Brien to bolster her argument to Sisko, with the former helping convince Sisko to agree and the latter working out the engineering details on how to do it. She and O’Brien then do a superlative job with the rescue, with Kira playing the role of comfort woman with gusto.

Rules of Acquisition: Quark tips Odo off to a Subytt freighter that was selling defective isolinear chips to the Bajorans. Odo is annoyed and confused by Quark suddenly being helpful, more so by Quark’s insistence that he and Odo are going to be friends from now on. After Odo leaves, Quark explains to Rom that he’s following the 76th Rule: “Every once in a while, declare peace—it confuses the hell out of your enemies.”

The slug in your belly: Dax doesn’t enjoy talking baseball with Sisko, and she reveals that Curzon didn’t like talking baseball with Sisko nearly as much as he let on.

For Cardassia! Cardassian Supreme Directive 2645 declared that all Bajoran prisoners would be released. Cardassia IV is in violation of it, and Kira’s exposure of it leads to Cardassia apologizing to Bajor and not censuring her for her invasion of Cardassian space and attack on Cardassian military personnel.

No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Jake has asked a Bajoran girl named Laira out on a date, and asks his father for advice on where to go. Sisko puts the kibosh on a holosuite or in taking her to their quarters, and makes suggestions Jake deems “boring.” Finally, Jake hilariously declares, “I can see you’re not ready to have this conversation” to his father and walks off.

Later, Laira winds up cancelling the date because her father won’t let her go out with a non-Bajoran.

Keep your ears open: “I’ll never forget the look on his face when he died. He was so… embarrassed.”

Li’s conclusion to his description of his “epic” battle against Zarale.

Welcome aboard: Guest stars galore in this one, from established recurring characters Rom (Max Grodenchik) and Dukat (Marc Alaimo) to uncredited appearances by longtime Trek character actor John Fleck as the Cardassian overseer and (most impressively) the great Frank Langella as Jaro (Langella did the three-episode appearance for his children, and so worked for scale with no credit). Leslie Bevis makes the first of three appearances as Rionoj, the Boslic freighter captain (she’ll be back in “The Abandoned” and “Broken Link”), and Michael Bell plays the Bajoran prisoner who smuggled Li’s earring out.

But the other big guest (besides Langella) is Richard Beymer, best known for his roles on West Side Story in 1961 and Twin Peaks from 1990-1991, as Li. He’ll be back for the next two parts, as will Langella.

Trivial matters: This is the first three-part storyline ever done on Star Trek. DS9 will have many two-parters, and also a couple of multi-episode storylines in its last two seasons, but this is the only three-parter; there won’t be another one on Trek until Enterprise’s final season.

Li’s time in the resistance, and capture by Cardassians, was chronicled in the Terok Nor novel Dawn of the Eagles by S.D. Perry & Britta Dennison. The post-finale DS9 novels also established that a Bajoran Militia ship was named after him.

In the Mirror Universe, Li was the First Minister of Bajor, seen in the MU short novel Saturn’s Children by Sarah Shaw (a pseudonym for David Mack, in the collection Obsidian Alliances) and in the DS9 novel The Soul Key by Olivia Woods.

This is one of three writing credits for Jeri Taylor on DS9. Taylor helped Michael Piller run the writers room of TNG, and was the co-creator of Voyager and also its show-runner for its first few seasons. (Her other two credits will be the two-part “The Maquis,” a story that helped to set things up for Voyager.) This story was based on a pitch she had for TNG where the Enterprise would encounter a Bajoran woman trying to rescue a former Bajoran resistance leader who no longer wanted to be a leader. However, Michael Piller thought the story better suited to DS9, so Ira Steven Behr reworked it into the first part of a season-opening trilogy.

Walk with the Prophets: “All I had done was shoot an unarmed Cardassian in his underwear.” What a great start to the new season. Keeping the momentum going from the strong end to the first season, we have an episode that truly gets to the heart of what the show’s about: the recovery of Bajor from the Cardassian occupation. By expanding the story to three parts, the epic scope of the storyline gets a serious chance to breathe. Rewatching it, I was surprised to see that neither Winn nor Bareil—two essential characters in the Circle storyline—were even in the episode (they’ll be in “The Circle” and “The Siege”).

Ultimately, this episode is about symbolism and legends and leadership. Everyone, from Kira to Bashir to Jaro, speaks of Li Nalas in reverent terms, yet the man himself seems so—so unassuming. Yet we think of that as the modesty of the true hero, thinking of others before himself, unwilling to gloat over past accomplishments. Richard Beymer plays it beautifully here, keeping the role low-key, yet the growing frustration with his being fawned over becomes more and more etched on his face, culminating in out-and-out disgust with the Circle’s attack on Quark.

His confession of the true source of his legend is a tour de force, as he tells the tale matter-of-factly, yet with that subtle undertone of frustration.

And it’s one of a bunch of fine performances. Frank Langella and Marc Alaimo have an insincerity-off, as both spew impressive amounts of fecal matter. Both Terry Farrell and Siddig El-Fadil are noticeably more comfortable (and in the latter case, less annoying) in the roles of Dax and Bashir, presaging both characters’ improvement over the course of the season and series, and the episode opens with reassurance that Rene Auberjonois and Armin Shimerman’s magnificent double-act will continue apace.

But this episode is owned by Colm Meaney and especially Nana Visitor. The pair of them together are superb during the rescue, with Kira in particular showing the skills that got her through fighting a guerilla war: faking being first a Lissepian captain, then a comfort woman. As the two characters with the most experience fighting Cardassians, Kira and O’Brien are a natural pairing, which we got a hint of in “Emissary” while Sisko was communing with wormhole aliens, and which works beautifully here, Kira’s passion and drive a good match with O’Brien’s nigh-overwhelming competence.

And throughout it all, we have Sisko once again being the rock at the center of everything. One of the things I like about Sisko is that he can bring order to chaos when it’s required of him, but can also be pretty damned chaotic when it’s called for. For this storyline, it’s the former that’s needed, and Avery Brooks is magnificent, navigating the treacherous waters of Kira’s provocative mission, Bajoran politics, Cardassian politics, Li’s reluctance, and even his son’s burgeoning love life. (As always, the scenes between the two Siskos sparkle.) Also, I just love the fact that he doesn’t drop everything to talk to Kira, but takes the time to finish his conversation with Jake, gets his breakfast, sits down and starts eating, and then asks Kira what she wants.

An excellent start to a new season.

 

Warp factor rating: 9

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Keith R.A. DeCandido has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a graphic novel based on the universe of his novel Dragon Precinct and its sequels. Art will be by JK Woodward, (the artist on the Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover comic book). Please check it out and spread the word!

Amazon has just announced the launch of their newest publishing imprint Jet City Comics, which will be dedicated to producing comics and graphic novels!

Jet City arrives on the scene with new comics from George R. R. Martin, Hugh Howey (author of Wool), and Neal Stephenson. Original adaptations of George R.R. Martin’s short story, “Meathouse Man,” and Hugh Howey’s best-selling science fiction novel, Wool, will follow in October.

Jet City issues will publish on Kindle as standalone comics, as serialized comics released over multiple episodes, and as bundled graphic novels, with print editions available at Amazon and other comics retailers.

They’re also bringing back Dunk and Egg! George R. R. Martin comments on his projects for Jet City:

[More from GRRM]

“My fans have been clamoring for the return of Dunk & Egg ever since the graphic novels of “The Hedge Knight” and “The Sworn Sword” went out of print several years ago,” said author George R.R. Martin, “so I am delighted to announce that Jet City Comics is bringing them back—newly formatted for digital readers, and in paper for those who still prefer the traditional formats. And Jet City will be bringing you something new as well: the graphic novel “Meathouse Man,” adapted from one of my strangest, darkest, and most twisted short stories by the amazingly talented Raya Golden. I’m pleased and excited to be a part of Jet City’s takeoff. May they fly high.”

For Slacktory, Bryan Menegus has made a supercut video of all the pie and coffee scenes in David Lynch’s early 1990s television series Twin Peaks. Slacktory also created a pie chart (get it?) of the frequency of on-screen coffee sips taken by each Twin Peaks character.

image and video via Slacktory

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

It’s hard not to love a site with the tagline “Classic Literature. Original Gangster.” Sparky Sweets, PhD is your honored host and each week he drops a new episode offering thug-tastic summary and analysis of your favorite classics. It’s hilarious, of course, and super-smart and I want to make it mandatory viewing for all high [...]

We know beer is one of the oldest concoctions man has ever made, but it has been improved a lot over those thousands of years. Have you ever wondered what ancient beer tasted like? A collaboration between the University of Chicago and the Great Lakes Brewing Company aimed to find out. They used a 5,000-year-old recipe from a Sumerian poem to make a batch of ancient brew.  

To help ensure authenticity, they even used recreations of ancient wooden tools and ceramic fermentation pots based on artifacts found in Iraq in the 1930s, malted the barley on a roof, and hired a baker in Cleveland to prepare the bappir (“beer bread”) they used as the source of their yeast. And they heated the beer during the brewing process the old fashioned way: over a manure-fueled fire.

How did it turn out? Find out at Uncle John's Bathroom Reader blog. Link

mediablasters via eBay offers Avatar The Last Airbender: The Complete Book 1 Collection on DVD (pictured) for $16.08 with free shipping. (Amazon has it for Prime members for pennies more.) That's $2 under our mention from last August and the lowest total price we could find by $3. Book 1 features 20 episodes on six discs.

mediablasters via eBay also has Avatar The Last Airbender: The Complete Book 3 on DVD for $15.94 with free shipping. (Amazon has it for Prime members for pennies more.) That's $2 under our mention from last August and the lowest total price we could find by a buck. Book 2 has 20 episodes on five discs.

Your pooch might have a sweet, teddy-bearish face, but that doesn't mean he couldn't be cuter than he already is. Just add on Etsy seller sewdoggonecreative's "interpretation of a furry looking creature" and suddenly your little guy looks like a precious little bear-like creature from a popular scifi series.

Link

Do airmen at Vance AFB in Oklahoma actually wear this patch? According to Equestria Daily commenter charelz, yes:

I couldn't take pictures because it would have embarrassed my stepson if I got all fanboy squee in front of his buddies. (He is in 14-04; this is 14-05's patch and they were present for the Track Select for 14-04 where trainee pilots are told what kind of planes they're going to be flying - my kid could have taken T-38 fighter track but he wants to be a commercial pilot so he picked T-1s which is the transport/tanker track.) Also the impression I got is that they vote on the patches and they have to get approved by the brass. This was their third try, so I don't know how much was genuine and how much was irony but there was at least one non-brony who straight up refused to wear it and I overhead another complaining to his mom about it. But the flight instructor (who was a captain) was wearing it and he had no problems with his masculinity...

The Wonderbolts would be proud.

-via Equestria Daily

As part of its ongoing Drinking Games For Nerds series, The Warp Zone has created a Doctor Who drinking game called “Doctor Who the $#@! Drank the Last Beer?!” Some of the amusing rules include: Every time the Doctor uses his Sonic Screwdriver or Psychic Paper or says “I’m the Doctor,” players must drink twice. When anyone mentions that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside, take three drinks. When the Doctor regenerates or a companion leaves, finish your drink and “maybe even pour another. Sometimes it’s easier to drink the pain away.”

via io9

Japanese artist Sashie Masakatsu creates surreal paintings in which ramshackle orb structures float above post-apocalyptic, rubble-strewn landscapes. Some of the orbs consist of cobbled together building facades, others are made of vending machines and other everyday objects. A solo show of Masakatsu’s work will take place October 19 to November 16, 2013 at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York City.

via Hi-Fructose

By David Lambert - In just 2 weeks the folks at the Warner Archive will be celebrating - along with many of you out there, we're sure! - the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con. And we're sure that they wanted... (more)

After meeting with a class of 7th and 8th graders who had been energetically debating Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, I decided I needed to try and find a way to read it sooner rather than later.

This novel seems like a standard recommendation for anyone who wishes to read YA or write it. I believe it's an important book not only for women (teens and adults alike), but also for boys and men as it shows the difficulty of being the object of sexual abuse and the damage that occurs over the long term. Considering the high-profile events of the past year involving rape and the battle for women's legal rights, a book like this can broaden a male reader's understanding of how male behavior and aggression, as well as female silence, need to be discussed rather than dismissed.


Anderson's style and thus Melinda's voice make this a great example of how one can pace a serious novel without losing the dramatic elements. Short paragraphs allow for a satisfying momentum but also frame a number of key emotions and scenes rather than allowing them to be lost in the shuffle. Melinda has moments to analyze her situation, her feelings, her disappointing friend Heather, her parents -- but none of these moments extends for pages on end, so the reader is never caught wondering if Melinda is a whiner, even if she can be excused for being one.

In fact, by the end of the novel I realized that many of her comments and thoughts about people around her -- her parents, for instance -- were not simply facts but thoughts from an embattled, depressed mind. Put simply, we can't take her comments at face value, because they are warped by her mental state. For instance, she refers to her father as Rambo, one who constantly berates her for her grades. This is factually true, but how aggressive was he "for real"? I believe that she felt he was uncaring, but when his caring side reappears one has to wonder if she's forgiven him or if she saw a version of him that was more angry than he truly was.

Her mother, perhaps unforgivably, says that people who commit suicide are cowards. By the end, I'm not sure whether to hate her mother (personally I find dismissal of suicidal thoughts and depression to be repugnant) or to wonder how the conversation between Melinda and her mother truly went.

The key here is not to doubt Melinda's honesty. If anything, readers are the only one she speaks to until the end, so we are clearly trusted enough to get information from her. But I believe Anderson has given a stellar example of how difficult it can be for a depressed person, also a victim of assault, to effectively process the world around them and effectively communicate facts when feelings, difficult feelings, have taken over.

While some might suggest the ending and the lack of exploration of the villain might devalue the impact or complexity of the novel's exploration of sexual assault, I suggest that not one text can encompass the variety of responses to such a serious issue. Further, the villain has been defined by his actions and unlike other villains, there's nothing about his behavior that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Consider that many villains can be called the hero of their own story, that he or she believes they are doing something right even if the actual hero and the audience know it to be wrong. (Easiest example: Darth Vader thinks he's doing something right by wiping out the rebels; because we root for Luke Skywalker, we don't believe it).

In this case, the villain can't be understood as anything other than a purely bad person. And I don't think that's a flaw in the narrative because Melinda would not see him as anything other than evil because of what he does. The key to the novel is who Melinda trusts, how people respond to her when she acts and speaks, and who supports her no matter what.

(I'd suggest A.S. King's novel on bullying EVERYONE SEES THE ANTS and Matthew Quick's forthcoming FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK as complementary texts for readers wishing to understand the internal damage caused by abuse/assault involving male victims.)

Earlier this week DC debuted the new digital first comic based on the 1960’s Batman show. The comic captures the loopy tone of the TV show while showcasing some of the value add that a medium like digital can bring via DC’s new DC2 format that adds builds to the stories.

For a fan of the Batman TV show (which I am unabashedly) and a believer in the power of digital to change the current comics landscape, this was just about the most perfect comic reading experience I’ve ever had for just $.99.

And that got me to thinking about another DC-based TV show that could also benefit from a digital comic - Wonder Woman starring Lynda Carter. 

The recent documentary "Wonder Women - The Story of Untold Story of America’s Superheroines" did an excellent job laying out the impact of the TV show on a societal level. Lynda Carter “fighting in her tights" laid the groundwork for the female-led action shows we are watching today.

And on a pop culture level, the show brought Wonder Woman to level of awareness far beyond comics. I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people familiar with Wonder Woman are aware of her because of the show. 

In a recent interview with the LA Times about his upcoming graphic novel on Wonder Woman, Grant Morrison referenced the show saying:

 I thought was a really good and workable translation of the Wonder Woman concept for a mass audience. I like it for that reason, and also Lynda Carter just embodied the character so beautifully. 

Morrison is certainly not the only comic creator to express admiration for the Carter show. And two writers, Phil Jimenez and Allen Heinberg incorporated elements of the show into their runs.

There are some differences between the approaches that Batman and Wonder Woman took. Batman was designed as camp where Wonder Woman walked a line between camp and attempts at being an one hour drama. (Although Batman creator Bill Dozier did attempt an equally campy take on Wonder Woman which we can all be glad never happened).  You can see a bit of the struggle with tone in comparing the first season which was set in World War II and the later seasons which had a contemporary setting. That switch in both tone and setting was also driven by switch in networks from ABC to CBS. 

TV’s Wonder Woman also took a narrower focus of Wonder Woman than the comics presenting her as a kind, patriotic and heroic character filled with kick assery. The first season channels more of the fun side of Wonder Woman that can be seen in the early days of the comics (no really they are fun once you choose to just focus on the BSDM elements). 

One of the challenges of presenting Wonder Woman in comics is that because there are so few comics and projects outside comics that focus on her and because of her status as icon and character, it’s difficult for some fans to reconcile the current inteperation with what they believe the character to be. It’s interesting that Batman and Superman (though to a less degree) who have multiple comic and multimedia versions of their characters don’t have as nearly as big a problem. Their pervasive presence, I think essentially gives everyone a Batman or Superman that is theirs. 

Wonder Woman needs that too. And a zippy digital comic where she runs around doing bullets and bracelets and kicking the ass of Nazis and 70s drug lords seems to be an excellent way to start.

The opening credits to the later seasons even show us what the comic could look like:

My dream team on a digital first Wonder Woman ala Carter comic would be Phil Jimenez and Mike Allred.

Or Gail Simone and Stephanie Buscema.

Or about a half dozen other combos I can think of. Maybe going with different writers and artists for each issue or arc as they do with The Adventures of Superman and The Legends of the Dark Knight would be a good approach.

One concern might be getting permissions from the show’s participants. But given how Lynda Carter has continued to show her love for the character and the show I don’t think it’s that big a challenge.

As far as sales, my gut says that a Wonder Woman comic based on Lynda Carter would sell. Certainly not a Batman levels, the Wonder Woman show just did not have the same afterlife in syndication. But given how many people Lynda Carter is Wonder Woman and how digital enables audiences who might have never thought to walk into a comic shop it has an opportunity to attract incremental and new readers. This Wonder Woman comic would certainly be friendlier to a wide range of ages than the current version as well.

What do you think? Would you pay $.99 for a digital Wonder Woman comic based on the Lynda Carter show? And who would you choose for the creative team?

Not all princesses are nice. Herr Nilsson, a street artist in Stockholm, painted Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty lying in ambush for unsuspecting pedestrians.

Link -via Hi-Fructose Magazine

An action figure needs a place to act. And while pretending an empty shoebox is a secret HQ, or that dangerous caves lie under your bed, very few imaginations beat an awesome playset. While its heyday is mostly over, it’s worth celebrating the best playsets — new and old — that gave our toys a place to belong.

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