Review: Nosferatu (2024)

Robert Eggers delivers a terrifying, graphic, and atmospheric take on the classic vampire tale, managing to inject fresh horror back into a story that has spent decades being sanitized by sedutive pop culture bloodsuckers.

Remaking a film that is the progenitor of modern vampire cinema is an interesting undertaking; it's also been done before (Herzog's 1979 Nosferatu). So why did Robert Eggers —director of The Witch and The Lighthouse— feel compelled to put his own spin on the story?

Because he loves it. Like, really loves it. As a kid, he saw an image of Max Shreck's Orlok and became infatuated. As a teenager, he directed a stage version of it, and has been consumed by the tale ever since. If there was anyone going to develop a new (and different enough) film version of Nosferatu, it could have only been Eggers. His production design, especially, as well as immaculate choice in casting, are two primary reasons why this film works, and they're superb. Seeing a Depp in a desaturated and gothic town hasn't been this fun since 1999's Sleepy Hollow, which is a master class in horror vibes (Eggers is the heir apparent to Tim Burton, harnessing all of the atmospheric darkness of Gothic ambience without the tweeness).

I won't recount the plot bit by bit as literally everyone knows the story, but I do want to focus this review on what's different and great about this new version.

Depicting Orlok as a gruff, disgusting, and aggressive Transylvanian folk vampire

While Max Shreck originated the concept of the tall, lanky, creepy and quiet vampire, Hollywood in the intervening years has gotten really into sexy and dashing anti-heroes with its Gary Oldmans and Robert Pattinsons. Eggers bucks both of these and goes in an opposite direction with a festering, (literally) maggot-ridden, butch, and mustachioed Orlok. He is cloaked in shadow for the vast majority of the film, and you never get a really good look at him, which perhaps adds to his unsettling countenance. This Orlok is more Vlad the Impaler and Nandor the Relentless than Bela Lugosi.

In an interview with Eggers, he talks about all the research he did prior to making Nosferatu, and how he wanted to move away from more contemporary and well-known details that people are familiar with. A perfect example of this is the way Nosferatu feeds in his version —instead of the picture-perfect two fang marks on the soft part of a neck (the "I vant to suck your blood" marks), we get a viscerally disturbing scene of Orlok crouched over his victims and sucking the blood straight from their chest. The lore of vampires and cool and seductive sexiness is not here— it is crude copulation and a bodily hunger that results in death.

Placing all the agency in Ellen's story and giving her a powerful physical presence

Eggers makes a great choice and starts the film off with a young Ellen Hutter, who we learn is psychically connected to Orlok from the very beginning. This simple decision not only better bookends the narrative, it also makes the story make more sense. Why does everything transpire as it does? Because of the unearthly power of Orlok and the power of their horrible bond. But Ellen, as an upper-class woman in a repressive German Victorian society, literally has no power. Throughout the film, Ellen reveals her feelings multiple times to her husband and to Friedrich, and each time is rebuffed. Her seizures and literal possessions don't serve to showcase that she's telling the truth—instead she is ignored, tied to beds, and silenced with ether. Ellen knows that Orlok can only be destroyed by a fair maiden who offers herself to him willingly, and she does so. While the 1922 version originated this sacrifice requirement, it doesn't really make sense to the story because we know nothing about her. Eggers' version sets it up from the beginning, and the payoff works.

Showcasing the plague narrative in a way that shows the utter devastation Orlok brings

My issue with the prior two Nosferatus (Nosferati?) is that they feel so claustrophobically self-contained. The first, of course, because it's more than 100 years old and the technology simply wasn't there to tell an expansive, wide-ranging story. When Orlok boards the ship and brings forth the plague —both to the ship's crew and the people of Wisberg— you really see how horrible the disease is and its effects on society. The oozing and infected rat bites, the hysterically screaming patients in the hospital hallways, and the frightened populace hiding behind shuttered doors paint a picture of depravity and emergency that build to the climax. Ellen must put an end to this plague (both the literal one killing people and the figurative one stalking her) and only she can do it.

Finally, to return to the question of whether another Nosferatu needed to be made—I pose you this question: Do we need more Spider-Man movies? Is another Superman reboot wanted? This year, for the first time in history, the top ten grossing movies were all sequels. No film is ever truly needed. But if a filmmaker can expand on a story that's known and loved, resulting in you liking both the new one and the inspiration a little bit more, then it's successful. I dug this version, and look forward to seeing it again to really revel in the set design and the characters a bit more.

The Math

Baseline Score: 8/10.

Bonuses: Bill Skarsgard as Orlok is a novel and terrifying take on Dracula; Lily-Rose Depp's physical acting is captivating; the cinematography stuns you shot after shot.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, new NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

Book Review: The Unkillable Princess by Taran Hunt

Another SF heist novel that follows on the fallout and consequences of the series' first novel, in a more planetbound setting.

Things looked like they were going so well. Sean, Tamara and Indigo had obtained the Philosopher’s Stone Data and came to their compromise to try and bring peace to the ministers, republic and everyone else. They had a hold on a powerful political figure in the republic to help make this happen. But the secret message from his thought-to-be-dead sister upends their plans, and everything else in the bargain. But can his new friends trust him when Sean must deal Brigid, the titular Unkillable Princess?

Hunt keeps a lot of the chassis from The Immortality Thief in this her second novel. Sean remains our single point of view, and he is snarky, observant, clever, well connected and as crap in physical conflicts as ever. The novel keeps using its flashback format from the first novel, and sometimes it does this explicitly for terms of the heist-like portions the plot sometimes takes us to. And sometimes, it is character building, as we learn even more about the Sean-Brigid relationship through seeing flashbacks scenes before they were ripped apart (and Sean thought Brigid dead). We get a complex and rich story that is built up for Sean and Brigid, far beyond what had been given in the first novel, showing an interesting and very complicated pair of siblings with a relationship that is never, ever easy. 

This book is significantly shorter than its predecessor, and feels less of a “pressure cooker” than the first novel, showing that even by keeping the chassis of the first book, Hunt wants to and does experiment with some new things. Sean proves to be well connected, and those connections and his social skills give him some new options and ideas that were not in the first book. Now, given that Sean is dealing with his thought-to-be-dead sister, and some of the fallout from the first book, this gives the book a much more social feel to the conflicts in the narrative than the first. Sure, there are plenty of action sequences like the first novel, although our field of play is generally set in locations within a city, and there are no monsters this time other than the human ones (and yes, some of those are bad enough). So Sean really shines in this book in a way he didn’t in the first book. In the first book, he was a translator guy who was useless in a lot of the combat-oriented situations in the book. Here, he has more to do (translation actually plays a role here with a fun little bit between the siblings) and going in guys blazing as Tamara and Indigo can do, is a less effective strategy.

One other thing that this book does keep up, is the fact that “anyone can die”. Well, perhaps not our three main protagonists, like the first book, but this is a violent and deadly world, perhaps not to the level of the spacecraft in the first book, but with multiple espionage and government factions running around, to say nothing of the Unkillable Princess Brigid herself, there is definitely a shakedown of characters like in the first book, if not quite to the same severe levels. Hunt does a great job, thus, in presenting the opportunity for drama and heartbreak, especially when she expands Tamara’s backstory by introducing her own sister into the mix. There is a real sense of tension that is analogous to the first book, but in this new wider scenery and canvas.

As far as Indigo, he gets significantly less to do in this book than the first one. He is an alien on a strange planet (to him) that he is not supposed to be, and he spends a fair amount of the action offscreen and unable to intervene (until he has to, and dramatically). Given the nature and setup of the book, I am not surprised (Indigo wandering around openly would contradict the worldbuilding and setup) but it does mean that this book focuses far more on Sean-Brigid (and Tamara) and leaves Indigo a little out in the cold, narratively speaking. I enjoyed Indigo's presence for what we got of it, and his somewhat limited pages on the screen as it were are impactful.

This second book is the middle of a trilogy (?) and so does not have an easy endpoint or offramp like the first book does. I am willing to let that slide, because if you are reading a second book in a series, an offramp is less immediately desirable for me as a reader and reviewer, it means I have already committed to a universe and don’t particularly have to have an “out” after the second book. Given the pattern of the books, I predicted about three quarters in the shape of what and where and the why of the third book and I was not disappointed, although it should be said that Hunt surprised me in the denouement. It’s not quite the strange endgame of The Immortality Thief, but I do appreciate and like an author who works in good and clean lines...and is willing to surprise and color outside of them.

I wouldn’t start here, this is a book for people who read The Immortality Thief and want to continue with the series. A lot of the worldbuilding of that first novel is taken for granted here and not really recapitulated. It’s accepted and the consequences and downstream effects of that worldbuilding, including the “what now” from the ending of the first, are what Hunt is concerned about here. I am here to tell you that if you enjoyed the first book, you will likely enjoy this second with its different focus, but with much of the same or allied elements from the first.

--

Highlights:

• Excellent development and use of Sean as main character, especially in contrast and reflected with his sister Brigid

• Excellent continued and elaborated worldbuilding from the first novel. 

• A shorter, brisker work than the first novel, showing the author’s ability to shift gears

Reference: Hunt, Taran, The Unkillable Princess [Rebellion Publishing, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

On the gentle fantasy of Linoleum

A mindtrip to the Moon and back

You've seen this movie before: a moderately successful family man with a big house in a placid suburb realizes he's unhappy with his life, so he takes a sudden detour for a seemingly immature but actually deeply important self-exploration. His wife, a career woman hyperfocused on being taken seriously, finds his antics increasingly irritating, while their teenage daughter has begun an unusual friendship with the new neighbor, a sensitive boy with an authoritarian father. This situation will not end well.

You've seen this movie before. It's called American Beauty and it premiered in 1999. At first it was highly praised for its critique of hollow bourgeois aspirations, but over the years it has been reevaluated and criticized for its simplistic melodrama and its uncritical centering of the male perspective. And when Kevin Spacey's history of sexual misconduct was exposed, the movie turned radioactive. No one dares touch it. Which is a pity, because American Beauty, underneath all its creepiness and its self-serious attempts at edginess, did have a few valuable things to say about the search for happiness.

Enter the 2022 movie Linoleum. It was never advertised as a remake, but it so cleverly deconstructs the plot of American Beauty that it might as well have openly acknowledged the extent of its debt. Similarly set in the late 1990s, it proposes a more empathetic alternative to the earlier movie's cynicism. And from this point on I'm going to need to spoil the secrets of Linoleum.

Imagine if the plot of American Beauty were told by the protagonist of the 2005 movie Stay, and you'll get the gist of what Linoleum is doing behind the curtain. And that's the last warning before full spoilers.

The ending of Linoleum reveals that the husband, the husband's father, and the neighbor's son are symbolic incarnations of one single person, an old man with dementia whose memories are chaotically remixing themselves in his last moments. He's been telling himself a story where the events of his youth, his adulthood and his old age are reenacted by different characters at the same time. At the core of his jumbled memories is the night his real father tried to kill him and instead died in a crash.

What this does for Linoleum's intertextual relationship with American Beauty is expand the perspective we're being asked to consider. American Beauty is a very selfish story, one in which the husband's worldview provides the dominating voice that defines the terms in which the plot is meant to be understood. In Linoleum, the fact that the core characters are the same person means that their separate perspectives are equally significant. This is not only the story of a middle-aged man seeking to reignite his enjoyment of life, but also the story of a boy struggling to find his own path beyond his father's shadow, and the story of an old man who is losing the sense of who he is. These parallel looks at three stages of the same life story complete the theme that American Beauty could only portray at one moment: the chain of circumstances that feed our satisfactions and our regrets.

While the husband's chosen method of correcting the course of his life in American Beauty is to become a jerk and a sexual predator, in Linoleum the unhappy husband embarks on a more wholesome pursuit: he's going to build a rocket in his garage. He has always wanted to be an astronaut, and he can't let his better years go by without achieving that dream. Now, let's remember that this plot point is part of the deathbed hallucination, so it should be interpreted as a stand-in for whichever aspirations the actual protagonist may have had. Being an astronaut is the stereotypical dream of every child, and in the movie's narrative it's used to represent the yearning for personal self-realization. So the literal text of the story shows us a man building a rocket in his garage, but the meaning of the story is about daring to dream big, about aiming for the stars.

Another way Linoleum improves upon American Beauty is in the character of the wife. In the first movie, she's an obstacle in the husband's quest for meaning. We're meant to agree that he's right to despise her, because everything about her personality and her goals is fake. Clearly, this is a very male-centric way of writing a marriage in trouble. Linoleum opts for a more nuanced look. This husband (again, inside the badly remembered story) genuinely loves his wife, but they've gradually lost the capacity to respect each other's wants. There was a time when they dared to dream big, but the big things that were supposed to come to their lives never did, and now they feel stuck. The epiphany that begins the reparation of their relationship is the wife's refusal to live by someone else's expectations. The fact that she also turns out to be a multiple character in the hallucination gives her equal rank of thematic importance as the husband.

Live enough years and you'll become intimately familiar with regret, with the longing for the road not taken. The ending of American Beauty resolves this problem by offering its protagonist a terrible choice that he ultimately rejects. And at that moment his life is ready to end. Linoleum refrains from pretending that we're ever ready to end; it doesn't even try to resolve the problem of regret. What it does propose is that, from a broad perspective, regret is a matter of how we remember our lives. And if we end up remembering differently, we may find unexpected forms of contentment.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Quick round: My recent readings

The year ends, and it's time for another summation of the various readings I've been able to complete in between the big reviews (here's my post for the first half of the year).

This has been my itinerary for the latter half of the year:

At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono, translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter

(Two Lines Press, 2022)

A work-at-home father hears strange sounds from the nearby forest while his pregnant wife is visiting family. More a portrait than a story, this book abounds in luxurious poetic imagery that doesn't quite coalesce. The man's little son has a close link with the creatures in the forest, but the mystery is kept locked from the reader. There's passing mention of war, flooding and a refugee crisis, but they're just background decoration. Dialogues meander with no logical endpoint, scenes are abruptly cut, and character choices, especially those of the little kid, make no sense. The surreal events don't help tell a story; they're just there to give vibes.

Nerd Coefficient: 4/10.

Griso: the One and Only by Roger Mello, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn

(Elsewhere Editions, 2024)

This short but delightful picture book follows a lonely unicorn searching for its herd across landscapes and centuries, each gorgeously illustrated in a different art style. From 20th-century surrealism to Medieval illuminated manuscripts to ancient Greek pottery to Tang dynasty murals to Persian bas-reliefs to Egyptian wall hieroglyphs to Indian miniature painting to DIY chapbooks to prehistoric cave art, our unicorn can travel the world to its edge and back, stretch, mutate, metamorphose, be every color or none, talk to buffaloes and narwhals, and meet unexpected companions that will give meaning to its journey.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10.

Kenai by Dave Dobson

(self-published, 2023)

The winner of the third Self-Published Science Fiction Competition is a very strange book. Alas, the only meaningful way to properly speak of its qualities is to spoil it: imagine the plot of Tenet set in the Pandora ecosystem of Avatar. At the beginning, the novel appears to be about a xenoarchaeological exploration, but it quickly shifts into a breakneck solo infiltration/heist thriller, then a small first contact drama, then a time travel puzzle, then a war/survival adventure. I promise it all makes sense when put together. The first-person narration gives us a compelling protagonist with a fully delineated personality, forged by fire in a backstory marked by hard choices and regrets. Definitely a worthy winner.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Stranger to the Moon by Evelio Rosero, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean and Victor Meadowcroft

(New Directions, 2021)

Regular humans share an unnamed town with a different subspecies of humans, who are hermaphrodites and eschew clothing. In this town, the clothed subjugate the unclothed with every form of bigotry, including namecalling, public ridicule, segregation, ostracism, and legalized murder. We follow the perspective of an unclothed person narrating from inside a closet in the only house where the unclothed are allowed to live, which serves as both shelter and prison. Our protagonist describes with a sharp eye the peculiar social rules of this town and the extent of the evil that people will commit if it's deemed publicly acceptable.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

Clone by Priya Sarukkai Chabria

(Zubaan, 2018)

In a rigidly stratified dystopia of post-human slave castes, one slave dares hope for more. As it turns out, this slave is a clone of a high-ranked government figure who died mysteriously when she was just about to publicly challenge the established order. Will the clone finish the job? With a Buddhist perspective on the equalizing effect of suffering and death, tracing a whirlwind trajectory from the extravagance of cruel spectacles for the amusement of the spoiled elites to a series of extended flashbacks of previous reincarnations, this novel argues for the indestructible dignity of humanity even under the most horrific circumstances.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

The Other Shore by Hoa Pham

(Goldsmiths, 2024)

A girl in Vietnam acquires psychic powers after a near-death experience. Blessed by a goddess of compassion and guided by her beloved grandmother's spirit, she's soon afterward hired to help identify unmarked graves of soldiers, but when she notices that the Vietnamese government doesn't honor all dead combatants equally, she starts disobeying orders, taking bigger and bigger risks out of her sense of duty to the restless spirits. This novel addresses thorny questions about reconciliation, authoritarianism, migration, the limits of patriotic loyalty, our responsibilities toward our dead and the compromises that must be made in a world of imperfect rules.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

Neighbors by Michael H. Payne

(CreateSpace, 2014)

A young man has been banished to a psychiatric hospital by his detestable rich father. His strange neurological disease has put him in a wheelchair, with the side effect of opening his mind to the speech of animals. He doesn't take long to make fluffy and feathered friends around the block, and he's now eager to take the next big step and make his first human friend. Only two problems: he has very little experience with human interaction, and not all animals approve of his newfound gift. With deep empathy and brutally honest humor, this novel crafts from slice-of-life sketches a tender portrait of self-reinvention that dares laugh in the face of life's everyday absurdities.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

(Innsmouth Free Press, 2017)

In a near-future Mexico City ravaged by even worse economic inequality than the real one, a young woman barely managing to make ends meet with soul-crushing rent-a-friend gigs has a dream that refuses to die: the dream of one day saving enough money to emigrate to Mars. To do what? It doesn't matter. On Earth she has no career, or loving family, or romantic prospects, or nice neighborhood, or a reason to look to the future. She doesn't know what Mars can give her; all that matters is leaving. This short novel captures with hard-hitting precision the snowballing of little disappointments and resignations that precedes every migrant's choice to leave normal life behind.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

The October Daye Reread: The Unkindest Tide

Welcome back, dear readers. Today we’re going to revisit the thirteenth novel in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series: The Unkindest Tide. I’ve been waiting for this one for some time, at least in its concept. I’ve mentioned several times throughout this re-read that I’ve had a difficult time remembering when certain events happened. This is one of them. For at least 2-3 books, if not more, I would absolutely have assumed *that* was the book where Toby helps the Luidaeg bring back the Roane. But it’s not.

This is.

Also, it’s worth noting that I probably won’t quite keep up the same pace as the last couple of months of pushing through the re-read, but at least at the moment: Thirteen down, only five to go.

It should go without saying that I have every intention of spoiling absolutely everything that crosses my mind about the series, both past books and future, but I’m going to say it. It’s going to happen. I’m also going to wildly speculate, which is going to tie into the two biggest events of the thus far published series.

Let’s do this.

“This doesn’t bring back the ones who were lost. This doesn’t make things *right*. But it makes things better than they’ve been, and maybe that can be enough to let us move forward, you know? Maybe this is where some of the broken bits get fixed.” - Marcia

It’s time.

There are no straight lines in an October Daye novel. Here’s the path: The Luidaeg puts out the call to the Selkies that it is time for them to face the the consequences of their ancestors and they need to meet at the Duchy of Ships where Toby will assist in transforming the Selkies into the Roane. Unfortunately, that’s probably not a full novel. It’s a novella at best and more likely a short story. Murder and kidnapping will ensue. There is sidetracking. Before we get to that, I should probably, briefly, explain the Selkies / Roane - though I’m not sure the necessity of this given that The Unkindest Tide is really not a good entrance point to the series and if you’re here you probably already know.

Okay - so The Luidaeg is Firstborn (meaning, a child of Oberon and Maeve in this instance) and any children of Firstborn develop as the distinct races of Faerie. The Roane was the descendant race of the Luidaeg and they had the gift of prophecy, for which (amongst other cruelties) they were eventually slaughtered almost to full extinction. In the cruelty of that slaughter, the skins of the Roane were flensed from their bodies - but the result of that is, through her grief and rage, the Luidaeg used her magic to bind those skins of her dead children to the children of the killers (the killers of the Roane having been killed by *their* children to potentially appease the Luidaeg) and thus create the Selkies as a separate race in Faerie. The Luidaeg promised that one day there would be a reckoning.

The actual action of the core of the A plot of The Unkindest Tide is very straight forward. Once it is time near the end of the novel, The Luidaeg and Toby combine magic and transform the selkies into Roane and while they are not the same as what was lost, the Luidaeg sort of has her children back. Not *her* children, but her children. It’s almost anticlimactic.

There is also a minor grace when it is discovered how to make more selkie skins and provide an opportunity for the selkies to have seven more years to truly end their culture when the remaining skins will be bound as Roane - which depending on the timeline of future novels may or may not occur on page. This whole thing is traumatic for the selkies because they are being judged for their ancestors horrible actions and being held to account for it. They know what was done, but they didn’t do it and the selkies have their own society and culture and it is tied to their identify as selkies and it’s being taken away.

“I know you don’t have a choice about this. I’m still grateful. I’m glad to know you, October.” - the Luidaeg

Okay. I think that’s enough about the actual book, which was lovely. I want to speculate a little.

The series is about to get into finding Oberon, Maeve, and Titania - and the big question is asked here. The Firstborn are able to tamp down their Firstbornness so strongly that they are just viewed as powerful fae but not anything more, and they are so substantially *more* than their descendant races. The question is “how much more can the Three do? Can they disappear so that no one can follow them? Can they ever be found?”

Spoilers, but the answer is yes and here’s where it gets a little complicated. When October was given the task to bring her (thus far unknown) sister August home it was because August was lost on a quest to find Oberon. She was unable to find her way home or remember her family until she found Oberon and brought him back to Faerie. She failed.

She failed, but when October found August it was with the help of August’s father, Simon Torquill (the villain Simon Torquill as I often think of him). Simon was working on gradually redeeming himself from his awfulness that he did on behalf of Eira Rosynhwyr (Firstborn, major antagonist), which was deeply uncomfortable for me as a reader - and Simon took on August’s debts to bring her home - which means that *Simon* lost all his progress and all of his humanity and was functionally reset to Villain Simon until *he* can bring Oberon home. Just before he villains out, Simon tells Toby that he believes in her ability to save him. This is all The Brightest Fell

Well - as part of a new deal with the Luidaeg (don’t ask) Toby is tasked to bring Simon home again, which means to bring Oberon home. The king of Faerie who hasn’t been seen in five hundred years.

Spoilers, but we’ve already met Oberon. He’s a very minor character (Officer Thornton, who followed Toby to deep faerie and is now in a fugue state with the Luidaeg’s home). And Toby is going to bring back Oberon, we’re also going to get the returns of Titania and Maeve. In the published series so far - Titania returned as a murdering force of nature after slowly breaking Oberson’s geas on her. Titania was living as Toby’s best friend Stacy. Much more on that in the coming books as Be the Serpent is the heartbreaking return of Titania.

Maeve, though. Maeve is still hidden and I have a theory that seems to also be the common one in October Daye fandom. I had seen it mentioned online in the past but it felt more immediate reading The Unkindest Tide.

“No,” said Marcia. She met the Luidaeg’s eyes and didn’t flinch. “I have other paths to walk, and other roads to run.”

Maeve may well be Marcia and unlike Oberon / Officer Thornton and Titania / Stacy, I think Maeve knows much more about who she is than the the other two. Oberon deliberately buried his true self so deep that he couldn’t awaken himself. Titania was forced into other forms until she learned how to be a better person (spoilers, she doesn’t).

Something is not right with Marcia, a changeling with so little Fae blood in her that she needs faerie ointment to even be able to see Faerie. And yet, Marcia is not affected by the spells on the ship taking them to the Duchy, the spell that almost floors Toby and is worse the more human blood one has.

There are lots of little moments.

“Your name is Marcia, and you travled with the Count of Goldengreen. They *said* all that. But I don’t know you. Something about you isn’t right. Who are you?” -Captain Pete

“I’m nobody,” said Marcia, taking a half-step backwards, like she was getting ready to run.

I’m not sure that Marcia was scared, even in the face of a Firstborn’s full attention which would be enough to cow anyone. She just doesn’t want to be revealed for whoever she actually is. I think she’s Maeve.

There have been little touches of Maeve throughout the series, suggesting that she isn’t buried nearly as deep as Oberon and Titania. We’ll see, I suppose.

Random Notes and Random Quotes:

*I love all of the speechifying in this series. Folks are ready to spout off and declaim at a moment’s notice and I am absolutely here for it.

*I still don’t remember, but what does the Luidaeg know about Officer Thornton? Anything? I’ll find out in the next novel, so I don’t have long to wait.

*“Sometimes I *really* miss the old forms,” muttered the Luidaeg. “You should have come to me with a raw salmon in your hands, its gills still heaving, and been apologizing before you were even close enough to look at me. You might as well stand up. You’ve already insulted me as much as you’re going to.”

*“You won’t call Arden by her name, because her title is more important, but you’ll back-talk the Luidaeg? I just want to be clear on where your sense of self-preservation.” - Toby to Quentin.

*“I’m the motherfucking sea witch. I don’t have to answer your question.”


Next up on the reread will be A Killing Frost, in which a wedding request turns into a quest, the father of them all returns, Amandine make an appearance, there’s a divorce, and surprise transformations.


Open roads and kind fires, my friends.

Previous Rereads

Rosemary and Rue
A Local Habitation
An Artificial Night
Late Eclipses
One Salt Sea
Ashes of Honor
Chimes at Midnight
The Winter Long
A Red-Rose Chain
Once Broken Faith

The Brightest Fell

Night and Silence


PUBLISHED BY: Joe Sherry - Senior Editor of Nerds of a Feather. Hugo and Ignyte Winner. Minnesotan.

Let's hear it for The People's Joker

This is the rude shakeup that today's pathologically risk-averse studios need

It's often been said that superhero comics are this generation's mythology, to which it's often been replied that classical mythology wasn't constrained by copyright law and didn't have to obey corporate mandates. To fulfill the cultural function of myths, superhero comics would have to be freely usable by anyone. That's the approach that comedian Vera Drew has followed with the building blocks of the Batman mythos: to borrow a well-worn phrase, she's seized the means of narration, making them her own, resignifying them as milestones in her personal coming-of-age story and creating the first interesting live-action portrayal of the Joker since 2008.

Take note, Zaslav. You might learn something.

Drew's artistically and legally adventurous exploration of her life's journey, The People's Joker, is a nonstop riot of queer joy transmuted into queer pride sublimated into queer wrath. Via multiple formats (cartoon animation, action figures, glitch art, superposition of live actors onto handdrawn backgrounds, the occasional callback to actual DC movies), The People's Joker breathes new life into the plot of 2019's insufferably pretentious Joker movie.

In this version of Gotham City, Batman is a closeted child predator, the Daily Planet is a far-right conspiracist podcast, Arkham Asylum provides conversion therapy, and the deadly laughing gas that has for decades been the Joker's signature weapon is a common medication prescribed to suppress bad feelings. Our protagonist, an aspiring comedian who moves to Gotham City to escape her transphobic and outrageously narcissistic mother, founds a clandestine "anti-comedy" club with fellow members of Batman's rogue gallery to oppose the city's violent monopoly on comedy. While she strives to bring the power of laughter back to the people, she also has to navigate toxic romance, the surveillance state, institutional discrimination, overmedicalization, transgenerational trauma, and her own issues with self-acceptance.

It's hard to do justice to the explosion of art styles with which this movie is put together. Outdoor and action scenes feature material from dozens of artists, each with their unique take on character design, palette, and degree of detail. Yet somehow the incompatible parts build a harmonious pastiche where any search for uniformity matters less than playfulness, experimentation, and sincerity. Underneath the neverending mockery of Batman lore, a very personal truth can be perceived. This isn't the type of art that results from executive producers trimming the rough edges off a piece of soulless cashgrab. This is a scream from the depths of a generous heart that has been wounded and betrayed but still holds on to the promise of human goodness that can be found in comic book tales. Where official DC productions such as Aquaman 2 or Shazam 2 or Flash 1 flailed about in futile search of something genuine to say, The People's Joker lolsobs openly, with a vulnerable earnestness that authorized house style would never risk. Sure, there are tons of irony here, but the movie never wields it as a cushion against its own feelings.

The People's Joker looks at societal cruelty in the eyes and responds by baring its soul, making the incisive statements 2019's Joker wishes it had the audacity to attempt. Joker's facile edginess is left looking like the juvenile posturing it truly is next to Drew's carefree irreverence and raw intensity. In a year that has already given us pleasant surprises from independent queer SFF filmmakers, The People's Joker takes a wry look at a corporate media ecosystem saturated by too much content carrying too little meaning, and loudly, fearlessly, effortlessly gets the last laugh.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Close your eyes and enter Dream Productions

Turns out you can give yourself an epiphany without being quite sure how you did it

Dreams aren't stories in the strict sense: they don't proceed from an authorial choice, don't follow an ordered causal progression, and don't express a deliberate stance on their theme. Only the most surreal category of stories would include the semi-random free association carnival our unconscious minds are capable of spitting out. But dreams do have some sort of secret logic, a symbolic language that is unique to each of us. Because they're generated from our own thoughts, they can never tell us something we don't already know. It's just that sometimes we need to be reminded of an obvious truth.

The world of Inside Out is the perfect venue for that kind of exploration. In the limited TV series Dream Productions, a school dance approaches, and our girl Riley is going through the messy balancing act between her childish whimsy and her drive toward maturity. Unsurprisingly, the forces inside her head are working full-time to process those complicated feelings. The surprising part is how neatly the dreams-as-stories metaphor corresponds to the inner conflict.

In the abstract mindspace of Inside Out, dreams are made in a movie studio with a limited repertoire of plots and an unlimited VFX budget. We meet scripwriters, actors, directors, stunt performers, camera operators—but let's not forget these homunculi are actually fragments of Riley's mind. The cutthroat rivalries and artistic disagreements that drive this series are meant to represent unconscious urges that are channeled into dream imagery. The question troubling Riley is whether she has enough social competence for teenage activities; she loves fun, but she's terrified of being perceived as uncool. Her mother's less-than-ideal choice of dress for the upcoming occasion triggers a whole week of disturbing nightmares she needs to sort out on her own.

What adds a level of meta awesomeness to this premise is that it lets us witness (albeit very indirectly) the creative process at Pixar. Since its foundation, the studio has been praised by its strong grasp of emotional stakes; when you go to the movies for a Pixar production, you know you're going to end up crying, and you're looking forward to it. You love how Pixar makes you cry. You love how it seems to understand you so well. That is the degree of insight that Riley's inner movie studio has about her.

The use of dreams as a catalyst for self-knowledge and growth will be immediately recognizable to viewers familiar with The Cell, Paprika or Inception. Where Dream Productions sets itself apart is in the argument that we can learn from our dreams even if we don't remember them. And here the connection between dreams and stories is especially relevant. Maybe you grew up watching Pixar movies, but do you remember everything that happens in them? What Pixar seems to be telling us in Dream Productions is that what matters in their stories isn't their plot, but the emotional imprint they leave upon us. What stories do for us is something deeper than provide models to follow or cautionary tales. They suggest ways of feeling we hadn't considered. They test our stated values. They teach us to be human.

As if that weren't enough substance, Dream Productions adds yet another meta level: the series is told as a mockumentary where Riley's homunculi talk to the camera. Who is supposed to be filming this and interviewing Riley's unconscious? Who are these characters addressing? Go figure. Like in Diego Velásquez's painting Las Meninas, you're invited to put yourself at the center of this piece of art. You're meant to participate as a character in the story, but the world of the story is a slice of you. You're watching yourself watch yourself.

And here Dream Productions finally reveals the ace up its sleeve. I won't spoil how this plays out, but if you connect the idea of dreams as an improvisational form of storytelling with the idea of deliberate introspection turning its gaze on itself, you'll probably guess what I'm talking about. As I've said a thousand times on this blog, the best stories are those about stories. And Dream Productions draws you into an infinite page of potential plot, the text of which comes from a pen your hand is holding.

That is the hidden lesson of every story about dreams: you need to become aware that you are their only author, and you have always been.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.