Book Review: Star Wars: Reign of the Empire: The Mask of Fear, by Alexander Freed

The thunderous applause is gone and democracy is still dead

The best thing Disney has done with the Star Wars franchise by far is the decision to take the moment when democracy died with thunderous applause and use it to to point a mirror at the state of democracy in our own world. This was the entire raison d’être of Andor, and we got some of the best storytelling in the franchise for it. I am, for one, quite happy that their book division has taken the hint and started exploring this in the novels in earnest. As such, we have gotten the first of a trilogy that will be written by multiple authors, namely Reign of the Empire: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed.

Much of this particular novel is concerned with Lenin’s oft-quoted question (which he pilfered from Nikolay Chernyshevsky): “What is to be done?” Part of the novel begins on Coruscant, a world that, for the moment, feels very much like the Republic is still what it was before the Clone Wars. That is perhaps the most troubling thing about it. One of the novel’s major characters is Mon Mothma, by now a veteran of the Senate, who is doing everything in her power to oppose the fascist new order, and has paid a heavy price for it.

Mon Mothma, a minor character in the original trilogy, and then Revenge of the Sith, and then one of the standout characters of Rogue One and especially Andor, has an arc that seems laser-focused on a particular aspect of the (often grating) discourse among the American left: namely, the role of electoralism and elected officials in an organized resistance. A vocal, annoying minority says that voting is pointless and that the Democratic Party is inherently useless. Such a faction even exists within the Democratic Socialists of America, when Zohran Mamdani has proven the use of that strategy. Mon Mothma is far better than the likes of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. For one, she has suffered for her beliefs, and she bears the scars of the struggle. After the new order came, she was imprisoned and tortured simply as a warning, but she returned to the Senate to fight.

She remains a politician, and I don’t mean that as an insult. She is doing her job admirably, building a coalition to put restraints on the Emperor’s power. She is living the spirit of the old activist idea that you need to be working with a broad enough coalition that some of them make you uncomfortable. She cuts backroom deals, makes promises she probably won’t be able to keep, strategically lies, and makes a whole lot of sausage. She deals with criminals and the openly, proudly corrupt. She likes none of this, but she has a higher purpose, and is simply unwilling to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. She is focused on doing something, not being something, as Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò counseled.

At least some discussion of this novel has argued that Mon Mothma’s arc shows that what she did was ultimately for nothing. Having read the novel, I would disagree with that. So much of what her role in her society is, a role of which she is very cognizant, is a form of theater. The power of an opposition politician in a new autocracy (if you want to be pedantic, I think by the time of the novel the Empire counts, at best, as “competitive authoritarianism,” with the descent to complete dictatorship not occurring until the dissolution of the Senate and the empowerment of the regional governors) operates through the fact that she is seen actively opposing the status quo. If someone like Mon Mothma can speak out against Palpatine, she plants the seeds in billions of people throughout the galaxy that they, themselves, can too. To quote Rogue One: rebellions are built on hope.

Mon Mothma has a foil in another character whose stomping ground is between the trilogies: Bail Organa of Alderaan, by now adoptive father of Leia Organa. This novel is probably one the more detailed looks at his psyche that we get in the broader expanded universe (another is Karen Miller’s novel Wild Space, whose cover—which portrays a deployment of clone troopers that never appears for any substantive amount of time—makes the novel feel by-the-numbers but is actually quite a fun romp), and he plays off the Chandrilan senator in an entertaining manner. He is a maverick, someone who quite obviously enjoys the spotlight and the grandstanding and the big dramatic speeches. He is hesitant, at first, to endorse Mon Mothma’s plans, as he feels they are too dangerous, but he comes around. Even people like him, arguably more cynical than the true believers, have a part to play.

But this is not only a novel of resistance in a clean, bloodless way. One of your other major characters is a former Separatist agent, Soujen Vak-Nhalis, implanted with cybernetics and put in stasis behind Republic lines in case the Separatist cause is defeated. That prognosis came true; it did not foresee the coming of the Empire, or the possibility of a man named Saw Gerrera finding him and waking him from his slumber, seeking to enlist him in his own fight. Through Soujen and through Saw, the novel dives into the other side of the coin upon which Mothma and Organa stand: the part fought with guns and bombs, not speeches and coalitions.

As it becomes clear that actual legislative success will hit roadblocks, you see how people like Saw Gerrera came to make the decisions they did. The Empire is violent, as all empires are, and it is willing to kill in massive numbers to secure its rule from any conceivable threat. This proto-Rebel Alliance is not yet the army of goodness that we know from the original trilogy (if it ever truly was that). These are tough, hard people who are willing to kill and destroy for their goals, and for that, they make the Empire wince, if only for a moment. It is in this context that Soujen begins to really shine as a character. His cause is gone, but he was trained for a purpose. He has the opportunity to use his skills in the service of a new cause not entirely like the one that trained him. He is a tool, and he knows it.

You have other characters, too, bound by the central question of how they will respond to the new order. One is an Imperial intelligence officer who has spent her career in Republic service, believing fiercely in her obligations despite looking forward to retirement. She is handling a young person who is dealing with their own issues and ends up joining a fascist paramilitary, a sort of Imperial Proud Boys. Fascism preys on the disaffected, the disillusioned, those who have lost purpose and abandoned principle without even knowing it, while making enemies of those who truly stand for something.

Despite having no illustrations, the book does a very good job of feeling gray. This is a galaxy with all the color drained out of it, all the luxury of the late Republic washed out and replaced with the gray of an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer (and, yes, pedants, I am aware of the red stripe commonly seen on the Venators). You can imagine that if this book were filmed, it would have a blue tint to it, a coldness that has descended upon everyone. The atmosphere is suffocating, with every compromise the characters have to make and every little reminder of the new regime fostering an atmosphere of pure paranoia.

This has rocketed up to being one of my favorite books of the new canon, and I feel that it is worthy of being one of the best books the franchise has ever produced. What makes this book succeed is its thematic work and its character work; it is so timely, so utterly relevant in its content, that it achieves a self-actualization of the potential of the Star Wars universe of which few works in the franchise can boast. There was an anti-authoritarian kernel within the universe ever since George Lucas dreamed up the original film, and now, finally, people are brave enough to use it.

POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy.

Book Review: This Is Where The Future Bleeds by Mike Brooks

 Quality fantasy romp with a side of anti-capitalist fury

Mike Brooks is a writer that rarely disappoints. He's one of the most consistently solid writers of Warhammer: 40,000 fiction for The Black Library. He's written hugely entertaining caper-tinged space opera in the form of the Keiko series. And his Godking Chronicles trilogy was one of the very best epic fantasies of recent years. That record of consistency is happily continued here with This Is Where The Future Bleeds; a funny, entertaining standalone romp that's also a pretty effective satire of late-stage capitalism and its response to climate change.

The novel is set in a world where time has literally been stabbed: a god tried to murder the future and only partially succeeded. On the moor where the assault happened, time is frozen and the wound where the future was stabbed drips crystallised destinies as it bleeds. Hold a destiny and concentrate on it and you absorb the future it contains. The rest of the world (a reasonably standard fantasy secondary world which is dominated by humans but also has other sentient races) continues on relatively normally for centuries after the attempted temporal murder, except a new and lucrative trade in destinies has sprung up. Diviners, protected from the frozen moment by chronomancy and dodging the risk of rather nasty temporal monsters, lead expeditions to find raw destinies on the high moor. Soothsayers read the destiny and understand what future it promises. And, of course, brokers sell the destinies to the highest bidders.

The story opens in media res with our protagonist (and diviner), Kitt Carver, mid-expedition, looking for a lucrative destiny to sell to her broker. The dangers of the moor and her profession are quickly established: Kitt finds a destiny but is then immediately attacked by the temporal monsters mentioned above. She miraculously escapes that attack but runs into another after she comes down off the moor, by a street gang with violent moral objections to the destinies trade. Negotiating her way out of that leaves her alive but destiny-less. Just as she is coming out of her funk at that loss of income, Kitt discovers her broker has been murdered and is herself assaulted in the street. It quickly becomes clear that someone powerful has an issue with one of the destinies Kitt has recently sold, and the people who bought it are likely in danger. Thus begins a headlong dash to warn the buyers, that kicks off the plot in earnest.

This book is, before anything else, a boatload of fun. There is good quality action sequences, appealingly shitty villains, and a likeable main cast that is nevertheless not remotely perfect. The tone is irreverent and amusing without descending into Whedonesque quippyness where the snark is a barrier between the reader and the characters. There are well placed, effective jokes that I'm sure will nevertheless irritate some readers. Brooks winks at the fourth wall without quite breaking it, drawing on pop culture references that are funny now but may well date quite badly. One of my favourites is an early reference to a character named “Definitely Human Dirk Hamley, whose nickname tended to prompt questions already answered by his nickname.” This clear reference to the "My ‘Not involved in human trafficking’ T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt” meme of the past decade may well break immersion for some readers, but for two reasons, I don't object to this and other jokes like it throughout the book. First, it actually made me laugh. Second—and perhaps more generalisable—the reference to the real world reinforces that the destinies trade in the book is a pretty clear satire of the fossil fuel industry, specifically the capitalist political economy more generally in ours.

Destinies are valued based on how appealing or useful the future they will push their holders towards are. So the poor can't afford any beneficial destinies at all, the middle class are limited to extremely moderate helpful ones, and the rich can buy huge, positive destinies that significantly tilt the future in their favour, allowing them to get richer, buy more destinies, and tip the scales even more towards them. They are literally buying the futures of others to benefit themselves and entrench their privilege. The reference to extractive capitalism is already clear, but becomes moreso when a number of doomsday warnings from seers appear—perhaps the future is not just bleeding but bleeding out. The future potentially dying is of course a problem for everyone, but those that benefit from the status quo both downplay the risk and suggest that, even if it is happening, there's nothing we can do about it, so might as well enjoy their privilege while they can. Those at the top of this pyramid are treated with pretty uncomplicated contempt by the narrative, but it also makes the point that there are a lot of people involved in the trade whose day-to-day lives depend on it and who are just making a living rather than getting rich. It doesn't excuse their complacency, but I think Brooks does understand it: inertia is a hell of a thing to shift if those with the most power are unwilling to contribute.

This level of reasonably on-the-nose satire only works because, as mentioned above, the whole thing is a lot of fun and the cast is appealing. Kitt, the main character, is a slightly reluctant hero. Decent and hardworking, but also out primarily for herself and her friends rather than actively trying to save the world. Her old friend, Derna, is menacing and potentially positioned as an antagonist, but as the narrative goes on, it's clear there's more going on than that. Yes, she is dangerous and remains so, but it's slowly revealed that she is clearly neurodiverse and holds a reliable moral compass and lack of nuance that make neurotypical folks uncomfortable, which is where at least part of the sense of menace comes from. The rest of the support cast is well drawn, with the partial exception of a drunk seer that falls a bit flat. I get what the point of the character is for, and it's not badly written—a seer driven mad by thousands of voices of the fractured future instead of just the one a healthy timeline would have—but it's the closest the book comes to fantasy cliché and I'm not sure it quite works as intended.

The setting is also, in a low key way, extremely queer. Kitt and Derna are both bisexual; Kitt's sibling is enby; there's a binary trans character later in the book. All this is entirely taken in stride by the setting and its characters (including the unsympathetic ones). A number of axes of oppression are explored in the book, but sexuality and gender identity aren't: it's just not a big deal. I do like that we can be presented with a queernorm world that's not remotely cozy and is in fact quite crappy in a lot of other ways; queernorm doesn't have to (and shouldn't) always mean utopia.

Put all this together and you have a very good quality fantasy romp that has rather more to say than might appear on the surface. This Is Where The Future Bleeds won't change the world, but it might make you want to.

Highlights:

• A fun and funny standalone fantasy
• Queernorm without being cozy
• Effective satire of capitalism and climate inertia

Nerd coefficient: 7/10.

Reference: Brooks, Mike. This Is Where The Future Bleeds [Titan, 2026].

POSTED BY: Eddie Clark. Professional nerd by day, amateur nerd by night. @dreddieclark.bsky.social 

Book Review: Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler

Nayler is back on animal consciousness, but this time with a whole lot more of man's inhumanity to man to go with it.

If you've read any of Ray Nayler's previous work - like The Mountain in the Sea or The Tusks of Extinction - you'll know that animal consciousness is something that often occupies a central position in his stories. Whether it's octopodes and their inscrutable behaviour or the de-extinction of mammoths, he often writes not just about other ways of thinking than human ones, but of how the lives of those animals work in the world as it is, shaped and controlled by humans. And, naturally then, of the threat we pose to them. This does not, generally, make for cheery reading.

Unsurprisingly then, his next novel, Palaces of the Crow, set in part during WWII in war-torn Lithuania, is not exactly shifting the needle on that. I might describe it as "desperately sad".

The story follows four young people as they are caught up in the events of the war. Neriya is the Jewish daughter of a doctor who wants to become a biologist when she grows up. She has spent her life befriending the crows at the shtetl she spends her summers away from Vilnius in, and when they lead her away from home one morning, she trusts them enough to follow. It is what saves her from the destruction of the entire village. Czesław is an underage soldier, whose family remembers their history as Polish nobility even as they live as hunters in the Siberian forest. He is pulled into the Red Army underage, and when his unit encounters the destruction of war, ends up fleeing into the woods for their familiarity. Kezia and her family are Roma, and she too must flee into the woods when the Soviets come to kill them. The Boy has no name, and cannot speak, but has somehow survived alone in the wreckage of a village until Kezia finds him.

One by one, they find one another in the forest, and find with one another the community necessary to survive the forest in winter. They have different skills which they teach one another - Neriya shows Kezia how to read, Czesław shows Neriya how to hunt - and different lives and experiences that they share in the close proximity of a small shelter and harsh circumstances. Their different backgrounds have taught them all to be deeply, rightly afraid of the adults around them, and who sometimes they hear or see coming through the woods, and so it is only with each other that they can be safe and survive.

But they also have help from the crows.

There are a few parallel threads running through the story, interacting but also distinct. As a WWII story following a Jewish girl, a Roma girl, a boy with complex heritage within Russia and an orphan who cannot speak, it is necessarily one thinking about war and what it means to survive it as a marginalised person, as someone who is being actively hunted down by state, by collaborators, and by predatory people who want something and think that they can get it at another's expense while the world is so openly hostile. Nayler does a good job here, I think, in conveying the stark and horrific reality of these children's experiences - never letting us forget that they are children while also seeing how survival has robbed them of their childhood - alongside the community they find together. It is not community as heart-warming story so much as vital tool of survival. The bond between them is often portrayed as being about knowing one another intimately and totally, the proximity blurring the boundaries between their separate selves, rather than about fondness or good feeling. And it is something that changes them all, and stays with them for the rest of their lives.

The way Nayler handles the group relationship is probably one of the strongest parts of the book. Their interconnection, the way they are forced to grow up together, in this situation, walled off from the rest of the world without news or hope of rescue, is intense and, at times, heartbreaking. The narrative voice helps immensely with this, lingering on moments good and bad long enough to give them weight but without dwelling so much as to feel untrusting in the reader, providing emotionality but always at a slight remove. It very much feels like the voice of someone who is simply getting through it, surviving as well as they can. Someone who has to keep moving, even as they understand the enormity of their situation.

This story alone would be worth reading. But Nayler interweaves this with a story of a group of crows who at first seem just like any crows. They're already smart birds - there are plenty of stories online of people befriending them and being brought little gifts, like Neriya is brought at the start of the book. But as the story progresses, as the children move deeper and deeper into the forest to escape the dangers of humanity, more and more is revealed of the life and capabilities of the crows, and it begins to be something just that little bit more than in reality.

This is a little departure from my previous forays into Nayler's work. Where elsewhere it is decidedly in the realm of SF - a future what-if - this leans more towards the fantastical, but without ever really fully committing to something specific. While I chose to read some of the more ambiguous moments in a more SFF way, it would be possible, and not particularly convoluted, to find mundane arguments for them too. And this feels a very clever choice - it keeps the story bedded firmly in the perspectives of its characters, with their limited knowledge and understanding, their state of mind in this strange, hidden place, primed to perhaps believe in something more and without the tools to fully investigate it to prove either way.

But even as he departs into something a little more mysterious, he does not step away from some of his core concerns. A key part of crows' part in the narrative is about protecting them, and about the risk that humanity poses to them if their story is told to the wider world. Neriya wants to be a scientist, wants to document what she learns and write it up, but she is also very conscious of the cruelty of the world, and of what that cruelty could do if pointed at the crows who have helped her so much. There is a tension throughout the story between the benefit of learning and sharing knowledge, as often demonstrated as the skills shared between the children become the tools of their survival - and in the benefit of secrecy and silence, of locking things away forever, especially from adults, because they have demonstrated they cannot be trusted with the important things, whatever their promises.

This is, to me, an unusual perspective from an SFF author, but a welcome one. It feels critical, if one is writing stories about the validity and importance of consciousnesses other than humans, to decentre the story's understanding of the stakes from human assumptions and priorities, even about science. I wasn't expecting it at all, but it fits perfectly, especially in the context of a WWII story.

And that I think is the story's big strength - context. Nayler has pared down the scale. Rather than trying to write a story that encompasses the whole of the war, which is a subject that has been tackled before and will be again, by many hands, he chooses instead to limit it to this one place, these few people, and enrich it with a deeper understanding of exactly where they come from, and exactly the here in which the crows are. Every character feels well realised, well-situated, and just as they come to know one another in all their depth, so too do we, in these two crucial winters of their lives. This makes all the more sense when the viewpoint characters are children whose understanding of the world prior to the war is limited by their own experiences. And the thoughts about animals and their place in the world are scaled back too - the reader is left to draw their own conclusions from what they've seen, and to figure out what value they place on it, and the decisions of the characters.

Because, by the end, some of the characters do make possibly dubious decisions. How to weigh those up in the scales? An exercise for the reader. And I like it that way.

Palaces of the Crow feels like a development of Nayler's previous work and themes, with all the ingredients that made them work well, but also with an extra sophistication of writing that makes it something a little bit more. It has made me more exciting to pick up his future work, and to wonder where he might go next. He may still be thinking about animal consciousness, but this book shows there's a lot more to do with that, and plenty of options for places to take it that mean it's a well far from dry.

--

The Math

Highlights: Do you like to be sad? Hoo boy will you be sad!

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Reference: Ray Nayler, Palaces of the Crow, [MCD, 2026].

POSTED BY: Roseanna Pendlebury, the humble servant of a very loud cat. @chloroformtea.bsky.social

Book Review: Everybody's Perfect by Jo Walton

A fantastic love letter to the city of Venice, set in a world very much inspired by it, but just next door. 

The dream of La Serenissima. A city of canals, of masks, the most Serene Republic. Unique even among the diverse and unique city states of Pre-Modern History. A crossroads city. A dreamlike city. A place of wonder.

In Everybody’s Perfect, Jo Walton gives us a literally dream-like version of Venice, 

The novel is structured a little differently than most modern novels, genre or otherwise, and in the afterword, Walton explains that her model for the novel is Marguerite Yourcenar’s A Coin in Nine Hands and she herself has used this pattern before in short stories.

We meet a variety of characters in her setting, of which I will speak in detail shortly. I want to focus on characters and structure first, since it is essential for you the reader to decide if you want to tackle this book. We get a series of characters who are connected in a chain and are not repeated as points of view. Each character is given what we in the Secret Amber Cabal would recognize as a “trump description”: A set of iconic phrases and a described portrait of the character.

As an example, let me give you the first, Tiry:

Aspect: Strength. Time of Day: Afternoon. Muse: Thalia. Liberal Art: Rhetoric. Animal: Lion. Sphere: Moon. Social Class: Artisan. Virtue: Fortitude. Species: Bauta. Description: A man with a face that is blank except for eyes and a jutting chin is lifting a house from where it has fallen on a lion. The lion is grinning. 

We get these for all the subsequent characters as well and these give us an immediate iconic and archetype for each of them. The pattern of the novel has a character in their chapter, in a first person point of view, go about their day, interact with the city and its people, and eventually meet the next point of view character. Tiry hands off to Khadasha who hands off to Pell who hands off to Taddeo and on and on. As the novel goes on, we get fewer “brand new” characters and start hitting characters who have shown up in the narrative, but have not had a point of view. But in this way we get a braided story over a nebulous but seemingly short period of time in La Serenissima, getting to know these characters, and of course, the nature of La Serenissima itself. The characters are from a variety of species, backgrounds, and histories and give us a portrait of the city itself just from what they see. 

And what a city we are given a view of. La Serenissima is not our Venice, but rather lies in a dimension (the actual word here is hypostase), that is different than our material plane. There are nine hypostases, ranging from the unreachable God in the first all the way to Primal Chaos at the bottom in the ninth¹ . The material world of our own is the seventh hypostase. La Serenissima is in the eighth, and that gives it an amorphous dreamlike quality to the city. This is a city built on and running on dreams, and if you leave your gondola unattended and unwatched for too long, it will fade away into nothingness. Things can come up and out of that formlessness as well. Given that amorphousness, La Serenissima can and does act as a connection point, a hub between worlds. Species of various kinds can get to other worlds quickly by transferring through La Serenissima² . Various species including humans (called Venetians here³ ) make their way and live in this dreamlike city where time flows a little weird, there are no days per se, and the strivings of the populace slowly breathe an idea into being. 

So there is a lazy, dreamlike feel to La Serenissima, it has the canals and lagoon and other accoutrements of Venice. The novel is awfully vague for a long time “when it is on Earth” and I found myself wondering that. In the course of the characters, we finally hit upon a Venetian, and find out how and why they are there, and when they left Venice of our world. So there is a definite feel of how the city feels and acts being different not only because of the dream like aspect of this dimension, but also what the characters bring from where they are from to their perception of the place. 

So in addition to seeing the city through these diverse characters as being the backbone of the novel, there are a couple of plotlines going on here, inspired by magic and foretelling. There is a plague afoot, but there is a prophecy that the cure for the Blight will be found. And then there is the idea, inspired by the real Venice, that a Doge will appear and will “marry the sea”. The story of the book is from the mystical genesis of this idea, through to its culmination⁴. Along the way, we get stories of romance, and loss, and heartbreak, and searching, and coming together. The linked stories together form our tapestry and our narrative.

So if you are looking for a traditional secondary world fantasy narrative, Everybody’s Perfect is probably not quite the right fit for you. This is a book to immerse yourself in a series of characters, whose portraits, struggles and lives together tell a small but important story of changes coming to La Serenissima... and to the characters that we meet. It’s a small fantasy, a gentle fantasy. If I had to pull out a theme of the book, it might be that to have a better world, and a better life, we have to be able to imagine it can and will be so. We have to be able to dream it into existence before we can build it into existence. In the La Serenissima, dreaming it into existence is more than half the battle. On Earth, for us Venetians, it's a lot more work than that but without being able to imagine a better world, we have no capacity to make that better world possible. Everybody’s Perfect shows the power of that belief.

--

Highlights:

• Dream like world based on the fantasy of Venice
• A braided novel, following a variety of characters through their time in La Serenissima
• Immersive, gentle, enthusiastic fantasy. 

Reference: Walton, Jo, Everybody’s Perfect, (Tor Books, 2026)

¹ Listening recently to a podcast on the novel Piranesi, it occurs to me that the world of Piranesi could easily be slotted into one of the higher hypostases, as being closer to the godhead because of being a realm of platonic forms. 

 ² Ada Palmer has described the real life medieval Venice as the airport hub of the Mediterranean and Walton seems to have decided to run with that ball all the way to the goal line, here. La Serenissima may not be the one true world of which all others are but shadows, quite to the contrary, but it is the one true hub that every location can connect to. And one close to Primal Chaos at that. If I were still running new Amber games, I’d steal this in a second. I may yet steal it for other TTRPGs I am running. Another RPG that comes to mind in thinking on this novel is the system Everway, which relies on artistic cards for resolution mechanics. 

³ It’s similar to how in post-Roman Europe such Europeans, regardless of their origin, were called Franks by those outside of Europe. Anyone from Earth is called Venetians, because that’s the only point on Earth that connects to La Serenissima.

⁴I am reminded of the latter books of the Just City trilogy by Walton, where the gods themselves are caught up in the webs of fate. 

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

Film Review: The Dog Stars

Artsy vibes in a slow-paced, post-apocalyptic search for meaning

Post-apocalyptic adventure is always in abundant supply. Shows like Paradise and The Last of Us, films like A Quiet Place and Leave the World Behind, books like Station Eleven, and even dark comedy anime like Zom 100, are among many that torment us with difficult questions and terrifying imaginations. These stories imagine contemporary society decimated and desperate, struggling to survive by using long forgotten skills. And, we have the irony of characters longing for their lost society while realizing the greatest danger, in their new devastation, is often other humans. The Dog Stars is a new film from Ridley Scott which explores this familiar territory from a slower and more character focused pace. Rather than concentrating on the typical screaming and running (which are also present), the film has long stretches of quiet memories, contemplation of the stars, and simple acts of work and fellowship. This storytelling style is appealing, at least initially, for those who want a quieter story. However, it becomes harder to sustain as the story makes unusual narrative choices.

In the near future, a pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, leaving much of society and the societal infrastructure decimated. In a mountainous area outside of Denver, Colorado, a kind-hearted young mechanic named Hig (Jacob Elordi), manages to have a comfortable, subsistence existence in partnership with a grumpy, ex-military survivalist, named Bangley (Josh Brolin). Hig is also a pilot and periodically flies his beat up small plane into the remnants of Denver to scavenge supplies and to visit his former small home to grieve his deceased wife. He also visits and supplies an extremely isolated Mennonite community whose leader (Benedict Wong) has taken in various orphans. Hig’s only connection to his former life is his dog Jasper. In the aftermath of the devastation, the greatest threat is other survivors, who Bangley nicknames “rats.” They move in mobs and attack and destroy at random. The “rats” are treated as inhuman, almost zombie-like, although they are not zombies. After a falling out with Bangley, Hig flies away in search of a mythical town called Grand Junction, hoping to find community and meaning for his life. However, a crash landing connects him to an isolated farmer, Pops (Guy Pearce), and his daughter, Cima (Margaret Qualley), a former New Yorker and med student who came home to Colorado just before the pandemic. The film follows Hig and his various companions as they search for meaning and navigate survival amidst the danger and devastation of their new existence. 

Surrounding this narrative is the rural, mountainous terrain often seen from Hig’s small plane. The slower pace is comparable to a film like Train Dreams, last year’s Oscar best picture nominee, in which an ordinary person accepts extraordinary changes with sorrow, calmness, and introspection. While Train Dreams had an ultimate message that was poignant and powerful, The Dog Stars is a journey with jarring changes in tone that make its ultimate message unclear. 

The film’s greatest strength is the powerful but understated acting of the four leads. For the most part, the story is told primarily through the protagonist Hig’s perspective. Hig is a kind-hearted hero, grieving his wife, helping orphans, and catching the eye of the farmer’s daughter. The film also connects us to Cima, Pops/Jack, and Bangley who also all feel like archetypal characters. Bangley is the angry, loner, warrior. Pops is the salt-of-the-earth protective father. Cima is the strong, attentive, caretaking love interest. All of the characters feel historical rather than futuristic. This vibe is unexpected but it does fit with the theme of society unraveling and returning to its earlier periods. Of the four leads, Cima is the closest to a contemporary character and, in many ways, is the most relatable with her longing for coffee shops and commute playlists, rather than comfortably settling into their new life of subsistence farming and isolation. The slow paced storytelling works in the first half of the film due to the understated but powerful acting of the four leads. The authenticity of the characters draws you in and creates meaningful and engaging tension.

However, as the film progresses, the narrative begins to take strange turns that undermine the original literary feel of the opening scenes. Eventually, the story starts to feel like more of an old-fashioned Western than a speculative post-apocalyptic survival film. The repeated moments of the settlers trying to fight off the uncivilized marauders start to feel uncomfortable, as if we are suddenly watching a different movie with a different theme. Then, the movie takes an even weirder turn when the group encounters “civilized” people who are equally cruel and barbaric, and are weirdly costumed in the style of the residents of the Capitol in The Hunger Games. The messaging seems to be that both “city” people and “wild” people are evil, and at some point it’s unclear who the target audience is for this story.

As someone who enjoys slower paced character exploration, The Dog Stars has a lot of appeal. Especially since the acting is excellent, and there is a bit of romance and a classic green flag hero. The theme of finding joy and community in moments of devastation is one that seems particularly resonant. However, the overall storytelling is, at times, undercut by some unexpected narrative choices and significant thematic shifts. While the story strives to be ultimately optimistic, especially in the last scenes, the thematic inconsistencies likely mean that, at the end of the film, viewers can’t help but feel uneasy, on multiple levels.

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The Math

Highlights:

• Slow paced, post-apocalyptic journey
• Strange and jarring thematic choices
• Solid acting and archetypal characters

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Game Review: Saros by House Marque

 Who is the King in Yellow?

Artist: Simone Silverstri

Saros, directed by Greg Louden and written by Alex Meer is Housemarque's spiritual successor to Returnal, the 2021 bullet hell first entry from the developer. Returnal was about grief, about guilt and took the form of a journey through a science fiction version of Hades as the main character, Selene wrestled with her own memories and her culpability in the death of her child. This combining of intense third person action with a story that really plumbs the depth of personal despair is repeated here although the narrative is very, very different.  

Saros, like Returnal, is a third person action RPG with roguelite elements that has you dying repeatedly and dodging endless streams of incoming fire. Returnal’s reference points were the Ancient Greek underworld, small town European grief and the concept of how we navigate such terrors. 

 

Saros takes its reference points from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, a forerunner of modern cosmic horror who has influenced everything from Lovecraft to True Detective. Interestingly I think Saros has a deeper reference point which is less Chambers than Chambers’ own inspiration – the 1886 story, "A Man in Carcosa" by Ambrose Bierce. 

 

As with Beirce’s story, the main character in Saros, Arjun Devram, played brilliantly by Rahul Kohli, wakes from sleep to find himself lost in a strange and uncanny wilderness. Saros transposes Carcosa from an ancient ruin on Earth to a futuristic planet far from home being exploited by a callous corporation called Soltari. Arjun is security for a small team sent to discover what has happened to previous expeditions to this planet. One of those expeditions included Arjun’s partner, Nitya and that, really, is why he’s here – to find her and to save her. 

 

Right from the start Arjun’s main drive is that of a man who thinks he has to save those around him but despite his best efforts he cannot save even those closest to him, let alone find his lover. This drive, this solipsism, rooted as it is in a strange toxic form of masculinity is not left unquestioned and unchallenged and what Arjun discovers about his relationship and himself is devastating but subtlely foreshadowed right from his first conversations.

 

The story unfolds as you progress through items you can collect – logs, recordings, memories and the like. You also meet the occasional NPC who each have their own agendas and have very little interest in Arjun’s goals. 

 

What’s brilliant about this manner of storytelling is that you can engage with it as much or as little as you like – the gameplay is thrilling – solid weapons, tough levels, fantastic design and plenty of secrets. If you wanted you could ignore every element of the story and simply blast your way through the game. 

 

That’s not for me and I’m glad because the story is masterfully delivered. I won’t spoil it here except to say that what you learn about both Carcosa and Arjun is brilliantly layered – the story of Carcosa itself, a ruin by the time Arjun arrives, its once majestic world slowly being revealed as a place riven by war and slavery and hubris.

Alongside Carcosa is Arjun’s journey of self-discovery, the kind that only someone who wakes with no sense of looking back and no questions about his past can uncover and it’s suitably grim and unhappy. 

 

Finishing this game then comes with the deep satisfaction of beating that final boss together with shock and ambivalence about who you learn the characters are and what they’ve done to reach this point. This contrast is well structured and the writing adds to that. Kohli gives a great performance as a man who doesn’t look back, who can only travel forwards but who neverthless, slowly, comes to realise that these drives aren’t noble at all, but are really acts of self-preservation whose impetus is obscuring and erasing his own flaws. 

 

Arjun is the kind of man who, having done something bad, doubles down at each opportunity until he becomes something truly monstrous. Equally as interesting is Saros’ view of whether, having made that journey, you can step away from the edge. There’s a scene right at the end where he’s facing everything about himself and he’s stood there, defeated, accepting and vulnerable and all of this is captured in Kohli’s face without any words, the kind of shot you expect to see in the cinema.

 

All of this only works as a story if the game does too – it’s heavy material and not one many action RPG players might gravitate towards if it was handled too obviously. Fortunately Saros’s play is, as already mentioned, great but on top of that, the cinematography, the camera and the world building are phenomenal with a colour palette and design aesthetic that feels ancient, vibrant and distinct all at once whether you’re in wild mountains, fetid swamps or angelic cathedrals.

 

Leading you through the game is Sam Slater’s incredible soundtrack. Intense, grinding, piercing and very, very heavy, it propels you through fights, holds you tight during cut scenes and memories and never lets up. Slater’s better known as a Drone Metal artist but that sensibility works perfectly here where internal conflict is externalised in blasting away at dozens of different enemies each with their own unique patterns and strategies.

 

The soulslike elements work well and difficulty is what you might expect with such a game although there are some really neat mechanisms that allow you to tailor the gameplay to your own preferences (at least to an extent). 

 

It’s rare for me to just keep playing a game, to keep exploring, to keep shooting when the credits are done, but Saros is an experience so smooth with so many little spots to explore and story elements to uncover that I’m still thinking about it now a month after I properly finished it and got the ‘true’ ending hidden from those who stop after the initial credits roll.

 

Saros is gaming done right and I look forward to whatever Housemarque do next.

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The Math

Highlights:

• Incredible action
• A remarkable story about culpability and self-knowledge
• A non-western viewpoint

Nerd coefficient: 8/10, visceral, brutal combat combined with gorgeous visuals and a great story. Highly recommended.

Reference: Housemarque, Saros [Sony Entertainment, 2026].

STEWART HOTSTON is an author of all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. He's also a keen Larper (he owns the UK Fest system, Curious Pastimes). He's a sometime physicist and currently a banker in the City of London. A Subjective Chaos, BSFA and BFA finalist he's also Chair of the British Science Fiction Association and Treasurer for the British Fantasy Society. He is on bluesky at: @stewarthotston.com.

Film Review: Practical Magic 2

Cozy witchy vibes are back! Fans of the original will have fun, despite what critics are saying.

To a certain kind of person (including me, I'm one of those people), the first Practical Magic movie is the very definition of a comfort watch. For nigh on 30 years, I've turned to it at the first hint of cool weather and Halloween decor in stores, reveling in the atmospheric soundtrack, the seaside-manse-that's-also-a-character, and the extremely '90s girl-power sister vibes. The plot, for those unfamiliar, concerns two sister witches that have man problems — not just Sally's abusive boyfriend, but the entire family's inability to find love due to a generational curse from the Owens ur-witch way back in the 1600s. It's silly, I'm not afraid to say, but that doesn't make it any less fun or heartwarming. It's essentially a rom-com with little spells and lots of cats, and while I'm not usually a romantic comedy type of gal, this one hits the spot.

I'm diving into the original as a prelude because it's absolutely impossible to talk about the sequel, Practical Magic 2, without talking about what fans loved about the first one. With all of these recent reboots of beloved films, folks are desperately hoping (and movie studios are desperately trying) to recreate lightning in a bottle. Most, in my opinion, don't really succeed, largely because they're doing the same thing with the same cast, but with no real shift in story, characters, or locale. Because of this, the sequels usually pale in comparison to the original. It's a tale as old as time, I'm afraid.

Fortunately, Practical Magic 2 has rich source material, as both it and its predecessor are based on novels by Alice Hoffman. Set roughly 25 years later (as far as I can tell), the new film brings us up to speed with our main characters quickly. Beloved elderly aunts Jet and Fran are now in their 80s, still living in their magical house by the sea. Sally and Gilly are in their 50s, while Sally's daughters, Kylie and Antonia, are in their 20s.The curse is still around, though Sally has wiped her children's memories of being witches, but they're not aware of it in the first part of the film.

The plot follows the youngest daughter as she absconds to England to learn about the origin of her family's curse as her lover Gideon lies in a coma after a bike accident, fearful that his death is imminent (fun fact: Gideon is played by Xolo Maridueña, who was great in the decent nostalgic vehicle Cobra Kai from a few years back). Her mother and aunt follow her, hot on her trail. Once they arrive in London, they meet a good-guy warlock named Ian (played with effortless charisma by Lee Pace) and team up to track Kylie down. 

The climax revolves around Kylie confronting a distant relative/bastard of the Owens line that's mad he didn't inherit witch abilities, and together, through the power of sisterhood and witchcraft, the main characters defeat him. Throughout all this, they learn that the only way to break the curse is for a witch to sacrifice herself, so that's exactly what Aunt Frances does, wading into the water à la Virginia Woolf as she rushes to meet her sister Jet who died at the beginning of the film.

Look, on paper, the plot sounds like something out of an episode of Charmed. And yes, the pacing is just as all over the place as the original. But this film wasn't made for critics, sitting at roughly 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. Neither was the original, which has a similar score, actually. It's made for the fans who have loved it for more than a generation. 

But for the first 30 minutes I was a little skeptical. "Oh, they bought a Ninja margarita machine to make their midnight cocktails, great." But once the characters take off to England, everything starts to find a groove. Lee Pace lends a depth and humanity to every scene, and casting him was a wise decision. The autumnal cozy atmosphere of rural England also creates a new way to feel spooky and chilly, another good choice that helps distinguish the films. 

What I was thinking about most in the days leading up to seeing it was what the needle drops were going to be. The first movie wouldn't be what it was without iconic Stevie Nicks songs, that triumphant Faith number, and the iconic Harry Nilsson "Coconut" scene. These songs are so deeply woven in to poignant moments from the film that I honestly can't imagine it without them. They move the plot along as well as the characters and set pieces. 

In Practical Magic 2, we get yet more Stevie Nicks (and I'm fine with that, as "Landslide" is a perfect tearjerker), some Olivia Rodrigo to keep it hip, Florence + the Machine, a Mazzy Star cover, and finally, a closing number in the form of "Dancing in the Moonlight" by King Harvest. All in all, I think they chose perfectly, and this music will help cement the movie in folks' memories. 

By the end, I found myself emotionally invested in everything, and for me, that's enough. The witchcraft is definitely more on display in this one: there are grimoires, left-hand magic, and frank talk of spells. Witchcraft was more incidental, in the first one. The first movie was about sisters that happen to be witches, while the new sequel is about witches that happen to be sisters. 

I do think this one fares better than fellow comedy-horror bedmates like Beetlejuice 2 and Hocus Pocus, but I suppose that's not saying much. I've talked about this before, but no reboot or sequel will ever do the same thing as an original, no matter how much we try. But for hardcore fans, Practical Magic 2 is decent enough, and that works.

My only real complaint is how distracted I was by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman's faces. I could write an entire manifesto about botoxification of women in cinema in the modern age (but really, who couldn't?) but I truly could not stop thinking about how these women, 62 and 59 respectively, have not a single wrinkle on their face. For a movie about female empowerment, it's a bit sad to think that not one gray hair, not one crow's foot were allowed to grace the screen. But that's an article for another day, and sometimes us feminists just have to revel in magical cinematic nostalgia for a little bit.

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Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, 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.