Book Review: The Sleep of Empires by David Annandale

The first entry in the Book of the Null series takes a writer better known for Warhammer 40k and Doctor Doom and introduces us to an original fantasy universe of his own

Big things start from small beginnings. In a world in a very tenuous cold peace between various factions, several small events upset the balance of power and begin to change the face of a continent, and of a long history as well. David Annandale’s The Sleep of Empires, his first foray into an original universe for quite some time, starts us off small in a relatively typical fantasy mode. We have a student at a university who is seeking to steal an artifact. We have a star-crossed couple seeking a marriage that would end a family feud—except the would-be bride’s father has other marital plans for her. And the cut-out would-be suitor has a force at his back to help said father. But when the father sets the groom an impossible task, what is found is as equally dangerous as the artifact book…

And the result of all these actions is much more than a thief on the run, or a fractious family feud. Instead, the world, and even the gods, will have to take notice as unexpected consequences and long-held secrets come to light.

Our points of view are several. Latanna Forgrym and Alisteyr Huesland are the prospective couple. The feud between the Hafields and McCoys could be sealed with a marriage, and they do seem to love each other. At least, Alisteyr does. Latanna is a little more cagey about such things. The author drops some hints here and there right from the beginning that this relationship isn’t going to go as planned, even before her father objects.

Another point of view is Garwynn. He plays at being a magician, because magic doesn’t really exist anymore, or so people think. Tricks and sleight of hand is all that one can do… until his power manifests spectacularly and suddenly. That brings him to the attention of the authorities, and is a signpost that the world indeed is changing, and perhaps not for the better.

Annandale has nicely built in connections and history that link all these characters one way or another, so it does not feel like a set of random viewpoints. Garwynn, although living in “the big city,” is from the same area as Alisteyr and Latanna, and had unrequited feelings for Alisteyr, once upon a time.

Kansthun and Memory are mercenaries hired by Latanna and Alisteyr. Kansthun is a Kaul, of which we will talk more in a bit. Memory is aptly named, because he doesn’t talk and seems not to remember his past. And just what he is is not clear, even to himself. Memory is a real heart of this book in a sense that the others are not. It turns out Memory is much more than he appears, even to himself, and The Sleep of Empires is fundamentally about Memory starting to recover his legacy. It’s not a happy one.

If you have read Annandale’s work before, he writes in dark worlds and often features characters who are charitably called dark, and in many cases can be better classified as outright villains even if their sense of purpose obscures from them how they are perceived. Sometimes they come to the awareness they are considered villains and yet do what they will anyway. Annandale loves the “villain is a hero of their own story” trope and uses it here, and not just for Memory. There are multiple characters in this story who really could be considered villains in any sense of the world, or perhaps, at the very least, monsters.¹ The care and humanity that Annandale shows for characters like Corvus Rebine and Doctor Doom transfers very well to his characters here. The monsters and villains here are humanized, but what they do and what they are is not sugarcoated. And, in keeping with Davies’s book as footnoted above, the villains also have been painted by mythologized history and its sometimes deliberate rewriting.

Now let me talk about the worldbuildi|ng. Given the strength of Annadale’s work with villains and such characters, I wanted to save the world for after my discussion of same, so here we are. As mentioned above, this is an original world of his, one that has been gestating for quite some time. It’s a secondary world fantasy, dark in tone. We have some fractious (from within and without) human kingdoms and polities. These kingdoms have a cold peace with the nearby imperious and imperial elves, with designs of their own. And then there are the Kaul, from out east, skeletal, monstrous. If one wants to use a generic term for them, they are most definitely the “orcs” of the setting. This really puts, as noted about, Kansthun (and Memory as his partner) as real outsiders in the human and elven polities. Does all of this sound familiar (Elves, Humans, etc). Yes, although the use of gods, the theological history, helps stamp this into his own mold and makes it rise above a repeat of old tropes.

So there is that theological history. Long ago, apparently there was a war against a Morgoth-like figure ruling a land called Voran. Humans, elves, dwarves and gods marched against this figure and destroyed the land and dealt with the God of Evil. Just how and what happened to him, is a case of “history became legend, legend became myth.” Voran is just a word to the humans, even as both they and the elves keep watch over the destroyed area just in case. That sort of fantastical watch over things of Voran and the Void extend even to mathematics. For, you see, the “Book of the Null” refers to one of the most useful (but in this world, dangerous) concepts that exist: the number zero.

So who is the ideal reader for this book? I think this is a case where a book is not going to have universal appeal. If you like dark fantasy worlds², this is the place for you. If you are a fan of Annandale’s previous and want to see what he can and does do in an original setting, this book is absolutely for you. In a darker tone, this book makes me think of Jacqueline Carey’s Banewrecker or other recent novels that have a villain protagonist, like, say, Cameron Johnston’s The Maleficent Seven (although tonally it reads very differently) or Ari Marmell’s The Conqueror’s Shadow.

The book ends with some revelations and an unveiling of what the conflict for the rest of the series is going to be about. I’m very interested in seeing how, now with more cards face up, Annandale shows off his main characters (especially the villains) and how the shattering conflict he has brewed up unfolds.

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Highlights:

• First original universe in a long time a from long-established author of Warhammer 40k and much more
• Villains: monsters and misunderstood
• Rich and deep fantasy world

References: Annandale, David, The Sleep of Empires Book of the Null, Nightshade Books, 2025.

¹ See my review of Surekha Davies’s: Humans A Monstrous History: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2025/05/book-review-humans-monstrous-history.html

² Is this “grimdark”? Well, Warhammer 40k is one of the originators of the idea of grimdark. Annandale’s fiction is dark, and there are characters doing questionable things,but it is not a morosely and complete shades of dark grey and black world like you find in a grimdark setting of the first water. But I could see someone wanting to slot it in that category.

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

Book Review: The Regicide Report by Charlie Stross

 Regicide? Schmegicide!

UK Cover art: Creative Crush

Charlie Stross has been dealing in the bureaucracy of the Laundry since 2010 and this is likely the last of them, not just the fourteenth Laundry Files novel. At the risk of assuming not everyone reading this will have read the previous thirteen, the Laundry Files is what happens when you cross James Bond with Cosmic Horror if 007 was a mid-ranking civil servant in an underfunded post-colonial kinda way. Imagine if your doctor’s receptionist was in charge of the nation’s defence.

 

Stross has always captured the sense of sclerotic ‘computer says no’ horror that we’re all familiar with really well. And while the Laundry Files is definitely blackly humorous by design it’s also locked in on the horror elements too. That it’s reached fourteen in the series tells you just how popular it’s been. 

 

Having said that the series has most definitely come in two parts – the first being a focus on Bob, a talented agent masquerading as a bland man who carries the narration with a very dry sense of humour and a knowing resignation at how despairing hide bound bureaucracy can make you feel. 

Bob Howard carried the first nine of the series. After this events in the Laundry world meant we got a second mini-series called ‘The New Management’ which focused on different characters. 

 

Book 13 was a prequel of sorts and that brings us to this, The Regicide Report which is, by Stross’ own words, the last one. 

 

I cover the history because it’s been going a long time but also because it will be relevant to what I want to say both about The Regicide Report as a novel in its own right but as a book which shuts the door on a long running series. For the interests of disclosure I should say I loved the original run of nine books – they ended on a spectacular cliffhanger that hinted at bigger things to come, perhaps even truly cosmic stakes.

 

I then fell out of love with The New Management for a simple reason – it was too bleak for me. Perhaps it was the perils of creating a world in which the cultists won. It may also be that with Brexit and Trump were ascendent, it couldn't compete with the unfunny horrors of the real world where it’s not bureaucracy that’s the enemy but is, rather, a longed for but definitively departed relative.

 

The Regicide Report seeks to bring all of this together and tie up as many dangling threads as possible and it does so by refocusing on Bob. We learn in the first chapter that the entire book is written as a case report (which was the original framing device) but it tantalisingly leaves out any news except that Bob remains active and capable of writing a report. 

The story, ostensibly about an assassination attempt on Queen Elizabeth II, has more moving parts than a room sized computer from the 1970s and brings to a crescendo the long running arc of Case Nightmare Green – which asks what if a cosmic horror arrived and decided to make itself at home here in our world. 

 

Stross is a great writer but I think there are some significant problems with the novel. The issues I faced reading it fall under a couple of headings. The first is one common to many long running stories that come to an end – the plethora of plots, stories, characters and events that need to be referenced, kept in mind and managed as a narrative is concluded. In the case of The Regicide Report the story itself has a throughline but it’s inevitably confused by references to all manner of historic events that happen elsewhere. 

 

It's not a bad thing to be consistent; the book simply struggles under the weight of the previous thirteen novels and the world Stross has built. Because this series isn’t epic fantasy where the singular hero saves the world Stross gives himself a much tougher challenge – how to end a story which has had multiple main characters telling multiple stories. Stross does have a singular hero in this novel though – Bob Howard – and Bob is a superpower whose abilities are a little fuzzy because the plot requires him to be outmatched at critical moments. The weakness of plot armour is never more apparent than when you’re trying to manoeuvre people towards their final confrontation and when that confrontation comes at the end of book 14 it’s really challenging to get it right. 

 

Stross gets it right but within the context of trying to smash everything in that needs some commentary before you close the final page. As a result it’s a bit messy, bulging with side notes and moments that serve to answer questions not set up by the premise of the book but instead by the legacy of the series. I’m not sure there’s a better way to do it especially as I don’t think this was a planned ending that Stross has been working towards since day 1. 

 

The second challenge is more personal and it’s that after the ‘bad guys’ won earlier in the series and we entered the time of The New Management what had been a darkly humorous tale shifted into one of being absurdly dark and less funny as a result. That lack of humour in the face of horror meant the tone became much bleaker with no one able to ever, really, secure a win. The problem for me is that in the face of bleakness the absurdity runs the risk of doubling down on the hopelessness because erratic can veer into the nastily capricious pretty easily when we’re not allowed good things.

 

Stross appears to be aware of this, at least that’s my take on his writing, because the characters themselves wrestle with just this set of feelings and whether what they do means anything when the cosmic horror who also happens to be your boss is more heads on sticks fascist horror than well-meaning but monstrous patriarch. Coming as it does at a time when the world I live in seems as if it’s on the verge of existential disaster it makes it particularly tough to read about well-meaning people losing at every step along the way.

 

This need for absurdity to supplement humour feeds into my final challenge with the novel – the presence of characters from a set of horror movies from the 1970s. At first I thought it was a nod to these characters, who appear in a couple of movies that I saw when I was definitely too young. However, the characters from these movies are a central part of The Regicide Report even down to the point that Bob and his allies realise there were movies made about these characters who have now pitched up as real in the world of the Laundry Files. Yes it’s archly meta and yes it’s deeply absurd and yes the characters come from movies that were definitely humorous horror and so, on paper, fit in completely with the tone of the Laundry Files. 

 

But they don’t work. I see why they’re there – because the other major antagonists are, technically, on the same side as Bob and so apart from writing to HR he can’t do much about them. In other words, there’s a big gap for Bob where his agency should be that can only be filled by adding in an independent party who he can wrestle against and whose actions can bring into relief the actions of the bigger bads who Bob will eventually need to face. I think that’s why it doesn’t work for me. It could be refreshing, wry and smartly ironic to have these weirdos arrive from the 1970s to provide traction for Bob to progress the story. Instead they become this odd narrative lacuna that doesn’t build character or a sense of urgency but really represent busy work for the main characters until it’s time to end the story. 

 

All of this adds up to a novel that works in parts but which also struggles to find its way. It’s both tightly written (Stross always writes engagingly and the dryness of the text remains enjoyable both in tone and in structure) but far too busy at the same time. It’s that busyness which creates the narrative problems and it’s the world that Stross has built across the series which creates its structural problems. When you’ve established an all-powerful horror who’s penned in the heroes on every side it’s pretty tough to give anyone anything meaningful to do.

 

And so the Laundry Files end with everyone effectively neutered but still in the same places as they’ve been since book 9. With no one winning the only beneficiaries are the bad guys who remain in charge of the world and are free to serve their own needs. Bob presents this to us as the best possible outcome and, frankly, I look out the window and can’t help but feel a bit depressed at what that says about the world we face.

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Highlights:

• Bob Howard
• Cults, Mana Batteries and cosmic horror

Nerd coefficient: 5/10, a fine example of The Laundry Files and an adequate ending to the series but far too busy and a prisoner of its own narrative chains.

References: Stross, Charlie., The Regicide Report. [Orbit, 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 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.

Book Review: ECO 24 edited by Marissa Van Uden

A speculative fiction anthology devoted to ecological fiction.

Whether you call it ecofiction, cli-fi, climate fiction or any other of a number of terms, ecological fiction is something that, as editor Marissa Van Uden points out, a type of story that humanity has been told for as long as we’ve been telling stories. From the Bible’s story of the flood, to the Sumerian myth of Utnapishtim, we’ve had stories of flood. The story of Persephone, Hades and Demeter has Demeter make the earth barren in anger and sorry for her lost daughter. While ecological fiction may not have had a name until the 1970’s, these stories have carried from human’s beginnings to Watership Down, to Daphne du Maurier (adapted into the film by Alfred Hitchhock), to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and to Kim Stanley Robinson and other contemporary authors.

Marissa Van Uden brings a selection of ecological fiction stories to her anthology, ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction from Violet Lichen Press. All of the stories are reprints and represent what are, to Van Uden, the best of the field. Van Uden’s interest in ecological fiction and nature are formative in what made her an editor in the first place, and so that passion comes through in her editorial role in the selection of the stories. Since Violet Lichen is a small press (and sister press to the better known Apex), there is a real handcrafted feel to Van Uden’s curation. Also, the mission of Violet Lichen press, as they describe themselves is, “Inspired by the mysterious beauty of lichens growing in shadowy woods and the surreal drama of violet shades in nature, Violet Lichen fully embraces the weird, strange, and uncanny. It aims to leave readers feeling a little changed and disquieted, as if they have just emerged from under a strange spell.”

So when you combine ecological fiction with a small press sensibility and pair that with the weird, strange and uncanny, what Van Uden clearly is aiming for is a selection of stories that are ecological fiction, yes, but also all different, odd, unusual and strange. That’s a rather tall order. I know that ecological fiction has been having a moment as our own world’s environment continues to careen and become more unpredictable. However, I wondered, as I was reading the introduction to the book, whether or not there were enough stories to fill such a collection. It emerges that the editor’s plan is to do this sort of volume, yearly. And that, yes, even in a niche like this, there is a wealth of material to be found, curated and selected from.

In reviewing an anthology, particularly with a remit as unique as this one, I like to pay attention to not only what stories the editor has chosen, but particularly the first and last stories, since they open and anchor the collection.

For the opening, we have "In the Field" by Shelly Jones, originally published in The Future Fire. It is a potent, painful story of a researcher helping a very aging professor, a professor who hasn’t quite realized just how badly the world has changed after disaster. It’s a story of memory, and loss, and is poignant. The fact that the researcher is a droid, and the professor is truly alone of human company adds an extra dimension. I didn’t find this story strange and weird so much as somber.

But then that is a theme that goes throughout a number of stories of this collection. "The Water Runner" by Eugen Bacon is a world where the seas have dried up, and there is an almost mystical escape place, New Dodoma. Everyone, including our protagonists, want to get there, but it feels like a mirage, a delusion or a dream. Later in the collection, "Pig House" by Kay Vandal is a story where powered rebreathers are the only way to survive in a poisoned world. And a cross country trip to see what may be the last pig on Earth proves deadly. "The Plasticity of Being" by Renan Bernado is a story where a number of people are engineered in order to be able to eat plastic. It’s a story of exploitation of the poor by the rich, and by corporations, and how much the social cost of late state capitalist really is.

There are stories which are not so downbeat and lack an aura of doom. "Batter and Pearl" by Steph Kwiatkowski is a lovely little story of a really strange and weird world, where harvesting pearls of plastic in the ocean is a way to make a living. There is also a sense of “looking for the big score” to the story, which was totally unexpected and delightful. There is a strange darkness and verve to Jennifer Hudak’s "The Colonists". I could totally see this story in the light of 1950’s science fiction in terms of its theme and plot, but Hudak gives a very modern and literary feel to the story.

"Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris", “6”" by F.E. Choe may be my favorite story. It is a moving story about alien xenobiologists studying the life and story of a dog. While many of the stories in the collection were moving, I was particularly touched by 6’s story and how 6 impacted the researchers who studied him. While many of the stories in this collection touched me, this one particularly resonated with me.

As far as the last story in the collection, we have "Mangrove Daughter" by E.M. Linden. This story to round out the collection has a second person point of view, and a strong sense of place, a slowly spreading grove of mangroves. Like the mangroves themselves are an inhabitant of a liminal space, between ocean and land, this story is a liminal one, using its point of view, and the theme of transformation into liminal space, particularly, to achieve that.

And aside those, there are many interesting and weird stories to read and enjoy. Not all of them are hits for me, even given the narrow and specialized remit of the anthology, the stories vary widely, even more than what I have described in the few I have talked about here. I think that the collection is a strong offering from Violet Lichen that helps showcase what the press and its mission is all about.

In the end, the editor’s hand in choosing and arranging these stories for maximum impact is noted and appreciated. ECO24 is, in essence, a collection that is more than the sum of its parts.

 
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The Math

Highlights:

• Strong editorial hand from the editor
• Interesting and diverse set of stories
• Weird, unusual and strange, just as it said on the tin.

Reference: Van Uden, Marissa, ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction, (Violet Lichen Press, 2025)

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

Anime Review: Spy x Family: Season 3

Spy x Family returns for a bold, emotional, and action packed season 3.

Anime seasons ebb and flow, with some seasons feeling slower and others being absolutely amazing. After an uneven second season, everyone’s favorite fake family has returned in fierce form for an action-filled and emotion packed Season 3. The latest stories of super-spy Loid, lethal assassin Yor, mind-reader Anya, (and clairvoyant dog Bond), are poignant, stressful, and very entertaining.

Spy x Family takes place in Ostania, a fictional 1960’s style country in a cold war with its enemy, the neighboring Westalis. To prevent another devastating war between the neighboring countries, a cynical Westalis super-spy (Agent Twilight) is ordered to spy on an extremely reclusive Ostanian political party leader. The only way to do this is to enroll a child in the elite Ostanian private school that the political leader’s son attends. To create the required fake family, the spy takes on the fabricated identity of psychiatrist Loid Forger and adopts young Anya from an orphanage but is unaware that the child is a telepath. He then meets Yor, a sweet and kind city hall clerk who needs a fake marriage to help with her own job security because, in Ostania, single women over a certain age are often suspected of being spies or insurgents. Unbeknownst to Loid, his new wife Yor is secretly an elite assassin. Yor is genuinely kind when she’s not killing people at her night job, but she is a little clueless when it comes to normal life and she is unaware that mild-mannered Loid is a super-spy. 

Only telepathic Anya knows the truth about her adoptive parents’ true identities but, thanks to her obsession with violent crime tv shows, Anya finds Loid’s and Yor’s hidden occupations to be very exciting. After a wild adventure, the family adopts a clairvoyant dog they name Bond but only Anya can sense Bond’s premonitions about the future. Rounding out the cast are Anya’s grade school classmates, Damian, the political target’s young son, and Becky, a pampered but friendly heiress. We also meet Franky, the comic relief informant, and we meet Yor’s stressed out younger brother Yuri, whom she helped raise after their parents died. Unbeknownst to Yor, her brother is a member of the secret police who is suspicious of Loid. Because Loid, Yor, and Anya are all orphans, the show emphasizes the importance of both biological and chosen family ties. The balance of cuteness and violence is what sets the story apart, especially with a cast of funny supporting characters, all with 1960’s fashionable clothing and a cool retro setting. 

Season 3 has three primary story arcs. The first and strongest arc is the long awaited deep dive into Loid’s backstory. Throughout the series, we are reminded that “Loid” is a fake name for the spy “Twilight” which a fake name for a person whose true identity remains a mystery, even to viewers. Like Sai in Naruto Shippuden, Loid/Twilight has lost his original identity and takes on a new transient persona for every job. Also like Sai, Loid begins to change when he takes on a role in his new found family that reignites his long hidden emotions. But who was Loid before he accepted his life of deception? Other than a few fleeting flashes of a crying child, we know nothing about Loid other than that he suffered the devastation of war. Over a series of beautifully written episodes in Season 3, we learn about Loid’s creative childhood friends, his harsh father, his protective mother, and the idyllic town in which he was born. Without revealing his or his parents’ names, the story shows us how he went from being a playful imaginative boy to being a war orphan, then a jaded soldier (including a poignant early encounter with his current informant Franky), and eventually accepting recruitment into the spy program. After losing everything he loved, he learns to be distrustful of others and to use deceit to survive. However, despite the repeated negative impressions of the Ostonians who attacked his country, it is ironic to see how close and protective he has become of his make-believe Ostonian family. 

The second major story is a terrorist hijacking of Anya’s school bus. Conveniently for the plot, Loid and Yor are unavailable to help, which means this story is focused on Anya and her school crew who are on their own against a violent group of hostage takers. Unlike Loid’s backstory arc, the hijacking episodes have lots of traditional Spy x Family humor notwithstanding the tense premise. Despite the weapons pointed at her, Anya’s mindreading gives her an upper hand with the kidnappers as does Damian’s grumpy bravery and protectiveness, and Becky’s cleverness and loyalty. But the key to cracking the situation occurs when Anya discovers tragedy involving the main hijacker’s daughter and her involvement in a political protest. This gut-punch of sadness sits in sharp contrast to the primary humor and adventure tone of the story. 

The third major story is the spy conflict that ultimately pits Loid against his brother-in-law Yuri in a tense battle of wits and fists. Loid’s Westalis spy agency is betrayed by a double agent who steals their information and plans to sell that data, including the identity of their agents, to Ostania. Loid is ordered to stop the traitor before he makes it to his meeting with the Ostanian secret police. Unfortunately, Yor’s brother Yuri is part of the squad meeting the traitor and he is on the lookout for the famous spy Twilight to make his move. After much speculation throughout the series, we finally see Loid and Yuri facing each other in their true spy versus secret police personas. The result is intense and fast paced excitement with just enough family drama and irony to tie it together. 

A shorter but still funny mini-story is the introduction of Damian’s seemingly cheerful mother, Melinda whose encounter with Yor leads to a day of fun in which Yor repeatedly and inadvertently shows off her superhuman strength. However, in the hijacking arc we later find out that Melinda’s cheerful exterior hides disturbing thoughts and emotions towards her mostly neglected son. 

A common thread throughout the third season is the importance of family in all of its various forms. A second, less endearing theme, is the harm caused by authoritarian regimes and political machinations. Spy x Family’s premise is modeled on regimes that are politically repressive. Yor was originally willing to accept the fake marriage because being a single woman makes her look suspicious in their society. However, in Season 3 we truly get to see how repressive a society Ostania is. We also finally get to see Yor’s brother Yuri in action as an agent of the Ostanian Secret Police. His single-minded dedication to the government is unsettling, especially since it is the same government that puts people at risk just for being “different.” Overall, Season 3 of Spy x Family has the strongest storytelling thus far. It dives into difficult subjects and pauses the humor long enough to do those moments justice. But there are still moments of the traditional Spy x Family dark comedy, especially with Anya having to navigate a dangerous situation with the help of her elite school classmates instead of her super powered parents. This combination of intense storytelling and complex emotions make Season 3 of Spy x Family the strongest so far.

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The Math

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Highlights:

• Tragic and poignant backstory
• Big themes of family and political machinations
• Strongest storytelling so far

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

Video Game Review: Pokémon Legends: Z-A & Mega Dimensions DLC

Old dog finally learns the trick it should have years ago.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A

Pokémon is undoubtedly the biggest juggernaut in entertainment history. It’s bigger than Star Wars, bigger than Mickey Mouse, bigger than Harry Potter, bigger than the entire MCU. And while I respect a publisher’s fear of altering too much of a known formula for an established IP, no single entry will derail this franchise. When Pokémon Legends: Arceus released, it temporarily assuaged my exhaustion with Pokémon’s turn-based combat. The game, while still turn-based, took some liberties with catching and including the player character in the world, blurring the lines between the trainer’s gameplay and their Pokémon’s. The follow-up games, mainline entries (Scarlet and Violet) reverted to norms with undesirable results. But finally, the toe Game Freak dipped in that pool of live action Pokémon gameplay with Legends: Arceus has become a full dive. Pokémon Legends: Z-A is the step I’ve wanted the franchise to take for the longest time. And while there are still some kinks to work out, there’s a lot to be excited about.

This is the first full action Pokémon game (and no, I’m not counting fighting games with Pokémon characters or Pokémon Unite). That’s right, no more PP. Instead, the game gives each attack a cast time and a cooldown to ensure a balance between the strongest and weakest. Traditionally, a move like Fire Blast would only come with 5 PP before needing to be recharged; now, it simply has a longer cooldown time and a slightly longer cast time than weaker moves. This creates a new dynamic within the gameplay. You could use Fire Blast, but it might not be ready even after your next attack. Do you wait it out, reposition, and use it again, or do you try to get another two attacks during its cool down? (Fire Blast has a higher chance to miss, so I’m not suggesting you use it—just an example). When fighting wild Pokémon, you’ll find that you draw aggro before your mons do. It’s completely possible to get knocked out this way, and adds an extra layer of immersion to the gameplay, especially early on when facing down a powerful alpha Pokémon or rogue mega-evolved mon. Dodging wild Pokémon attacks while commanding your own to unleash on an opponent can be incredibly satisfying and kept me entertained throughout the entirety of my run.

That said, the combat still needs work. The pathfinding system can sometimes be egregious (which rears its head particularly in the Mega Dimensions DLC that I’ll get to later). Sometimes your Pokémon will line itself up behind a wall or a fence before firing off its move (only to hit into the building instead), sometimes the Pokémon will take a weird path to get to another part of the map before unleashing their attack, wasting your precious speed advantage over an enemy while they pelt your Pokémon in the back. Sometimes they’ll fall off a roof mid-attack. Heck, sometimes a Pokémon just won’t attack. I think what happens is they take so long to follow a path that the system just cancels out the attack you selected initially. When you choose to attack again, it works fine, but it wastes time. This mostly occurs when fighting in the city environment; arenas aren’t problematic.

Another issue I have with the battle system is entering my inventory. Most of the time it works well, but sometimes the game simply won’t let you access it when you need to (and this happens in a lot of the intense mega fights). The game essentially puts a freeze on your inventory access if a Pokémon is mega-evolving. I don’t know if it’s because they may or may not show a mega evolution cut scene (which becomes annoying after the first time you see it). Sometimes there is no mega evolving, and I still can’t enter my inventory. I just have to shrug my shoulders and swap my Pokémon out instead of using a potion and heal them later when it works again.

Legends: Z-A takes place in Lumiose City, and while not as large as a traditional Pokémon game world with all its regions, it makes up for that by expanding the city, incorporating rooftop exploration and placing wild Pokémon zones throughout the map. The world is bright and welcoming, even if some environments are underwhelming. Considering that Pokémon games always sell millions upon millions of copies, it’s a shame they won’t put more effort into hiring more people to help make the games look better. Some buildings are simple boxes with textures on them. Look at the screenshot above. I mean come on, Game Freak, you can do better than that. You’re charging full price for these games, so don’t give us a budget effort. Luckily, the Pokémon animations look good, as do the models themselves. It’s fun to watch my hulking alpha Dragonite float around behind me on the map.

One of the main gameplay mechanics of Legends: Z-A is an oldie they introduced over a decade ago with X and Y: Mega Evolution. Most of the Pokémon you’ll find throughout Z-A can mega evolve, which is necessary to help quell the rage of rogue mega evolved Pokémon. At night, you try to climb the Z-A Royale list. You start and rank Z and climb your way up to; you guessed it, rank A! You do this by entering battle zones at night and challenging other NPC trainers. You can pick up cards that give you mini quests to fulfill that fill your challenger ticket bar faster (for instance, land five psychic-type attacks on unaware opponents). Sneaking up on an opponent and landing a critical move is fun, though sometimes the game randomly makes you get caught unaware by an opponent and stuns you momentarily. This would only make sense if you were sneaking, and they caught you, but sometimes I’m running full at them for a battle and I get the de-buff anyway. Once you have a challenger’s ticket, you can face your next ranked opponent. This is the closest thing the game has to gym leaders, and many of the higher-ranked characters get used throughout the narrative and into the DLC.

For those of you worried about EVs and IVs, worry not. They’ve included it all. There are some specific Pokémon moves that have been altered to work in an action-paced setting, so you may find one of your favorite moves isn’t what it used to be. It’s also wonderful to have access to your Pokémon boxes anywhere you go.

There isn’t much going on in the story. It’s a typical “save the city” trope, but with a Pokémon skin. It’s not abysmal by any means, and I thank the heavens there isn’t anything so terrible as Team Star from Scarlet and Violet, but there isn’t too much here that will stick with me in the coming years. The characters are fine; some deliver some well-timed zingers, but mostly just serve the narrative. One thing I find bizarre is that there is absolutely no voice work. Why? This is 2025 (well, 2026 now, but the game released last year), so there is no reason for there not to be. It works in some games, but when characters are moving their mouths and no dialogue comes out, it’s odd.

The side quests are a mixed bag. Some are clever and genuinely made me laugh, while others are quite simple and boring. You never know which one you’ll end up with, unfortunately. A few were long and tedious, while others were engaging and well thought out. I particularly enjoyed engaging in the wild zones and catching everything available; it reminded me of the mainline games, and I always jumped over to a new spot whenever it was introduced.

The game ran smoothly (though I was on Switch 2, so I had a little extra processing power to back me up). Minus the in-game issues, I had no performance problems or stutters like I had with the last few entries in the series. Collecting Pokémon was a breeze, and battling was fun and intense. While there are still many things Game Freak should address with the Pokémon pathfinding, this is a massive step toward creating a more immersive experience with this series. I hope we get more advances in this direction instead of the uninspired Terastallization they introduced in the last games. With the power of the Switch 2, I also hope to see better effort from the developers to make the world look like it’s part of the number one entertainment IP in the world. There is a lot of good here, and I’m hoping it becomes great. If you want to see what a live-action Pokémon game plays like, it’s right here; it’s fun, and it runs well. If you remember wishing you could be more like Ash from the anime, controlling your mons around a battlefield, give this game your support.

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The Math

Objective Assessment: 7.5/10
Bonus: +1 for full-action gameplay. +1 for Pokémon designs and animations.
Penalties: -1 for poor Pokémon pathfinding. -1 for having to watch mega evolution a million times.
Nerd Coefficient: 7.5/10

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Maybe save your money.

Mega Dimensions Review

I purchased Mega Dimensions for two reasons. One; because of my desire for mega evolutions that weren’t in the main game (that I thought were going to be, but I’d been misled by the advertisements), and two; because I had just about finished the main game when the DLC came out and was still enjoying the experience. Plus, I know myself; if I didn’t play it immediately after I finished the game, I would never have gotten to it. And to be honest, I wish I had saved my money.

That’s not to say that this DLC is broken or unplayable. It’s fine if you want something to do, but it is an expensive something to do that feels like a cash grab. At the price of thirty steep dollars (which is the most I’ve ever paid for a piece of DLC) I was hoping for something really neat, maybe an expansion to the map or a completely new zone. Instead, you get to enter the hyperspace Lumiose, which is essentially just recycled pieces of Lumiose with a different skin that you have to visit repeatedly. At first, exploration was interesting, but once I discovered it was simply a grind, it felt more and more like a chore.

They introduce two new characters with the content, one to help you with mega battles, and another that makes donuts to feed Hoopa, which allows the player to traverse hyperspace. The gameplay loop here comprises finding berries to craft donuts, which allows you to enter hyperspace, which allows you to research the other dimension (through minor tasks like catching Pokémon, battling, destroying floating Pokéballs) which allows you to find better berries. Once you progress through the story, you can create better donuts. All the Pokémon in hyperspace Lumiose start out at over level 100, so using your donuts will give you a level buff. You want to be at level 100 to maximize their effects; this content isn’t really feasible without having high-level mons.

The problem is the story is not enticing, and after a while, I simply wandered hyperspace Lumiose for better and better berries, but the whole thing is RNG. You’re not guaranteed the good berries. Worse yet, the donuts you make get random abilities, so if you want a specific ability (which is more important at higher levels) you lose out if you don’t get lucky (unless you save scum it by loading a backup save).

Besides increasing your level a certain amount, the donuts have other perks as well; calories being paramount. The more carbs a donut has, the longer you can stay in hyperspace. That’s right; the player is timed each time they go into hyperspace. The better the donut, the longer you can stay. But the higher the difficulty of the zone, the quicker your calories drain before getting ejected from the other dimension. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, and on the lower levels it isn’t. But on the higher levels, when my energy was draining incredibly fast and every single move counted and I saw my Pokémon take a random, unnecessary path around some area to come to do its move, or worse, whiff the move completely, I lost my mind a bit.

I finished the main part of the Mega Dimensions DLC. There was, as to be expected, a powerful Pokémon at the end of the trail, but the thing is, there’s even a bit more beyond the main DLC storyline. Rayquaza is teased early on, and I know Groudon and Kyogre come first, but I just can’t get myself to care. The donut system is bad, the story isn’t great, the flaws in the gameplay are exacerbated in the timed segments, and it’s expensive. It works mostly, which is fine, but it’s a grind. If you decide to pick this up, do yourself a favor and use Mewtwo and have it use psychic on all the floating Pokéballs in hyperspace. You’ll thank me for it.

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The Math

Objective Assessment: 5/10
Bonus: +1 for cool new mega evolutions.
Penalties: -1 for RNG/Grind. -.5 for high price, repetitive content.
Nerd Coefficient: 4.5/10

Posted by: Joe DelFranco - Fiction writer and lover of most things video games. On most days you can find him writing at his favorite spot in the little state of Rhode Island.

Book Review: Self-Portrait with Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka

Of all the versions of you in all universes, can you live with being this one?

College teacher Pepper Rafferty has a reasonably satisfying life: a loving duo of adoptive mothers, a kind husband with a sophisticated sense of humor, an important job cataloging bones as a forensic anthropologist. The only piece missing from her happiness is the unknown reasons her biological mother could have had for leaving her. Over the years, that old wound has receded from her attention. But it hasn’t closed. And all the messy feelings Pepper has spent her life ignoring jump back to the surface when she receives the news that her biological mother, who happens to be the world-famous artist Ula Frost, has been reported missing, and now there’s a big tangle of legal questions concerning who will become the owner of her paintings.

It’s not just that Ula’s paintings are worth a fortune: urban legend has it that Ula developed a form of magic in her art, a secret technique that opened links to other universes. According to the rumors, every time she made a portrait of someone, the version of that person represented on the image was dragged into existence in this universe. It goes without saying that that kind of power would draw the attention of a certain secret elite organization with plans about the improvement of reality. All that stands in its way is poor clueless Pepper.

There’s a symbolic level at which the novel Self-Portrait with Nothing succeeds at expressing the disquieting mix of emotions associated with lifelong grief. Pepper tells herself that she’s made peace with Ula’s unexplained choices, but the truth is she’s been living in unresolved grief about the family life she never knew. Now, to be fair, her adoptive mothers couldn’t be more perfect; she has nothing to complain about on that front. But still, that unanswered what if remains. Other possible lives were closed off to her. She never met Ula face to face, so she’s imagined her in many different ways, without knowing which one was true in this universe. Pepper’s search for answers after learning of Ula’s disappearance is told with a profound empathy for the feeling of a truth that eludes definition. Later in the plot, when we discover that Ula made a series of self-portraits that summoned alternate versions of herself, Pepper’s interaction with those other Ulas mirrors the confusing real-life experience of an adoptee figuring out which of the imagined profiles of their biological mother matches the real one.

While the novel does a good job at this purely symbolic level, the nuts and bolts of the narrative craft are handled less well. The omniscient narrator takes too long to reveal to the reader that Pepper already knew who her biological mother is, which diminishes the impact of this news when other characters are surprised by it. The second half of the plot, where Pepper travels to Ula’s hometown to find more clues, is held together by an unbroken succession of bad luck incidents that strain credulity to ridiculous extremes.

In particular there’s a writerly tic that reoccurs dozens of times throughout the text and gets tiresome quickly. Whenever Pepper is pushed into a corner by circumstances, she tends to imagine herself in other universes, dealing with her problem more competently, or having avoided it due to wiser choices, or utterly unaffected by it. So the reader has to endure interminable repetitions of “In a different universe, Pepper was…” Yes, we get it, this is a story about multiverse variants of the same person; we don’t need to be reminded of the book’s gimmick every five minutes. These asides have no consequence on the actual events we follow and make Pepper come off, at best, as an indecisive person habituated to maladaptive daydreaming, and at worst, as a mediocre substitute for more interesting Peppers we could be reading about instead. This Pepper ends the novel having realized that she rather likes the universe she happens to inhabit, but the inner process that led to that key moment of growth is obscured from the reader.

A big reason why Pepper can make it through her investigation with her sanity in one piece is her strong bond with her husband. Even in the second half, where their communication is limited to text messages, she gets invaluable support from his gentle words and his unwavering optimism. This was a consistently enjoyable character to read. Under a barrage of revelations that shake Pepper’s entire understanding of reality, her husband’s love provides an anchor to an aspect of the universe she wouldn’t want to change.

The sinister organization that is pursuing Pepper to get its hands on the paintings is not so successfully written. Those scenes try to give the vibe of a spy thriller, but the prose is firmly stuck in personal psychodrama mode, and the mismatch is too evident. The story in general works better when Pepper is processing her emotional turmoil than when she tries to be an international woman of mystery. A specially cringeworthy scene has Pepper list all the ways she’s unqualified to pull off a museum heist, right at the moment she’s attempting said heist.

Self-Portrait with Nothing is an uneven mix of, on one hand, complex emotions that would have been better served by a more detailed exploration, and on the other hand, dangerous adventures in spy land that often run in circles and get nowhere. How effectively you find it allegorizes the disorientation of a motherless child will depend on how much tolerance you have for vaguely mentioned conspiracies that add to the story less than the extensive space they fill on the page.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

Reference: Pokwatka, Aimee. Self-Portrait with Nothing [Tor, 2022].

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

TV Review: The Copenhagen Test

A deadly game of stories inside stories, masks behind masks

You probably don’t need to be told about the less than cordial relationship that US society has with its immigrant members. Real life provides daily reminders. Even though the country itself is a plurinational entity built of and by immigrants, the prevailing attitude among the white people in power is that the rest of ethnicities are on permanent probation. In the new spy TV series The Copenhagen Test, that seemingly incurable paranoia in the American psyche is the shadow hanging over our protagonist Alexander, a son of Chinese immigrants who has done more than should be asked of anyone to demonstrate his patriotic loyalty to the US, but who somehow keeps having to earn the country’s trust again and again. This is the story of a good man begging for some basic respect from a system that doesn’t deserve him.

At some point in the past, Alexander was in the US Army. Because immigrants are never done proving their allegiance, during an overseas rescue mission he was subjected to a secret test: there was only one available seat left in a helicopter, and he had to choose between saving a foreign child or an American adult. He had received explicit orders to prefer the American, but he took the correct option (it’s not the option the test prefers, but it’s indisputably the correct one): he saved the child. This moment has cascading consequences for his career. Because he was falsely led to believe he left someone to die, he lives with PTSD and repeated panic attacks, which he hides from his superiors. Because he supposedly didn’t show enough loyalty to the US, he’s been removed from field missions and assigned to an office job. And because his Chinese parents anxiously raised him to be more American than baseball and hot dogs, he feels like an impostor.

So we have a protagonist with more than enough inner complexity to lead the show. And that’s only the backstory; we still haven’t gotten to the part where an enemy faction puts nanobots in his head to turn him into a live streaming camera. That doesn’t help his chances now that he’s applying for a spy job.

Against all odds, he gets the job, at a super-extra-ultra-secret agency that watches the other US agencies (we’re told it was created during the Bush Sr. presidency, which means the immediate context for the project must have been the fallout of the Iran-Contra scandal). Alexander’s bosses are aware of the nanobots in his head, because he’s a walking radio emitter, and instead of kicking him out, which would alert the enemy, they decide to use him as a triple agent: he’s working for the US, but everything he sees and hears is still being broadcast 24/7 at the enemy, but he’s going to broadcast an edited version of his life in order to lure and catch the enemy. He’s not 100% sure his bosses aren’t planning to eliminate him in the end, and his bosses aren’t 100% sure he wasn’t complicit in hacking his own head, but they’re going to need to act like they trust each other if they want to reach any solution.

What follows is a fascinating pantomime, meticulously designed between Alexander and his bosses to give misleading information to the enemy without alerting either the enemy or the rest of the spies at the agency. And the architect of this believable fiction is a brilliant character: Samantha, an English lit graduate who was previously hired by the agency to concoct cover stories and predict threat scenarios. If you’re wondering why spies would need the services of a dramaturge, consider this: when you’re a spy, your entire life is a performance, and you need to be alert to subtextual clues in everyone else’s performance. You need to prepare against the most outlandish villain plans and push the right buttons to influence others’ behavior. Spycraft is about controlling information delivery and ascertaining human motivations, and that’s exactly where a creative writer excels.

So The Copenhagen Test isn’t the type of spy story that boasts shiny gadgets, cocktail suits, or acrobatic stunts. Its plot is more contained, less reliant on spectacle and more demanding of the viewer’s attention. Under Samantha’s direction, Alexander becomes a decoy of himself, letting his eyes and ears perceive only what his bosses curate, while being careful not to let the enemy notice that he knows he’s been hacked, or that his bosses know. As the story progresses, he starts suspecting that even his bosses are hiding stuff from him, so he adds another layer of pretense: he has to do all of the above plus conduct his own investigation without letting his bosses notice that he’s doing it.

With me so far? Great, because that’s only half of the complications.

The other half is another brilliant character: Michelle, an infiltration specialist who was originally hired by the agency to play the role of love interest for Alexander. But she has her own agenda in this whole mess, and she has ways of communicating with Alexander outside of either faction’s notice, so the visible faces of their relationship multiply thusly: the corny romance story they enact for the enemy’s eyes, the simultaneous digging into his loyalty that she does for the agency, the private messages they exchange when they’re in a place that blocks his head’s signal, and the extra level of subterfuge that she deploys in those moments, when she believes that he believes that she’s really on his side.

The result of this kabuki-grade dance of innuendo and misdirection is that Alexander, Samantha and Michelle play at all times the parallel roles of scriptwriter and actor and spectator. As I often say on this blog, the best stories are those about stories. And The Copenhagen Test uses this example of a man’s loyalty being under constant test to suggest a uncomfortable idea: if there’s no difference between being a patriot and acting like one, then patriotism is simply a performance, and our identities as citizens and as political subjects are stories we continually tell each other. The whole edifice of society and its reciprocal responsibilities rests on a sustained belief reenacted daily.

The show gives us a dark parallel of this idea in the figure of the villain, whom we meet rather early in the season. He was a spy from the communist bloc in the ’80s, who betrayed his country for the promise of immigration to the US, but was discarded once he was no longer useful. Once again we see the theme of a society that weaponizes its membership: whereas the American government has failed Alexander by refusing to believe he’s American enough, it also failed the villain by luring him into believing he could be. This self-sabotaging pattern on the part of the US is also related to the loyalty test in Alexander’s backstory: the rules of the test are based on the unquestioned assumption that American citizenship endows a human life with greater inherent worth.

That, in a nutshell, is the conceptual trap that makes American exceptionalism possible: the belief that people’s worth can be given and removed, instead of just acknowledged. It’s the lie that Alexander still accepts, the motivation that drives all of his mistakes: the promise of a society where people don’t aspire to be respected, but to be usable. Alexander’s parents are perpetually stressed about not coming off as true Americans, so they overcorrect to the point of self-negation. His bosses don’t care if he behaves morally or if he hates himself for the choice they forced on him years ago; they only care about how much use can be made of him. And as long as he agrees that that’s the proper way for the land of the free to frame his personhood, he won’t be free.

Even in a healthy society, there’s a degree to which each of us must play a public role to convince the rest that we’re good and reliable. But in the uniquely spectacle-poisoned US, the show must go on. People like Alexander (or like Samantha and Michelle, who also are nonwhite) aren’t allowed to truly experience their lives, only to perform them—look American, sound American, seem American. Because the test doesn’t end; because in a society built on suspicion, the tools of spycraft become necessities of survival; because if you can be certain of one thing in these uncertain times, it’s that there’s always someone watching.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

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