Review [Video Game]: Control Ultimate Edition by Remedy Entertainment

Control remedies my faith in its studio

Imagine that all rumors of supernatural/paranormal occurrences were not only real, but that they were processed and intensely researched in a secretive American government agency. Welcome to the Federal Bureau of Control. Unfortunately, an entity has infiltrated the highly elusive agency, possessing anyone it can get its hands on. If only someone could come and help cleanse the infection and seal the festering wound. Enter Jesse Faden, the new director.

Ever wonder what it would be like to walk into a federal agency and receive the best job in the house on your first day and with no qualifications? This is precisely how Control opens. Once Jesse collects the service weapon, she instantly becomes the director, no questions asked. While there are all sorts of weird things going about throughout Control, this odd transition kept me at arm’s length. An extremely secretive official bureau simply accepts whoever picks up the gun? I kept expecting people to question her, to refuse to serve under her, but no. You get the gun, you get the job. Once I pushed that aside, I could dig in more and enjoy the game.

The gun in question, or service weapon as it’s called, is one of the two main offensive options in the game. Throughout a playthrough, the player is able to unlock and upgrade six forms of this weapon (five in the main game, one from add-on content), from an automatic pistol form to a rifle; the service weapon services all weapon needs. The gunplay is fun, smooth, and rewarding, and opens up creative opportunities in combat. I do wish there was some kind of weapon wheel, so that I didn’t have to switch between weapon forms in the menu mid-combat, but for the most part, two guns at a time worked. The gunplay works as you would expect a third-person shooter to, but the game elevates when combined with Jesse’s paranatural abilities.

Jesse’s paranatural abilities come in the form of telekinesis and are a blast to wield. From launching objects around at enemies, to creating a shield from debris, to launching Jesse into the air—combined with the gunplay—Control’s mechanics create some exhilarating moments that are the true bread and butter of this supernatural romp. Blasting a shielded enemy with a telekinetically propelled boulder, leaping in the air, then quickly dodging to the side to avoid incoming fire, then finishing said enemy with a well-placed headshot before the shields could recuperate was so satisfying no matter how many times I’d pulled it off. Control does not just play well, it feels fantastic, too.

Though the gunplay rocks, the crouch/duck cover system is weak, and I sometimes got shot by enemies that shouldn’t have been able to hit me. Once I got the levitate ability (which comes later in the game than I would have liked), I barely used the crouching system, instead opting to shift between taller cover as quickly as possible.

Besides these weapon forms and abilities, the player can upgrade the power and ability of all offensive capabilities as well as modify them. Increase headshot damage for my rifle mod? Yes, please. Do I want to do 75% more launch damage? You know it. Upgrading the weapon forms and finding complementary mods that changed the way the weapon functioned was part of the driving factor for finding more mods. It’s a shame they never had a multiplayer mode; I could see it being a chaotic treat.

Control definitely has a more cohesive story than Alan Wake, despite my initial misgivings about Jesse’s acceptance to the director position. In fact, there is an add-on (AWE) included with the Ultimate Edition that connects the universes of Control and Alan Wake, which helps lend context to what is going on over in Bright Falls. While it didn’t make me want to go back and play Alan Wake Remastered, it piqued my curiosity for the sequel. The supernatural elements of the story loosen the amount of suspension of disbelief necessary to pull through the crazier parts of the narrative. That said, sometimes the game takes risks with something silly or ambiguous, and it doesn’t play well, separating me from the experience. Other times, like the man forced to stare at a refrigerator or die, are hilarious and clever. Control has a mix of these moments. Sometimes Remedy creates vague mumbo jumbo for the sake of it because they figure they could get away with it with all the other stuff going on, and I just don’t like it. It doesn’t happen enough to ruin my experience, but is just enough to remind me why I didn’t like Alan Wake.

Exploration is great, and reminds me of some of my old favorites like Bioshock (structurally, not aesthetically). I read almost every collectible I discovered, though I wish I didn’t have to stand by the audio recordings to listen to them (some of them are quite lengthy). The world looks good and holds up well for a seven-year-old game. Some animations come off with a whiff of the uncanny valley, but nothing too severe. The environments themselves look great, some of the shining instances being those used to exemplify the striking lighting work and contrast Remedy excels at.

One of the few things I remember liking about Alan Wake was its soundtrack, and Control doesn’t push me away here. The sound work in Control is no slouch; from the music to the voice acting to the sound effects, the game does well on all fronts. The sound effects help make the paranatural abilities pop and assist in solidifying the pleasurable combat.

I’ll admit, it took me a while to boot up Control. I’ve had this downloaded on my console for a long time. Years, in fact. My adventures in Bright Falls certainly did their best to deter me, but I’m glad I finally gave in. Control isn’t perfect. There are some monotonous puzzles that remove me from the game occasionally, not to mention some of the story elements that don’t click (another game guilty of making me question whether some events of the game were real or imagined), though thankfully those were kept to a minimum. But on the whole, enjoyable exploration, gratifying gunplay, and a solid story make Control worth playing and even have me looking forward to Alan Wake II. With Control Resonant right around the corner, now is the time to check out this solid effort from Remedy Entertainment. Even if you don’t love the story, it’s hard not to enjoy the frenetic action.

The Math

Objective Assessment: 8/10.

Bonus: +1 for explosive, satisfying gameplay. +1 for quirky story.

Penalties: −1 for odd/vague narrative beats. −0.5 for some boring puzzles. −0.5 for poor cover/crouch mechanics in combat.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

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.

Anime Review: Sparks of Tomorrow

Intriguing quirky animation and cozy, alternate history vibes

Sparks of Tomorrow is the latest contribution to the cozy/comfort anime genre. But, instead of a magical fantasy setting, the drama is based on conflicting pursuits of mechanical inventions that inspire the dreams and drive the motivations of the various characters. The series is set in an alternate history where electricity was never pursued and the few machines are powered by steam. Based on a series of light novels, the story’s undercurrent is an exploration of science and invention. Despite being inspired by science, the series is mostly a drama with plenty of personal angst, including a lost brother, a forced marriage, an over-the-top antagonist, and plenty of family secrets in a mostly kid-friendly plot. Additionally, the show uses a range of animation styles, inventive costumes, and fun character designs to maintain a semi-fantastical vibe that makes the show shine more on the gorgeous visuals than on the underlying storytelling.

Protagonist Kihachi is the orphaned younger brother of a charismatic inventor, Seiroku, whose genius (in this alternate reality) held the key to creating an age of electricity. The loss of Seiroku leaves young Kihachi alone and bitter, but still searching for a way to fulfill his brother’s dream. Kihachi is taken in by a repair shop’s family and works there while still searching for the lost catalog of his brother’s inventions and instructions. As he vacillates between determination and discouragement, Kihachi meets Inako, an optimistic girl trapped in an arranged marriage to the story’s antagonist, Yosuke. Yosuke is the wealthy and obnoxious heir to a large family business who wants the electric invention catalog for himself. As part of his scheme, Yosuke coerces Inako’s father into an engagement to Inako, hoping to gain access to the catalog that he thinks is hidden at her family’s home or brewery. Despite grieving the loss of her mother and her dire situation with the forced marriage, Inako is intrigued by Kihachi’s goals. Inako’s optimistic faith inspires Kihachi to move past his cranky cynicism and chase his dreams. The pair are surrounded by an eclectic collection of characters who help them on their journey, including Inako’s sensible sister, Noriko, and Noriko’s sturdy, but secretly insecure, fiancé Kengo, who each have unexpected connections to the lost Seiroku. Inako also has a pair of super smart girlfriends, Kate and Suzu, who help in the various schemes and one of whom also has an unexpected connection to Seiroku.

Sparks of Tomorrow is more of a light, background show for episodic, family viewing, rather than intensely binge-worthy. Unlike most new anime, the storytelling feels a bit generic despite the unique premise. And, unlike many slice-of-life anime, the lead characters are not irresistibly appealing. Kihachi’s cynicism and Inako’s earnestness start to feel a little repetitive after a while. But the presentation is bolstered by the side characters who are all interesting, clever, and quirky. In particular, Inako’s calmly smart older sister Noriko hides a host of secrets, while her strong but angsty fiancé Kengo has his own internal turmoil. Rather than being a traditional shonen adventure with a mix of light energy and intense violent encounters, Sparks of Tomorrow is more of a middle-grade steampunk science adventure designed for cozy comfort rather than intense peril (although there are some backstory war scenes with on-screen deaths). While there is an overarching story arc of Kihachi and Yosuke fighting over the electrical catalog, each episode is mostly a self-contained adventure, typically focusing on one particular invention. Similar to Food Wars, where each episode showcases a particular cooking technique, Sparks of Tomorrow focuses on a new device which is then used to address a particular plot element in the episode. Many of the inventions are used in ways that are semi-fantastical, such as an electric guitar for a music competition or a motorized toy rat used to scare someone. The tone is primarily comedic rather than profound. Even when there are serious moments of grief or guilt, they eventually give way to a more humorous element.

However, the major appeal of the show is the animation. The visual style is primarily smooth Ghibli-style character movements which shift, at times, to quirky fantastical, or eerie black and white, or abstract impressionist as the plot evolves. Each time, the change of visual effects (which may only be for a moment) is surprising and adds an artsy element to the presentation. In the war flashbacks, the animation style changes to a more retro, hand-drawn style where scenes of rain and scenes of fire follow each other while one character cries over the death of another. Later there is a switch to an impressionist style of flowers and color in the remembering of the lost person. In another scene a character is shown through the reflection of their face in the liquid inside a teacup. A character’s inner thoughts are portrayed as abstract black with white pencil-style animation of their body. In yet another scene, a character walking in the rain is depicted from high above by the pink circle of an open parasol floating among other colored circles against a neutral surface. In a later episode, Kihachi dresses in a ballgown and makeup to sneak into a private event and, once discovered, engages in an extended elaborate dance with the antagonist Yosuke while still wearing the ballgown and continuing their verbal sparring. These unusual and whimsical visual elements are intermittent and unexpected but keep the story from becoming too flat.

Overall, Sparks of Tomorrow is a unique story that delivers intriguing animation and clever side characters. While the central story arc is not intensely compelling, the overall vibes are cozy, kid-safe and interesting enough to hold your attention if you are in the mood for something with low stakes.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

Highlights:

• Cozy, kid focused content
• Gorgeous animation and character design
• Low-stakes cuteness and tension

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

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.