December 2024 in Review

Hello Funny People,

Welcome to 2025. Here's hoping you enjoyed your holiday celebrations 🍾. One thing, of course, remains for me to remark upon, and that is how the final month of the previous year panned out. In a word: it was alright.

A Brief Recapitulation

December began in quite a lovely way. I spent the first day of it driving back from Ohio where I'd been visiting my brother. It was obscenely cold, and snow covered a good portion of the Midwestern states thanks to th roll of our region's annual first major cold snap. Literally, the first thing I did after I got home was shovel the front steps of my house and salt the shit out of them. And if you read that previous sentence and haven't a clue what either if those things are, consider yourself fortunate.

After that, everything became all about the holidays. I timed buying all the major gifts I needed to get to coincide with the Black Friday weekend and naturally stressed over whether or not the damn things would get to the house in time. For once, everything did, which I put down to the unseasonably decent weather we had for much of the month.

The Writing Life

Because of the stress of the holidays, all progress on all things new stopped completely.  Both the portal fantasy and the steampunk dark fantasy remain where they were before the Thabksgiving, for now 

However, I'm a creature of habit, so being unable to do anything writing related would've made me miserable. So, rather than trying to produce fresh raw copy on either of mh in-progress linger works, I opted to slowly begin revising one of my two novels from last year. In this case, I chose the Space Opera.

Collage for the Space Opera 

Why the space opera? Because I'm making much more significant revisions to it than I would the coming-of-age wizard novel. For one, I've started slowly transitioning the book from alternating 1st person POV to alternating 3rd person POV. As much as Gareth L. Powell's novels, Peter S. Beagle's The Innkeeper's Song, and other 1st person masters whose books I enjoy reading and have influenced me, I recognize what a mistake I'd made in trying to imitate them so closely. My strength in long-form, for better or worse, has long been 3rd limited. I've worked in 3rd limited more than any other POV, so why move so far away from what I know I can do? And, as it turns out, doing so has allowed me the ability to better flesh out certain aspects if the story. To give myself a little credit, fhe fact that i ginished a novel-length manuscirpt working in a mode that was totally different to my usual stylings is imoressive, but as much as i enjoy a challenge, perhaps in future i shouldn't make things so hard for myself. To my surprise, I've actually been producing new material for the book by taking preexisting elements and adding to them. 

At the time of my writing this, I'm in the middle of taking one chapter that had been in the POV of an AI character, and I've transformed it into four shorter but better chapters of material. As a result, the character has become much more fleshed out, and I've found an interesting way to incorporate the flashbacks I'd been hoping to weave into this novel in a much more natural manner. 

This is why I love rewriting so much. When rewriting, the pressure isn't purely on invention. The invention is already there, the clay you already made to create your sculpture already exists. All you're doing is reshaping that preexisting material to better resemble the sculpture you'd initially intended to make in the first place.

Alas, that is the only major writing news I can share. My little flash story that I sent back in Spetember remains on an editor's desk waiting for its inevitable rejection. But as I outlined in my post about my 2025 intentions, I won't give up on it, regardless of the outcome. 

Miscellaneous

Like pretty much every working American at the moment, I've been following the Luigi Mangione case. For those unaware (all three of you), Mangione is the man currently on trial for assassinating Brian Thompson, then-CEO of UnitedHealth Care. While I do not condone the use of violence, except in cases of self-defense, I absolutely understand why Mangione did what he did. I also understand why so few people in the general public have not condemned his actions. When you live in a broken capitalist system, where a claim denial can prevent people from receiving necessarily care, it's hard to feel sympathy for a corporate CEO making bank on the backs of human suffering. 

The fact that Mangione has since been charged Federal as a terrorist, however, says something incredibly disgusting about our justice system as well. Especially in the wake of all the mass shootings and school shootings this country has had not just this year, but for year after year since the start of the decade. When none of these shooters have ever been labeled or charged as terrorists in the media (when they've been taken alive, of course), for killing dozens of people, to call one man such for killing one rich white CEO says all you need to know about America's Lady Justice. They put blindfold on her to save her the grief of all the I justices the cogs of her system have dolled out for the sake of protecting the property and interest of the ruling class.

The law is not there to protect the average citizen. It is there to keep them in line. Fuck the pigs and the fools to support them.

Media wise, things have been pretty standard for those time of year. In addition to the relentless onslaught of Christmas movies, I've watched two new shows as well as kept up on one of my new favorites.

Matlock's two most recent new episodes have certainly changed things for Kathy Bates's character. Now working alongside Olympia's (sort of) ex-husband, Julian, on big pharmaceutical cases, she's inching ever closer to finding out the truth about which of the big three powerbrokers in Jacobs and Moore hid the opioid documents. However, this has also led her into more and more of a moral gray area. The law can be a noble profession when you're fighting for the right case, but the second money enters the picture, things get complicated and questionable. Both of the recent episodes pushed Maddie Matlock into serious grey zones, forcing her to decide just how far she's willing to go to get payback for her daughter and grandson. More so, the show's strengthening of her relationships with Olympia and her coworkers adds an even greater dimension of potential conflict. After all, as Maddie grows closer and more friendly with them, how much harder will it be for her finally to pull the trigger on her original plan when the opportunity presents itself at last? The show resumes with new episodes at the end of January, so perhaps we'll get more answers then.

I've been cycling through a fee old favorite anime the last few months, like Magic and Muscles and Demon Slayer's most recent arc, Dan Da Dan was a definite surprise and delight. It absence we rs the questikn: what kind of show would you get if you had evil magical spirits and aliens in the same setting? Answer: this. What sold me on it was the pilot episode, which established the core relationship at the heart of the show: Okarun and Momo. These two outcasts come together to slowly form this strange little family of oddballs that seek to protect the world both from.evil spirits trying to possess and kill people and aliens desperately seeking Humans to reproduce with and propagate their species. And as weird as that premise is, the show and Manga make it work. Granted, like a fair amount of anime, there's plenty of, what Nicholas Eames once called, "anime bullshit," like nudity, heavy innuendo, and lots of double entendre humor, the charm of the characters and their relationships more than compensates for it. (Keep in mind, Manga and anime are technically part of Japan's YA fiction, so a certain amount of immaturity is expected.) My only complaint about this first season of the show is that it ends on a mid-arc cliffhanger. Whoever made that decision is a real asshole for it. But the second season is due out in June, so that's something.

Another show I've avoided for a long time since it appeared has also become a form favorite. Given that I've only just begun finding my way into comics, I hadn't read Kirkman's Invincible. However, since diving in, I keep asking myself. "Why didn't I get into this sooner?" Much like The Boys (the most recent season of which I've also been putting off until the final season comes out), Invincible offers yet another much needed subversion of the classic tropes of superhero comics, while also loving staying true to many of those elements and making them new. Already aspects that I'm sure will play a part in next seasons core conflicts have been introduced, including the multiverse idea, alien invasions, the moral questions of whether it's alright for superheroes to kill, and, of course, the burgeoning romance between Eve and Invincible. How will these aspects play out? Well, Kirkman himself has said that the comic storylines ate getting twisted around and changed in the new medium, so I suppose we'll just have to see.

Last month's reads were, as usual, eclectic, however, after the first couple, a pattern began to appear: with the year coming to the close, I clearly had robots on the brain for some reason.

Hungry Ghosts By Stephen Blackmoore 

Hungry Ghosts continues the story of necromancer/hitman/PI Eric Carter. Set several months after the previous volume, we rejoin Carter in a state with only one thing on his mind: murder. More specifically, two murders, those of Santa Muerte, who entrapped him in an unwanted marriage, and her ex-husband, Mictlantecuhtli. The question is will he be able to find a way into the Land of the Dead before he turns to stone? 

Compared to its previous two installments, this volume of this series probably features the closest thing Carter can ever get to a happy ending. While he nearly always get what he wants, there's always a "but," attached to it. Here, he comes fairly close to a form of closure as he can get while achieving his goals. We also get to witness a deepening of the mythology Blackmoore is employing here, including the introduction of the character of Quetzalcoatl, who, if the gods we've encountered so far are any indicator, is going to be a major pain in the ass for Carter. Exactly how, we'll have to see going forward.

Stoner by John Williams

After seeing this title circulate on the bookstagram space for months, I finally decided to read it. Stoner on the one hand falls squarely into the sungenre of "campus novel," as most of the action takes place on the University of Missouri — Columbia (Mizzou) campus in the first half of the 20th century. Personally, I prefer to think of it as more of a "quotidian tragedy." It's a story about how the small, niggling things in life, and unexamined inhibitions can prevent us from living life to the best and fullest we possibly can, even when the things we do achieve, in retrospect, show that amazing things are possible. 

Stoner, as a novel, moved me for two reasons. First, it takes place in a landscape with which I have intimate familiarity: small-town Missouri. My mother comes from a similar background to the one from which William Stoner himself arose, small time farming folk for whom book-learning was, sadly, a luxury in the face of the realities of day-to-day necessities. Second, as somebody with aspirations to do great things, Stoner's passive acceptance of the minor inconveniences if life to get in the way of them is, again, something I understand (and often have to fight against in myself). 

A lot of discourse surrounding this book talk about it as being the story of a "mediocre life, lived and forgotten in obscurity." But to return to my inital description of the story, as a quotidian tragedy, I don't find Stoner's tale to be one of mediocrity. Limited achievement? Sure. But Stoner's story is actually quite remarkable, when you consider the historical epoch in which the story is set. Early 20th America wasn't the place that urges people to get educations, as it does now. Education, for those without money, wasn't even required up to a point. The fact that Stoner emerged from farmlife to become an academic in such a time is quite a remarkable accomplishment. Not everyone has books marts, after all. It's his inability to overcome his tragic flaw of passivity that prevents him from achieving more beyond securing tenure and publishing a single book. If he'd had more drive at the right times, he mightve become a truly great scholar. But that's not the story Williams wrote; however, the story he did write, in his clear and elegant fashion, is a book certainly worthy of its praise.

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky 

My second Tchaikovsky, and the first piece of his science fiction work off of which I didn't bounce immediately. (No shade intended.) 

In the wake of murdering his master—something any Asimov fan will tell you ought to be impossible—we follow Robot Butler, (Un)Charles, as he seeks out his one and only goal: to find a new human master to serve. Along the way, we discover that human society had collapsed, Terminator-style, and that many of the robots have somehow (sort of) risen up to claim their autonomy, while others have continued, like (Un)Charles, to serve out their purposes. As (Un)Charles seeks out his new master, he encounters the Wonk, a character who isn't quite what she seems, with her own goals, who keeps urging (Un)Charles to embrace his new autonomy, something he has no interest in.

If you took P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and made him a robot, stuck him into the plot of a picaresque novel, in a world best described as "Asimov's Take on Skynet," you'd get this incredibly strange and delightful book. Also, I have to say, Tchaikovsky himself narrated the audiobook edition of this novel, and I hope he does so more in future. He has rather a good voice for narrating 

Dogs of War By Jonathan Maberry 

The Joe Ledger series continues as everyone's favorite psychologically fractured smartass asskicker and his fellow DMS agents continue to try to bounce back after the events of Predator One and Kill Switch. They're one brilliant, if sick-minded, man and two well-trained warriors down, and they still have the suspicious eyes of their own employer (the US government), fixed on them with a mistrustful glare. Plus, the battle scars of Kill Switch haven't even begun to fade from pink to white. So, when genuine machines of war, the eponymous dogs, begin going haywire, in a fashion eerily reminiscent to the Predator One incident, they have no choice but to leap back into the fire once again.

I have to say, again, that Maberry flexes his chops as a series writer here. Even as the action moves at its usual breakneck pace, forcing us the readers to keep up and piece things together as we rush through, he never fails to emphasize character. Joe and the team are feeling the weight of all their recent misadventures and close calls, calls that have been cutting closer (seemingly), since the events of Code Zero. Sure, they've bounced back time and again, but we feel the weight of their losses and the linger trauma of their battles.

Only one book remains in the inital series before the transition to Rogue Team International happens. So, despite how triumphant the DMS seemed by the end of this volume, I know that their house of cards is about to come tumbling down. The question is what brings it about in the end. We shall soon see...

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

This, admittedly, is a reread, but one that comes after a long time away from the series.

But even after so many years away from it, I see the magic of Murderbot. The most socially inept killer automaton burned its way into my heart, as it has for everyone else who's picked up a volume of its story. Now, with the news of another full-length novel in the works from Matha Wells, I naturally plan to read my way through all of them  (And thanks to a Black Friday sale, I now have all of them in my library.)

All in all, the last month of the year wasn't so bad. But I am glad to see the back of it.

🍻 Here to those who wish us well,

And those that don't can go to hell. 🥂

— IMC 🙃