April 2025 in Review

Hello Funny People,

At the start, I was prepared to re-quote T.S. Eliot's famous poem The Waste Land, "April is the cruelest month," as if the happenings of last month couldn't be topped. But near the month's end, something major changed.

A Brief Recapitulation

As I mentioned last month, my boss at my long-time day job passed away. As such, since then, I've been helping her family slowly wind down the business, which you wouldn't think would be overly complicated, but it sort of is.

The first half of the month, of course, was all about getting data back to clients and placing them with new accountants. We'd done some research and asked some recommendations from broker colleagues with whome my boss had longstanding professional relationships. By the time of Tax Day, April 15th, we had both informed everyone of the situation and returned the data of those whose returns she was unable to finish. 

However, upon consulting another accountant, her window then tasked us with a new job: turning over any and all files we had to those same clients. Given how much sensitive information my boss maintained in the office over umpteenth years, there were only two options for her family to take: either they held onto it for ten years, at which point much of it could be destroyed, or they could return it.  Thankfully, after something of a rocky start, that process has been going smoothly as well.

Well, given the savings on a storage unit they'd have by returning the information to its owners, they opted to do that. So, my colleagues and I have been undertaking the task to consolidate and return the information to everyone.

And in some cases, it's quite a lot.

Because we're not just talking about current year personal 1040 information. We're also talking about archival information, 1099 information, and small business information. Lots of folders with lots of information. And trying to get it back to people, so they can then decide what to do with it, is not simple. Especially when you're also trying to practice good CYA (that's office shorthand for cover your ass), just to make sure no one can sue us later.

Beyond that, Easter week was quite nice. My brother came in from Ohio to visit us all her. Actually, he came in to eat lots of chocolate, enjoy my father's usual Easter Sunday roast dinner, and to take his second to last exam for his medical certification. He had to take two different, multi-hour.long tests on Tuesday and Thursday of that week, which just blew my mind. I get that doctors are always going to undergo continuing education anyway on the job, but good grief. He's been out of Med School for almost a year now; when do the tests end? 

Simple answer: when he finally takes his boards at the end of his residency.

The Writing Life

As I mentioned before, I was prepared to give this month up in term of quality, especially in the wake of all that happened away from my creative life. However, two major developments changed my tune.

This first was this 👇

After noodling around, polishing, and revising my space opera for the better part of five months, I started sporadically sending it out to agents who were interested in science fiction. Naturally, I expected nothing. Last year's utter failure of a year of querying ground any hope of expectations from my soul. 

However, after sending it out four or five times, I got a positive reply from an agent at the above agency, an agency I'm very familiar with, given their agents had rejected my other novel multiple times. My little space opera, as well as my own profile as an author, seemed to tick several boxes off of this agent's MSWL. So, I decided to send the book in, if only for shiggles.

And what happened...well, happened. Again, I'm expecting nothing. A full request, after all, is neither an offer of representation, a TradPub book contract, or even a career. I don't even dare hope for the best while expecting the worst. The worst is nearly always what turns up.

The second major event was this 👇

The good people at Cloaked Press have expressed interest in my weather-beaten, much maligned fantasy novel. 

Again, I'm not getting my hopes up though. Though I have a decent, long-standing relationship with the press, they've rejected a few pieces of mine in the past. So, if they take a pass on this one, I won't be downcast. Some novels simply aren't meant to see the light of day. Maybe this poor old thing is one such project. All else fails, maybe I can start a Patreon and serialize it, if for no other reason than to have not let the entire thing go to waste.

I will say this though: I now understand why so many authors I've seen online kvetch about writing synopses. I'd had a 3-page one written for a long time, but for this submission, they requested a 1-page synopsis. Unfortunately, inexperienced boob that I am, I couldn't figure out a way to downsize the document without failing to convey the whole story. So, I did the only sensible thing: I cheated.

I rewrote the synopsis from scratch, but then I shrank the font from standard 12-point to 8-point (all while still keeping it double spaced). So, all 720, or so, words stayed on one page. Do I regret it? The cheating, yes. But considering the results...I think I can find it in me to forgive myself, even if nothing comes of it.

Miscellaneous

Despite all this, I've been keeping up with my watching and my reading. And to my surprise there was quite a bit of it.

First, the Matlock series finale left me utterly excited for what's to come next. The writers left us hanging with two big drops. One: Alfie Kingston's father has officially entered the chat, and though Maddie was very clearly blindsided by what happened, she nevertheless let him into the house. How will that play out? We'll have to wait and see. Two: we now know who the culprit behind the disappearing opioid study was, and now only Olympia has the power to decide what happens next. Will she turn her back on Julian and let Maddie expose him, or will her lingering affection for her ex get in her way? One thing I know for sure: next season is going to be intense.

Speaking of finales, the last episodes of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, were also excellent. The show managed to stick the landing and capture something dramatically that, I think, must've been quite a challenge even to Hilary Mantel. How do you depict, in a satisfying way, a rise and rise and rise—followed by a plummeting fall? Well, thankfully, the crew and troupe behind this series figure it out, due in large part to having Mantel's final novel as a baseline.

The closing episodes of this series felt, in many ways, like a barely halted cascade failure. The more responsibilities Henry forced upon his first minister, the harder it back for Cromwell to keep all the plates spinning. Also, unlike in the first season, where he had his anonymity and his ability to skulk in the shadows, this series depicts Cromwell as a public figure. People know him. People watch him. Therefore, it's harder for him to operate. So, as crisis after crisis follows, where once he handled things with ease, he now can barely keep things from collapsing around him. And to disappoint Henry, as he well knows, is to sign your own death warrant.  

The final episode depicting Cromwell's long stay in the Tower of London and eventually end, I thought, was handled quite well. Those who watched the first season might find it more reminiscent of how the show handled Sir Thomas More's death. Rather than lingering on the present moments, once Cromwell lays his head upon the block, it cuts away from the gore we all know will follow to a faint memory or Cromwell's. We see him head towards this monetary, filled with beehives, all being tended to; the air is sweet with the perfume of blooming flowers; the skies are clear, and the world is calm. Cromwell choose that place, somewhere he once thought to make his retirement home, as his final thought before the screen cuts to black. Excellent.

As a birthday present, I bought my father a year's subscription to APPLE TV+. And one of the first things I watched, apart from the stuff I knew he'd like, was the biographical drama, Franklin. While, on the whole, I enjoyed this show and believed the cast, particularly Michal Douglas, gave great performances, I did have a few quibbles.

Like all historical dramas, this one takes its liberties with certain details. For example, William Temple, Franklin's grandson who arrives in Europe with him, actually returned to America with him once the Revolution was over. Only once his grandfather died did Temple return to France. But, it's a cleaner ending that way.

Also, I didn't particularly care for the portrayal of John Adams in this show. While it's true, Adams didn't trust the French and his belligerent attitude eventually caused the court, particularly the Comte de Vergennes, Franklin's main contact at Versailles, to refuse to deal with him, there was so.ething over the top abrasive about that portrayal for which I didn't care. Maybe that's just because I love the HBO John Adams series too much.

Finally, there's the missed opportunity. At some point during Franklin's tenure as Ambassador to France, his "enemies" within the Continental Congress attempted to have him recalled and replaced. Yet, Franklin, the Great Chessmaster, beat them to the punch by demanding his own resignation at one point (given his age and declining health). The Congress blinked, and begged him to stay on, which he did to continue the work he'd begun. Yet, this show made no use of the happening, which could've served as at least the B Plot of one episode.

Still, altogether, the show was quite good and served to well portray this adventure in Franklin's life, which is often overlooked in the telling of history.

The crown jewel of this month's watches, however, was Slow Horses. I'd heard so many great things about this show that I knew the first chance I got I'd watch it. And God, did it live up to the hype—so much so that I'm pissed there won't be anymore until the latest season (which I understand is in the can), gets released some time this year.

This show has practically everything you'd want in an espionage show. A good amount of intrigue, a fair amount of action, a solid mystery at the heart of every season, lots of edge-of-your-seat tension, and most importantly for someone like me, some solid jokes and swearing. So, hands down, big fan. 

More importantly though, watching this show got me interested in reading the books. So, I picked up the first one during Libro.fm's indie bookstore weekend sale (along with thirty something other titles), so, I'll be adding that to the queue at some point.

Most of my reading this month was dominated by a single author, and much of it was, rereading. But it was for a good reason. Jonathan Maberry had a new Joe Ledger book out this year as part of the Rogue Team International sequence, so I decided to reread the RTI books afresh and work my way towards the latest one.

This reread was not only enjoyable, but it was also insightful. Given I began the Ledger series with Rage, there was a lot of context I was missing about these characters and their history. Relationships became more understandable, such as Joe and Sam Imura's comradeship-turned-animus and the antagonism between Joe and Toys. Characters hinted at became more tangible and fun, particularly Aunt Sally and Grace Cortland. And long-standing feuds gained context, particularly between Ledger and the antagonists like Raphael Santorum, Harcourt Bolton, and Mother Night.

Rage by Jonathan Maberry 

Relentless by Jonathan Maberry 

Cave 13 by Jonathan Maberry

Burn to Shine by Jonathan Maberry

I'm glad I did thing after having read all the preceeding Joe Ledger novels because certain things also hit harder than before. The ending of Rage for instance didn't quite land the first time; however, with the context of both Predator One and Dogs of War where readers really get to meet Joe's father and Brother, the second go round, it hit like a falling piano. Suddenly, these people who had been nothing but background figures before were suddenly real—and I felt their loss alongside Joe. Also, having seen what Nicodemus could do in Dogs of War and Deep Silence, the strange happenings in Relentless and Cave 13 suddenly made more sense, particularly with regard to Joe's succumbing to his darkness. 

Yet, with all these mysteries understood, one thing remains unclear: who exactly is Mr. Church, and what is his relationship to the trickster Nicodemus? Maberry has mentioned in a few interviews available on YouTube that the next novel in the sequence, titled Red Empire, will reveal much of what, until now, has only been hinted at. Particularly, the final revelation at the end of Burn to Shine in its closing paragraphs. Whoever, and whatever, Church is, it's clear he's more similar to Nicodemus than he's let on until now. 

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

The one exception to my Maberry binge was the last of the Murderbot novella, which was, as with its predecessors, excellent. Murderbot returns to where it's adventures began with Mensa, determined to turn over all the data it's collected about GreyCris's underhanded dealings. However, upon arrived back, it discovers that those same scheming business rogues have taken her captive. So, as it's been doing all the way through the series, Murderbot realizes it has only one choice: it has to, once again, save the stupid humans.

Exit Strategy is unique in that, over the course of the books, Murderbot has slowly been changing in subtle ways—ways perhaps even it hasn't quite realized. In this book though, where it not only returns to Mensa but the entire crew of its first operation, we see how much that change has influenced it. True, at its core, it remains the asocial being it's always been, preferring to watch its media than interact, but it seems to have gained a slightly greater ease with other sentient beings, having gone through so much.

However, even though this might be the end of the novella sequence, I know there's still more to come through the novels Wells has written and published. And I can't wait to get to those.

— IMC 🙃