Jeffrey Rewrites Voyager: Ex Post Facto

Let’s get this out of the way right off: I love noir.

I love craggy, tough-as-nails gumshoes in battered fedoras and rumpled suits, rubbing their five-o-clock shadows while drinking scotch and talking about the mean streets. I love morally ambiguous detective stories where you’re not supposed to like the hero, you’re just supposed to respect him, and where his detective skills relied less on Holmesian deduction and more on telling when someone was lying, being fast with a gun, keeping the cops at bay, and never, ever trusting the dame.

It's not sexist when Bogey does it. That's the rule, right?

In many ways the entire genre is sexist, where women are either innocent virgins to be protected, or seductive vamps to be used and/or ensnared by, and more often than not the plot twist is that the former turns out to be the latter. And yet men are treated no better, being either crafty and manipulative villains or thuggish and stupid goons. It is a world where everyone has the worst intentions, and no one has virtue. And I love it.

And so when I talk about Ex Post Facto, Voyager’s obvious tribute to noir, I am predisposed to like it. But right from the start it’s an awkward mix. Roddenberry’s future is bright, clean, and idealistic. Noir is the opposite of all those things. It’s like if someone took Superman, a beacon of hope, truth, and justice, and made him a distrusted, hated outcast who eventually had to turn to destruction and violence to save a morally ambiguous people from a morally evil villain and… oh yeah.

Apocryphail Phriday: Knee Deep In The Dead

I haven't seen the movie with the Rock.
But it had to be better than this.

In 1993 a video game came out from ID Software that would more or less invent the First Person Shooter genre. This game was Doom. It became wildly popular. This being the nineties, that meant it got spinoffs. And so, in 1995, Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver published "Doom: Knee Deep In The Dead", a full novelization of the first video game in the franchise.

It remains a textbook example of how never, ever to write a video game novel.

The problem is not the hard-on for the Marine Corps that makes Michael Bay look like a weed-smoking flower child. Nor is the problem the confused gender politics and inability to decide whether the heroes are snarky nerds or grunting jarheads.

The problem is not even the network of cliches that renders this story completely and utterly unengaging.

The problem is that this novel, this novel about the most badass Marine in the world mowing down an entire army of demons on the moons of Mars, is terrifyingly, life-suckingly dull.

Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull from Dullsville with a side order of dull and something dull on top.

Let's jump right in, shall we?

Doctor Whosday: Six Episodes, Five Keys, Four Quests, Three Companions, Two Hangers-On, One Sexual Assault, No Joy

Fresh off his success creating The Daleks, which catapulted Doctor Who into television history, writer Terry Nation wanted to do a historical story. When that fell through, the producers asked him to create another extremely marketable villain, like the Daleks had been. It was with this directive in mind that Nation wrote "The Keys of Marinus".

The serial was a series of quests for the titular keys, with each episode encompassing another adventure, with another key as the object. This plot would be replayed on a season-wide scale during the excellent "Key to Time" season, with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor.

Unlike that story, The Keys of Marinus is crap. Welcome to Doctor Whosday!

Marvel Monday: Ouch! My Science!

Look, I get it. Science and comic books are like oil and water. Comics are a world where FTL is easily attainable, where radiation may as well be magic, and Nuclear Bombs Are Minor Inconveniences.

But sometimes the suspension of disbelief is snapped so completely that you have to wonder what kind of drugs the writers were on. This being July of 1962, I'm going to guess LSD. Welcome to Marvel Monday.

This is almost entirely unlike the actual cover. There was no disco in 1962.

Marvel Monday: Everybody Loves Namor

In May of 1962 Marvel launched their second title exclusively taking place within the Marvelverse, and brought back a Golden Age hero, forever tying the Marvel universe into the Golden Age continuity.

And one of these comics actually was pretty good! Let's look at that one first.

Hulk smash preconceptions of comic book protagonists!

Marvel Monday: Character Development Without Character

With the story of Henry Pym being just a one-off, March of 1962 saw only the Fantastic Four published in the Marvelverse. Issue #3 saw the introduction of a lot of Fantastic Four paraphernalia, and also saw the tensions between team members come to a head. If only they had done a single story that made me care about any of them. As always, you can get a non-critical synopsis of the issue over at the Marvel Wiki.

Sue made the uniforms, because woman's work and all that. After seeing them, Reed
suggests she could work for Dior. Lying to Sue keeps her from realizing she's a tool.

When last we left our intrepid heroes terrorists, they had been pardoned by the New York Police Department, who apparently can override the military in Marvel's mixed up topsy turvy universe. So, having escaped the consequences of their horrifically destructive actions, the Fantastic Four decide to spend their downtime taking in a stage magician's show.

Apocryphail Phriday: The Crystal Shard

Despite the title, there are no Gelflings. More's the pity.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful and pure and good-hearted person, but he was of a supernatural race that everyone feared. But all their prejudice was wrong, because he was really beautiful, and he had gorgeous eyes, and he was very strong, and a tireless protector of the innocent, and just the best at absolutely everything.

No, don't worry, I'm not reviewing Twilight.

No, this ridiculous Marty Stu is not an immortal vampire who nevertheless can wander around in the sun and is the very soul of purity despite being a creeper.

No, this one is a so-long-lived-he-may-as-well-be-immortal dark elf who nevertheless wanders around in the sun and is the very soul of purity despite being a psychopath.

We're delving deep into the Forgotten Realms today, examining the novel line that spun off from the popular Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game. Specifically, we're looking at R. A. Salvatore's "The Crystal Shard", which is the first appearance of his most well known creation: Edward Cullen.

I mean Drizzt Do'Urden. That's who I meant.