We do hope you enjoyed our last Torture Cinema as much as we didn’t. Who am I kidding? WE LOVE GETTING TORTURED! (We laugh so we don’t cry) We’ve got some really good movie picks for you this month! Or is that bad ones? Whatever they are, they’re something.
We said on Twitter a while back that some changes were coming to The Skiffy and Fanty universe. The first of those changes is our Patreon page. This post is all about what we changed. To our current Patreon supporters, we offer a hearty thanks! Hopefully, our new goals and updated supporter levels will keep you with us for the next 10,000 years! New (Updated) Supporter Levels For the most part, our supporter levels are the same. We did reduce the number of levels and make each “perk” more cohesive. Here’s what to expect:
In an alternate 1850s era, the British Empire is flourishing as vitally as it did in our timeline, but from different base causes. Instead of the power of the Industrial Revolution providing the motive power for Monarch and country, the Royal Society of Esoteric Arts provides the competitive advantage for Great Britain to stand astride the world. But this society of magicians is a merciless one, taking every person with magical talent, whether they like it or not. Charlotte Gunn seeks to aid her family from financial disaster that her father is in by making sure that her brother’s talents are seen and compensated for. Oh, and in so doing, hiding her own deep, dark secret from the Royal Society: Charlotte, you see, is a mage too. Charlotte, and her world, come to life in the Tor.com novella Brother’s Ruin by Emma Newman.
A Princess seeking to escape the circumscribed nature of her life and the path set out for her. A Prince who strives to protect his land against an invasion and threat his small country has no capacity to stop. A tyrannical King whose plots and plans overwhelm them all. And a mysterious mountain of knowledge and power that is the key to all of them. It sounds on the face to be a standard fantasy setup with characters out of stock central fantasy casting that could be listed in Diana Wynne Jones’ THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND. You can probably even predict how this sort of set up will go, on the old straight track. Prince saves the day, Princess is plucky, Father dies heroically and repents and recants on his deathbed, paving way for Prince to be the better successor. Simple and straightforward character beats and maybe if one is lucky, some character growth for Prince and Princess too. However, The Mountain of Kept Memory by Rachel Neumeier avoids those well trod paths that might go with that sort of fantasy setup, and has a focus, tone and through line that is rather different and rather special.
“It will only be for a month, Molly.” “Why me?” she wailed, forgetting her vow of silence. “Why not Betty? She’s older.” “Because I think you’ll do a better job than Betty. You’re the reader in this family. The storyteller… Your grandma’s getting awfully forgetful, Molly. Ever since Grandpa died, she’s been living in the past — she tells the same stories over and over. She needs someone who’ll talk to her and help her organize the shop. You know — keep her in touch with the present.” Silence. “Molly, you’re the one who doesn’t mind a little mess.” He waved his hand at her room. “You’re the lover of mysteries.” “What’s the big mystery about taking care of Grandma?” “Making people well is always a mystery,” said her father sadly. I will forever be indebted to a family that both placed an importance on reading and not only understood how much I loved science fiction and fantasy, but encouraged it with gifts. For my eleventh birthday, my aunt and uncle sent me Firebrat, by Nancy Willard, with illustrations by David Wiesner. I don’t know how they decided on this particular book, but the whimsical cover of fish flying through a forest, showing a young girl and a young boy, with the girl in the lead probably had something to do with it. And where I have read and discarded a hundred other fantastical children’s books, Firebrat has kept its place firmly ensconced on every bookshelf that I have ever owned.
Disclosure: Alex Wells is a pseudonym of Alex Acks, co-host here at Skiffy and Fanty. I consider them a friend. Hob Ravani is a member of a biker outfit on Tanegawa’s World. Tanegawa’s World is a hardscrabble place, a dry and desolate world that wouldn’t draw any interest, even from the Transrift corporation, save for its considerable mineral resources. Those resources, and those resources alone, make the desert planet valuable. It’s not Arrakis, but Tanegawa’s World is still a prize to the only corporation with the capacity to travel to the stars. Not even the Federal Union that ostensibly is the government of humanity and all of its worlds has the secret to their Rift drive. And then there is the fact that some people who live on Tanegawa’s World are affected by the strange contaminants on the planet. It IS an alien world, after all, and humans and their works and creations are intruders upon it. Humans who live away from the filtered, protected city of Newcastle are exposed to the world. They can develop unusual, exotic powers, powers that are feared by the corporation, and everyone else on the planet for that matter. People with this contamination gone feral, called witchiness by the locals, are a breed apart. People like Hob. Hunger Makes the Wolf, the debut novel from Alex Wells, tells Hob’s story.
