The Full Lid
15th February 2021
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Hi everyone! Welcome to The Full Lid! It's the second week of February and as is always the case regardless of where I live in the UK, the snow arrives two months late! Let's goooo!
This is your End of the Week, 5 pm chunk of pop culture enthusiasm, career notes, reviews and anything else that I've enjoyed or has intrigued me this week. Think of it as email, but good!
This week's interstitials are good places to start engaging with the work of four essential black authors and this week's main story takes us to a couple of dark places, but not for long, promise. Content warnings ahead, don't worry.
Let's take a look at what we've got this week:
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Contents
Empathy and Context
Space Sweepers
Where You Can Find Me This Week
The Department of Esoteric Printed Goods
Signal Boost
Signing Off / Playing Out
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Empathy and Context
Editor's note: spoiler warning for Malcolm & Marie and The Equalizer. Content warning on a photograph for police propaganda, US domestic terrorism, and extremism. The content warning is repeated again before the photo.
This one is a journey, folks.
The last couple of weeks, hell, the last seventy two hours, have seen a flurry stories across media which, in my pattern-driven brain, are of a type. There are dark places to travel through, but I promise we won't linger, and I hope we'll understand them better for the time spent.
But we begin, as many good and right things do, with media analysis.
Charles Payseur is in the vanguard of a transformation in fiction reviewing. He is a ceaseless champion of oft-overlooked formats. The tweet above -- part of a thread -- discusses a review which was available briefly at Locus yesterday and has since been taken down. That review was of The Ikessar Falcon, KS Viloso's sequel to The Wolf of Oren-Yaro.
The review's first line was this:
I did not read the first instalment in K.S. Villoso’s Chronicles of the Bitch Queen before reading the second, The Ikessar Falcon. I honestly don’t know if reading The Wolf of Oren-Yaro would’ve changed anything about my opinion of its sequel.
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Okay. Without getting into the weeds here, let's break down the components of this issue and the surrounding discourse:
- Is it okay to review a book when you haven't read the previous volumes?
- Are there downsides to that approach?
- Should a review recognize and acknowledge that lack of context in their review?
In order:
- Yup. Pretty much every reviewer has done it at one time or another. Reading time -- even for paid reviewers -- is finite. A professional reviewer (a term which has ZERO to do with how much you're paid) will do their research and take their personal lack of knowledge into account in their review, so as to do no harm. And you should always do no harm.
- Absolutely there are. Marginalized writers -- of which people of color are a significant proportion -- are most often the ones to suffer from this approach. And as you'll see in this Foz Meadows piece, an out-of-context review is but one of countless other aggressions they also have to endure.
- Yes. Yes of course. Yes OMG OF COURSE. The simple fact you're writing a review suggests you're intending people will read it. You're in a privileged position of translating your opinion through your personal worldview and slapping that resulting review with the assumption of objectivity. That's a definitive burden of care, one discharged by being as honest as possible. It's on you to tell people that, not just what they need to know but why and how you came to that view.
Like Charles says in his Twitter thread, coming to a sequel 'cold' can be another lens for a reviewer to view the text. Hell, it can sometimes be a gangplank into the text. For example: years ago I remember watching episode 18 of Farscape after missing most of the season and being completely entranced. Crichton dressed like a space biker now! And was kind of British! There were new characters! It was great! Bringing the shock of the new and using it as a focus is a fantastic way to sneak in through the back of a story and grab your seat.
Using your lack of context as a means to keep the story at length? Oof. That there's a choice. One with an entire foundation of privilege supporting it.
So where does that leave the world of book reviewing? 'Well there are never enough reviewers to go around so if these books don't get possibly bad reviews, they'll get even fewer reviews than they already do.'
Or to rephrase that: 'Sequels and books by unknown authors, who are frequently also from marginalized communities, don't have the same level of interest as the latest Sanderson or Martin so they need to be grateful for whatever well-meaning, thoroughly half assed reviews they do get which, with a following wind, will get most characters' names right most of the time.'
Why should ANYONE have to settle for that? 'Because that's the way it is' arguments are profoundly short-sighted, intensely privileged and bluntly, lazy. This is the sort of thinking that leads to conventions rebooking the same shitty hotel every year, knowing its facilities are subpar and there's no disabled access. That sort of thinking is why, this week, the big story that Joss Whedon is an intensely toxic, abusive figure garnered headlines for the FOURTH time.
When a system you defend gives abusers a place to hide, the system can't be defended. Systems and abusers rely on the same fallacy: that this is all you get, that this is all you deserve. Sacrificing context is a step towards sacrificing empathy, and that's when things get inconceivably dangerous. The moment you sacrifice empathy, you've taken a step back from human society. You may never be able to recover. Or you may find you don't want to.
Or maybe, best case scenario, you may not have noticed how far you've gone.
Speaking of...
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God damn it, Gina. God *DAMN* it.
Gina Carano is the eye of a storm of just terrible opinions, many of which she posted on Instagram. Carano's story is MADDENING. A world-class martial artist with a rock solid work ethic, deeply popular with her colleagues, chosen for a role which is central to defining the next age of Star Wars. As an actor she was relatively inexperienced but making improvements rapidly, clearly working on building a likable screen presence. As a woman of size (the fact she's considered a woman of size a whole OTHER kettle of fish), she represented one step in a literally decades overdue shift in the perception of feminine identity, physical competence and action cinema. She was funny, she was tough, she was instantly likable. Fandom loved her, she loved it and Cara was rumored to be fronting one of the upcoming Mandalorian spinoffs.
All of that is no longer happening. Including her career in general it seems. Carano has been fired by the Mouse, dropped by her agent and looks set to be trapped in the level of career hell reserved for Kevin Sorbo. All down to two things: a string of profoundly inflammatory to deeply offensive social media posts, and Carano's abject inability to feel empathy. Because when you're part of one of the largest TV shows on Earth you're handed a megaphone. And when you use that megaphone to spout anti-vax propaganda, racism, to publicly support an attempted coup, and to compare being a Republican in 2021 to being Jewish in pre-WW2 Germany, then it's going to get taken off you, forcefully.
Carano's story breaks my heart. Not just because I've been a fan since she fought in Strikeforce but because for years, word was she was a thoroughly decent human. She had it all. And she threw it away because 'party' before 'basic human compassion' is a thing. No context, no empathy, no hope.
Which, unfortunately, leads us here:
Editor's note: content warning on the following photo for police propaganda, US domestic terrorism, and extremism
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This is not a cheerful or positive image. But it's important to what we're going to be talking about next. I promise light-hearted stuff is on the way but right now, we need to talk about this. There are four things you need to take away from this image:
- This is an active duty NYPD sergeant, working a Black Lives Matter protest. She's been named in multiple media sources. I won't be doing that here.
- She clearly doesn't know how masks work.
- She's wearing political affiliation patches, an absolute violation of NYPD rules. There is an ongoing investigation and she's apparently already been disciplined.
- Both those patches are based on the logo of the Punisher.
In 1974, in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man 129, Francis 'Frank' Castiglione made his debut. Frank Castle was intended as a one shot ensemble villain: a tragic vigilante avenging the loss of his family in a mob crossfire. He was intensely violent, seething with rage, designed as a satirical, pitiable figure.
Much to co-creator Gerry Conway's surprise, Frank Castle was a massive financial success, and the character remained popular throughout the next couple of decades. His storylines and presence on the shelves expanded to three titles before sales faded.
Enter, stage left, Garth Ennis:
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At this point, I'm guessing you have questions.
Yes that is The Punisher punching a polar bear in the face. Yes there is context for it and you can find it in 2003's Welcome Back, Frank, a 12 issue series written by Ennis and illustrated by the great, and very much missed, Steve Dillon. It is an Ennis book to the core, equal parts blood-soaked noir and 'Wahey, lads! Faeces and amputation!' If you like that, and if that image makes you go '...WHAT?!' chances are you may enjoy the book.
Ennis and Dillon's take on The Punisher evolved rapidly after this. The comic, published under Marvel's Max imprint (think 'Marvel, After Dark') still traded in OTT violence but pushed Frank quietly to the side of the wider Marvel universe. By the time he's punching polar bears he had been active for thirty years, becoming an asset in multiple intelligence operations and killing close to two thousand people. He still wore the skull, still killed criminals but Ennis' thematic gear shift successfully removed him from the superheroic world of his birth and placed him in the moral grey areas of espionage. This culminated in the staggeringly grim Punisher: The End, a one-off special written by Ennis. It follows Castle as he survives World War Three, tracks down and murders the men responsible and, body literally falling apart in the radiation storms, closes with him walking to Central Park, convinced he can save his wife and children.
Go back and look at the polar bear punch. It'll help.
To say the character was stretched to contains multitude under a single writer was an understatement. Greg Rucka and Matthew Rosenberg built on that: Rucka's monosyllabic murderous iceberg weighed down by the weight of all the blood on his hands was impressive and helped lay the ground work a moment in Rosenberg's run which is, arguably, the most important
in the characters' contemporary history:
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In issue 13, Castle is pulled up by two cops and disgusted to discover they're not just fans, but have his logo on their car.
Rosenberg and the rest of his team don't get enough credit for this moment, this pivotal recognition of the co-opting and glorification of violence as tool of systemic oppression. After all, it was that rare moment when Marvel -- a company whose lead donor was put in charge of the VA by President Trump -- took a stand on the consequences of its storylines. It even moves him a step in the right direction as the (I would argue) definitive modern take on the character, Jon Bernthal's turn in Netflix's TV version.
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I've written at length about Bernthal's work; he never ceases to impress me. He plays Castle like an attack dog: well trained, fully capable of doing damage, and incredibly careful about who he does that damage to. Frank's final war, the one he truly fights in the TV show, is with himself. The gradual redemption and damnation of the character is heartbreakingly well done. It would have been so easy for it to be a heavy calibre romance, and instead it's a Greek tragedy.
Which brings us back to the Sergeant in the photograph up there. To the skull with the hairpiece. To this asshole:
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Sean Hannity, a man who knows as much about law enforcement as he does about being a vertebrate, wearing a Punisher pin. Satire isn't even dead, it's living under an assumed name in Winnipesaukee trying to get an artisanal hot dog business off the ground.
None of this is what The Punisher was intended for. One of his creators knows it: Gerry Conway has long objected to the police and far right's appropriation of the figure. Plus, given Conway both co-created the character and comes from a police family, it's not exactly like he's a lone hippy throwing molotov tofu at the situation. Conway organized Skulls for Justice, a fund-raising campaign for Black Lives Matter that sees the skull repurposed by young artists. (Please support it if you can, you can find it here.) The organization aims to steer the logo -- and the man who so often wears it -- away from the mainstream and off to the sides.
Frank knows he doesn't belong in the light. Many of his right wing supporters never got that memo. More importantly, all they see is the surface level version of the character:
"angry righteous white man with a gun".
The version that lacks context.
The version that lacks empathy.
The version that excuses, enables, and emboldens their own total absence of both vital qualities. The version of truth that fits and reinforces their biases. And they pinned it to their tacticool vests with the pride of the righteous and the co-opted fear of the oppressed, convinced of their silencing on network after network after network even as those self-same networks lined up to interview them about how alienated they were.
Never mind the tragedy of the man, look at the guns. Look at what he's made to do with them. Look at what we could be made to do with them, they think. The language of the abuser, mouth-pieced by those who cloak themselves in the language of victims, resolutely refusing to yield their centering.
And that, unfortunately, is how you get to Malcolm & Marie.
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Sam Levin's Malcolm & Marie hit Netflix this week and the discourse is still ringing like a gong. Ostensibly a salute to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? it casts Zendaya and John David Washington as the central couple, locking them into a minimalist, barely dressed black and white world filled with arguments of purest grey. Malcolm is a filmmaker, Marie his partner, muse and actress. He's euphoric after his latest movie about a young drug addict was well-received. She notices she's the only person he didn't thank after screening a movie based on her life.
What follows is less a deep dive and more an express elevator to hell into the heart of a relationship that's vastly, endemically dysfunctional. The two central performances barely hold it steady, but Sam Levinson as scriptwriter does Levinson as director and his cast no favors. Washington especially goes big pretty much constantly as the script demands that the attention, the oxygen, the screen itself focus on Malcolm.
Or as is more likely, Levinson. Memorably described as '...akin to watching two sentient think pieces scream at each other.' by Shirley Li, the movie is Levinson talking to himself about the film industry, about his frustrations with it and about how he thinks he's been treated.
Let's add some context, shall we?
Sam Levinson, a white filmmaker, uses Malcolm & Marie, a movie about a black filmmaker, to make public a personal complaint about a critic who was mean about his last film.
Self indulgent, deeply tedious, appropriative, dull: all these charges have been laid at Malcolm & Marie's door. Levinson tries to use a bad review as fuel and instead is trapped in its orbit, with the added irony that a filmmaker enraged at being accused of 'fumbling' his last movie deals with it by fumbling his next one even worse. But hey, at least he got to shout at the lady who was mean to him, right?
Context, sure.
Empathy? None to be seen.
But imagine. Imagine what could be when you have both...
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This is the trailer for the new version of The Equalizer. Version. Not reboot.
Following the Edward Woodward original and the Denzel Washington movies, it stars Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall. Like her predecessors, she's a CIA agent who quits in disgust and sets up shop to help out people who the police can't or won't.
On paper it looks both superficial and like the exact sort of terror-based wish fulfilment that leads to skull patches going where no skull patches should go. There was certainly an element of that with the original show, as Edward Woodward's polite, urbane, furious white man (Who does NOT! FORGIVE!) murdered his way through the sort of thugs and criminals that used to make Michael Winner feel all tingly.
Actually, that's a bit unfair: the original Equaliser was also a dark espionage thriller and an unflinching look at PTSD almost before we knew what it it was. But it was also a righteous white man power fantasy. The Washington movies steered in a different direction but ironically ended up parallel to traditional action movies. To start to bring all this truly full circle, the Equalizer had more in common with the the core concept of The Punisher: the grieving death bringer.
The Latifah fronted version does all this as well, then puts it down and moves on. In the first episode she takes down an attempted rape gang, a pair of rogue special forces operators and outwits a cop. She also struggles with a more visceral version of McCall's PTSD and the difficulties of civilian life. In one of the best scenes, Chris Noth as her CIA contact explains the company will give her anything she wants: 'More time with your daughter? Less time with your daughter?'
That's why the Latifah version works: context and empathy. The core concepts of the character are identical, right down to her fondness and aptitude for violence alongside her mild disgust at the same. But instead of a clean-cut aging white man triumphantly striding through bodies in his wake, this McCall is a woman of color, a woman of size, and a woman of empathy. It is that empathy that alters her every relationship. McCall puts out the word to help others not because she's tired of playing by the rules, but because she sees how so many are denied that same equality. Her rocky relationship with her daughter owes as much to her erratic work schedule and her decision to quit her 'international charity work' as it does their generational differences and personality clashes. McCall and her daughter know they have every card stacked against them, effortlessly illustrated in a single jail parking lot conversation. They talk anyway. They try. They make a start. Because of empathy. Because of context and because thanks to them, they can.
Context and empathy are like comic inkers. They add depth and shading; they are the critical tools of contemporary discourse. With them, you empower yourself and others by the simple act of metaphorically looking around and seeing yourself relative to those around you -- your common strengths, your common weaknesses. What they have that you might lack, like perspective, lived experience, and privilege. What you should account for. Who you should make way for.
Context shows you that the assumption of who gets to occupy a role, a column, or center themselves in a discourse is as flawed as the Good Place points system.
Empathy shows you what's wrong with an NYPD duty officer wearing a Trump Punisher skull patch on their uniform.
Context shows you Sam Levinson was so concerned with a woman's opinion of his last movie, he hobbled his newest one.
Empathy shows you the difference between a version of McCall who grew up with crime and one whose noblesse oblige drives him to fight it.
Context and empathy. It only feels like a big ask. But it's 2021. And we insist.
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Essential Black Authors: Temi Oh
Oh's debut is a haunting novel that folds space exploration, a delicately realized alternate timeline, the horrors of adolescence and the deeper horrors of adolescent bereavement into a story that unfolds like Interstellar and hits like Solaris. Haunting, lyrical, pragmatic and compassionate.
You can, and should, order this. We recommend, as ever, Portal Bookshop. |
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Space Sweepers
Editor's note: spoilers
Has it been a rough week? Do you have a lot on, and just want to kick back and maybe watch some robots punching each, possibly in space? Perhaps a little light intrigue, some spaceship fights, and a gooey emotional liquid center? How about a narrative surprise, an enormous holographic Richard Armitage, and a plot that touches on corporate sociopathy, found family and the industrialization of space?
I HAVE JUST THE MOVIE FOR YOU!
Directed by Jo Sung-hee and written by Yoon Seung-min, Yoo-kang Seo-ae and Jo Sung-hee, Space Sweepers is set in 2092. The UTS Corporation have a vast off-world colony for the 'right people' and big plans to terraform Mars, leaving behind 95% of humanity on a dying Earth. Thousands more live and work in Earth's orbit, which has become a nightmare of second-rate habitats and junk.
Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki) is one of the lucky ones. So when we see him literally barter his shoes for a chance to identify a body in the opening scenes we know how serious things are. Tae-ho is a former Space Guard and hot-housed UTS genius who quit in disgust. Now he flies the Victory, a tricked out sweeper ship that picks over the endless piles of space junk, fighting off other sweepers for the best hauls. The Victory is Captain Jang's (Kim Tae-ri) ship -- a former Special Forces Officer, failed revolutionary and successful alcoholic / engineering genius. Their engineer, Tiger Park (Jin Seon-Kyu) is a former drug kingpin sweating out his penance in Victory's engine room,
And then there's Bubs, played by Yoo Hae-jin. Bubs is magical. The crew robot, former assassin, professional wreck harpooner and a character with the movie's most endearing surprise up their sleeve.
Unable to catch a break, or at least unable to avoid causing expensive damage to UTS property, the Victory's crew are down on their luck until they discover Kot-nim (Park Ye-rin), a young girl hiding in a wrecked cargo container.
When they learn she's an android bomb, they panic.
When they learn she's something much more important, they smell a payday...
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Space Sweepers is often two movies happening at once. The 'magnificent idiots accidentally fight crime' comedy elements are glorious, thanks to a magnificently laconic cast and Yoo Hae-jin's Bubs in particular. Looking like K2-S0 and Gir's rangy gap year lovechild, Bubs is an exuberant, cheerfully squalid, intensely sweet presence. The moment where Kot-nim correctly states Bub's gender and their cheeks light up with an LED blush? I was in absolute bits.
Likewise the remarkably sweet, chaste, romance between Jang and Pierre. Jin Seon-kyu's Tiger has less emotional work to do but gets a ton of action, including an epic zero-g Indiana Jones moment that's part of an incredibly large, rolling pair of finales.
Because make no mistake, while this is Likable Assholes in Space, those last two words are in 500 point font, underlined, highlighted and in bold. With the dynamic of the crew, and their 'little fart machine' adoptive daughter established, the movie pits them against James Sullivan, the CEO of UTS. Self-appointed Saviour of (his definition of) Humanity, Sullivan is charming, avuncular, over 150 and wants Kot-nim dead. Played by Richard Armitage clearly having a whale of a time, Kot-nim is his serene anathema. The little girl serves as an excellent bridge between the two plots and worlds, leading to the nail-biting final hour.
Alone against the forces of UTS, the Victory crew pull off a string of near impossible saves, each with a poignant cost. A suicide dive into Earth's atmosphere, Bubs harpooning themselves between ships, and an all-out run and gun through a vast space station, each with beautiful special effects. That last one especially, where Jang and Bubs are literally tethered to the boot of the ship, shooting at their enemies. It's vast and epic and brilliant and terrifying and we're never allowed to forget there are fragile, mortal people at the heart of it.
People who, I should point out, are unapologetically individual. No grey uniforms here, no 'spacer' monoculture. There were at least a dozen languages spoken, accents and food and fashion alike on display.
At this point the movie still has twenty minutes left to run. Minutes which see a clash between the Victory and Sullivan turn terrifyingly up close and personal, each crewmember seriously injured, and when all seems lost…
The movie broadsides you with a sucker punch of plot twists. I do this for a living, it is very hard to surprise me. Space Sweepers put me down TWICE in ten minutes in that finale. First with a moment of real, surprising and side-swiping emotion, second with a glorious, defiant McGuffin. Oh and it does is all wrapped around a beat from Rise of Skywalker that lands SO much better. All with crisp, rapid, punchy visuals and wonderfully burly, functional design.
I loved this, could you tell? . It’s colossal and ambitious, wrapping stories of fatherhood, found family, and gender identity up in a vast planetary conspiracy. This is issues-driven SF with heart and humor. This is action SF with a hacked robot brain and every launch code. This is Space Sweepers. This would be Dave Lister’s favorite movie, Kara Thrace’s favorite movie. And it's certainly one of mine..
Space Sweepers is on UK Netflix now. Please go watch. You deserve to let it make you happy. We all do.
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Essential Black Authors: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates' methodical, almost academic approach maps beautifully onto the fundamentally sombre nature of Steve Rogers. It's a novelistic style of prose for a comic, but instead of feeling decompressed there's a real sense of focussing in on the character. Demanding, but intensely rewarding, much like his current work on Black Panther.
You can find both runs of Winter in America in both individual issues and collections at your local comic shop, my local comic shop or Comixology. |
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New reader? Looking for a back issue?
Buy me a coffee?
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Signal Boost
Blogs
- Camestros Felapton, who may actually be an active duty superhuman at this point, brings news of their magnificent Debarkle series, a deep-dive history of the 2015 Sad Puppy movement.
Books
Crowdfunding
Newsletters
- Aidan Moher has the biggest, deepest love for video games. Check out his work at the link and do check out his Let's Play! Chrono-Trigger channel.
- Andrew Liptak's another fantastically talented writer and newsletterist (It's late, it's my yard, it's a word now). This is his superb history of how The Expanse went from game concept to TV show.
Podcasting
- SE Fleenor brings details of a veritable flotilla of projects under the @queerspec umbrella: "We're taking submissions for #DecodedPride thru 2/28 and @bitchesoncomics our queer and trans pop culture podcast releases weekly episodes. We're also launching a cool new horror fiction pod."
- Faustian Nonsense not only have a fantastic name but put out great shows. Check out The Lavender Tavern, whose entire first season arrives on Valentine's Day.
Roleplaying
- It always makes me feel great to see former colleagues doing well in other arenas. Danie Ware, who is a fantastically talented author, events organizer and all around superhuman, brings news that Jon Hodgson, a fellow former Travelling Man, has written, illustrated and led the team behind Beowulf: Age of Heroes. It's already been described as 'the best hack of 5e ever made' (Pandatheist). Specially designed for duet play, it features pages of gorgeous, original art, of lore and legend and background, and a foreword from novelist Maria Dahvana Headley whose version of the epic poem you NEED, Bro!.
- Leonardo Andrade brings details of a very fun sounding 5e adventure involve a botched yeast heist.
- Laura Lam has a fascinating new YouTube channel, Choose Your Own Utopia.
That's this week's Signal Boost, folks. If you have a project you'd like to see here get in touch.
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Essential Black Authors: Langston Hughes
A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes' work is defined by an absolutely crystal clear emotional core I, Too, remains one of the foundational pillars of American poetry and can be found in this volume.
If you haven't read any of Hughes' work, I found The Weary Blues an excellent starting point. We recommend, as ever, Portal Bookshop. |
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Where You Can Find Me This Week
Special Guest
Eligibility Post
- Awards season for the year is open and so, here's my Eligibility post! I had a BIG year last year and I'd love it if you'd take a look.
The Clock App
- This week Peter goes to war with his (other) ancient enemy... The Weather!
Twitch
- The Council continues! Marguerite discovers a heart-warming Easter Egg, a LOT of coins, and a horrific secret that casts Mother's actions in a whole new light.
- Part three of Mur Lafferty's brilliant Marco and the Red Granny! Marco undergoes the horrifying process that will lead to his patronage (Seriously folks, this was hard to read and listen to) and makes a very surprising discovery. More typically unique and excellent SF from Mur Lafferty.
- And TONIGHT at 8 pm GMT Marguerite and I will be presenting The Dionaea House, my all-time favorite creepypasta story, over at Rusty Quill.
Podcast Land
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Essential Black Authors: Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas' novel is a fiercely determined, eyes open look at the casual brutality of police executions of black people. Thomas takes pains to walk around the issue, mapping it onto adolescent growth and the gentrification of neighbourhoods in a manner that acknowledges not only the systemic issues at work but the way those issues are fought: one voice at a time.
The best-selling novel is available in all good bookshops, and was adapted to the big screen by George Tillman Jr. and Audrey Wells.
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Department of Received Esoteric Printed Goods
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TOP quality book post this week:
Deity by Matt Wesolowski
Six Stories is a podcast that moves like a book series. Each series focuses on a fictional unsolved crime, exposed through six different testimonies. No one is telling the whole truth and the books perpetually live half between The Hundred Acre Wood and Quartermass. Essential reading, start with Six Stories.
Bump by Matt Wallace
Matt's one of my oldest friends and a HELL of a writer. As a former pro wrestler, he combines many elements of his life in his first Middle Grade novel. Review inbound for next week, when Matt will also be our guest for Bedtime Stories on Twitch.
Last Fleet by Joshua Fox
Part of Black Armada, a fantastic tabletop RPG publisher, Josh' love of Battlestar Galactica and it's ilk is filtered through a delightfully nasty setting, serving up excellent concepts in this exciting new series.
The Magic Isle by Mike Clague
Your moment of Manx Zen for the week, a partial history of stage magic on the Isle of Man, written by the man who taught me. I bought this from a bookshop I basically grew up in, now run by one of my oldest friends. These fine emporia can hep you out.
As always, we at The Lid recommend Portal Bookshop for all your literature needs.
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Signing Off / Playing Out
Thanks for reading, folks! I hope the week went at a tempo approaching normal and had good things in it.
TFL returns next week, maybe with three short reviews of ice cream because not gonna lie, this one took it out of me. Check out my shiny new Carrd for all the places you can find me, including the currently-languishing Team KennerStuart Instagram and the Twitters, which are currently taking a slug from every tap behind the bar, putting it in one glass and yelling 'IT'LL BE FUNNN' every time someone tries to reason with them.
Twitch streams have on the other hand continue to be transports of delight. Likewise TikTok, where we are not at all waging war with a major American toy manufacturer. Do come say Hi.
This work is produced for free. If you like what you read please consider dropping something in the tip jar or sign up for The Full Lid Plus, my monthly subscription substack where I'm deep-diving into the Disney+ back catalog. And thank you!
Playing us out this week is Leroy with this classic, introduced to me by Scrubs, Know what wasn't introduced to me by Scrubs but which is true?
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This is a Full Lid.
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