A Chat About Our Country

 Hey, folks. I think it's time we sit down and have a little chat, you and I. And it's not going to be one about writing or reading or publishing today.

I know some of you aren't in the US, but a lot of you are in the US, so you're dealing with *gestures all around* the same way that I am. So I just want to have a conversation.

First of all, wear a mask when you're going to be around people you don't live with.

Okay, now that all the idiots have been driven away, we can have a real conversation.

I know that I'm just a fantasy author, but trust me, there are few non-political professions out there that seem to be more concerned with politics than SF/F authors. So we're going to lay this out.

Things are scary right now. Especially if you're a PoC, queer, or a woman, but all of us have been living with a generally heightened level of anxiety since at least March. For some of us, a lot longer, stretching back to Election Night 2016. Those are valid emotions.

And while I think there are a lot of places to look for hope, we have to do the hard things. Right now, today, we have to make preparations. Cis-women might need to start getting prescriptions for birth control, or even getting their tubes tied if they're willing to take that drastic a step. Queer couples need to get their paperwork in order, as if their marriage is going to be legally dissolved. Quadruply so if you have children. PoC...keep doing what you've been doing since forever, what you shouldn't have had to do in the first place. Trans folks need to get their paperwork and procedures and prescriptions in order yesterday.

If you know any of these people, then help them. And if you're not in any position to help them, at the very least, don't tell them that their worries are unfounded.

This is the kind of go time that nobody wants to be in. But it is go time nonetheless.

The polling is good. A lot better than 2016. Our fascist would-be dictator has not only shown his hand, but has described it in detail. The available procedural levers, few as they may be, are being pulled. Coups don't have a great history of success, as a rule. We're not only more aware that we could lose, but we're halfway convinced that we could lose, so we won't be blindsided. There is hope.

But we have to take care of ourselves, and we have to do it while the law still allows. Even though it's scary. Even though all of us wish we could stop fighting for two seconds and breathe. Today is not the day for that.

Vote blue. Volunteer. Canvass. Get your house in shape. Make sure you're protected, and fight tooth and nail for a functioning society going forward.

And for those of you not in the US...hi. I guess offer us thoughts and prayers?

Back to our regularly scheduled programming next time, but this was too important not to put out, too vital not to say it.

First of all, wear a mask.

Second of all, fight.

Third of all, breathe.

Voss

On Books and Expectation

So I've been reading a lot more, since I'm now in a book club (Online, of course, because I'm not an asshole and I want this pandemic under control.), and part of the way our book club works is, each month, a different person gets to select the book we're all going to read. It leads to a lot of variety in what we're choosing. We started with The Island of Dr. Moreau, then went into Weetzie Bat, the The Night Circus, and then continuing forward into Ben Bova and Anne Rice and Josh Lanyon and on and on.

This, all to say that we read a lot of different books, and not everything is to everyone's taste. Even when we all like a book, we're obviously not all going to be taking it the same way, bringing the same baggage to each title we go through (Not to mean baggage in a negative connotation.).

As such, I want to talk about reader expectations, and specifically my expectations going into the last book we read. Anne Rice's The Wolf Gift. Now, I liked this book. I don't recall that anyone in the club disliked the book, in fact.

But the member who chose it and I, specifically, had very different expectations for this novel than I did (Mild spoilers for the title mentioned. Or major. I'm writing this in one go, so...just spoilers.).

I can't speak entirely to her expectations, but what I saw going into this book was a young man, disaffected, interested in art and the finer things, and all those things unappreciated by the remainder of the people in his life.

So that was set up, for me, as the story of a man finding his place in the world, coming into his own confidence. And so I was disappointed when it immediately turned into a story of him...being a werewolf superhero. It ended up as a satisfying experience, all said and done, but it was quite hard for me to get into the more interesting part of the book because it didn't live up to the expectations that the author had unknowingly set for me.

There was no reason for Anne Rice to know or care how I would take the opening of her novel. I very easily could have taken this character more like the person who selected it. She thought the main character was just a rich whiny kid. An "affluenza" victim, more or less. So her expectations were clearly very much different than mine, so she didn't experience that dissonance that I went through with it.

That's something worth remembering as you read, and as you recommend books, and as you go through conversations about books. Something as simple as expectation can change the reading experience of reading a book, sometimes completely.

I don't know precisely what the point was for this, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately and wanted to get it out. Hopefully I wasn't too boring for you.

Voss

New Release: Elemental Disturbance

Yes, at long last, the next Office of Preternatural Affairs is finally available. Say hello to Dash and the other spooks in Elemental Disturbance!

World-ending poison snake? No problem.
Illegal drugs filtering out of the Hidden Kingdoms? Piece of cake.
Bureaucracy? Even the Office of Preternatural Affairs has limits.

Dashiel Rourke: just another FBI agent, except he happens to work for the Office of Preternatural Affairs. Full-time now, too. Not exactly the career trajectory he'd charted for himself, but about the third time you get poisoned with the same group of people, you’re obligated to stick around. And honestly, Dash couldn't think of anyone he'd rather get poisoned next to.

A series of mysterious, elemental explosions draw Dash and the OPA up to Vermont, and down into an ancient conspiracy so deep it threatens the very balance of the Hidden Kingdoms, and possibly the fate of the Mundane as well. All this, plus the FBI director breathing down their collective necks, watching every move they make. It's a bitter cocktail, and Dash was never much for drinking anyway.

If there's an answer to fix all of this, the OPA needs to find it. Fast. Or else millennia-old fury will break through, and there won't be a dam to hold back the flood.

BUY NOW - FREE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED

2020 Plans for The Voss

Hey everyone.

In my last post, I said that I'd tell you what I'm working on at the moment, and I do my best to be a man of my word, so thus I present: the plan.

Now there's no reason to think this plan won't change. I'm nothing if not easily distracted, so if a new idea becomes shiny enough, who knows whether I'll actually stick to this or not. It's just the reality of living up inside my braincase. However, this is my moderately ambitious set of plans for the coming year. Want to start the decade off strong, after all.

I will be putting out Elemental Disturbance in early 2020. It's currently next on the editing queue for another pass, and I've already been in contact with my cover artist. While I can't share any actual images at the moment, I have seen the preliminary cover for book two. She got so excited that she just made me one before I ever asked and said "Does this work?"

And it works. I'll share it out as soon as I can.

I also have OPA book 3 incoming. I haven't settled on a title quite yet, but right now it's called Sovereign Malpractice. That's written, but hasn't seen a lick of editing.

I also have a couple of novellas, including one set in the same world as The Psychic, that are tentatively on the list. But really, 2020 is the year of the Office of Preternatural Affairs over here. However, I also do a lot of short stories. I have one that's already due to come out in 1^st quarter 2020 (I'll give more details once the publisher makes the announcement.), and several more making their way through. There's also a pretty good chance that I release another collection of shorts at long last, so stay on the lookout for that.

And now, if you'll allow me to get aspirational, there are a handful of things on my "I really want to do this" list for this year as well. For starters, I'd like to take a crack at editing an anthology. I would also really like to put out a non-fiction title. I've resisted that for a long time, but I think there's finally something I feel comfortable enough writing about, something I have enough experience with that I won't feel like a complete and total fraud if I try to act like an expert.

And in my heart of hearts, I want to write an epic fantasy. Really badly a lot I want to write an epic fantasy. I doubt any that I write this year would see the light of day before December, but it's itching in my veins.

So that's my 2020 plan. What about you? What exciting projects do you plan to tackle to start the decade off right? Let me know so we can support each other…or drink vodka together. Whichever reaction is appropriate.

Voss

Happy New Year/2020 Reading List

Happy-Almost-End-of-the-Decade! The twenties are roaring back to life as of tomorrow, and even though I'm having a hard time coping with the fact that it's going to be 2020, I'm still here for it. I'm mostly here for it because of all the books, however. I've been really getting back into reading, in part thanks to my book club, and I'm just dying to crack into some of these new 2020 releases. While this isn't an exhaustive list by any stretch, these are, as of right now, the three books I'm most excited to read.

First is The Burning God by R.F. Kuang. The Poppy War was easily my book of the year, and is honestly vying for book of the decade spot. So of course I'm going to pick up the third of the trilogy when it comes out. I haven't been so completely engrossed in a story in a long, long time, and the bittersweet ending of the series is just around the corner.

Next is Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher Moore. I've said for a while now that Moore's historicals are his best work (Noir being an exception for me. It just fell a little bit flat.). The Pocket books are no exception, but the third of them promises to be the best of them all. Moore's takes on Shakespearean classics are perfection, and I can't wait to see him tackle A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2020.

Now, The Fifth Season is the other book that's vying for my Book of the Decade spot right now, so of course I'm rounding out the list with N.K. Jemisin's newest addition to her catalog, The City We Became. I've been following this book since its needlessly controversial announcement (For those that missed it, a bunch of white H.P. Lovecraft fanboys got in a tizzy because Jemisin expressed a thought.), and I've been in love with the concept the entire time. Now that it's finally here, it feels simultaneously too soon and somehow too far away. I've been obsessed with the ideas of Eldritch locations for a long time, so to see one of the modern masters of fantasy take it on is practically custom-made for me.

And that's a short and very incomplete sampling of my 2020 reading list. I'll also be finishing up The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, and I know I'll be reading James Michener's Sayonara for my book club in January. But beyond that, the world is sort of open right now. Who knows what I'll pile in before the end of 2020?

If you're wanting a look at what I'm working on, stay tuned for that post sometime after the New Year.

Happy Revolution Day,
Voss

What Comes After Netflix?

Today, I'm getting weird. Hopefully you'll come along with me.

So in the 1800s, the big entertainment was theater and serialized fiction released in newspapers. There's a reason Charles Dickens's work was so damn long: he got paid by the word to release serialized stories.

Around the 1920s and 1930s, we were moving into the age of film, and 1927 was the first "talkie" released in the cinema.

By the 40s and 50s, serialized fiction was already on the way out, and instead we had the rise of fiction magazines and pulp novels.

The 50s and 60s saw the rise of home television and the death of road shows and the grand Hollywood musical. The 70s and 80s brought us home movies and the first ability to record from our televisions. 90s and 00s? The rise of the internet and the final death throes of the magazine industry.

Now our entertainment is, surprising no one, in flux. Theatre exists, but is now purely for the elite. Magazines basically have to give their issues away for free in an attempt to make money...somehow. Big publishing is in a constant struggle with indie publishing for books. Ebooks...are a thing.

And our TV and movie watching is steadily being replaced more and more by streaming services. Most of my generation (Millennials) are fine having no "actual TV," and instead just have whatever combination of streaming services works for them.

(If you're curious, my "perfect mix" would be Netflix, Crunchyroll, Disney+, and DC Universe.)

With all that in mind, I find myself wondering...what comes after Netflix? Right now, not only are we solidly in the "Netflix Era" of visual media, but we're also at the point where every new subscription/feed/streaming/borrowing service is compared to Netflix. Kindle Unlimited is the "Netflix of books." Music streaming largely came before ubiquitous video streaming, but I've still heard folks describe things like Spotify as "Netflix for music."

So when everything is Netflix...what do we think comes next? What happens after streaming falls by the wayside?

I have some thoughts, and most of them are half-baked at best. I'm imagining a YouTube-style platform for books. You can read X-amount of pages, then you have to watch an ad. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but I can certainly see it happening that way.

I can easily imagine a future where magazines have no choice but to condense themselves down or find new ways to bring in ad revenue.

I also think (This is my least half-baked idea.) that media is going to have to condense as a whole. A magazine will include music and video, that sort of thing. We're no longer going to have such stark delineations between different types of media.

But those are just my thoughts, however. Where do you see our media consumption going? Let me know in the comments...so I can shamelessly steal them and try to get ahead of the curve.

Voss

Toxic Influence: New Release

Hello hello! I know it's been a hot minute, but I have a new book out at long last.

Toxic Influence

Dashiel Rourke: sarcastic, questions authority - that's what my higher-ups say, anyway - and the newest member of the Office of Preternatural Affairs. Yeah, like I saw that one coming. I was a counterterrorism grunt and my own department head barely knew my name before things went to hell.

Now my partner's a troll, I've got a hag fixing up my wounds, and the bad guys can light me on fire with their brains. Or worse. The poison gas attacks I was checking out before I got into this mess? Turns out they were a little less terrorist attack and a little more magic spell.


So even if it's just for that reason, I'm going to see this one through. I got into that poison. I've seen what it does to people. Like hell am I going to lie down and let it run its course…even if that does put me up close and personal with one sorcerer too many.

It's 3.99, or free in Kindle Unlimited. Click the link below to check it out.

Toxic Influence

How YouTube Terrified Me into Reading More Books

I recently found a YouTube video that I want to share. It's right below, or if that's not working, here's the link to watch it on YouTube. It's about half an hour, but to me, the most important bits will be covered by the time you're five minutes in, so you don't absolutely need to watch the whole thing.

If you're anything like me, you're now completely distraught. I know I fucking was after I watched this. Seeing that bookshelf and hearing "These are all the books you're going to read for the rest of your life" was not okay with me. I've always been a reader. That's just...scary to me. I read way more books than he does in a year (On the low end, I read probably eight. An average year for me is twelve to fifteen, but in my prime, I read about fifty per year.), but it still got to me.

I really hope it gets to you, too. Not because I want you to be miserable, but because I think everyone could do with a little more reading time in their schedule. I did the math from the video to figure out what I could get through, on average, in a year, and it was thirty books. Thirty books is plenty, with only half an hour a day. Lord knows I have a TBR pile that could use to get lower.

Now I haven't been perfect at this. The last couple of days have been rough on me finding time to read. Well, I guess they've more been full of me not making the time to read. I had the time, but I didn't spend it reading. I spent it watching video essays on YouTube and eating cold pizza.

So I'm posting this not just to convince everyone to read more (And I mean, honestly, that's pretty baldly self-serving. Read more books...also, if you look at my website, you'll see I have books you can read.), but to make myself a little more accountable. I want to read books. I love reading books. It's just sometimes hard to remember how much I love it.

The answer is a lot. A whole lot.

Voss

2019 Hugo Awards Finalists Announced

Hello everyone!

2019/1944 Hugo Award Finalists have been announced today, and I have some thoughts I wanted to share. And you're contractually obligated to listen to me because I have a blog, and everyone who has a blog gets read all the time, all the way through.

So as tends to happen, I don't know most of the finalists, so I'm obviously only going to be speaking to the things I have some experience with.

You can read the whole list here.

So, the names that stuck out to me most were in Best Novel (I'm not going to touch on the 1944 Retro Hugos in this post.). Rebecca Roanhorse's Trail of Lightning is here as a first novel, and I've been excited about that book since before it came out. Catherynne M. Valente is one of my favorite authors, so seeing Space Opera make the cut was also exciting. And I always enjoy seeing our old guard pumping out books, so Mary Robinette Kowal's appearance there is good by me.

Aliette de Bodard and Nnedi Okorafor are also favorites of mine, so I'm thrilled to see them both up for Novella (Also, let's give a big shout out to the sheer domination of female candidates this year. We're talking about a genre that was born from Frankenstein, after all.). Best Short Story is full of new names for me, thus further confirming that shorts are still a solid launching point in the genre, and a place to watch or the novelists of tomorrow. I mean, de Bodard herself was someone I marked as really, really skilled off her short work, and now she's all over big books.

Short Form Editors are a strong showing as well. Neil Clarke, the late Gardner Dozois, and Lynne and Michael Thomas from Uncanny Magazine. Although personally, things being what they are, I think Dozois is going to be a hard one to beat. The SF/F community lost him in 2018, and he was so instrumental in the genre...I just think there's not much chance of anyone topping him out this year.

Semiprozine is strong across the board, although I love seeing both FIYAH and Fireside on there, and the now defunct Shimmer as well. And of special note in Related Work are Archive of Our Own, and Lindsay Ellis's Hobbit Duology. Metatextually, those are fascinating. Lindsay is, I believe, the second YouTuber to get a Hugo Final? And Archive of Our Own is...basically just a collection of fan fiction. Those are very different than what we would normally see in Related Work, so those excite me.

Anything from the finalists that really excites you? Let me know in the comments below.

Voss

Text Message Story: War of Witches

Hello hello! I'm writing you from frigid, snow-covered Eastern Washington, with--this might be hard to believe--a new book!

I know, I know, pick your jaw up off the floor. It's been a minute and a half since I've had a book out, but I have one today: War of Witches.

Click Here to Read

Fair warning, this book isn't in a traditional format: it's delivered one text message at a time. Highly recommend reading it on the phone rather than on the computer, but both options will get the job done!

I'm quite excited about this, since I love playing with format in my writing, and I hope you'll all be excited about this foray into urban fantasy as well.

Anyway, that's all I had to say. I hope your day is wonderful and considerably warmer than mine is looking to be.

Voss

Diablero and Cultural Differences in Media

If you've been here for a while—remember when the blog was that weird ugly brown color I picked to start out with?—then you know I have a love affair with non-US speculative fiction. There's just a quality to it that is so refreshing, I just can't get enough of it. The Neverending Story is one of my all time favorite books (German). I grew up reading Eva Ibbotson and JK Rowling and, a little later on than those, Phillip Pullman (British). I also watched a ton of anime and read a ton of manga (Japanese). And I still watch and read British, German, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese…I mean, translations or subtitled, obviously, but you can't file off those cultural serial numbers.

Well it happened again. This time, it's a Mexican paranormal drama I stumbled across recently on Netflix (If you're watching it, you probably know what I'm talking about.). It's…it's like Preacher meets Hellboy. Dynamic characters in a shitty situation with strangely intertwining personal lives.

It's called Diablero, and it really has me thinking, once again, about spec fic from other cultures. Because I don't think any native born US citizen could have made Diablero. At all. Nothing even close. The same way an American couldn't have written The Book of Souls, or Bleach, or Dark, or The Golden Compass.

I think—especially if you're in a creative career or just running a creative side-hustle—that these foreign produced media are some of the best things we can take in as people. Seeing another perspective is a powerful thing, both for personal growth and, in my case, a creative sense.

Let's bring this around to Diablero, since it's the crux for me writing this particular article right now. If I sold it as it was—a Mexican demon hunting show—you might be tempted to think, "Oh, like Supernatural." That's what my roommate thought when I explained it that way, at least.

But it's so not. Spoilers, to a certain extent, but I want to go into things a little deeper than the trailer (I still haven't finished the show. I'm about halfway through it right now.). So, to start with, a US show would have at least blinked at making a priest who got a woman pregnant their main character. They also might have blinked twice at making the church have a shadowy underbelly. Not that a US show or book has never done that, but it might make somebody along the way stop and take a closer look.

But more divergent is the use of old culture, and namely old culture in a respectful way. America A: doesn't like to dive into its past because it's ugly and B: doesn't tend to do it well or respectfully. Also C: we really don't have much past to draw on. But then you have Diablero, which establishes a history from the first moment. It brings in aspects of Mexican culture, from as far back as the Aztecs with Diablero magic being cast in Nahuatl and invoking the names of Aztec deities like Quetzalcoatl, to old school brujeria, to more modern Mexican lore, legend, and religion like Santa Muerte. A full spectrum of evolving, historically based magic is shown off in Diablero.

I think, actually, having history is a huge part of the feeling that media from outside of the US evokes. Other than a sparse handful of Native American spec fic, like Rebecca Roanhorse's books, the oldest US history that gets brought in is…when the white people showed up. There's just not a ton of history we have to draw on, which can make our fantasy…a little more sparse, honestly. I mean, when we talk about worldbuilding, fantasy writers are supposed to know the history of the world so they can see how things have come about. 250 years just doesn't quite cut it.

And, on a broader note about culture differences, Diablero has made me—and will probably make others—challenge my notions about Mexico. Even the most socially and culturally aware of us still has prejudices, good and bad, that we haven't yet confronted. Diablero helped me confront it some of that. It showed urban Mexico, which I shamefully admit wasn't a thought in my head. It should have been, obviously, but…well, just goes to show you how much work we all still have to do. And I think shows and books like this help, especially if you're not one of those folks who can pack up and fly around the world to expose yourself to other cultures…like I'm not.

Seeing what people create, in a way, condenses culture into a single, simple package. It's not a full course, it's not dropping yourself off in a foreign country for a month. But it's a start, and I think it's a worthy start.

And from a quality standpoint, I can't recommend Diablero enough. It's short, and the English subtitles do not match the English dub track, but it's still wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

Do you have a soft spot for media from other countries? Are you from outside the US and have things to say about US media? Chime in and let me know.

Voss

New Year's 2019

Oh lord. 2018 is almost over, and I'm not handling this whole "It's almost 2019" thing very well at all. Like…2019. 2001 used to be far-flung future. People thought civilization would collapse in 2000. 2012? Mayan calendar was up, remember?

When society has outstripped the dates of its science fiction, that's something worth taking note of.

Me personally, I'm setting things up for the year to come, even though it's a scary, freaky little year we're looking at jumping into. I have a "planning party" with a couple fellow authors on the 30^th to get our years in some semblance of order. I'm looking at reading challenges to get myself back into reading books. I'm even considering keeping Kindle Unlimited, just so I have more books to read.

2018 was sort of an eye-opening year for me, at least from a financial and business standpoint. See, I really floundered in 2017. I did nothing. I finished 0 manuscripts, and most of my time was spent editing one book for a publishing house that almost immediately went under after I turned in my final edits (Yeah, that was super fun…). So 2018 was a lot of catch-up, studying the market, writing books, etc.

And then in August, I broke my ankle. Right through the thickest part of the tibia. It was a nasty break, too. Like, surgery was on the table at the start, and it's having problems, so surgery is now back on the table, joy of joys (I'm hoping to avoid it. Just got a bone growth stimulator, so we'll see how that goes.). But that really laid me up. I was completely out of commission for about a week, then mostly out of commission for another two months after that (I was bound to crutches, even after I got my walking boot). I mean, I'm still using a shower chair because I can't stand.

It really knocked me on my ass, is what I'm saying. And it gave me a lot, lot, lot of sedentary time, just me and my laptop. While I'm not here to say that breaking my ankle was a good thing—0/10, do not recommend—it really did end up being helpful. I couldn't leave the house. I barely made it to my podiatrist appointments because it was such a hassle some days.

It also meant that I got insurance, finally. And not leaving the house meant I didn't really spend money, so suddenly I had a savings account. A modest one, but I had one. Time locked up with my laptop meant I put my fingers on the keyboard a hell of a lot. I started working on ads and cracking the code on those a little more. Jesus, I mean, I sold my car and I was okay. Like…I did things, and they didn't destroy my entire life. I got good at things. I made strides, I made progress.

I also eventually made purchases that put a dent in my bank account. Things like internet blocking software…and a shit ton of smelly candles because I'm a classy bitch. But that's just it: they were a dent.

I feel like the aftershocks of my broken ankle actually did help me out. At least my mental and emotional state. I ended up clicking a lot of things into place that I wouldn't have otherwise, I don't think.

Okay, that was a lot of semi-esoteric rambling, but it boils down to this in the real world: I'm moving. I have plans. I have new covers purchased, new books ready to publish (I hope you like magic spilling into your Criminal Minds.).

Things are moving, so watch out for me in 2019.

What are you doing in the coming year? What are you getting prepared for? Are you in need of good TV shows to watch on Netflix, because I also spent a lot of time with my eyes glued to that screen while recovering from my broken ankle.

Like…a lot.

Whatever you're doing, whatever you have in store, I hope you kick 2019 in the ass. Let's climb that mountain, and I'll see you at the top.

Voss

Christmas Missive: 2018 Edition

You know, two years ago I spent Christmas drinking and telling everyone the world was on fire and we were all fucked. So even though it would be really hard to go downhill from there, I'm still going to take credit where credit is due for not being quite so hopeless as I was in December 2016.

2018 has been one heck of a year. I'm not going to do a complete year in review sort of thing (Not yet anyway...), but Christmas comes with a certain nostalgia. I think about the family members I haven't been around in way too long. I think about past Christmases and how much more decoration went on when I was younger (When your dogs are as ball-crazed as mine are, it's...difficult to hang shiny, round, mouth-sized ornaments on the tree.). I drink the same drinks, smell the same smells, see the same lights, and read the same books (I'll be starting my annual reading of Krampus: The Yule Lord tonight!).

So with that nostalgia comes things that are just a little different than I would have planned. I didn't plan on going through Christmas with a walking boot because my ankle still isn't healed. I didn't plan on starting a proofreading service. I certainly didn't plan on owning so many Bath and Body Works candles (If you don't have Frosted Cranberry in your life, you're missing out!).

But I think most refreshing, and simultaneously most depressing, is that I didn't plan to be so happy. I wouldn't have believed that things could be feeling so downright okay if you'd told me. And it really all happened from my birthday at the beginning of October to now. Yep, while I was still laid up in an actual cast, not the significantly more convenient walking boot.

In October, I got a lovely reminder from my roommate that I'm cared for/about. She acknowledged the sacrifices I make, and it was just...incredible. I don't like to talk about any sort of personal hardships, so to have someone see them and accept them and all that, it was really something. And October just kind of built from there, in ways I would never have expected. Early October was spent with a very dear old friend, and then my local RWA chapter imploded, leaving me and two other friends holding the bag for the board if we wanted to keep the chapter. It was not pretty, but it's honestly proven to maybe be the best thing for the chapter's health, in the end. People are excited again, including me.

In November, I actually made a new friend, which never happens. I'm a 27 year old introvert, currently with a broken ankle. I don't get out much. But she's been wonderful. More money's been coming in. Proofreading is going well.

December is looking much the same. My dearest of dearests, Frances Pauli, gave me a Christmas present that had a ton more impact than I think she's put together (It's an auryn pendant, from The Neverending Story. She's one of the few people who probably has any idea how much I love that book, so for her to pull that out of the ether or memory...well, it's another "you're cared for" reminder.).

So this Christmas, as I'm happy, I hope all of you are as well. I hope you're all going to have a wonderful holiday season. I hope your troubles are vanishing. I hope that, if like me, you break your ankle, ruin your hands, and slice open your toe along the nail bed, you'll still be happy enough you're smiling your ass off. Because everyone deserves to feel like that.

Happy Holidays, everyone,
Voss

Lamb, or How Christopher Moore Actually Made Me Care About Jesus

**Note: The product links in this article are Amazon Affiliate Links. No extra cost to you, but I get a kickback from any purchases. Let's call it a headhunter's fee...but less cool.**

So, I've said in the past in various interviews that I don't have a favorite author, per se. I find it nigh impossible to actually nail down one singular author I love the most. Rowling embedded herself in my soul, but Valente's words make my heart soar. Lem's wit and absurdity never lose their shine, but Jemisin's worldbuilding is to die for.

But I think, if you drove the tacks down under my thumbnails and said I had to give one name, I think that name would probably be Christopher Moore.

Those who know him are probably nodding to themselves knowingly. For those who don't...how to sum up Christopher Moore...hmm...

Take a Mel Brooks movie. No, not that one. Yeah, that one. Then cut out all the fluff. Keep the insane, WTF concepts, then add a Richard Pryor sense of humor with a Joan Rivers (RIP) dry delivery, and then sprinkle on the sort of heartbreaking poignancy present in a movie like RENT or The Green Mile.

Also some magic.

And if you can imagine that, then you've got a much better imagination than I do. Christopher Moore's work is hard to parse out in a short summary like that because there really isn't anything like what he does. You have to make a minimum of two or three comparisons to really try and capture it. From The Island of the Sequined Love Nun and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, with their over the top absurdity, to his vampire trilogy (You Suck, Bite Me, and Bloodsucking Fiends) rife with wit, to my personal favorites (And personally, I think Christopher Moore's favorites, too.), his research-heavy novels. I've written already on Sacre Bleu, his Impressionist era fantasy, but it also includes Fool and The Serpent of Venice, his riffs on Shakespearean classics (King Lear and The Merchant of Venice, respectively.).

But probably his most famous of the lot, maybe his most famous book of all, is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff.

One side will say it's sacrilegious...and the other side will agree, we just don't care. Have you ever wondered what happened in the missing years of Christ's life? Well, Christopher Moore has the best answers for that.

(Umm...the spoilers are going to start here. So be aware of that shit.)

See, I'm not a Christian. We won't get into many specifics, but suffice it to say that view isn't changing any time soon...ever, really. I don't buy into the religion, and I also have never bought into the sort of heart-wrenching, hair-ripping zealotry to Jesus that I grew up around. I've read The Bible. I've read The Book of Mormon. I've read a lot about Christianity, along with a lot of other religions. I didn't understand why people would love Jesus so God damn much.

Lamb is the first and only book that has ever made me love the Christ child. It's the only one that made me care. And after my fourth or fifth re-read just recently, I've been picking apart why.

It's dead simple.

Moore's Joshua (Apparently that would have been his actual name? Maybe? I'm not sure, but let's go with that for now.) is the only time I found Jesus sympathetic. He was relatable. He was human, which is supposed to be the big draw, right? He's just one of us. He's, at his core, supposed to be a man. But the religious version of Jesus is so holy and shit that it just doesn't connect to me. Never has.

But in Lamb...the first time we see Joshua, he's reviving a dead lizard that his brother keeps killing. Just an endless cycle of resurrection. Because what the hell else would a little kid with godly power do? He falls in love with Mary Magdalene, but he knows he can't do anything. It's a little boy crush. His best friend is a crude, sinful son of a bitch. And Joshua is wracked with doubt: he's not ready to be the Messiah, his dad won't talk to him, and he's trying to figure out how to just cope with all of this.

For five sixths of Lamb, everything is spent building up Joshua and Biff as characters. They travel along the Silk Road to meet the three wise men. They learn ancient Chinese chemistry and acupuncture and medicine. They study in a Tibetan monastery and learn Kung-Fu and Buddhism. They study with a yogi in India.

And Biff has a lot of sex. Joshua doesn't.

So by the time we get back to preach the gospel, we've followed about 2 decades of Joshua's life, traveling the world. And because the story is told from the POV of his best friend, we see him in maybe the best light possible.

That makes the return to Israel brutal. Saving Mary Magdalene from a disastrous marriage. Gathering the Apostles. Preaching on the Holy Ghost...I mean, it's a Jesus story. It ends one way.

But when we get to the scourging, the sacrifice, the crown of thorns, the crucifixion, it's heartbreaking. Not in a "human condition" kind of way, but in a "this is Joshua, and he's refusing to speak in his own defense" way. And for such a funny book (The scene where Jesus has coffee for the first time is one of my favorite scenes in any book, ever.), the ending is...well, it's a freaking Jesus story. the ending is miserable.

And that is to its credit. In the midst of the laughing, the silliness, all of that...you forget that this is the story of Christ. Somehow, Moore manages to make the crucifixion a surprise gut punch at the end. And it's the longest gut punch ever. Up to the last moments, he's feeding you hope...but there is no hope.

So rather than the actual Biblical Jesus, a figurehead instead of a person, Lamb takes Joshua, puts him through hell, shows you his human side in the best and worst ways, puts his flaws on display...and then rips him away from you. And that is why Lamb is the only book that makes me give half a crap about Jesus. Ever.

On Endings and Dragging On

**Spoilers for Supernatural and The Almighty Johnsons may be encountered in the wilds beyond. Venture forth at your own risk.**

My roommate and I have spent the last, oh, year making our way through Supernatural, seasons 1-13. That experience is sort of what spawned this whole post into my head. But to talk about it, and the subject of endings, properly, we need to go back in time a little bit, to the mystical, long-forgotten year of...2008.

I was in high school, listening to my band director be directorial. He wasn't the kind of man who minced words, when things were important. He cared about the results we got out of something. The journey there was never the most important part of the lessons. So he dropped this pearl of wisdom that always really stuck in my head.

If you're going to work on anything, work on the beginning and the end. That's what the audience is going to remember. If the beginning and end are good, the middle doesn't matter.

I really do think, at least in live music, that's a lot truer than an audience would like to admit, and maybe truer than a musician would like to hear. See, I've been to live orchestras and symphonies. And I distinctly remember an example of this from The Four Seasons. I love that suite, and it started beautifully. I mean, who doesn't love Spring and Summer? After the intermission came Autumn, and it was fair.

And then Winter. My god Winter. It's never been my favorite, but it's not a bad piece. Except that night. That night, I don't know if they decided to double up certain sections, or play it at half speed, or if they were just exhausted, but it dragged. It was dull. They didn't nail the ending of the suite, and 10+ years later, it's still stuck in my craw.

I think you can apply the same thing to writing/reading. I mean, look at Harry Potter. Potterheads the world over can recite the opening line, and the ending line. And while there are moments that are just as memorable throughout the book, those two are universal.

Now, we're not quite back to Supernatural, but we're getting there. I promise. Stop judging me.

There's a phenomenon that's well-documented when it comes to long running TV dramas. The longer they run, the more confident they are that they'll be renewed, and the more they'll seed the next season toward the end of the current one. It leads to messy endings, and as we've established, endings leave an impact.

I'm looking at The Almighty Johnsons for this one. Great show. Can't recommend it enough. But that ending...yikes. Not only was it rushed, but they put in a very clear, obvious seed for the next season in...and there was no next season. Just Colin tossing a mysterious gemstone into the woods.

So now we can swing back to Supernatural, and their ending problem.

I wanted to establish the first type of ending because...well, we need a point of juxtaposition. Supernatural, with a couple exceptions, has sort of the opposite problem. They end a lot. Like, so many times, you can see that they were ending the series. That was it. Game over. There's no way to top what we just did, so let's pack it up. And that, honestly, is another problem entirely. It makes the storyline weirdly choppy, and there's no longer an arc to the series. It does take care of any cliffhanger endings or anything like that, but where The Almighty Johnsons swung too far toward continuation, Supernatural swings too far toward a nice, tidy package.

But even that is not the main thing I think Supernatural has an issue with when it comes to endings: I think they drag. I think the entire show is often being dragged along when it should be over. And that's a problem that crosses media.

See, what comes to mind for me here is a long-running D & D campaign. Supernatural started pretty close to the main characters, but it eventually had to move beyond their sphere and into new stories. And that works...for a while. But now, like in Dungeons an Dragons, Sam and Dean have both been to Hell at least once, resurrected at least a couple times apiece, both been vessels for archangels. And in a world where they took pains to establish other hunters...well, those hunters never seem to be able to do anything meaningful. In later seasons, it gets to the point of ridiculousness. They had to include a multiverse, alternate timeline plot just to have something new. And frankly, I found the world without Sam and Dean to be the more interesting one.

None of this is to denigrate the show as a whole. I highly recommend watching it, at least through a few seasons. And I honestly got really excited at the end of season thirteen. I'm going to watch season fourteen. But that doesn't mean it's beyond reproach, either.

Now, I think books have an interesting solution to this problem that TV shows either don't have or don't employ. When you look at something like Dragonlance or the Pern novels, they aren't "Dragonlance 1" to "Dragonlance 182." It's little snippets. Trilogies, maybe tetralogies. They follow characters through those groups, and then stop before it gets boring.

I think it's a solid choice. It obviously has sold plenty of books. And it would be worth trying in television. I mean, imagine if Sam and Dean were only one of three or four hunting groups. And not just for an episode or two. Instead of...the ever-growing mess in the middle, seasons 6-10 were following someone else entirely. Familiar places, familiar faces, but not trying to shoehorn Sam and Dean into everything, and constantly outdoing themselves with the level of the threat. I think it would have alleviated some of the plot slumping.

I don't know that there was a point to this, per se. I wanted to talk about endings. I wanted to talk about Supernatural. And I did those things. So I bed you good day.

Book Review: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Hi, I'm Voss and I am always behind the times when it comes to media. Like, always. I only started watching Supernatural this year. I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower about, oh, ten years after it first got onto my radar. And let's not even talk about me and music. My most listened to station on Pandora is 90's Country. If I want to push my boundaries, I hit up 2000's Country.

I'm behind on media is the point. So of course I only just got around to reading N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. Now, I was at the Worldcon where the whole Sad/Rabid puppies bullshit went down (Or at least where it came to a head.), so Jemisin and her work were on my radar already. But I just never picked it up. I was too busy re-re-re-re-re-reading Harry Potter and The Cyberiad. Very important work.

Now, I'm picky. I'm a super picky reader. I'm not the kind of reader who subscribe to the "I'll give it a chapter" mentality of picking a book. I give books a page. I know that I'm probably missing out on some good books by doing that…but honestly? I don't want to read good books. I want to read amazing books. And while I can't always quantify what it is about that first page that turns me away or keeps me reading, but I've always just judged that quickly on whether a book is going to hold me.

Also, I don't love high fantasy. I don't. I think when it's done well, it can be incredibly strong, but I see a lot of the same issues repeated in high fantasy/alternate world fantasy that I just can't get behind. I'm tired of pseudo-medieval Anglo-Saxon settings. I'm tired of seeing the same archetypes that you find in every beginning D and D session adventuring through the world. I'm also super fucking tired of this oddly jagged writing style you see in a scary amount of high fantasy. It doesn’t flow. It's not natural. I'm super guilty of it, the few times I've tried my hand at high fantasy, and it's honestly why I don't write it much. And when I do, it's hard work.

All of that, every bit of that 350 word spiel, is building to this point: I loved The Fifth Season. I loved it so much. It surprised me, and you might put together that surprising a writer with your writing is not an easy thing, most of the time. Authors are rarely taken unawares by plot and story progression. More often than not, we see exactly what you're doing, there. But Jemisin threw me, and not only that, she threw me in ways that I knew, in retrospect, I should have put together.

At this point, we're going to be getting into spoiler territory for The Fifth Season. Spoiler warning, spoiler warning, spoiler warning. There, I gave you four of them. Listen to whichever one you want, because I don't review without spoilers. Sorry.

The Fifth Season immediately opens with something different, something steeped in voice. And I can't stress the importance of voice in reading enough. "Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we?" Immediately, I'm interested. Immediately, you learn so god damn much. You get an idea of how this book is going to read. You learn early on that time isn't exactly a meaningful concept within these pages. It's certainly not a singular linear pathway. And you understand from this line, and the rest of the prologue, that the world we're stepping into isn't a super hospitable one. It's a dangerous place to exist.

And the writing on a mechanical level also lends to the intentionally disjointed, unstable feeling of the world. The Stillness is, ironically, not still at all. It's plagued by constant seismic activity that has to be stilled by the inborn magic of orogeny in certain people. And the writing switches back and forth—hold onto something, because the reaction to this is never good—between close third person and second person POVs. And yeah, if you'd suggested to me that a book like that could be good? I would have rolled my eyes and humored you while walking away.

But it works. Damn it all, it works when it's done here. Essun is all told in second person. You are Essun. You are learning about yourself. You are uncovering your own secrets as you read. Damaya and Syenite are both close third person. You're seeing their story unfold, and with the way this is written, it's perfect. It's beyond perfect. It's the only way it could have made sense.

Okay, I did give spoiler warnings, but I am going to give you a fifth one, because this is a big part of the book. This is the twist at the end. Are you warned? Are you feeling prepared? Okay.

There are three characters…but there is also only one. Essun talks throughout her chapters about changing who she is, becoming someone else. She's clearly changed her identity before, and Essun isn't her original identity. I kept wondering how Damaya, Syenite, and Essun would be brought together. Then she revealed that Damaya chose the name Syenite when she became a proper orogene.

I should have put the rest together at that point, but I didn't. I assumed the book would end with Syenite and Essun meeting up. They didn't have to, because after she stopped being Syenite, she started being Essun. It's all one character. Essun is written in second person because it's direct. Those other people with other stories? They are, for means of Essun's own survival, other people. They are no, and cannot be, her. If they were her, then she would be killed. Probably brutally killed. So she is no one but Essun. That's why it's structured the way it is, and it's beautiful.

The Fifth Season also shoots wide and away from my problems with high fantasy. This is not Anglo-Saxon. It's set somewhere equatorial, with a mostly black cast of characters. It instantly shifts the feeling of the book. The described beauty standards aren't written through a European gaze. The senses of loyalty, cooperation, etc are all shifted just slightly off from what's expected. It sounds like it shouldn't make much of a difference, but it does. It makes a huge, sweeping difference, and I honestly think that's part of what makes it feel like a new world. The Stillness feels like it's different than our world, and that immediately helps sell the fantasy for me. Just a tiny shift away from what's expected, like the little slips of a fault line, changes everything.

It doesn't stop with the worldbuilding though. I can absolutely see why the Sad/Rabid Puppies hated this book. They're wrong, and they're bigoted, but I see why it wouldn't appeal to them. Jemisin creates a world of casual diversity. Female black MC. Most powerful character in the whole world? An older black gay man. There's a casual mention of a transwoman, and also god damn HRT in a fantasy world. The Fifth Season is a place where diversity can live. And no, The Stillness is not a place that encourages differences. They're not supposed to be. The government in charge (The Fulcrum, the Sanzed, and Yumenes) hates difference, hates change. But they're not the good guys.

So a chill black female main character, who ends up in a three way relationship with a gay man and a bisexual man, and who travels with a pseudo-adopted son and a transwoman from noble blood? Yeah, don’t' read this if you're a bigot. You won't like it.

And with that segue, I would say there's one more group who may want to avoid this, but not for shitty reason like the bigots. If you are particularly affected by tragic, awful things happening to children…maybe not the book for you. While it always makes sense in the world, the story, and with the characters, it's a noticeable thing: children in this story do poorly. Their hands are broken to teach them lessons. They're forced to live in barns. They're kept in comatose states to serve the government. They're molested by their social superiors. And they're sometimes just flat-out murdered in cold blood. It works, it really does, but there's enough that even I think it's worth warning off people who just can't handle that. Or even if you just can't handle it right now, or without warning. You've been warned.

But all in all, The Fifth Season is the first book to leave me in a proper book hangover for…a few years, at least. I think the last one was How to be a Normal Person, and that hangover only lasted a day or so.

I'm on day three of my Fifth Season hangover as I write this, and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. So clearly I'm giving this book 5 stars. Thank you for writing this, Ms. Jemisin. Thank you.

Buy The Fifth Season Here

5 Books I'm Excited for - June 26th

Authors, as a rule, are readers first, authors second. That especially holds true with fiction authors, because how else do you get a crazy idea like writing a novel if you aren't sitting around huffing book glue during your formative years.

While most authors don't read as much as they did before the writing bug bit, it's always important, and always a good little escape to go on.

Sometimes, however, books really dig under your skin in a way that you just can't shake. Whether it's the writing, the author, or simply the force of the idea, they take root.

Well, since today is Tuesday, and that's the day most new books release every week, I wanted to share with you some books that really have me excited to read them.

(Note: any links below are Amazon Affiliate Links, and I might receive a small kickback if you go buy something after clicking. It doesn't cost you or the authors anything extra.)

5: Mech Wars by Scott Bartlett

Do you like giant robots? Because I like giant robots. I especially like it when giant robots punch each other in the face, or shoot each other, or fire grappling cables into each other. I grew up on Power Rangers and Zoids and Gundam, and my favorite TV show is still Code Geass.

Enter Scott Bartlett's Mech Wars series. Set at the beginning of a new military revolution--the introduction of piloted mechs--it follows gamer, Jake Price, who has been unknowingly training to pilot giant robots his whole life. Hand eye coordination and video game knowledge make him a force to be reckoned with as he competes for one of eight spots to pilot a mech and save the world.

And now, the entire Mech Wars series has been compiled, and is available for $4.99. It's a hell of a deal, and you should definitely go check it out. Well, you should check it out of if you like giant robots. If not, probably won't be your cup of tea.

4: Galactic Genesis by Various

Another collection of books, this is from a group of some of today's most popular, well-loved sci-fi authors. M.D. Cooper, Chris Fox, A.K. DuBoff, J.J. Green, Kevin McLaughlin, and B.C Kellogg.

But you don't have to have read their books to jump into this one. That's why it's so exciting to me. These are all new series each of them is starting. Galactic genesis is filled out with the first books of six brand new sci-fi series, and they're giving everyone a chance to try all six of them out.

Of particular interest to me are M.D. Cooper's Shore Leave, which is a new series featuring everyone's favorite space-faring lesbian, Tanis, J.J. Green's colony ship story, The Concordia Deception, which not only is about generational colony ships (Yay!), but also has a scientist as a main character, and A.K. DuBoff's Crystalline Space. You only need to see the tagline for that one:

What if save points were real?

All of that graciously offered for $0.99? I'll be weighing in on the contents when I finish, because I'm definitely buying the book.

3: Whiskey Ginger by Shayne Silvers and Cameron O'Connell

I am a Shayne Silvers fan. I'm a book fan. I'm a Supernatural fan. I'm an urban fantasy fan. And I like books that feature strong, capable heroines.

So obviously Whiskey Ginger, the beginning of the Phantom Queen series, has got me all atwitter.

Quinn, our main character, is a black magic arms dealer. She smuggles and sells dangerous magical substances and artifacts...as long as the money's good enough. And she does it safely, because she naturally nullifies magic. None of these dangerous spells and enchantments can touch her.

This book sets her up as an adversary to Silvers's main literary badass, Nate Temple. She makes the mistake of stealing from him and...well, that's just not a good idea.

The series is also being released rapidly. The first three books are already out, with book three coming out just this week, and the fourth is on pre-order for an early July release date.

But when a series opens with a vampire snorting crystallized hemoglobin, it's kind of hard to go wrong. The books all run $3.99, so you're not breaking the bank, and you're not going to have to wait a year between parts of the story. Win-win.

2: The Darkest Time of Night by Jeremy Finley

Jeremy Finley is an award winning investigative journalist, and he's now set his sights on the world of fiction. And boy howdy does The Darkest Time of Night tick all the boxes for me.

Children disappearing in dark woods? Check. Other children rattling off mysterious phrases? Check. Political intrigue with proper research from years of journalistic experience? Check.

Oh, also the main character is a grandma. Older, competent female characters with a mysterious past? Double, triple, quadruple check for me.

Combine all of that with a character rich voice that straddles the line between literary and fast-paced, and Finley has turned out one hell of an opener into the world of fiction. Being from a New York publisher, unlike the others on the list so far, this one runs a little pricier at 12.99, but when else are you going to see badass astronomy grandma take on corruption, and possibly aliens?

Before we get to the number one book, the one that I kind of have to have in my life right now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Hannu Rajaniemi's Summerland that launched today. I love alternate history, particularly set in the 1930s, and I have an obsession with a specific and hard-to-find trope that's present in Summerland: a human-constructed God. It's definitely on my list to check out, but it was just slightly edged out of the top five for the week.

And now the big one, the one that has my blood all excited and shit.

1: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Guys. Guys, you can't understand how much this book gets me going. Like, you just can't. You know I love diversity in fiction. This is a book by an indigenous author about indigenous characters. It's also set on an Earth ravaged by climate change, so most of the land has flooded. The former Navajo reservation is now argubaly the most inhabitable place in North America, protected from destruction by magic.

That should excite you. If not, check your pulse...and then keep reading, because I'm not done.

The main character is a monster hunter. The book takes a dive into Navajo myth and legend, plus Navajo culture in general.

It's written with a sense of immediacy and speed, while also conveying the character immediately and throughout. And unlike a lot of other books I tend to stumble across, we're not halfway through the series or anything: Trail of Lightning is the first book of The Sixth World. Which means that A: there's no playing catch-up and B: the book needs some serious love in order to keep the series alive and kicking. At 7.99, I wouldn't even hesitate to buy it.

Also, I didn't even hesitate to buy it. Yum yum, time for reading.

Manic Monday: The Art that Came Before

So, if I haven't mentioned it on here before, I'm a country music fan. Yeah, I know, I'll get half a dozen links to that 6 song country mashup video. Ah, ha ha ha. That's stadium country, and yeah, a lot of it sounds the same. Welcome to popular music. Ever heard of a four chord song? It's been used forever.

Anyway, I digress. Last night was the 53rd Academy of Country Music Awards. It's one of the, like, 4 award shows we have every year (3? 4? There's a lot more than there probably should be, at any rate.). But being a fan, I watched it. I honestly am not invested enough in their music and goings on to care who wins what award. Like, it's nice when someone I like wins an award, but I don't watch it for that. I watch it because there's some good country music on these awards shows, and I like to hear it.

But there's something I've noticed about country music. This isn't the first time I've seen it, but it did sort of crystallize. See, if you listen to country music, you're listening to everything. So many songs are part of what came before them in some way. Whether it's Jennifer Nettles referencing Jolene, or Maren Morris singing about Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, there are links back to the past that I just don't see in most genres of music (Classical/orchestral/symphonic not withstanding.).

And you see it at the awards shows, too. One of the reasons I like to watch the country awards is because I know they're going to dust off something I haven't heard in a while. Or they're going to dust off someone I haven't heard in a while. Like when Charley Pride stepped back on stage a couple years ago to perform "Kiss an Angel Good Morning."

And you could realistically expect that to happen and for people to applaud quietly, but that's not the case in country. The fans and the artists all love that shit. And it was the same when Alan Jackson stepped back on stage, or even Toby Keith. And especially for me, hearing Reba McEntire do "Does he Love You?" She was my favorite singer as a kid, and I've never gotten over that voice of hers.

But that's the thing: it's not just me. The fanbase gets excited about these older songs getting played, and it's not just nostalgia. It's because it's all a part of our country. I don't know anyone who won't sing along to "Friends in Low Places" when it comes on. Who doesn't love Johnny Cash, or Hank Williams. Country has been, for a long time, looking backward. Moving forward, but never forgetting Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty. And part of that is that older artists are still current artists in country. It's not a big deal when Reba McEntire or Kenny Chesney puts out a new album, because they hit the scene and they never left. Country stretches far, far back into its own history in the everyday, and I think that's something beautiful and unique.

Top Ten Trope Thursdays: O.O.C. is Serious Business

*Note: I'm going to remain completely in character, but this is still serious business: spoilers are in here. You've been warned*

Well it's time to go at this again: tropes. Who does them well, who does them the best, and…well, I would say "who does them that I don't know," but I don't know them…so we won't be seeing those.

This is one that I'm fond of, but I honestly can't think of a time I've gotten it into any of my own work, which is just saddening. So for now, I'll just have to enjoy it in other work. What is it? OOC is SeriousBusiness (OOC meaning "Out of Character.").

We've all seen it: the normally affable, light-hearted character suddenly narrows her eyes and speaks in a brooding, deep tone about the awful looming shadow behind them. Turns out that it's Horgoth of the Eternal Nightmares and shit just got real.

One of my favorites that just didn't quite make the list was Luna Lovegood, our quiet and distant girl who sort of lives in her own world, shouts across the way at Harry because, damn it, he needs to hear what she can say…and he does.

But as I said, that one didn't make the list. But here's the ten OOC moments that did make my list.

10: Gordon Ramsay

I'll get it out of the way right now: he's on the bottom of the list because he's a REAL FUCKING PERSON. This isn't a plotted character moment designed for impact. It's just his personality.

But with that out of the way, Gordon Ramsay's public persona, especially in our modern online culture, is almost centric on this shift. He got popular for being "that angry British chef" in the states. The guy we saw on Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. And, yeah, I love that angry British chef. I may or may not have attempted to write a character similar to him in high school.

No you can't read it. It went nowhere. Stop asking. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Stop.

But then in comes Master Chef Junior, and we saw Gordon Ramsay get serious about these kids. With adults who supposedly know what they're doing, he doesn't have time. They've already learned – it's his job to whip their shit into shape.

With kids, he takes it a lot more seriously. He calms down, because he's a professional chef and it's his responsibility to teach them. He wants to get them from being remarkably talented kids to being actual, proper chefs. It's a damn duty to him, so of course he's not going to scream and call them all fuckers and idiot sandwiches and donkeys. Gordon Ramsay made his name swearing and shouting and getting (rightfully) upset at professional chefs. So when you see him stop that? You know it's time to perk your ears up.

9: Bleach

Ah, Bleach. You had such promise and power and potential and other words that start with P, probably. I'm not actually a huge fan of…well, anything after they actually capture Aizen. But in regards to this trope, Bleach does an amazing job in both parts of the series.

See, there are inherent powers and evolution of said powers in Bleach, but the main thing I'm focusing on here is the zanpakuto. Short description: soul reapers have zanpakuto, which have two power levels to them. Shikai is a powerup, and bankai is almost like a nuke. Very powerful, very hard to master.

Bleach shows how serious the situation is through the zanpakuto a lot. Because there are restrictions put on soul reapers to what they can and can't do, and what they should and shouldn't do, you see a lot of times where they won't pull out their bankai until things are really, really serious. It goes for heroes and villains, too.

So, just to run through some of the better examples really quickly: in the Thousand Year Blood War, Yamamoto and Kyouraku both unleash bankai for the first time. Two of the strongest, most devastating bankai in the series. Kyouraku's actually kills him when he uses it, so you know it's for real serious. Soi Fon hates her bankai, because a massive "fuck you" missile launcher is surprisingly not stealthy, which she hates. The first time Isshin is ever revealed as a soul reaper and not a bumbling father is when the first Arrancar shows up. And a lot of the soul reapers, and later the espada, show you that the battle is actually getting difficult when they bother to release their zanpakuto/resurrecion.

So yeah. Bleach uses this trope a lot. But I saved one out, because to me it's special and a little more plot/character potent than the other myriad examples. Who is it? Well…

8: Yumichika Ayasegawa (Bleach)

Oh, Yumichika. Introduced pretty early in the series, and also one of the very first shikai we ever see with Fuji Kujaku. It turns his sword into a four-bladed kopis. And that's about it. Honestly, kind of lackluster compared to a lot of other shikai in the series.

Except not, because this trope. So, for background, Yumichika is in Squad 11. The martial squad of the Soul Society. There's an unspoken rule that all members of that squad should have "melee type" zanpakuto.

Cut to way fucking later down the line. Yumichika is trapped in a dome with his enemy…and shit gets real. What should be a fairly desperate situation makes Yumichika smile like a bastard. Come to find out, that four-bladed kopis is not the power of his zanpakuto. He was suppressing it. His real zanpakuto, Ruri'iro Kujaku, is kido based. Magic based. And now that no one is around to see him use it, he unleashes it and kicks ass.

But even that's not the full extent of this trope for Yumichika. Near the end of the series, when it got kind of shitty overall, people were really dying and struggling. And Yumichika releases Ruri'iro Kujaku in front of everyone. Things are as bad as they possibly could have been, and he's there to show you that.

7: Sam and Dean Winchester (Supernatural)

So in early Supernatural, the big thing was demons. More specifically Yellow Eyes. In this universe, demons have to possess humans to be on Earth. Otherwise they're just black smoke.

Sam and Dean, being hunters, took care of demons. They exorcized them and sent them back to Hell. They hated killing people. And yeah, sometimes humans died during their travels. It was miserable for them.

Until the end of season 2. They have the Colt, which can kill anything. And Yellow-Eyes, who killed their mother and is generally not very nice. He's in a human host, and without any real hesitation they murder the fuck out of him. And his human host. And while, going forward, they seem less careful about killing humans, up until this point they had serious reservations about killing people in the process of their hunting.

6: Yoda (Attack of the Clones)

Yoda, Yoda, Yoda. Confusing you are. Okay, not really.

This is one of the scenes people were looking forward to forever. See, for four movies, Yoda has been this little wise old green dude. He's strong with the force and shit, but we never even see his lightsaber.

Until we do. When Count Dooku is royally wiping the floor with Anakin and Obi Wan, Yoda comes in. He catches and redirects force lightning. And he acrobats the shit out of Count Dooku. He actually beats back Count Dooku, one of the most accomplished lightsaber fighters in the Star Wars universe.

Don't piss off Yoda. It takes a while, but you won't like him when he's angry.

5: Molly Weasley (Harry Potter)

You know exactly what scene I'm talking about. Deathly Hallows. Battle of Hogwarts. Bellatrix Lestrange curses Ginny, and that's it. "Not my daughter, you bitch!"

It's glorious, but important for Molly. We needed to see this. She's been built as a loving mother, sometimes overbearing, for seven books. But she's also a member of the Order of the Phoenix and…that's weird, right?

Turns out no, it's not. It takes something in line with her character (Protecting her family) to get there, but she does it. It has to get serious for Molly personally, but then she takes on one of the most accomplished, fervent Death Eaters in the series, and god damn it if she doesn't win.

4: Alexander Dane (Galaxy Quest)

RIP Alan Rickman. A major loss to the acting community and one we still sorely miss. One of my favorites was him as a high-class actor relegated to a sci-fi show he hates being attached to. It's never more obvious than when he says or even hears his catchphrase.

"By Grabthar's Hammer, by the Sons of Warvan, you shall be avenged!"

It's a running joke all the way through the movie (BTW, if you haven't seen Galaxy Quest, go watch it. For real.), and Alexander is just so exasperated by the whole thing.

Now, there's also Quellek, the ship's science officer who idolized Dane's character (The aliens think that the actors from Galaxy Quest were actually on a space mission. They think the characters are real.). Toward the end of the movie, Quellek is mortally wounded, and he says how much of an honor it was to work with him.

And Dane gives him the line. Sincere as he's been the whole movie. And I'm not crying, you're crying.

3: Richard Castle (Castle)

Castle is great popcorn television. It's a super-formulaic detective show, and Castle, a writer, is generally lovable and charming and roguish. I mean, it's Nathan Fillion. That's what he plays best, arguably.

But there's a two part episode where his daughter, Alexis, is kidnapped. And Castle doesn't take it well, weirdly enough. At one point, they get someone who knows what's going on. He's standing in the way of Castle getting to Alexis.

And Castel very calmly asks for some time alone with the guy. He makes all kinds of hideous threats on what he's going to do to this guy. But then it cuts away to outside, and you just hear the guy screaming.

And Castle, our lovable, kindly writer, comes out with the information he wanted.

2: Saitama (One Punch Man)

OOC is Serious Business is a huge part of Saitama's character. He's the One Punch Man. He kills everything with One Punch. It's the whole schtick of the series. So he rarely needs to try at anything.

But now and then, we see him get…drawn better. More in a "traditional anime" style, as Americans understand it. That only happens when he actually feels things and has to try in a fight. It's quintessential, 101 OOC is Serious Business, in the starkest and most obvious terms.

But I don't think it's handled quite the best of all the things I've seen/read/watched. That goes to a very special, beloved character.

1: Hawkeye (M*A*S*H)

Fucking Hawkeye. I love him. I love this whole show, but I love Hawkeye. He's maudlin and irreverent and just a general cacophony of a human being. But he's almost always a lighthearted war surgeon. Yeah, if you haven't seen it, it's as weird as it sounds. Also…why haven't you fucking seen it?

But what makes Hawkeye marvelous in that particular way is when he's not funny and irreverent. He gets dark. Hawkeye, more than every other character combined, is our reminder to the vagaries of war. We see him break, and it's a reminder that not only are they in war, but war is…well, not hell. "War is war and Hell is Hell."

There are lots of great lines and scenes that show it. I really like the one where he and Margaret are trapped in a cave together. But the biggest one for me is when they bring in Sidney Freeman. Hawkeye is literally, psychologically broken. And to the viewer, that's scary. Hawkeye can't pull himself together. He has to get a psychologist. It's…it's powerful. It's not anything to shy away from for this show.

Hawkeye, because of how integral he is in the success of the show, and how well the trope is handled in regards to his character, is my top OOC is Serious Business example.