Category Archives: review

Automatic Noodle

I grew up in Southern California. There’s no doubt the state is an economic powerhouse in its own right with industries ranging from agriculture to film and computers to transportation. I’ve heard it suggested more than once that if California left the United States, it would still be one of the richest countries in the world. In the recent novella, Automatic Noodle, Annalee Newitz has imaged a world where California recently fought a bitter war of independence from the United States and is now trying to settle into normalcy. Set roughly 40 years in the future, Newitz’s point-of-view characters are a group of sentient, AI-powered robots finding their way in a world that hasn’t quite decided whether or not to grant them the same rights as humans.

The novella opens when our team of four robots wakes up almost six months after they were unceremoniously deactivated. They’d been working at a San Francisco fast food joint. Sometime near the end of the war between California and the United States, the owners had vanished. As the robots awaken, they discover the restaurant partially flooded and there’s no power. They also realize that since the owners have fled, they are at risk for being claimed as scrap. At best they may be reprogrammed. At worst, they could find themselves used for spare parts. To avoid their fate, they have to find a way to get power and make money fast.

Power is easily solved. The robots quickly appropriate a water-powered generator from a nearby hardware store and set it up down in the sewars below the shop. Money is a trickier problem. What’s a robot got to do to earn a few bucks? As their backstories are revealed, we learn that they’d come together in food service and discovered they actually enjoyed their work. They also realized that their owners did not take pride in making good food, they just made the cheapest food that would sell. So, the robots set out to make food that they both want to make and that humans will pay good money to enjoy and keep coming back for more. When the lead cook, Hands, comes across a box of ramen noodles, he feels challenged to make something better. A online search leads him to Chinese biang biang noodles and after a visit across town, he’s decided that with practice he can make his own.

They clean up the old shop, find the intelligent, autonomous lease contract on the web and assume payments. They open their doors and advertise on the web and soon find customers and good reviews. It looks like the robots may have found a way to a safe, autonomous life until first one really terrible review comes in and then a whole lot more follow. It starts to look like the bad reviewer is someone who has it out for robots making food for humans, but the challenge is getting proof and attempting to thrive despite that.

At its heart, Automatic Noodle is a fun, cozy science fiction novel about a group of robots who just want to find their place in the world and they do that by creating the best noodle shop they can. However, there’s a lot of subtext about the rights of individuals to make the best lives they can for themselves and find their most true identities. Newitz also presents interesting and considered opinions on technical and artistic possibilities. As an author, there’s no doubt Annalee Newitz knows the importance of online reviews and the horror of online bullies who seem to have nothing better to do than drag you down. I spend enough time in the world of contracts and agreements that I was intrigued by the idea of AI contracts that essentially exist as “living” agreements and can interpret themselves and make sure requested amendments have enforceable language. That would certainly be a lot easier than drafting contracts by hand!

Will autonomous AI robots appear in only 40 years? I’m not sure, but if they do, I hope at least a few decide to open a really good noodle shop.

Be Bold, Be Bold

I have a complicated relationship with arachnids. Working on a mountaintop in the Arizona desert, late at night, I see a lot of them ranging from grotesque orb-weaver spiders to tarantulas to scorpions. I have learned, for the most part, that if I leave them alone they’ll leave me alone. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had memorable encounters. In particular, I remember cleaning the bathtub at one point, feeling a pinch, lifting my hand and seeing a rather large wolf spider clamped onto my finger by its mandibles. Another time, I felt a sharp, momentary poke on my leg. A few seconds later, I discovered a scorpion under my chair. It seemed the scorpion had stung me through my jeans. Fortunately, it was such a momentary sting it just hurt for a few days. In a more pleasant encounter, last summer an orb weaver spider set up her residence on the overhang over the door of my room at the observatory. I watched her create her elaborate web over the summer and was saddened when she reached the end of her life in the autumn. I find it fascinating how these little creatures who generally keep to themselves demand such respect from us humans. It’s perhaps no surprise that many cultures around the world have stories about powerful spider beings. Examples include the tsuchigumo of Japan, Iktome the Lakota trickster spirit, and, of course, Arachne, the mythological weaver from Greece.

I suspect that it’s my own complicated relationship with spiders that led me to the novella But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo. Set in a mansion known as the Capricious House, the novella opens as one of the servants, Dalía is summoned before the house’s mistress, a giant spider-like being known as Anatema. Anatema has just devoured Matilde, the household’s Keeper of the Keys, and Dalía is being promoted to the new Keeper of the Keys. We soon learn that Anatema is an Ancient One who has been looking for a suitable bride over her years in the mansion. Every time she selects one, she ends up devouring the bride on the wedding night. Each time this happens, Anatema weaves an elaborate “memory” of her bride from her own silk. The memory is a diorama of the bride in a favorite setting. However, the memory of Anatema’s most recent bride has gone missing. As Keeper of the Keys, Matilde was held responsible. However, Anatema realizes she has not caught the true thief. As the new Keeper of the Keys, this is Dalía’s job. As Dalía goes about her task, an attraction grows between her and Anatema. Will Dalía solve the mystery? Will romance bloom between Dalía and her employer? Will Dalía find herself on the menu?

Argentine-Brazillian author Hache Pueyo weaves a tale that intertwines Gothic horror, mystery and romance. At the heart of this tale is Dalía’s journey of self-discovery. She’s been a servant in Anatema’s house since she was a little girl, so she knows nothing but being a servant. Anatema challenges her to learn what she really wants from life. She encourages Dalía to “Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.” The beauty of this story is that as it unfolds, Anatema also learns what it is she’s really been seeking by courting brides over the years and the object of her quest is both simple and profound. You can find But Not Too Bold wherever fine books are sold.

My complicated relationship with spiders has also led me to create an alien being who has a form much like Anatema’s who calls himself Iktome after the Lakota trickster. I have a story about Iktome set in Japan in the collection Vermillion Highways. You can learn more about the collection at: https://www.amazon.com/Vermillion-Highways-David-Lee-Summers/dp/B0GHDTMVZ3/

Gemini Rising

When my mom was a teenager, her family moved to Olympia, Washington. Her oldest brother, my Uncle Dan, had already graduated from high school and had volunteered for the army. Her other brother, my Uncle Jim, was near the end of high school. Soon after the family moved to Olympia, Uncle Dan came home for his last leave before he’d wrap up his enlistment and go look for a job. The day he came home was Saturday, December 6, 1941. Of course, they woke up the next morning to the new of the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. Dan had to return to his base. He would remain in the army for the rest of his career. During the Pacific Campaign, he received a battlefield commission. As a result, he retired as a colonel. Uncle Jim would also enlist and have a career in the army, however, he remained an enlisted man for his entire service. At one point, I remember Uncle Jim discussing his career. He’d had opportunities to serve with Uncle Dan, but always declined them, especially after Dan became an officer. Even though Dan was not the kind of man who would give special treatment to family members, he never wanted the impression of such special treatment to exist. I was reminded of this and my uncles’ service when I read Jonathan P. Brazee’s fine young adult novel Gemini Rising.

In the novel, Nika and Rika Ingersoll are twin sisters living in the distant future. They’re daughters of a well known Marine colonel who started as an enlisted man and worked his way up through the ranks to become an officer much like my uncle did. They’ve just received appointments to the Regency Uniform Services Academy and the novel tells the story of their voyage aboard a starliner from their planet to the school. As their voyage begins, they soon meet other academy-bound students and strike up friendships. In this future, Brazee imagines that the rate of twin births has significantly declined, so the sisters are something of a rarity and do attract attention.

A short time into their voyage, Rika and Nika take some time to explore the ship on their own, planning to meet up with the other midshipmen. When they reach the part of the ship with their staterooms they overhear the other students talking about them. They soon realize that the other midshipmen suspect they received their appointments because of their father and speculate that the twins won’t make it through the academy. Among other things, Rika stumbled when she boarded the liner. What the other cadets don’t know is that the “stumble” was part of a ruse, allowing Rika to sneak a beloved family artifact aboard, a so-called Kri-blade that had belonged to her father that she wants to keep close. Of course, passengers aren’t allowed to have weapons aboard.

Despite their hurt feelings at overhearing the conversation among the other midshipmen, they do their best to take it in stride, understanding how people could get the impressions they did. Nika and Rika attempt to hang out with the other midshipmen and make friends. Even so, one night Nika decides she’d rather hang out with her sister, watching a holovid than spend time with the others. Rika still wants to spend time with the others, so they go their separate ways. That night is when the problems begin.

During the night, all the doors are suddenly sealed and they get a notice from the shipboard computer that there’s a problem and the crew are looking into it. A while later, the shipboard comms die. Nika decides to investigate. She takes out the Kri-blade she smuggled aboard and breaks out of her cabin. A short time later, she finds out that enemy combatants have taken over the ship. At first, it looks like these may be pirates. However, it turns out they’re human mercenaries working for an alien race called the Krackles, which are imposing beings with four arms and no sense of sight. Instead they have the ability to echolocate. When they send out their signal, humans feel a static-like sensation on their skin, which is where they get the name. However, the echo signals they send out can be increased in strength and used to stun humans.

Separated, the two twins have to make the best of their circumstances to see if they can help the crew and their fellow midshipmen retake the starliner. This means these young women must earn the trust of their peers even as they face great odds. I liked how Brazee showed us their journey as they struggled to retake the ship and how Nika and Rika used their brains to overcome the overpowering physical strength and weapons of their adversaries. I liked that this “young adult” novel presented an adventure with actual young adults who are newly on their own and not teens or children still at home with parents. I also liked how Nika and Rika came to understand that they had to earn the trust of their peers through their actions. Gemini Rising is available at Amazon.

I gather Jonathan P. Brazee is, himself, a retired colonel, so it’s no wonder he can write convincing military fiction. I’ve not served in the military, however the stories told my uncles who served in the Army in World War II and my dad in the Marine Corps at the very end of the war have helped me to bring veracity to my stories that involve the military. Their experiences helped to inspire my tale, Breaking the Code, which involves a Skinwalker preventing Marines from recruiting Navajo Code Talkers at the beginning of the war. You can learn more about that novella at: https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Code-Systema-Paradoxa-Book-ebook/dp/B08RW4CMR8/

Monsters Begetting Monsters

While traveling to Wild Wild West Con last month, my wife and I listened to Big Finish’s audio dramatization of Frankenstein, which featured a Who’s Who of Doctor Who stars in featured roles. The production starred Arthur Darvill, who played the 11th Doctor’s companion Rory, as Victor Frankenstein. Nicholas Briggs who has voiced many Doctor Who monsters over the years played Frankenstein’s monster. Georgia Moffett who played Jenny, a clone of the Doctor and the real-life daughter of Doctor Who star Peter Davison and wife of David Tennant, played Elizabeth Lavenza, Frankenstein’s cousin and fiancée. Geoffrey Beevers, one of the actors who played the Doctor’s nemesis, the Master, played Victor’s father, Alphonse Frankenstein. Finally Terry Molloy, well known as Davros, creator of the Daleks in Doctor Who, played Mr. Christiansen, first officer of the Oceanus, the North Pole-bound ship that finds Victor at the beginning of the story.

If you’ve read Mary Shelley’s novel, you’ll know it’s narrative-heavy. There’s some powerful dialogue, but a lot of the story is told through the impressions of the characters. Dreams and metaphor are important. The audio drama strives to tell Shelley’s story using dialogue and character interaction. The novel features the striking framing story where Captain Robert Walton on an expedition to the North Pole finds Victor on the ice. This allows Victor to narrate some aspects of the story. To make this a more effective tool for audio, the drama returns to Walton’s ship periodically, so Victor can deliver his impressions. Because this is the audio drama’s primary method of delivering narrative, they make the choice to return to the Oceanus periodically through the story. As such, they also expand the character of Walton and make him something of a kindred spirit with Frankenstein. Walton is driven to reach the pole in much the same way Frankenstein is driven to create life.

Other parts that were expanded in the Big Finish dramatization of Frankenstein were the professors Krempe and Waldman from Victor’s days studying in Ingolstadt. The book is quite sparse in details about the actual creation of the Monster. The audio drama expands on these scenes a little and allow Krempe and Waldman to play a part, which are used to good effect to set up Victor Frankenstein as the true villain of the piece. Once the monster is created, he also commits some rather horrific acts, but you understand, at least at the beginning, that they’re either a response to those humans who don’t understand him or the result of the monster not understanding his own strength. However, as the story continues, the monster learns a desire for vengeance from humans in general and Victor Frankenstein in particular.

Unfortunately, like Guillermo del Toro’s recent movie Frankenstein, this audio dramatization suggests that the monster cannot be harmed by bullets. I refreshed my memory and in the novel, the monster is actually shot at one point and is seriously injured. Because the monster is stronger than the average human, he recovers over time without treatment, but it’s implied that he could certainly be killed by gunshot. Aside from this, the enhancements to the story flowed naturally from Mary Shelley’s themes and narrative and helped enhance my enjoyment of the original story. Frankenstein is available for purchase at: https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/frankenstein-1025

I thought it was interesting that at one point, Elizabeth compares the occasionally glimpsed monster to a ghoul or a vampire. My novels Vampires of the Scarlet Order and Ordeal of the Scarlet Order are inspired by the idea of a monstrous human deciding that he can improve humanity by giving them vampiric properties. You can learn more about these novels at: https://www.hadrosaur.com/VampiresScarletOrder.php and https://www.hadrosaur.com/OrdealScarletOrder.php.

Shadow of the Assassins

A few weeks ago, when I discussed the graphic novel Warlord of Mars: The Fall of Barsoom, I mentioned that I didn’t know of many novels that told new stories in the worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs. What I hadn’t realized when I said that is that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc – the company Burroughs himself founded to manage his literary estate – has recently started publishing new novels by noted authors set in the worlds Burroughs created. This includes novels about Tarzan, Barsoom, Pelucidar, and more. As I perused their offerings, I discovered that one of their Barsoom novels, A Princess of Mars: Shadow of the Assassins had received a very good review from Anthony R. Cardno, whose work appears in Hadrosaur Productions’ anthology Kepler’s Cowboys. I took that as a solid recommendation and decided to try the book.

A Princess of Mars: Shadow of the Assassins, written by Ann Tonsor Zeddies, is a prequel to Burroughs’ Barsoom series. In the novel, we meet Dejah Thoris on the cusp of adulthood. She’s the daughter of Mors Kajak, Jed (or prince) of Lesser Helium and granddaughter of Tardos Mors, Helium’s Jeddak (or king). As the story opens, Dejah Thoris’s brother has just left on a scientific expedition. She’s just at the age to bristle at not being included, so she sets out on her own to follow him just as far her father’s orders will allow. Unfortunately, she comes across a tribe of Barsoom’s twelve-foot-tall four-armed green warriors making an incursion into Helium’s territory. They shoot at her flier, so she has to retreat. Of course, Mors Kajak is not going to let this incursion stand, so he prepares to go out and do battle with the green warriors. However, an ambassador from the city-state of Zor appears and indicates he wants to build better relations with Helium. He invites Mors Kajak to a series of games to be held in Zor. Mors Kajak must beg off, but Dejah Thoris persuades her father to let her go in his place.

When Dejah Thoris arrives in Zor, accompanied by one of her mother’s close advisors and a guard detachment, she finds the people are not as refined as they are in her own country of Helium. The Jed of Zor, Jan Vajo, is a little too forward and ill-mannered as he courts Dejah Thoris. What’s more, plots seem to be afoot. Assassins are stalking the streets and the Jed must maintain food tasters and guards at all time to assure that his own people don’t attack him. When the games happen, it becomes apparent that the Jed and his sister have favorites and expect Dejah Thoris in her role as arbiter of the games to pick them as winners. While those favorites win based on technicalities, the princess decides to give accolades to others who show skill and bravery as well. After the games, the princess and one of the athletes she favored are kidnapped and taken out to the desert where it looks like they may be held as hostages. Of course, this being Dejah Thoris, she won’t sit still and wait for whatever ransom demands might be forthcoming.

All in all, I rather enjoyed this 2024 novel about Barsoom. All of the familiar characters feel authentically like Burroughs’ creations. While Dejah Thoris bristles at the boundaries her parents set for her, I liked the way she came to see the wisdom of their boundaries and how she learned to respect what they told her, even if she still insists on forging her own path forward. There was a nice balance between court intrigue and action. I was especially impressed by how well this short novel maintained a voice consistent with Burroughs. Aside from a couple of more modern turns of phrase, I could almost imagine I was reading a lost novel of Barsoom.

The book also contained a bonus novella, John Carter of Mars: Swords of the Mind by Geary Gravel. This story opens with John Carter on his way home from a visit to a friend at Mars’s south pole. He soon crosses paths with a damaged flier that belongs to his son Carthoris. Carter is able to catch up with the flier and get aboard. However, he finds it empty. Reasoning that Carthoris must have gotten in trouble and sent the flier on autopilot home so people would know to come looking for him, Carter sets the flier to take it back to where the flight started. The ship takes him to the hidden and mysterious city of Lothar, which is under the rule of a man named Tario, who can create soldiers with his mind who are so real, they can inflict damage on their opponents. Within the city’s walls, Carter discovers not his son, but his grandson Djon Dhin. It turns out Tario has taken him captive and is trying to teach him mind control powers so Djon Dhin can help him rule all of Barsoom. Tario has also captured Carthoris and is using him as leverage to bend Djon Dhin to his will.

John Carter of Mars: Swords of the Mind was a nicely balanced novella. Again, I felt like I was reading a lost Burroughs story. I liked how Gavel expanded the Burroughs cannon a little bit by explaining how the mammalian Martians engineered themselves to lay eggs as an adaptation to their difficult environment. He doesn’t expound on that idea much, but it was nice to see a thoughtful nod to one of the oddities of the Barsoom series. I was so impressed with both the short novel and novella that I plan to read more of the novels published by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. You can find their complete catalog online at: https://www.edgarriceburroughs.com/ which includes not only these newer books, but authorized editions of the original Edgar Rice Burroughs classic novels. The editions are also available from your favorite online retailers.

One of the things I have long appreciated about the Barsoom novels is how they sparked my imagination and helped me see Mars as a real place we could visit and explore. Sure its a fanciful Mars, but its not far off from how astronomers like Percival Lowell and Camille Flammarion imagined the red planet. When NASA scientist Steve Howell and I decided to compile the anthology Kepler’s Cowboys, we had Burroughs very much in our minds. In our case, we wanted to bring real exoplanets to life in the same way Burroughs brought Mars and Venus to life in his novels. You can learn more about Kepler’s Cowboys at: https://hadrosaur.com/KeplersCowboys.php

Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure

My 2011 novel Owl Dance, and really the entire subsequent Clockwork Legion Steampunk series, grew out of three short stories. In “The Persian Witch,” I introduced Ramon Morales, a sheriff from New Mexico, and Fatemeh Karimi, a healer from Persia as heroes with complimentary skills. They stood for right, even if they had to stand up to authority to make the right choices. In “Electric Kachinas,” Ramon and Fatemeh have their first brush with a visitor from the stars called Legion, an alien interested in all life and perhaps a little too willing to intervene with that life. Legion would go on to inspire humanity to develop new technologies to see where it would lead them. Finally, in “The Clockwork Lobo,” I introduced Ramon and Fatemeh to Professor Maravilla, an itinerant genius who had created a mechanical wolf to study real wolves. He showed how humans themselves often came up with ideas that hadn’t always reached fame and notoriety. It was interesting to see several of these ideas reflected in Bill Willingham’s graphic novel Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure, which was comprised of seven comic books that began publication in 2013.

Featuring art by Sergio Fernandez Davila, Legenderry imagines a number of Dynamite Entertainment’s heroes and villains converging in a steampunk world. The book opens when a woman named Magda Spadarossa takes refuge in a club owned by Vampirella. Magda is being chased by a mysterious group of men in armor. However, Vampirella is able to quickly dispatch them. She and her friend, newspaper owner Brit Reid, soon discover the men are all identical. We also learn that Magda is searching for her sister, Sonja, better known to those of us who’ve read comics for a while as Red Sonja. Realizing something very dangerous is afoot, Brit disappears and reappears in his Green Hornet persona. Along with his partner, Kato, the Green Hornet spirits Magda off to an airship commanded by Captain Victory, so he can take her take her to the city of Landing, where she might get help from the famous Flash Gordon.

Meanwhile a cabal of villains including the likes of Ming the Merciless, General Tara, and Doctor Moreau have gathered to summon a demonic entity who will help them take over the world so they can divide up the spoils. Indeed back on Captain Victory’s airship, some of Doctor Moreau’s creations escape their crates, attempting to get their hands on Magda. Fortunately, test pilot Steve Austin is aboard with his pal Oscar Goldman. Steve was wounded in a heliogyro crash, but Oscar has built amazing prosthetics for him and dubbed him the “Six-Thousand Dollar Man.” The resulting battle destroys the airship and our heroes survive and make their way to a mysterious island, but are separated. Fortunately Magda is found by the mysterious Phantom and his sidekick, a mechanical wolf named Devil.

As Magda continues her journey, we learn that long ago, Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless were locked in battle and crash landed on a primitive world. Ming had just taken a potion to give himself long life and disappears to contemplate what to do next. Flash started carefully sharing technology in hopes of advancing the world enough to build a rocket ship to return to his own world. He would portion out some technology, then go to a cryogenic container and sleep for a decade, then wake and portion out more technology. As such, it’s Flash Gordon who makes this a steampunk world.

All in all, Legenderry: A Steampunk Adventure proved a satisfying and action-packed tale that reimagined some familiar comic book and TV heroes in a steampunk milieu. My only disappointment is that it seemed to end on the penultimate battle. It felt like we needed two or three more issues for our heroes to finally come together and confront the cabal of master villains in an ultimate battle. Alas, this is sometimes the nature of comic books.

If you would like to check out my Clockwork Legion series, you will find epic heroes and villains, including some familiar faces from history such as Billy the Kid, Dimitri Mendeleev, and even Doc Holliday in a world altered by a creature from the stars. There will even be some chapters with a mechanical wolf! Learn more at http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

Luc Besson’s Dracula

I have long been a fan of Luc Besson’s films. His work is often based on and inspired by some of the great bandes dessinées, which are French-Belgium graphic novels. His classic science fiction film The Fifth Element was inspired by aspects of the bande dessinée Valerian and Laureline. His adaptation of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec is one of my favorite Steampunk films. Although his direct adaptation of Valerian and Laureline wasn’t very well received by critics, I still thought it was a fun film. So, when I saw that Besson decided to adapt Dracula, I had to go see it.

Dracula is one of the novels most adapted to the screen. Almost every director who tries to adapt it finds some way to put their own unique spin on the material. So, when I went to see the film, I went in less wanting to see a literal retelling of Bram Stoker’s novel, but seeing what about the novel resonated with Besson.

Besson opens his movie in the distant past. Prince Vladimir of Wallachia played by Caleb Landry, has recently married his true love, Elisabeta, played by Zoë Bleu. Unfortunately the Ottomans are about to invade and Vladimir must lead the defense. He pleads with God to keep Elisabeta safe, then attempts to send her to safety, but unfortunately Ottoman agents corner and kill her. As a result, Vladimir renounces God and becomes a vampire, cursed to walk the Earth for eternity.

As time passes, Vladimir begins to travel. After an encounter with a woman who bore a passing resemblance to Elisabeta in Paris, he realizes she might be reincarnated. As such, Vladimir begins to make vampire minions to seek out Elisabeta. Jumping ahead to the nineteenth century, Vladimir has decided to buy property in Paris. Jonathan Harker played by Ewins Abid goes to his castle in Wallachia to finalize the deal. At that point, Dracula realizes that his fiance, Mina, is in fact the reincarnation of Elisabeta.

Meanwhile, Dr. Henry Spencer played by David Shields has captured one of Dracula’s vampire minions, Maria played by Matilda De Angelis, in Paris and a mysterious priest, played by Christoph Waltz, comes to study her. It turns out the priest is part of an order out to hunt down Dracula’s minions. They’ve come to realize if they kill Dracula, they might destroy all of his minions at once.

Dracula leaves Jonathan Harker a prisoner in his castle guarded by his gargoyle minions and journeys to Paris. Maria escapes her captivity and helps Dracula track down and seduce Mina. Although he struggles to awaken the memories of her past life, he convinces her to return with him to Wallachia. In the meantime Harker has escaped and he joins forces with Dr. Spencer and the priest. They lay siege to the castle setting the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil.

The storyline of Dracula becoming a vampire after losing his love and then seeking her reincarnation later feels like an expansion of Francis Ford Coppola’s film Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The impression is all the more prominent given how much Caleb Landry’s makeup as old Dracula resembles Gary Oldman’s makeup from Coppola’s film. That said, I liked some of the original ways Besson interpreted the material. My wife and I realized that Maria is, in effect, a combination of the Renfield and Lucy characters from the novel and she makes a delightful new approach to both characters. Christoph Waltz’s priest was wonderful to watch and I liked how his relationship with Dr. Spencer is not a simple reinterpretation of Van Helsing and Arthur Holmwood from the novel, it’s almost a literal team up of science and faith to fight evil. Dracula’s living gargoyle minions were also a fun addition to the story. That noted, the true star of the film felt like Danny Elfman’s standout soundtrack.

In the final analysis, Luc Besson’s Dracula isn’t one of the best interpretations of the source material and it’s not even one of the best Luc Besson films. However, it does experiment with the source material in some fun and interesting ways and I did like seeing how he experimented with some ideas Coppola introduced in his film. I do plan to give the film another watch or two. Who knows, it might even inspire some new stories. To see some of my stories inspired by classic vampire literature and folktales, you might enjoy the fun collection Vermillion Highways, which is available at: http://davidleesummers.com/Vermillion-Highways.html

A League of the Extraordinary

This weekend finds me at Wild Wild West Con in Tucson, Arizona. If you’re in town and able to come to the event, please drop in to the dealer’s room or see me on one of my panels. This is one of those rare conventions I have been fortunate enough to attend every year it’s been held and this will be the final year. I’m looking forward to this being an event to remember. One of the things I have loved about this convention is that it’s a very immersive steampunk convention where people really get into the spirit of the event and dress up. Over the years, both at this convention and at other events, we have delved into the question of what steampunk is and where it started. At its heart, I’ve long felt that steampunk celebrates science fiction’s eighteenth and nineteenth century roots. It looks to works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and tells stories in a similar milieu. Of course, those works are just early science fiction. Who told the first steampunk stories which looked back at the past and told stories in the style of those earlier works? I once heard an interesting case made that Edgar Rice Burroughs could be considered the father of steampunk. After all, in Burroughs’ first novel, John Carter was a post-Civil War soldier who finds himself transported to a very retrofuturistic Mars. Meanwhile, At the Earth’s Core also has very steampunkish Victorian elements.

One truly standout work of steampunk literature is the graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. This book literally brought many of the great heroes from Victorian adventure fiction together to battle a seemingly insurmountable menace. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill Willingham took some inspiration from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen when he realized that the Edgar Rice Burroughs canon consists of a rather extraordinary group of heroes and villains who could be brought together for a truly epic team-up against some rather implacable foes. His graphic novel The Greatest Adventure, released by Dynamite Publishing in 2017 did just that.

Featuring art by Cezar Razek, The Greatest Adventure imagines that Tarzan villain Count Rokoff and a band of Black Martians have captured a fabulous space vessel from the planet Poloda. Rokoff has also captured Jason Gridley, whose Gridley Wave has been used to communicate with many of Burroughs’ worlds including Pellucidar, Mars, and Venus. He wants Gridley to use the technology of several worlds to build the ultimate weapon, which will give him and his battleship almost Death Star-like powers. Fortunately Gridley escapes in a fighter craft before Rokoff can find the one piece he needs to complete his weapon, a legendary crystal which can only be found on a lost island inhabited by dinosaurs.

Although Gridley hopes to make it home to California, he finds that his craft will make it no further than Africa, so he seeks out Tarzan and his wife, Jane Porter. Willingham is well acquainted with the Tarzan canon and knows that Lord Graystoke has considerable resources and is a leader to be reckoned with. Lord and Lady Graystoke summon their children and head to New Mexico to build team of heroes culled from the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Among them are Ulysses Paxton who brings a sky ship from Mars and the team sets out to seek the missing crystal before Rokoff can lay his hands on it. When they reach the island, they find the crystal has been taken to Pellucidar at the center of the Earth. Our heroes follow only to find that Rokoff has beaten them to it and departed for Mars.

Of course our heroes are hot on the villain’s tail. When they reach Mars, it doesn’t take long for Tarzan, Jane, and Gridley to team up with John Carter and Dejah Thoris. All in all, I found this a satisfying and fun adventure that honored the heroes of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I didn’t know all of the characters, but the graphic novel made me want to get to know them better through the source material. I’ll be certain to seek out more of the adventures of Carson of Venus, Tarzan and Jane, and Jason Gridley Was this collection steampunk? I certainly think it had the retrofuturistic, steampunk-like vibe many of Burroughs’ stories maintained.

My own Clockwork Legion steampunk series is about a group of unlikely heroes banding together to thwart an emperor’s ambitions to capture the United States. In many ways, my series owes a strong debt of gratitude to adventure stories such as those written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. You can learn more about my series at: http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#clockwork_legion

From Revelation to Genesis

Last month, I discussed Paul Darrow’s novelized sequel to the television series Blakes 7 titled Lucifer. In the TV series, Darrow played Kerr Avon, a computer genius who was recruited from a prison ship by the series’ title character Roj Blake to fight against the oppression of the oppressive Earth Federation. By the time the series reached the end of its fourth and final season in 1981, Avon was one of the two characters who appeared in the largest number of episodes. Perhaps surprisingly, Garreth Thomas’s Blake was not the other one. Instead the other was talented thief Vila Restal played by Michael Keating.

As noted in my review of the novel Lucifer, we learn that Avon is the only member of Blake’s band of freedom fighters to have survived the series. At the end of that novel, Avon was reunited with the supercomputer Orac and had confronted his nemesis and one-time Federation President Servalan. As the sequel opens, Avon and Orac are on the run from just about every power faction in the known galaxy, including mercenaries sent by the leaders of the Federation and Chinese agents who are seeking to take power when the Federation inevitably falls. Both power factions want to get their hands on Orac for their own purposes. However, Orac is exactly the thing that gives Avon an edge with so many people after him. Orac helps him infiltrate a pirate stronghold to get fuel for his ship, which doesn’t endear him to the pirates at all.

In effect, the first of the sequels is the story of Avon and Orac on the run while the galaxy’s powerful and elite conduct their machinations to see who will ultimately control the galaxy and exercise control over the vast panoply of humanity. The machinations feel like the stuff of Shakespearean drama as the rich and powerful unleash plots to take down their rivals and send assassins against each other. Meanwhile, Avon does what he can to stay out of anyone’s crosshairs while ultimately trying to figure out what his ultimate objective really is.

All of this really sets up the final and best book of the trilogy, Lucifer: Genesis. The final novel picks up where the second one left off. Avon is on the run and those who survived the political maneuverings of the previous book want to get their hands on Orac. Of those in power, only the Chinese seem to take the philosophical perspective that they might ultimately build an even better computer given time. Still, they don’t want Orac to fall in anyone else’s hands before they can accomplish that feat. At this point, the novel steps back in time to the beginning of Blakes 7.

Now we’re taken back before the beginning of the series. We learn how a young girl is born to a band of pirates. The band is destroyed by the president of the Europa Federation Kyril Alan and his daughter takes the girl to raise as her own. She’s named Seraph Alan but comes to be known as Servalan. Of course the Europa Federation becomes an integral part of what will be the Terran Federation. Meanwhile, Blake recruits his freedom fighters, including Avon. As the book proceeds, we are treated to scenes not shown on the series. We have conversations between Blake and Avon that examine their relationship. Later, when Blake is gone, Vila and the others try to decide if they’re still even in the freedom-fighting business under Avon. Of course, Avon and Servalan confront one another and realize they are two sides of a similar coin.

At last the book returns to where it started. Avon decides the only thing left for him to do is return to Earth. Of course, given all that’s happened, Avon is unlikely to be welcomed as a hero and we soon realize that in the end, his only friend and companion is none other than the AI, Orac.

All in all, I found Darrow’s novels a fitting and satisfying end to the tale of Blakes 7. That said, it’s certainly not the only possible ending and if I explore others, I might find there are others I would enjoy more. Still, if you’re a fan of the series, I think this trilogy is worth a look. If anyone reading this has read them and perhaps other sequels, I’d enjoy hearing what you thought and what other sequels you might recommend.

This journey of a heroic outlaw growing old and then returning to Earth reminded me of my Space Pirates’ Legacy series. In the first volume we meet pirate Ellison Firebrandt and his crew. In The Pirates of Sufiro, he’s marooned on a planet and builds a life there. As events in the galaxy transpire around him, he ultimately must act to save the Earth that abandoned him. You can learn more about my series at http://davidleesummers.com/books.html#pirate_legacy

Dating Dracula

I love the feel of a good book in my hands. However, I have also come to appreciate my Kindle because I can carry around a library in a single device. Inside the Kindle app itself, Amazon decided to create “challenges.” You get kudos if you read in your app if you meet certain milestones, such as reading every day for a week. It’s pretty clear the whole thing is designed to encourage you to keep reading and then buy more ebooks. To be honest, I don’t need much encouragement to read, so I don’t always pay these challenges much mind. Still, every now and then they’re fun to look at. Every three months they present a set of mystery challenges and usually at least one of those is designed to get you to read a book in a certain genre. Being February, last month’s challenge revolved around Valentine’s Day and encouraged the reader to go read a romance book from a selection of some 8,800 books. Now, one of the pieces of advice I regularly give is to read widely and read outside your normal genres. You often pick up tricks you might have missed sticking to your own genre. While I don’t tend to read a lot of romance, I do tend to have romantic subplots in my science fiction and horror. After all, romance is part of life. So, I browsed the list until I found something I thought would be fun to read, which is how I came upon Dating Dracula by Kinsley Adams.

As the novel opens, vampires have just announced their existence to the world. The Queen of Vampires, Genevieve, is negotiating with the President of the United States about vampire rights and how vampires can feed openly without causing undo distress. As this is happening, vlogger Anna Perish and her friend Lucy travel to New Orleans. Anna hopes to infiltrate one of the Crescent City’s biggest vampire hot spots to prove that vampires are taking blood illegally. She spots a guarded room and gets Lucy to cause a distraction so she can get inside. This all goes amazingly well and Anna finds herself facing a vampire orgy. Literally, she finds vampires and humans having sex and vampires drinking blood from them. Just as she starts to capture this on her cell phone, a vampire swoops in, takes her out to a back alley and drains her dry.

Fortunately, Vlad Dracula was nearby for reasons that will be made clear as the novel progresses. He finds Anna out in the alley and gives her his vampire blood in time to turn her into a vampire. She wakes up in Vlad’s house three days later. As it turns out, Vlad is breathtakingly handsome and a real gentleman, albeit a bit old-fashioned. Adams does make a point of noting that although he is the real Dracula “immortalized” by Bram Stoker, he is not the human Vlad the Impaler. I thought was an interesting idea since I had the similar notion in my Scarlet Order Vampire novels, but she does give the idea her own spin.

As Anna’s sire, it’s Vlad’s responsibility to show her the vampire ropes, so to speak. He needs to teach her to drink blood. Young vampires in this series are almost uncontrollably ravenous – another concept I use in my fiction. In her version this leads to Anna attacking Vlad’s human butler. Fortunately tragedy is averted and Anna is relegated to drinking blood from bags until her appetite gets under control – again vampires drinking from blood bags is an idea I use regularly in my books. It turns out that in this world, most vampires keep “harems” of humans to drink a little from each day. The humans find the feeding pleasurable and the vampires don’t take enough to kill them. As such, Anna realizes she wouldn’t have uncovered very much in her quest to expose vampires as fiendish monsters.

Just as Anna is coming to terms with being a vampire, she realizes someone is stalking her. It turns out the vampire who drained her dry is actually something of a serial killer and he’s angry that Anna didn’t actually die. He wants to finish the job. Normally, Dracula and the other vampires might just bring him to justice. However, it turns out that this vampire is the queen’s own sire and is older than Dracula himself.

All in all, I found Dating Dracula an engaging vampire novel. I especially liked that Kinsley Adams tells the story with a very tongue-in-cheek voice. The romance between Vlad and Anna is definitely the focus, and we do have several of the romance tropes, such as Anna being unsure of herself at times and wondering if Vlad really finds her attractive. Fortunately, Adams does just enough of this to make Anna feel believable and not so much that it gets tiresome as I’ve found in some romance novels. I liked the exploration of what it meant for Anna’s relationships with her family and her friend Lucy now that she’s a vampire. I also liked that Adams doesn’t give her vampires retractable fangs – again, this is the same as my books. I did it partly because most creatures with fangs can’t retract them and it makes it a challenge for vampires to keep their nature hidden. Adams also does this, and like me, uses it to some humorous effect.

Now, I’ve made a point of noting several similarities between the world of Dating Dracula and my Scarlet Order Vampire novels. None of these bothered me because Ms. Adams used them in her own unique way and – aside from my choice to say that Vlad the Impaler was human and most definitely not the vampire Dracula – I’ve seen plenty of other authors use these ideas as well. It just struck me that I don’t remember seeing so many of these ideas in one place. As it turns out, there’s a scene in the novel where the characters visit Boutique du Vampyre in New Orleans. Dating Dracula was released in 2021, after I’ve done signings in that very shop. As such, I couldn’t help but wonder if Kinsley Adams had been there and read one or two of my novels and took some inspiration. If so, that would be fun to know.

I found Dating Dracula on Amazon. If you’d like to visit Boutique du Vampyre’s website and explore the world of the Scarlet Order Vampires, you can do so at: https://www.feelthebite.com/collections/vampire-library-books-for-sale