Category Archives: Science Fiction and Fantasy

September 27, 2018 · 1:00 am

Popular Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors I’ve Never Read

Anyone who has known me more than a few hours knows both what a bookworm and huge fan of the SFF genre I am, so it may come as a surprise to you to learn just how many well-known science fiction and fantasy authors I’ve yet to read.

At first I thought I’d already written a post about this topic, but I couldn’t find it in my archives anywhere. I think I misremembered that because I’ve spent so much time recently thinking about all of the authors I haven’t tried yet. If only we could live a few hundred extra years to get some more reading in, eh?

Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed by some of the entries on this list. I do keep meaning to give their work a try, but newer authors keep writing beautifully distracting stories that demand to be read. Before I know it, another year has passed and I still haven’t picked up the books I’ve been thinking about checking out for a long time now.

There’s also the issue of being in the right mood for certain types of writing. Just like it would be true for any other genre, older stories in this genre are products of the time they were created. This isn’t to say that I judge them by the standards of today, but sometimes I do need to be in the right frame of mind in order to read something that modern readers would find offensive for a wide variety of reasons.

I believe you can acknowledge the sexist, racist, homophobic or other prejudiced themes of an older work while also understanding how time and place in which they were written influenced what was and wasn’t acceptable to say in that era. It’s not a matter of throwing the baby out with the bathwater or ignoring the fact that a certain part of a famous book might be problematic. You can love something while also criticizing it when necessary.

Not all of the authors on this list are from eras when that was more common, of course, but it is something that crosses my mind every time someone mentions a well-known SFF author who published much of their work decades or centuries ago.

With that in mind, this is my list:

  • Iain Banks
  • Greg Bear
  • Jim Butcher
  • Orson Scott Card
  • C.J. Cherryh
  • David Eddings
  • Diana Gabaldon
  • Frank Herbert
  • Robin Hodd
  • Dean Kootz
  • N.K. Jemisin
  • Robert Jordan
  • Diana Winn Jones
  • Fritz Lieber
  • Anne McCaffrey
  • Michael Moorcock
  • Larry Niven
  • Andre Norton
  • Frederick Pohl
  • Patrick Rothfuss
  • R.A. Salvatore
  • Brandon Sanderson
  • James Tiptree, Jr.
  • Brent Weeks

I have no idea what I’d think of any of their work, but I’d like to find out someday.

hich Sci-fi and fantasy authors have you not read anything from yet?

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September 17, 2018 · 1:00 am

The Unforgiving Dead: A Review of Winchester

Film poster for Winchester. Image on poster is of Mrs. Winchester wearing a black mourning veil and staring straight ahead. Winchester was originally mentioned in my to-watch list in this post. So far, I’ve also reviewed Into the Forest, Annihilation, and Coco from that list. A content warning for anyone who is sensitive to this topic: this film does contain a few brief references to the death of a child, but I will not be discussing that part of the plot in this post. This will otherwise be a spoiler-free review. 

The real-life Sarah Winchester lived from about 1840 to 1922. (The exact year she was born is unknown, but it is generally thought to have been between 1835 and 1845). She was the heiress of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. I’ve long been interested in the story of why she began adding so many rooms to a mansion that eventually had seven floors and a couple of hundred rooms.

Some people have speculated that she was expressing an interest in architecture in the only way she could at a time when such a career was forbidden to women. Others have passed around legends about Mrs. Winchester believing she was haunted by the ghosts of people who were killed by Winchester rifles. They’ve wondered if Sarah’s mansion had so many staircases that lead to nowhere, hidden rooms, and other architectural oddities in order to confuse the spirits and prevent them from harming her.

We’ll never know for sure why she spent so many years building and tearing down sections of the Winchester mansion, so this film took these nuggets of truth and spun them into a full-fledged ghost story that is only somewhat related to the actual events of this woman’s life. I only knew a few details of the original legend when I first heard that this movie was being made, but it was more than enough to convince me to watch it.

If you’re interested in learning more about the real Sarah Winchester, the links above will give you factual information about her life. There are a few plot points from the film that ended up mirroring the truth, though, so be cautious about clicking on those links if you’re a stickler for avoiding all spoilers ahead of time.

The Characters

 


Jason Clarke (left) as Dr. Eric Price

Eric Price, the protagonist and a medical doctor who lived at at time when psychiatry as a distinct type of medicine was still in its infancy, was hired by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to determine whether or not Mrs. Winchester was mentally fit to continue running the company she’d inherited.

Some of the other stills featuring this character reveal huge plot twists, so be cautious about googling him before you watch Winchester.

Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester

Sarah Winchester owned half of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. This character lived with an overwhelming sense of guilt over the deaths of all of the people who had been fatally shot by Winchester rifles. She used some of the profits she earned from her successful business to add, renovate, and remove rooms from her massive mansion twenty-four hours a day in an attempt to help those restless spirits find peace.

Sarah Snook as Marian Marriott and Finn Scicluna-O’Prey as Henry Marriott

Marion Marriott was Sarah Winchester’s loving, protective niece. Marion had been recently widowed, and her son, Henry, was still grieving from the loss of his father when the events of this film began.

My Review

Originally, I was quite excited to watch Winchester. There’s something about knowing that a film was inspired by the lives of real people that makes it even more appealing to me than it might otherwise be. (I should warn you again that the screenwriters took a lot of liberties with the original story, though! This wasn’t a biography by any means, but given how many contradictory facts there are about Sarah Winchester’s life and unusual hobby that ended up being a good thing).

The Winchester Mansion

With that being said, there were some pacing problems. The Winchester mansion filled with restless, angry spirits, but there weren’t quite as many scenes about them as I was hoping to see. Yes, the setting itself was incredibly spooky. There were multiple times when the Dr. Price took a wrong turn and suddenly realized that the architecture of the house lead to quite a few dead ends. I was creeped out at the thought of trying to open a door that wasn’t actually meant to open or climb a staircase that didn’t go anywhere after all. It would have been nice if such a scary setting had been matched by ghosts who were a little more active in the beginning and middle of the plot.

It was nice to have hauntings that weren’t gory, however. It’s been my experience that many modern ghost movies assume the audience want to be frightened by dumping a lot of gory scenes into the plot regardless of whether or not such a thing actually makes sense for the characters or storyline. This is appealing to some viewers, of course, but I prefer a less bloody approach to the horror genre in general. The fact that Winchester relied on building a deliciously creepy atmosphere and asking the audience to silently dread what might happen to the characters next without showing anything gruesome was refreshing.

I would have liked to see the characters behave a little more intelligently once they realized they were in danger. Yes, horror movies do depend on their characters making terrible decisions in the beginning for the sake of giving the plot an adequate amount of time to put them in mortal danger and frighten the audience, but I kept shaking my head at the silly choices Dr. Price and the other members of the household made after they realized just how much they’d underestimated their foe.

There were several subplots dealing with grief and regret that I thought were handled nicely. While I can’t go into much detail about them without giving away spoilers, I will say that every single main character in this film was dealing with a loss of some kind. Most of them had not processed that grief, and the weight of those unexamined emotions was heavy. Watching for the gradual exposure of their backstories was rewarding. It was these subplots that kept me watching until the end. While I was curious to see if the ghosts would become more active, I was honestly far more interested in finding out how or if the characters would resolve their complicated feelings about their pasts.

Should You Watch It?

If you love paranormal movies that are loosely inspired by the lives of real people, go for it. This may not be so intriguing for anyone who isn’t already a huge fan of this sub-genre, however.

Winchester is available on Netflix and iTunes.

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September 13, 2018 · 1:00 am

How I’m Expanding My SFF Watchlist for 2019

Has anyone else noticed that the time between September and January flies by every year? There’s something about the short and often rainy days in the autumn that makes this season pass quickly for me. (If only winter behaved the same way! Every winter I feel like the cold and snow are going to last forever).
My watchlist for science fiction and fantasy films has dwindled over the course of 2018. The list below contains all of the movies in these genres that I’m currently hoping to watch in the future.  Some of the entries on it aren’t even available in the theatre yet, and others were released so recently that I’m still waiting for them to become legally available to watch online.
  • A Dog’s Purpose
  • Christopher Robin
  • Devil
  • Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindleward
  • Get Out
  • Gremlins
  • Goodbye Christoper Robin
  • The Good Dinosaur
  • Hereditary
  • The House with a Clock in Its Walls
  • Lights Out
  • The Little Stranger
  • The Lottery (based on Shirley Jackson’s short story)
  • A Monster Calls
  • Monsters University
  • Peter Rabbit
  • A Wrinkle in Time

Before I watch a film, I always check the reviews of it to see what others thought of it and if it includes certain topics that I’m sensitive to. I ended up deleting some of the titles I’ve previously mentioned on this blog due to multiple negative reviews that referenced stuff I try to avoid in the entertainment I consume. 2018 has also been a year when I’ve slowly begun losing interest in the non-paranormal horror genre in general, so that cut way down on my to-watch list as well.

Now that winter is just around the corner, I’ve decided that it would be a good idea to build up my watchlist again. Sometimes it can take a while for a film to show up on Netflix or become available to rent on iTunes. The more options I have, the better. Not only will it be a nice distraction for me during my least favourite season, I’ll be able to continue writing more reviews for all of you as I find stuff that I like and/or have strong opinions about.

My Criteria

  1. It will preferably have been released in the last 20 years, and ideally within the last decade. While I do occasionally enjoy older films and am open to hearing about faster-paced recommendations from back then that have stood the test of time, I generally find the pacing of anything released before the mid-1990s to be too slow for this millennial’s tastes.
  2. There is little to no gore. I can handle a few briefly violent scenes if necessary, but I have no interest in bloodbaths or slasher flicks.
  3. It ideally includes stuff like: the paranormal; cryptozoology; aliens; an exploration of planets, caves, or other remote places where communication devices mysteriously stop working for the sake of a better plot; space ships; the distant past or future; characters who are at least somewhat self-aware and intelligent when something really weird happens in the first scene.
  4. There are clever plot twists in it. I do watch more predictable shows as well, but it always makes me happy to find something whose ending can’t be predicted five minutes into it.
  5.  Also, I’ve watched countless movies about straight, white men having science fiction and fantasy adventures together. If the stories are equally intriguing and I’m given the choice between them and a more diverse cast, though, I’m going to go with the latter every time.

Where I’m Looking for New Films

  1. Netflix. I don’t mean to sound like an advertisement, but I’ve found so many interesting films there over the years. It’s always the first place I try when I’m looking for something new.
  2. iTunes. I’ve combed through everything Netflix has to offer, but I’ve yet to do the same thing for iTunes. Here’s hoping I’ll find hidden treasures there.
  3. Top 10 Lists. While I’ve seen many of the science fiction and fantasy films that were released over the past two decades, I definitely haven’t seen all of them. This is especially true for foreign and indie films that only showed in select theatres.
  4. You! If you have any suggestions for me, please leave a comment on this post or tell me about it on Twitter.

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September 10, 2018 · 1:00 am

Families Are Forever: A Review of Coco

This review is spoiler-free and suitable for all audiences. This was one of the films I talked about wanting to watch in this post. So far, I’ve previously reviewed Into the Forest and Annihilation from that original list. 

Coco is a 2017 film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It followed the adventures of a young boy named Miguel who dreamed of becoming a musician one day against the wishes of his parents, grandparents, and other elders.

They wanted him to follow in their footsteps and become a cobbler instead. This conflict between Miguel and his elders not only provided the catalyst for his adventures in the Land of the Dead, it asked a lot of thought-provoking questions about how far someone should go to pursue their dreams and what sorts of things it should be okay for a family to ask one member to give up for the sake of everyone.

(Some of the) Characters

This movie had an incredibly large cast of characters in large part because Miguel was part of a massive extended family that included generations of people who died long before he was even born. Mentioning certain characters would also make it difficult for me to avoid spoilers, so I will only be talking about the most important ones who can be discussed with giving away any plot twists.

The introduction to this film did an excellent job of explaining who everyone was and how they were related to each other, though, so you shouldn’t have any problems catching up on the secondary characters I didn’t include in this post.

Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel Rivera

Miguel, the protagonist, was a 12-year-old boy who was caught between his dreams and what his elders wanted him to do with his life. On Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), when the dead are allowed to come visit loved ones who remember them during this Mexican celebration of loved ones who have died, Miguel accidentally crossed from our plane of existence to the Land of the Dead. In order for him to return to the Land of the Living, he had to receive the blessing of one of his dead relatives before the sun rose again. If he failed, he’d be trapped there forever.

Dante

Dante, Miguel’s dog, was his mischievous and occasionally silly pet who accompanied him to the Land of the Dead. This character was responsible for almost all of the humorous moments in the plot thanks to the fact that he wasn’t a particularly bright dog and he didn’t always think through his choices ahead of time. I’d love to see a sequel starring him someday.

 

Ana Ofelia Murguía as Coco Rivera (right)

Coco was Miguel’s great-grandmother and the oldest living member of their family. She’d been abandoned by her father, a musician, as a small child, and the pain of that experience was something she’d carried with her for her entire life. It was this story that made the rest of Miguel’s family so opposed to his desire to become a musician.

Renee Victor as Abuelita

Abuelita was Miguel’s grandmother, Coco’s daughter, and the head of the family in the Land of the Living (or what we would think of as our world). No one made any major decisions without getting her blessing first.

 

Alanna Ubach as Mamma Imelda Rivera

Mamma Imelda was Miguel’s great-great grandmother. Coco was the daughter she’d been left to raise on her own after her husband went away and never came home again. She still resented her husband for that decision when Miguel met her in the afterlife and asked for her help to get home again.

Gael García Bernal as Héctor

Héctor was a friend Miguel made in the Land of the Dead. He lived in a section of the afterlife that was reserved for people who were no longer being honoured by the living on Dia de Los Muertos. If he couldn’t find a way to get the living to remember him before the last person who had known him in life died themselves, he would disappear from the Land of the Dead forever. What happened to dead people who were completely forgotten was unknown.

Benjamin Bratt as Ernesto de la Cruz

Ernesto was the man Miguel believed to be his great-great grandfather. He was never honoured, remembered, or even mentioned by the Rivera household due to how poorly he’d treated his wife and child, but the songs he sang while he was alive ensured that other people remembered him on Dia de Los Murtos and kept him going in the Land of the Dead. Ernesto was a talented musician whose songs were still sung decades after his death in our world, The Land of the Living.

My Review

Everything I’m about to say about Coco will be complimentary. I normally try to sandwich my criticisms between compliments, but in this case I wouldn’t have changed a single thing about this film. It was exactly what I was hoping it would be.

The storytelling was beautiful. While this was marketed as a children’s movie, I’d honestly recommend it to adults just as much, and maybe even a little more, as I would to the age group it was actually intended for. Miguel’s family was large, but I felt like I got to know each character in it well due to how much time they spent exploring their complicated relationship with each other and their shared pasts. They dealt with serious issues that many people face.

There were a few emotional scenes about death and regret that would almost certainly fly over the heads of the youngest viewers, but they meant a lot to me as an adult who has faced similar conflicts myself. One of the things I love the most about Pixar films is how well they straddle the line between appealing to adults while also writing something that children will find meaningful. Once again, they did a fantastic job of speaking to both groups without talking down to the kids or simplifying anything for older viewers.

Mama Imelda, Coco, and Coco’s father in a family picture.

I didn’t grow up in a family or a culture that observes Dia de Los Muertos, so I really appreciated the attention to detail when Miguel and his family were preparing for and then later celebrating it. There was something beautiful about seeing the alter Miguel’s elders had set up with photos of their deceased relatives and offerings of food and other things that the dead would have enjoyed. Yes, there were moments of grief, but there was also a lot of love and joy in that tradition. It seemed to me that it was about remembering the good times with people who have passed on and sharing your happy memories of them with the next generation.

Some of the elders in my family have historically been a bit resistant to the idea of telling stories like this as a coping mechanism for grief, so I found it refreshing to see a family speak so openly and fondly of the dead. It struck me as something that could be much more emotionally healthy for people who found themselves missing a parent, grandparent, or other relative who is no longer part of the Land of the Living no matter how many years ago they’d crossed over.

The conflicts in this story were written in such a way that I could sympathize with both sides. Of course Miguel wanted to explore his musical talents and learn how to be a better musician. On the flip side, of course his elders would be horrified at the thought of another family member abandoning them to make music. This was a case when there was no right or wrong answer and I could imagine Miguel and his elders changing their opinions if their places could somehow be reversed.

The best scenes happened after Miguel crossed into the Land of the Dead and finally met the relatives there he’d been honouring his whole life but had never actually known when they were alive. I enjoyed seeing the tension build between this character’s individualism and his ancestors’ collectivistic understanding of how a life should be lived. It was a nice reminder of how a culture can change from one generation to the next, and it also provided a lot of fodder for conflict as Miguel tried to figure out how to get home before sunrise.

I was also impressed with the music. Every single song was something I’d love listen to again, especially when it came to “Remember Me.” For those of you who have seen a lot of animated films, the music in this one reminded me of classic Pixar songs like “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story. Not only were they meaningful for the storyline, they were nice pieces of music in and of themselves. I could see myself adding several of them to the list of songs I listen to every day, and that’s not something I do very often.

Should You Watch It?

Yes, you absolutely should. I’d heartily recommend Coco to audiences of all ages with no caveats.

Coco is avaliable on iTunes and Netflix.

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August 30, 2018 · 1:00 am

18 Science Fiction and Fantasy Shows I Can’t Wait to See in 2018-2019

Last year I blogged about the fourteen science fiction and fantasy series I was looking forward to watching during the 2017-2018 season. Wow, that was a lot of shows! Somehow I managed to continue watching almost all of them, though.

Today I’m talking about the shows I’m currently watching or will be watching during the 2018-2019 TV season. Once again, I’ll be sharing the release dates and a short explanation of why I’m interested in each one. This list looks like a long one, but many of these series will be finished long before the ones at the bottom of the list are aired. I love the fact that shows are staggered like that these days.

Also, I am a few seasons behind some of the items on this list. So expect to see them reappear in future updates on what I’m watching unless I suddenly stop watching a lot of current programs for some reason.

Disenchantment

Season 1 premiered this August. I’m currently watching it.

Calling all fans of Futurama! The creators of that series have something new for you.

Disenchantment was about a princess who befriended an elf and a demon and proceeded to have all kinds of PG-13 related adventures with them. Yes, this is an animated program. No, it’s not suitable for kids. There’s everything from sex to violence to substance abuse in this tale, so send the small, impressionable humans to bed before you watch it.

 

The Good Place 

Season 3 premiere: September 27.

So much of the stuff I want to say about this program would give away major spoilers for anyone who hasn’t watched the first two seasons yet. Needless to say, the characters have continued to explore the afterlife and learn just how complicated things can get when the line between heaven and hell becomes so blurry.

I would not recommend watching this to anyone who is easily offended or who has strong opinions about what, if anything, happens to people after they die. While the tone of it is tongue-in-cheek and friendly, this is something that will work better for viewers who are easygoing on this topic.

The Man in the High Castle

Season 3 premiere: October 5

If history had been a little different, the Axis powers could have won World War II. This series takes a look at what life would be like in the country formerly known as the United States this had happened. Germany and Japan split the U.S. up into sections in this universe, and everyone who wasn’t a Christian Aryan was in terrible danger.

I should warn all of you that this show can get very dark at times. It’s not something that anyone should watch if they’re easily triggered by references to Holocaust-like events.

Black Lightning

Season 2 premiere: October 9

Black Lightning has been changing my opinion of the superhero genre for the better thanks to everything that was going on in the main character’s life. I adored the complexity of his personality and life. He had to deal with everything from chasing down bad guys to repairing his relationship with his wife in the first season. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to him and his family next.

The Orville

Season 2 premiere: December 30

I adored season one of this program. While it was originally written to be a lighthearted parody of the Star Trek universe, it felt much more like a Star Trek show than Discovery has so far. This isn’t a diss, either. I’m enjoying Discovery, but it doesn’t have the optimism about the future that I’d expect from this universe.

Luckily, The Orville picked up that slack beautifully in its first season. The characters dealt with some serious issues, but there was always a lighthearted undercurrent to their conflicts that reassured me that better days were coming for everyone in that universe. The world needs more material like this, especially now.

Timeless

Movie premiere: late 2018

Technically, the last TV season of this show ended this past spring. There is a two-hour movie about the characters in it coming at the end of this year, though, so I’m including it on this list. I’m glad the fans are going to have a proper goodbye for it. The time travel in this story was really well done. I especially liked the fact that the characters who weren’t white men acknowledged how difficult certain eras would be for them to visit due to the prejudices and laws of those times.  hoping there will be plenty of that in the sendoff.

 

Star Trek: Discovery

Season 2 premiere: January 2019

Despite my comments above, I actually did enjoy the first season of Discovery. There was a huge plot twist in it that I didn’t see coming ahead of time. I can’t say anything else about that without giving away spoilers, but I am looking forward to seeing where this series goes next and if it begins to feel more friendly and hopeful like other Star Trek tales.  (Although I am hoping that the second season will flesh out the secondary characters. So far, only the main characters have gotten attention from the storyline).

Roswell, New Mexico

Season 1 premiere: April 29, 2019

This is a reboot of Roswell, a science fiction show about aliens living on Earth in the early 2000s that I liked quite a bit back in the day.

Like the reboot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’d prefer to see this universe revisited in its current form. This doesn’t stop me from feeling excited at revisiting this universe in whatever form it will take.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Season 3 premiere: April 2019

Anyone who has followed this blog over the past few years already knows how much I adore The Handmaid’s Tale, so I won’t repeat myself.

Needless to say, I’m already counting down the weeks until season 3 is here.

Castle Rock

Season 2 premiere: 2019. I have yet to begin season 1, but plan to start it soon.

Two words for you: Stephen King. Every time a TV show comes out that is based on something he wrote, my ears perk up. This was no exception to that rule.

Lucifer

Season 4 premiere: 2019

First this show was cancelled, and now it’s somehow coming back for another season.

All I know is that I have a huge crush on Lucifer. Yes, he’s (sort of) the Lucifer you’d expect someone with that name to be. That is, he is the devil in this universe, but he’s not evil. Children love him, and he only harms people who have already hurt innocent folks. Everyone else is pretty safe around him unless they happened to be horribly annoyed by shameless flirting.

The Magicians

Season 4 premiere: 2019

I have four words for you: Harry Potter for adults. While this isn’t set in the Potterverse, the characters in it do attend a school for magic and end up having all sorts of unauthorized adventures when their professors aren’t looking.

It took me a couple of tries to get into the first season, but now I can’t get enough of this series.

Cloak & Dagger

Season 2 premiere: 2019

Not only are there two superheroes in this story, their powers complement each other perfectly.

I’m also watching this one with the hope that when a romance develops between the main characters, their racial differences won’t be a source of conflict for the plot in any way. One of the beautiful things about living in Toronto is seeing interracial couples living their ordinary lives together without it being a big deal. While I know this definitely isn’t true for every community (or even in every single Torontonian household, to be honest), I think it’s high time for screenwriters to stop assuming that every interracial relationship is fraught with conflicts over race and culture.

That is such an old-fashioned and unhelpful way of perceiving the world, especially if you’re on the outside looking in at someone else’s relationship.

Glitch

Season 3 premiere: 2019

Some of the characters in this show were people who came back to life from the dead without being zombies, vampires, or ghosts. One moment they were corpses, and the next they’d come to life.

I can’t say much else about the premise without giving away massive spoilers, but I’ve loved the character and plot development so far. It’s going to be pretty interesting to see what happens now that more and more townsfolk have realized that some of their new neighbours are actually people who lived there decades and even a few centuries ago.

 

Stranger Things

Season 3 premiere: mid-2019

The first two seasons of this show were filled with stuff that happened in the 1980s but would be frowned upon today. For example, smoking was ubiquitous, and children weren’t supervised well back then.

This isn’t the only reason why I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to the town of Hawkins, Indiana, but it is one of them.

Luke Cage

Season 3 premiere: late 2019 (tentatively)

So, it turns out that I might like superhero shows more than I thought I did. When I first began working on this post, I hadn’t fully realized how many different superhero shows I watch.

One of the coolest things about Luke Cage was how close he was to various members of his community. Some of my favourite scenes so far have showed him talking to his neighbours and trying to figure out how to improve all of their lives. The social justice aspect of the storyline is what originally pulled me in and what has kept me coming back for more.

Black Mirror

Season 5 premiere: unknown, but I’m hoping it will show up in 2019.

The only episode I’ve seen so far from this series was 4.1, “USS Callister.” It was about a massive multiplayer online game populated by sentient digital clones who were treated very poorly by the man who created them. When the clones realized that the world they’re living in isn’t real, they had to try to decide how or if to escape their circumstances.

I was so impressed by the storytelling and writing quality that I’ve added Black Mirror to my to-watch list. I’m hoping to catch up on as many of the other episodes during the winter of 2018-2019 as possible.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (no photo available yet for this one).

Season 1 of the rebooted premiere: unknown, but I’m hoping it will show up in 2019.

To be honest, I don’t know if Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be rebooted in 2019 or come out at some point after that. Either way, I’ll be curious to see how this universe is reimagined for a new generation.

What science fiction and fantasy shows will you be watching between now and next summer?

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August 23, 2018 · 1:00 am

Hopeful Science Fiction: The Lovely Bones

This past June I blogged about my desire to read more hopeful science fiction. Last month I reviewed Woman on the Edge of Time as my first selection for this list. Today I’m back with a review of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.

If you have recommendations for future instalments of this series, I’d sure like to hear them. Leave a comment below or send me message about it on Twitter.

As I mentioned last month, the books I include in this series don’t have to start off in a hopeful place, and I don’t require them to shy away from difficult topics. I’m including a trigger warning for today’s review because The Lovely Bones does begin with a teenage girl being raped and murdered by someone who lived in her neighbourhood.

The story briefly discussed the end of this character’s life without going into any graphic details about it, and I will be talking about it even less than the narrator did. However, I want everyone who reads the rest of this post or check outs this book for themselves to be fully aware of those potentially upsetting references ahead of time.

The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones was first published in 2002. The story it told began in the 1970s with the disappearance and violent death of the protagonist, a fourteen-year-old girl named Susie. Her parents and siblings struggled to move on with their lives without knowing for sure what had happened to her, and the main character found it equally difficult to say goodbye to a life that had only just begun for her.

Interestingly enough, the plot had much less to do with how Susie died than what she decided to do with her time after her death.

The afterlife Susie was welcomed into was everything anyone could hope for. There were no harsh judgements awaiting her or anything like that. She was loved, cared for, and reassured in a safe, happy place as she adjusted to the thought of a future she could have never predicted ahead of time.

Yet she still wanted to return to the life she’d once had. This yearning that Susie felt to reconnect with her loved ones was overwhelming at times, and it made her an incredibly sympathetic character. Anyone would have felt the same way in her shoes. I wanted her to find a way back home more than anything, but I couldn’t imagine how the plot could ever bend in that direction.

Grief

One of the things I wish I could change about western culture is the way it reacts to grief. There’s an expectation in many western societies that one should grieve quietly, briefly, and in private. I’d like to make it clear that there’s nothing wrong with this kind of grief, but it’s not the only way to respond to loss.

The Lovely Bones showed characters who grieved in many different ways. Some of them spent years trying to figure out what happened to Susie. Others moved as far away from the town where Susie had lived as they possibly could or buried themselves in various projects as a way to cope with the past. Even Susie herself had to figure out how to say goodbye to the life she expected to have so she could embrace the (after)life she was experiencing instead.

There’s no shortcut through grief. As hard as it was at times to watch the characters mourn everything they’d lost, I appreciated their realistic responses to the days, weeks, months, years, and decades that followed after the heartbreaking opening scene. These were some of the best portions of the book. I’m not embarrassed to admit that they occasionally brought a tear to my eye.

Acceptance

Pain is unfortunately a part of life for every living thing. While some know more of it than others do, no one that I’ve ever met has been able to escape it entirely.

What The Lovely Bones did exceptionally well was to show how someone can accept what has happened to them without anyone making excuses for the perpetrators or calling those experiences good ones by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s been my experience that some well-meaning people will do both of those things in an attempt to help the person who was hurt begin to heal. They almost always have no idea they’re actually making the problem worse, but it was still refreshing to read about characters who tried to find acceptance without downplaying what happened or pretending like it had some mystical or uplifting purpose that Susie needed to discover in order to move on with her (after)life.

One of the few criticisms I have of this tale has to do with Susie’s multiple attempts to accept what had happened to her. The plot went into a lot of detail about her resistance to this idea early on, but it wasn’t quite as thorough in later chapters once her siblings grew up and began to find their own sense of peace. I can’t say much else about this without giving away spoilers, but the ending would have been even better if the audience could have seen more examples of Susie’s later reactions to this topic.

Hope

The hope in this story arrived gradually. Don’t look too hard for it in the first few scenes or chapters. Just like what often happens in real life, it will take time for everyone to adjust to their new reality and for certain parts of the plot to be set into motion before you begin to realize what will await Susie and everyone who loved her.

You see, hope isn’t something you get one dose of and then are set for life. There’s nothing delicate or whimsical about this emotion.  It also won’t magically appear and make every problem in your life disappear in a puff of smoke. (If only life worked that way!)

To see the true effects of hope over a long period of time, one often has to look at the longterm evolution of a person, memory, idea, or wish. What will happen to this individual in ten years? How does someone live with decades of unanswered questions? What might be waiting for you on the other side of unimaginable grief?

The beauty of this tale comes in how it defines and describes this concept for people who aren’t interested in pat answers or ignoring the types of pain that make hope so meaningful for those who seek it.

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August 20, 2018 · 1:00 am

Summer Worlds I’d Like to Visit

Last January I blogged about the winter worlds I wish I could visit. Now that we’re well into the month of August and temperates are soaring, I thought it would be a good time to revisit this topic from a summery perspective.

One of the differences between this list and the one I did for winter is how loosely I’m defining a summer world. Some of the places I’ll be mentioning in this post never get cold or snowy at all. Others have seasonal changes that don’t necessarily match up perfectly with Ontario’s yearly weather cycle. A couple of them are places that aren’t so much “worlds” as they are countries (or parts of countries) that really exist.

It’s the presence of hot, often humid weather and everything that comes along with such a forecast that I’m looking for in these tales regardless of where they are set. I hope you’ll understand why I loosened the definition of this label and have a few ideas of your own of summer or summer-like settings that might be interesting to visit.

The Congo

 

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Caveat: I’d pack plenty of practical items like bug spray and I’d spend very little time with the main characters of this tale.

The setting, though, tickled my imagination. I wish the audience could have seen the Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium from the perspective of someone who was born and raised in the Congo. The parts of this struggle that the main characters witnessed were fascinating. They made me wish it were possible to see the beginning of this movement for myself, and they were the highlight of the storyline for me.

The Deep South

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

While I’ve only been to Louisiana once, I did spend about a year of my childhood living in a different southern state. It wasn’t enough time for me to think of myself as a southerner by any means, but it was a period of my life when I developed some of my earliest memories that I am pretty certain are accurate and genuine.

The warm, humid evenings down there are something I’ll never forget. There’s no way to escape them. Like getting through snowstorms up north, you simply have to learn to adjust the rhythms of your day to what the weather is like. Assuming I could avoid the vampires running around there in this universe, it would be interesting to see if my memories of southern evenings are as accurate as I hope they are.

Any River That Huck Finn Paddles Down

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Huck was a character I liked a lot when I was a kid. The thought of a child deciding to leave home and go on an adventure without telling any of the adults in his or her life where they were headed made my heart skip a beat. I didn’t actually catch onto the satirical elements of the plot until I was older, but I do remember being envious of how much freedom this character had to design his own idea of a good time over the summer.

Also, I love bodies of water in almost any form. There are few things more soothing to me than spending time as close to a lake, river, pond, or ocean as possible. The sound of water lapping against the shore (or a seaworthy vessel) can lull me to sleep in minutes.

The House Where Justin’s Dad Lives

Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern.

How is that for a vague title? About seven or eight years ago there was a popular Twitter account that quoted all of the odd, funny, and sometimes disturbing things the author’s dad said without necessarily realizing that he was embarrassing his son. Eventually those quotes were compiled into a book.

As someone who has my own fair share of relatives who are known for putting their feet in their mouths over and over again without no signs of learning from their pasts, I’d know exactly how to respond to the cringeworthy stuff Justin’s dad said back in the day (and maybe still does).

 

A Summer That Refuses to End

Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury

Raise your hand if you feel like this summer is going to last until the end of time.

This book is part of a series that is still on my TBR list, so I can’t give out any specific details about it yet. What I can say is that I, too, feel as though autumn is a decade or two away. It’s funny how some parts of the year speed by while others drag on forever, isn’t it?

What summer or summer-like worlds do you wish you could visit?

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August 16, 2018 · 1:00 am

Is Mary Sue a Sexist Concept?

Thank you to my friend Berthold Gambrel for coming up with the idea for today’s post.

For anyone who hasn’t already heard of this term, a Mary Sue is a (female) character who is so idealized that she’s honestly too good to be true. Picture someone who is good-looking, smart, athletic, talented, charming, and good at virtually everything she tries.

If she has any flaws at all, those weaknesses are trivial things that don’t make a real difference in her daily life or current quest at all. For example, she might have a terrible singing voice, but her storyline has nothing at all to do with whether or not she can sing.

You’ve probably noticed that I used feminine pronouns in those last two paragraphs. I did this on purpose. In all of the years I’ve been reading various fiction genres – including, and sometimes especially, the science fiction and fantasy genres – I’ve never seen a male character being accused of being a Mary Sue even when he meets all of the criteria for this label. The very thought of a Marty Stu existing is controversial in some circles.

Sometimes I’ve seen people use the term Mary Sue to describe an author’s possibly subconscious desire to be loved and admired by everyone they meet. There have been times when certain critics of various well-known series have insisted that a Mary Sue character was written as a projection of everything the author wished she could be.

Intention Isn’t Everything

While the original Mary Sue character was first written as a lighthearted parody of unrealistic characters in Star Trek fan fiction, she’s since evolved into something else entirely.

If we lived in a world where Marty Stu was thrown around as easily as Mary Sue, I’d say that both of them were intended to shed light on the dangers of writing flat characters. As someone who has written hundreds of reviews over the years, I have seen plenty of books whose characters never felt like real people. It’s not easy to create a character who appears to have all of the same hopes, dreams, fears, and realistic personality flaws that you’d find in any random person walking down the street.

When a term is created to criticize one group of people for doing something while ignoring other groups that do the same thing, the original intentions quickly become less relevant over time.

Double Standards

What bothers me the most about Mary Sue as a concept are the double standards it enforces and the disproportionate amount of hate Mary Sues receive when compared to their male counterparts.

Yes, stories that portray a female main character as someone who has few if any flaws and who is somehow good at everything she tries aren’t an example of good writing.

This applies to every single even vaguely humanoid protagonist who has ever been invented, though, as well as quite a few who were created to be as unlike humans as possible.

Which gender they identify as doesn’t matter at all. I’ve sat through far too many stories about Marty Stus who were just as unbelievable as any Mary Sue has ever been. Yet I can’t remember the last time I saw or heard someone use the phrase Marty Stu in real life or complain about how unrealistic his character development was.

If we lived in a world where this wasn’t the case, I’d be much more willing to use the phrase Mary Sue to describe characters who were poorly developed or seemed to be an idealized version of who the author wishes he or she could be.  These are issues that I occasionally see pop up in the books, movies, and other forms of entertainment I review, but they are in no way limited to one specific gender. They happen everywhere.

Yes, It’s Sexist

It is for all of the reasons listed above that I believe Mary Sue is a sexist concept even though I don’t think that most people who use that phrase are purposefully trying to be sexist.

Sexism – and many other forms of prejudice – are so deeply ingrained into western society that it’s easy to overlook the milder examples of them like this one. Honestly, I know that I’ve occasionally said things that rubbed other people the wrong way because I wasn’t aware of why a certain phrase or topic was a sore spot for a particular group.

I can’t and won’t speak for every woman here, but my reaction to someone using this phrase wouldn’t be an angry one. The first thing I’d assume would be that they’ve never thought about the different ways characters who behave in very similar ways are treated based on their gender or why it’s a problem to hold one gender to a much stricter standard than you’d expect from another gender. This would be a teaching moment, just like I’d hope that someone else would be willing to explain to me why they found something I said to be offensive if I accidentally crossed the line when talking to them.

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July 30, 2018 · 1:00 am

Why Negative Reviews Can be a Positive Thing

Does anyone else find that their taste in movies is constantly evolving? Even when it comes to films I know I’m going to want to watch eventually, I still need to be in the right mood for certain genres. Sometimes I might be more interested in a documentary or comedy. On other days, something dark and serious is right my alley.

Last week I was sorting through my never-ending to-watch list and trying to figure out which film from it to check out next. (That list is even bigger if you include all of the non-scifi entries on it! One of these days I may have to blog about the whole thing).

I’m the sort of person who will add something to my to-watch list in a heartbeat but wait until the last possible minute to decide whether or not I really want to sit down and pay attention to it for two hours.

Before I pay for anything, though, I always check the online reviews of it for a few different reasons that I’ll dig into during the course of this post. Positive reviews are no guarantee that I’ll end up watching something even if every single reviewer loved every single scene of that film. A string of negative reviews won’t necessarily dissuade me from watching something, either.

My reasons for deciding to watch something are more complex than that.

Does One Person Mention Problem X, or Does Everyone?

Once a film, book, or any other piece of pop culture has attracted enough attention, it’s bound to be picked up by at least a few people who don’t connect with it at all for a wide variety of reasons.

Maybe they’re simply not a big fan of that particular genre. (See also: me and 98% of the romance novels out there). They might have been in an awful mood and would have hated anything they watched that day no matter what it was. There could have been a part of the setting, plot, or character development that stirred up difficult memories for them for any number of reasons that almost certainly wouldn’t apply to most other people who read or watched the same thing.

If one reviewer mentions hating something about a film, I’ll tuck that information in the back of my mind. It probably won’t keep me from renting it unless the reviewer mentions something that I strongly prefer to avoid in the media I consume.

If multiple reviewers mention the same issues over and over again, I sit up and take notice even if their complaints all seem to be mild ones when looked at individually. There’s a difference between one person being annoyed by a particular part of the plot and lots of folks noticing it enough to mention it in their review.

Even then, a string of negative reviews aren’t going to necessarily stop me from enjoying a film. So much depends on what their specific complaints were and whether they were things I can look past when deciding what to watch.*

*Not counting godawful storytelling, sexist, racist, or homophobic content, or other major issues of course.

Honesty Is More Important Than Always Being Positive

When I write reviews for my own site, I focus on as many positive aspects of the films and books I talk about as I can think of. I believe in pointing out everything the creator did right, especially if it’s stuff that doesn’t seem to be mentioned too often by many other reviewers. Anything worth reviewing – much less watching in the first place – will have strong points.

As an author, I also know how scary it can feel to release your work into the world. I’m always mindful of the fact that the creators might someday read my review, and I’d want them to feel good about all of the hard work they put into their story regardless of any criticisms I might have had to share about certain parts of it.

With that being said, I also believe in being perfectly honest about the themes, scenes, or sections that didn’t work for me. If I disliked something about a book or movie, I’m going to find a tactful way to talk about what it was and why it rubbed me the wrong way.

I won’t just tell you that the characterization fell flat or the dialogue didn’t sound natural to me. I’ll do my best to give specific examples of when these things happened and why they were such an issue for me. If my complaints were more subjective than that, I’ll talk about why a specific issue is a sensitive one for me and how I wish it would have been broached instead.

Other people might completely disagree with my reactions to those scenes or themes. That’s okay, because…

Not Everyone Has the Same Dealbreakers

There are a small number of things that I really don’t want to be exposed to when I’m watching a film. If I know they’re going to show up in advance, I’ll watch something else instead.

Some of the stuff I refuse to watch is too private to share on a platform as public as this one, but I will give you one example. My extended family includes multiple relatives who were adopted at various ages.

Occasionally, films are released that deeply stigmatize people who were adopted. It makes me angry to see adoption being portrayed so negatively because I’ve had multiple conversations with acquaintances who assume that everyone who wasn’t adopted as a newborn is going to fit their harmful stereotypes of other types of adoption.

For example, I’ve met some people who made very negative assumptions about what it would be like to adopt an older child or what sort of person that child would grow up to be. When they said unflattering things about such a large group of people, I winced. Not only were their assumptions untrue, they were unkind.

The last thing I want to do is encourage anyone to perpetuate such damaging myths about adoption and people who were adopted. I’m open to watching a lot of different types of stories, but I draw the line at ones that make it look like my relatives are inherently bad people because they happened to have been adopted.

The nice thing about reviews – including negative ones – is that stuff like this can be discussed in detail. Rather than being blindsided by something that rubs me the wrong way, I can go into the story prepared for what I’m about to see and decide not to watch it if hits something on my dealbreaker list.

It Still Gets the Word Out

Just because I might not personally be interested in a film that spends a great deal of time on a certain theme or topic doesn’t mean that everyone I know feels the same way.

This same rule applies to everyone. There have been multiple times when I’ve read negative reviews of a film or book only to realize that the things that irritated that particular reviewer are either neutral or positive to me.

For example, I’m not usually bothered by movies where the dog dies in the end. It’s something I expect to happen in a lot of different types of stories, so someone who complained about it in their review wouldn’t be discouraging me from watching it at all.

A negative review might turn some people away, but it can also be used to attract even more folks who are actually the right audience for it.

How much attention do you pay to negative reviews? Has a negative review ever convinced you to read or watch something you might not have otherwise tried?

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July 19, 2018 · 1:00 am

A Spoiler-Free Review of Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale

Those of you who have been following me on Twitter these past few months have no doubt noticed my occasional tweets about the latest episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. This year I decided to combine all of my thoughts on this show into one long post instead of blogging about each episode individually.

The cast of characters for this show is large. As you scroll through my review, you’ll see photos and names of most of them. I did leave out some minor characters in order to avoid giving away spoilers for later developments in this season, but I included nearly everyone who appeared at least semi-regularly in the plot.

There was only one exception for the spoiler-free rule, and it is something I’ll briefly mention in the section underneath Commander Waterford’s picture. I felt the need to include that sentence because the storyline does involve some common topics that some people find triggering.

 

Elizabeth Moss as June/Offred.

 

When season one of this show ended last year, Offred discovered she was pregnant shortly before being lead out of the Waterford’s home and into one of the vans that was owned by the Eyes, the government-authorized spies in Gilead. Whether the van was meant to deliver her to a life of freedom in Canada or take her someplace else entirely was left to be seen.

The pursuit – and loss – of freedom was one of the major recurring themes in season two of The Handmaid’s Tale. As a member of a totalitarian society who only valued her for her reproductive capabilities, Offred should have been resigned to the loss of her husband, daughter, and freedom by now.

She wasn’t.

 

Yvonne Strahovski as Serena Joy Waterford.

 

Life as a Handmaid in general or with the Waterfords specifically had never been pleasant for Offred.

Since Offred had done it once before, the Waterfords held high hopes that her latest pregnancy would have an equally happy ending. I had strong opinions about the most likely outcome of this pregnancy when season two began.

Offred had something that Serena Joy desperately craved: the ability to conceive and bear a healthy child. The jealousy in this household was palpable, and it only grew stronger as the season progressed. As someone who has never felt the urge to be anyone’s mother, I appreciated the fact that the storyline spent so much time exploring what it means to be a parent and what it feels like when someone is stripped of the ability to decide when, whether, with whom, or how often to reproduce.

While being biologically related to a child can be part of parenthood, this theme was much more complex than who shared DNA with each other. I’d be wandering into spoiler territory if I said much else about this idea, but do pay close attention to how all of the characters on this show react to children and the concept of being a parent in general.

Joseph Fiennes as Commander Waterford.

 

Speaking of Commander Waterford, I liked the fact that this season spent so much time exploring how a man who claimed to be doing God’s work could authorize so many things that no loving deity would ever command anyone to do. He was also one of the least paternal characters I’ve ever known.

If you need a trigger warning for rape or abuse, know that these are two of the many horrible things this character does in the second season. This is all I will say on this topic, but I would be happy to privately go into more detail for anyone who needs to know what to expect ahead of time.

The thought of Commander Waterford possibly raising a baby was a frightening as it was bizarre. He seemed to have no interest in children outside of their ability to elevate his status in society, and that’s never a good reason for anyone to have a child.

The tension between the wholesome image this character wanted to project to his neighbours and who he genuinely was when the doors were closed was as frightening as it was thought-provoking. Anyone might notice slight discrepancies between who they would ideally like to be and who they actually were, but when the gap between the two is this gigantic it becomes impossible to ignore.

Amanda Brugel (left) as Martha.

 

This is even more true for people who interacted with Commander Waterford on a daily basis.

I appreciated the fact that Martha, the cook/housekeeper, was given extra screen time in season two. Her character shared enough tidbits in season one from her previous life  – including the fact that she had a son who died in the civil war – that I was hoping we’d learn more about what sort of person she was.

As is often the case with secondary characters in this series, I didn’t get as many details about Martha as I would have liked to receive. There simply wasn’t enough time to tell me everything I wanted to know about this character, but my appetite has been whetted for more. I hope she gets even more attention in season three.

 

Max Minghella as Nick.

 

Nick, the Waterford’s driver, Guardian (bodyguard), and biological father of June’s baby, did get his fair share of development, however. Based on the way he behaved in season one, I was not at all prepared for what would happen to him in season two. It was really nice to dive into this character’s point of view so deeply, especially once certain things began happening that he hadn’t planned for or desired.

Honestly, he wasn’t someone I liked or trusted all the much in the first season. Throwing Nick into situations he found unnerving was the best possible thing that could have happened to him. I learned so much about his moral code and what  he wanted out of life based on his reactions to all of the life changes that Gilead thrust upon him.

Yes, I know I’m being quite vague in this section. It’s something I’m doing on purpose in order to avoid sharing a major plot twist from one of the early episodes of season two. Just know that Nick’s life is about to be turned upside down in season two if you’ve just begun watching it.

Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia.

Aunt Lydia was as insufferable as ever.

When I first met her in season one, I couldn’t tell if this character was a true believer in the unbearably strict religious mores of Gilead or if she’d always been a sadist. The things she did to the handmaids she trained and kept in line were disturbing on a good day.

When she felt threatened or like her handmaid’s weren’t being obedient, Aunt Lydia was quick to slide past disturbing and into much darker corners of the human mind. I can’t imagine mistreating anyone the way she did, so it was hard to understand where she was coming from.

Other than Martha, Aunt Lydia is the character I’d like to see fleshed out the most in season three. The audience had so little information about what makes this villain tick that her violent choices only lowered my opinion of her more this season.

 

Alexis Bledel as Emily/Ofglen.

 

Offred wasn’t the only Handmaid in this society. Some of the most memorable scenes this year explored the fates of the other Handmaids in Gilead. None of them could be said to be having a positive experience, but certain ones were treated worse than others.

Emily/Ofglen’s fate was of particular interest to me due to how much I could relate to her as a fellow member of the LGBT community and lover of knowledge. In a slightly different set of circumstances, I could have easily walked a mile in her shoes. That’s frightening.

Madeline Brewer as Janine/Ofwarren.

 

Janine was another Handmaid whose storyline was developed nicely in season two. Once again, I can’t say a great deal about her life with giving away spoilers, but I did find it interesting to see how someone as fragile and emotionally unwell as this character has managed to stay alive in a society where either of those “flaws” could so easily lead to a quick death for anyone unlucky enough to develop them.

O.T. Fagbenle as Luke, June’s husband.

One of the things that first pulled me into this book before it became a TV series was June’s relationship with her husband.

The Luke in the book annoyed me in the beginning due to his unwillingness to empathize with June’s fears about living in a society where women were so quickly losing their rights and his stubborn determination to ignore every red flag until it was too late for him to get his family out of the country safely. I didn’t blame him for failing to understand what it’s like to be a woman. However, I did blame him for refusing to take his wife seriously when she opened up to him about how women were really being treated.

Getting to know a little more about the assumptions Luke made about others helped me to understand why he messed up so terribly in the beginning. I still wish he’d listened to his wife the first time she shared her concerns with him, though!

Jordana Blake (left) as Hannah Bankole, daughter of June and Luke.

 

There is very little I can say about Hannah without giving away spoilers, but her emotional bond with both of her parents has been a beautiful part of the plot since the first scene of season one. June’s second pregnancy was made even more poignant because she’d already had years of parenting experience under her belt. She knew exactly what it was she was going to be giving up after her pregnancy ended and she was moved on to the next childless household.

Samira Wiley as Moira.

 

I do wish Moira had been given more opportunities to shine in season two. We got to know her so well in the first season that I would have relished the opportunity to see how she was adjusting to life outside of Gilead after her daring escape at the end of season one.

Only time will tell if season three dig more deeply into the lives of Moira, Martha, and Aunt Lydia.

If you’re a fellow fan of The Handmaid’s Tale, what did you enjoy the most about season two?

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