Counterpart 1.8: Conversations

Some unusually good conversations in the unusually good episode 1.8 of the unusual series Counterpart, which keeps getting better and better.

Howard and Howard Prime always make for a good conversation, but tonight it was top-of-the-line, with Prime haranguing his counterpart to stay out of his wife and his life, and also be grateful for the great eduction meek Howard is getting in Prime's world - until Howard turns the tables on Prime, and tells him that he's gotten Prime's family to maybe care about him just by showing them a little humanity.  Prime leaves angry, which shows us Howard has gotten the upper hand.

But Howard figures in another, even better and more surprising conversation - between Aldrich and Quayle. Aldrich of course suspects Quayle as the mole, and arranges a meeting at his favorite bar.  Quayle, who seems on the verge of collapse, and admitting to Aldrich that Quayle's wife is the mole, indeed tells Aldrich that Quayle is the source of the leaks, but because Quayle himself has been played for years.  And who has been manipulating you this way, Aldrich asks?

Howard Silk is Quayle's answer!  So this puts Prime in a great position - at least, for us, the audience.  Emily may be coming out of her coma.   Prime will have to work hard to fool her, if that's what he wants to do.  But he'll also have to fend off Aldrich, if he believes what Quayle told him.

From what we've seen so far, the other side is far more brutal and outrightly evil than ours - the school and the fate of those children being the latest example. But I'm beginning to think our side has some fearsome malice going too, and I wouldn't want to be anyone, including the very capable Howard Prime, with Aldrich going after him.

See also  Counterpart 1.1: Fringe on Espionage ... Counterpart 1.2: Two Different Worlds ... Counterpart 1.3: Identification and Pandemic ... Counterpart 1.4: The Switch ... Counterpart 1.5: Ménage à Alternates ... Counterpart 1.6: Alternate Prince, Funeral, and Clear Clare ... Counterpart 1.7: Spying Across Dimensions

   

Timeless 2.1: "Like Mein Kampf, by Philip K. Dick"

Tonight Timeless roared back from the jaws of oblivion - aka cancellation by the mothership, its network NBC - with a new episode that was far better than anything we saw the first season.  And it did most of this in its final few minutes.

And, indeed, there was one line which really struck me, which shows the high-intellect octane of time travel Timeless can achieve - it's when Rufus, looking at the megalomaniac writings on the smartphone crafted by their new worst arch-enemy, characterizes it as "like Mein Kampf, by Philip K. Dick".

Now I know he could have been speaking figuratively, or loosely, or just mistakenly, but the set-up in this new episode of Timeless and therefore the rest of the series is that history has already undergone changes that our heroes in 2018 don't know about.  Or, even more fun, maybe they do know about it, and it's we the audience on the other side of the screen who don't know about it, because we have a different history.

In our off-screen history, it's of course Adolf Hitler who wrote Mein Kampf.  Philip K. Dick does have some connection to this, because he wrote the alternate history The Man in the High Castle novel turned into an outstanding Amazon Prime series in which Hitler and Nazi Germany won the Second World War.  So what was Barrett referring to?

In the new history on Timeless, unknown to us but not its characters, was Philip K. Dick a Nazi monster who earlier wrote Mein Kampf?  Or was Dick maybe an American biographer of Hitler who titled his rambling bio Mein Kampf?

The possibilities are legion and intriguing.  Time travel and alternate history have always been closely related - I've always thought that behind every alternate history is an implied time travel, as the agent that brought the alternate history into being.   This first episode of the second season of Timeless, in that one statement about Philip K. Dick, promises all kinds of mind-boggling and intellect-puzzling adventures - or exactly what you'd want, or at very least I want, in a time travel story.

And see also Timeless 1.1: Threading the Needle ... Timeless 1.2: Small Change, Big Payoffs ... Timeless 1.3: Judith Campbell ... Timeless 1.4: Skyfall and Weapon of Choice ... Timeless 1.5: and Quantum Leap ... Timeless 1.6: Watergate and Rittenhouse ... Timeless 1.7: Stranded! ... Timeless 1.8: Time and Space ... Timeless 1.9: The Kiss and The Key ... Timeless 1.10: The End in the Middle ... Timeless 1.11: Edison, Ford, Morgan, Houdini, and Holmes (No, Not Sherlock)! ... Timeless 1.12: Incandescent West ... Timeless 1.13: Meeting, Mating, and Predictability ... Timeless 1.14: Paris in the 20s ... Timeless 1.15: Touched! .... Timeless 1.16: A Real Grandfather Paradox Story

-> and see also (evidence of original reality):  Time After Time, Timeless, and Frequency Now in the Dustbin of History (and the altered reality): NBC Reverses Decision and Renews Timeless: Lessons for Time Travel

Hard Sun: Hard Crime/Soft Science Fiction

What better day to review Hard Sun, binge-watchable in America on Hulu since just a few days ago, than the day in which Daylight Savings Time (which I like far better than Eastern standard) takes effect.

Ok, maybe that's bit of stretch.  But there's more than a bit of a stretch in Hard Sun, powerful, searing, and superb as it is.  It's billed as a crime and science fiction story.  And it almost isn't science fiction at all.

The premise is two British police detectives learn that the Earth and humanity have only five years left of life - because the sun is going nova, or some such.  This serves as a harrowing backdrop for a complex and pounding and altogether top-notch police procedural, as only Neil Cross (Luther and MI-5) can do it.  There are twists and turns in both the criminals the two police chase, as well as in their personal lives, not to mention their partnership relationship (Jim Sturgess as DCI Hicks and Agyness Deyn as DC Renko are impressively tough and vulnerable in different ways).  In this regard, Hard Sun is one of the best police dramas I've ever seen - in the top ten, for sure.

But the science fiction part is frustrating.  It's an interesting premise, to say the least - police hunting all manner of heinous criminals, always knowing that the world is going to end in five years.  Some of these criminals are indeed motivated by that knowledge - because it has become public, though denounced as a conspiracy - and MI5 (the British FBI) play a significant role in this action, too.  They know about the hard sun that's coming, and apparently don't want the world to know about it too soon.

Now were this proper science fiction, there would scientists and people trying to do something to stop the nova, or build a fleet of ships to take whatever number of humanity off this planet to possible safety.  But Hard Sun is not proper science fiction.

And though there's a payoff at the end - which I won't tell you - it uses science fiction in a way I haven't ever seen it used before.  Being a fan and author of police procedural hybrids - my favorite as a fan would be Isaac Asimov's The Naked Sun, and as an author see my novel The Silk Code - I'm not at all sure that I like to see science fiction used this way.

But as a devotee of police procedurals on television, I can say that Hard Sun is one rough and exciting ride, and on that score I highly recommend it.

---

"As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises." -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

A French Village: A Searing Wake-Up Call

I just finished watching A French Village - Un village français - five seasons on Hulu, two seasons (the final two,  two of pieces of an Epilogue so titled) on Amazon Prime.  For a variety of reasons, mostly because I didn't want to rush this experience, irresistible as it was, I semi-binge-watched it, taking in this extraordinary work in I'd guess about a month.

Let me say up front that this series is among the very best ever on television, in any form, streaming or cable or traditional network.  I'd put it right up there with my two other all-time very favorite series, The Sopranos and The Wire.  Like both of those series, A French Village has no villain who is totally bad.  Even the worst have a glint or more of decency or humanity.  And also like those two HBO series, A French Village has no hero or heroine with some serious flaws.  That's why all three of series are so truly human in their stories and perspectives.

A French Village is the story of a fictitious village in France, Villeneuve - near a real village, Besançon - and its Nazi occupation in the Second World War, and, in the Epilogue, the aftermath of that.  No one escapes unscathed.  Every character, if not literally or figuratively destroyed by the experience, is left deeply impaired or indelibly stained.  This is inevitable for all of the collaborators, even the ones who managed to resist a little or more, but also for the resistance fighters, who sacrifice a part of their humanity in their resistance.  The lesson is unspeakably sad, yet at the same time wise, beautiful, and even satisfying.

My favorite characters are two of the outright villains - well, one is outright and the other maybe 60/40 villainous.   Maybe that's just me - but I recall Hitchcock telling Truffaut that his favorites were villains, too.  (I'll try to not deliver any big spoilers in what follows.)

Heinrich Müller is an SS intelligence chief.  He's cold as ice, brilliant, and enjoys meting out pain.  But when he falls into some kind of combination of love and carnal lust with a French woman - it's mostly lust, but there's some feeling there - he's capable of almost being kind and decent, and against all odds I even found myself rooting for him in a scene or two.  Jean Marchetti is French police investigator.  He's no lover of Nazis, but he believes in strong government and has some fascist tendencies.  But he manages to do some very good things, all along, along with the bad - which unfortunately comes to include killing a resistance fighter in a fury, when he's harangued about something he feels deeply guilty about.

Richard Sammel was perfect as Müller and Nicolas Gob as Marchetti, but really everyone was outstanding and memorable in their roles, including Audrey Fleurot and Thierry Godard (who have also been excellent in Spiral - Godard, though he's not related to Jean-Luc Godard, has something of Jean-Paul Belmondo in his look and manner).  A French Village began to air in 2009 and concluded in 2017 in France - or, in American terms, from Obama through Trump.  Sort of disconcerting but instructive to consider that the trajectory in A French Village - Nazi to liberation - is just the opposite of 2009 to 2017 here in America.

Not that Trump is (yet) a Nazi - he's closer to Marchetti than Müller - and I do believe there's more hope for us now in the United States than in Villeneuve in World War II and after, a French village that often feels like a village of the damned, where no one gets out with their soul completely intact.  But in addition to all its other powerful virtues, A French Village is a searing wake-up call for us in 2018 America.

See this marvel of television when you have a month or more.  The French have given us Monet, Debussy, Truffaut, and all the people who made and starred in A French Village.



speaking of Monet ...

Counterpart 1.7: Spying Across Dimensions

A truly masterful Counterpart 1.7 tonight, a perfect spy science fiction story in many overlapping ways.

First, it occurred to me as we watched the young Clare in spy training on the other side, that there's a strong something of The Americans in Counterpart.  Except, whatever Elizabeth's original name was in The Soviet Union (I forget) as she trains to be the adult Elizabeth in America, passing as an American, the ante in Counterpart is much higher, because we get Clare training not to be some rival or enemy nationality but her alternate self.  This, again, as I've said before, comes from this deft mix of spy story and science fiction story.

We also get more tidbits about what happened to the other side.  It was some kind of swine flu that wiped out so much of its population - with the result that, in addition to being paranoid, they don't eat pork.  What's still not clear or not even known is why they blame us for their pandemic - it will be an interesting show indeed when that is revealed.

But the last minutes of this episode revealed an outstanding twist, as any superior spy drama should.  Peter's discovery of that his wife is really her other, and our knowledge that the Clare who is his wife killed the Clare he intended to marry, is not the last word in this complex relationship.  It turns out that Clare has let her cyanide pill outlive its effectiveness - because she wants now, above all else, to live.   That's what having a baby did for her - it transformed her, turned her back into a more normal human being.  She was still fine with spying on her husband, but is no longer fine with sacrificing her life if need be.  Which makes eminent and healthy sense.

--If we can believe her, that is. But I think we can.  That scene in the hospital looked pretty real and convincing.  Good spy stories always have twists.  But they're even better when the spying is across alternate dimensions of reality.

See also  Counterpart 1.1: Fringe on Espionage ... Counterpart 1.2: Two Different Worlds ... Counterpart 1.3: Identification and Pandemic ... Counterpart 1.4: The Switch ... Counterpart 1.5: Ménage à Alternates ... Counterpart 1.6: Alternate Prince, Funeral, and Clear Clare

Homeland 7.4: Fake News!

A stunning Homeland 7.4 tonight, which plays right into the mix of dangerous truth and paranoia which besets our world today - in a phrase, fake news.

Here's how it happened on Homeland:  a teenager's dog in the compound - surrounded by FBI, Waco and Ruby Ridge style - goes running the woods, eventually towards the FBI, who shoot the dog.  The boy, running after his dog, sees what the FBI has done, and raises his gun at them, likely to shoot.  But before he shoots, an agent shoots him.

He's badly wounded, and after a whole bunch of harrowing turns in the story, he's in the hospital, being treated, doing well.  At this point, a mysterious man who has entered the hospital puts on medical garb and takes some pictures of the boy on the operating table - bleeding, though the docs says he's doing ok.

But the photo he takes and puts on the web doesn't say that or show that.  To the contrary, it says the FBI have let the boy bleed out and die.  This results in the boy's father on the compound killing the FBI agent they took hostage, which in results in the FBI storming the compound and killing lots of people.

Saul tried to stop this, and got assaulted by the FBI commander for his troubles.  And so, despite Saul's efforts, another Waco has happened.

Yes, O'Keefe was in one sense to blame for starting this, but the worst known villain is the FBI commander who lost his temper and ordered the assault.  He's been portrayed as having a short fuse all along, and should have been fired a long time ago.  (I have to hope that in our reality, no FBI agent in command would have ordered the raid.)

But the deepest villain is the guy who created and disseminated the phony photo.  Fake news in action.  Who was he?  A Russian agent?  We'll find out soon enough.

But as it is, this episode of Homeland is about the best parable on the dangers of fake news I've seen so far on a television drama.

For more about news, see Fake News in Real Context.

See also Homeland 7.1: The Worse Threat ... Homeland 7.2: Carrie vs. 4chan ... Homeland 7.3: Separating Truth from Hyperthinking

And see also Homeland 6.1: Madam President-Elect ... Homeland 6.2: Parallel Program ... Homeland 6.3: Potentials ... Homeland 6.4: "A Man with Painted Hair" ... Homeland 6.5: The Attack on Carrie's Brownstone ... Homeland 6.7: The Arch Villain ... Homeland 6.8: Peter's Problem ... Homeland 6.9: The Tide Begins to Turn ... Homeland 6.10: Fake News! ... Homeland 6.11: Quinn and Dar ... Homeland Season 6 Finale: Chilling - and True to Life

And see also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally! ... Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland ... Homeland 5.11: Allison as Primo Villain ... Homeland Season 5 Finale: RIPs

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

Homeland 7.3: Separating Truth from Hyperthinking

Homeland  bounced back tonight with a strong and surprising episode 7.3.  In fact, it was one of the most unusual weaves of the series, with a familiar tapestry in almost every scene, slightly turning to reveal something unexpected yet immediately obvious in retrospect - in other words, the most appealing kind of narrative.

The best of this came at the end, with Wellington ordering the air strike in Syria against the President's wishes.  Linus Roache, who was compelling and unpredictable as King Ecbert in The Vikings, is doing it again as Wellington in Homeland, in which he's not (yet) President, but now making as well as calling the shots in the White House.  I especially liked this, because it has no analog that we know of in our political reality.

And in second but still strong place is O'Keefe turning the tables on and nearly getting Saul.  Again, this was well motivated in retrospect and almost tipped off in a conversation but still somewhat surprising to see on screen.  On one level, this story at the compound is another Waco,  On the other hand, it's something much deeper, if only because O'Keefe is so much more media savvy than David Koresh, not to mention accurate about what the President is doing - or, more precisely, what Wellington is doing, but there's no way that O'Keefe can see that difference.

And it was a powerful night for Carrie, too.  Her dilemma - of being able separate true connections from those her hyperactive mind might generate - is really the template for this entire season.  When the enemy is a foreign terrorist, or even some American like Brody under the sway of a foreign terrorist, it's a little easier to separate truth from hyperthinking than when the enemy is in the White House.

And by the way, this set up is much more dangerous than Trump in our reality.  Elizabeth Keane seems ten times smarter and more in control of her impulses than Trump.  And as much as I can't stand Chief of Staff Kelly, he so far hasn't revealed any of the depth of deception and treachery of Wellington.

And I'll be back with more next week.

See also Homeland 7.1: The Worse Threat ... Homeland 7.1: Carrie vs. 4chan

And see also Homeland 6.1: Madam President-Elect ... Homeland 6.2: Parallel Program ... Homeland 6.3: Potentials ... Homeland 6.4: "A Man with Painted Hair" ... Homeland 6.5: The Attack on Carrie's Brownstone ... Homeland 6.7: The Arch Villain ... Homeland 6.8: Peter's Problem ... Homeland 6.9: The Tide Begins to Turn ... Homeland 6.10: Fake News! ... Homeland 6.11: Quinn and Dar ... Homeland Season 6 Finale: Chilling - and True to Life

And see also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally! ... Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland ... Homeland 5.11: Allison as Primo Villain ... Homeland Season 5 Finale: RIPs

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional

Counterpart 1.6: Alternate Prince, Funeral, and Clear Clare

Another deeply interesting episode - 1.6 - of Counterpart tonight, which moves the story along in tantalizing drops and a big reveal.

As I've said earlier, Counterpart is if nothing else a taut spy story, though of course it's something more.  That duality - spy story and something more - was captured perfectly in the "love the lie" conversation between Howard Prime and the butcher's widow.  She assumes that HP and her husband were spies for Russia or the United States.  That would be compelling enough, in the way that any good spy story is.  But of course, Howard Prime and we know that they were/are spies for an alternate reality.

And we learn through this episode that that alternate reality really has it in for us.  The deaths they're meting out are more than you get in the usual spy games.   The killings are part of an effort to wipe us out completely.

What are they - the alternates us's - so angry about?  I mean, we learn that Prince is still alive there.  Not as momentous as JFK (the big reveal about the alternate reality in Fringe), and not as wonderful as saving John Lennon would be (at least, in my book, figuratively and literally - in "Saving Lennon" in Peter Brown Called, but I won't tell you if the time traveler succeeds) - but, hey, Prince living is still pretty impressive.   But that's not enough to budge the huge chip on alternate Berlin's shoulder.  The look in Clare's eyes at the end is clear and deadly.

But there's also some hope, I suppose, in Howard Prime, who does have more of good Howard in him than meets the eye, showing real compassion to the butcher's widow.  And even Nadia at the edge of her alternate's funeral may be thinking something vaguely humane.

I'm looking forward to finding out more next week.


See also  Counterpart 1.1: Fringe on Espionage ... Counterpart 1.2: Two Different Worlds ... Counterpart 1.3: Identification and Pandemic ... Counterpart 1.4: The Switch ... Counterpart 1.5: Ménage à Alternates

Peter Brown Called

just published ...



Writing science fiction and songs have been two of my lifelong passions. This anthology combines them, with a selection of my science fiction and fantasy stories that has music as a theme, and my lyrics that deal with far-off suns, robots, and time travel.


Table of Contents 

Prologue 

 =stories= 

Marilyn and Monet 
The Harmony 
The Kid in the Video Store 
Ian, Isaac, and John 
Saving Lennon (from The Loose Ends Saga) 
The Suspended Fourth 
Sam’s Requests 
The Singing Pottery (from The Silk Code) 

 =songs= 

Evening's Evergreen Morning 
A Piece of the Rainbow 
The Lama Will Be Late This Year 
Alpha Centauri 
Lime Streets 
Tau Ceti 
If I Traveled to The Past 
 I Fell in Love with a Robot 
The First House on Mars

 =alternate equation #1=

Elvis, Ed, and Einstein

read an excerpt you won't find any place else on Speculative Fiction Showcase

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 22 of X: The 70s Till the End

It's a testament to how good a book is that you seem to say every chapter is the best.  I'm not going to go back and read my 21 previous reviews of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles - right, I'm reviewing this book just about chapter by chapter - because I'm more in the mood to write this review than do even a modicum of research, but it sure feels like I've said that lots of times in the past nearly year.  And each time I say that, I usually put in the proviso that this chapter really is the best in the book.  Which is exactly how I feel about this one, which is about The Beatles in the decade of the 70s, not individually (the focus of some of the other chapters in this book), but, somehow, as a group, typified by Capitol's release of their Rock 'n' Roll Music double-vinyl album in 1976, and kindred releases, and lost chances, all culminating with the Dakota in New York City in December 1980.

Sheffield brings his customary intensity and light touch to the subject, getting us to twist and shout and just about everything in between and before and beyond as we read this chapter.  We learn that even Ringo felt used by the album - "When Ringo feels degraded, you know things are out of hand" - and how John's line to the effect that one can be a "delinquent" by buying a "rock and roll book" empowered Sheffield.  As is clear from the first page of Dreaming the Beatles, this is as much Sheffield's autobiography as it is The Beatles biography, and that's key to why it's such irresistible reading.

We hear again about what we already knew - John and Paul, in New York at the Dakota, almost went down to Rockefeller Center for an impromptu appearance on Saturday Night Live in response to Lorne Michaels' running gag - and some things we didn't, like Lennon's statement (in a sworn affidavit) at the end of November 1980 that The Beatles had "plans to stage a reunion concert".  Lost opportunities, which just an excruciating month later became impossible to ever recover.

Sheffield importantly mentions that Lennon was murdered by someone with "a legally purchased handgun".  I don't have to tell you the sick synchrony of that with the legally purchased semi-automatic that took the lives of 17 people,  many of them students, at Parkland High School in Florida last week.  Not only is the legal age (18) at which someone can purchase a firearm lower in many states than the age at which someone can buy a drink (21), it is easier to purchase a more deadly long gun than a handgun in many states as well.  This insanity has to fucking end, beginning with voting out of office all the NRA-whipped Republicans who stand in the way of sensible gun reform.

The murder of John Lennon didn't get that reform, and so far neither have the subsequent mass shootings at schools, concerts, and houses of worship.  But the murder of John Lennon did extinguish a part of our innocence - at least, my innocence - in a way slightly different but related to the awful eradications of innocence that attended the murders of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy.  Dion's "Abraham, Martin and John" (written by Dick Holler) captured part of this in 1968.

The end of 1980 also brought the loss of Marshall McLuhan (who actually had been interviewed by John and Yoko a few years earlier).  McLuhan died of natural causes - a stroke - but his death was as traumatic and life-changing for me as Lennon's.  Tina and I went up to Toronto for Marshall's funeral (I'd worked with Marshall at the end of the 1970s), and I've written half a dozen books either completely or mostly devoted to explicating and expanding his work since then (Digital McLuhan, McLuhan in Age of Social Media, etc).

I've written no books about John Lennon or The Beatles, but he and they have figured in my science fiction novels and stories.  One nice thing about time travel is you can have a chance to undo some terrible event, like the murder of John Lennon, by traveling back to the past.  But that's fiction.   In the world of reality, the best you can do is read Rob Sheffield's book.

And I'll be back soon with a review of one of the dwindling number of remaining chapters in this one of a kind book, Dreaming the Beatles.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

"Ian, Isaac, and John" and "Saving Lennon" in this antho

Counterpart 1.5: Ménage à Alternates

Counterpart 1.5 was truly beautiful - or at very least, a part of it was, the very last part, in which our Howard asks Howard Prime's daughter Anna, on the other side, to tell him what he's missed (in her life).

We also learn a lot and see a lot more of what's going on, and has been going on, between the two sides.   The other side lost seven percent of its population as a result of the plague that hit it in the 1990s - and they blame our side for starting it.  Deliberately starting it?  Apparently that's the belief of some who are over there and in power, even though our side says that's just a conspiracy theory.  One of the attractive qualities of Counterpart is how it takes conspiracy theories to a new level - the level in which the reality is two alternate realities existing at the same time, transversable via the most mundane "bridge" you ever saw.  That's fertile ground indeed for conspiracy theories.

I also liked in this episode the new combination we saw in alternate people and their relationships.  Up to now, the biggest shock was the two Howards meeting one another.  In episode 1.5 we find a pair of alternates who have gone beyond that: they live together, as lovers, actually in a ménage à trois with a man both women find a poor cook but handsome.

Meanwhile, the relationship between our Howard and Emily on the other side continues to develop.  She's well on her way to loving him, despite her tough bravado.  And Howard already loves her, because he can't really distinguish this Emily from his Emily.  In his heart, he feels they're the same, and in a way he's right - this even though their Alexander Pope tells our Howard to be wary of Emily. Sound advice,  or is this Pope just trying to keep our Howard from telling her things Pope would prefer she not know?

Counterpart is fine, understated science fiction at its best, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also  Counterpart 1.1: Fringe on Espionage ... Counterpart 1.2: Two Different Worlds ... Counterpart 1.3: Identification and Pandemic ... Counterpart 1.4: The Switch

more alternate reality - "flat-out fantastic" - Scifi and Scary

Homeland 7.2: Carrie vs. 4chan

Well, not exactly 4chan, but I liked that in the title of this review, of one of the most ridiculous episodes of Homeland - 7.2 - indeed of any serious espionage show, to come down the pike in a long time.

Carrie puts a picture of a woman she wants to identify on 4chan (if you don't know what that is, either don't read on, or look it up on Wikipedia).  But ok, that makes some sense.  What follows is what doesn't: Carrie downloads an image that's sent to her in response.  And that image is really a landmine that explodes when she opens it, permitting some hacker to take over her computer and its sensitive files, with the motive of blackmailing her for escalating amounts of money or else the files will be made public.

Come on - even I know not to download a file that's sent to me by someone I don't know, let alone on 4chan.   Carrie's upset - before this happens - as she always is, but she has excellent instincts, and would never do anything even remotely as stupid as this.

And what follows is also idiotic.  She beats the hacker by first tempting him with her body on the screen and then in person, where she can turn the tables and beat him to the ground and get him to relinquish his hold on her computer lest she kill him.  Again - what?  What kind of hacker who stands to make thousands of dollars would risk that just for an in-person look or more at Carrie's body.  (No offense to Carrie, I'd say that about any woman or man - what hacker would risk $20,000 just for a look, or a touch, or even to sleep with the victim?)

And so this episode 7.2 of Homeland goes down as one of the most implausible, if not the most absurd, episode of this otherwise fine series.  Fortunately - I was tempted to write 4chan-ately - there's plenty of time to correct course in this seventh season.

See also Homeland 7.1: The Worse Threat

And see also Homeland 6.1: Madam President-Elect ... Homeland 6.2: Parallel Program ... Homeland 6.3: Potentials ... Homeland 6.4: "A Man with Painted Hair" ... Homeland 6.5: The Attack on Carrie's Brownstone ... Homeland 6.7: The Arch Villain ... Homeland 6.8: Peter's Problem ... Homeland 6.9: The Tide Begins to Turn ... Homeland 6.10: Fake News! ... Homeland 6.11: Quinn and Dar ... Homeland Season 6 Finale: Chilling - and True to Life

And see also Homeland 5.1: Moving into the Age of Snowden ... Homeland 5.2: Who Wants to Kill Carrie ... Homeland 5.3: Carrie and Kerry ... Homeland 5.5: All Quinn ... Homeland 5.6: Saul Wises Up ... Homeland 5.7: Tough to Watch ... Homeland 5.9: Finally! ... Homeland 5.10: Homeland and Homeland ... Homeland 5.11: Allison as Primo Villain ... Homeland Season 5 Finale: RIPs

And see also Homeland 4.1-2: Carrie's State of Mind ... Homeland 4.3: Quinn and Carrie ... Homeland 4.4: Carrie's Counterpart ... Homeland 4.5: Righteous Seduction ... Homeland 4.6: The Biggest Reveal ... Homeland 4.7: The Manifestation ... Homeland 4.8: Saving Someone's Life ... Homeland 4.9: Hitchcock Would've Loved It ... Homeland 4.10: The List ... Homeland 4.12: Out of this Together

And see also Homeland 3.1: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 3.3: Two Prisons ... Homeland 3.4: Twist! ...Homeland 3.6: Further Down the Rabbit Hole ... Homeland 3.7: Revealing What We Already Knew ... Homeland 3.8: Signs of Life ...Homeland 3.9: Perfect Timing ... Homeland 3.10: Someone Has to Die ... Homeland 3.11: The Loyalist ... Homeland Season 3 Finale: Redemption and Betrayal

And see Homeland 2.1-2: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.3-5: Sneak Preview Review ... Homeland 2.6: What Brody Knows ... Homeland 2.7: Love Me Tinder ... Homeland 2.8: The Personal and the Professional ...Homeland Season 2 Finale: The Shocker and the Reality

And see also  Homeland on Showtime ... Homeland 1.8: Surprises ... Homeland Concludes First Season: Exceptional