Some News!

So. It has been a long time since I posted here. But I have some news and some updates.

What with the pandemic rearranging my life completely, it was hard to stay focussed and write, let alone talk about what has been going on. But over the three years of various lockdowns and such, I did manage to write the next book in the Maverick Heart Cycle, titled The Infinite Heist. And on Friday, I signed the contract with my publisher to release it in 2025. Feels like forever away, but at the same time I know that it will pass in a flash.

Earlier this year, I was also inspired to write a collections of essays, just thoughts about my life and about the world. It came really easily, and after some feedback from beta readers and some revisions, I submitted it to Renaissance on Friday as well. I’ll keep you posted about that one too.

And finally, I have started work on the next book as well, this one titled Into Thieves’ Rift. It’s early days, but the ideas are coming. I’m finding the world had to cope with these days, which is making it hard to create. But I believe in the story, so I know it will come when it’s ready.

Is Call Me By Your Name Queer?

Thinking more about a post I made yesterday over on FB about the new queer film, Sublet, and it led me back to my complicated reaction to Call Me By Your Name. Which I enjoyed when I first saw it, but have cooled on since then. Because, for while it does feature around two men who fall in love and have man sex, I don’t think of it as a queer film at all. The book was written by a straight guy, the film was directed by a straight guy. And the lead actors were two straight guys. But more than that, the relationship literally comes out of nowhere. And that doesn’t jibe at all with what queerness is to me. My queerness was there pretty much from birth. I was never really in the closet as much as I was in denial. I took shit from other kids and other grownups my whole life. For the things I enjoyed, the way I talked, for just existing. I knew there was something different early on. It was there in how I identified more with women characters than little boys were supposed to. It suffused everything I was. I was even physically assaulted for it, though, thankfully, not severely. My queer identity has evolved in the ways I understand it, but it has literally always been there.

Call Me By Your Name has what they want us to believe is a grand passion literally come out of nowhere. Two “straight acting” (yes, I hate that phrase too) men, who have never thought of loving another man for even an instant fall in love.

Okay. I guess. But I want movies and stories from people who lived queerness. Who fought for it, bled for it. Lived it with every fibre of their being. Who have gone through it and are finding a way to navigate the world and their relationships and all the ways that queerness informs one’s very being. And I’m unsure most of the time if straight creators have the knowledge and equipment to tell those stories properly. I want more queer creators telling queer stories in more queer ways.

I would never shame an actor for taking a role. Acting is what they do, how they pay the bills, and it’s a fickle career that can end at any time. (unless we’re talking trans roles. No cis actors in trans roles. That promotes the stereotypes and attitudes that hurt trans people.) I just want the industry to give more and more voice and opportunities to queer voices.

Our stories matter. And how they are told, and by whom, is crucial to them being told well.

Who Wonder Woman Is To Me

I bought my first Wonder Woman comic sometime in 1974. It was one of the early issues of the Twelve Labors storyline. The Mod Era had been recognized as, ultimately, a failure. While Diana had her powers back and her compatriots in the Justice League were ready to welcome her with open arms, she hesitated. Unsure of herself and her abilities, of her place in the world, she suggested that the League monitored her next adventures, and that they use that as the basis for their decision to re-admit her to the League.

I do have some memories of seeing issues from that Mod Era, memories which came back when I read the full set of stories much later, but that issue (this one, I think) was the first time I looked at the book and thought, “This. I want to read this.”

I followed those Twelve Labors, and her rejoining the Justice League. I kept on reading. I watched what I could of the TV show, though the network affiliate in my area didn’t air any of the first season. When the comic switched to World War II/Earth 2 to match the show, I kept reading. When the comic came back to modern day, I kept reading. When Steve Trevor came back to life, and then died again, and then came back to life, I kept reading.

At some point, it fell away. Probably because of some artist or other I didn’t like. I was mostly driven to pick up comics because of art, and even characters I loved lost me at times for that reason.

And then something seismic happened in comics. Crisis on Infinite Earths changed everything. The DC Universe was remade, and with it, Wonder Woman. George Perez revamped the title, and I jumped back on board.

I’ve come and gone from the title over the years. But my love for Diana as a character has never wavered in that time, despite so many changes in direction and creative teams over the years.

And there have been so many directions and creative teams over the 80 years Wonder Woman has existed. And I’ve dug into many of them through reprints and trade paperbacks over the years.

There was her origins, created by William Moulton Marston, steeped in Marston’s early feminism and his ideas on bondage and “willing submission”. There were the somewhat dismal Robert Kanigher years, when Diana went from a powerful woman to a sop whose only interest seemed to be getting Steve Trevor to marry her. I mean, they even replaced her kick ass boots with dainty ballet slippers.

Then there was the ill fated Mod Era, when faced with the cancellation of the book, DC figured they might as well change it up dramatically because otherwise, the book was doomed. So Denny O’Neill had the idea to take away her powers, kill off Steve Trevor and remake Diana in the mode of Emma Peel from The Avengers (No, not THOSE Avengers). It was… an interesting idea, if deeply flawed. Diana still often pined for some man or other. There was her mentor, I Ching (*shudders in racist*) and the fact that DC’s most powerful heroine had been stripped of her superpowers. But there are some really interesting stories in this period. And there are times when Diana, despite having to rely only on her new martial arts skills, shows grit and power, and a familiar determination to do what’s right. What needs to be done.

And over the years there have been memorable writers who have shown how much they too love Wonder Woman. For every writer that shows how much they don’t “get” her at all, there have been George Perez, Phil Jimenez, Gail Simone, Greg Rucka. Each of them has taken what has come before and found their own way to make Diana compelling and shown her to be the top tier character she is.

So, who is Diana? Who are the Amazons? Who are Steve Trevor and Etta Candy? What is this mythos that has held me for almost fifty years? Who is this character that has kept me coming back since I was 11?

The Amazons are a culture devoted to peace, to art, to philosophy, to science. And yes, to the arts of war. But only as a last resort. Only so that if you threaten them, they will not lose. When portrayed properly, they Amazons are one of the most sophisticated cultures that has ever existed. One of the details I have loved the most from George Perez’s reboot is the idea that the Amazons were created by the Greek Gods from the souls of women lost to violence perpetrated by men, given a new life and a new chance to create a better culture, a better world.

Steve Trevor has been the square jawed hero who was smitten with Wonder Woman, yet never noticed Diana Prince at all. At other times, he has been an older, mentor figure who was one of Diana’s closest friend. At his best, he has been portrayed as a smart, capable, and skilled agent who is eminently worthy of Diana’s esteem and love.

Etta Candy has been a sorority girl, a ditzy secretary, a secret agent herself. And is now a butch Black lesbian. (She has achieved perfection.) But through it all, she has been another of Diana’s best friends.

And Diana? My beautiful Diana? Diana was sculpted from the clay of Paradise Island/Themyscira (she is not, nor has she ever been the daughter of Zeus LALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU….) She was brought to life by the same Greek Gods her people venerated. Her speed, her strength, her ability to fly, those were all gifted to her. And when the time came to enter Man’s World in WWII or combat Ares, or be the ambassador of her people, she chose that happily, because she knew what had to be done.

Diana is truth. She is kindness and compassion. She is laughter and loyalty. She is power, but power used only in the service of helping others, protecting those who need her help. She will first take every path but the violent one. But if you threaten peace, if you threaten the innocent, she will stop you. And she beyond her superpowers, she has all of the combat skills to back them up.

Diana is the light. She is the best in all of us. She is the will to help those who need us. She is present I the love we hold for each other. The generosity of spirit we show to each other, when we share what we have. When we lift each other up, rather than tear each other down. When we strive to make ourselves and each other better.

She is all of us when we stand against violence, against cruelty, against racism, against homophobia and transphobia. She is all of us when we say, “No”. When we say “This is not acceptable. There is a better way. A way that benefits us all.”

Loving Wonder Woman made me a better human. Made me want to strive for more. Made me want to strive for the light. To be someone that, even in the tiniest of ways, eases the path of those around me so that we all might be just a little bit better.

Diana is not a sword. Not a shield. Diana is an embrace. Diana is laughter and joy. Diana is the power that holds the line, and says “No further. This ends now.”

Diana is the open hand. Waiting to lead us, to join us. Ready to say “Let’s go this way. Let’s go together.”

Art by Nicola Scott

Anatomy of a Character: Lexa-Blue

So, the name came to me long before the character actually did. I just wrote it down somewhere and meant to come back to it at some point, because I thought it sounded cool.

Then, around the time I was writing the very first draft of what eventually became Soul’s Blood, I got into a comic called, of all things, Atari Force. It was one of those marketing deals between big companies, but it ended up being fun Space Opera, and far better than I expected. There was a character in the series named Dart, a mercenary of prodigious skill and coolness. As the novel idea developed, Lexa-Blue became character in that mold.
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The second element of who she became was the scar on her eye, replacing the facial tattoos that Dart had. This piece came from the Legion of Super-Heroes, another far future comic that I loved. At one point, Keith Giffen did an arc called Five Years Later. In it, after a time jump, we saw that much of what had been familiar had been shattered. One of the characters, Shrinking Violet, had been injured in a war between her world and the planet of one of her best friends from the Legion, Cosmic Boy. She was left with the scar bisecting her eye. Another element fell into place.
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The final piece for me was an actress I liked back then, one who had made her career in daytime and night time soaps, as well as in miniseries, which were big at the time. Her name is Terri Garber and there was something I really liked about her. She went from good girl to vixen, and then seemed to have found her niche as the conniving bad girl. She had an interesting mix of vulnerability, humour, and smartass that resonated with me and, at the time, felt like the energy I wanted the character to have.
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So, Lexa-Blue became a combination of Dart’s competence and formidable fighting skills, with a scar and black artificial eye, with the cropped, dark haired personality that I could imagine Terri Garber portraying. And she just grew from there. With a healthy dose of my own snark and smart mouth for good measure.

The Automat

Have you ever gotten nostalgic for something you’ve never actually experienced? For me, one of those things is automats. Whenever I saw them in old movies, they fascinated me. The thought of all those different kinds of food behind those little doors, ranked behind those panes of glass just seemed so damned cool. I dig them so much that I actually put a super high tech one in Ghost Light Burn. Just because I could.

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Ghost Light Burn: Coming Soon!

With all that’s been going on in the world, I have been understandably distracted. And as such, I forgot to share the good news that the latest installment of the Maverick Heart Cycle will be coming your way next year from Renaissance Press. It’s been a hard year, and it sure feels great to know that the adventures of Keene, Lexa-Blue, Ember and Vrick will continue a while longer!