ZOMBIES 2 is a 2020 Disney Channel original movie musical romance, a sequel to the 2018 Disney Channel original movie (reviewed here). Headlining the cast again are cheerleader Addison (Meg Donnelly) and the zombie football player Zed (Milo Manheim) after the school integrated rehabilated zombies into the human culture in the town of Seabrook, the zombies rendered mostly normal by a newer technology called “Z-bands” that use electric current to help zombies retain self-control.
Zombies are gaining wider and wider acceptance, and now they will even be allowed to attend Prawn (the school’s super-prom, renamed because of their shrimp mascot). That doesn’t mean that everyone accepts the zombies as equals, but steps are moving in the right direction. Until now that zombies have started to be acceptable as normal, the whole town is thrown into panic when a pack of werewolves comes into town, with unknown intentions.
As with the previous movie, it’s less about a sensible plot and more about setting up the musical numbers. There were more catchy songs in the first one, and in my opinion too much of the plot was spent with jealousy between the young romantic leads, particularly Zed’s jealousy when Addison starts showing more and more interest in the werewolves because she doesn’t feel like she fits in with any group.
But, not a bad teen musical movie, though the first one was catchier.
The Lightning Thief is a 2005 modern day fantasy story about modern-day children of the ancient Greek gods living in the United States, which was adapted into a 2010 feature film as well as a 2014 Broadway musical.
Percy Jackson is a well-meaning but troubled teen who has been kicked out of five schools in six years for his impulsive behavior. He’s dyslexic and has ADHD and lives with his mom alone, his father having left when he was very young.
On a field trip to the Smithsonian the substitute teacher Mrs. Dodds draws him away from the group and transforms into a monster and tries to attack him. Percy manages to kill the monster with the help of a pen that magically and unexpectedly turns into a sword.
Soon he’s drawn into a hidden world of demigods, children of the ancient Greek gods, who have some of the powers of their godly parents but are still mortal and attract the attention of every monster in the area.
The book is a fun update to the old mythology, bringing it into the modern world and adding new layers of mythology on the old. It’s fun, appealing for kids, and gives representation for kids with dyslexia and/or ADHD, these being traits common to the children of the gods in this world. It’s a fun book, and the start of a series if you like it there are more where that came from.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the 9th and final movie in the “main” numbered episodes of the Star Wars Franchise that largely centers around the rebels vs the Empire. Between this and the last movie a strange message has been broadcast which has the appearance of being Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDirmid), the leader of the Empire in the original trilogy. Is this a hoax or has Palpatine actually survived somehow? It all appears to be part of a plan to take the First Order revival of the empire to again make it a galaxy-spanning dictatorship. Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the leader of the First Order rises to take his place at the helm of this new Empire.
Rey (Daisy Ridley), the last Jedi after the death of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) in the previous film, is trying to complete her Jedi training under the tutelage of General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher, who had passed away before filming but is present in the film through repurposed footage from The Force Awakens). Rey and her fellow soldiers in the war seek out an Imperial Wayfinder, the only way they know to find the stronghold where Palpatine has supposedly been revived.
While the previous movie Episode 8, The Last Jedi, was directed by Rian Johnson, this one returned to being directed by J.J. Abrams (who directed Episode 7, The Force Awakens). The contrast is stark. Although there was a lot to love about The Force Awakens (primarily the more diverse cast) the plot had been very rehashed, almost an exact copy of A New Hope with different characters swapped in. The Last Jedi was probably my favorite in the series because I felt like it took more risks, told new angles on stories that weren’t just exactly what any fan could have guessed–it was clearly aware of the history of the movies and it played with those expectations by setting something up that you think you know where it’s going, and then going a different way instead. The Rise of Skywalker, you could tell it was back in Abrams hands primarily because it again did not take any risks, and largely did pretty much what any fan could have guessed. It had its moments, there were big epic battles with flashy special effects and some solid character moments, but overall it ended up leaving me feeling unaffected rather than moved. It felt like Abrams was trying to undo some of the amazing work from the last movie by suddenly downplaying characters that had played a huge role in the last one, retconning moments from the last one that were big character developments and trying to turn them into something trivial. I was hoping for something much more moving for the final installment of the main series.
If you’re a Star Wars fan I would certainly not try to talk you out of seeing it! It is the final installment after all! But, for myself, I might never rewatch this one, while I would happily rewatch The Last Jedi every week.
What We Do in the Shadows is an original TV series, a spinoff of the 2014 movie of the same title (reviewed here). Season one aired on FX between March 2019 and May 2019, and it has been renewed for a second season, airing soon.
Similar to the movie, the format of the TV series is a comedy/horror mockumentary following vampire flatmates, in this case in Staten Island in New York City, rather than Wellington, New Zealand.
Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak) considers himself the leader of the group, originally a solder of the Ottoman Empire. Nadja (Natasia Demitriou) is the woman of the group, often more practical than the others (my favorite of the group). Laszlo (Matt Berry) was originally an English nobleman, turned to a vampire by Nadja. Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) is an energy vampire that drains people’s life essences by boring or enraging them, and his abilities even work on vampires. Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) is Nandor’s human familiar, who runs daytime errands for his master in return for the promise of being turned into a vampire.
The TV series has a very similar sense of humor to the movie, while expanding the worldbuilding and premise, such as the adding the existence of energy vampires, and more about the vampire social hierarchy when a high-ranking vampire comes to visit. The cast and the writing are fabulous and I will be very happy to watch more of this show as it airs.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the Nintendo Switch is a 2019 polished and expanded version of the 1993 Game Boy game of the same title. It is part of the Legend of Zelda series of games that came out shortly after The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and has a very similar look and game engine and many of the same items, but has its own feel and story and additional items and enemies all its own.
The story begins at an indeterminate time in Link’s life, and not even clear which Link it is (as the characters named Link in the series as a whole are actually generations of heroes with the same name, rather than a single character), but I think it’s most likely given the timing of the game that this is the Link from A Link to the Past some short time after that game (because he mentions Zelda. The game begins with a ship that Link is sailing on running into a fierce storm that causes a shipwreck, and he wakes up on mysterious Koholint Island to the face of someone who looks very much like Zelda.
This game is, to this day, a major departure from the series in that it is missing many of the major elements that define the Zelda formula. Most of the games are defined by the magical Triforce and the three people that seem to be tied irrevocably to each of its aspects: Zelda for wisdom, Link for courage, Ganon/Ganondorf for power. But this is not a game about Zelda, or about Ganon (a little funny that a Legend of Zelda game barely mentions the titular princess).
The game is almost entirely the same as the original Game Boy version. The mechanics, enemies, dungeons are generally the same. The most noticeable change is the graphics, which are all 3-d rendered and look very pretty and glossy, and it’s fun to see the update. Other graphics related changes such as the overworld is split up into clear “screens” that scroll from one to another, they instead flow smoothly. A big change is that the Switch takes advantage of having more buttons by assigning dedicated buttons to the most vital items like the sword and the shield–in the original game boy game there were two item buttons that you can assign to anything including the sword and the shield, so if you wanted to use two other items, you couldn’t use the sword and shield at all. There is also a new side game where you can build your own dungeons out of preset room blocks, and a new optional dungeon which you will have to find yourself that’s not part of the main quest.
Whether you played the game when it originally came out or you’re new to it, this is a fun game to get hold of. It’s a good introduction to the series as well, because it is a little more forgiving in some ways than the others in the series.
Visuals The main update from the original are the visuals and they look very nice! Kindof a cute and glossy overhaul, making the character and enemy designs much more detailed than the original Game Boy version was capable of.
Audio Catchy as ever, The Legend of Zelda series has always had excellent earworms.
Challenge Overall this is probably one of the Zelda games with an easier learning curve. The top-down view is easier to navigate for beginner players than the modern full-depth worlds. The phone huts throughout the world give you hints on what you’re supposed to be working on next. If you die in the overworld you can choose to continue on the exact same screen without penalty (this is extremely handy for younger players) and if you die in a dungeon although you have to restart from the beginning you at least get to keep any progress you made (i.e. keys collected, doors unlocked) before you died. It’s a good choice if you want to introduce a kid new to video games to the world of Zelda.
Story The story is pretty light and not particularly sensible. Link spends the game risking his life to wake the godlike entity whose very dreaming defines the island and everything on it. It seems like a really bad plan, and never at any point in the game seems like a good idea, but it’s the only way to move forward with the plot.
Session Time Since you can save anywhere and continue back from that same screen on the overworld this makes it very easy to pick up and down. Although dungeons would require a little bit of re-playthrough you can at least keep progress made. And of course the Switch still has the major advantage of being able to sleep and unsleep very quickly.
Playability Controls are easy to pick up, of course it takes some skill and practice to get get at attacking and dodging effectively.
Replayability There is some replay value in trying to collect all of the secret shells that are scattered throughout the land, to try to earn the rewards, and also to tackle the secret dungeon that’s been added in this version, find all the pieces of heart, and etc.
Originality Of course this incarnation is a remake of an earlier game, so you can’t judge this incarnation fairly on its originality. The original game itself used the format of another game of its time very closely: the SNES game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, including many of the same items. But even at that time it did add a significant number of new things and had its own feel.
Playtime Legend of Zelda experts will probably breeze through most of it, as it is one of the easier games in the series, but there are still quite a few dungeons to discover and defeat as well as plenty of things to discover in the overworld.
Overall The original incarnation of this game is still one of my favorite Game Boy games, an excellent entry in the Legend of Zelda series, and although it borrowed heavy from its SNES predecessor it is still an entertaining and fun game in its own right. This remake of it makes it easy to find for a new generation, as well as updating the graphics and adding some new content, and it was a great deal of fun to revisit it. You can buy it for the Switch for $60 anywhere Nintendo Switch games are sold.
Clarkesworld continues strong this year with a mix of science fiction and fantasy, and edited by Neil Clarke, with Kate Baker producing and usually narrating the podcast. They published 80 stories in 2019 by my count.
Their translation stories are many of my favorites, as they have been for the past few years. Not only have they been publishing translations from Chinese authors, but also from Korean others, and a full third of the stories on this list are translations.
Every short story that is eligible for Hugo nominations this year which were first published by Clarkesworld are marked with an asterisk (*), novelettes are marked with a double-asterisk (**), novellas are marked with a triple-asterisk (***).
The List
1. “Symbiosis Theory” by Choyeop Kim, translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort, narrated by Kate Baker** This story is incredible, but it’s also a journey that I don’t want to spoil with snappy synopses. It begins with an artist who has memories of a place that she had never been.
2. “The Thing With the Helmets” by Emily C. Skaftun, narrated by Kate Baker * Cursed roller derby helmets and an alien invasion!
3. “To Catch All Sorts of Flying Things” by M.L. Clark, narrated by Kate Baker ** There is a truce among the intelligent species in this colonized area, but suddenly an egg is destroyed, the last egg of a species, and this genocide must be investigated.
4. “Operation Spring Dawn” by Mo Xiong, translated by Rebecca Kuang, narrated by Kate Baker ** Our future ice age is winding down, and now it is time to investigate all of the long-term experiments designed to make the world habitable again before reviving the remnants of humanity.
5. “How Alike Are We” by Bo-Young Kim, translated by Jihyun Park and Gord Sellar, narrated by Kate Baker *** A ship AI wakes up in a synthetic human body with no memory of why this is happening, even though the angry crew insists this was on their own insistence.
6. “Gaze of Robot, Gaze of Bird” by Eric Schwitzgebel, narrated by Kate Baker * The most peculiar AI behavior, which might appear to be a glitch from a casual observer, may have a profound underlying design.
7. “The Face of God” by Bo Balder, narrated by Kate Baker * When the god, a giant humanoid figure, crash-lands and is discovered to have supernatural healing powers, in its parts, the surrounding people make use of this new resource as best they can.
8. “Confessions of a Con Girl” by Nick Wolven, narrated by Kate Baker When social media for every person are publicly displayed and any person can affect another’s reputation with an up or down vote, what would the world look like?
Lightspeed Magazine is the award-nominated science fiction magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, and their podcast is produced by the excellent Skyboat Media. They publish about half of the stories they publish in text. They published about 48 stories in the podcast.
The stories eligible for the upcoming award season are marked with an asterisk (*), with novelettes eligible for the season marked with a double asterisk (**).
The List
1. “Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire, narrated by Justine Eyre Great tech invention that revolves around a translation program that seamlessly translates a person’s language including body language into your native language so that you can’t even tell that they are not doing it (including, i.e., sign language)
2. “Her Appetite, His Heart” by Dominica Phetteplace, narrated by Paul Boehmer* A man goes on a quest to find the woman he broke up with a year ago after having a revelation. But she is not as easy to find as he would hope.
3. “A Conch Shell’s Notes” by Shweta Adhyam, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki* Everyone knows that everyone has a voice inside their head that lays out the great options of your life, but we never know what the voice is saying to other people.
4. “The Death of Fire Station 10” by Ray Nayler, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki* Unlike most other buildings in the era of this story, Fire Station 10 was not born smart, it was only upgraded that way later. She has a special place in all of our hearts.
5. “Between the Dark and the Dark” by Deji Bryce Olukotun, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki** We monitor our colonies out there for signs of degradation, including signs of cannibalistic tendencies, so that we can end a colony before it becomes a danger to them. Is it always as obvious a choice as it seems?
Pseudopod is the weekly horror podcast edited by Shawn Garrett and Alex Hofelich.
Pseudopod publishes episodes weekly, with occasional Flash on the Borderlands episodes that collect 3 similar-themed flash stories for a single episode, for a total of 60 stories published in 2019, by my count.
Stories that are eligible for this year’s Hugo and Nebula Awards are marked with an asterisk (*), all of which would be credited to Pseudopod as the original publisher.
2. “Black Matter” by Vivian Shaw, narrated by Robert Eccles* A necromancer who works for the NTSB and is responsible for determining the cause of transportation disasters by talking to the dead!
3. “House Party Blues” by Suzanne Palmer, narrated by Halloween Bloodfrost Monster point of view as something that can possess and eat human beings, excellent POV work.
4. “Last Week I Was Esther” by Deborah L. Davitt, narrated by John Bell* Another great monster POV tale, a monster who wears its victims personas, but also carries them as voices inside its head forevermore.
5. “The Happiest Place” by Kevin Wabaunsee, narrated by John Bell* Theme park after the end of the world!
Cast of Wonders is the YA branch of the Escape Artists podcasts, edited by Marguerite Kenner and Katherine Inskip, covering all speculative genres and aiming to appeal to YA audiences. Marguerite Kenner announced at the end of the last episode of the year that that was the last episode she was editing before stepping down. She will be missed!
This year’s offerings included their usual staff pick re-airing of stories from last year (which are not considered for the list since they were already considered for a previous list), and stories for their Banned Books Week theme, for a total of about 43 stories considered for the list.
Short Stories that are Hugo and Nebula eligible for the year are marked with an asterisk (*).
The List
1. “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” (Part 1 and Part 2) by Tina Connolly, narrated by Alethea Kontis This is one of my favorite stories in years. The layers! Based around confections that draw you back into immersive flashbacks that evoke a particular feeling based on the ingredients of the confection.
2. “Blame it on the Bees” by Rachel Menard, narrated by Tina Connolly* A teen grieving over her dead friend discovers that her friend’s soul has become housed in a flower.
3. “Common Grounds and Various Teas” by Sherin Nicole, narrated by Jesenia Pineda* A family that can harness the power of stories, and finding your own way in a family tradition.
4. “A Singular Event in the Fourth Dimension” by Andrea M. Pawley, narrated by Dani Daly Tale from an android child’s point of view, about how she fits in with her family, and how roles change as the family changes.
The Drabblecast is a weekly (theoretically) podcast of strange stories for strange listeners (such as yourself). It is edited, published, and hosted by Norm Sherman. In 2016-2017 it gradually fell into hiatus for a couple years until a big relaunch plan with a Kickstarter to help keep it going. It’s very exciting that the podcast is going again and I hope it goes well. This list covers the years of 2016-2019, which includes stories both before and after the hiatus.
I don’t consider my own stories for these lists, but I did want to mention that two of my own stories have been published in Drabblecast in that time: “I Will Remain” (narrated by Nick Camm) and “We Do Not Speak of the Not Speaking” (narrated by Norm Sherman).
I do consider stories that I previously published on Diabolical Plots, but add an extra story to the list so that it doesn’t bump one off the list.
Stories eligible for Hugo and Nebula awards for this year are marked with an asterisk (*).
The List
1. “The Best Scarlet Ceremony Ever!” by Shaenon K. Garrity* An original story commissioned for Lovecraft month, advertised as Sweet Valley High meets Lovecraft.
2. “Giraffe Cyborg Cleans House!” by Matthew Sanborn Smithread One of the most ungainly household cyborgs really just wants to help however it can, but life isn’t easy for a household giraffe cyborg.
3. “Necessary Cuts” by Bryan Miller* Another original story for Lovecraft Month, this one about copyediting a Lovecraft style book of madness.
4. “Beauty Tips for the Apocalypse” by Karen Heuler* An original story for Women and Aliens Month, which is exactly what it sounds like.
5. “Night of the Living POTUS” by Adam-Troy Castro Whenever a new President is sworn in, on the first night of his Presidency he has to face off against the resurrected vicious versions of every POTUS that preceded them.
6. “The Translator” by Eboni J. Dunbar* Being a translator for aliens is much more than simply learning a language.
