The second book/season of Serial Box’s Ninth Step Station has drawn to a close, even if that close is the literary equivalent of shoving the reader out a plane and then just sort of leaving them to fall endlessly (or at least until season 3 comes out). Emma and Miyako have been through a lot this season, and are still keeping some huge secrets from each other. Worse, the line between enemy and ally has become blurred as invader and criminal, military and civilian have all been muddled and obfuscated. The detectives are left having to rely on their best judgment, with only the information they’ve managed to gather on their to help guide them. In such a situation, they might find that even their own actions seem out of control. As partners, they’re supposed to be able to rely on each other, but with the city falling to pieces around them, do they have even that any longer? To the reviews!
So now that the second season is well under way, what surprises lurk in the latest two episodes/chapters of Serial Box’s Ninth Step Station? Well, there’s certainly murder aplenty, with the political situation in the city deteriorating as anti-Chinese sentiment clashes with Chinese resource superiority and propaganda. It’s driving a wedge into the heart of the city, setting neighbor against neighbor, and maybe even partner against partner. And after an extremely intense third episode, the fourth slows things down again with a trip to the countryside and a remote resort where Emma and Miyako have to wait out a storm...with a killer. I love this series for the mashup of mystery and science fiction, political thriller and buddy drama. To the reviews!
Ninth Step Station is back! I was incredibly excited about the announcement and especially after some of the other series I’ve really liked seem in limbo at the moment, it’s an added relief to be able to visit once more with Miyako and Emma as they deal with the realities of a Tokyo literally cut in half by Chinese and American occupying forces. The previous season left things in a rather tense way, with a series of assassinations culminating in some open fighting in the city. That’s died back, albeit with some concessions from the Japanese/American side, and as the new season gets under way it’s far from business as usual, except that there is a murder, or really a multiple murder, to solve. To the reviews!
I reach the midway point in my reading of the first season of Serial Box’s Machina and people, if you’re not reading this... Things have been building nicely, but here’s where shit hits the fan. Loyalty is tested and maybe shattered. The competition heats up in more ways than once. And the game changes in some fundamental ways, so that I don’t even know where the hell one of the teams goes from here. It’s beautiful, devastating work, and I’ll just get to the reviews because ahhhhhhh!
The drama continues and DevLok and Watchover continue their competition to see who will win the bid to help get humanity established on Mars. It’s Machina time! And there haven’t been any huge snags yet. That’s before scores got involved, though. And there’s almost no way better to make humans freak out than to grade them and assign them a number, tying that number to something they want, something they might need. It’s a tense web of people and interests that can’t really exist in harmony, at least as they are now. Someone’s going to get hurt. Someones, most likely. But who, when, how, and why? Let’s get to the reviews
Season one of Serial Box’s thrilling Ninth Step Station comes to a close with its first two-part episode, bringing together basically all of the unresolved elements from the series so far and setting the characters on a collision course with disaster and war. The episodes today stick with the murder mystery premise, but the solutions to these whodunnits aren’t really...straightforward. Instead, they are labyrinths that, if Emma and Miyako aren’t careful, they might get lost in. There’s a lot up in the air as the episodes progress, and the stakes skyrocket when assassinations, military aggression, and systemic corruption make honest police work impossible. And it’s a gripping payoff for readers of the season so far, though also something of a cliffhanger and a reason to very much hope there is a season 2.
I’m looking at another pair of episodes from Serial Box’s Ninth Step Station. The whole look and feel of Serial Box mirrors television, with projects coming out in seasons and taking on tropes and genres that feel TV-ish, but in a way that television might not be able to really pull off. Which is something of a shame because I would watch the hell out of this show. Still, coming in fiction form is just as good, and I love how each episode comes alive a little different for each of the serial’s authors. Today marks the halfway point in the first season, and so it’s rather apt that the focus (while still featuring individual mysteries) grows a bit broader to look at the setting and just where Emma and Miyako might be headed now that they’ve come to a better place as partners. They’re beginning to trust each other at lost last. Which means it’s time to throw a wrench (or a few Chinese detectives) into the works at see how it plays out. To the reviews!
So I’ve never really read a serial story before, but when I was approached by Serial Box to look at Ninth Step Station, a collaborative serial novel by Malka Older, Fran Wilde, Curtis C. Chen, and J Koyanagi, I just couldn’t resist. The premise mixes near-future politics with procedural driven police mysteries. Add a touch of cyberpunk, a dash of international tensions, and a pair of women interesting in both peace and getting at the truth, and it’s a recipe for a wonderful new project that will be launching in 2019. Because of the nature of the project, these early reviews are going to be out before the series is released (January 9), but as the series kicks off I'll slowly fall behind the schedule of the episodes. BE AWARE THERE ARE LIGHT SPOILERS IN THE REVIEW SECTIONS discussing some elements of the series. If you don't want any spoilers, please only read the No Spoilers sections and the Keywords. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!
It's another fairly full month from Fireside Fiction, with about 16,000 words of fiction that moves from fantasy to science fiction with a fluid grace. These are stories that largely explore trauma and the looming threat of violence. There is an added focus on children here and the ways that their worlds are arrayed against them and the various ways they seek to protect themselves, not always successfully. The stories show characters moving around great and personal dangers and being unsure how to proceed, being made to make the decision of what to do when it's a very difficult decision to make. Some of the pieces are fun and some are decidedly dark and all of them are worth sitting down with so let's just get to the reviews!
October at Tor has actually seemed a bit of a reprieve from super-long stories, which is rather nice given the story-load for this month. That doesn't mean that they don't bring the quality, as these four stories are all rather dense reads, building some amazing settings and worlds that seem to flit and bend and dance. The settings are alive, characters in their own rights, and it is quite the treat to discover each one. From the alien world of the Cyclopes to the onion-like layers of interlocking dimensions, the stories bring some startling ideas, and do not disappoint in executing them. To the reviews!
