Month: June 2020

An Adventure in Space and Time

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The TARDIS

I have been a fan of Doctor Who for many years, dating back to when I was buying classic stories on VHS. I’ve seen every episode of the new series, too, and have enjoyed many of them. But my fandom goes beyond just the TV series. I have read numerous books and comics, and I have a number of the audio dramas that Big Finish produces. It’s the latter that I wish to discuss.

These audios are very much like the classic TV series, starring many actors in stories structured similarly to the old show. I purchased a small number of these audio plays over the years, taking advantage of sales that Big Finish would hold from time to time. But after moving to North Carolina, I forgot I had most of them, primarily because my day job requires a healthy amount of mental energy and concentration and I couldn’t listen to them at work.

The coronavirus quarantine has given me a lot of extra time, and as a result I’ve gone back to listen to the ones I purchased five years ago. I had only listened to them once, and in most cases couldn’t remember anything about them. I’m delighted to say that they are very, very good. Top-notch acting, writing, and producing makes for stories as good as anything seen on TV. I’ve enjoyed what I own so much that I purchased a few more, and I’m excited to dive into them soon. And with a library of titles that numbers in the hundreds, I am certain to find many more I could enjoy.

And now that I have a decent number of writing credits under my belt, it could be time soon to revisit my dream of writing one of these scripts myself.

Murder, She Wrote

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Agatha Christie

My grandmother was a voracious reader, owning literal closets full of paperback murder mysteries and thrillers (the apple, it seems, falls quite close to the tree). Her favorite writer, by far, was Agatha Christie. She had dozens of her novels. All of them? Quite possibly. I read a handful of them when I was a teenager. They were entertaining enough, but they were always, well, grandmother books, and my attentions often turned to the titles more geared towards teenage boys.

Several decades after having read my last Christie novel, I decided last month to start reading her books again. I’ve been through the first few Miss Marples, the first few Poirots, and the entire Tommy and Tuppence series – eleven books in all. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library’s digital catalog has been a Godsend during this quarantine.

Reading them with older eyes has been enlightening. Yes, they are of course some of the most expertly plotted and crafted crime novels of all time, but there is also a real wit to them. I truly didn’t expect them to be as funny as they are. And as she wrote over the span of five-plus decades, you can slowly see England change and develop over the half of the twentieth century they covered. A big deal is never made, of course, because to Christie they were always contemporary, but it’s there.

Christie wrote just shy of eighty books. It’s early June and I’ve read eleven of them. I think I’m going to try to get through all of them by the end of the year. At my reading speed, it’s definitely doable.

I bet my grandmother could have done it.

Seat 9B review

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The Little Big Crimes blog gave “Seat 9B” a great review. You can check out their review here and get your own copy of the latest issues of Mystery Weekly Magazine, where “Seat 9B” appears, here.

When the right decision is the hard one

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I had two stories scheduled to be published this month from the same publisher. I really liked them both and was excited for the rest of the world to read them. Two days ago, the publisher said shockingly racist things on the Internet. The books were initially going to be pulled from publication, then yesterday it was announced they would be held for six months. Last night I requested the stories be pulled from publication.

It would have been easy to say that what the publisher said wasn’t my fault, and neither I nor the other writers should be punished for something we had no control over. I could have left my stories there for quiet publication, accepting the credits but not promoting them. But I couldn’t be someone who says Black Lives Matter in one breath and then give my approval of racism through my silence in the next. Losing two story credits pales in comparison to the implicit and explicit pain that racism has caused and will continue to cause people of color across America.

Some say that people should be forgiven and allowed to learn from their mistakes. I completely agree. At the same time, I’m not the one whose race was denigrated. It’s not up to me to decide in this case if penitence is sincere and forgiveness has been earned. I genuinely hope this person does regret their actions and continues to better themselves and relationships between themselves and non-white people, but it’s not my place to decide if they have.

I don’t intend for this to be a moment of self-righteousness or to put a spotlight on my wokeness. All it is, is an explanation about a decision I made this week and why stories I have championed no longer have homes. I hope they do soon. But if they do not, I still know this was the only decision I could make.

Be well.