Jack's Back! A Look at Jack Reacher on Page and Screen

 Yesterday was a happy day for fans of the Amazon Prime show, Reacher. The star of the show, Alan Ritchson, posted on twitter that season two of the hit show would adapt Bad Luck and Trouble. This is - in my opinion - the best book in the series.

“O'Donnell put his hand in his pocket and came out with his brass knuckles. Ceramic knuckles, technically.”

That’s right, season 2 of #ReacherOnPrime will be based on Bad Luck and Trouble (Jack Reacher, #11), written by the legendary Lee Child.

Filming will commence this fall. pic.twitter.com/bOua7LSsLY

— Alan Ritchson (@alanritchson) May 18, 2022

For those unacquainted with the glories of the Jack Reacher series, here is a brief recap. Written by British author Lee Child, they follow retired MP Jack Reacher as he wanders across the country. He has no fixed address, preferring to see the country on his own terms. He winds up helping people out of trouble and cracking a few heads along the way. 

The Amazon series is eminently bingeable and perfectly captures the spirit of the books. I watched the whole series in a weekend. 

To celebrate this season two announcement, I invited my friend and fellow Reacher-phile , Karissa Laurel to come and chat about Jack Reacher on the page and on the screen.  

VICTOR: I've been a fan of the Reacher books for a long time, which is a little strange since this is not the kind of book I usually read. But after I read one, I was hooked and proceeded to read the other 20. What is it about the character that drew you in?

KARISSA: I only got into the Jack Reacher books this past year. I decided to pick up the first book when the new streaming series was announced on Amazon Prime. I had seen the original Jack Reacher movie that Tom Cruise was in and liked it well enough. But when they announced that Alan Ritchson would be filling the role of Jack Reacher, I needed to know why someone with such a completely opposite physical appearance from Tom Cruise was chosen for the role. I wanted to go to the source material and find out what the heck was going on. I read "The Killing Floor" and was instantly hooked.

I'm a huge fan of The Punisher and there are *a lot* of similarities between Reacher and Frank Castle. I like the anti-hero personality. They both have a strong sense of justice, they both approach getting that justice by operating outside the bounds of the law, but they have extremely strict moral codes that keep it all in check. But Reacher steps it up a notch by also being extremely romantic. Honestly, a lot of Jack Reacher novels include a lot of romance novel tropes and I'm a huge fan of romance novels.

VICTOR: Hmm, I never really thought of Jack as a romantic lead. He tends to hook up with women in the towns he roams through, but I always looked at that through the prism of action movie tropes. Can you elaborate on that? Is the brooding loner a romantic ideal for you?

KARISSA: There are two rules in romance novels that are unbreakable. One is that the development of the romance has to be the main plot and the other is that the story has to end "Happily Ever After" or at least "Happy for now". Reacher of course breaks those rules, so his novels can't be completely "romance" by definition, but they have so many of the tropes that they can definitely be considered romantic. Take the Killing Floor for example. Lee Child put a lot of energy into developing the romantic chemistry between Reacher and Roscoe. He didn't skip over the love scenes either. There's this ongoing joke in "Romancelandia" (what romance fandom is generally called) that romantic heroes are always huge and tall. The brooding loner part is certainly part of Reacher's appeal, but it don't hurt that he's 6'5", 250 pounds and has a "mesomorphic body type" (that's a direct quote from "Never Go Back") which is short hand for saying his muscular physique is perfectly proportioned. It don't get more romance cover model than that! Plus he has a really great respect and appreciation for women in general. He's a hard character for women to resist.

VICTOR: Not only that, he embodies the idea of the "man's man." Big, strong, smart, ready with a quip. So literally something for everyone!

KARISSA: He's really a super hero in a lot of ways

VICTOR: He's really kind of a throwback. Back in the '80's and '90's, the ideal action hero was Stallone or Schwarzenegger, big muscly dudes. And, ironically, Alan Ritchson played a superhero, when he was briefly Aquaman on the Smallville show.

KARISSA: I know! I even remember him from those days...vaguely.

VICTOR: Let's talk about casting. We've both seen the Tom Cruise version of Reacher. I saw both of those movies - the first one was fun, the second...wasn't.

KARISSA: Agree!

VICTOR: And I think we'd both agree that Ritchson is a FAR superior choice in the role

KARISSA: Indeed

VICTOR: Not just from a physical standpoint, either.

KARISSA: Right! I've talked to some Reacher fans who are defensive of Cruise's portrayal and they say he still did Reacher's personality right, but... I disagree. For a few reasons.

VICTOR: Lee Child has a very direct and sparse prose style. The only character description Reacher usually gets is "big." Like he is described as a refrigerator, hands the size of hams, etc.

Pictured: NOT a ham-handed refrigerator.

KARISSA: But the thing is that "Bigness" of Reacher colors absolutely everything about his psyche too. It affects the way he approaches the world and the way the world approaches him. And that's something that someone who looks like Tom Cruise can never portray.

VICTOR: That's a very good point. I actually didn't mind Cruise in the movies. I had my doubts about him, but I thought he pulled off Reacher's attitude pretty well. But you are right. Jack moves through life expecting people to react to him a certain way and using that to his advantage.

KARISSA: An Alan Ritchson version of Reacher can demonstrate how someone can intimidate simply by walking into a room and scowling. Who want's to mess with a mountain of muscle like that?

But Tom Cruise walks in and scowls and...well...people might be willing to accept that challenge. They'd be willing to fight him.

VICTOR: It was very reminiscent of Tom Cruise as Lestat. Like, the casting choice turned out better than I expected, but it would never have been my first pick.

KARISSA: I never read Interview with a Vampire but I do know what people thought of his casting.

VICTOR: I guess Lee Child and Anne Rice should start a support group. Lestat in the books feels like a version of Sting or David Bowie. And Tom Cruise... is not that.

KARISSA: LOL!!! In some ways, Cruise's Reacher is an extension of his Ethan Hunt character from Mission Impossible

VICTOR: Yes, very much agree. But! That is an entirely different character. That is someone who is literally trying to stay hidden, which is absolutely not Reacher.

KARISSA: I agree with that, but that kind of points back and the physicality discrepancy in his casting.

VICTOR: I did not know a lot about Alan Ritchson going in, but five minutes into episode one and I was won over completely.

KARISSA: Reacher wants to walk into a room and have people take note of his "bigness" and use that as a basis in deciding not to mess with him. Reacher also very much depends on people to look at him and think of him as big and dumb and underestimate his intellect, and Reacher is extremely smart and intuitive.

VICTOR: He just exudes charm and affability. It's almost impossible to dislike him in this role.

Much better...

KARISSA: I picked that up about Ritchson in the trailers before the show even came out. I was like: this is SO different from the Tom Cruise Reacher, I need to know who this character really is, and I think Alan nailed it. I mean... rarely does a character get cast so exceptionally well. I am delighted with his performance.

VICTOR: Yes, I think the series is overall very well cast. I was not familiar with most of the actors, but I was very impressed with them, particularly Willa Fitzgerald as Roscoe and Maria Sten as Neagley

KARISSA: So, that is actually a great segue into something else I want to make sure to point out about Reacher. They did absolutely get Roscoe and Neagley right in this series. Spot on. What's important for me about the series is that people might not expect it but Reacher has a wide feminist streak. Yeah, he loves to romance a woman, but he sincerely enjoys working with them professionally, too.

VICTOR: One of the reasons I'm so glad Bad Luck and Trouble is the basis for next year is that it brings back Neagley and the other special investigators. And you see in the books that he absolutely respects Neagley. She is the first one he turns to when he needs help.

KARISSA: And those women are usually police, military, or some other tough girl type, and they totally captured that in the casting and performances in season one. I LOVE Neagley. I'd love her to get her own spin off series. He is so good with Neagley. She's actually a bit prickly and has had some past trauma. He utterly respects her boundaries.

VICTOR: Absolutely. She's only in a few of the books, and I would love to see her in a spin off following her as a security consultant.

KARISSA: In every book she's been in, I thought she stole the show.

VICTOR: I also appreciate that her past isn't explained. Reacher accepts that it's her business and if she wants to share it she will. He's not one to pry.

KARISSA: Yup! Same thoughts exactly. He never pushes. He never pries. He intuits that she has boundaries and he never oversteps. His respect for her is one of the things that immediately drew me in about him as a character. That differentiates him from so many of those muscly macho men characters.

VICTOR; Another interesting aspect of the character is his "homelessness." He has no home base, rather he wanders the country and dispenses justice. (On a podcast, Kevin Smith compared it to the old Incredible Hulk TV show - where Bruce Banner would roam the country and the Hulk would crack some heads.) It's interesting because currently there are a ton of #VanLife videos on YouTube, with people converting their vans into little mobile homes. Jack Reacher, trend setter!

KARISSA: But Jack would never even have a van!

VICTOR: No, he has the Greyhound schedules memorized.

KARISSA: He utterly eschews physical possessions. That's another (what seems like a tiny) detail that the Tom Cruise movie got wrong. The movie shows Reacher showing up with a bag. Nope. It is at the core philosophy of Reacher's character that he carries NO possessions other than his wallet and maybe a folding tooth brush. He makes a big deal in almost every book about having to find some place to buy an outfit--usually a thrift store or military surplus. He'll sometimes wash his clothes out in a sink and "iron" them by putting them under his mattress. But he'll make one pair of pants last the whole book. Then he throws them away before leaving town. He doesn't do luggage.

VICTOR: Yes, that made me so happy when counted out Jack's possessions when he got arrested in episode one and they pulled out the tooth brush.

KARISSA: I thought the same thing. The tooth brush!!!

VICTOR: I think I've taken up your entire lunch hour. Is there anything else Reacher-related you'd like to discuss?

KARISSA: I guess my only real negative critique of the show was it's tendency to venture into sentimentality. Jack has a soft heart under all those layers of muscle and brooding, hard exterior. But I don't think I'd be wrong to say he is never sentimental. He's loyal, he's caring, but he's not the one-tear-rolling-down-his-cheek type. EVER. In fact, in the first book, he almost seems a bit cold about his brother's death. It's only over the course of the series that you start to see that Jack internalizes his grief.

VICTOR: Yes, they work a lot of his backstory into the series. That's not in Killing Floor, but it comes out in later volumes and some of the short stories. Especially his relationship with his mother.

KARISSA: Yup. There's a book later in the series (another in which Neagley plays an awesome and pivotal role) in which Reacher comes to Washington and meets one of his brother's former lovers. That book did a lot to expose Reacher's complicated relationship with his brother. I know the show can't expect folks to stay in for multiple seasons to eventually see that side of Reacher, but that single tear moment was just a little too much.

But other than that, I can't really complain too much. That was one of the best book-to-screen adaptations I've seen in a while and I am SO STOKED for Season 2.

VICTOR: Yes, BRING ON THE 110th REUNION!

KARISSA: You and I talked earlier about how badly we wanted this to be the book they did next because we want to see Reacher's team. I'm so excited the producers read our minds.

VICTOR: Absolutely. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk about Reacher today.

KARISSA: Thanks for inviting me. Kind of like how you can talk about Batman all day, I can do that for Jack Reacher. So glad for a chance to word vomit about one of my most favorite action heroes.

VICTOR: Batman-Reacher team up issue!

KARISSA: I would die. It would be like Batman v Superman but worse. Talk about conflicting moral philosophies! But that's another discussion for another day. They wouldn't bond over both their mothers being named Martha. It would be pandemonium. Dogs and cats living together!

You don't have to put that in.

VICTOR: Oh, that's absolutely going in.

My thanks to Karissa for joining me today! You can find out more about her books at karissalaurel.com. 

Victor Catano lives in New York City with his wonderful wife, Kim, and his adorable pughuaua, Danerys. When not writing, he works in live theater as a stage manager, production manager, and chaos coordinator. His hobbies include coffee, Broadway musicals, and complaining about the NY Mets and Philadelphia Eagles. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @vgcatano and find his books on Amazon

The Female Power Fantasy

www.karissalaurel.com

Have you seen Encanto yet? If not, go see it. I'll wait. 

No, just kidding. 

Do go see it, if you haven't, but I'm not going to wait for you. This post will be here when you get back.

This post isn't really about Encanto, but it's inspired, in part, by the popularity of one of the characters: Luisa Madrigal. Without giving too much away, Luisa (who is not the main character, mind you) is a loveable, big, brawny, and beautiful girl who has amazing, super-human strength.

I recently learned that the artists who created her had to fight to draw Luisa with the muscular frame rather than the petite princess build Disney so-often prefers for its female characters. Here's the (very brief) article about the fight to draw a brawny Luisa:  https://www.piratesandprincesses.net/luisa-madrigal-has-become-incredibly-popular-with-many-encanto-fans/

Luisa Madrigal from Disney's Encanto

I also learned that apparently Luisa is so popular with girls that Disney is rushing to make more Luisa merchandise, something they totally hadn't anticipated. Girls love the big brawny female character? What gives?

Luisa's popularity does not surprise me AT ALL. The first thing I thought of when I read that article, and this has been on my mind a lot lately, is a pivotal moment from Season 2 of Jessica Jones, when Jessica's best friend, Trish Walker, breaks off her engagement to her fiancé. Trish is an ambitious radio journalist who dreams of a bigger career. Her fiancé has the kind of successful job she envies--he's like Anderson Cooper, perhaps--and she wants what he's got. In that scene she says, “I don’t want to be with Griffin—I want to be him. I want to do what he does. And that’s not love, and it’s not fair to either one of us.”

To that I say, girl... I feel you!

Trish Walker (From Marvel/Netflix's Jessica Jones) realizing she doesn't want to be Griffin's wife.

I've been thinking a lot about why I'm so drawn, especially lately, to characters like Jack Reacher and even the Punisher. Inspired by the new series (Reacher) on Amazon Prime, I have been gobbling Jack Reacher books as fast as I can get my hands on them. My current manuscript work-in-progress is kind of a gender-flipped version of The Punisher. When I was younger I would have thought my attraction was because I had romantic inclinations toward Jack Reacher and Frank Castle. Now I know that's not really the case. I realize that it's more like...envy. I don't want to be with them, I want to BE them. I don't mean literally so much as figuratively. Women want equity--the possibility and options of being able to achieve the same things as those guys. Sometimes it's careers. Sometimes it's social power. Sometimes it's muscles and physical strength. Sometimes it's a bit of all those things combined.

I do not fantasize about violence (to be clear!) but I do think a lot about being that strong and that invincible. And I don't think media does enough to acknowledge women have those tough-guy fantasies too, so it makes sense that Luisa is so popular. She's the embodiment of an ideal so few of us ever get to see!

This is not to say there has been a dearth of strong women in media, but that's not my point. I was talking about this with fellow ATB contributor, Mary Fan, and she brought up Gal Gadot's portrayal of Wonder Woman, and action stars like Scarlet Johansson (Black Widow). In the same vein I think of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa; Andy in The Old Guard; and Lorraine in Atomic Blond. I think of Kate Beckinsale as Selene in Underworld. These women are tiny. Or even if they're tall like Gadot and Theron, they're slim. Like, runway supermodel slim. 

Often magic, rather than muscle, accounts for their superior strength. I love many of these actresses and the characters they portray, but I'm not critiquing their plentiful existence so much as I'm critiquing the lack of representation of other types of physical shapes in media and culture. Comparatively speaking, male characters who are strong because of magic or because they are an action hero (Thor, Captain America, Geralt of Rivia, Superman, Reacher) get to have the accompanying brawn and muscle. Spiderman/Peter Parker is one of the few exceptions I can think of off the top of my head. 

On that topic, Mary Fan says:

You know what’s interesting — early superhero looks were based on circus strongmen… hence Superman’s red briefs. But there were also strongwomen in those same circuses and they didn’t get superhero-ized.

Even the Terminator, who was all robot inside, got to have big muscles to power his frame. Compare him to a long list of sexy fem-bots who have superior strength but not much muscle and are clearly expected make people think of sex. It's all about the male gaze.

Number Six a Cylon (artificially-intelligent race of machines) from Battlestar Galactica

Luisa Madrigal was not drawn for the male gaze. Instead, she's the rare embodiment of how femme strength can look when freed from sexist constraints. It broke my heart when Gina Carano (a former professional MMA fighter) turned out to be an absolute buffoon and Disney/Star Wars parted ways with her because I adored her portrayal of Cara Dune. In every heist-type group, there's always one character who plays the muscle, the heavy, the bruiser. It's usually a man, and often one who is short on brains. But in The Mandalorian, Cara Dune was not only big, muscly, strong, and fierce, but she was clever too. And beautiful! When she landed a punch, and the bad guy fell, you believed it! You believed she was strong enough to break jaws and ribs and noses. Women are so rarely portrayed that way, and I realized I had been starving to see it!

Cara Dune played by Gina Carano on Disney's The Mandalorian

When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with Adora, She-Ra, the Princess of Power. I had her action figures, all of her friends, and her flying swan, Enchanta. It didn't bother me that she looked like Barbie. ALL female dolls and action figures looked like Barbie and that seemed normal to me. Again, magic explained her strength. Never mind how her cousin, Adam (He-Man), was super strong and had the muscles to go with it. That was just the norm in the early eighties, I suppose, and I wasn't self-aware enough back then to question it. Fast forward to the Twenty-Teens and, like so many other older properties, She-Ra announced she was getting a reboot AND a facelift. She was redrawn to look how a girl who fights and swings swords might look. And naturally a lot of dudes lost their minds about it.

I, an elementary-school aged girl, was the original target market for She-Ra, and I didn't care if she had lipstick and perky boobs or not. So, why was she ever drawn that way in the first place? Sell a Barbie to a little girl to get her to start thinking that's how she had to look when she grew up. Who does that benefit? Surely not the little girl. The answer to that one starts with a "P" and rhymes with hatriarchy. The new She-Ra might still not be as big and muscly as someone like Cara Dune, but when she wields a sword, now, it's believable. There's more than just magic there to explain her physicality.

 I'm not ranting against looking femme or to argue that one cannot be both femme and strong and/or muscular. I'm actually arguing the opposite and highlighting the evolving shapes of women and femininity and spotlighting the fact that characters like Luisa are hopefully signs that the spectrum of gender representation in media is broadening to allow more variety and positivity about that variety.

2018 vs 1985

Women often live with a certain level of fear--we've somewhat come to accept that this is the way the world is. We often feel like prey, and why not? In real life, we're more likely to be the targets of violence rather than the purveyors of it. On top of that, over and over, we've been portrayed as victims in media and in history (The complicated and nuanced truth of women's roles in history is another entire blog post of it's own, but I'll save my time and simply refer you to the mandatory-reading essay by Kameron Hurley, "We Have Always Fought". I feel like an alternate title to that essay could be, "We Have Always Been Strong") . Who is surprised when our fantasies are to be stronger, more able to hold our own in a world historically dominated by the whims of men?

This tough-guy fascination is something that I'm experiencing more and more as I age. Maybe I'm feeling my vulnerability (achy joints, lower endurance, biological systems going wonky). Like I said, I'd love to be less vulnerable and more physically capable. When I was younger, I probably felt stronger and more invincible. Perhaps it's also that I hadn't lived in the world long enough to be weary of sexism, or I was better at ignoring it. Now, I think the appeal of the tough-guy aesthetic has something to do with me being middle aged and having lost my patience and tolerance for the B.S. that comes with being being a woman. 

What kind of B.S.? I'm talking about stuff like this:

I'm not including identifying information on these tweets because I don't want to bring more clicks or views to this jerk.

"That...pressure song she sings & [sic] is just stuff a guy would sing, too," he says. It's like he almost gets the whole point of the song, and Luisa's character, but then misses it by a mile. Instead of considering that women, on an even playing field, could have both equitable success and equitable problems to men, he dismisses Luisa femininity altogether and accuses her of "just being a dude in a dress."  I find it highly unlikely that men in his fundamental and conservative social circle would sing a song like "Surface Pressure." In his world men can't be both physically strong and emotionally vulnerable. It's not allowed. But take away his argument of "God's plan" for what women and men are supposed to be, and all that's left is a bunch of artificial, man-made goop. By the way, dude, Proverbs 31:17 says, "She girds herself with strength, And strengthens her arms." You know how she strengthens her arms? She plants a whole damned vineyard! No matter how much he rails against it, gender evolution will eventually leave him behind. It already has.

William Moulton Marston, a Harvard educated, feminist psychologist and the creator of Wonder Woman predicted that a matriarchy was inevitable and said, "The next 100 years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy—a nation of amazons in the psychological rather than the physical sense.” I'm hopeful that Marston is right and that masculinity, in the toxic patriarchal sense, is on the decline. This sentiment isn't about wanting men to disappear or women wanting to take the place of men in the world, but about the world becoming a place where equality for the full spectrum of gender expression is more fully realized and respected.

So bring on the Luisas and the Cara Dunes and the Xenas. Give us some Jaqueline Reachers and Francine Castles. We would love them. We'd embrace them. We'd buy their merchandise!

Working for Redemption

 

www.karissalaurel.com

 My kiddo, who is now 19 y.o. and isn't that much of a kiddo anymore, has loved Spiderman above all other superheroes for as long as I can remember. Wherever we went, he would climb things--shelves, walls, benches, landscaping features at shopping centers--with his arm extended, middle fingers curled for ideal web extrusion. For a long time he believed the only reason he couldn't shoot webs or wall-crawl was because he simply wasn't old enough yet. Peter Parker was a teenager, so to my young son, his Spidey abilities had something to do with puberty, perhaps. 

The point of all this is to say that when the newest Spiderman movie, Spiderman: No Way Home, came out, it was imperative for us to go see it. We've seen all the Spiderman movies together. Also, if I went with him, it meant I would pay for the tickets and popcorn, so my kiddo was willing to wait for me to organize our movie date. But I'd been reluctant, with COVID numbers on a steep increase, to go sit in a theater with a bunch of strangers for two hours. I'm vaccinated and boosted, and so is he, and I don't mind wearing a mask, but I don't *enjoy* it. Mostly we've been doing early access streaming in our own home, but I knew Spiderman would be the movie for which I would have to make an exception.

Fortunately, I had discovered a few years ago that our part of the state has a rare, vintage drive-in movie theater still in operation. When I say "our part of the state", though, I don't mean in our neighborhood. The drive-in is still an hour away--a two-hour round trip to sit in our pick-up truck huddled together on a frigid January night to watch Tom Holland bound across the screen in blue and red spandex. Was it worth it? Actually, it was. We had a really great time not only watching the movie but having a new/vintage experience.

I worked hard to avoid spoilers before we saw the movie. If you're working hard to avoid spoilers, I recommend not reading any farther because this post is going to talk about pivotal plot issues in detail. Also spoilers for the latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett.

.

.

.

You've Been Warned!

.

Spoilers in 3...

2...

1...

Rather than a in depth review of No Way Home, I actually wanted to use this post to talk about the theme/plot element that struck me the hardest. Based on the title, you've probably guessed that has to do with redemption. Not only for Peter, but even more for the villains. This movie was chock-full of bad-guys, ones we had seen and thought we knew very well from all the previous Spiderman movies. Yes it was a nostalgic, fan-service filled blast to see Molina's Doc Ock again. Ifan's Lizard. Defoe's Green Goblin. Fox's Electro. And Haden Church's Sandman. But to see Peter's devotion to giving them a second chance...well that was something novel.

Or well, maybe not so new. Over the years, I've come to learn as a writer and as a story consumer that there are often vast differences in the way Eastern and Western storytellers approach conflict. I found a nice summary of the difference here on  the Pulse of Asia website in a post titled "The Difference Between Western and Eastern Storytelling" by Nikol Haytova. 

In the West, the leading character is somebody who has a strong will, is exceptionally smart and chases a certain big goal. The villains are bad people who want to stop the protagonist. The clash is comprehensible — a fight between good and evil, where good should win!

 In the East, writers create characters whose main drive is to do something good for society. They’re not going usually through tough challenges for their own sake. The antagonists are usually initially good people, who are confused, manipulated or have been lied to. Some stories don’t even have an actual antagonist (nature, spirits and gods). Oftentimes, there is no actual clash in Eastern stories, because people believe that there is good in everything, and the real fight is to find this good and help it thrive.

 We see that philosophy somewhat reflected in Tom Holland's version of Peter Parker in this movie. It does seem like a much less "Western" approach to fighting villains. Against great odds and immense personal tragedy, he stays true to his philosophy of trying to cure the villains rather than kill them.

What does that really mean, though? For the movie's sake, it meant fixing a bad chip in Doc Ock's operating system, giving Green Goblin and Lizard a chemical dose that fixed Goblin's split personality and turned Lizard back into the human Dr. Connors, undoing the radiation harm that turned Flint Marko into Sandman, and giving Electro one of Stark's arc reactors to help control his electrical surges. With the help of Doctor Strange, everyone goes back to their correct timelines.

But then what?

The immediate source of the villain's motivations for evil doings is removed, but what about the harm they did before they were cured? Have they served their time, paid their penance, and are ready to return to society, or is there still work to be done?

A big part of the philosophy behind current reform movement in the American criminal justice system is not just the idea of fairer punishment, but also for reconciliation and restitution. It's about making victims whole again, if that's at all possible. It's one thing to cure the bad guy but it takes more than a little self-sacrifice to find redemption. It takes work. And I wonder what these "cured" villains did once they returned home. Did they attempt to make their victims whole again?

In this same line of thought, I couldn't help but remember Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's death at the end of Episode IX, Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. Oh so romantically, Evil Kylo morphs into Good Ben at the last moment and sacrifices himself to save Rey from the Wrath of Khan--no that's another movie. The Wrath of Palpatine! Kylo/Ben took off his creepy mask, put on a Boyfriend Sweater™, gave Rey a big smooch full of his own life-saving life force, and then he died in her arms, his angelic face speckled with her tears.

How convenient!

Dying saved him from having to go on trial for all the, you know, GENOCIDE! I'm here to tell you definitively that his death did not undo all the harm he caused by blowing up whole planets and bajillions of people with his Super Space Laser ™. In fact, I'd even argue that by dying in her arms, he basically left all that work for Rey and her friends to do. 

Typical.

Kylo Ren is not redeemed, okay? Not even close.

But, a surprising place where this theme of Redemption has been showing up again in the Star Wars universe is in the Disney+ spinoffs, The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. The Tusken Raiders, formerly known as The Sand People, must have hired a great PR team, because their fan stock has been sharply on the rise. Originally, they were a (literally) faceless band of ruthless dessert bandits--attacking, raiding, and murdering. In the prequel movies, we learned they killed Anakin's mom (or did they?)! Horrible, right?  But Mando and Boba Fett have been working hard to redeem them, giving them language, culture, cute little Tusken children, and a sad backstory full of colonialist exploitation.

They're still violent. They're still brutal. But apparently, they're also very misunderstood. If you give them a chance, they might help you survive the harsh desert climate. Might even adopt you into their clan and teach you how to kick ass. The Star Wars Powers That Be (Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Robert Rodriguez, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson) have invested in making the Tuskens do the work, and I think they have successfully earned their redemption.

They're even making Rancors into cuddly puppies, now. In the last episode, my Book of  Boba Fett watch party friends (fellow ATB contributors, Mary Fan, Christian Angeles, Victor Catano) and I feared that they might even be attempting to redeem the Sarlacc pit.  Never fear, though, not all villains need to be redeemed. Thankfully we got to keep at least one of our classic Star Wars monsters. ...And I don't expect to see the Hutt twins doing any great charity works any time soon.

My Favorite Audio Book Narrators This Year

www.KarissaLaurel.com

 2021 was the year when I got into audiobooks hard core. Previously I had treated them mostly as fodder for road trips. As if I could only indulge when I could be guaranteed a long, uninterrupted stint for listening. I'm privileged to have a short work commute, so it never made sense to bother with turning on a story I could only listen to for 15 minutes at a time (I've since changed that opinion). Then podcasts became a thing, and then COVID became a thing, and both seemed to have re-wired my brain.  This year, I've had a harder and harder time getting into written-word media, especially at novel length. All that sitting still and focusing took effort. But audiobooks allowed me to multi-task, and that was the perfect solution. I could gobble a book while walking, cooking, doing dishes, laundry, yard work, crochet etc., etc., etc.

Truth be told, I am mainly consuming novel length stories almost 100% by audio these days, and I have become quite particular about narrators. The following is a list of the best audiobooks I listened to in 2021, mostly because of an outstanding performance by the narrator. I feel like that's some kind of niche geekdom right there: Fangirling audiobook narrators.  I definitely choose books I'm curious about because of the author or subject matter, but in 2022 I suspect I'll be choosing more audiobooks out of love for particular narrators.

If you're a current audiobook fan, or are thinking of giving them a try, I hope you'll enjoy these books as much as I have.

The Sandman: Act II by Neil Gaiman; Narrated by: Various

The Audible production of the Sandman comics have been outstanding. I have to say I enjoyed Volume 1 a smidge more than Volume 2, but both are expertly casted and produced. If you love Neil Gaiman (who serves as the main narrator in this production and does an admirable job), you just have to give these volumes a listen. The stories are mostly voiced by a cast of big named celebrities and voice actors with years of talent under their belts. Volume two brings back James McAvoy as Morpheus, Lord of Dreams, the Sandman himself. I'm going to have a hard time watching the Netflix version of Sandman when it comes out because I'll be wishing for McAvoy's voice the whole time. He IS Dream for me. With Kat Denning as Death, Michael Sheen as Lucifer, and other favorites such as Bill Nighy, David Tennant, and John Lithgow playing key roles, this production takes on cinematic quality. I sincerely hope there is enough material still out there to compose a third volume. If so, I'll snap it up in an instant.

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin; Narrated by Robin Miles

If you liked "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman, I think you'd really enjoy "The City We Became" by N.K. Jemisin. It's an absolute love letter to the city of New York, and as someone who is fond of New York, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the city literally come to life.

If you read the written-word version, that's wonderful! But I'm telling you... the audio book version is an absolute *performance* that harkens back to radio dramas of old. It's a complete production with sound effects and music that gives the story huge presence and impact.

Robin Miles's narration is masterful. I never felt like she was simply reading to me. Instead it felt like theater. I'd say it was theater for the ears, but she made the story so vivid it was easy to "see" every scene and character. She does black, white, Indian, Asian, man, woman, and everything in between with such skill that it almost seems like there's a separate actor doing each character.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune; Narrated by Daniel Henning

I've said before, elsewhere,  that this book reminded me a bit of a Pixar style movie, and that's a good thing. Sometimes it's nice to read something comfortable and comforting. The most compelling parts of the story, though, are the inhabitants of The House in the Cerulean Sea. The house is an orphanage giving home to a collection of unusual children. At first, I wasn't sure about Henning's narration. It wasn't bad, but I would have said it had no great sparkle to it. But once we started meeting the characters, especially the children (and especially Chauncy), Henning's narration talents truly began to shine. Each kid got a distinctive, recognizable voice, and I connected with each of them so much that I wanted to adopt them all.

The Vampire Empire series by Clay and Susan Griffith; Narrated by James Marsters

I picked up these books mainly because Clay and Susan are local authors. I've met them once or twice and follow them some on social media. They are a husband and wife writing team who have produced a few urban fantasy/historical fantasy series, including the novelizations of The Flash for DC and the CW network.  Another reason I picked up these books is because Clay and Susan often favor the steampunk aesthetic, and so do I.  These Vampire Empire books read like a mix of super hero comic, old fashion pulp adventure, and romance. I gobbled them up as fast as I could get through them.

But one of the best parts of this series is that the books were narrated by James Marsters. If you've ever been a Whedon fan (it's okay if you don't want to admit it these days), then you know Marsters's name. He played Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spin-offs. I actually know him better from some of the other things he's stared in such as a brief appearance as Brainiac on Smallville, and as Victor Stein on Runaways, a Marvel title on Hulu. 

I knew he had taken up narrating audiobooks because a good friend who listened to the Dresden Files series had mentioned that Marsters was the narrator for the whole series and that he had done an excellent job. While I've never listened to a Dresden Files book (though I've read all but the most recent one), I have to agree with my friend. Marsters is a narrating genius. The Vampire Empire series required so much variety in gender, nationality, race, accents, etc., and he switched between them all with ease and deftness. I will definitely look for more stuff that he's narrated, and I'm even considering re-doing the Dresden files just to hear Marsters's performance.

Killing Floor (Jack Reacher, Book 1) by Lee Child; Narrated by Dick Hill

I won't lie. I really enjoyed the first Jack Reacher movie starring Tom Cruise, despite having mixed feelings about Tom Cruise. I don't care for him so much on a personal level, but as an action hero, I have more tolerance. I've mostly enjoyed all of his Mission Impossible movies, for example.  When I saw that Prime is doing a new Jack Reacher series, and that they had cast someone who was Cruise's complete physical opposite (Big, blond, and beefy as opposed to short, compact, and brunette), I decided it might be time to read one of the books and find out what was going on.

I don't know why I never made the connection before, but there are a lot of similarities between Jack Reacher and The Punisher. If I had realized that earlier, I probably would have jumped on these books sooner. Jack is a little less motivated by personal grief than Frank Castle, which I appreciate. The fridging of Castle's wife and kids was one of my less favorite plot points of the original Punisher storyline. Reacher does suffer some personal loss in Killing Floor, but for once, it wasn't a female love interest.

It was clear to me early on, however, that what really made this book work for me was Dick Hill's performance. At first, I thought Hill sounded a little old for the 36 year old Reacher, but he quickly grew on me, especially with his talent for voicing the individual and diverse characters in Child's books. In fact, I couldn't even get into the second Reacher book (Die Trying) because it was narrated by someone different and I was so disappointed he wasn't Dick Hill. Also maybe because the story just wasn't as good as the first book. I'm now listening to the 5th Jack Reacher book (Echo Burning), specifically because Dick Hill narrates it (and because it was immediately available at my library), and I'm pretty sure if I do more Reacher books after this one, I'll only do the Hill ones because he elevates a simple thriller into something more than.

May Zombies Never Die

 

www.karissalaurel.com

I've talked about this quite a bit lately, but I'm currently in the process of releasing weekly episodes of a complete story that combines Steampunk, Romance, and Zombies.  Yes, you read me right. If you can't imagine those genres going together, consider giving Serendipity at the End of the World a try. 

There seems to be constant debate in media about whether zombies are passé. Clearly they aren't. There may be times when their stock surges higher than other times--think back a few years ago to the popularity of World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, just to name a few. Many years later, though, The Walking Dead is still limping along. Zack Snyder is getting ready to release Army of Thieves, a prequel to this years' Army of the Dead (which I didn't love but they can't all be winners, right?) I'll probably watch this new release anyway because it apparently features the back story of the safe-cracking German from Army of  the Dead, and he was my favorite character. 

Passé or not, I don't imagine there will ever be a time when I'm completely ready to be rid the undead. Because it's Halloween week and because I'm deeply embedded in my own zombie fiction, I decided to write a little ode to my favorite horror monster of all time:

To the fast ones, 

the slow ones, 

the ones that made me cry,

"Train to Busan"

To the screamer,

the groaner,

the silent type,

"Night of the Living Dead" 1968

To the runners,

the shamblers,

the ones that can fly,

To the old ones,

the bold ones,

the ones that are shy,

"Warm Bodies"

To the big ones,

the small ones,

the ones that are high,

May they be brown, 

may they be blue, 

may they be violet sky

May they be hurtful, 

may they be purple, 

may Zombies never die.