Excerpts Horror Read an Excerpt From Carry Me to My Grave by Christopher Golden A man tries to protect his dead mother’s body from the evil that is hunting them. By Christopher Golden | Published on June 9, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Carry Me to My Grave, a new horror novel by Christopher Golden publishing with St. Martin’s Press on July 21st. Maggie Wise will take your eyes.When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law Violet to hold a vigil at her bedside.But they’re not as alone as they think they are. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer’s cornfield. Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie’s demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm, her youngest child―when she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace in Shediak, Maine.From the moment she takes her last breath, before her remains are even loaded aboard the baggage car of the Imperial Limited, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise. Violence erupts on the train, evil preys on its passengers, and once the sun goes down, those long-buried things are coming to make Maggie Wise pay for her past. God help anyone who stands in their way. The wind fought back as Malcolm forced the door closed and threw the dead bolt. Hundreds of leaves had blown across the threshold. Violet stood in his mother’s bedroom doorway. “I almost wish that guy would try something, so I’d have a reason to…” He faltered when he understood the impatience in Violet’s eyes. “Hurry,” she whispered, as if they were trying to keep his mother from learning her death was imminent, though Maggie knew better than anyone. Malcolm squeezed Violet’s hand as he passed her, heading into the bedroom. “Thank you.” He expected to find that his mother had taken a turn for the worse, or woken up with the gift of clarity and strength that the dying sometimes received in their final hours. Instead, Maggie lay on the floor of her bedroom, tangled in her blankets, reaching toward him as he entered. Her eyes were yellowed and pleading, her skin so gray she looked almost bloodless. “Momma!” Malcolm called, rushing to kneel on the floor beside her. Maggie chided him with her eyes and clucked her tongue. “You’re a grown man, been to war, killed your enemies. You’d better not need a ‘momma’ now.” He couldn’t help but smile. Her voice might be a thin, reedy version of itself, but it still held the pride of her life. Maggie had always told her children that she loved being their mother, but wanted to be a person to them first and a mother to them second. Thus, she was always “Maggie.” Other kids were amazed by this, and their parents found it disrespectful, but she stuck to her guns. “Crazy old bat,” he said, and slid his hands beneath her. Maggie groaned in pain as he lifted her and settled her into her bed. “What were you thinking?” Her eyelids were heavy. The effort of getting out of bed had drained the last of her. “Maggie,” he said, clapping his hands to bring her around. “What happened?” When she spoke, she had a raspy echo in her throat, as if there were open doorways deep inside her, letting in a draft. “I needed you in here,” she said. “There are things you have to know.” Malcolm sat on the edge of the bed, sheets crinkling beneath his weight. “Maybe start with who the hell is out there watching our house. I don’t think he’s going to leave unless I get the police to drag him off, or I get violent, in which case they’ll drag me off instead.” Her eyelids drooped. Her breathing softened. “Maggie?” No reply. Still alive, but no longer with him. He swore. The hinges creaked. He whipped around to see Violet in the doorway. What a strange life they were leading, the three of them, but at least it had been quiet until now. Maggie coughed and blinked her eyes open as if the cough had pulled her back from the brink. He didn’t know how much time remained, but not much. “You had things you wanted to say,” he prompted. Her eyes were green. They weren’t always. Sometimes blue, sometimes gray. The whites were sickly, but her irises glinted as she looked at him. “You shouldn’t have to do this alone,” Maggie said. The floorboards creaked as Violet took a step into the room. “He’s not alone.” Maggie looked at her, nodding slowly, eyes glistening. “You’re as good as a daughter to me, Vi, but leave us now. This part isn’t for you.” Violet looked stung. She loved Maggie nearly as much as Malcolm did. He’d often thought she loved Maggie more than he did. At times, it was easier to love someone else’s mother than it was to love your own. “Shout if you need me,” Violet said quietly, before she withdrew and closed the door behind her. “I wish you hadn’t sent her out,” Malcolm said. “You know what you mean to her.” “Don’t chide me, boy. Not today. This is just for you, because everything depends on you now.” She gripped his hand. “What time is it?” “Half past three in the morning.” “A few hours yet.” Malcolm started to ask what she meant, but she shushed him. Buy the Book Carry Me to My Grave Christopher Golden Buy Book Carry Me to My Grave Christopher Golden Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Just listen.” He wanted to go to the curtain and look across the street. The man in the raven mask would still be there, he was sure. “I’m listening.” The gleam in her eyes dimmed a little, and so did the strength of her grip. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to stay awake. Or conscious. Or alive. “Death is coming for me, and long overdue,” she said. “I’ve held it off as long as I can.” “Held it off?” Maggie clucked her tongue to shush him. “I’m a lot older than I look, Mal, and I know how I look, so that’s saying something.” She’d alluded to such things before. They went along with the mystery within which she loved to immerse herself. “I nearly gave in while you and Violet were cleaning up after dinner, but I fought it off.” Withered and gray, she barely had the breath to speak. “It would’ve made things much harder for you, and I want to give you as much time as I can.” Malcolm lowered his head, trying to keep himself in her field of vision. “Time for what?” Her chest had gone still. He inhaled sharply, but then she squeezed his hand again, still alive. “Sunrise is just after seven,” she said, so quietly he could barely make out the words. “I can hold on till then. You have a few hours to prepare.” He’d have asked her to elaborate, but she didn’t need prompting now. “It’s a long journey, Malcolm. But when you’re sure I’m dead, you’ve got to move me right away. You’ve gotta take me home. Bury me in Shediak.” “In Maine?” She’d been born in Shediak. It was more than a thousand miles away. “In Maine,” she echoed. “Once my heart stops, you’ll have two nights. I’ve got to be in Shediak by the second sunrise or it’ll all be for nothing.” Malcolm sat back. “Maggie… Mom. This is crazy.” Her eyes widened, and she focused on him, keenly alert for the last time in her life. Truly seeing him for what would be the last time. “This isn’t some whim. It’s important in a way most folks couldn’t imagine. You’ve gotta be quick, and careful, and ready to fight. There are people who’ll try to stop you.” Malcolm thought of the raven, out beneath the willow tree. “People… and things,” she rasped. He’d had enough. “Okay, what in God’s name does that mean?” Her gray pallor had blanched nearly to white. “Nothing godly, son. Not this trip.” “Maggie—” She shushed him. Her body and voice were so weak now that it came out like a tiny whistle. “Ring up Paxson when I’m…” Paxson Keates. The old man who owned the funeral parlor on Church Street. Malcolm had no idea his mother even knew Paxson Keates, but she had always been a bottomless well of secrets, and now they were spilling out. “I’ll call him,” Malcolm vowed. “What else?” But there was nothing else. She hadn’t left her mortal shell quite yet, though her eyes were closed. These might not have been her last words, but the supply was running low. Malcolm felt a rising bitterness toward his siblings. Jennie and Elias should have been here with him. With their mother. It had been over a year since either of them had crossed the threshold. He understood—she made them all feel both loved and discarded, sometimes in the same breath. “Ah, Maggie,” he whispered, “what am I going to do without you?” He sat with her for another quarter hour, listening to the rasping of her breath, before he allowed his thoughts to return to her final request. Maine, of all places, and in two days? She insisted it wasn’t simply a whim, that it was important in some larger sense, but Maggie was a narcissist, which meant anything having to do with herself always seemed important to her. For Malcolm, it felt like some kind of morbid prank. Or it would have, if not for the other strange things that had happened over the course of his life as the son of Maggie Wise. Not the least of which was the tall man in the raven mask who even now stood across the street, waiting for his mother to die. You don’t have to be here for what comes next, the raven had said. But that wasn’t true. Jennie and Elias didn’t care enough to be at their mother’s bedside, which left it to him to fulfill her final wish, no matter how crazy it seemed. Because even if he sometimes hated her, he loved her, too. And because if he let himself accept the ominous tone in her voice when she insisted on the importance of this task, it scared him a little. Malcolm would bury Maggie in Shediak. If the man in the mask tried to interfere, he would show that son of a bitch the error of his ways. He had fought for his life along the Nakdong River and made it home with just a few scars. One asshole in a Halloween mask wasn’t going to give him much trouble. Excerpted from Carry Me to My Grave, copyright © 2026 by Christopher Golden. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Carry Me to My Grave</i> by Christopher Golden appeared first on Reactor.

News Whalefall Whalefall Trailer Sees Austin Abrams Swallowed by Grief and/or a Sperm Whale Spoiler: the whale is his dad (kinda) By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on June 9, 2026 Photo by Jennifer Clasen. © 2026 20th Century Studios. Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Jennifer Clasen. © 2026 20th Century Studios. The adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ Whalefall is almost here! Today, 20th Century Studios and Imagine Entertainment released the first trailer for the film, which gives us the whole sequence where a young man is swallowed by a sperm whale who is just trying to live its best life and munch on a giant squid for lunch. The story is more than a survival thriller; it’s also a meditation on grief and complicated father-son relationships. Here’s the official synopsis: Following the death of his father (Josh Brolin), Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams) goes diving off the Central Coast of California in search of his remains, but is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. While trapped inside its belly with only one hour of oxygen left, Jay comes to realize that the hard-earned lessons his father imparted may be the key to his escape. To put it another way, the whale is Jay’s dad, something made literal in the book by the whale “talking” to Jay as his dad as he tries to survive. I’ve been curious to see how they’d represent that on-screen, and while today’s trailer doesn’t delve into that part of the story, it was cool to see Brolin’s representation of the dad (human version), which matches up perfectly with how the character looked in my brain while reading Kraus’ book. The film is directed by Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You),  who co-wrote the script with Kraus. At a screening of the trailer (via Variety), Duffield made clear that the whale wasn’t an antagonist. “The whale is not a bad guy,” he said, later adding, “We wanted it to not feel like a monster movie, but to feel like Austin is inside a living animal. There’s something horrifying about that, but also something beautiful too.” Whalefall premieres in theaters on October 16, 2026. Check out the trailer below to bear witness to Brolin, Abrams, and the whale. [end-mark] The post <i>Whalefall</i> Trailer Sees Austin Abrams Swallowed by Grief and/or a Sperm Whale appeared first on Reactor.

Column 80s Fantasy Film Club The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: The Life and Times of a Master Storyteller Revisiting Terry Gilliam’s wildly ambitious, extravagant celebration of the power of imagination. By Tyler Dean | Published on June 9, 2026 Credit: Columbia Pictures Comment 1 Share New Share Credit: Columbia Pictures In this column, we’re looking back at the 1980s as their own particular age of fantasy movies—a legacy that largely disappeared in the ’90s only to resurface in the 2000s, though in many ways, the fantasy films of the Eighties are far weirder and less polished than what we got in the aughts. In each of these articles, we’ll explore a canonical fantasy movie released between 1980 and 1989 and discuss whatever enduring legacy the film has maintained in the decades since. For a more in-depth introduction to this series of articles, you can find the first installment here, focusing on 1981’s Dragonslayer. Last time we looked at the somewhat soulless, toy-driven fiasco that was Masters of the Universe. This time we are taking on one of film’s most adept, divisive, and least bankable masters, Terry Gilliam, and his 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. This was the first Terry Gilliam film I had ever seen. I watched it on cable as a kid and probably saw it before I was aware of anything else Terry Gilliam had done, including Monty Python. I distinctly remember watching it and absorbing its strange internal logic as mythological fact. For years afterwards, I believed there was a tradition where the specter of death could be banished by lighting a candle because of one scene in the film. In rewatching, that is not even a rule in the film itself, but such was the power of Gilliam’s filmmaking that my child brain assumed it must be a heretofore undiscovered tradition if it was presented so plainly and without explanation.  Loosely based on the tall tales of real-life fabulist, Hieronymus Carl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen (whose stories were further embellished by Rudolf Erich Raspe in the 1785 novel, Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia and from whom we derive the DSM-listed mental illness and its by-proxy variant), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen takes place in an 18th-century town besieged by the army of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan and the town’s mayor, The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson (a hammy and delightful Jonathan Pryce), turn the siege into an absurd exercise in the Enlightenment’s obsession with logic and reason (complete with scheduled surrenders and a disdain for acts of heroism). In the meantime, Henry Salt and his nine-year old daughter Sally (Sarah Polley, in one of her first roles) run a downtrodden theater company putting on a production of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. A man claiming to be the real Baron (John Neville) interrupts the production to explain to the audience that his own past with the Sultan is responsible for the siege, explaining how with guile and help from his supernaturally gifted companions, he’d stolen the Sultan’s treasure. When Jackson demands that he be executed, the Baron and Sally escape and embark on an adventure to find his companions and defeat the Sultan. They visit the King of the Moon (an uncredited Robin Williams), meet Venus and Vulcan (Uma Thurman and Oliver Reed), are swallowed by a monstrous whale, and narrowly escape the Angel of Death who is hunting the Baron at every turn. Once he has recovered his loyal companions, they defeat the Sultan—but during his victory celebration, Jackson shoots and kills the Baron and the town mourns at an elaborate funeral. Thereupon, in a Beggar’s Opera-style twist, we return to the night of the performance where a still-very-much-alive Munchausen explains that it was only one of the myriad times when he had been killed. The Baron then tells the town that they are safe from the Ottomans. Jackson demands that Munchausen be arrested, but the townspeople push past him and open the city gates. They find the Sultan has fled and the siege has been lifted. Munchausen smiles and rides off into the sunset. The film supposedly cost a whopping $46 million (though Gilliam disputes the final cost) and, due in part to corporate infighting, was only released on 100-odd screens in the US and recouped a paltry $8 million. Despite this, it garnered critical praise, was nominated for four Oscars, and won three of the four BAFTAs for which it was nominated (Best Costumes, Makeup, and Production Design).  But does it hold up to a rewatch nearly 40 years later (and 340 years after the original Baron Münchhausen began telling stories)? Well, like most Gilliam projects, it’s a mixed bag—though, I’d argue, one of his more successful endeavors. The film looks great. There’s a deep obsession with the intricacies of Baroque-era stagecraft, and in both form and color palette, Gilliam borrows liberally from Salvador Dalí and Giorgio de Chirico. You can also see the same pull towards George Méliès and his meticulous in-camera trickery to which several of his fellow auteurs would later pay homage, particularly Francis Ford Coppola (in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and Martin Scorsese (in 2011’s Hugo). The costumes and sets are strange and delightful while still being cohesive enough to give the film a clear aesthetic.  The movie is filled with great performances as well. John Neville, who had been a successful theater actor through most of his career, embraces his only starring role and knocks it out of the park. His winning charisma, shot through with more than a dash of self-absorbed petulance, provides an irresistible center in a film that otherwise would feel hopelessly scattered. Jonathan Pryce, Gilliam’s muse across many films, turns in a deliciously droll caricature of a bureaucrat collapsing under the weight of his own effete poshness. Robin Williams delivers ten minutes of his signature coked-up style of stand-up, Oliver Reed mean-mugs while literal steam pours out of his ears as the cuckolded Vulcan, and Uma Thurman, only seventeen at the time of filming, manages to pronounce the word “floozy” with such a piercing, electric violence that I honestly will never stop hearing it in her voice.  Sarah Polley also manages to hold the expansive film together with an intelligence and earnest frustration that establishes her as the only adult in the room—the fact that she is the film’s only child actor (other than the teenaged Thurman) notwithstanding. That latter feat is somewhat remarkable given that, according to Polley, the set was a profoundly dangerous place, saying in an interview that “there were so many explosions going off so close to me, which is traumatic for a kid whether it was dangerous or not […] It was physically grueling and unsafe.” In her 2022 memoir, she commented that it is “hard to calculate whether [Gilliam’s films] were worth the price of the hell that so many went though over the years to help him make them.” Though she also gave her blessing for fans to love the film, even knowing how awful it was to make. In spite of the stunning visuals and performances, the movie has its downsides as well. It’s just over two hours long, which does feel, at times, interminable given how much disconnected ground the film covers. And, despite how prominently they feature, Munchausen’s band of companions—played with relish by Charles McKeown, Winston Dennis, Jack Purvis, and Eric Idle (every Terry Gilliam film from the ’80s is required to feature at least one of his Monty Python collaborators)—are mostly just window dressing, given not quite enough to do. Depending on how you feel about The Beggar’s Opera and Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, the film’s particular brand of truth-agnostic, tall-tale picaresque may also not feel like it forms quite enough of a cohesive whole to justify itself. Like many Gilliam movies, it is stunning and delightful from scene to scene, while always falling short of coming together completely.  Despite the fact that the Rt. Ordinary Horatio Jackson proclaims that Munchausen, escaping in a makeshift hot air balloon assembled out of undergarments, “won’t get far on hot air and fantasy,” The Adventures of Baron Munchausen does seem to have had a long afterlife, in terms of its influence. While all three of Gilliam’s “trilogy of imagination” films (Munchausen, Brazil, and Time Bandits) are visually spectacular and surreal, this one seems to have had the biggest impact on the visual language of later films. Tarsem Singh, who directed The Cell (2000), The Fall (2006) and Immortals (2011) feels like the most obvious of disciples. Likewise, there is a bit of Baron Munchausen in the Wachowski Sisters’ depiction of cartoonishly baroque cruelty in 2015’s Jupiter Ascending (even if that film, which features a cameo from Gilliam, seems more directly influenced by Brazil).  Perhaps less fortunately, the film also seems to have provided a model for a sort of highly stylized Orientalism that is both visually striking and pretty darn racist. Zack Snyder, a professed admirer of Gilliam’s, definitely seems to have been inspired by Gilliam’s visual portrayal of Ottoman brutality and excess in Munchausen when he adapted Frank Miller’s deeply Orientalist graphic novel 300 in 2006. Obviously, as literary critic Edward Said would tell us, Orientalism is a centuries-old phenomenon—but Gilliam bears some responsibility for making it stylish and thematically intriguing for a new generation of filmmakers. To Gilliam’s minor credit, Baron Munchausen at least makes the point that Western rationality is also a flawed system that is similarly barbaric to its Eastern counterpart. Snyder and Miller removed even those paltry counterpoints.  In spite of its epic failure at the box office, the film’s reception only seems to have encouraged Gilliam’s style of financially reckless filmmaking and helped to fuel a reputation that has benefitted Gilliam himself a great deal. He has produced a few financially solvent movies, but Gilliam is known for blindingly costly boondoggles that, even as they fail to impress investors, manage to become critically respected cult classics. The fact that Baron Munchausen’s chaotic production and huge budget resulted in a movie beloved by critics and diehard fans certainly helped some of his other troubled productions (with the exception of his cursed adaptation of Don Quixote), opening up a lane for directors to argue for the importance of the art even when financial incentives would caution against it. Gilliam helped to cast a mold where financial failure combined with wildly ambitious filmmaking was no longer a direct route to Hollywood exile. Edgar Wright, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Brad Bird, and Ridley Scott have all, in the years since, made cult classic flops whose box-office failure has somehow only increased their standing as visionary directors worth employing. Gilliam wasn’t the first to do this, but he was, arguably, the first to make it his personal brand. But what do you think? Is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen among your favorite Gilliam films? Did it change the way you viewed cinema when you caught it on cable in the early ’90s? Do you also think it criminally underutilizes Eric Idle? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to join us next time when we move from an artsy flop that attained cult classic status to an animated flop the studio tried to bury for nearly thirty years with Disney’s attempted adaptation of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books, The Black Cauldron (1985). The post <i>The Adventures of Baron Munchausen</i>: The Life and Times of a Master Storyteller appeared first on Reactor.

Books Front Lines and Frontiers Boldy Going Into Print: The Star Trek Adaptations of James Blish Blish’s adaptations of the original series bring additional detail and nuance to the scripts… By Alan Brown | Published on June 9, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement. Today, I’ll be taking a trip down memory lane to my first introduction to the Star Trek universe almost sixty years ago in the form of the episode adaptations written by James Blish. For reasons I will explain below, I was not able to watch the show on television, and so I first experienced the adventures of the crew of the Starship Enterprise in a series of books. Recently, I was at my favorite local purveyor of printed materials—Fantasy Zone Comics and Used Books, in North Kingstown, RI—looking at some older science fiction books they had just acquired, and one of them was the original collection of episode adaptations, simply entitled Star Trek, in the original Bantam paperback edition from 1967. That cover, with its heroic portrayal of Kirk, a distinctly green-skinned Spock, and the Enterprise whooshing across the face of a planet, immediately brought back a flood of memories from my youth. Opening its pages and smelling that old book smell, I was transported back to a time when science fiction, and in fact, the whole world, was new to me. In addition to that paperback, I looked at two other books for this column. Along with Star Trek, my bookstore also had the next volume of the series, Star Trek 2. This one was not quite as new, being from a seventeenth printing of an edition that first appeared in 1968 (the large number of reprints over a few short years shows just how popular these books were). The third volume I acquired is more recent, an omnibus edition containing selected episode adaptations from the entire series, which I purchased at a Barnes & Noble. It is entitled Star Trek: The Classic Episodes, and is one of those reprinted books they sell in faux leather covers with metallic lettering, gilt edges on the pages, and color illustrations inside the covers. This one was published by Del Rey as a Sterling Books Edition in 2016. About the Author James Blish (1921-1975) was an American science fiction and fantasy author, best known for his innovative and widely anthologized story “Surface Tension,” his Cities in Flight series, and his broadly popular adaptations of Star Trek television episodes. He became part of science fiction fandom in the 1930s, and joined the Futurians, a seminal fan group based in New York. He had a degree in microbiology, worked as a laboratory technician, and studied zoology. Blish’s career began to gather steam around 1950, and that decade was among the most productive and innovative of his career. His novel, A Case of Conscience, which blends science fiction with religion themes, won the Hugo Award in 1959. While his work on the Star Trek series dominated his later writing career, he continued to produce original work as well. Blish was voted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002. Entering the Star Trek Universe Through Print When I was growing up in a small town in northern Connecticut, we only had a black and white TV featuring a small screen in a big wooden case. It only got two channels, CBS and ABC, because the nearest NBC affiliate was on the other side of the state, and its signal was blocked from us by some high hills. I was already an avid science fiction fan, having been weaned on my father’s old Tom Swift adventures and magazines like Analog. So, when my friends started talking about a new science fiction show on NBC, Star Trek, I was frustrated. But then I got my hands on the books containing the episode adaptations (as I recollect, it was my older brother Danny who bought them, and I borrowed them)—and I was immediately hooked. The stories offered a lot of variety as the Enterprise traveled from star to star, but the core cast of characters and the backdrop of the ship established a consistent setting for the adventures. And what a cast it was, with the dashing Captain Kirk, the cynical doctor McCoy, and the logical science officer Spock representing the id, ego, and superego of the crew, forming one of the greatest partnerships in the history of fiction. Close behind them were a strong secondary cast including the redoubtable engineer Scotty, the impulsive helmsman Sulu, the unflappable communications officer Uhura, the empathic yeoman Rand, and the competent nurse Chapel. Their adventures sometimes strayed from the scientific to the fanciful, but they were always entertaining. One element of the stories has not aged well, and that is a pervasive sexist attitude throughout, shown in Kirk’s promiscuous behavior, and the dismissive treatment Yeoman Rand receives from the writers (which is evident on the back cover, where she is described as “the most popular member of the crew,” and a “truly ‘out of this world’ blonde”). For all the show did to promote racial and sexual equality, it fell short of the mark in the gender department. In later years, when I finally got to see the series in syndication (and in color), I began to realize that there were differences between the written versions of the stories and what appeared on screen. Blish had added scientific details to the stories, additional descriptions and dialogue, and occasionally altered the stories themselves. Because he was able to describe the inner thoughts of the characters, they had a depth that their on-screen versions sometimes lacked. Even the episode titles in the book were sometimes different from the titles used for the TV episodes. It was decades before I finally watched the entire original series in order from beginning to end, a remastered version with new special effects that appeared in the early 2000s. And that was when a lot of those differences became clear to me. Blish’s original series episode adaptations kicked off one of the most successful science fiction publishing franchises in history. In addition to the episode adaptations, there were original adventures, as well as novelizations of the movies. And those stories continued as new shows were added to the Star Trek universe, including The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and others. While I read a Star Trek book here and there, I generally didn’t try to keep up with this flood of new material. Because I was unsatisfied with the on-screen ending of the Enterprise show, however, I did read the novels that continued those adventures, and I felt like they gave the story a much more fitting conclusion. Star Trek and Star Trek 2 The books do not follow broadcast order, and the first story is “Charlie’s Law,” the tale of a teenaged survivor of a wreck who has been given almost god-like powers by an equally gifted alien race. Right from the start, Star Trek episodes did not shy away from presenting developments that would completely upset the status quo in the galaxy, something that could cause problems for writers of later episodes. “Dagger of the Mind” presents a mad scientist who uses mind control on people, including Kirk, and it is a good thing the effect of his machine can be easily reversed at the end of the episode. “The Unreal McCoy” is the story called “The Man Trap” in its TV incarnation, and was selected as the first episode to air. It is the horror-tinged tale of a man who has a relationship with a shape-shifting alien that takes the form of his late wife, and who looks the other way as the alien sucks all the salt out of the bodies of its victims. “Balance of Terror” features the first appearance of the Romulans, a race that has clashed with the Federation before, but has never been seen. The episode portrays a surprising amount of mistrust and bigotry toward Spock, especially when the crew learns that Romulans bear a strong resemblance to Vulcans. The story has some of the best battle scenes in the original series (and also seems to suggest the Enterprise’s speed is limited by the speed of light, something that directly contradicts what we learn in later episodes). “The Naked Time” is a chaotic adventure involving a disease that causes outrageous, and even violent behavior, with the Enterprise caught in a deteriorating orbit around a planet coming apart at the seams. It has one of the best lines in the original series (which I am surprised made it past the censors of the time). A sword-wielding Sulu says to Uhura, “Aha, fair maiden,” to which she dryly replies, “Sorry, neither.” The next episode, “Miri,” visits a colony that created a virus to stave off death, but which only extended childhood, which ended with death after long-delayed puberty. The planet is inhabited by ancient and unruly children, the landing party is immediately stricken, and McCoy must develop a vaccine on the fly. To do this, they use a portable computer built around a disembodied cat’s brain, which I think must be a Blish embellishment. But beyond that odd element, he uses his knowledge of biology to wrap the episode in a lot of plausible-sounding scientific terminology. The final story in the tale, “The Conscience of the King,” is a story of character, not science, where the Enterprise crew finds a genocidal dictator hiding as a traveling actor, and accompanied by a daughter who is willing to kill to keep her father’s secrets. The second volume starts with “Arena,” where Kirk and the lizard-like captain of a Gorn vessel are transported by powerful aliens to a planet where they must fight face-to-face. Once there, Kirk gets creative in building a weapon from the rawest of materials. In “A Taste of Armageddon,” the Enterprise transports an ambassador to a pair of warring planets where computers determine the outcome of battles, and casualties report voluntarily for termination—until the Enterprise is designated as a casualty and the crew decides to disrupt the murderous status quo. The Enterprise is on her way to Earth in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” when she interacts with a “dark star” (and Blish comes a whisker away from calling it a black hole, a term that was only just gaining traction at the time). That interaction pushes Enterprise back in time to the present, where an unfortunate fighter pilot ends up aboard, and they must not only figure out a way to get home, but also return him unharmed to prevent history from changing. “Errand of Mercy” first introduces readers to the Klingons (oddly and archaically described as a being “originally of Oriental stock,” as if they were from Earth). This warlike race is contesting the Federation for the border planet of Organia, and both sides are shocked when the peaceful Organians prove more than capable of taking care of themselves. Kirk is on trial in “Court Martial,” where it appears he panicked and released a manned pod prematurely, killing a crewmember…but appearances prove deceiving. “Operation—Annihilate” pits the Enterprise against amorphous alien parasites who are spreading from star to star, taking over the population of whole planets, and must be stopped. The next episode is one of the best, “The City at the Edge of Forever,” where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy inadvertently travel back into Earth’s past, and Kirk falls in love with a woman destined to die a tragic death. But if he rescues her, history will follow a dark and bloody course that will destroy the Federation before it ever existed. There is a note from Blish on this one, which was originally scripted by Harlan Ellison, and whose script was changed by the studio. This caused much controversy, and Blish explains that in his adaptation, he attempted to restore some of the elements lost from that original draft. The volume ends with “Space Seed,” where the Enterprise discovers a slower-than-light starship full of genetically enhanced humans in suspended animation, led by “Kahn,” a dictator who nearly tore Earth’s civilization apart during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. He attempts to take over the Enterprise, but fails (and this episode was later built upon by the writers of the best Star Trek movie ever, The Wrath of Khan, who used a different spelling of the name from what appeared in the book). Star Trek: The Classic Episodes This volume contains most of the episodes of the original series, drawn from an earlier trilogy of omnibus books that collected every episode. In addition to being nicely bound, the book starts with an excellent historical introduction by Norman Spinrad. The first episode included is Blish’s adaptation of the original pilot episode “Menagerie,” with the original crew, and without the framing material featuring Kirk, Spock, and McCoy that was added later. It also presents each adaptation alongside production credits detailing the name of the writer of the original screenplay, the name of the director, and the date the episode originally aired. For those who are content with a limited selection of episodes, it is a fine and durable addition to their library shelves. I do have to admit, though, that as handsome a volume this is, it was not as enticing as the look (and smell) of that old original paperback volume from the 1960s. I did dip into this volume after reading my two paperbacks to enjoy one of my favorite episodes, the light-hearted adventure “The Trouble With Tribbles.” Final Thoughts While authors and fans are sometimes dismissive of adaptations and novelizations based on film and television, in the hands of a gifted writer like James Blish, the product can be something entertaining and worth of respect—a piece of art in its own right. And most of these scripts were excellent, giving Blish a strong foundation to work with. Because I first read these stories at a tender young age, and imprinted on them like a baby duck imprints on its mother, revisiting them again was quite enjoyable. I now look forward to any comments you might have on these original Star Trek adaptations. And of course, if you want to chime in on other Star Trek books, that would be welcome as well.[end-mark] The post Boldy Going Into Print: The Star Trek Adaptations of James Blish appeared first on Reactor.

Books The Wheel of Time Reading The Wheel of Time: The Dragon Confronts Despair and Discovers Hope in The Gathering Storm (Part 29) We have reached the end of The Gathering Storm. By Sylas K Barrett | Published on June 9, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share This is the last week of The Gathering Storm, as we finish up the final three chapters. Rand checks out Ebou Dar before fleeing to Dragonmount to have a personal crisis and decide the fate of the world, and Egwene witnesses it from the hole in the wall of the Tower. Will the Dragon Reborn find a reason to love the world, or will he give up on it? Read on to find out. Rand spends the night with some Tinkers camped outside the gates of Ebou Dar. He is surprised to hear that they are considering settling in Altara, a place where they feel safe and respected. The Seanchan even pay them in exchange for giving travelers food and a place to sleep. They are also welcome to other odd jobs such as mending pots and sewing, and have received the protection of the Seanchan rulers, something they have been offered nowhere else. It seems wrong to Rand that the Seanchan lands would be orderly and peaceful, given the horror of what they do to channelers. The next day, when the gates of Ebou Dar open, he goes in, wearing a coat he traded his own for and slouching to disguise his height. Walking through the bustling streets, he mostly ignores the people around him, more focused on the fact that the Tinkers are safe in Ebou Dar while Rand’s own father isn’t safe with him. Rand’s friends feared him; he had seen it in Nynaeve’s eyes.The people here weren’t afraid. Seanchan officers moved through the crowds, wearing those insectlike helms. The people made way for them, but out of respect. When Rand heard commoners speaking, they were glad for the stability. They actually praised the Seanchan for conquering them! He considers that the people here seem mostly happy and prosperous, and that the Seanchan have a better hold on Ebou Dar than Rand does on Bandar Eban. He also tries to push thoughts of what he did to Tam, and what he almost did, out of his mind. To push himself back to the reason he came to Ebou Dar: destroying his enemies, for the good of the world. Lews Therin whispers in his mind that death will be a mercy for those Rand kills. Still, Rand struggles to make the decision to start his attack, holding the access key wrapped in cloth and continuing to walk. He has a plan of how to attack, how to move from target to target by Traveling. Eventually he brings himself to unwrap the access key and seize saidin, but the sickness that hits him is the worst it has ever been. He falls to the ground and throws up, but still holds on to the Power he needs, the Power that makes everything sweeter. He opened his eyes. People were gathered around him, concerned. A Seanchan patrol was approaching. Now was the time. He had to strike.But he could not. The people looked so concerned. So worried. They cared. Screaming, Rand creates a gateway, skimming to a nearby field and then Traveling to the top of Dragonmount. He keeps telling himself that he is destruction, that the Pattern made him to be destruction, and that he just has to accept it. On the snowy peak he channels to have enough air to breath and to warm himself so that he won’t freeze, and then sits down to think. He sits for hours, pondering his existence and holding on to the Source, which he doesn’t dare release, given how sick he became the last time he seized saidin. He was angry. Angry at the world, angry at the Pattern, angry at the Creator for leaving humans to fight against the Dark One with no direction. What right did any of them have to demand Rand’s life of him?Well, Rand had offered that life to them. It had taken him a great while to accept his death, but he had made his peace. Wasn’t that enough? Did he have to be in pain until the end? Rand has tried to make himself hard enough not to feel pain, but it has never worked. Even the wounds in his side, which he was able to ignore for a time, give him pain—pain that seems to grow with each death, beginning with Moiraine’s. Her death is what caused Rand to lose hope. He’s also aware that the little voice of conscience inside him has gone silent since he attacked Tam, and he wonders if he has lost the last remnant of his old self, the last piece of him that knew right from wrong. He takes the access key in his hand, channeling through it as he shouts out into the air that maybe he doesn’t want the Pattern to continue, that perhaps it is just a way to keep humanity suffering for no reason. “What if I think it’s all meaningless?” he demanded with the loud voice of a king. “What if I don’t want it to keep turning? We live our lives by the blood of others! And those others become forgotten. What good is it if everything we know will fade? Great deeds or great tragedies, neither means anything! They will become legends, then those legends will be forgotten, then it will all start over again!” The clouds around him seem to grow darker, a building tempest, as he draws more and more power, more power even than when he cleansed saidin or created Dragonmount, so much that he knows it will destroy him. He thinks that Lews Therin had been right to kill himself, but that he didn’t go far enough. He sees a vision of Ilyena’s body, smells the scent of a world burning. Lews Therin had made a mistake. He had died, but had left the world alive, wounded, limping forward. He’d let the Wheel of Time keep turning, rotating, rotting and bringing him back around again. He could not escape it. Not without ending everything. With enough Power in his hands to unravel the Pattern itself, Rand whispers a question of why. Over and over again he asks why they must live again, as he edges closer to ending that cycle forever. And then, quietly, sanely, Lews Therin suggests that it is so they can have a second chance. Rand remembers Tam’s words, telling Rand he gets to choose the reason he fights, asking Rand why he goes to battle. And Rand realizes that every time a human being lives, they get to love again. He is suddenly flooded with memories of other lives with other loves, and he realizes that he is fighting because he failed to contain the Dark One the first time, and this time he wants to get it right.  The Power within him reached a crescendo, and he turned it upon itself, drove it through the access key. The ter’angreal was connected to a much greater force, a massive sa’angreal to the south, built to stop the Dark One. Too powerful, some had said. Too powerful ever to use. Too frightening. He turns that Power on itself, and the Choedan Kal explodes.  When Rand opens his eyes, he sees that there is a gap in the clouds, and the sun is shining down on him. He smiles, and then laughs, for the first time in far too long. In the Amyrlin’s study, stripped bare of Elaida’s things, Egwene is looking over pages of reports from Silviana—who is proving to be an excellent Keeper—detailing the current state of the Tower and how many losses were suffered during the Seanchan attack. Egwene is disappointed that most of the Black Ajah from Verin’s list escaped, probably warned by the sweep Egwene did through the rebel Aes Sedai camp. Every Aes Sedai left has completed the re-swearing on the oath rod and has announced themselves as not being Darkfriends, which is a relief, except for the fact that Mesaana hasn’t been located. It’s possible she was captured by the Seanchan or escaped the Tower, but Egwene doesn’t believe either to be the case. She is interrupted by Silviana, who asks her to come and see something. She is taken down to the Hall of the Tower, where workers are putting a rose window in to repair the hole blown in the wall. Everyone moves aside so Egwene can see that the clouds have broken, pulling back from Dragonmount and leaving the uppermost peak bathed in light. There was something beautiful about it. The light streaming down in a column, strong and pure. Distant, yet striking. It was like something forgotten, but somehow still familiar, shining forth from a distant memory to bring warmth again. Silviana asks what it means. Egwene doesn’t know, but she orders the calendars to be marked. Something momentous has happened, and eventually they may learn what it is. She and Silviana stand for a time, looking out at the comforting sight. Gonna get myself a t-shirt that says “Verin Was Right.” She told Egwene that the battle wasn’t being fought in the way that Rand assumed it would be. In this final chapter of The Gathering Storm, we see that she was exactly on point, so much so that I think this moment might be the actual climax of the Dark One’s play to destroy creation. There has been a theory marinating in my mind for a while that finally solidified after finishing The Gathering Storm, which is that the Dark One actually cannot destroy the Pattern on his own. I think he needs Rand to do it for him, and that fighting the Last Battle is only a fallback plan or a distraction from the Dark One’s actual goal: to drive Rand to despair and anger so powerful that he breaks the Wheel himself. When you think about it, we have no evidence that the Dark One can actually break out through the Bore. His prison was impenetrable to him before it was drilled, after all—so much so that no one in the Age of Legends even knew he existed. Even once it was drilled, and he was able to reach through and influence the world, he wasn’t all the way freed. Of course we know very little about that time and that fight, but what we have read and what the characters know of the war between the Light and the forces of the Shadow never says anything about the Dark One managing to break free the rest of the way, only that the forces of the Shadow—the shadowspawn and Darkfriends and Forsaken—began to overwhelm the forces of Light until defeat seemed imminent. There is a question in my mind about whether Shaidar Haran is some kind of extension or vessel for some essence or will of the Dark One—a question which may be answered at some point in the next two books—but even if he is, this still shows that the Dark One needs something of the Pattern in order to interact with the Pattern itself. Even with the seals weakening and the Dark One’s ability to affect the world increasing, he cannot reach through the Bore in anything other than a metaphysical sense. This is why the Forsaken must come to Shayol Ghul to bind themselves to him, and why only at Shayol Ghul is the Pattern malleable for such actions as hearing the voice of the Dark One in one’s mind or making cour’souvra; this was true during the Age of Legends as well as more recently, as the Seals weaken. The Dark One is a being of metaphysics, not physics, so if he were able to interact more directly with the Pattern, he would not be limited by physical space or distance as he very much appears to be. Granted, he has been able to affect the weather and blight crops, but I would assume, unless other evidence came to light, that this works just like the bubbles of Evil do: The effect or contagion comes through the Bore and rides along strands of the Pattern until it manifests its effects.  It is understandable that the people of Rand’s world assume that the Dark One, if left unchecked and unchallenged, will eventually be able to break through the Bore somehow and enter the Pattern, free to affect and destroy it as he desires. Knowing as they do that there is a hole in the prison that keeps him from the Pattern and that his ultimate desire is the destruction of Creation, this is a rational fear. Since the Dark One’s influence is terrible and will continue to increase by virtue of his corruption luring human beings to choose Evil, the answer to whether or not he could completely break free or will only ever be able to whisper through the cracks doesn’t change the need to defeat him and close up the Bore.  But we don’t actually have any proof of the Dark One being able to enlarge the Bore on his own, or any information on what, exactly, he would need to do to break the Wheel and destroy the Pattern. As I pointed out when talking about Shaidar Haran, even during the Age of Legends the Dark One needed human beings to do his bidding and enact his desires on Earth. He was and is dependent on people choosing to enact evil on his behalf. We have seen the various methods he uses to tempt humanity towards these choices, primarily with promises of power or by instilling fear and despair. The Forsaken are obvious examples of the former, while Ingtar is a perfect example of the latter. The Dark One didn’t even make the Shadowspawn—a revelation which shocked me when I first read that it was Aginor who created Trollocs and Myrddraal. So even if Shaidar Haran is some kind of vessel for the Dark One, he needed a human being to make it for him, and he is clearly limited within that vessel, or else we’d have seen the Pattern destroyed already. Even when it comes to the Dark One’s power over death, his reach is limited. He appears to receive or possess the souls of those sworn to him upon their deaths, but in order to resurrect them he must be supplied by a human body, made within the Pattern in the usual way.  So while we certainly don’t know everything about how the Dark One works, we have no direct evidence that he is able to destroy the Pattern on his own, only the knowledge that this is what he desires to do, and that the Bore is a hole humanity drilled into whatever prison keeps him locked up (or away, or beyond, or whatever) that allows him to affect and interact with the world in a limited way, but one that is far greater than what he can otherwise achieve. And of course, the Dark One is not a “he” in actuality. The narrative uses “he” because in our culture, as in Rand’s, maleness is considered a neutral default. And because the Dark One is sentient, we interpret him as a person. But he, or rather it, is not a person. It is more like a force or a concept—corruption and destruction with a mind and a (very limited) sense of agency. It thinks, but it is not a person, and this is most certainly a factor when it comes to the idea of what it can or can’t do. Taking all this into account, we then turn to the fact that the Dark One has consistently forbid anyone from trying to kill Rand. Ba’alzamon was trying to recruit him to the Dark from the beginning, and although there was a time when various Forsaken were attempting to go after him, we don’t have any reason to believe the Dark One ordered it and that they weren’t just acting on their own accord, either because they wanted Rand dead or because they assumed the Dark One would want that. Then the order not to kill Rand, and to “let the Lord of Chaos rule,” was given. At first, I assumed that this command had something to do with too many of the Dark One’s followers being killed off by Rand, and that the Dark One decided to take a more indirect approach to bringing about Rand’s downfall. However, once it was revealed that the Forsaken (at least those not killed by balefire) can be reincarnated, it really seemed like the Dark One would be better served by just throwing everything he can at Rand, as quickly and as completely as possible. If the Dark One is guaranteed to win the Last Battle unless Rand is there to fight him, then really there is no resource not worth losing in the pursuit to make that happen. All the Dark One would be doing by waiting is giving Rand time to shore up his strength, his knowledge, and his forces. That is, unless the Dark One was aware of how much Rand was falling apart. The Dark One knew that the taint would be affecting Rand’s sanity from the very beginning, and may not have been able to anticipate Rand’s ability to cleanse saidin. Even if he was aware of such a possibility, the effects of the taint Rand has already experienced were not erased by the cleansing. Plus, the Dark One has sent his followers to mess with Rand, to erode his confidence and his trust in others, to spread chaos and destruction across the lands and make sure the blame is laid at the feet of the Dragon. He has undermined Rand again and again, both in the eyes of the world and in Rand’s own estimation of himself. Lest we forget, Galina may have been appointed to be Rand’s jailor by Elaida, but she was Black Ajah, and the effects of Rand’s time being beaten and locked in the box by her have played a big part in eroding what trust he had in Aes Sedai and in shattering his sense of peace and self confidence. Still, he forbids anyone from killing Rand. He punishes Semirhage for attempting to kill him, even though Rand was not killed and the loss of his hand helped further drive him towards his attempts at being “hard” and not caring about himself or his own fate. For some reason, the Dark One needs Rand alive. In chapter 50 of The Gathering Storm, Rand sits upon Dragonmount, the grave of his former self and a mark of the world’s understanding of the Dragon as a dangerous failure, and considers whether the world is even worth living in. He finds himself thinking that the cycle of death and rebirth is nothing more than a punishment, a way that humanity is forced to relive the same mistakes over and over again. He even considers that he might not want the Pattern to continue, and that none of existence actually matters at all. As I was reading it, I kept thinking that some of these sentiments don’t really sound like Rand. There are plenty that do, of course, particularly the thoughts about how he found himself unable to hold on to hope after Moiraine’s death, how every death from hers onward “rubbed his soul raw.” It’s easy to see how Rand came to a point of despair and surrender, given everything he has suffered. He is clearly, and understandably, exhausted by everything he has been through. In contrast, however, the following passage seems to come out of nowhere: “What if he is right?” Rand bellowed. “What if it’s better for this all to end? What if the Light was a lie all along, and this is all just a punishment? We live again and again, growing feeble, dying, trapped forever. We are to be tortured for all time!” Never before this moment have we seen Rand call the Light a lie and the existence of the Pattern a punishment on mankind. True, he has seen his own existence as punishment more or less since he accepted that he was the Dragon Reborn, but he has never extended that opinion to include other people. More importantly, he references a “he,” meaning that this theory on the cyclical nature of the Wheel and reincarnation didn’t originate with Rand, but someone else. That someone else seems to be Dark One itself, though it’s possible Rand is thinking of Elan Morin/Ishamael at this moment, given everything he said to Rand when he was presenting himself as the Dark One, in the guise of Ba’alzamon. And given the sorts of things Ishamael said to Lews Therin before Lews Therin’s death. It’s even possible that the touch of the “True Power” is further affecting Rand’s viewpoint of the Light and Creation, bringing either Moridin’s dislike for life or the Dark One’s own anti-Creation sentiments directly into Rand’s consciousness. (I mean, the “True Power” makes you insane and turns your body into fire, so it could probably do this, too.) In any case, all of this brings us back to Verin’s point about how the Dark One is actually fighting, and the fact that in this moment, Rand considers destroying the Pattern himself. Lanfear believed that the Choedan Kal were powerful enough to allow a user to kill the Dark One and perhaps even the Creator himself, so it is not a stretch to believe that Rand might be able to harness enough power to destroy the Pattern outright, or perhaps to damage it so severely that it unravels, even just using one half of the pair. Which is what the Dark One’s ultimate goal is. The Dark One isn’t trying to win the Last Battle, he is trying to end it, as he is trying to end everything. What Rand almost did is much closer to him winning even than the armies of the Light being decimated and the world falling into an Age where the Shadow rules and the Forsaken run the world. As I have pointed out before, the Forsaken believe that this is what they will get once the Dark One “wins,” but I am confident that they are wrong, and that the Dark One will get rid of everything, leaving only nothingness. Given all that, I firmly believe that this is the true climax between the Dragon and the Dark One. The Last Battle will still come, of course, and Rand will still have to go to Shayol Ghul and find a way to seal the Dark One’s prison, but this is the moment where Rand is poised to surrender, to the Dark One, to despair, to the threat of being unmade.  I believe that the Dark One cannot unmake the Pattern himself, even with the Bore open and the seals dissolved. He needs someone inside the Pattern to do it for him, and his main play was to drive Rand to do exactly that. And he nearly succeeded. But he did not succeed, and somehow, Rand has found his own way back to hope and to purpose. Now the Dark One will have to throw his forces into the Last Battle, and no doubt there will be a confrontation at Shayol Ghul with the Dark One in which Rand is tempted again to give in to despair, or perhaps promised something he wants (his lovers’ safety, peace for the Two Rivers, etc) if he gives in to the Dark One’s will and serves his ends. But it’s hard to imagine Rand faltering at that stage, not after he has confronted this moment of despair and made a choice to change his own way of thinking. It’s a beautiful moment, really, and I love that at the end of the day, Rand’s confrontation is purely with himself. They say that the first step to changing is recognizing that you have a problem, but really, the first step is wanting to change. This has been Rand’s difficulty more than anything else, really. As long as he believed that being hard and cutting off his emotions and separating himself from everything that gave him joy and made life worth living (and worth protecting) was the right thing to do, no amount of love from Min or support from the Aiel or deference from the world could stop his descent into madness and destruction. Because Rand believed that it was right. Cadsuane’s plan didn’t go as she hoped it would, but I don’t think one can deny that it was the right decision, maybe the only decision, that could have saved Rand. And indeed, the “mistake” of Tam letting it slip that Cadsuane was involved in his appearance and Rand’s subsequent breakdown is probably exactly what was needed. Rand needed to remember laughter and tears. He needed to feel his pain as well as feel joy again. The experience with Tam did both. Light, Rand thought, feeling a sudden urge to enfold Tam in a hug. Familiarity and memories flooded back into his mind. Tam delivering brandy to the Winespring Inn for Bel Tine. The pleasure Tam took in his pipe. His patience and his kindness. First, Rand felt relief, and love, and remembered safety. He notes in chapter 47 that these feelings are at odds with the hard man he has become, but he isn’t successful at pushing them away; he actually doesn’t even try very hard, for all that he stops himself from telling Tam to keep calling Rand “son.” Then the mention of Cadsuane brings about Rand’s breakdown, brings out the paranoia and insanity to the point where Rand uses the One Power against his father, even prepares to kill him. Here he experiences a true low, lower even than the experience of being forced to strangle Min. As Rand himself notes in chapter 49: He had nearly killed his father. He hadn’t been forced to by Semirhage, or by Lews Therin’s influence. No excuses. No argument. He, Rand al’Thor, had tried to kill his own father. He’d drawn in the Power, made the weaves and nearly released them. Rand has loathed himself for some time, has considered himself something terrible because of his identity as the Dragon, but that consideration has always been about “what” he is, about his ta’veren powers and the way people want to control him and the way he believes he must kill in order to fulfill his destiny. However, he wasn’t being the Dragon Reborn in that moment with Tam. Except for his ability to draw so much of saidin, he could have been anybody, any ordinary person caught in a homicidal rage. The comparison of that moment to the incident with Min and Semirhage is a perfect illustration of the difference. With what happened to Min, Rand does blame himself, telling himself that if he was stronger he would have kept Min away and kept her safe, and that choosing to allow her near and to love her was selfish. He blames his identity as the Dragon for the reason she is in harm’s way—which is true, strictly speaking—and is angry that he wasn’t smart enough or strong enough to avoid the situation. Rand hates what he is and self-flagellates over his own weaknesses, but he still knows he didn’t want to hurt Min. He did everything he could to save her, after all, including something that should have been impossible. And he did save her. With Tam, however, Rand can see his own madness at play. He was not driven to it; he merely responded to a mention of Cadsuane by going all the way to eleven, and becoming absolutely homicidal. He only narrowly avoided executing the act for reasons that seem insubstantial and fleeting. He could so easily be walking the streets Ebou Dar as a man guilty of patricide. And he knows it. Because of Tam’s visit, because of Cadsuane’s plan, Rand is forced to confront the truth of his choices. Rand’s rage was gone, replaced by loathing. He’d wanted to make himself hard. He’d needed to be hard. But this was where hardness had brought him. And honestly, I don’t think anyone could have explained where his desire to become hard would lead him in a way he could have understood. I think he had to experience it. This is something I intend to talk more about in an essay next week, so I’ll get back to my point, which is that Cadsuane’s plan worked, and worked well, though I am sure she didn’t anticipate things going the way they did. This really feels right for the character to me: Cadsuane is very smart and very experienced in dealing with people, but she’s also an Aes Sedai, with all the self-importance and lack of empathy that can bring. Since she came to work with Rand her POV sections have been full of internal complaints about how stubborn Rand is, how she really needs him to just listen and get it so they can move on to saving the world. She doesn’t understand what Rand needs—except she also does. She knows he needs to remember who he was, and she realizes that only the man who raised that good, kind, stubborn boy could remind Rand of that. It’s not just the horror of what he almost did that drives Rand’s realizations in chapter 50. I think it’s also the memory of who he used to be. He might not even be conscious of it, but it is there in his mind all the same. As far as the actual moment of revelation goes, I will say that I don’t think the chapter is particularly well written. It hits the theme that has been built over the course of the series, and addresses the justifiable anger Rand feels towards his situation, but the actual moment is clumsily written, in my opinion, and lacks the complexity and subtlety that I think Jordan would have executed it with. It’s odd that when Rand begins to consider that love makes life worth living, the thought seems to come out of nowhere. He just suddenly remembers past lives and the loves he had in them, and remembers love and peace and joy and hope. Just like that, because Lews Therin suggested that people are reincarnated in order to have a second chance. The two thoughts are barely connected (although I did like the moment of consideration that if Lews/Rand is reincarnated, then Ilyena could be as well) and neither seem to have anything to do with Rand, specifically. He doesn’t think about the loves he has in his current life; we don’t see any specific moments of joy or hope that he remembers that he still has in his life now. All the despair and pain Rand suffers within the story is very personal, from being locked in the box, to his never-healing wounds, to having to adjust to the idea of being a king and a general, responsible for saving lives and ordering deaths, to being viewed by the world as a monster because of abilities and an identity he did not choose, to losing people he cares about and believing that his own death is inevitable. I wanted something very personal in the revelation as well. After all, the catalyst for the confrontation is personal. Rand might have considered that his ability to stay his hand from killing Tam was getting a do-over, since Lews Therin was too insane to realize what he was doing to Ilyena. He might have taken the thought that Ilyena might be reincarnated further, thinking about how there is love in every lifetime, and that he himself has that love in spades. He might have realized that Tam loves him, and came to help him, and that Cadsuane’s involvement doesn’t take away from his father’s love. The idea that Rand might realize there is comfort and hope in the idea of rebirth and second chances is certainly sound, as well as appropriate for the way his universe functions. However, this thought also skirts too close to the idea of duty again—of Rand carrying a burden that was placed on his shoulders before he was born, that may have been designed to always be on his shoulders. I want to understand why that thought suddenly inspires hope and relief when moments earlier it seemed to only give Rand grief and the sensation of being trapped. Unfortunately, I really do feel like this chapter missed the mark. It is still effective because of how it has been built up to, but I felt more like I was reading a summary of a chapter than an actual climactic finale. That being said, I do really like the reference in the title to the “veins of gold” that Elayne and Aviendha and Min saw when they bonded Rand, which proved to them that he loved them. Elayne simply stared at him, felt him in her head. The pain of wounds and hurts he really had forgotten. The tension and disbelief; the wonder. His emotions were too rigid, though, like a knot of hardened pine sap, almost stone. Yet laced through them, golden veins pulsed and glowed whenever he looked at Min, or Aviendha. Or her. He did love her. He loved all three of them. And that made her want to laugh with joy. Other women might find doubts, but she would always know the truth of his love. I like the subtlety of putting the reference in the title without specifically invoking it within the narration. As it stands, however, it is the only reference to anyone Rand loves or any feelings of joy he has about his own life, and that’s just not enough to carry the moment. It was interesting to see Rand’s experience of camping with the Tinkers outside Ebou Dar, and his reaction to seeing the relative peace and prosperity of those living under Seanchan rule. Because the Seanchan are conquerors and because of their practice of slavery, especially when it comes to channelers, it feels incongruous, wrong even, that the Seanchan-controlled lands are stable and calm. Rand witnesses a land where there is order, and enough food to go around, and where Tinkers feel safe to exist without being molested, and people show concern for a man who collapses from apparent illness. It’s an important moment for Rand because it shows him that the Seanchan are people. They are not the Dark, nor are they a monolith where one bad actor or cruel person is indicative of the society as a whole. The fact that Seanchan society is monstrous in many ways is not important in this particular context, because Rand doesn’t need to make a moral judgment about how they run their lands or organize their citizenry. He just has to understand that nothing is black and white when it comes to human beings. He has to understand that he has been reducing this concept of “his enemies” to mindless Shadowspawn or poisonous traitors lurking in the dark waiting to stab him. He thinks of every questioned order or refusal to submit as an act of war, even of treason, but in reality, they are just choices made by human beings with their own agency and their own desires. They may make the wrong choices, even deeply immoral choices, but that is not about Rand. It is not a reflection of him and what he is or isn’t owed by the word. It is only a reflection of the person making the choice. If Rand had destroyed the Seanchan, many innocents would have died. Even if he avoided too much collateral damage to those whose lands were conquered—which he almost certainly would not have—there are many people in the Seanchan ranks who have little or no power to affect society, or choose where they settle, or prevent how channelers are treated. This doesn’t mean they have no agency or bear no responsibility, but it does remind Rand that what he is considering is tantamount to genocide. He isn’t destroying a Forsaken who has set themselves up to rule using Compulsion and lies. He isn’t blasting a horde of Shadowspawn off the earth before they can overrun a peaceful kingdom—or after they have. He is considering killing thousands of human beings because he believes that is what they deserve. But when he sees them as people, especially those on the bridge who stop and express concern for him and try to help him, Rand can’t bring himself to attack. They have been humanized in his eyes, and he will never be able to think of them the same way again, no matter how much he fears being attacked by Seanchan on one side and the Shadow on the other. No matter how much Tuon/Fortuona defies him, or disappoints him. This, too, contributes to his ultimate redemption on Dragonmount. I would have liked to see it included a bit more in the actual moment of realization. Rand might have considered the fact that the Seanchan culture provides good to some people as a reminder that there is always the potential for improvement, that no person or way of life is so dark that it needs to be destroyed. He might have looked at the experience of the Tinkers and found hope that the darker aspects of Seanchan culture might be ameliorated and changed, or that the order and care shown for (most) citizens proves that the Seanchan leadership cares about its subjects and offers Rand a way towards a more successful negotiation. It could have reminded him that the world has balance, good as well as bad, while he has only been focusing on the bad. The building blocks are there. I just really wish they’d been executed more effectively. In the epilogue with Egwene we see her recognize that something important has happened over Dragonmount, even if she doesn’t know what, exactly, it is. Egwene has good instincts with these sorts of things, and it feels very symbolically relevant that she is bearing witness to Rand’s moment of revelation so close after her own. I also really loved the way she was having the hole in the wall of the Hall filled in with a window; it is a way of both remembering and moving forward, of memorializing the Tower’s failures and homaging its strength. Egwene is very good at understanding balance in this way, and I am very curious to see if Rand’s newfound understanding leads him to have a similar perspective. The image Egwene sees of the light on Dragonmount is very reminiscent of the vision Min saw over Rand’s head, of Dragonmount dark save for a single pinprick of light. I think it is fair to say that that vision has been fulfilled. It is also fair to say, especially given that it is quoted at the end of the epilogue, that the passage in the Seanchan Prophecies of the Dragon that (For)Tuon(a) remembered has also been fulfilled. the blind man shall stand/ upon his own grave. /There he shall see again,/and weep for what has been wrought. I predicted that the grave was Dragonmount, as it marks the place Lews Therin died, and Rand is described at the end of chapter 50 as opening his eyes “for the first time in a very long while,” which seems to fit the description of a blind man seeing again. True, he laughs instead of weeping, but I think he has remembered both now, as Cadsuane and the Wise Ones hoped he would. Finally, in regards to the voice of Lews Therin, which Rand knows he will never hear as a separate voice ever again, we are left with an unclear answer as to exactly what Lews Therin’s presence in Rand’s head was, whether a hallucination or bleed-through from the past or something else. I don’t think we are meant to have an exact answer, but for me, I think Lews Therin was a persona that Rand’s unconscious, taint-corrupted mind put on the knowledge he had in his mind from another life. Rand was at odds with himself, and so this manifested as being at odds with his previous self, the one responsible for the taint and for some of the PTSD that Rand carried via his memories of the past. Lews Therin was Rand, is Rand, and it is only how Rand interpreted his own thoughts and memories that was the madness. And with that, we conclude our read of The Gathering Storm. I’ll have an essay for you next week, and then we will take a brief hiatus before we start Towers of Midnight. In which, I assume, Mat will lead the rescue of Moiraine from the Tower of Ghenjei, Perrin will figure out wolf dreams, and Lan will not be left to die at the Gap. Plus some other stuff![end-mark] The post Reading The Wheel of Time: The Dragon Confronts Despair and Discovers Hope in <i>The Gathering Storm</i> (Part 29) appeared first on Reactor.