Excerpts fantasy Read an Excerpt From Demons and Diplomacy by Megan Frampton A tantalizing pact between an ordinary woman and the silver-tongued son of the Devil is all that stands between Britain—and all hell breaking loose. By Megan Frampton | Published on July 14, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Demons and Diplomacy by Megan Frampton, a new fantasy novel out from Berkley on August 25. 1851, London. All supernatural species have emerged from hiding, a result of The Great Revelation, led by Her Majesty, the vampiric Queen Victoria, and her dhamphir consort, Prince Albert.Cora Hastings is the British government’s Species Ombudsman, a human tasked with keeping the peace between supernatural creatures. It’s run-of-the-mill work: enforcing the newly created shifting parameters, negotiating contracts between species, and generally making certain all Londoners are treated equally.That is, until the Devil himself decides he wants to leave his hellish home and see the results of Prince Albert’s greatest accomplishment, the Great Exhibition. His arrival could upset the uneasy peace between creatures, and worse—he’s brought his son.The Marquis of Hell is diabolically good-looking, unnaturally perceptive, and, well, a demon. Cora navigates her sinfully seductive diplomatic assignment as best she can, until she catches wind of a secret conspiracy set to come to fruition at the opening of the Great Exhibition. This leaves her with an impossible choice: Either Cora enters an unholy alliance with the Devil’s son, or she watches as her world is torn asunder…. Buy the Book Demons and Diplomacy Megan Frampton Buy Book Demons and Diplomacy Megan Frampton Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Miss Hastings,” the marquis said, “come with me. It is not safe.” I glared at him, then at this hand still on my arm. “No, it is not. But how do I know it is safer with you?” After all, I had no clue how the creatures had gained access to this world from wherever they had originated. I shook his arm off. His eyes narrowed, and then he huffed out a breath before bending down to wrap his arms around my waist and hoist my body over his shoulders. I whacked him with my cane, right on his ass, but that did little to stop him. He carried me toward the entrance, then to the right, then plopped me down with little consideration for how I landed. “Just what—?” I began, then saw the harpy, the Devil, some of his entourage, the vicar—who seemed visibly inebriated—and a few frightened bazaar customers all gathered together. “How did it get opened?” the Devil thundered, plumes of smoke emerging from his mouth. I gathered that was what happened when he was truly angry. So perhaps this wasn’t his work? I’d assumed it had some connection, but he looked as perturbed as any of the other beings in the corner. Unless he was pretending to be outraged. That seemed above my pay grade, to be honest. “We’ll have to find out,” the marquis said grimly. “In the meantime, you stay here,” he commanded. He met my gaze. “Stay here,” he repeated in a stern tone. “Stay safe.” He whirled away before I could answer and headed back toward where the beings were streaming out from. I shrugged at the other people—and one devil—waiting there and took a deep breath before following him, wishing I had thought to ask our landlady if she had any potions that could disperse crowds of hellish creatures. I had my amulet, of course, but when Mr. Connors had given it to me, he’d stressed it was not to be used unless the situation was dire. I had to imagine the amulet’s effects might cause a diplomatic incident, especially if they affected the Devil. I was surprised the marquis seemed to be assisting those of us whose homes were here, not down below. Even more surprising was that the Devil was gathered with the other beings seeking refuge from the infiltration. If the Devil and his son didn’t know everything happening in their world, or at least couldn’t control it, then who knew what might happen, now that the barrier between the two worlds had been weakened? And who had weakened it? But on the other hand, were they even telling the truth? Definitely something to include in my weekly report to Mr. Connors. If I made it out of here. I watched as the marquis stepped on some of the beetle-like things with his solid black boots, flinching as they oozed a yellowish goo. But at least they didn’t move after. He had a particularly lethal-looking sword—where had that come from anyway?—and was lopping the heads off the demonish creatures as he strode forward to the portal. I had to dodge bouncing heads and flailing bodies, but they weren’t alive. Or at least I didn’t think so. I used my blade to do the same, though it was not nearly as effective as his. I spotted a table with a variety of parasols—not sturdy umbrellas to help with repelling rain but ornately decorated items a lady might twirl above her head when taking a stroll in the park. I picked up two and unfurled them, holding them out in front of me like an incredibly flimsy, albeit beautiful to look at, shield. The handles were slim enough for me to grasp in one hand, so I was able to keep hold of my cane, the blade still out, in the other hand. “Why aren’t you back there with the rest of them?” the mar-quis said, sounding exasperated as he lopped off yet another head. “I can handle this myself.” It did seem as though he spoke the truth. There were many fewer creatures than before, and the unending stream emerging from the portal seemed to have ended. “I rather thought you might need back up,” I said, pitching my voice louder to be heard above the noise. He snorted, apparently deeming my comment unworthy of actual words. But just then one of the beetle-ish creatures attached itself to his leg, making that clicking noise as it attempted to climb up. He shook his leg, still on the attack in front of him, but the thing didn’t release its hold. I whacked it with my cane, not yet using the blade, because I didn’t want to accidentally stab the marquis—not that I thought I would actually hurt him but because I imagined he might be peeved, and I didn’t want to further irritate him—but the thing didn’t budge. The marquis was still moving, advancing and attacking a few more of the head-lolling creatures, and I followed, still batting at it with the cane. I closed one of the parasols, then got close enough so I could wedge the parasol between the creature and the marquis’s leg, hoping I could dislodge it. I had no idea what it was trying to do, but it wasn’t wanted, either here in this church or on the marquis’s leg. Eventually, it released its hold and fell onto the floor. I took a deep breath, then stomped on it, relieved I’d worn sturdy boots so the extruding goo wouldn’t reach my foot. “Hastings!” the marquis yelled, and I looked up to see him at the head of the church, his hair blowing about his face by some sort of hellish wind, his back pressed against the altar. He jerked his head impatiently, and I scurried forward, waving cane and parasol about my person to fend off the intruders. “What is it?” I asked as I reached him. “I’m quite good at languages, if you need me to recite anything. Or execute a partic-ular movement, I am also good at mimicry.” I prepared myself to perform an incantation or rite, hoping that the aftermath wouldn’t stain my gown. It was one of my favorites—I wished I had worn the fussy housekeeper gown after all; that one would hide a stain better than this one. He gave me an odd look, then nodded to the far edge of the altar. “I need you to hold that edge closed so I can push the door shut.” No rite? No incantation? Not even a bit of hand-waving? I frowned, moving to the other side of the altar. There was an opening, and I could feel wind whooshing from it, though thank-fully there weren’t any more beings coming through. I pushed on the edge, as he’d said, and he leaned against the plank that would securely shut the door, once shoved through the metal chamber on my side. “There,” he said, once it had gone through. I blinked. “That was it? That is all that is needed to close the portal from Hell? I assume it was Hell.” One corner of his mouth twitched, as though he was about to smile, and then his expression smoothed out again. Drat. I was hoping to see what a smiling marquis might look like. “It was Hell, yes.” He exhaled. “And it was not our doing.” Excerpted from Demons and Diplomacy by Megan Frampton Copyright © 2026 by Megan Frampton. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Demons and Diplomacy</i> by Megan Frampton appeared first on Reactor.

Books Seeds of Story Voracious Urchins, Angry Orcas, and Tuna Conspiracies: Helen Scales’ What the Wild Sea Can Be Exploring the history of the ocean, the critical environmental threats if faces, and strategies and solutions for its future By Ruthanna Emrys | Published on July 14, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome to Seeds of Story, where I explore the non-fiction that inspires—or should inspire—speculative fiction. Every couple weeks, we’ll dive into a book, article, or other source of ideas that are sparking current stories, or that have untapped potential to do so. Each article will include an overview of the source(s), a review of its readability and plausibility, and highlights of the best two or three “seeds” found there. This week, I cover Helen Scales’ What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Oceans. It’s a little bit census of climate impacts, a little bit exploration of cool ecosystems, and a lot of speculation about what might change in the ocean—for better and worse—in the coming decades. What It’s About There are many benefits to being a marine biologist. For Dr. Helen Scales, one of those benefits is a career in nature writing, with books on topics ranging from seahorses to seashells to deep sea life. What the Wild Sea Can Be goes beyond any single genus or ecosystem, with each chapter diving (sorry not sorry) into a specific human impact on the ocean. For each, we get a sense of the system in question, why it’s both cool and important, why it’s in danger, and what’s being done to save it. As foundation, Scales kicks off with the ocean’s deep time history. Earth’s waters have changed dramatically over the aeons. Twenty-five-thousand species of trilobites flourished in the Cambrian and Ordovician, taking advantage of the initial wash of eroding minerals from the land to build exoskeletons and crystalline eyes. Though they were finally knocked out by the end-Permian extinction, ice age cooling and the loss of shallow inland seas made them vulnerable long before. Then the first fish came along and found them tasty. The point is twofold: oceanic change has a long history, and we shouldn’t underestimate how dramatically once-robust ecosystems can collapse. The ocean faces threats from a range of anthropocene activities. Climate change warms and acidifies water, pushing species into new habitats. This isn’t, unfortunately, a matter of whole ecosystems moving en mass—there’s no guarantee that a species will move alongside its food sources, or alongside shelter and protection from predators. At the same time, microplastics and other pollution interfere with growth, health, and fertility. Orcas, for example, have massive reproductive challenges due to the combination of being top predators (accumulating pollution from their prey) and their massive blankets of warming fat (which hoard those chemicals along with everything fat is supposed to store). Then there’s overfishing. Humans stress oceanic ecosystems not merely due to the amount of fish we eat, but via technological hunting methods that increase the speed and quantity of the catch alongside increasing bycatch of non-target fauna (e.g., longlines full of baited hooks that extend for miles) and collateral damage (e.g., bottom trawlers that cut swaths along the seafloor). Many of these methods also contribute to microplastic pollution. Despite what you hear from people complaining about straw bans, however, 80% of ocean plastics come from land-based sources—though not, to be fair, from straws in particular. Some solutions, like banning single-use plastics, or replacing fossil-fuel-based plastics with bio-plastics, require broad-strokes change. Others are more focused. Coastal kelp forests benefit dramatically from rewilding sea otters, whose populations collapsed from over-hunting in the 20th century. Sea otters eat urchins, which if not controlled will gobble young kelp before they can grow to shelter sea dragons, giant cuttlefish, sea hares, and wobbegong sharks. The kelp in turn protects the otters from sharks that are expanding territories in warming seas, and which keep the otters from migrating naturally. Kelp also draws down 18 megatons of CO2 annually, and absorbs nutrient runoff that otherwise leads to algal blooms and mass die-offs. Scales also talks about fishery reserves—and the importance of actual enforcement. There are a lot of ostensible oases where “illegal” fishing is at higher levels than in unregulated waters. The International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas is sometimes called “the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas.” On the other hand, many fisheries—including now, finally, the bluefin tuna fishery—do recover with sufficiently strong controls. And in a few locations, no-take marine reserves allow populations to recover and thrive, often with results spilling into areas where fishing is allowed. Scales closes out with emerging controversies, proposals, and areas of wild speculation. Companies invest in mining polymetallic nodules for the growing battery market; people push back on the massive ecosystem disruption; other companies develop saline-based batteries that don’t require the metals in the first place. Activists attempt to sweep up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, only to discover that they risk the same sort of bycatch as fishing technologies. People become less dependent on open-fished food and more on aquaculture, but krill get over-harvested to feed farmed fish. And so on. There are last-ditch compromises, such as keeping a library of coral in a climate-controlled repository until seas cool again. There are dubious possibilities that would be great if they panned out—blockchain-based tracking of seafood sustainability, for example, and AI-based tailored reef restoration, and lab-grown fish meat (currently running about $20,000 a pound and an eye-watering energy budget). There are also some obvious wins, like rebuilding and managing coastal wetlands. As long as we’re talking about the problems and taking them seriously, rather than trying to ignore them as we did for so long, we have many options for what the sea’s future might look like. If we follow those possibilities, it might become very wild indeed. Buy the Book What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean Helen Scales Buy Book What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean Helen Scales Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget This is a book I read due to immediate need, rather than as general contribution to my creative compost—homework for a high-seas adventure set in a highly-geoengineered future. I was looking for a mix of hopeful developments, distressing ones, and dramatic tradeoffs. I was also trying to figure out what role uplifted octopodes might play in minimizing the harm of a polymetallic nodule mine, which probably won’t even come up in that chapter. So, y’know, the usual woes of writing research. What the Wild Sea Can Be is a great source for this type of thing, full of crunchy conflicts and cool breakthroughs and the sort of high-risk high-tech ideas that appeal to a certain sort of funder. For a book that has “wild” in the title, I did sometimes feel that it wasn’t wild enough. Scales calls for fishing treaties that value species for their own sake, yet doesn’t bring up the Rights of Nature movement—which creates frameworks for treaties to take non-human perspectives seriously. Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? tries hard to step outside the view of humans-versus-nature; this feels like it ultimately keeps humans separate. This limitation is especially clear when Scales talks about no-take reserves. There’s no suggestion that humans might have a long-term natural role in these ecosystems, alongside Anthropocene innovations like rewilding. There’s a sense that we can work to mitigate our harm, but that it would’ve been better if we were never involved at all. Extending this problem, Scales is respectful of Indigenous relationships with the ocean… in a way that almost totally ignores the role that Indigenous knowledge might play in preserving it. She’s careful to call places by their Indigenous names, and quotes Indigenous activists around the borders of international treaties. She mentions that the Siuslaw in Oregon feel kinship with otters. But beyond an Aotearoan no-take zone that inspired one in Scotland, there’s no mention of traditional fishing techniques, no Robin Wall Kimmerer-style research on how those techniques affect ecosystem health, no suggestion that excluding people from their ancestral ocean-tending grounds might be a problem. I know not every research field can have its own best-selling integrator of traditional wisdom and cutting-edge science, but basic examples aren’t hard to come by. There is also, somehow, no mention of Elinor Ostrom, who researched effective fishery management, and won a Nobel Prize for disproving the claim that the commons are inevitably tragic. So: frustrating, but also informative and engaging. I learned how warming oceans led tiger and great white sharks to Cape Cod, where I grew up on beaches free of both sharks and seals. I learned about the invasive lionfish that I’ve seen on menus (always somehow sold out, alas, despite their numbers). I learned about breeding coral polyps, and their photosynthetic symbionts, for heat tolerance. There’s a terrific discussion of the problems facing orcas, and the recent cetacean fad for ramming yachts. I learned about mass radiations (the opposite of mass extinctions!), and horrifying urchin mouths with mobile teeth (“Aristotle’s lanterns”!), and Elvis worms (they sparkle!). And there’s a real understanding of the degree to which change requires all sorts of community members and ecosystem participants—that you have to work with fishers and divers and scientists, that you need to take everyone’s needs into account to get agreements that last. The Best Seeds for Speculative Stories Beyond Cat Aliens. If you’re looking for weird models for non-humanoid aliens, the ocean might get you further than common household domesticates. No shade on people who’re into cat-girls, but consider a sand tiger shark-girl, and her fraught relationship with her twin, and the attendant ghosts of all their siblings who they cannibalized before their birth. Or a species based around the equivalent of deep-sea vents, with life focused around rare hubs and hazardous anywhere in between? (Oh wait, that’s stars, isn’t it? Have a metaphor.) We already have space whales. We need space octopodes and space otters and space coral. Beyond Pirates. One problem with marine reserves is that the ocean isn’t great with boundaries. Species move, habitats change, and you can’t just outline a park and leave it alone. Says Scales: “The way reserves are set up will have to become a lot more responsive, with plans and regulations that can change and adapt as the environment changes.” This opens up a lot of fascinating future jobs in tracking those changes, in trying to predict “not only where species exist now but where they will likely move to,” and in redirecting threats in real time. Some of this might involve telling ships to slow down near whales (as already happens in a few places), but it might also require more direct—and dramatic—confrontations. Another source of jobs, and stories, is reef restoration, which Scales suggests needs “a techno-centric transformation on par with the industrialization of agriculture.” I’m not convinced that near-term robotics are up to the precision required to successfully replant polyps without breaking older coral, but it’s worth speculating what it would look like—and maybe prodding some research. (Alternatively, consider: uplifted octopuses.) New Growth: What Else to Read There’s an overwhelming cornucopia of oceanic non-fiction out there. At the human surface, Elliot Rappaport’s Reading the Glass: A Captain’s View of Weather, Water, and Life on Ships is a great, McFarlane-ish mix of shipboard adventure and explanation of how we predict the weather that makes shipboard life adventurous. Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus is the seed for my uplifted octopodes. (Apologies to my wife for not using the Greek pluralization every time. Apologies to everyone else for using it most of the time.) Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future is next on my list for brainstorming geoengineering tradeoffs. Warren Belasco’s Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food is on my list for what seafood we’ll be eating, and how we’ll get it from water to table. The cornucopia of oceanic fiction is not lesser. James Cambias’ A Darkling Sea has a great alien seafloor vent ecosystem, even if it doesn’t have many women of any species. You can find sapient octopuses in Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures and Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea. There’s a really excellent shark in Diane Duane’s Deep Wizardry. Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon begins with a prologue from the point of view of a swordfish and gets weirder and more awesome from there. Mira Grant’s Rolling in the Deep and Into the Drowning Deep really appreciate marine biology, and the value of studying something that’s trying to eat you. I will stop there, dammit. Share your own aquatic story recommendations in the comments![end-mark] The post Voracious Urchins, Angry Orcas, and Tuna Conspiracies: Helen Scales’ <i>What the Wild Sea Can Be</i> appeared first on Reactor.

News Nova Loki Creator Michael Waldron Is Now Developing a Nova Movie for Marvel It’d be cooler if it were a Cassandra Nova movie By Molly Templeton | Published on July 14, 2026 Screenshot: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Marvel Studios Marvel continues to put many—or at least some—eggs in its Michael Waldron basket. The creator of Loki (pictured above), writer of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and co-writer of Avengers: Doomsday is now developing the studio’s Nova project, which has morphed from a series into a feature film. According to Deadline, Waldron’s involvement became known last week, “when Waldron’s WGA card was leaked with the project being listed as a credit leading to the reveal that Waldron had been brought on to tackle a new pitch.” The character of Nova was created in 1976 and is basically a superpowered space cop. As Marvel explains, “Chosen at random by the dying Xandarian Rhomann Dey to receive his Nova Corps powers, teenager Richard Rider found himself thrust into the role of superhero, a role he grasped with relish.” In comics, he’s had some run-ins with the Skrulls, who keep turning up in recent Marvel projects; was a member of the Secret Avengers; and appeared in a Guardians of the Galaxy storyline, among other adventures. Marvel has been trying to make Nova happen since at least 2022, when Moon Knight writer Sabir Pirzada was attached to the project. Two years later, it was announced that Nova would be a series with Criminal Minds’ Ed Bernero as showrunner. But in 2025, Nova was one of the TV projects that Marvel put on pause (along with Strange Academy and Terror, Inc.). It remains to be seen if and when Waldron’s version will arrive in theaters.[end-mark] The post <i>Loki</i> Creator Michael Waldron Is Now Developing a <i>Nova</i> Movie for Marvel appeared first on Reactor.

Books The Wheel of Time Reading The Wheel of Time: Backward Leads Only to the Past in Towers of Midnight (Part 2) By Sylas K Barrett | Published on July 14, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Galad leads seven thousand Children of the Light through a deep and large swamp, taking a path deliberately chosen because it seems the least likely place for Asunawa to be looking for them. The men are struggling in the heat and the mud and the insects, and Dain Bornhald suggests that they turn back. Galad tells him that backwards only leads to the past, and that they must go forward, as the Last Battle is almost upon them.  Remembering the lessons about leadership that Morgase taught him, he calls a halt to the march and gives a speech to his men to encourage them, reminding them that they are the Light, and that light shines brightest when it is dark. “Where is the victory of this swamp? I refuse to feel its bite, for I am proud. Proud to live in these days, proud to be part of what is to come. All the lives that came before us in this Age looked forward to our day, the day when men will be tested. Let others bemoan their fate. Let others cry and wail. We will not, for we will face this test with heads held high. And we will let it prove us strong!” They continue their march, strengthened by Galad’s speech. After fording a river full of  bodies from some bandit attack or raid and marching for a while longer, a scout named Bartlett returns to report that the swamp ends in about a mile, and that the way north is clear. But when Galad and the first of his men emerge from the trees into the field beyond, a great force appears—Asunawa and the Questioners, plus other forces Galad guesses must be Amadicians, loaned to Asunawa by the Seanchan. He realizes that his scouts betrayed him, suggesting the route through the swamp in order to exhaust Galad’s men and give Asunawa time to get his forces assembled. Their numbers are much greater as well, and Galad knows that he has no chance of victory here. Accompanied by Byar and Bornhald, Galad rides out to parley with Asunawa, who is accompanied by a guard of Questioners as well as several Lord Captains. Asunawa accuses Galad and his men of being Darkfriends, although when Galad calls him out he changes his accusation, naming only Galad as such, his followers led astray by him. Asunawa demands Galad surrender, and accuses him of using the powers of the Dark to defeat Valda unfairly. But Galad has an answer for each accusation, turning to the Lord Captains and invoking various rules and tenets of the Children of the Light to point out the ridiculousness, and unlawfulness, of Asunawa’s claims. Still, Asunawa persists, refusing to accept Galad’s arguments or to make any truce with a Darkfriend. Galad offers to surrender, on the condition that none of his men are imprisoned or put to the question.  “You cannot hinder the Hand of the Light in such a way! This would give them free rein to seek the Shadow!”“And is it only fear of Questioning that keeps us in the Light, Asunawa?” Galad asked. “Are not the Children valiant and true?” Asunawa is still dissatisfied, and Bornhald tries to talk Galad out of his decision, but Galad stands firm, and eventually Asunawa orders Galad be taken prisoner… and that none of his men are to be put to the question. Galad sends Bornhald and Byar back to give orders to his men and then is roughly dragged from his saddle and thrown to the ground. As his armor is removed and his clothing cut free, he declares that he is not a Darkfriend and will never speak that lie. He is then beaten and kicked into unconsciousness. The creature who was once known as Padan Fain walks along a hill, reveling in his hatred, the only emotion he has left. He likes to carry the dagger unsheathed so that it cuts his hands and leaves drops of blood on the ground as he walks. He has accepted his madness, and feels liberated. He has killed a Worm, which has attracted some attention from nearby Shadowspawn. He runs into a group of Trollocs led by a Myrddraal. The Trollocs attack, but the more intelligent Myrddraal turns to flee. The mist struck.It rolled over the Trollocs, moving quickly, like the tentacles of a leviathan in the Aryth Ocean. Lengths of it snapped forward through Trolloc chests. One long rope whipped above their heads, then shot forward in a blur, taking the Fade in the neck. The Trollocs fall to the ground in screaming spasms, their skin breaking out in blisters and cysts. They rise again, corrupted zombies under his control. The madman continues on, followed by his Trollocs, on his way to kill Rand al’Thor. He thinks he’ll kill the Dark One next. In Kandor, Malenarin Rai, commander of Heeth Tower, is working and pondering his duties for the day and his son Keemlin’s upcoming nameday. To have a duty was to have pride—just as to bear a burden was to gain strength. Watching the Blight was his duty and his strength, and it was particularly important these days, with the strange storm to the north, and with the Queen and much of the Kandori army having marched to seek the Dragon Reborn. Jargen, a sergeant of the watch, reports to Malenarin that they have received a flash—the watchtowers communicate using light reflected by mirrors—from Rena Tower. There has been no following message to report that the flash was a mistake, and no response to messages from Heeth Tower. After waiting some time for a reply either by mirror or messenger, Malenarin decides to send a message on to the next tower reporting what has happened and warning of a possible attack. In addition to message by mirror, the information will also be carried by boys on horseback. Three of them, just in case. Keemlin is one of those who will be sent, as his name is next on the roster. It isn’t long before Malenarin, watching the dark storm that has been perpetually on the horizon, decides that the darkness is advancing. He orders the Tower to be readied for a siege. He is surprised when Keemlin appears, reporting that he asked that another boy be sent in his place. He explains that the other, Tian, is five or ten pounds lighter than Keemlin, which will make a big difference on a hard ride. Under his father’s disapproving stare, he adds that Tian’s mother has already lost four sons to the Blight, and that Tian is her last. Keemlin’s nameday is still a few days away, but Malenarin tells his son that the sword is presented the day a boy becomes a man—therefore, this presentation is late, not early, as Malenarin sees a man standing before him. The ceremony is short, with Keemlin swearing to fight in defense of his honor, his family, and his homeland for as long as he has breath, and to never stop fighting, or watching. The men cheer as Keemlin is declared a man. Moments later the Tower is attacked by Draghkar that come pouring out of the cloudy sky. On the ground, a massive force of Trollocs begins to batter at the walls. Malenarin knows that the Trollocs will keep coming until the Tower is overwhelmed and every man killed. He also knows that every moment they resist buys time for the messages to reach the next tower, and for the defenders to prepare. Malenarin was a man of the Borderlands, same as his father, same as his son beside him. They knew their task. You held until you were relieved. That’s all there was to it. Ugh, just when I thought Mordeth/Fain couldn’t get any grosser. I’m curious what part he has left to play in this story, though. By the rule of threes there should be one more big thing. The first was of course the fact that he nearly killed Rand. The second was Shadar Logoth and the power of Mashadar made possible the cleansing of saidin. What will the third be, and will it have something to do with fighting Rand himself, or fighting the Dark, or some combination of both? The beginnings of Fain, back in the early books that homage Lord of the Rings so lovingly, were very Gollum like, which also makes me feel like Mordeth/Fain should be there at a climactic moment of the Last Battle, even if it’s not the climactic moment. That he has, as Gandalf says of Gollum, “some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end[…].” I don’t really enjoy reading about him much, though I am interested in his new delusion that he can kill the Dark One. I don’t believe it is possible to do that—the Dark One seems to be integral to the function of Creation and the lives of humanity—but that doesn’t mean Mordeth/Fain couldn’t do the Dark One some serious damage. And it’s interesting, really, because Mordeth, the original guy who came to Aridhol, began as someone who genuinely wanted to fight the Shadow. He and the people who followed his ways became corrupted—I believe there was something about using the methods of the Shadow to fight the Shadow—but Mashadar was never of the Shadow. It is a different kind of Evil, one that will destroy anyone it touches, but prefers to hunt Shadowspawn above all. And I can’t help thinking, given how important Mashadar already has been to Rand’s success, that in some ways, from a certain point of view, what Mordeth and King Balwen did was… good? Not moral, of course, but perhaps necessary, in a cosmic sense, to the successful progression of the Age and the ultimate victory of Rand al’Thor at the Last Battle. In some twisted, messed up way, Mordeth the man has done exactly what he set out to do. Also, what the heck is a Worm? Are we going for a Dune homage now? Jordan pulled a lot of inspiration from Dune, especially with the Aes Sedai, so I can certainly see him inventing a sandworm-eque creature to include in his world building. I can also see Sanderson inventing such a creature following the same reasoning. Speaking of new creatures, I had to go look up what a Draghkar was; I felt like the name was familiar but I can not remember for the life of me if/where we’ve encountered them before. I always try not to do research online for fear of spoilers, but curiosity got the better of me and I did read the whole fandom.com article on Draghkar, and did a little skimming through the articles about Trollocs and Myrddraal. I found it interesting that while Trollocs were created by splicing human and animal genetics (with Myrddraal resulting when the balance of presentation tipped a little closer to human than animal) but the first Draghkar were (according to the fandom.com article, which did not site a source for this particular piece of information) created by corrupting humans. Still, they seem very similar to Myrddraal, even to the point of having hypnotic powers. Myrddraal get the toughness and the weird faces, Draghkar are skinny and more fragile, but they get giant bat wings. Both basically just feel like animalistic vampires to me. I don’t have a whole lot to say about Malenarin Rai’s section. It’s well-written and atmospheric, but plot-wise it doesn’t do much besides let the reader know that the Shadow is on the move. And it reminds us of how Borderlanders think, which is useful in understanding Lan’s whole deal, and the mindset of those who follow him. It’s easy to be annoyed by Lan’s deathwish tendencies, especially since they rubbed off on Rand, but the context of the culture he was born into and the one he was raised around matters a lot when it comes to how he thinks and how he carries himself. Borderlanders consider the reason for their existence, the meaning of their lives, is to give them to the fight against the Shadow. When Malenarin gave Keemlin his sword and named him a man, I thought about the Malkier tradition of granting the hadori/ki’sain. Just as Keemlin repeats an oath to stand against the Shadow until his death, the hadori and ki’sain come with a similar oath, a similar commitment to fight until one’s death. Or in the case of women, to dedicate her sons to that fight. My complaints about gendered bullshit aside, I do think there is something dark about making that pledge on behalf of someone who hasn’t even been born yet. It speaks to the strength of the culture and to the fact that the Borderland countries only survive because their culture is so strict about duty and standing against the Shadow/Blight. But it also speaks to the depressing inevitability of being born into a world at war. This is what the Dark One is really about, I think. His personal goal (as far as anyone knows, anyway) is to destroy creation, or maybe remake it in his own image. But his role in the lives of humanity is to bring war and strife and suffering, to create a world in which even before they are born, babies are dedicated to fighting a war that has been going on for generations and generations. Rand isn’t the only one who inherited an identity and a duty that brings him pain, suffering, and death. Everyone in this world did—the Borderlands most of all. I’ve left Galad and his section for last because it is the most interesting and the most complicated. I have to admit, I’m obsessed with Galad’s characterization, and have been since we met him back in The Eye of the World. I have a soft spot for lawful characters, people whose rigid sense of right and wrong makes them heroes (in the story-telling sense) who always stand by their principles—and then, inevitably, are challenged by a world that is not nearly as black and white as they believe.  I’ve used the DnD categorization to talk about this kind of character before, when exploring the characterization of Galad. Where Elayne says he “always does the right thing, with no regard for who it hurts,” I say lawful Good. But the thing about being lawful Good is that you can only continue to be both as long as the laws you follow are good. This is possible in a game setting, but not in real life, because laws are made by people, and all people are flawed. No matter what law you choose, what leader you follow, you are inevitably going to come up against a law, an order, a choice, that does not match your morals. And then you must decide. Will you choose law for law’s sake? Or will you choose good, even if it breaks the rules? We saw Galad tackle this problem when he helps Nynaeve and Elayne escape Samara, choosing to honor his duty to Elayne as more important than any other obligations he might have. His actions led to riots, which I suppose fits the narrative of doing the right thing “no matter who it hurts,” but it proves that he is capable of thinking for himself, of following his own moral compass above the rules and laws of any organization he may owe allegiance to. As far as being a member of the Children of the Light goes, Galad is reconciling the difference between lawful and good by attaching himself to the spirit of the Whitecloaks’ rules, focusing on the noble goals and lofty ideals of serving the Light and protecting the world from the Shadow. He doesn’t allow personal ambition or animosity to taint his execution of those ideals, and he is determined to hold the men around him to the proper standard. Galad is also fortunate to have the skills and brains to back up his position. The whole point of a Trial Beneath the Light is that the Children believe that the Light will only allow those righteous under the Light to prevail; the Light would never allow a liar or a criminal to be victorious. If you don’t believe that, however, then the Trial Beneath the Light doesn’t prove innocence or guilt, only who is the better swordsman. Or who was having a better day. Or who just got lucky. Valda may or may not have truly believed that he was a good man in the eyes of the Light, but he clearly believed that he was going to best Galad through greater martial powers, not because the Light would guide him to victory. I don’t think Galad, whose position was moral and whose accusations were true, really believed that he was guaranteed to win because the Light deemed it so. He did, however, understand the law of the Children, and his moral duty demanded that he make every attempt to avenge his mother. He used his understanding of the law and faith of the Children of the Light to his best advantage, and because he is also an incredible swordsman, he was able to succeed. So great is the hold that lawfulness and faith have on the Children that even Asunawa (who knew of Valda’s guilt) couldn’t stop Galad from getting to issue his challenge. Valda accepted it because he was cocky, but I think also because he knew that he needed to appear upstanding in the law in the eyes of his men. Galad also uses his understanding of the laws and faith of the Children during the parley with Asunawa. He knows that Asunawa is not a good person, and that the man is more interested in his own gains than following either law or morality, so he appeals his arguments to the Lord Captains who are with Asunawa. If these men are good and true, they must at least consider what Galad is saying as he invokes the faith by which the Children of the Light are supposed to conduct themselves. Galad would make an amazing lawyer, if that conversation is anything to go by. He argues that he and his men cannot surrender, because Children of the Light take an oath never to do so, presenting his defiance of Asunawa as an adherence to his oath. He also reminds everyone present that he bested Valda in a Trial Beneath the Light. It is quite possible for good men to fall at the hands of Darkfriends, but a Trial Beneath the Light is very different than falling in battle or at the hands of an ordinary attacker. Asunawa is, of course, uninterested in any of Galad’s points, but just as Galad used his right as one of the Children to issue the challenge in the first place, despite Asunawa’s protests and denials, he is able to use his legalistic arguments to gain enough advantage with the other Lord Captains to force Asunawa to acquiesce to a compromise. It’s skillfully done. And selflessly, too. The man always does what is right, regardless of who it hurts. And that includes himself. In the swamp he tells Trom that he had no choice but to lead the Children after killing their Lord Captain Commander. To do otherwise would have been wrong, and so Galad put aside his own desires and did what was right. Now we see him do the same again: He does what is right, even though the person who got hurt this time was Galad himself. I’m desperately curious to see what happens with Galad’s story in relation to the existence and identity of the Children of the Light going forward. He’s planted some seeds in the minds of the Lord Captains who are still loyal to Asunawa, and Asunawa does not really conduct himself the way a member of the order should. He gets away with it because he’s a high-ranking Questioner, but now everyone is going to be comparing his behavior to Galad’s, and I think Asunawa is going to come up wanting. I also fully believe that no amount of torture can make Galad say he’s a Darkfriend, or recant anything he said about Valda. Given all that, I can see a world in which enough Children of the Light turn against Asunawa to either break the group in half—the Questioners as one organization and the rest of the Children as another—or even to have Asunawa officially deposed in some way. As all of you well know, I’m pretty much against the Children of the Light, and would be happy to see the whole group disbanded permanently, but Galad is right that they are needed for the Last Battle, and he is the perfect person to lead them. Finally, Rand will have a leader who is willing to ally with him, and the Aes Sedai, and the Seanchan, and anyone else, despite any personal animosity, for the good of the world and victory at Tarmon Gai’don. Galad may not know how he feels about the Dragon Reborn, may wonder if he is an Aes Sedai puppet, but he won’t let those suspicions and concerns stop him from keeping his eyes on the prize: stopping the destruction of everything. That will be a relief for Rand, personally as well as professionally. After all, he is going to marry Galad’s sister, and the other brother might still be thinking about murdering Rand if they are ever in the same room together. Next week we will be covering chapter one, in which Rand reveals some interesting new abilities, and chapter two, in which Perrin keeps working on becoming the leader he needs to be. Until then, I’m going to be thinking about doing the right thing, and how, exactly, one decides what that is. See you next week![end-mark] The post Reading The Wheel of Time: Backward Leads Only to the Past in <i>Towers of Midnight</i> (Part 2) appeared first on Reactor.

News Crystal Lake Crystal Lake Teaser Trailer Feels Closer to Widow’s Bay Than Friday the 13th The Peacock series will re-imagine the story of Pamela Voorhees By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 13, 2026 Credit: A24 Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: A24 The first teaser trailer for the Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake has finally arrived, and the mysterious series so far feels tonally closer to Apple TV’s breakout horror comedy show than the original Friday the 13th films. Complementary, of course. The preview itself doesn’t offer much in the way of details, but we know that Crystal Lake is a kind of re-imagined prequel to the original Friday the 13th film that follows Jason’s mother (Pamela Voorhees) as she tries to recover following the death of her son. And while not all of the details will be exactly lore accurate (for instance, the show is set in the ’70s rather than the timeline-friendly 1950s), anyone with a vague familiarity of the franchise knows that things don’t go well for Pamela and the campers who cross her path. Here’s the official description for those interested: A prequel to the Friday the 13th franchise, the series follows single mother Pam Voorhees who has been unable to shake her grief after her young, sickly son Jason tragically drowned in the town lake almost a year before. When two strangers arrive at Pam’s door digging into her past, a disturbing chain of events are set into motion, leaving the townspeople of Crystal Lake wondering: just who is Pam Voorhees? The most surprising thing about the trailer may be its tone. The preview begins with talk of a cursed town, and the sight of happy campers and the sound of children singing is somewhat at odds with the original films (only one of which showed actual kids at the camp). There really is a bit of Widow’s Bay in the throwback feel of small-town legends this preview exudes. Linda Cardellini (who plays Pamela Voorhees in the series) even hints that the show is going to be more of a tonal grab bag than the original films were. “The tone is odd,” Cardellini says of the series regarding its supposed “mix-tape” nature. “It is many things at once, but it works as this fun ride. There’s some scene set in an outdoor carnival, and I feel like it’s almost that feel.” You apparently won’t have to wait too much longer to see how the first major Friday the 13th project in many years comes together. Crystal Lake is set to start streaming on Peacock on October 15.[end-mark] The post <i>Crystal Lake</i> Teaser Trailer Feels Closer to <i>Widow’s Bay</i> Than <i>Friday the 13th</i> appeared first on Reactor.