The Television Series that Repels and Fascinates - Night Country

I'm back, though making my appearance a little later in the unfolding of 2024 than I anticipated. A bout with a couple of illnesses and a few other energy- and time-sucking events - and I simply lost the first several weeks of this year. But, hey. Here I am.

So I'm starting this year's blogging with a few thoughts on a new television show. I guess it falls under the definition of mini-series. It's called...

True Detective: Night Country

This is a pseudo-review of the HBO Max series that, in spite of its ugliness and coarse nature, has somehow managed to completely fascinate me. This is not so much an actual review as it is a quick reflection of how this series has reached the esteemed "can't look away" status. 

The Setting

It takes place in Alaska at the start of the "days of night" in late December when the sun never rises and darkness reigns 24/7. This sets the stage perfectly for all sorts of creepiness. The story is centered in the fictional town of Ennis, and trust me, the quirky Cicely of Northern Exposure fame it is not. 

The Characters

The plot is driven mainly by the actions of two individuals, female police chief Liz Danvers (played by Jodie Foster) and female state trooper Evangeline Navarro (played by Kali Reis). Trooper Navarro is of native descent, but she never was told her true native name. Or so she says. Police Chief Danvers is anglo, and has developed the callousness, loneliness and hard edges that often come from years of police work and dealing with crime and corruption. 

These two edgy personalities also have a supporting cast of strange and unusual residents of Ennis and points South. They are all equally flawed and struggling with both the investigation and issues of their own. Many of them have a history. Some of them still have a present. Some exude evil vibes and others seem lost and wandering in their own nightmare of confusion. Others are just angry. Ennis is not a happy place, full of deep, dark secrets, strange goings-on and cold. Deep cold. Always.  

The Premise

These two female officers, and former peers, are at odds due to situations that arose in the past, plus good old personality clashes, but are being forced to work on the same disturbing and puzzling case because of those links in the past. The case in question? A group of scientists who disappear from their isolated research facility. And are then located -- naked and frozen together in a block of ice. And all of this somehow is linked to the murder of a native woman six years before. Or maybe "linked" isn't quite the right word. More like hopelessly tangled and intertwined.

The Ugly

This series is filled with frequent profanity, adult situations (bordering on gratuitous), culture clashes, racism, sexism, and scenes that involve both stomach-churning squalor and horrific crime scenes. At first, I didn't honestly know if I could continue watching due to some of the more disturbing elements and portrayals, but it had just enough intrigue and "gotta-know-what-happens-next" that I stuck with it in spite of the "peek between my fingers" cringing. For all their disturbing and sometimes disgusting actions, the characters eventually hooked me -- both the "good guys" and "bad guys" -- though I use both terms very loosely. Yet it's the over-arching mystery that really sunk the hook deep.

The Fascinating

What's going on here? Is it supernatural? Or is it only crafted to look that way? It's definitely rooted in the collision of cultures, but is it more? Is it embedded in legend, location, or all of the above? Or none of the above. 

From a mysterious tattoo, to a one-eyed polar bear - both the real thing and a stuffed animal mini-me, to an abandoned trailer, to the juxtaposition of good cop and bad cop, to the entire story unfolding in the perpetual night of an Alaskan winter, I am now completely on the hook after watching the first three episodes.

I'll give you a taste of Night Country in the videos below. Just don't judge it too harshly by this first glimpse into all the goings-on. If you love mysteries, this is as hooky as they get. But you'll have to decide if all the in-your-face harshness that comes with it is your cup of hot tea.   

And for anyone still with me, here's a video of Jodie Foster's and Kali Reis's 

take on filming the series.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Be back soon.  

 

I'll be back with more

in 2024!

Courting Disaster: What's With the Helmet?

As promised in my last post, here's the scene from my upcoming release, Courting Disaster, where Captain Navene Jagger, a top tier military captain on the cusp of a big promotion to command a newly commissioned battleship, is struggling to make sense of his interim assignment...

...and the helmet he's been issued to go with it. 

If you missed my earlier post about an excerpt from the opening of Courting Disaster, you can find it here.

_______________________________________________

Jagger stood at the docking bay entrance, trying to find any positives in this gigadam boondoggle. He’d be flying solo, he reminded himself, just like the glory days of slicing through space in his Rimmcraft Stiletto. It might not be all bad. That thought tumbled and burned the moment he caught sight of the shipwreck at the end of the boarding passage.

He checked the bay number again. Yes. Right bay. He just couldn’t believe what was berthed there.

The Sheeban’s battered two-deck carcass could’ve been a clunky, mid-ranged compost hauler that had seen its best days centuries ago. They wanted him to transport an ambassador’s daughter through a very treacherous region of space in this wreck?

What was the story here?

And his newly requisitioned civilian attire? A worn set of coveralls, untailored, drab gray, and lacking any insignias. People were going to take him for a second-rate mechanic in these faded greaseskins instead of a top-flight Carduwan officer.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The garb came complete with a battered helmet and face shield. What was he supposed to be—a pilot or a test-flight dummy?

Judging by the look of his vessel, it was the latter.

The admiral couldn’t be serious about this. Maybe this was Kareek’s idea of a joke? Or an elaborate hazing meant to take him down a peg or two before he was presented with command of the Meritorious?

He glanced at the small packet the quartermaster had pressed into his hand. “There’s a purser’s safe under the pilot’s console,” the non-com had told him. “Use these lock codes to open it once you’ve cleared station and are on course for the Rift. It contains your classified directive from Command.”

This “directive” would hopefully shed a lot more light on the situation. Jagger gave the aged ship another skeptical once-over. It was always an option to refuse a mission, but—he heaved a weighty sigh—that had Career Ending Catastrophe stamped all over it. 

_____________________________________

Thanks for stopping by to read a bit more of my upcoming release. 

I'll be taking a short hiatus from now until the New Year (hey, where did 2023 go, anyway?), but I'll be back with more posts in January. 

Have a wonderful holiday!

Courting Disaster is at the Top of my 2024 Resolutions!

Hmm, that may have sounded a bit like a prophecy of doom, but in reality Courting Disaster is my next project with a hopeful Spring-ish 2024 release date.

The original story was published as a part of the Pets in Space 2 anthology (when the series was still young), but the new incarnation is a much revised story with new, changed and expanded scenes. It's weighing in at roughly twice the word count.

Truth be told, although Courting Disaster was my second StarDog story in the Inherited Stars series, it's the one that required the most enhancing and tweaking because it's an important precursor to the grand finale of this timeline. (And yes, I'm an admitted perfectionist and that has sometimes pulled the rug out from under my schedule. I'd say that I'd try harder to be less of a perfectionist, but really....what reader really wants that?)

In hindsight, it actually will work out well with Courting Disaster being the final StarDog story released as a standalone, because it's the perfect segue into the novel that will wrap the timeline, Inherit the Vengeance. 

So in other words, it's all good.  :)

Let me leave you with an excerpt of the opening, where the reader meets (or gets reacquainted with) the hero, Captain Navene Jagger. If you've read the anchor novel, Inherit the Stars, Jagger might not have seemed like hero material....but there's a lot more to the man than his swagger. 

[But why is he wearing a helmet on the cover, you ask? Check back for the next excerpt where Jagger asks the same question. ;) ]

Here's a first look.

__________________________________________________

Captain Navene Jagger smiled as he gazed out the viewport of the immense space station. Talstar. Home of the Universal Flight Academy, orbiting the lush blue world of Veros. Good memories here. Heady times with his fellow cadets during the three calendars it had required to earn his wings. He’d left the program with salutatorian honors.

But without Drea.

His smile slipped. Not every recollection of Talstar was a good one. The broken engagement. The devastation in Drea’s eyes. Watching her walk away for the last time. It had been his greatest defeat—Hades, his only defeat. And he had no one to blame but himself.

He’d left Talstar the day after graduation, stripped of his plans to test her father’s Mennelsohn prototype, and promptly joined the Carduwan military.

That had been ten calendars ago. Ten very long calendars. He’d spent the first seven trying to apologize to Drea for the unforgiveable, trying to prove to her he’d changed, trying desperately to win her back.

Then Sair happened. Drea had fallen in love with an escaped slave. A nobody. Or so he’d thought.

That was when he’d finally grasped the scale of the wedge he’d driven between them by his foolish, ego-driven folly. He’d done this. He’d destroyed their relationship. Not Drea. And, gods knew, not even Sair.

That realization had sparked his transformation. He’d reinvented himself, stopped being a ladies’ man, stopped being anything other than a dedicated officer married to his career. He didn’t have love…but at least he had pride. And purpose.

_____________________________________________________

More excerpts will follow soon.