THE MT VOID
02/09/24 -- Vol. 42, No. 32, Whole Number 2314

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Topics:
Correction
Mini Reviews, Part 18 (MAY DECEMBER, DALILAND, NYAD)
(film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE WINGS UPON HER BACK by Samantha Mills (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
Howard Waldrop (letter of comment by Kip Williams)
This Week's Reading (THE DREAM ARCHIPELAGO)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

===================================================================

TOPIC: Correction

In my comments on Howard Waldrop in the 02/02/24 issue of the MT
VOID, I mentioned "R. A. Rafferty". Obviously, that should have
been "R. A. Lafferty". I don't know if it was a typo prompted by
Lafferty's first initial, or because there was a supervisor in my
department named Rafferty, but anyway, it was wrong. [-ecl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 18 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)

This is eighteenth batch of mini-reviews, all films based on real
people.

MAY DECEMBER (2023): MAY DECEMBER is loosely based on the true
story of Mary Kay Letourneau, who was 34 years old when she had an
affair with a twelve-year-old. The film takes place about twenty
years later, when an actress who is going to play her in a movie
comes to town to do research. As with many films "based on true
stories", the details should be taken with a grain of salt, which
makes this film a little peculiar--it would seem to have little to
recommend it but the story behind it. [-ecl]

Released theatrically 17 November 2023. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4), or
7/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13651794/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/may_december>

DALILAND (2023): DALILAND is a bit of a jumbled mess, which is a
lot like some of Dali's work, and indeed of Dali's life. Dali was
always flamboyant, but watching his flamboyance for almost two
hours can be disorienting and tiring. (Oddly, some reviewers have
found the film bland.) The standout of the film (to me) is Barbara
Sukowa as Dali's wife, Gala. Maybe it's my fascination with
forgeries, but to me the most interesting aspect of this period of
Dali's life is his signing of thousands of blank sheets of paper,
supposedly to be used for prints of the tarot deck Dali designed
for (but was never used in) the film LIVE AND LET DIE. Somehow the
number of signed sheets grew, and other artwork appeared on some,
and maybe not all of it was Dali's. But that story requires a more
straightforward approach, and DALILAND concentrates on Dali
himself, who was aything but straightforward. [-ecl]

Released streaming 9 June 2023. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4), or 5/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8399658/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/daliland>

NYAD (2023): This is based on Diana Nyad's attempt to swim unaided
from Cuba to Florida. It seems to be reminiscent of a small part
of THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON crossed with the beginning
of MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS.

The route Nyad wants to swim will take sixty hours and at the
beginning she has trouble going even four hours. (I was reminded
of a made-for-TV movie from forty years ago or so about a woman who
has difficulty running two blocks to a bus and decides to train to
run a marathon.) It was interesting to see how the director
covered this route, giving it enough variety to keep the viewer
interested. This includes dramatizations of hallucinations Diana
suffered when she was swimming. There are some inaccuracies, and
some collapsing of events (it took Nyad five tries to succeed in
her attempt). From the beginning Nyad antagonizes her crew and it
makes one wonder if that isn't a bad idea. For some reason,
though, they seem to stand by her. [-ecl]

Released theatrically 20 October 2023. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4), or
4/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5302918/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nyad>

===================================================================

TOPIC: THE WINGS UPON HER BACK by Samantha Mills (publishing date
April 2024, Tachyon Publications, print ISBN: 978-1-61696-414-6,
digital ISBN: 978-1-61696-415-3, print length 336pp) (book review
by Joe Karpierz)

THE WINGS UPON HER BACK is the debut novel by Hugo, Nebula,
Sturgeon, and Locus Award winner Samantha Mills. Mills won all
four of those awards last year for her short story "Rabbit Test".
There was an itch at the back of my mind that needed to be
scratched, so I did a bit of digging around and found that she had
a story in "The New Voices of Science Fiction", edited by Hannu
Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman, published back in 2019. So, she's
been around for at least a little while. Based on "Rabbit Test"
and now THE WINGS UPON HER BACK, I believe she is going to be
around for a very long time.

The setting for the story is the city of Radezhda which was founded
by five gods, each of whom brought a different gift, a different
discipline, to the city. Each god helped to bring prosperity and
advancement to the people of Radezhda. As is the way of things,
the five gods didn't always agree on things, but together they
helped bring progress and improvements to the city. Until one day,
the gods left the city, going high into the sky and falling into a
deep sleep. The disciples of each of the gods all had something in
common: the desire to determine why the gods had left them. Each
of the five disciplines built skyscraper-like towers in an attempt
to reach up to their god and bring them back home. The leader of
each faction is called the Voice, and those leaders are the only
ones that get to talk to their gods, and infrequently at that.

Eventually, and again as is the way of things, without the
leadership of the gods conflicts arose, and the city came to war
with itself. As each of the factions had different viewpoints, the
city was being torn apart by violence. The Mechas, a warrior sect
originally tasked with the job of protecting the city from
outsiders, added the task of protecting the city dwellers from
themselves. The Voice of the Mechas is the ruthless and
power-hungry Winged Vodaya.

Zenya, the true focus of the story, is a teenager in a family that
is in the scholar sect. She is unsatisfied and unhappy being a
scholar. Her goal is to join the Mecha sect, get her wings, and
become one of the protecters of the city. She runs away from her
family and joins the Mechas, and soon shows enough aptitude that
Vodaya takes Zenya under her wing (no pun intended). Eventually
Zenya earns her Wings and becomes the Winged Zemolai. As time
wears on, Zemolai gets weary of the constant fighting and battles
and, in a rare (as in never) show of mercy, lets a spy who
infiltrated the Mecha sect from the Scholar sect, go free after she
discovers his treachery. This gets her Wings torn away, and she is
cast out on the street with nowhere to go.

The story is told in two different timelines. One covers Zenya's
story, her background, and how she came to be one of the Winged.
The other is Zemolai's story after she gets cast out of the Mecha
sect, and how she comes to find out that things are significantly
different than she thought they were while she was one of the
Winged. But there are two additional sides to the novel. One is
that THE WINGS UPON HER BACK is a straightforward action adventure
story, complete with a maniacal, single minded leader who is
blinded by her ambition and who tries to take complete control of
her domain. The other is a story of discovery, of a person
learning who they are after they've achieved their life's goals,
who their friends really are, and what really is going on in the
world around them, the world they thought they knew well but really
didn't know at all.

It's early in 2024, and there are a lot of books yet to come, many
of which will be terrific. Many will come from authors that have
been in the field a long time, and authors that are new. But for
me, THE WINGS UPON HER BACK is the best book I've read in 2024 so
far. Sure, Samantha Mills has been around a few years now, but it
appears that her star is just now starting to take off. If THE
WINGS UPON HER BACK is any indication, Mills will be providing us
with great reads for a long time. I look forward to what she'll be
bringing us in the future. [-jak]