The Silver Revolver: A Western Crime Thriller by John Shirley
356 pages, Paperback
Published October 11, 2025 by Rough Edges Press
Full review on the way...
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Book Review: The Silver Revolver: A Western Crime Thriller by John Shirley
Book review: Your Utopia by Bora Chung
Book Review: FADE IN: The Making of Star Trek Insurrection - A Textbook on Screenwriting from Within the Star Trek Universe by Michael Piller
FADE IN: The Making of Star Trek Insurrection - A Textbook on Screenwriting from Within the Star Trek Universe by Michael Piller
Michael Piller is an underrated figure in Star Trek fan circles. Some fans forget how rough the first couple of seasons of The Next Generation were when Gene Roddenberry brought ST back to syndication. Gene over did it drinking his Kool-Aid after years of being hailed for creating a Utopia. In the first few seasons, the show suffered from following Roddenberry’s rules, because apparently, humans will be perfect in the perfect system. Piller was one of the writers who helped to save Trek.
He also did another impossible thing by turning Stephen King’s amazing novel The Dead Zone into a long-form TV show that actually worked. I always respected Piller’s work on TNG/DS9/ The Dead Zone. So I always thought it weird coming off First Contact the best TNG movie that Piller wrote, such a just ok ST movie in Star Trek Insurrection. Don’t get me wrong, Insurrection is fine. Certainly better than Nemesis.
Anyone who is a screenwriter such read this book about the process of writing this film. Piller wrote this book shortly after the movie was finished and tried to sell it before his death in 2005. Yeah, Piller died young, and perhaps that is why he felt he could write a warts-and-all all book. The studio didn’t really like how it made folks in the production. This was short-sighted in my opinion. But Rick Berman, Patrick Stewart, and probably Brent Spiner felt the book made them look petty.
Not me. I gained respect for everyone involved who was trying to make a movie by committee. Piller puts his various treatments and the “what if” versions of the movie, are interesting. Some of those versions are better than the final movie (while sorta re-doing episodes of TNG). The idea of Heart of Darkness with Data as Kurtz sounds awesome, but I am not sure it would have worked for the public as well as me.
Sandra Piller (his widow) could not get permission to publish, which is too bad because this book should be taught in screenwriting classes. It still can, I suppose, because she made it free to read online. That is how I read it.
A must-read for Star Trek fans, but more importantly for Screenwriters.
Book Review (sorta...) Sneak Preview by Robert Bloch
Sneak Preview by Robert Bloch
Mass Market Paperback
Published August 1971 by Warner Books
Full review will appear in one of my 25th Century Five and Dime columns at Amazing Stories. I will add the link after it goes live.
Sneak Preview is a proto-bizarro bonkers SF novel that began life as a short story in 1959 and became a super weird short novel about Domed cities, Hollywood driven media social control through space opera and the conflict between different generations. A new-wave-ish Dangerous Vision written by a writer of the Golden Age.
Monday, October 6, 2025
Book Review: The Many Worlds of Barry Malzberg by Barry N. Malzberg
The Many Worlds of Barry Malzberg by Barry N. Malzberg
159 pages, Paperback
Published January, 1975 by Popular Library
I grabbed this collection to read on my train journey to LA for the Speculative Fiction Across Media Conference in LA. I started it the night before and finished it before boarding the train. The main reason I wanted to bring this book was to read The Final War, although published under the pen name K.M. O’Donnell, Barry considered this one of his best stories, and as far as I can tell the readership agreed. All the stories were good but two stood out.
Yes, The Final War was great, deserving of the praise, but the big shocker for me was a short piece called The Union Forever. Let's talk about this one first. It is only a few pages long, but in the limited word count, BM is able to comment on Presidential insanity (something we are dealing with today), Technocratic dictatorship, and AI. If you don’t want it spoiled, go read it now…
Lets look at how the story opens…
“Carlyle decides to assassinate the president. Enough of this garbage. President is a small, clumsy man who sits alone in a long room papered over in white and gold and makes all the decisions about the course of the Republic and Carlyle, for one, is good and fed up with the autocracy, even though he is one of the leftover volunteers from the president's last campaign apprentices now employed as a confidential typist) and actually took him seriously at one time period now Carlisle only feels betrayed the war for one thing continues…”
The story told in a three-act play with each section opening with a former campaign manager wanting to kill the president, the second act, the president wants to kill him. And then the third act.
“The president and Carlyle decide they must kill one another. This is a conundrum since the fact is that neither truly exists. They are merely circuits and a giant computer which, as we all know, took over the world at the world's at the wars conclusion in 2561…”
I could be reading the story wrong, but I got the impression that BM was commenting on the programmed nature of the system that seems to be a game that plays time after time in a cycle. That seems quaint compared to the unpredictable sundowning fascist we have at the moment.
The Final War on the other hand…
It is another cynical BM Vietnam era masterpiece, similar in the sense that it is about the hollow vibe of a war fought for a forest and a nearby estate. The Soldiers don’t even remember why the conflict started.
“The forest was the right place to be. In the first place, the trees gave privacy, and in the second, it was cool. It was possible to play a decent game of poker, get a night’s sleep. Perhaps because of the poker, the enemy fought madly for the forest and defended it like lunatics. So did Hastings’ company. Being there, even if only on Thursdays, Saturdays and Tuesdays, made the war worthwhile. The enemy must have felt the same way, but they, of course, had the odd day of the week. Still, even Hastings was willing to stay organized on that basis. Monday was a lousy day to get up, anyway.”
There is a surreal feeling to it. The war, the world it takes place in is vague, undefined, but that adds mystery and power to the story. Our main character is a soldier asking to go home. This request denied over and over. A statement on the soldiers of the modern war at the time of this story. Unwilling, not understanding why they are they are there and still they fought.
The reasons for this final conflict are strange and interesting to ponder. Who is the President? What country?
“On election day, the company had a particularly bad experience. The president of their country was being threatened by an opposition which had no use for his preparedness policy; as a defensive measure, therefore, he had no choice on the day before election, other than to order every military installation in the vicinity of the company’s war to send out at least one bomber and more likely two to show determination. Hastings’ company knew nothing whatever of this; they woke on the morning of the election cheerful because it was their turn to take the forest. Furthermore, the tents of the enemy seen in the distance were already being struck, a good sign that the enemy would not contest things too vigorously. The men of the company put on their combat gear singing, goosing one another, challenging for poker games that night: it looked as if it were going to be a magnificent day. All indications were that the enemy would yield like gentlemen. Some of the company began to play tag, leaping through the abutments, comparing them to the forest that would soon be theirs.”
It doesn’t matter. Barry Malzberg has written several works of genius. The final war is one of them.
Sunday, October 5, 2025
(Audio)Book Review: Star Wars: Reign of the Empire The Mask of Fear Alexander Freed
For those looking for more SW that feels like Andor, this is a fairly interesting read. It does give some good background to Bail and Mon Mothma, but the highlight was Soujen, Saw’s very alien-looking friend. There is lots of political stuff, spy craft, and the like.
Did it deepen the SW universe? A little, maybe, was it worth 500 pages of my reading time? It felt long. It was well-written, but too many pages in my opinion. Better audio experience, because I could do dishes, walk etc. Perfect for that.
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