They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with our very own Venessa Giunta, whose Blue-Edged Soul, a short story set in the Soul Cavern Universe, came out in January!
What does Venessa love when she’s not writing about characters who can drain the life of vampires with a single touch? Spoiler alert: an iconic character rebelling against dear old dad, an author whose backlog keeps her coming back for more, a old favorite that’s become a new favorite all over again, and a badass historical woman who proves fact is better than fiction. Curious? Read on to learn more!
Lucifer: I’m a serial watcher. What that means is that all the TV shows on this list will have the same first sentence: I’ve watched this from episode one. So just assume that’s the first sentence for every show I talk about here. 🙂
When Lucifer came out there was some bit of outcry from a subset of Christian moms who decried it as glorifying the devil. Their argument showed that they’d never actually watched the show. Because well before the end of the second season, the viewer realizes that Lucifer isn’t evil. For instance, he never lies (vs the King of Lies). It’s just that people don’t always believe him when he tells the truth (“I’m the devil”) and so it seems like he’s lying.
But the story is really about an angel who is cast into a role he never wanted. He’s left Hell because he never wanted to rule there to begin with. Now he lives in Los Angeles, runs a nightclub, and enjoys human life (though he is still an angel — until he’s not). He believes everything has been a machination of his dad (God), to force him to live the life God wanted him to, rather than what he, Lucifer, would choose. And now he is rebelling and living how he wishes.
And how many of us have felt a need to play a role or live our life a certain way because of other people’s expectations or society’s dictations, rather than an authentic life based on what we want? There’s a universal truth there.
Photo: IMBD
Fox dropped Lucifer after 3 seasons (because Fox can never keep a good show around — hello, Firefly), but Netflix picked it up for a fourth season. (Though Netflix isn’t really any better at keeping good shows on the air — hello, Sense8.) I binge-watched Lucifer‘s 10-episode fourth season in a weekend and wasn’t disappointed. It mostly stayed true to form and its ending could be a season ending or the beginning of a new chapter. Netflix hasn’t decided whether to re-up it for a fifth season as of this writing.
If you haven’t watched Lucifer, I recommend it. It’s a fun show with a lot of universal themes without being preachy or heavy. And the soundtrack is fantastic!
You can find Lucifer streaming on Netflix.
Edit: Netflix just announced that Lucifer will be picked up for a fifth and final season, so yay!
Brandon Sanderson: I did a book review of the Reckoners series recently, and you might say I’m on a Brandon Sanderson kick right now. I’m currently listening to Elantris and while it’s fine, I’m not loving it the way I loved the Reckoners. But, in his defense, Elantris was Brandon’s first book, so he’s had years between it and the Reckoners to improve. Also, I think Elantris isn’t well-suited for audio, which is how I’m consuming it. There are a lot of weird names that are hard to keep straight without seeing the spellings — at least, for me.
Okay, it sounds like I’m being all negative, but I’m really not. I expect that I will be reading Sanderson for awhile. I was just in with my ortho doctor, and we ended up in a big nerdy discussion about Brandon’s work and she talked up the Mistborn trilogy pretty hard, so I think that’s going to be my next read. In doing some discovery about it, I also see several Mistborn standalones, which are always fun to read!
The Magicians: A couple years ago, I did a video review of the first season of The Magicians. I really loved the first season, but as I noted in the comments of that post, I’d started on the second season and because the characters were slightly different, I didn’t really enjoy it as much. I ended up not watching for over a year.
Photo: SyFy
When season three was almost ending, I decided to go ahead and give it another try. That was helpful, because it gave me distance from season one, when I’d fallen in love with the characters, and it let me watch the new, slightly different versions with a fresh eye. So I was able to get back into it. Over the course of a month or so, I watched both seasons two and three, and then later, season four. And I fell in love again.
The characters go through so many changes and so many traumatic things. Several die, some come back, some don’t, but we still see them because we’re also introduced to what is basically a way station between living and the afterlife. More than one character is possessed by… well, no spoilers! 🙂
I’m glad that I’ve picked The Magicians back up. I don’t love the characters quite as much as I did in season one, but I find that I’m loving the actors more. Because of the twists and turns of the plot, viewers get to see a much broader range of acting than just the characters they play.
Eliot is still my favorite. 🙂
The Magicians is can be watched on SyFy airing at 9pm Eastern, but you can find Seasons 1-3 streaming on Netflix.
Gentleman Jack: Okay, I had to include Gentleman Jack, even though it’s not spec fic. It’s straight-up historical. I love period shows. I’m an unabashed Downton Abbey nerd. 🙂
Gentleman Jack is set in the 1830s and is about a woman who has inherited an estate in Halifax, England. There are two things that make this historical different than some others. First, it is based on a real woman, in a real place, with real details. Second, it’s all about being queer and trying to live authentically in a world that doesn’t want you to be authentic at all.
Photo: HBO
Anne Lister is a lesbian who, after many relationships with women who caved to societal expectations that they marry a man, decides that she should have what a man has for herself, a woman who will live with her as a “companion” but be, for all intents and purposes, her wife.
There are a couple of things that make this fascinating. First is Anne Lister’s boldness. She approached both her business and personal dealings with the idea that she could do what she wanted and society be damned. That’s not to say that she didn’t acquiesce to some societal pressures. For example, she wore a dress and petticoats almost always, but also wore a top hat and carried a cane, much like men of the era. She toed the line in some aspects and dived straight over the line in other ways.
The second fascinating thing is that much of what is portrayed is written in Anne Lister’s journal. She kept a journal all her life, written in code. And she recorded everything about her business dealings, her learnings, her observations, and her sex life. When a descendant found her journals and finally deciphered them, he was shocked at her sexuality most of all, and much of those parts of her diaries were kept out of the public, until a modern researcher came along.
I like shows about badass women. That the woman was a real, living, breathing human being only makes it better. If you want to read more about the real Anne Lister, the BBC has an interesting article about her, which includes some photos of her coded journal.
You can catch Gentleman Jack on HBO.
So those are My Favorite Things at the moment! Have you watched any of the shows? Read Brandon Sanderson? Sound off below!
Venessa Giunta is a writer of weird things. She is the author of the urban fantasy Soul Cavern series.
Venessa holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and has worked on the editorial side of publishing since 2008. Her non-fiction essay “Demystifying What Editors Want” can be found in the book, Many Genres, One Craft.
She is active in convention life, having held a number of organizational positions over the years and is currently Second to the Director of the Writers Track at Dragon Con, a SF/F fan convention with more than 80,000 attendees. She is also the WRITE Track Director for Multiverse Con, which is a new, inclusive, SF/F/H convention in Atlanta, scheduled for October 18-20, 2019.
She is a teacher at heart — editing is really just teaching one-on-one — and offers classes and workshops for conventions and writing groups. Helping other writers is one of her favorite things in the history of ever.
Venessa lives with her hubby in Atlanta, Georgia, and shares a home with three cats who all seem to think they rule the castle, but none of which pay the mortgage.
Follow her on Twitter or check out her website, where you can find lots of good info for writers, especially.
Author Photo by Passion to Pixels – Kate H
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1) GENTLEMAN JACK sounds awesome, so thanks for the rec! 2) I once read an article that made the argument that historical fiction should in fact fall under the spec fic umbrella since we can never truly know every detail of times past (not until someone invents a time machine, anyway) and so it requires a certain amount of invention or world-building by the author, thereby rendering at least some aspects speculative. So, I think GJ fits in this list! 😀
Glad to hear that GENTLEMAN JACK is good. I keep eyeing it every time we open our HBO app. Gotta finish LUCIFER first, though! Did you hear the next season will be its last?