The 173 Best Book Covers of 2025 – Emily Temple, Lit Hub – Always one of my favorite features of the year! The winner is an absolute stunner.
Sophie Kinsella, ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ Author, Dies at 55 – Sopan Deb, New York Times – The tremendously influential Madeleine Wickham, better known by her pen name Sophie Kinsella, passed away from brain cancer at just 55. Her Shopaholic series went on to sell tens of millions of copies and helped inspire the rise of “chick lit” in the 2000s.
Chernin Group Invests in Entangled, Valued At $400 Million, to Expand IP – Katy Hershberger, Publishers Lunch – On the heels of the runaway success of Fourth Wing and other franchises, upstart publisher Entangled has accepted funding from investment group Chernin Group that values the company at $400 million with a view on expanding its IP.
The 15 best books of 2025 – Carolyn Kellogg, Bethanne Patrick and Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times – Still that time of year!
The Fawn Response for Writers – Kate McKean, Agents + Books – Some terrific advice from Kate McKean about worrying less about how others perceive you and getting in tune with your writerly needs.
It’s Not About You: Your Memoir Is Someone Else’s Story – Allison K Williams, Jane Friedman – A great post about how person on the page in a memoir is not, and can’t be, the same person as the author who’s writing it if it’s going to be any good.
The Publishing Workshops Taking a Red Pen to AI – Sam Spratford, Publishers Weekly – Whatever the outward posture, publishers are aggressively exploring how they can incorporate A.I. into their processes.
This week in bestsellers
Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):
At present, there are multiplecases in which authors are suing AI companies for scraping their works without payment or permission. While these legal battles have been going on, Amazon has quietly added a new AI feature to its Kindle iOS app—a feature that “lets you ask questions about the book you’re reading and receive spoiler-free answers,” according to an Amazon announcement.
The company says the feature, which is called Ask this Book, serves as “your expert reading assistant, instantly answering questions about plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements without disrupting your reading flow.”
Publishing industry resource Publishers Lunch noticed Ask this Book earlier this week, and asked Amazon about it. Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta told PubLunch, “The feature uses technology, including AI, to provide instant, spoiler-free answers to customers’ questions about what they’re reading. Ask this Book provides short answers based on factual information about the book which are accessible only to readers who have purchased or borrowed the book and are non-shareable and non-copyable.”
As PubLunch summed up: “In other words, speaking plainly, it’s an in-book chatbot.”
Amazon did not answer PubLunch’s questions about “what rights the company was relying upon to execute the new feature was not answered, nor did they elaborate on the technical details of the service and any protections involved (whether to prevent against hallucinations, or to protect the text from AI training).”
Perhaps most alarmingly, the Amazon spokesperson said, “To ensure a consistent reading experience, the feature is always on, and there is no option for authors or publishers to opt titles out.”
It also sounds as though authors and publishers were, for the most part, not notified of this feature’s existence.
Amazon is already in the news this week for its flawed AI recaps of television shows. After a Fallout recap was “garbage filled with mistakes,” as io9 called it, the company paused the feature. A similar thing happened earlier this year with Amazon’s AI dubs for anime series.
As PubLunch says of Ask this Book, “Many rightsholders and creators are likely not to want an in-book chatbot without their specific review and approval (or at all), and we expect that message will be getting delivered to publishers and Amazon loud and clear in the ensuing days. And many people would deem the outputs of generative AI analyzing a particular copyrighted work as the very embodiment of a derivative work (or simply a direct infringement).”
Ask this Book is currently only available in the Kindle iOS app in the US, but Amazon says it “will come to Kindle devices and Android OS next year.”[end-mark]
Yes, it’s The Holiday Season, and never fear—even my Scroogey self can’t resist including one holiday viewing treat in this weekend’s recommendation. I have one holiday tradition, and it’s Finnish. Keep reading, and you’ll see. (Okay, okay, fine, I’m not actually that Scroogey. I do love a Christmas bar. Seriously. And sparkly lights of all denominations.)
If you, like me, have a weird case of senioritis with this year—do we not all just want to lie on the ground for a few days at this point?—take heart: The solstice is only ten days away. The light will return. It can’t rain all the time.
Get a warm beverage, call your reps, and curl up with a cozy blanket. There’s good stuff to watch, I promise.
I recently rewatched the first four episodes of The Magicians, and holy shit did they hold up. There are ways in which they feel entirely Of An Era—the opening party scene being set to MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” is somehow hilarious, and not just because of the on-the-nose nature of the title—but the cast remains outstanding, the relationships precisely written, the setup with Eliza and the Dean tantalizing. The way Eliot says Quentin’s ridiculous name? Perfection. (I still don’t understand why Hale Appleman isn’t a major star.)
And yet, somehow, due to the baffling passage of time, it’s been almost exactly ten years since the first episode premiered. It arrived on December 16, 2015—an inauspicious day for a series that went on to run for five years and still ended too soon. I feel like I just wrote my eulogy for its ending, and yet even that was five and a half years ago. I went into this series so skeptical, not least because people kept comparing it to my beloved Buffy, and yet by the time it was over, it was one of my absolute favorites. (Maybe even more so than Buffy, in the end.) Bless you, Sera Gamble and John McNamara, for understanding how to take the source material and make it more and different and bigger and punchier and funnier, and for finding that cast.
The Magicians is streaming on Prime, Tubi, and The CW.
Dust Bunny: When Bryan Fuller Makes a Movie, You Go See It
While Bryan Fuller just keeps talking about the projects he wants to revisit—Hannibal, Pushing Daisies—he also has new things in the works. Like, for instance, Dust Bunny, a film in which Mads Mikkelsen plays a hit man who is hired by his young neighbor to kill the monster under her bed. One gets the sense that things do not exactly go as planned. Along with Mikkelsen, the film stars an appealing power trio of actors: Sigourney Weaver, David Dastmalchian, and Rebecca Henderson. IndieWireloved the pairing of Mikkelsen and his young co-star, Sophie Sloan, writing, “Mikkelsen, in one of the most tender performances of his career, and Sloan, whose expressive eyes stay impossibly wide for the duration of the film, craft an easy chemistry together, his mordant humor matching hers like a glove.” Sounds like just the thing for a holiday-season outing to the theater, no?
“The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax”: It’s Rare Exports Season!
It’s cold, it’s dark, people are shopping like their lives depend on it… this means it is time. Time to rewatch Rare Exports. The 2010 Finnish horror (sort of) comedy (definitely) went under the radar on initial release, but it has a passionate fanbase, and it often gets shown at indie theaters as a holiday treat. If this happens near you: GO. Look, this movie is less than 90 minutes long and stars the most charming child, who pads himself up with hockey gear in order to avoid being thrashed by a very un-jolly figure he is pretty sure is real. He is not wrong.
There’s a greedy American, a whole lot of naked elves, heart-warming hijinks, and a genuinely surprising ending. (There are also almost no female characters, which still bums me out a little.) Those who’ve watched director Jalmari Helander’s Sisu films will recognize those movies’ star, Jorma Tommila, in a rather different sort of role. (Helander also cast two of his Rare Exports stars in the peculiar Samuel L. Jackson action flick Big Game.) I have never had someone come back to me, after I recommended this movie, and tell me it wasn’t worth their time. If you want to take that as a challenge, go ahead. I mean it as the most sincere recommendation.
Listen to the Ghost Girls: The Volcano Daughters
If you’re looking for an excellent book from this year’s crop, Reactor’s reviewers (myself included) have a lot of recommendations for you. But reading doesn’t always neatly follow timelines, you know? And lately I find myself thinking a lot about an incredible novel from last year: Gina María Balibrera’s The Volcano Daughters, a novel which made me rethink my entire opinion about historical fiction. It’s never been my thing, I thought. Except maybe it is. Especially when there’s another layer to it. (I’ve loved more than one historical fantasy lately!) The Volcano Daughters is the story of two sisters coming of age in El Salvador—sisters whose childhoods were very different. One grew up with their soon-to-be dictator father; the other is brought to his side to serve as his oracle. Their friends, from their village, were not so lucky. But those girls, the ones who never got to grow up, they narrate this novel, a chorus of ghosts with attitude and wisdom. This book is vivid, rich, layered, mythic, and historical at once, and it’s a debut novel. I am so anxious to see what Balibrera does next! But if you haven’t read this, you’re in for a treat.[end-mark]
For readers of my vintage, John Varley was a formative author. He drew on classic SF traditions but also embraced more contemporary concerns and trends. For example, he set his fiction in the Solar System as revealed by space probes, not in the Barsoomian planets of older SF. His settings featured newer tech and more forward-looking social mores1. Other authors had imagined space colonies; Varley imagined space colonies whose inhabitants were free to pursue self-actualization in quite unconventional ways.
Varley’s fiction was well received, as a look at his ISFDB page should make clear. Many awards!
It has been seven years since Varley’s most recent novel. Fame is fickle and younger readers may be unfamiliar with his works. For the Varley-curious, here follows a brief guide to his works, starting with the novels. Varley published three standalone novels and three series, as well as a cornucopia of stories (most of which are quite good and some of which are great). I will start with the standalone novels.
Mistakes were made! Radiation-damaged, chemically mutated terrestrial humanity is doomed! Time travel offers an escape clause: viable colonists can be snatched just before the disasters in which history says they perished, and dispatched to the off-world colonies. It’s a perfect plan provided that none of the overworked teams responsible for doing the snatching make a fatal error, and as long as no investigators in the past prove all too canny. One slip and causality itself is imperiled.
This book took a toll on Varley. Actually, it wasn’t so much the book as it was the terrible movie based on it, and the experience Varley had working on the movie. Someone, I don’t remember who, once compared working in Hollywood to placing one’s testicles in a vise and being handed a hundred dollars to endure until the pain became unbearable. Pre-Millennium Varley was a much more optimistic writer than he was after this dire experience.
A frozen mammoth is an amazing discovery, but not as amazing as the two human corpses next to it, one of whom is wearing what appears to be a modern wristwatch. Time travel seems implausible but what other explanations can there be2? It’s up to a billionaire scientist to work out what happened.
You know, if I knew that some time traveller was going end up frozen in ice tens of thousands of years ago, the last thing I’d do is work on time travel. Let someone else look at an icesheet from the inside.
A well-meaning scientist successfully weans America off foreign oil through the simple expedient of an oil-destroying bioweapon. In less time than it takes to say “the sudden, brutal end of civilization,” the bioweapon spreads across the Earth, rendering all oil unusable and modern civilization as dead as a dodo. Screenwriter Dave Marshall lacks the necessary skills to keep himself and his family alive. Nevertheless, Dave is determined to try.
Aliens attack! Billions perish as terrestrial technology is suppressed! But that’s boring history to the protagonists of these books, who live long after the Invasion, on worlds overlooked by the Invaders. For these people, equipped with fantastically powerful technology, the post-Invasion era would be a golden age… if not for the need for plot.
The Eight Worlds novels fall into two sets: (1) The Ophiuchi Hotline, written contemporaneously with the Eight Worlds short stories (which I will get to later) and (2) the three later Metal novels.
Varley didn’t want to look at his old notes when he restarted the series after a long hiatus; as a result, there are many continuity glitches. I consider this a series with an asterisk. Perhaps not a series in the purest sense.
The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977)
The Eight Worlds are cheerfully transhumanist (aided by alien information provided by the hotline mentioned in the title) but there are limits. Prior to the novel’s beginning, protagonist Lilo was arrested, tried, and condemned for a capital crime involving human DNA. The penalty is as final a death as the Eight Worlds can arrange. Survival is possible but at a price: Lilo is sentenced to work for a zealot whose determination to drive the Invaders out of the Solar System is in no way inhibited by the fact that the Invaders possess nigh-godlike power, while humans do not.
Hotline marks Varley’s transition from writing mostly short fiction (where the money ain’t) to novels. IMHO, Hotline is a bit of a mess but at least it’s a very energetic mess, with several novels’ worth of ideas crammed into a slender 237 pages.
Steel Beach (1992)
After a long hiatus, Varley wrote three more Eight Worlds novels. They aren’t quite consistent with the first book and they are considerably more pessimistic. (Thanks, Millennium.) It makes sense to distinguish between Hotline and the last three books.
It’s been two centuries since the Invasion, long enough for space-based humanity to have solved every existential problem… so why are so many people miserable? Plucky reporter Hildy Johnson discovers mounting evidence suggesting that something has gone very wrong with lunar civilization. Whether that’s something a civilization entirely dependent on artificial life-support can survive remains to be seen.
The Golden Globe (1998)
Kenneth “Sparky” Valentine is a talented actor of dubious morals whose endless peregrinations across the Solar System are driven in part by his disinclination to discuss with police precisely how his father died, and even more so by the relentless Charonese assassins who dog his heels. It’s not a sustainable life, but escape seems impossible.
As revealed in flashbacks, Valentine comes by his profound flaws honestly, having had one of the most memorably awful fathers in science fiction.
Irontown Blues (2018)
After the Big Glitch, traumatized former cop Christopher Bach reinvented himself as a detective in the Philip Marlowe mold. Only problem: nobody on the Moon seems to need a PI, not even one with an adorable cybernetically enhanced dog like Sherlock. Bach is canny enough to realize that supposed client “Mary Smith” is lying about her name, and no doubt much more… but not the scale or purpose of her stratagems.
This series comprises Titan (1979), Wizard (1980), and Demon (1984). They focus on former American astronaut Cirocco Jones and her troubled relationship with the moon-sized alien Gaea, who is both nigh-godlike and also barking mad.
Titan (1979)
The crew of the Ringmaster is delighted to discover a twelfth moon of Saturn. They are less delighted when on approach to the enigmatic object, Ringmaster is grabbed and dismantled and its crew kidnapped. Cirocco Jones wakes alone and naked inside what turns out to be an immense, living torus filled with a wonderous and diverse ecology. Finding her crewmates will not be easy3.
Wizard (1980)
Gaea offers humanity biotechnological miracles. Thus, where prudence might suggest avoiding or even destroying the 1,300-kilometer alien, humans prefer to trade with Gaea. Humans have nothing tangible to trade. Luckily, the bored god craves entertainment and humans are if nothing amusing. At least when prodded. It’s Jones’ unhappy lot to play intermediary between insufficiently prudent humans and a dubiously sane god.
Demon (1984)
Working for Gaea is sheer misery. Jones decides that the only way to free herself is to bring down Gaea. That may sound impossible but really, how hard could it to defeat a mad god?
Note that Wizard was written before Millennium; Demon came out after Varley had been put through the Hollywood wringer. Hence Wizard is much more cheerful than its sequel, Demon.
An interesting historical note: this series features many lesbians and bisexual women. That sort of inclusivity wasn’t often the case forty years ago. Unfortunately, these women seem to have been crafted to please a male gaze, but still may be of interest for those interested in LGBTQ+ representation in older SF. Just as an overall note, I should mention that not everything in Varley’s fiction has aged well, including the tendency of love interests to be alarmingly young, and readers may want to be aware of that along with the various merits of these works.
The Thunder and Lightning series is consciously retro, evoking the good old days when a single misunderstood genius could open up space, provide boundless cheap energy, and upend civilization… given only pluck, super-science, and a crew of teens. IMHO, it’s an attempt to emulate Heinlein4.
Red Thunder (2003)
An overlooked design flaw imperils Ares Seven, the first American expedition to Mars. The only way for help to reach the astronauts in time is for an inarticulate genius to invent an unprecedented space drive and for a collection of space-obsessed teens to kit-bash a spaceship together from spare parts. What are the odds of that succeeding?
Red Lightning (2006)
A generation after Red Thunder, Mars is a frontier no more, much to the distress of teen Ray Garcia-Strickland. What hope has he of interplanetary adventure? Be careful what you wish for: Ray gets all the excitement he could want when a relativistic object impacts Earth, endangering his terrestrial loved ones.
Rolling Thunder (2008)
This novel focuses on Ray’s daughter, a young Martian Navy lieutenant (who seems to be subtly modeled on Heinlein’s Podkayne). This younger Garcia-Strickland hates living on Earth. She hates dealing with the endless stream of Earthers who want to emigrate to Mars. The summons that calls her back to Mars is a welcome relief. The opportunity to venture on to Europa is even more promising… because neither Podkayne nor any other human suspects what’s waiting for humanity on Europa.
Dark Lightning (2014)
The starshipRolling Thunder sets out for the stars… only for Jubal, the man who gave humans cheap space and abundant power, to announce midtrip that the ship must halt mid-voyage or be destroyed. This proclamation sets in motion the inevitable fate of every generation ship: deep space mutiny! …Unless two plucky twins can somehow save the day.
In addition to the novels in the precis above and the short works I will discuss below, Varley edited a single anthology: Superheroes, co-edited with Ricia Mainhardt. I mention it for the sake of completeness, but it is an odd duck that I don’t think I ever reread—please chime in if you have!
The Short Works
As diverting as Varley’s novels could be, he made his mark as a short story writer. Unfortunately, such money as there is in writing is in novels. Thus, Varley pivoted to novels in the late 1970s. Despite the iron hand of the market, Varley still wrote an impressive body of short works. In fact, it’s to these short works I turn when I want to reread Varley. They are where I would recommend readers new to Varley should begin.
The shorts are too numerous to go through story by story—ALTHOUGH I COULD!—but my favourites include “Options” (a study of the early days of on-demand gender change), “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” (a tale of holidays gone wrong, a frequent theme in early Varley), and “The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged)” (a short but memorable exploration of what atomic war could mean to you).
A decade ago, I’d have advised readers new to Varley to snap up Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories, and The John Varley Reader, which between them5 had almost every Varley short work. Alas, while Reader is still in print, Robinson Crusoe does not appear to be. Used copies can be had but they don’t seem to be cheap. As I see it, new readers should keep their eye out for the two collections above or the older trio of collections, The Persistence of Vision (1978), The Barbie Murders (1980) AKA Picnic on Nearside (1984), and Blue Champagne (1986). The older collections appeared as mass market paperbacks in an era of vast print runs, and should be easy to track down.
Or perhaps some publisher could release a comprehensive Varley collection. Hint, hint. It would be a fitting tribute. In the meantime, what are your favorites? Which novels or stories would you recommend to a first-time reader?[end-mark]
In retrospect, those shiny futurist mores were merely 1970s hijinks with bigger tail fins. However, it was hard to notice that in the 1970s. Thank goodness that modern SF has finally settled on some truly timeless notions. Nothing written today will ever seem dated. ︎
Yes, yes: spacemen from an exploded fourth planet is another explanation but not the correct one. ︎
Seriously? “Podkayne” isn’t already in my Word dictionary? ︎
I can say this for Varley: there doesn’t seem to be much overlap in his contemporaneous collections. Varley wasn’t the sort of author to make readers buy the same story twice. ︎
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<p class="syndicationauthor">Posted by Matthew Byrd</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/everything-you-need-to-know-before-watching-fallout-season-2/">https://reactormag.com/everything-you-need-to-know-before-watching-fallout-season-2/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=833265">https://reactormag.com/?p=833265</a></p><post-hero class="wp-block-post-hero js-post-hero post-hero post-hero-horizontal">
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<h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1">Everything You Need to Know Before Watching <i>Fallout </i>Season 2</h2>
<div class="prose post-hero-description prose--post-hero">It’s the end of the world as we know it. Also, Fallout is returning. Here’s everything you need to know ahead of Season 2.</div>
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Published on December 12, 2025
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<p>The first season of Amazon Prime’s <em>Fallout</em> series proved to be one of the most surprising video game TV shows so far. It was never going to be easy to adapt the <em>Fallout </em>games. Known for their deep lore that revolves around the various factions competing for dominance in a post-apocalyptic wasteland built around Americana philosophies and advanced retrofuturistic technology, those games can be… a lot to take in. However, showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner (as well as executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy) have done a remarkable job of adapting that world to a new medium and assembling one of the <a href="https://reactormag.com/fallout-trailer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">best casts on television</a> in the process.</p>
<p>Yet, the <em>Fallout</em> TV series remains… a lot to take in. So much so, in fact, that there is a good chance that you’ve already forgotten what exactly happened in the show’s first season, even if you remember many of the broad strokes. With that in mind, here’s a (hopefully) helpful breakdown of nearly everything you need to remember before <a href="https://reactormag.com/fallout-season-2-trailer-macaulay-culkin-deathclaw-release-date/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">starting <em>Fallout</em> season two on December 17</a>.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Who Caused the Apocalypse & Why</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="614" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Bombs-e1765391281165-1100x614.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-833303" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Bombs-e1765391281165-1100x614.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Bombs-e1765391281165-740x413.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Bombs-e1765391281165-768x429.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Bombs-e1765391281165.jpg 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>We all have theories about what will cause the end of the world. My guess? Pigeons. They ain’t strutting over nothing. </p>
<p>But we eventually learn that <em>Fallout</em>’s apocalypse was caused by a group of executives associated with the Vault-Tec corporation. Well, at least they played a significant hand. On October 23, 2077, Vault-Tec executives and other corporate associates (including Hank MacLean, Barb Howard, and Robert House) approved of the bombing of several American cities to prevent a peace deal from ending the environment of fear they profited from. For what it’s worth, some speculate that the Vault-Tec executives only allowed the bombings to occur rather than dropped the nukes themselves. Regardless, the United States seemingly blamed China, the U.S. retaliated, and the world effectively ended.</p>
<p>Interestingly, this revelation represents a bit of a deviation from <em>Fallout</em>’s video game lore. “Who dropped the bombs?” has long been one of the big, intentionally unanswerable questions in the <em>Fallout </em>games. While there were always theories Vault-Tec was one of the culprits (and other theories that suggest Vault-Tec played a less direct role in nuclear attacks we see in the show than what the series implies), the decision to suggest a definitive origin to the apocalypse is one of the show’s biggest and most controversial alterations so far.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The True Purpose of the Vaults</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="664" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Vaults-1100x664.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833307" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Vaults-1100x664.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Vaults-740x447.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Vaults-768x464.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Vaults-1536x928.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Vaults-2048x1237.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>We later learn that the Vault-Tec vaults aren’t primarily intended to save people. Most were designed to be elaborate social experiments. While we’ve seen few of those vaults in the show so far, much of the series revolves around the experiments conducted in Vaults 31, 32, and 33.</p>
<p>Skipping ahead a bit, we eventually learn that Vault 31 is filled with what are referred to as Bud’s Buds: cryogenically frozen Vault-Tec executives and associates hand-chosen by Vault-Tec Vice President Bud Askins to repopulate and rule the world. Vault 32 and 33, meanwhile, are essentially elaborate breeding facilities for those executives. The executives are periodically unfrozen and elected to lead those vaults to create what Bud believes will be a new generation of superior global leaders.</p>
<p>The residents of Vault 32 and 33 were largely unaware of this arrangement for quite some time (save for the aforementioned Vault-Tec employees). They essentially live the life presented in Vault-Tec propaganda. That dynamic changed when the residents of Vault 32 learned the truth and revolted. Their revolution failed, and the vault residents were murdered. The vault fell into a state of ruin when an outsider named Lee Moldaver managed to lead a team of raiders into it, pose as the vault’s residents, and take the place over.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Lucy MacLean Leaves Vault 33</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="615" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Leaves-1100x615.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833309" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Leaves-1100x615.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Leaves-740x414.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Leaves-768x430.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Leaves-1536x859.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Leaves-2048x1145.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>Shortly before the start of the show, Hank MacLean is unfrozen and chosen to lead Vault 33. He eventually marries a Vault 33 resident named Rose and has two kids: a son named Norm and a daughter named Lucy. Hank told the kids that their mother later died during a plague. The show properly begins in the year 2296 (about nine years after the events of the last chronological <em>Fallout</em> game, <em>Fallout 4</em>) with Lucy’s arranged marriage to a Vault 32 resident named Monty.</p>
<p>To put it lightly, Lucy’s arranged marriage to Monty does not go well. The Vault 32 raiders reveal their deception during an attack shortly after Lucy’s wedding. The attack results in the deaths of various vault dwellers and raiders as well as the abduction of Lucy’s father. Lucy’s training helps her survive the attack. Unaware of her father’s true nature, Lucy ignores the Vault leaders’ orders and leaves Vault 33 to track her father across the wasteland.</p>
<p>Lucy soon learns that the outside world isn’t quite as desolate as she envisioned, though the pockets of civilization that remain largely consist of desperate survivors, monsters, and humans turned into “ghouls” by years of radiation exposure. Lucy interacts with several of those wasteland wanderers during her travels, though there are three worth highlighting.</p>
<p>The first is a scientist named Siggi Wilzig who tries to convince Lucy to return to Vault 33. Ignoring his warnings, Lucy later encounters Wilzig in a settlement called Filly, where he is attacked by a bounty hunter known simply as The Ghoul. With the help of a Brotherhood of Steel soldier named Maximus, Lucy survives the Ghoul’s attack and escorts Wilzig out of town.</p>
<p>However, Wilzig has been mortally wounded and makes a rather odd dying request to Lucy. He wants her to cut off his head. Why? Well, Wilzig was a scientist for The Enclave: a formerly powerful group that used ancient technology to tighten its grip on the wanderers of the wasteland. We later learn that Wilzig escaped an Enclave facility with research into a kind of cold fusion technology that could, among other things, power the wasteland once more. His head contains a device that could enable the use of that technology. Wilzig wants his head (and the device) delivered to Lee Moldaver. Yes, the same Lee Moldaver who kidnapped Lucy’s father.</p>
<p>Before we get to that, you need to know a bit more about the other two figures Lucy encountered in Filly: The Ghoul and Maximus.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>A Ghoul By Any Other Name</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="572" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Ghoul-1100x572.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833310" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Ghoul-1100x572.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Ghoul-740x385.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Ghoul-768x399.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Ghoul-1536x798.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Ghoul-2048x1065.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>Through a series of flashbacks and exposition sequences that make up quite a bit of the show, we eventually learn that The Ghoul’s real name is Cooper Howard. Before the nuclear bombs went off, Howard was a famous actor primarily known for his work in westerns. His life took an unexpected (though lucrative) turn when he began appearing in Vault-Tec propaganda promotional pieces. Why the shift? Well, it was largely orchestrated at the behest of his wife, Barb. Yes, the same Barb Howard who helped arrange the attack on the United States.</p>
<p>Cooper only learned the truth about Barb (or some of it) shortly before the bombs dropped. During that attack, Howard lost track of both Barb and their daughter, Janey. Afterwards, he turned into a ghoul. Cooper begins taking on work as a bounty hunter to acquire rare doses of a serum that will prevent him from turning feral and losing all sense of himself. He gradually earns a reputation as one of the most feared figures in the wasteland.</p>
<p>Eventually, The Ghoul is tasked with hunting down Siggi Wilzig. That job, and subsequent encounter with Lucy, begin a new chapter for The Ghoul’s life (or what remains of it).</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Maximus & the Brotherhood of Steel</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="575" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Maximus-1100x575.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833312" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Maximus-1100x575.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Maximus-740x387.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Maximus-768x402.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Maximus-1536x804.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Maximus-2048x1071.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>As for Maximus, he’s a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel: a paramilitary group that utilizes advanced technology to operate as morally ambiguous peacekeepers in the wasteland. They will help other, non-mutated humans, though they tend to keep most of the real power to themselves. Maximus (his real name is unknown) joined the Brotherhood when his hometown of Shady Sands was destroyed by a nuclear explosion when he was just a child.</p>
<p>Things didn’t get much better for Maximus from there. He’s regularly mistreated by the other members of the Brotherhood and only becomes a squire through suspicious circumstances involving the injury of another Brotherhood member.</p>
<p>Maximus undergoes various humiliations while squiring for a Brotherhood Knight named Titus on a mission to find and retrieve the runaway scientist Siggi Wilzig. However, fate takes a strange turn when Titus is killed by a mutated bear known as a Yao Guai. Opting to further his deception, Maximus steals Titus’ power armor, effectively assumes his identity, and continues the mission to find Wilzig in the hopes that retrieving him will win the favor of the Brotherhood.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Lucy, The Ghoul, and Maximus Unite Over a MacGuffin</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="676" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Fallout-1100x676.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833313" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Fallout-1100x676.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Fallout-740x455.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Fallout-768x472.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Fallout-1536x944.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Lucy-Fallout-2048x1258.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>Lucy, The Ghoul, and Maximus’ roads all wind in, out, and around each other after Lucy acquires Wilzig’s head. Quite a few things happen to each and all of them after that moment, but here’s a brief breakdown of the need-to-know events:</p>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Lucy and the Ghoul travel together briefly and learn a little more about each other. They slowly develop a begrudging respect for one another, despite some hostilities (such as The Ghoul cutting off one of Lucy’s fingers). Yet, Lucy decides to leave The Ghoul with doses of the serum he requires to let him know she will never become the monster he is.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The head goes on a bit of a journey at this point. It gets eaten by a lake monster, only to be “rescued” by Maximus and his newly dispatched squire, Thaddeus. Thaddeus ends up stealing the head from Maximus when he learns that Maximus is posing as a Brotherhood Knight. From there, Thaddeus goes on a series of misadventures that result in him slowly turning into a ghoul. Maximus ends up stealing the head back from Thaddeus further down the road when Thaddeus contracts a debilitating radiation disease. Maximus gives the head back to Lucy. Lucy and Maximus also kiss, which could be significant later.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The Ghoul goes on a bit of a bender, with many of his scenes coming via flashbacks to his pre-apocalypse life. He eventually takes a wandering dog (which he refers to as Dogmeat, though it’s actually CX404: an Enclave experiment who served as Siggi Wilzig’s secret pet) as a companion. He also learns that Moldaver is held up at Griffith Observatory.</li>
</ul>
<p>The biggest event during this stretch of the show sees Lucy and Maximus team-up to find the head after Thaddeus steals it. They end in a different vault (Vault 4), which is largely populated by mutants. Maximus quickly adapts to the vault lifestyle, though Lucy is suspicious of the vault’s inhabitants. While snooping around, she finds images of the raider Moldaver. Through a series of reveals, we learn that Moldaver was actually a Vault-Tec employee before the apocalypse. She is the one who convinced Cooper Howard to spy on the company and his wife by telling him about Vault-Tec’s attempts to suppress her research into cold fusion.</p>
<p>Moldaver manages to survive the nuclear weapon attacks and live until the modern age. She helps to form the settlement of Shady Sands: a relatively peaceful place in the wasteland. There, she meets an escapee from Vault 33 named Rose MacLean. Yes, Lucy’s mother. After the nuclear attack on Shady Sands, some of the settlement’s survivors help populate Vault 4, which is now being run by the mutant hybrids who used to be part of the vault’s secret experiment but now simply want a peaceful lifestyle.</p>
<p>Eventually, Lucy and Maximus are gently banished from Vault 4 and make their way to Griffith Observatory. Before we join them, there is another group of vault dwellers you need to know about.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Oh Yeah, What’s Going on In Vault 33?</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="531" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Norm-1100x531.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833314" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Norm-1100x531.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Norm-740x357.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Norm-768x371.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Norm-1536x741.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Norm-2048x988.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>Much of the time we spend with the remaining inhabitants of Vault 33, which includes Lucy’s brother, Norm, is spent learning about the vault’s secret history and its relation to Vaults 31 and 32. However, a few other significant developments do occur.</p>
<p>Following Hank’s capture and Lucy’s disappearance, Vault 33 is left leaderless. The role of vault overseer eventually goes to Betty Pearson, another former Vault-Tec executive from Vault 31. Among other things, Pearson decides to hold a “lottery” to determine which residents will stay in Vault 33 and which will be sent to repopulate and resettle the cleaned-up Vault 32. Betty’s motivations and methods aren’t entirely explained (though we can assume they are nefarious, given the absolute everything else we’ve seen in the show).</p>
<p>Norm, meanwhile, ends up uncovering most of Vault 33’s secrets via some snooping. He ends the season trapped in Vault 31’s cryogenic freezing chamber by the preserved brain of Bud Askins. Askins tells Norm that the only way to survive is to enter one of the cryogenic tubes. However, we don’t know if he decides to do so.</p>
<p>The other Vault 33 resident of note is Steph Harper. Steph lost an eye during the raider attack and gradually takes on a leadership role. She is eventually named overseer of Vault 32 during the migration period, though it’s not clear what her motivations are, how much she knows, or what kind of leader she will be.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Showdown at Griffith Observatory</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="579" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/New-California-1100x579.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833315" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/New-California-1100x579.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/New-California-740x389.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/New-California-768x404.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/New-California-1536x808.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/New-California.png 1770w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>The showdown at Griffith Observatory is visually highlighted by a massive battle between the Brotherhood of Steel and members of the New California Republic: a group that has tried to rebuild civilization but have had their efforts thwarted (to say the least) by Vault-Tec and other factions. Now led by Moldaver, they fight to preserve her vision for a better wasteland run by some semblance of democracy.</p>
<p>What happens inside the Observatory is far more interesting. Unaware of much of what has occurred, Lucy offers Moldaver the head (and the technology it contains) in exchange for her captured father. Moldaver accepts but first tells Lucy who Hank really is. She reveals that Hank is not only a Vault-Tec executive but that he was the one who ordered the nuclear strike on Shady Sands. In the process, he made Maximus an orphan, murdered thousands, and revealed his desire to rule the world in his (and Vault-Tec’s) image. Lucy’s mother technically survived the attack, though the nuclear blast turned Rose into a feral ghoul that Moldaver has chained up near her at the observatory. </p>
<p>Hank escapes his imprisonment but runs into The Ghoul. The Ghoul wants Hank to tell him where his wife and daughter are. Before he can find out, though, Hank steals some Brotherhood of Steel’s armor and flees. The Ghoul asks Lucy to help him find her father, and Lucy agrees. First, though, she kills the feral ghoul that was her mother.</p>
<p>Maximus arrives just in time to be knocked out by Hank and, more importantly, to see Moldaver use the cold fusion tech to activate a new power source. It works, and the power source lights up some of the nearby areas. Other Brotherhood members arrive to find Maximus at the controls of the power station and in control of the powerful technology. They assume he’s the hero responsible for all their newfound fortune.</p>
<p>We end the season with Lucy and The Ghoul chasing Hank across the wasteland. A post-credits scene reveals Hank’s destination: the ruins of New Vegas. What he intends to do there remains a mystery. However, we know from the games that New Vegas was the domain of Robert House: the RobCo Industries founder who was also at least partially responsible for the first nuclear bombs being dropped.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Most Important Things to Remember Before You Watch <em>Fallout</em> Season 2</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="608" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Season-2-1100x608.png" alt="" class="wp-image-833317" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Season-2-1100x608.png 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Season-2-740x409.png 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Season-2-768x425.png 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Season-2-1536x849.png 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fallout-Season-2-2048x1132.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Amazon Prime</figcaption></figure>
<p>Like I said, that is a lot to remember. However, here are the key plot threads to consider ahead of <em>Fallout</em> season 2:</p>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The Ghoul, Lucy, and Dogmeat are chasing Hank across the wasteland and into New Vegas. The Ghoul is searching for his family, and Lucy is looking for revenge and answers. Dogmeat is down for whatever.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Hank’s motivations are murkier. It’s likely that he wants something that Robert House had, though it’s not yet clear what that may be. </li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Maximus is now one of the leaders of the Brotherhood of Steel. He seems interested in using the Brotherhood’s newfound power to do some good, though the circumstances of his ascent put him in a delicate position.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The power source and cold fusion technology the Brotherhood controls is now one of the most important things in the wasteland. It will undoubtedly become the centerpiece of future faction conflicts.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The New California Republic remain players in the Wasteland, though they are at odds with the Brotherhood despite Maximus’ rise. They have a long road ahead if they’re going to try to make the wasteland a better place.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Thaddeus is seemingly still alive, though he is clearly turning into a ghoul and will not be welcomed back by the Brotherhood. Still, he has a story to tell and secrets to share.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The residents of Vault 33 and Vault 32 remain largely docile and unaware of what has been happening in the world outside. They’re clearly being set up for something unsavory (especially the Vault 32 dwellers), though it’s not clear what the grand plans are.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>We don’t know what’s left of The Enclave, though they’ve clearly fallen out of power since their heyday years before the start of the show. Still, remnants of their faction could play a part in future events.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Norm MacLean is trapped in Vault 31. We are left to assume he enters one of the cryogenic chambers, we have not seen him do so yet.</li>
</ul>
<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>The Vault 4 residents are seemingly safe and sound once more. It’s not clear what, if any, role they will play next season.</li>
</ul>
<p>Got all of that? Good. Would you be so kind as to explain it to me?[end-mark]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/everything-you-need-to-know-before-watching-fallout-season-2/">Everything You Need to Know Before Watching <i>Fallout </i>Season 2</a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/everything-you-need-to-know-before-watching-fallout-season-2/">https://reactormag.com/everything-you-need-to-know-before-watching-fallout-season-2/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=833265">https://reactormag.com/?p=833265</a></p>
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<h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1">Interview: <i>Pluribus</i> Costume Designer Studied Specific Authors for Carol’s Look</h2>
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</div>
<p>Vince Gilligan’s <em><a href="https://reactormag.com/pluribus-reimagines-1978-invasion-of-the-body-snatchers/">Pluribus </a></em><a href="https://reactormag.com/pluribus-reimagines-1978-invasion-of-the-body-snatchers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raises a lot of questions.</a> <em>A lot</em>. Those questions can vary from existential to more practical, such as how does a hive person decide what to wear when they wake up in the morning.</p>
<p>Luckily for you, there’s a concrete answer to the latter question: “At that point, clothing simply becomes protective: a top, a bottom, a pair of shoes. And also there’s no need to think about color coordination or whether stripes go with polka dots,” <em>Pluribus</em> costume designer Jennifer Bryan told <em>Reactor</em> in an interview. Bryan also said that show creator Vince Gilligan “wanted the show, from a costume perspective, not to look like anything else that had been seen on TV in the in a sci-fi genre, he didn’t want them looking like zombies.” Mission accomplished!</p>
<p>Bryan also revealed details on Carol Sturka’s author look, her inspiration for Diabaté’s garb, as well as some cameos that may make you want to rewatch a certain scene. Read on for our full discussion, though be warned that this interview contains very mild spoilers from the first two episodes (and frankly, you’ll get more out of it if you’ve seen those two episodes before reading below).</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="461" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010201-1100x461.jpg" alt="Carol and Zosia in airport" class="wp-image-833569" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010201-1100x461.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010201-740x310.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010201-768x322.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010201-1536x643.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010201-2048x858.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Apple TV</figcaption></figure>
<p><em>This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.</em></p>
<p><strong>This must have been such a fun project. I would love to hear how it was pitched to you.</strong></p>
<p>When we wrapped on <em>Better Call Saul</em>, there was crew gossip, but nothing could be verified, just like when we wrapped on <em>Breaking Bad</em>, there was crew gossip, but nothing could be verified. So it first started off with crew members gossiping on set. We went on hiatus, and then I got a call. By that time, it was becoming clear that [show creator Vince Gilligan] was up to something. So he called me, and he goes, “Hey, Jen, so I got this thing, and Rhea [Seehorn] is gonna be our lead.”</p>
<p>From there, we got a little bit more formal with it. We went to a meeting, and he basically pitched the draft of the project; that it was sci-fi, Rhea was going to be our lead, and it was going to have a global aspect to it. He was going to use actors from different parts of the world.</p>
<p>At that time, the working title was <em><a href="https://reactormag.com/pluribus-read-excerpt-carol-winds-of-wycaro-romantasy/">Wycaro, </a></em><a href="https://reactormag.com/pluribus-read-excerpt-carol-winds-of-wycaro-romantasy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">which was named after the books that [Seehorn’s character, Carol,] wrote</a>. It was going to be set in Albuquerque, but then it would go to other parts of the world. And I thought, “Vince is never going to leave Albuquerque. Maybe we go to another part of New Mexico that looks like another part of the world.” Well, to my surprise and delight, we ended up in the Canary Islands, and we ended up in northern Spain. He wanted the show, from a costume perspective, not to look like anything else that had been seen on TV in the in a sci-fi genre, he didn’t want them looking like zombies.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010403-1100x733.jpg" alt="The joined surrounding Carol" class="wp-image-833572" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010403-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010403-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010403-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010403-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010403-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Apple TV</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>You mentioned Vince said he didn’t want them to look like zombies, which makes sense having seen the show. Did he give you get any direction about what the hive <em>was</em> like? Or did you create a story for yourself about a hive person who wakes up in the morning, and sometimes they put on a TGI Friday’s outfit, sometimes they put on cycling gear?</strong></p>
<p>Vince gave me some movies to watch—there was a Kurosawa, and there was <em>I Am Legend</em>. And then, of course, because he said he didn’t want to be looking like zombies, I also wanted to watch what he didn’t want. So <em>Walking Dead</em> fell into that category.</p>
<p>I decided that they were of hive mind; they did not have the luxury of personalizing their clothing. So what I pitched to [Gilligan] is that I reduced clothing to something that was surely not decorative, no adornment. It’s not going to show where you lived, globally. It’s not going to show your religion. It’s not going to show your status, whether you’re rich or middle class, a shoe shine guy or a CEO. It’s not going to show any of that. All of those messages that clothing transmits to people around you I’m going to strip away. And at that point, clothing simply becomes protective: a top, a bottom, a pair of shoes. And also there’s no need to think about color coordination or whether stripes go with polka dots. They don’t care.</p>
<p>Now why do you see different occupations represented, different walks of life? They got zapped in a moment when they were doing a thing: when they were waitressing at TGI Fridays, when they were delivering that package for DHL, when they were in the lab and doing night cleaning of the lab. It had to look real in that in that moment when they were frozen and made that transition. If they were a surgeon in a hospital, they would have had on scrubs and a surgical cap. And then in with all of that, then you get the more ordinary, nondescript clothing that we all know, and also clothing might be coming from another part of the world, so it could be a Scottish kilt that might be worn with a Hawaiian shirt. They don’t recognize those boundaries. They’re gone.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pluribus-ep1-2-1100x733.jpeg" alt="Carol at her book reading/signing in Pluribus S1 "We Is Us"" class="wp-image-831372" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pluribus-ep1-2-1100x733.jpeg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pluribus-ep1-2-740x493.jpeg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pluribus-ep1-2-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pluribus-ep1-2-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pluribus-ep1-2-2048x1366.jpeg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image: Apple TV</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>Can you talk about deciding what Carol would wear for the pilot? I’m sure the yellow leather jacket has come up in conversations.</strong></p>
<p>The<strong> </strong>first look that I had for her was on her book tour. So she had to have that middle-aged romance novelist, kind of a vibe. Vince had suggested that I look at some of the well-known romance, pulp fiction novelists, like Jackie Collins and Barbara Cartland, those women going back who were really prolific <a href="https://reactormag.com/pluribus-and-romantasy-art-at-the-end-of-the-world/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in that genre of writing</a>. I remember pitching to Vince that it should look relatable to her book-signing audience, her fans, but slightly elevated so they could still relate to her, but look up to her. So she wasn’t over the top, but just in that sweet spot where [the fans] could think, if they had a little money, they could probably buy a suit like that. Or maybe they’ll go to the hairdresser next time and go, can I get my hair cut like that?</p>
<p>Then, when she sheds that facade and is now her real self… I knew that she was going to have a lot of action, and we needed to add a jacket, and so I decided it needed to be a leather jacket, and it needed to be a bit cropped so that she could do all of those moves. So I came up with the idea of a hybrid cropped jacket that I designed. It was hybrid of a motor jacket, but not quite. And I decided on the color because I knew those scenes were going to be shot in the dead of night, very dark, and I needed her to pop. And also, the yellow is the color of caution. So I would like to think that subliminally, it might have sent a message to the viewers that something is slightly unsettling.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010202-1100x733.jpg" alt="Zosia and Diabaté" class="wp-image-833570" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010202-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010202-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010202-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010202-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010202-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Apple TV</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>I’d also love to talk about the other characters who haven’t joined. Diabaté [played by Samba Schutte] must have been a fun one.</strong></p>
<p>He was one of my faves. Samba Schutte is from Mauritania. And I realized that he was quite a dandy, and that was a perfect opening for me to use one of my favorite groups of people in clothing and costume. In the Congo, which they still do this in Brazzaville, there is a group of men called Sapuers; they are modern day dandies that dress to the nines in top designers. They may be a plumber and live in a little tiny house, but when he steps out of his little house in his not-so-affluent neighborhood, these dudes are off the chain. And I told Vince about these guys, and I said, it’s perfect, because it is African modern-day culture. It goes back to the colonial times when they would copy the French colonialists in their garb and make fun of them. And then it got elevated. So when he gets off the plane, what else would I put him in but an African-print tuxedo?</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="461" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010304-1100x461.jpg" alt="Zosia on plane" class="wp-image-833571" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010304-1100x461.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010304-740x310.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010304-768x322.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010304-1536x643.jpg 1536w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pluribus_Photo_010304-2048x858.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: Apple TV</figcaption></figure>
<p><strong>And what about Zosia [played by Karolina Wydra]?</strong></p>
<p>Zosia was very interesting. She was, for me, the most transformative within her storyline. At first, we’re not sure where she comes from, except we figured out that is seems to be North Africa, which it is, Tangier, Morocco. And so we see her in traditional Northern African clothing, and she has that on, and it’s like a symphony, she just moves from one environment into the other, but her clothing has to fit into each one. So she flies that plane. And that was Karolina taxiing. I mean, the pilot was off camera in case, but that was her on the runway.</p>
<p>And then she lands in Albuquerque, and strips off because she knows she’s now on the real mission, which is to meet this woman, and have her feel comfortable so that [Carol] Sturka doesn’t immediately kick her out her backyard. So she walks into the shower, and the three people that attend to her to shower are me, Cheri Montesanto, our makeup artist, and Trish Almeida, our hair stylist. And I think that was very considerate of Vince, because he wanted this to be real, but he wanted Karolina to feel very comfortable with the people around. So we got our little cameos.</p>
<p><em>New episodes of </em>Pluribus<em> premiere on Apple TV on Fridays.[end-mark]</em></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/interview-pluribus-costume-designer-studied-specific-authors-for-carols-look/">Interview: <i>Pluribus</i> Costume Designer Studied Specific Authors for Carol’s Look</a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/interview-pluribus-costume-designer-studied-specific-authors-for-carols-look/">https://reactormag.com/interview-pluribus-costume-designer-studied-specific-authors-for-carols-look/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=833567">https://reactormag.com/?p=833567</a></p>
While December is a slow month for publishing as a whole, and especially for horror publishing, you’d be a fool not to keep an eye on the month’s new books, lest they sneak up behind you in a dark alley. Here are five I’m particularly excited about.
(Dec 1, 47north) Any new T. Kingfisher horror book pole-vaults to the top of my TBR pile (I like her fantasy very much as well, but horror always takes priority). This novella follows Selena, a woman fleeing a bad living situation for her late aunt’s desert home. Along with her dog, Copper, Selena starts to adapt to desert life—meeting her neighbors, making friends, and adjusting to a completely new ecosystem. But there’s something watching from the underbrush: an ancient god known as Snake-Eater. And it wants something from Selena—something her aunt promised it. One thing Kingfisher does especially well is writing the natural world in a way that’s reverent but not overly romantic—I loved her descriptions of the Appalachian woods in The Twisted Ones, and I can’t wait to see what she does with a whole new biome here. Plus, as with most Kingfisher novels, readers can expect an exceedingly charming cast of characters and a very, very good dog.
(Dec 2, Scholastic) Now that I’m an adult, I have a healthy respect for spiders, even if I’d prefer they keep their distance. As a kid, however, I was significantly less chill about anything with eight legs. Andi, a spider-obsessed sixth grader, goes to a party hoping to get a good look at the host’s dad’s spider collection—and she gets way more than she bargained for. Soon, Andi and her friends are trying desperately to evade a veritable spider invasion, and the adults are nowhere to be found. It’s up to Andi to untangle this web. Nobody’s writing better horror for middle grade readers than Russell, and this one’s perfect for arachnophobes and -philes of all ages.
(Dec 9, St. Martin’s) DeMeester’s fiction is often concerned with forces that constrain women’s lives, and that’s certainly the case with her third novel. Dark Sisters is told across three timelines: in 1750, Anne, a healer fleeing accusations of witchcraft, starts a small settlement deep in the forest around a powerful, ancient tree. In the 1950s, Anne’s descendant Mary feels trapped in her existence as a housewife until she meets a woman who brings her to life again. And in 2007, Mary’s granddaughter Camilla, only daughter of the strict town preacher, is determined to unravel the mysterious power controlling the town—one that’s tied to the ancient tree at its heart. If you’re a fan of religious horror, feminist horror, cults, and/or witches, this one’s for you.
(Dec 9, Blackstone) I consider it a gift when an author I like releases a short story collection—it’s like a tasting menu of the inside of their brain (not to torture a metaphor or anything). Compton’s 2023 debut novel The Spite House haunted me, and so I’m eagerly anticipating Midnight Somewhere, which features twenty one stories that span genres and themes. Of note: “The Merge Monster Incident: One Year Later,” about a roller coaster that comes to life and disappears with all its riders still aboard; “I Caught a Ghost in My Eye,” about, well, a haunted eye; and “Doctor Bad Eyes is at the Top of the Stairs Again,” about a mother facing down the ghost who keeps scaring her kids.
(Dec 9, Cursed Morsels) All three of these authors are making a name for themselves in the ecohorror space—Morris’ Green Fuse Burning, Farrenkopf’s Haunted Ecologies, and Raglin’s Extinction Hymns all come highly recommended (to you, by me). This volume contains new novellas from Farrenkopf and Raglin and several new short stories from Morris: tales of kudzu cities, unholy mutations, birds, bees, the Flower Man, and a birding vacation that glimmers with the promise of resurrecting an extinct species—at great cost.
It never gets easier choosing just a few books to highlight from the many released each month—to see the full list of December’s new horror books and beyond, head over to my website.[end-mark]
News and Notes
The 2026 new horror list: The 2026 horror list is live! Head over to Read Jump Scares to start building your TBR for next year—we’ll have new books from Paul Tremblay, Ronald Malfi, Bethany C. Morrow, Gemma Amor, Monika Kim, V. Castro, Catriona Ward, Clay McLeod Chapman, Sarah Gailey, Nick Cutter, Daniel Kraus, Eric LaRocca, CJ Leede, Mónica Ojeda, Nat Cassidy, Adam Nevill, Philip Fracassi, Gwendolyn Kiste, Kylie Lee Baker, Cynthia Pelayo, and so many more. As always, I’ll keep updating the list throughout the year (many titles for fall and winter 2026 haven’t quite been announced yet at this point), and if you see that I’ve missed something, please tell me about it here!
The year in horror: I picked my three favorites of the year for Talking Scared’s year-end State of the Horror Nation episode, and now I want to know: what were the best horror books you read in 2025?
I am a simple person: Rian Johnson releases a new Benoit Blanc mystery, and I see it as often as possible during its theatrical window, and then stream it on Netflix. Wake Up Dead Man is one of my favorite films of the year, and its main character—Father Jud Duplenticy—has inspired me to round up some of the best holy sleuths I could find.
As always this is subjective. Be assured that Father Jud is #1 in my heart if not on this list.
This is a Hitchcock movie in which Montgomery Clift plays a young hot priest in Quebec City who is framed for murder by his church’s groundskeeper. I’m including it here because Father Michael William Logan becomes very glancingly involved in the investigation of the murder before he himself is too much of a suspect. I expected a taut thriller, but this movie is a bit bumpy—the plot is extremely convoluted, there are multiple subplots about the priest’s former girlfriend and blackmail, so there are only a few sections that really dig into what to me is the most interesting part: since the groundkeeper confessed his murder, the priest is bound by the seal of the confession and can’t clear his own name.
There is one sequence that I think really takes the film to the level it needed, where Clift wanders through Quebec City framed by religious iconography. He starts outside a cemetery. Later, as he walks up a hill, Hitchcock shoots him from across the street, where there’s a statue of Jesus carrying the cross up Golgotha flanked by Roman soldiers. A few minutes later, Clift seeks refuge in a different church, walks in, and fixes his eyes on the crucifix which is, after all, a graphic record of a body broken by state violence. There’s no escape for him, and he knows that.
Fathers Martin, Sebastian, Peregrine, and John don’t actually do too much investigating in P.D. James novel Death in the Holy Orders, as they leave most of it to DCI Adam Dalgliesh. But they do try to assist as they can. And then, in the adaptation of the book for the Channel 5 series Dalgliesh, Father Martin is cut out entirely and his actions divided among the other three. But I still wanted to include them as the book itself is an interesting take on a religious mystery.
In both the book and television versions, DCI Dalgliesh is the son of a rector with “a stubborn streak of rationality”, whose history with religion bubbles under the surface of his stoic exterior. While the plot is pretty convoluted, the book gets into some interesting shades between the Church of England, starker Protestantism, and Anglo-Catholicism, but in both cases I think the story could have done with a bit more theology and church details to hammer home how St. Anselm’s, the site of the murder(s), was a unique site for the crimes that occur, and how those crimes would have affected the faculty and students’ faith and livelihoods.
Lady Lupin is the bubbly, adorable, scatterbrained new wife of Canon Andrew Hastings. I have to assume she’s a slight parody of Agatha Christie’s Griselda Clement (who appears a little further up the list), as she’s a gorgeous blonde 21-year-old, straight out of London society, who is about as unprepared for the vicarage as anyone could be. But, on the night her longterm society boyfriend was going to propose, she met the 38-years-old, silvering-at-the-temples Canon Hastings at a dinner, and by the end of the night the two were completely twitterpated.
When Andrew’s pompous young curate, Andrew Young, dies from poison on Christmas Eve (so inconvenient!) Loops takes it upon herself to investigate, with help from her London friends Duds and Tommy, and Andrew’s nephew Jack. Lupin is… well, now, in our technology-addled world, her miniscule attention span and talent for non-sequitur would seem perfectly normal, but at the time author Joan Coggins was writing a gentle parody of un-upperclass woman, kindhearted, but flighty and always focused on exactly the wrong details—until those details turn out to be useful in a murder investigation. It’s easier to just show you what we’re dealing with, so here’s a brief excerpt of Lupin trying to speak with her nephew about a certain Miss Oliver, who might be a murder suspect:
“She is a tiresome woman, I hate people who wriggle, and she was rather nasty about June and Diana.”
“Why?” asked Jack sharply.
“I don’t know, I’m sure. I suppose she was born like it. Where was I?”
“You didn’t say, but I gather it was somewhere with Miss Oliver.”
“Oh yes, so I was, unfortunately. We were in my sitting room. I know we were there because of the housekeeping money.”
“What housekeeping money?”
“The money that was stolen, of course.”
“You never said anything about any money being stolen.”
“Well, I suppose I had forgotten. One can’t think of everything. There was Duds cutting her hair off after telling me she had grown it, and then the carol service, and now poor Mr. Young being dead. It would seem heartless to begrudge ten pounds.”
The whole book is like this! It’s great! Lupin doesn’t so much help solve the case, as much as free associate her way down the right path, so she can’t be too high on the list.
Here again, I’ve seen the ITV adaptation, and haven’t yet read Phil Rickman’s books. Merrily Watkins (Anna Maxwell Martin) was a promising character in an interesting premise, but the execution left her fairly low on this list.
She’s already an Anglican minister, recently widowed and trying to navigate her relationship with her daughter, who’s grieving much more than she appears to be. As the series opens, she’s training to become a Deliverance Minister, the Anglican Church’s somewhat more empathetic and holistic take on the role of exorcist. The show shifts in tone between suspense, family drama, and occasionally straight-up supernatural horror.
The problem is that Merrily waffles constantly about whether she should even be a Deliverance Minister. (Her “mentor”, a Minister named Huw Owen [David Threlfall], explicitly tells her she’s not cut out for it.) She allows a malevolent spirit to get its hooks in her immediately, and then ends up helping to investigate a series of deaths said spirit may have caused. She doesn’t make any friends in the police force, because the two police officers we deal with walk Merrily into the site of a horrifying occult ritual, complete with corpse and a plethora of anti-Christian imagery, with no warning whatsoever, and she’s utterly traumatized. They don’t seem to have any reason to do this, she isn’t a regular consultant.
As the show continues she develops a sort of demonic stigmata (which, cool), and seems possessed at time. Her daughter gets caught up in the occult… cult… and for obvious reasons Merrily devotes more time to that than the case, so a local social worker and Merrily’s mentor end up doing far more of the investigating than she does, although she does come back into the investigation toward the end. But on top of that, aside from the one time when she possible got possessed by an evil spirit during an attempted Deliverance, we don’t really get to see the inner workings of Deliverance Ministry, and we never see Merrily actually vicar-ing. OH and the cops continue to suck and take her to a second occult site with no warning, but she handles it better the second time. But also, why? One other thing I found interesting—there is a cross-shaped clean spot on the wall above Merrily’s bed, which the show doesn’t address, but which seemed fairly reminiscent of the similar cross-shaped clean spot on the wall of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks’ church in Wake Up Dead Man.
Much as in I Confess!, the main drama engine here (aside from, y’know, murder) is the seal of confession. The murderer confesses to the murders, and Father Robert Koeslar (Donald Sutherland) is then unable to go to the police for protection, because telling them anything would break the seal. He tries to solve the mystery on his own, hoping to get the man to turn himself in (also as in I Confess!) but as the murderer has legitimate beef with the Catholic Church, there’s no way he’ll be so obliging. The crime directly involves priests whom Koeslar knows, and the murderer plants replicas of his dead daughter’s black rosary on each victim, ratcheting up the psychological torment for the embattled priest, who was already having doubts about continuing in his line of work.
Father Koeslar does a decent job of tracking down clues, and in the end does far more to solve the mystery than any of the police do, or the journalist who shows up to do research/tempt him away from his vocation. (A really tired trope that does NOT turn up in Wake Up Dead Man!) In the end, the whole crime turns on the confession, though, and the one time Sutherland tries to hint to his superior that something’s up the man harshly rebukes him. Ultimately while it’s not always successful as a sexy thriller, the film becomes a really interesting meditation on a kind of spiritual doom, and Father Loesar proves pretty good at amateur sleuthing. Also? A pre-teen Jack White makes an appearance as an altar server!
This blurb is short because until Wake Up Dead Man hits Netflix this Friday, I am not spoiling a single thing about this movie! I will say, however, that Father Jud Duplenticy is my favorite film character of the year. For a while, he proves to be an excellent natural detective. He notices clues—even a few that elude the great Benoit Blanc—connects dots, and draws on his deep knowledge of his parishioners to weigh their potential murdery-ness.
But the reason I love this movie so much is that at a certain point he quits playing detective to re-focus on his calling as a priest. And ALSO without spoiling anything, as in a few of these mysteries, the rite of confession proves pivotal to the mystery, and to Jud’s arc as a person, as does the concept of grace. Jud would have been an excellent sleuth, but I’m glad he picked the career path he’s on.
I sometimes forget that Agatha Christie is hilarious. But this book is full of zingers, deadpan wit, and smirking asides. Canon Clement is a delightful narrator, a middle-aged reverend who claims to be utterly baffled by his decision to propose to his wife, the wild, funny, entirely unsuitable Griselda. Griselda can neither cook, nor manage a household, and revels in the kind of snark that is unbecoming to a vicar’s wife—and I can only assume she inspired the aforementioned Lady Lupin. But it’s clear that Canon Clement is absolutely besotted with her, and that’s our first clue that Clement might be slightly unreliable as he describes his small parish.
What’s extra fun is that as the book goes along, we get the increasing sense of Clement as a person—welcoming, non-judgmental, but with a streak of moral belief that comes out in a fiery sermon that leads straight into the book’s climax. The only reason he’s so low on the list is that, well, he’s trying to play amateur sleuth in a book that has Miss freaking Marple in it. She walks into a tea at the vicarage with seven main suspects already in mind (he’s shocked at the number) and then spends the book on the edges of the story, working through possibilities, observing human nature, and finally solving the whole thing with just enough time to help the police apprehend those responsible, and hopefully, save the life of a hapless victim. While Clement is the narrator, and a fantastic one, Miss Marple is the star.
#8.Father Dowling & Sister Steve — The Father Dowling Mysteries
Two things about Father Dowling Mysteries before I go any further: one episode features a disappearing dead body that a news team tries to spin into a miracle, much like Wake Up Dead Man; Father Dowling is threatened with reassignment to Alaska if he doesn’t cut out all the sleuthing, which leads me to believe that Paolo Sorrentino is a fan of the show.
Now as for why Fr Dowling and Sr. Steve are here—Dowling is a good snooper. He’s great at finding tiny clues and noticing things. Sister Steve, because of her rough childhood, is good at whatever the narrative needs her to be, whether it’s being a flair bartender, picking locks, or hotwiring tractors—but rest assured she also gets super upset at the sight of a dead body, so the audience can be reassured that she’s really a sensitive girl under that tough wisecracking exterior.
However, Dowling also uses his collar to straight up lie to people, to let people make assumptions that he can leverage assume that he’s there for innocent reasons when he’s not, and there’s a fair streak of “1980s-1990s Television Miracles”—when the narrative shows us that God or whatever is micromanaging things to the extent the a phone rings just when a baddie is about to find our holy sleuths, or illicit lovers decide to hit pause on their mutual seduction just long enough for the hidden nun to escape. Father Dowling also has an evil twin brother, but to be fair every TV character had an evil twin back then.
#7. Canon Daniel Clement — Murder Before Evensong by Rev. Richard Coles
The Canon Clement mysteries are written by an actual vicar, The Reverend Richard Coles, who used to be in Bronski Beat, had a hit single with The Communards (he the one on the synth), and is one of the inspirations for Tom Hollander and James Wood’s excellent BBC series, Rev. Canon Clement is a pretty good sleuth, the fun of these books is watching him balance that work against the constant maintenance of the parish, his care for his parishioners (be they murderers or no), and his own attempts have an actual spiritual life—a thing that is often not mentioned AT ALL in these kinds of books. (It’s also, obviously, a riff on Agatha Christie’s A Murder at the Vicarage, with a singular Canon Clement rather than Christie’s Canon Clements.)
Where book Canon Clement seems mild-mannered and a bit hapless, in the TV adaptation (which stars Matthew Lewis as the reverend) Canon Clement is obviously reeling from family upheaval, and resentful of his mother, his bishop, and certain members of his flock. This makes the drama hit a bit harder as he tries to be a good pastor even when he feels no one appreciates it. The show also leans much more into the cultural milieu of 1988, as Canon Clements ministers to AIDs patients even though that scandalizes some people in his parish, and his bishop tries to discourage it as political activism rather than basic ministry. The fact that one of the main characters is gay is made more central to the drama, and clearly plays off the fact that Canon Clements is battling homophobia.
In both cases, he takes to detective work immediately, and pieces together clues both on and his own and in tandem with Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo, who tries to turn him into a sort of de facto assistant before realizing that their goals are not quite aligned. The initial murder is surprisingly grisly, with Canon Clement finding a body in his church because his two adorable dachshunds are, er, walking around in, and licking, the victim’s blood, and Clement reveals his own moral core by repeatedly affirming his hope that the killer finds forgiveness just as the town as a whole finds closure. But he gets this spot because in both the book and the TV adaptation, he’s the one who figures out key pieces in the mystery, even before the stalwart DS Vanloo.
Now I have not read James Runcie’s book series yet (I understand they take a drastically different path) and I have not watched the two vicars who succeed Sydney in his post. But in Series 1-4 of the show, Sydney is a good natural detective who gets into the game because he’s unsatisfied by his life as a vicar. For whatever reason, his flashbacks to his WWII service have gotten worse, and he craves distraction—or, I should say, a new distraction, to add to the jazz, whiskey, and revolving door of women that are already distracting him.
It’s astonishing that he ever finishes a sermon.
After being glancingly involved with a police investigation, he pitches himself to grizzled, cynical Detective Inspector Geordie Keating as a sort of assistant: between his collar and his charm, he can get people to tell him things they won’t tell anyone else. Geordie is skeptical but tries it, and soon Sydney is solving cases alongside him all the time.
Where in a lot of these stories, confession is seen as absolutely sacrosanct, and the priest can’t divulge anything their told even at the risk of their own life or freedom, Sydney pops his collar on and listens really hard, and you soon start to wonder If Geordie ever solved any crimes before he acquired his own personal vicar.
The reason Sydney is so high on the list is because when his season are at their best, they dig into the basic clash between someone who’s supposed to help the guilty find reconciliation with God and society, and someone who’s supposed to catch the guilty and hand them over to a secular justice system. A good example of this is threaded through Series Two. Sydney and Geordie are at loggerheads because a young man is set to be executed for causing the death of a school friend. Geordie thinks executing the boy will be “justice”, while Sydney thinks it’s the state taking “vengeance” after a tragedy. The two men argue over it repeatedly, but come back together when Geordie is implicated in a (really great) locked room murder that he and Sydney solve together. But their sense of unity is immediately shattered when the young man is given his execution date, Sydney goes with him to witness his death at the gallows, and Geordie then approaches Sydney at his church ostensibly to invite him for a drink, but really to needle him about why he aways sides with the “bad ones”. This leads to a knock-down fight that turns the altar into a brawltar
It perfectly exemplifies what this weird subgenre can do, interrogating the idea of justice, asking whether forgiveness is possible, setting the conversation up between a person whose job is just…religion, and one whose job is policing. But then it ends with Sydney’s now-pregnant ex-girlfriend turning up to say she’s left her husband and has nowhere else to go and I’m like GET BACK TO THE ETHICS.
Clare Fergusson is an ex-Army helicopter pilot who came to the priesthood in her early 30s. In her first real posting, she’s now the first female Episcopal priest of Millers Kill, an upstate New York town that, like a lot of towns in America, is seeing a divide between the corporate people who can afford picturesque Americana, and the families who are falling through the cracks each time another mill or factory closes. Reverend Fergusson’s new parish is run by a well-heeled board who are clearly in the former camp, and clearly are clearly planning to keep her on a tight leash. But then a poor mother abandons a baby on the church doorstep, and Clare realizes she’s going to have to fight back to include people from all sides of the tracks.
In an effort to get to know the town, she goes out on patrol with police chief Russ Van Alstyne, and almost immediately finds a dead body. Over the rest of the book, she applies her empathy and listening skills to find clues that Russ would never spot, and the two essentially work the case in parallel lines, with, once again, the seal of confession causing one or two stumbling blocks along the way,
Over the course of the series, Clare and Russ have to deal with their attraction to each other—which is first complicated by the then-married Russ finding out that Episcopal priest are not, in fact, celibate—Clare has to cope with conservative higher-ups, and the two of them deal with various “controversial” issues in a small town—teen motherhood, generational poverty, immigrant communities, gay-bashing—with Clare being the voice of inclusion and good faith, and Russ sometimes being more close-minded. But the series lets them argue it out, and points out Clare’s occasional naivety as well as Russ’ need to be more flexible.
The blurb on one of Harry Kemelman’s David Small Mysteries goes as such: “Why is this Rabbi different from all other rabbis? Because he’s a detective.”
Like several of the other clergypeople on this list, Rabbi David Small ends up investigating a murder because he wakes up a suspect. When a murdered girl is found in the yard next to his Temple, and her handbag is found in his car, he gradually works through his congregation, and much of the small town of Barnard’s Crossing, Massachusetts, learning everything he can about her life to try to understand its ending. Along the way he forms a friendship with Police Chief Hugh Lanigan and resolves half a dozen skirmishes within his congregation.
But the best bit of the first book, for me, is when Rabbi Small and his wife drop in on Chief Lanigan and his wife, and the quartet spend a quiet afternoon discussing religion over Tom Collinses. (This is while Rabbi Small is still a major suspect, by the way.) Again and again Kemelman stops the plots for human moments, for arguments between neighbors, for inside jokes and longstanding feuds, until the reader understands just how horrible the crimes have been, to disrupt the vibrant life unfolding in Barnard’s Crossing.
Rabbi Small applies his Talmudic training and analytical mind equally to every problem, with an attention to granular detail that makes him one of the best sleuths on the list.
Cadfael takes small town murder mystery tropes and sends them back to a medieval village, complete with high society family drama (except sometimes it’s a literal King), plucky assistants (novitiates) and even a lovelorn, morally ambiguous policeman in the form of “deputy sheriff” Hugh Beringar.
Brother Cadfael himself is a former Crusader, who has seen so much of the world and its evils that his view on society sometimes seem more 1990s than 1290s. Derek Jacobi is, obviously, fantastic. Cadfael uses his deep knowledge of plants and herbs to solve crimes. Cadfael notices everything. He uses his status as a Benedictine Brother to fade into the background, to appear harmless, to allow people to think he’s a naive, innocent man. But as fa former professional soldier, he’s seen human nature at its worst and at its most noble, and he can spot lies from a buttress away. He and the other brothers are forever finding bodies in the river, or having their Compline singing interrupted by people bursting through the church doors with news of murder, the medieval townsfolk seem surprisingly OK with modern procedural work, and it’s great.
Father Brown uses his observation, keen knowledge of human nature, and other peoples’ underestimation of him to solve crimes. Generally the police don’t want his help, and actively discourage it. He is a much more typical priest—he thinks in terms of eternity, sin, justice, judgement, repentance. While in the 2013 series he’s also a war veteran, having served in WWI as a soldier, and in WWII as a chaplain, he still holds his cards closer to his vestments. Not for him the jazz and whiskey beloved of Sydney Chambers, the high-risk shenanigans of Father Dowling (except I guess occasionally in the 2013 series, if his nemesis Flambeau show up), or the highly emotional confessions of Father Jud. The seal of confession often looms large in these stories as his aim is to reconcile criminals with God before he worries about any secular authority. Or, well, to quote a particularly dark Father Brown story, “The Chief Mourner of Marne”:
“We have to touch such men, not with a bargepole, but with a benediction,” [Father Brown] said. “We have to say the word that will save them from hell. We alone are left to deliver them from despair when your human charity deserts them. Go on your own primrose path pardoning all your favourite vices and being generous to your fashionable crimes; and leave us in the darkness, vampires of the night, to console those who really need consolation; who do things really indefensible, things that neither the world nor they themselves can defend; and none but a priest will pardon. Leave us with the men who commit the mean and revolting and real crimes; mean as St. Peter when the cock crew, and yet the dawn came.”
Which is also kind of what Wake Up Dead Man is about!
William of Baskerville is the brilliant creation of the equally brilliant Umberto Eco. Eco’s character draws on Sherlock Holmes, which creates the fascinating situation of watching someone with a Holmes-level intellect grapple with the 14th Century. Then he sends William and his novice, the young Benedictine Adso, off to a Benedictine monastery where they’re embroiled in a web of murder, conspiracy, sexual abuse, and fanaticism. The book is nearly 600 pages of dense theological musings and deadpan wit, and it’s sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, which gives me a tiny sliver of hope for the human race I GUESS.
Also? There are six different video games based on this book. If I ever update this list, I am playing all of them.
William has Sherlock’s sharp perception, his deadpan wit, his occasional sharpness with those who can’t keep up, and his taste for “some herb” that he learned about from “the infidels”. When the host Abbot comes to William to ask him to investigate the murder, they first launch into an intricate debate about William’s time as an Inquisitor, in which William, gently but firmly, insists that he didn’t usually credit the Devil with the evil acts of men—because he was too busy trying to prove whether they’d committed the acts, and if so, deliver them over to human, earthly justice. This opening conversation sets the tone of William’s whole outlook on life, where he tries to pursue knowledge for its own sake, and refuses to give in to supernatural fears when natural explanations are right there. And here, too, the seal of confession hides clues that would have allowed Willaim to solve the murders much quicker.
In 1986, The Name of the Rose was adapted into a film by director Jean-Jacques Annaud with Sean Connery as William, F. Murray Abraham as the real-life Inquisitor Bernard Gui, and a VERY young Christian Slater as Adso. The first twenty minutes of the film bring the core theme to the fore, as William, a Franciscan, clashes with some far stuffier Benedictines over whether knowledge for its own sake is an affront to God, whether curiosity is of the Evil One, and whether laughing is a one-way ticket to Hell. In case you’re looking for something to pair with your next rewatch of Conclave, this movie holds up pretty well!
But the real reason William comes in at Number 1 isn’t even his sleuthing, it’s that, when the monastery’s library catches fire, he risks his life to save as many books as possible.
My deepest apologies if I’ve missed some first-rate detective work, or ignored some terrible investigative blunders—especially in the cases where I only covered the book and not its adaptation (or vice versa). Add them in the comments! Tell me who I overlooked![end-mark]
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<p class="syndicationauthor">Posted by Sarah</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/beast-humane-beauty-grotesque-the-compelling-contradictions-of-hells-paradise/">https://reactormag.com/beast-humane-beauty-grotesque-the-compelling-contradictions-of-hells-paradise/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=833598">https://reactormag.com/?p=833598</a></p><post-hero class="wp-block-post-hero js-post-hero post-hero post-hero-horizontal">
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<h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1">Beast Humane, Beauty Grotesque: The Compelling Contradictions of <i>Hell’s Paradise</i></h2>
<div class="prose post-hero-description prose--post-hero">A brutal quest for immortality leads to fascinating questions about human nature and connection.</div>
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Published on December 11, 2025
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<p>In my workplace, as in many other workplaces that happen to be schools, brainrot has become a real issue. And I don’t only mean “brain rot” in the definitive sense, when it earned the distinction of being named the OED’s word of the year in 2024: brain rot (noun): “A perceived loss of intelligence or critical thinking skills, esp. (in later use) as attributed to the overconsumption of unchallenging or inane content or material. Now also: content or material that is perceived to have this effect.” Instead, what plagues our school hallways and its impressionable occupants is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_brainrot" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Italian brainrot</a>, specifically: A series of baffling, not entirely harmless, profanity-laced memes designed by AI has, alongside those damned Labubus, become this generation’s Furby, or Minecraft, or Power Rangers.</p>
<p>And look, I know how old and grumpy I sound. But back in my day, kids were obsessed with schlock that was, at the very least, generated by human minds! My mother never understood the appeal of Pokémon, but she could not say that a Japanese illustrator somewhere was not working hard to churn out those endearing little monsters. And hell, I was never a fan of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestuck" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Homestuck</em></a>, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertale" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Undertale</em></a>, or whatever else proliferated on Tumblr and infected the minds of my peers years ago now, but you know what? Those things were, again, made with some degree of intention. </p>
<p>So I don’t really care if it makes me sound like some bitter old biddy at the ripe age of thirty-six. Italian brainrot is, fundamentally, <em>worse</em> than anything else kids have ever been into, unless they’re also into other AI-generated crap. When my parents accused my siblings and me of enjoying mindless content, they were never entirely right. A human mind came up with Salad Fingers, damn it.</p>
<p>But the human mind is absent from Italian brainrot, which exemplifies a disturbing trend in content aimed at children: it is incoherent, brief, and absurd—all things that can be wonderful, when created with intent—but the mindless aspect renders this unsettling. Content created by AI remains fundamentally empty, its popularity a byproduct of a tangible decline in childhood literacy and <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2025/06/screen-time-problems-children" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a growing deficit in children’s ability to regulate emotions.</a> Because most kids are addicted to technology—<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8219150/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">not hyperbolically but <em>biologically </em>addicted</a>—the brains of our youngest citizens have begun to operate differently,<a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/whats-driving-decline-in-u-s-literacy-rates/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> and the consequences scare me</a>.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-02-1100x733.jpg" alt="Image from the anime series Hell's Paradise" class="wp-image-833600" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-02-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-02-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-02.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: MAPPA / Twin Engine</figcaption></figure>
<p>Anyhow. When I sat down, two years late, to watch the anime adaptation of a manga I read during the pandemic, I did not expect to be reminded of our current Italian brainrot infestation. Because <em>Hell’s Paradise</em>, while often absurd and disturbing, is extremely well-considered and even philosophical, waxing almost <em>optimistic </em>about human nature. </p>
<p>Its monsters are another story.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jigokuraku.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Hell’s Paradise</em> </a>tells the story of several condemned criminals who agree to travel to a desolate, twisted paradise in search of the Elixir of Life. Should they die, well, they were slated to anyhow; but should they succeed? The convict who procures the elixir and brings it to the Shogunate will find all their crimes, however heinous, pardoned. Under the watchful eyes of their samurai overseers, the convicts travel to Shinsekyo, a supposed paradise, but they may be risking something far more grotesque and horrifying than death: after all, those few souls who have returned from the island have been neither dead nor alive. Rather, they’ve returned as grinning, rambling mummies, their orifices sprouting beautiful flowers.</p>
<p>We follow Sagiri, executioner and samurai, and Gabimaru, ninja and murderer, as they wander in the verdant tropical forests of Shinsenkyo, or Paradise, but far from being overcome by the beauty of this supposed Eden, they feel squeamish. This mysterious land—somewhere near what Edo-era folks called Ryukyu, but we now call Okinawa—may harbor actual deities. But the monsters that populate all this inexplicable greenery are unsettling disappointments. Like poor counterfeits of Hieronymus Bosch’s work, fish-headed bodhisattvas and centipedes with human fingers for mandibles attack our not-quite-heroes mindlessly, without guile or intent. </p>
<p>Initially, I was a little put out—I had retained the distinct memory that, in the manga, the weird denizens of Shinsenkyo put me in mind of the beautiful grotesqueries of, say, Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series. But here, despite MAPPA’s solid animation and the eye of a talented director, they felt flat, animated cleanly but under a slight haze. </p>
<p>But even my disappointment was probably intentional. These creatures are not supposed to be wondrous. They are supposed to feel vapid, as deliberately without artistic purpose as a Ballerina Cappuccina meme or that damned shark wearing sneakers, and are just as fundamentally empty. If a god created these things, well, he’s no decent god.</p>
<p>This choice—originally made by mangaka Yuji Kaku, and later amplified by director Kaori Makita—to use the bastardization of recognizable lifeforms, symbols, and ideals as a means to humanize characters of dubious morality, was wonderfully deliberate.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Beauty and the Grotesque</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-03-1100x733.jpg" alt="Image from the anime series Hell's Paradise" class="wp-image-833601" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-03-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-03-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-03-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-03.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: MAPPA / Twin Engine</figcaption></figure>
<p>Gabimaru, a diminutive, deadpan shinobi assassin, believes himself empty. Everyone else agrees, and his reputation as “the Hollow” precedes him and fills normal people with dread. A man who feels nothing must be more beast than man, they reason, and that is why he has killed so many, so brutally.</p>
<p>Raised by the chief of infamous assassin clan, who brutally murdered his parents right before his infant eyes, Gabimaru has never been anything but desensitized to the work of killing. He has slain more people than he’s ever spoken to. Despite his renown, he falls out of favor with his would-be guardian and, betrayed by his own clan, is imprisoned for his crimes and sentenced to execution.</p>
<p>And Gabimaru, who is so empty? He claims he is willing, or at least indifferent to the prospect. “Dreams? I don’t have any. Purpose? Shinobi don’t have it.” So Gabimaru is decapitated… but it doesn’t take. And then he’s burned at the stake, but the flames don’t burn his skin. He’s drawn and quartered and doused in boiling oil, but no dice. During every attempt, his shinobi training and instincts kick in and steel his skin, protecting him. After a parade of execution attempts impressive enough to make Rasputin blush have failed to end him, Gabimaru is forced to reckon with an irrefutable, confounding question: “Do I… not want to die?”</p>
<p>Given his upbringing, Gabimaru’s struggle when it comes to introspection is not surprising. But this question is easy for his final executioner, the samurai Sagiri, to answer, as is the reason behind Gabimaru’s will to survive: “You love your wife.” </p>
<p>And she’s right. Because Gabimaru has something that very few anime protagonists have: a wife. The monster who raised him deemed him worthy to wed his daughter, a tenacious young woman with a scarred face and strong convictions. They get married, and she digs into his supposed hollows and pulls the wriggling pieces of a person from deep inside. She is undeterred by his work. “Maybe being accustomed to ugly things isn’t so terrible.” She too is a product of her father’s vicious clan, but she finds the notion of an ordinary life aspirational. And so why can’t Gabimaru learn to feel the same? </p>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-01-1100x733.jpg" alt="Image from the anime series Hell's Paradise" class="wp-image-833599" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-01-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-01-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-01.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: MAPPA / Twin Engine</figcaption></figure>
<p>She does a real number on his supposed hollow nature. As Gabimaru says—and likely thinks, every time the memory of her stays his hand—“The heart is such a nuisance.”</p>
<p>Sagiri, who is a woman occupying a position traditionally denied to women (as many men would deny that women are capable of performing the duties demanded of her) understands Gabimaru for all kinds of reasons. Like him, she was raised by a killer: a respected executioner whose swordsmanship was so clean that a rakugo performer he decapitated finished his final performance even after his head was cut from his shoulders, because he “did not realize he was dead.” </p>
<p>Sagiri is inevitably compared to her father and found wanting. She is told, time and again, by the men who surround her that there is too much fear in her swordsmanship. Any woman knows what this means—she’s too emotional, or her womb is wandering! Women in the Asaemon samurai clan should be birthing children, not courting death. But Sagiri does not see how a life serving men who deliver death is any better than doing the job herself. She would rather have some agency.</p>
<p>And that is the chief difference between Gabimaru and Sagiri, and why this dynamic works so well. Gabimaru has always done what he is told, though he is a criminal; Sagiri has refused to do what she is told, though she is respected; both are killers, even if one is vilified and the other sanctified.</p>
<p>Gabimaru knows Sagiri is right. He loves his wife, and he will fight for that pardon. But how much will these foils begin to merge? After slaughtering a slew of other criminals vying for a place on the ship to Shinsenkyo, Gabimaru—soaked in blood, having torn out a neck or two with his teeth—looks at the appalled samarai gathered on the shore. He asks “Would you approve if I made it pretty instead?” </p>
<p>Sagiri gasps, and vows she will kill him, but her eyes glisten. She is, somehow, inspired.</p>
<p>And though she initially sees her emotions as a weakness, and Gabimaru sees his tiny sprouts of feeling as a hindrance, together they learn to find strength in their feelings. Not in any romantic sense—another fantastic aspect of this dynamic is that it is written like real camaraderie or friendship rather than love. Sagiri looks at Gabimaru and sees herself reflected.</p>
<p>Neither of them has ever been free from the constraints of societies dictated by strict rules. Now, thrown together into a green place where rules seem incapable of holding firm, they rely on the structure that peering into each other provides.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Heaven?</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-06-1100x733.jpg" alt="Image from the anime series Hell's Paradise" class="wp-image-833604" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-06-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-06-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-06-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-06.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: MAPPA / Twin Engine</figcaption></figure>
<p>The fetid flora of Shinsenkyo offers a compelling, unsettling backdrop for a story about life’s purpose. Visitors bitten by the island’s human-headed insects soon transform into beaming tree-people, absorbed into the fabric of the place. For all we know, it was a barren land that only became such a resplendent rainforest over years of reappropriating marooned souls and treasure-seekers into shrubberies. I don’t think many people would argue that being turned into a plant while still living would be preferable to a mundane death, but why is that? I mean, unless <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W_zkmOZOV5c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">you’re a guy who drank green milk in Nilbog, doomed to be turned into a potted plant and then eaten by trolls,</a> wouldn’t becoming a begonia be a kind of immortality in its own right? Didn’t these people say they were seeking immortality? </p>
<p>…not like this.</p>
<p>When people imagine immortality, they imagine it will not preclude retaining some semblance of humanity. I remember how impossible it was for eleven-year-old me to conceive of death, not because I believed in an afterlife, but because the human brain fundamentally cannot imagine the world without itself being a presence in it. In the case of the absorbed victims of Shinsenkyo’s fabricated, rhymeless forest, who knows whether their minds remain cognizant? Would it be better, or worse, if the grinning Chia-people are aware of their lot?</p>
<p>I think the phobia of unchecked growth is as core to being alive as the fear of fire or darkness. Growth that continues without clear direction is not a healthy thing. Whether it be the spread of swimmer’s itch or the growth of a wart, or as awful as cancer, too much growth is rarely a good thing. To become part of an undying forest without a sense of self intact is not just scary—it is nauseating on an existential level.</p>
<p>But just like every other theme in this anime, this nausea is inevitably contradicted by an opposing perspective on growth: human beings <em>must </em>keep changing, no matter what, or risk stagnation. </p>
<p>What’s worse, then? Endless growth or the absence of growth?</p>
<p>Pah. It’s a very futile, deeply human thing to wonder about. It portends a headache. So maybe this is why kids prefer brainrot to thinking.</p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Others, Equally Considered</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-05-1100x733.jpg" alt="Image from the anime series Hell's Paradise" class="wp-image-833603" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-05-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-05-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-05-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-05.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: MAPPA / Twin Engine</figcaption></figure>
<p>A street urchin with a knack for violence is adopted by a blind samurai after a brawl and becomes his best student. They are each other’s only source of solace. The blind samurai, once forced to execute his former apprentice, relishes the chance to start again with a promising new student.</p>
<p>A pair of brothers, abandoned as children, have proven inseparable. When one of them, a lovable bandit, is captured, the other spends years studying the sword. He goes undercover as his brother’s executioner solely so they might escape together.</p>
<p>When her entire clan is wiped out by the ruling shogunate, a survivor blames herself for their demise. Her captor sees she is a victim, not a villain, and becomes her protector rather than her jailor.</p>
<p>All of these stories take place in Hell’s Paradise. All characters are well-considered, their dynamics designed to dissolve barriers. Not many shows seem so determined to measure a cast so fairly. While Gabimaru and Sagiri are the main characters, few of those who wind up in Shinsenkyo are spared a real sense of self. Every one of these people has their reasons for ending up in Hell’s Paradise, and moral quandaries aside, each of them has fought hard to survive.</p>
<p>If criminals are written with as much depth as their law-abiding captors, what difference does goodness really make? And when both are pitted against foes so alien, inevitably they become allies. What difference does goodness make when it comes to defying heartless living gods?</p>
<p>I am reluctant to spoil much about this show, partly because it is a mystery. But more than that, I’m reluctant to give anything away because while <em>Hell’s Paradise </em>was produced by MAPPA during their reign of blockbusters like <em>Jujutsu Kaisen</em> and <em>Chainsaw Man</em>, it seems that <em>Hell’s Paradise </em>remains somewhat slept on, and remains less well-known than these other series. I would rather people unfurl the lotus petals of this weird horror gem for themselves. Suffice it to say that there are more rules on Shinsenkyo than there initially appear to be, and the rulers are far from magnanimous. </p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Excavating Expectations</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-08-1100x733.jpg" alt="Image from the anime series Hell's Paradise" class="wp-image-833606" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-08-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-08-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-08-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-08.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: MAPPA / Twin Engine</figcaption></figure>
<p><em>Hell’s Paradise</em> has its flaws, as all stories do. There were a few moments while watching when I felt it was on the verge of losing out to its basic shounen genre instincts.</p>
<p>When a towering cannibal convict attacks Gabimaru and Sagiri in the forest, having escaped from or killed his samurai guardian, I groaned. I braced myself to stomach a drawn-out battle scene featuring attacks with nonsensical names and overcomplicated dives into the decision-making of our protagonists. I am not the only otaku who dreads the drawn-out fights that are as fundamental to shounen as spiky hair and shouting are. But you know what? Sometimes subversion really sweeps in at the final inning. This confrontation, like the others, provides the grounds for tangible character revelations. In this case, it is this battle that helps Sagiri find confidence in her swordsmanship. </p>
<p>In another scene that teeters on the edge of cliché, our heroes throw caution to the wind for a dip in the onsen. I cringed, anticipating boob jokes and fan service. Instead, <em>Hell’s Paradise </em>throws viewers into one of its most poignant scenes at that point. Gabimaru speaks words of kindness to a little girl ashamed of her scars. “Scars are nothing to be ashamed of.” Sagiri points out that things are not always so simple for women, but Gabimaru thinks of his wife and disagrees. </p>
<p>Cheesy? Well, maybe. But it’s effective. <em>Hell’s Paradise</em> is not free of clichés, but I maintain that it handles even its clichés with surprising introspection. </p>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>A Strange Land</strong></h3>
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1100" height="733" src="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-07-1100x733.jpg" alt="Image from the anime series Hell's Paradise" class="wp-image-833605" srcset="https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-07-1100x733.jpg 1100w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-07-740x493.jpg 740w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-07-768x512.jpg 768w, https://reactormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Anime-Spotlight-Hells-Paradise-07.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Credit: MAPPA / Twin Engine</figcaption></figure>
<p>For all the themes that are central to <em>Hell’s Paradise</em>, the perennial anime push-pull of opposing forces is paramount. Hell and Paradise, humanity and monstrosity, strength and weakness, goodness and evil, male and female—this is a world that seems fixated on the places where opposing concepts appear to merge. But unlike the haphazard blends of the island’s sloppy monsters, the junctures where characters finally acknowledge each other as people create extremely evocative moments.</p>
<p>People often define themselves by imposing structure, however futile, on their surroundings. It is why Sagiri insists that Gabimaru keep his hands tied even though he can break the bonds on a whim; it is why Gabimaru does not defy the chief when he is commanded to marry his only daughter. But if the rules that society imposes on us can be, by turns, a comfort and a burden, what about the rules we impose on our own humanity?</p>
<p>“See me as a samurai. See <em>me</em> clearly.” This is what Sagiri demands of a cohort that dismisses her. Gabimaru was seen clearly, first by his wife and later by his would-be executioner, and each of those instances helped him become human. These characters need what we all desperately seek and fear in life: to be perceived as we truly are, and then be deemed worthy of life.</p>
<p>Maybe it takes a horrendous quest for immortality to appreciate the beauty of being mortal. Or maybe it’s less obvious than that. <em>Hell’s Paradise</em> offers a wealth of philosophical fodder to chew over, and that’s a much-needed experience to savor in a world so increasingly overridden by hollow, fabricated art.[end-mark]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/beast-humane-beauty-grotesque-the-compelling-contradictions-of-hells-paradise/">Beast Humane, Beauty Grotesque: The Compelling Contradictions of <i>Hell’s Paradise</i></a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/beast-humane-beauty-grotesque-the-compelling-contradictions-of-hells-paradise/">https://reactormag.com/beast-humane-beauty-grotesque-the-compelling-contradictions-of-hells-paradise/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=833598">https://reactormag.com/?p=833598</a></p>
The new Letterboxd Video Store launched today, and its launch lineup includes one of the best horror movies of 2025 that you almost certainly haven’t seen.
I know, I know. Another place online to rent videos? Is that what the world needs right now? That’s certainly debatable, though the Letterboxd Video Store has a few things going for it. Most notably, it’s run by Letterboxd (the website that we’re all trying to get people to talk to us about in real life), which means it’s curated by some of the finest film nerds on the internet. Part of that curation process involves the inclusion of special “shelves”: two, regularly rotating collections of movies largely intended to spotlight underseen films and even films that are otherwise unavailable (or difficult to find) elsewhere.
For instance, the first two Letterboxd Video Store shelves are “Lost and Found” and “Unreleased Gems.” The former features movies that aren’t otherwise available in the regions the Letterboxd Video Store is releasing them, and the latter highlights what are referred to as “underseen underdogs with stellar community ratings.” The movies featured in both include Sore: A Wife From The Future (a romantic twist on the time loop concept from Indonesia), Poison (director Todd Haynes’ shocking sci-fi horror anthology), and Before We Vanish (a subversive take on the alien invasion genre).
To be honest, I can’t vouch for every film in the early Letterboxd Video Store collection, nor can I say you should spend the $3.99 to $19.99 (!) it costs to rent them. However, there is one movie that I must highlight simply because this may be your first and best chance to see it: Director Alex Ullom’s 2025 horror movie It Ends.
It Ends follows a group of friends who get together for what may be the last time before they part ways and enter (relative) adulthood. At one point, they decide to go on a brief road trip to get some food. The trip proves to be anything but brief, though, as they find themselves stuck on what seems to be an infinitely repeating road in the woods. Trapped and seemingly surrounded by forces they can hear just off in the distance, they try to keep it together as they inevitably argue over what (if anything) they can do about their surreal situation.
It Ends is one of the rare pieces of Gen-Z horror media that seems to both speak directly to that generation while tying their anxieties into the worries of previous young adults and the broader supernatural story at play. In other words, it does an incredible job of operating as a clever and unnerving horror film while subtly giving you a lot to chew on in terms of its characters who are quite literally stuck in life and unsure if the road ahead will offer any relief.
It Ends premiered at the 2025 South by Southwest festival, but hasn’t really been made available anywhere else. For that matter, there’s no indication it will be made available anywhere else outside of the Letterboxd Video Store. So, if anything in the above description piqued your interest, and you have the time, money, and desire required to give this new platform a shot, I’d certainly recommend checking it out. [end-mark]
One of my longstanding beliefs about e-books was that their affordability and portability would eventually win out, no matter how much nostalgia people may have for their paper books, which would retain a niche place in the system. E-books and print books, I thought, would eventually go the way of streaming and vinyl, respectively.
Here’s what I didn’t see coming: Publishers keeping e-book prices as high as possible to protect print ecosystems. A.I. slop rendering books from a certain online bookselling behemoth suspicious (verging on useless).
Whatever the factors, and the readership of this blog is one of them, the brief surge of e-book interest during the pandemic has been erased, and print has opened up its biggest lead over e-books since 2017.
After a period of relative stasis, do we now have a trend? What do you make of these results?
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<p class="syndicationauthor">Posted by Stefan Raets</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/book-review-there-is-no-antimemetics-division-by-qntm/">https://reactormag.com/book-review-there-is-no-antimemetics-division-by-qntm/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=833215">https://reactormag.com/?p=833215</a></p><post-hero class="wp-block-post-hero js-post-hero post-hero post-hero-vertical">
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<h2 class="post-hero-title text-h1">You Will Not Remember This Review—qntm’s <i>There Is No Anti-Memetics Division</i></h2>
<div class="prose post-hero-description prose--post-hero">A novel to read—and not forget.</div>
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<p class="post-hero-author text-xs font-aktiv uppercase font-medium [&_a]:link-hover">By <a href="https://reactormag.com/author/charles-bonkowsky/" title="Posts by Sasha Bonkowsky" class="author url fn" rel="author">Sasha Bonkowsky</a></p>
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Published on December 10, 2025
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<p class="has-text-align-right"><strong>Ref.: </strong>U-11125 | <strong>Cat.: </strong>1</p>
<p><strong>Containment Protocol: </strong>U-11125 is kept on a bookshelf in vault Q1 in the Passive Containment Archive housed at UO Wyeleigh. Due to the large quantity of information receptacles and other text-based Unknowns, vault Q1 must be checked monthly for seepage or plagiarism.</p>
<p>Organization staff of rank L or higher are free to select and examine U-11125 outside of these inspections, provided that their supervisor of rank I or higher provides written authorization through form 25.A(2) to do so. Although presented as fiction, U-11125 nevertheless contains variations on classified information about the Organization and its past missions—obtained through the aforementioned ‘seepage’ that defines book-type Unknowns—that staff are not pre-approved to know. Amnestic measures are permitted in the event these protocols are disregarded.</p>
<p><strong>Description: </strong>U-11125 takes the form of a slim novel. The cover depicts a heavy stone monolith, several stories in height, rising above a fog-covered forest composed of subtle greens, grey, and oranges. The title, in reflective silver text, reads “There Is No Anti-Memetics Division”; below that, U-11125 declares itself to be “A Novel By QNTM”. (<em>note: Investigate? Possibly a propagating source of several Unknowns.)</em></p>
<p><em>There Is No Anti-Memetics Division</em> depicts an Organization much like our own, dedicated to protecting humanity from incursions, creatures, or phenomena acting outside of known science or reality. In recent years, especially with the rise of the Internet and ever more mass media phenomena, the Organization’s Memetics Division—tracking Unknowns with the power to self-replicate through culture and information—has grown rapidly. But that’s not where our protagonist, Marie Quinn, works. <em>She </em>heads the understaffed and struggling <em>Anti-</em>Memetics Division.</p>
<p>It’s not the best working environment. Anti-memetics are ideas that cannot be spread, entities that consume and destroy information. They can make people forget them the moment they look away, corrupt and mutate any records. They can kill you by crushing your mind and then, once you’re dead, no one will ever remember you existed.</p>
<p>Against that, what can the Division do? They’ve got special serums made to crystallize memories and make them more resistant to anti-memetic entities, records and vaults isolated from incursion so that field agents can be brought back to speed on whatever they’ve forgotten, but mostly they’ve got to rely on their own wisdom and bravery.</p>
<p>Simon Lee is a new researcher at the Organization, who finds himself under attack in the cafeteria by an Unknown, U-7175: First, 7175 cuts its victims out of bystanders’ memories so they can’t help him, then slowly feeds on every bit of information in its victims’ brains until they collapse. Although panicked, Lee is able to escape to a basement lab, find the last testimonies of all those attacked (and killed) by 7175 previously, and defeat it using a hard drive as a weapon—an overload of information that burns 7175 to nothing.</p>
<p>During his debriefing with Quinn, Lee learns that he’s done this all many times before. In fact, he’s been working in the Anti-Memetics Division for over <em>ten years, </em>even if he’ll never remember it. Quinn is blasé: People in the Division are as competent on Day One as they’ll ever be. The rest is just fine-tuning the meds.</p>
<p>It’s a strange, static existence for the Division, existing in the eternal present. But, at the edges of their collective memory, something is going wrong. Something is trying to break through. Anti-memetic incursions are getting stronger, and every month the Division has fewer and fewer staff to deal with them. Readers of the <s>book</s> Unknown can track Quinn’s reports through the chapters: 200 staff, 90 staff, 30; but Quinn herself, recollections constantly rewritten, has no idea her people are being picked off.</p>
<p>Written badly, <em>There Is No Anti-Memetics Division</em> could be deeply, deeply frustrating. The memory-erasing nature of its monsters mean the characters often have no idea what’s going on; crucial information is revealed, but before Quinn or Lee can act on it it’s wiped from their brains. “No!” you want to shout at them. “You were so close! Don’t turn away—don’t look away—don’t <em>forget</em>!”</p>
<p>They do, in the end. Serums and training can only go so far. But they try. The key that keeps <em>Anti-Memetics Division </em>gripping, that makes you cheer and weep for these poor beleaguered civil servants, is that it’s not a book about people forgetting the enemies and making bad decisions. It’s a book about people under siege by a vast, literally unknowable alien force, constantly two steps behind, who are nevertheless skilled, clever, and determined enough to go—almost—toe-to-toe with it. We cheer the Division’s successes, rather than mourn its failures.</p>
<p><em>There Is No Anti-Memetics Division</em> isn’t alone as it tackles memory, minds, and individualism. A large strain of modern sci-fi is interested in the same, perhaps due to the rise of LLMs designed to remember everything but have no set personality. (<em>note: if Unknowns are in cultural conversation with exterior media, does this mean the Passive Containment Archive is improperly sealed? Check with the Memetics Division.) </em>There’s <em>Severance</em>, with its in/out memory partition, and then the hive minds of <em>Pluribus</em>, the Imperial Radch series, and <em>Locklands</em>, the latter of which are curious about what happens to people as they gain others’ memories, rather than have their own taken away.</p>
<p>As your mind is altered—as it’s dissected or expanded—are you still the same person? Much of this sci-fi says no: Our personal experiences and feelings, and the way we carry them forwards, are what defines us. Mark Scout, with only memories from outside Lumon, is meaningfully different from Mark S. in wants, outlook, and morals; the emergent consciousness of <em>Lockland</em>’s hive mind, or the Radch’s ships, are something else than what’s put into them.</p>
<p><em>Anti-Memetics Division, </em>however, takes the opposite stance. “The first thing [an Unknown] did when it saw me,” Quinn explains to her reflection, “was eat everything I knew about the Division, and about it. If I had a plan, it ate the plan. But I’m still me. So I can come up with that plan again. It’s already right in front of me, I just need to see it. If I were me, what would my plan have been?” Being an agent of the Division relies on the fact that you’ll be the same person no matter your mind, that Unknowns can scoop out the memories but not the grooves they fill.</p>
<p><strong>Recommendations For Future Study: </strong><em>There Is No Anti-Memetics Division</em> threads the needle to perfection of making readers care about its characters even as it unravels their minds and personalities; it’s a gripping, thrilling cosmic horror. Members of the Organization looking to advance their careers or discover the depths of the threats faced are well-advised to read it.</p>
<p>Read it, and don’t forget it.</p>
<p><strong>[The preceding information is classified under the Organization’s Founding Charter, Article C, §10.8.]</strong></p>
<p>[end-mark]</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://reactormag.com/book-review-there-is-no-antimemetics-division-by-qntm/">You Will Not Remember This Review—qntm’s <i>There Is No Anti-Memetics Division</i></a> appeared first on <a href="https://reactormag.com">Reactor</a>.</p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/book-review-there-is-no-antimemetics-division-by-qntm/">https://reactormag.com/book-review-there-is-no-antimemetics-division-by-qntm/</a></p><p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="https://reactormag.com/?p=833215">https://reactormag.com/?p=833215</a></p>
Recently, Martin Cahill had the opportunity to chat with author Victor Manibo (Escape Velocity) to celebrate the release of his latest novel. The Villa, Once Beloved is a captivating gothic that uncovers the dark secrets of the Sepulveda family and their crumbling home in the Philippines.
Martin Cahill:Victor! Thank you so much for joining me today, and congratulations on The Villa, Once Beloved. For those who don’t know about the book, can you give us a brief breakdown of your new novel. Extra points if you’re able to use a haiku form somewhere in there.
Victor Manibo: Thanks so much for having me! The Villa, Once Beloved is a contemporary gothic horror set in an old, Spanish colonial manor on a coconut plantation during the Catholic Holy Week. It’s centered on Sophie, a young Filipino-American transracial adoptee who visits the Philippines for the first time for her boyfriend’s grandfather’s funeral. During the course of the novel, she and other point-of-view characters are forced to confront monsters both real and imagined. So I guess the haiku would go: “A girl between worlds / A homecoming long delayed / Scary shit ensues!”
Martin: Your first two books, The Sleepless and Escape Velocity, both had some mystery and thrills to them, but were firmly set in science fiction realms. With The Villa, you’re moving into gothic horror territory, which is a whole new ballgame. What drew you to this particular genre? What made it the ideal vehicle for what you wanted to explore?
Victor: I started thinking about this novel in 2022, when the current Philippine president, Ferdinang Marcos, Jr., was elected. He’s the son of a former dictator and was directly involved in the atrocities during his father’s decades-long regime. The country hasn’t quite recovered from that period, psychically or economically, and seeing the family back in power broke my heart. I dealt with it the best way I knew, which is through writing.
I tend to be a theme-forward writer and the story I had in mind necessarily had to be backward-looking, which is what Gothic stories quintessentially are. Gothic stories are about the past weighing down on the present, and with Gothic horror specifically, the ghosts and monsters of the past never really leave. That was exactly how I felt when I started conceptualizing this novel, and I wanted to dig into that.
Martin:This book is set in the Philippines, and is actively engaging with the history of the country, from government and agriculture, to culture and family, and more. How long has this story been waiting inside you to tell? Can you tell me a bit about the research you did/sources you drew from in your own life to bring this to life?
Victor: The exact subject matter was inspired by recent events, but I’ve been wanting to write a Philippines-set novel since I’ve started my career. As Filipino as my first two novels are, I knew I wanted to write something even more so. This project let me do that. The setting is inspired by my childhood summers in the province. The historical references are partly informed by my experiences and my education, and doing a deeper dive into the Marcos regime was enriching (if not harrowing, doing it in these fascistic times). I watched documentaries like The Kingmaker, reada lot of nonfiction books like Conjugal Dictatorship, Presidential Plunder, and Waltzing with a Dictator.
Aside from that, I also had to do research about my characters’ experiences that I personally do not share. This meant reading a lot of texts and gathering first-hand accounts on things like being poor in the one of the poorest regions of the country, or being a woman and going through the things that Sophie is subjected to in the book.
Martin:This book is so thoroughly engaged with the realm of gothic horror, and I know from talking with you before, it was something you were really excited to jump into, and it is also a departure from your previous genres/books. Why gothic horror, and why for this story in particular? Were there any hallmarks of the genre you were hoping to either nail or eschew?
Victor: I was keenly aware that I’m entering new territory with this project, so honoring the genre’s history, forbears, conventions—which, now that I say that, is also a very Gothic trope—was important to me. In the prose and the descriptions, I wanted to nail the claustrophobic feel of Gothic horror, the “gloomth” (warmth and gloom), but I also wanted the aesthetic elements to have a strong tie with the themes—the burdens of family legacy, the dread of the known coming back to haunt you.
It was equally important to me that the story is a Filipino Gothic horror, which meant that I couldn’t just swap out the Victorian mansion with a Spanish-era villa, or the Scottish moors with a coconut plantation, without those changes meaning something deeper. I wanted the monsters in this book to be more a reskinned analogue to what we’ve seen in the classics and in the contemporary works out of the US and Europe.
Martin:Talk to me about the importance of your protagonist, Sophie, a Filipina who was born in the Philippines but was raised in the Midwest. Returning to the country of her birth, hand in hand with one of the scions of the family Sepulveda, there’s so much you can explore with Sophie throughout this book. What were some of the goals of her journey? What sort of dynamics were you hoping to explore between her and the Sepulveda family? Between her and the country itself?
Victor: Sophie is my spin on Gothic ingenue, the one who comes to a new place with fresh eyes and a lack of knowledge, the one to whom things happen. Aside from making sure that she is a more active protagonist, through her I also wanted to explore the different ways people see their country. The main point-of-view character is Sophie, who has almost no connection to the Philippines, but the book also has Javier, who lived part of his life in the Philippines and part in the US; and there’s Remedios, who has never left even the town she grew up in. The choices they make are informed by their relationship with their homeland, and their views often conflict with each other, sometimes with dangerous consequences.
Martin:The Sepulvedas are at the heart of this book, for all that it is Sophie’s journey. Trapped in their ancestral manor, this family is a minefield of ambition, history, and complication. When bringing them to life, are there historical figures/families you were hoping to draw allusion to with them? Who were your favorite family members to write?
Victor: The Marcoses are of course heavily mentioned in the book, but the Sepulveda family is not based on any family in particular. They were inspired by characters in the periphery of power, who themselves have their own considerable power, as I wanted to explore how those people can be complicit to and perpetuate atrocities. At the same time, I wanted the Sepulvedas to have some redeeming qualities and to make some choices that gesture toward atonement. We see this with Javier and to some extent, Sophie’s boyfriend Adrian. I had a lot of fun blending in those characters’ light and dark, as well as the caretaker Remedios, who is not technically a Sepulveda but is very closely tied to the family.
Martin:How are you feeling as you switch up genres? Has it been energizing as you play in new worlds? Do you have any other aspirational mediums or genres you want to engage in someday?
Victor: It’s been so exhilarating! Writing a new project is always fun, and doing that in a new genre made it even more so. In changing things up, I learned so much about myself as an artist and a writer: what I value, what I’m good at, what I can be good at, and what I want to do next.
Martin:What is on the horizon for you now?
Victor: I’m currently drafting my next novel, which will be out in 2027, fingers crossed. Without giving too much away, it’s a sci-fi horror thriller about the way we live now. You could say it’s both a return to form and a progression of the horror journey that I’ve only just begun.[end-mark]
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nathanbransford_feed) wrote2025-12-13 08:00 pm
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