Michael S. Atkinson's Blog

Hello, all:

I haven’t posted here in some time, but as it happens I have taken flight from WordPress and transferred over to Substack. You can find me there if you’d like at https://indianamichael.substack.com/

It’s a good time actually, because very soon I’ll be starting a new serial involving Captain Happily Married, Super Soccer Mom, and his origin story involving the sacred Relic of the Kneecap of St. Gengulphus!

Exciting, no?

See you around,

Michael

I first wrote about Constance on this blog in the short story Treasure back in September 2013 in a prompt for the Trifecta writing challenge. She’d actually come to life, as it were, in 2010 through NaNoWriMo, in a sequel to another NaNo novel, a sequel which, alas, languishes somewhere in the depths of my email folder. At any rate, I couldn’t resist bringing her back, and things went on from there, and so the novel The Angel and the Apocalypse was born.

Now, after long editing and formatting and whatnot, there’s a sequel. Better yet, there’s a series! The Ballad of Evinrude and Eulalie, book 2 in The Constance Series, is live! As to the next one, I have a follow-up written, although given the way book 2 ended, I may end up writing a fourth and making that the sequel to TBEE. (It’s hard to explain). Anyhow, there you are. Enjoy! Happy reading! Etc.!

So, I’ve decided to try something new: new in the sense that I’ve not done this particular thing before, but really only new-ish for me personally in that I’ve done superhero stories and serials before. In short, I’ve started a serial story on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform: The Mad Scientist, the Superhero, and the Duck. (I’m still working on where the duck comes in). You can find the link here: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09TTPD318

And here’s a plot summary:

The Malevolent Med-Student is desperate to get his doctorate of villainy from the Committee of Calamity. To do this, accompanied by his loyal minion Candystriper, he has to complete three dangerous tasks: 1) acquire a nemesis, 2) defeat the nemesis in a villainous caper, and 3) kick off an apocalypse. The first two promise to be difficult enough, but the third might pose a challenge. And that’s not even counting on the intervention of his potential nemeses. Not to mention the duck.

The first three episodes are live, and free to read: the episodes following can be read by purchasing and redeeming Tokens through the Kindle Vella platform. Let’s see how this goes!

I still need to figure out the duck.

I was rewatching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace today (yes, I know, but Kenobi is coming out soon), and something occurred to me. I’m not as learned in Star Wars canon as others: I’ve read some of the books but it’s been a while, and from I understand it’s all Legends now anyway. I’ve seen Boba Fett and The Mandalorian, but not the Clone Wars, Rebels, or Bad Batch shows. So, bona fides established, here’s my problem.

There’s one moment in Phantom Menace that stood out to me on the rewatch. I’ll skip the detailed recap since I assume you’re reasonably familiar with it anyway, but to sum up, our heroes are trying to get Padme Amidala to Coruscant so she can rally the Galactic Senate to stop the Trade Federation from its occupation of Padme’s planet Naboo. For plot reasons, they’ve wound up on Tatooine, everyone’s favorite Wretched Hive of Scum and VIllainy, wherein they’re trying to acquire parts to repair their hyperdrive and proceed on with the mission. This results in finding little Anakin Skywalker and his mother Shmi, who unfortunately are slaves owned by junk dealer Watto. After more plot, Qui-Gon cuts a deal to wager that Anakin will win the upcoming pod race and if he does, Qui-Gon and Co. get their parts from Watto and Watto keeps the winnings; if he doesn’t, Watto keeps the ship. Anakin wins of course, and the story goes on from there.

There’s one more bit though. Right before the race, as you know, Watto mentions that he bet heavily against Anakin to win. Qui-Gon suggests a side bet: Anakin’s racing pod against Anakin and Shmi Skywalker’s freedom. Watto says nope, pod’s not worth two people, just one, but hey, let’s roll the dice on it. He pulls out what he calls a chance cube: red for Anakin, blue for Shmi. Qui-Gon uses the Force (natch) to make the thing land on red. And so he ends up with Anakin, Shmi stays behind on the planet with Watto, and the movie rolls on.

I understand there’s a theory out there that if Qui-Gon hadn’t been killed by Darth Maul, he might’ve gone back later and freed Shmi. But he says nothing in the film that indicates this. He tells Anakin that he tried to free Shmi, “but Watto wouldn’t have it.” (an interesting phrasing that conveniently leaves out the game of chance). He tells Shmi he’ll watch over Anakin, but I don’t recall that he says anything about “Oh, and hey, I’m coming back for you later.” Indeed, at several points during his visit to Tatooine he makes clear that he is not there to free the slaves. He only freed Anakin because he sensed Anakin was significant in the Force. Especially when you consider Qui-Gon’s view of the Living Force and his focus on keeping concentration in the “here and now”, I’m not entirely sure he would ever have gone back to Tatooine at all even if he had survived to train Anakin.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? He focused on the here and now, ignored the obvious problem of the Republic tolerating slavery on the Outer Rim, and made the snap decision to separate Anakin from his mother (without checking with her first, incidentally). He did this without considering the possibilities: i.e., assuming that he might not be the one to train Anakin, or that it might not be a good idea to train Anakin at all, or especially that separating Anakin from the only parent he’s known and leaving said parent on a planet like Tatooine might not work out so well in the long run. Qui-Gon doesn’t do long-run, remember? He does here and now.

Now, maybe you’re thinking, hey, Anakin becoming a Jedi meant he wouldn’t have seen Shmi again anyway. Perhaps, but suppose Qui-Gon had managed to effect Shmi’s freedom and get her away somehow. Suppose he’d thought to make a second bet, or threatened Watto with his lightsaber, or found the detonator to the bomb planted inside Shmi, whatever. There’s always a way. Or maybe he refuses to make the initial bet and manages to liberate both of them later. The point is, there would’ve been a difference between leaving Shmi somewhere safe, with Anakin knowing she was safe, and leaving her in slavery in Tatooine with Anakin not knowing that. Qui-Gon made that choice in a blink and a roll of a chance cube.

Didn’t quite go his way in the end, did it?

Last time, in the Catrina Chronicles, our heroine was locked in combat against her arch-nemesis Susan, Mistress of all Character Hell, battling for possession of Excalibur. With it, the fate of all Britain hangs in the balance!

“Well, if it was that serious,” Catrina commented, “You wouldn’t have forgotten about the story for a whole year.” She raised Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor!) just in time and blocked yet another swing by Susan, who had charged in to knock her head off with Excalibur. While Catrina preferred a more civilized method of sword-fighting, or even shovel-fighting, Susan’s method was a bit more direct. “Yaaaah!” she yelled as she stormed in again, Excalibur held high, trying once more for Catrina’s head.

Catrina naturally did what any reasonable person would do in a fight when someone else is trying to take their head off their shoulders: she ducked. Then, when Susan momentarily lost her balance, she rammed her in the stomach with Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor!). If you have never been rammed in the stomach by an Asgardian shovel, it hurts like the dickens, let me tell you. Susan, diabolical arch-nemesis though she was, let out a whoof! sound and sat down very suddenly. The next moment Catrina stood over her, holding the Shovel over her head. Then Catrina noticed that Susan had dropped the sword. She scooped that up, and held the sword at Susan’s throat.

“Well,” she said pleasantly, “This was fun.”

“Okay, look,” Susan said, “I’m sorry about beheading the Lady of the Lake, I can maybe try to fix that-“

“With what, glue and a bit of string?” Catrina said.

“Excuse me,” Merlin said, having decided that he should probably do something now that the fight was over, “I could resurrect her. That is, if you have a bit of the, er, head left.”

“I don’t keep souvenirs,” Susan said sniffily. “Who do you think I am?”

“Mistress of all Character Hell, my arch-nemesis, the person who’s literally tried to murder me personally more times than I can count?” Catrina said.

“Fine,” Susan said. “But I still don’t keep souvenirs.”

“Can’t you do just sort of a zippity-resurrecto-spell and fix her up?” Catrina pleaded to Merlin.

“It doesn’t work that way!” Merlin said, mightily offended.

At that moment there was a sudden watery blurp and a pop and the Lady of the Lake appeared, this time with her head fixed firmly back on her shoulders. “Did someone say the magic words zippity resurrecto?” she inquired.

“What?” Merlin said.

“Oh, good, you’re back,” Catrina said. “Tell you what, how about you and Merlin take the sword and go find Arthur, right?”

“Wonderful,” the Lady of the Lake said. “Let’s hope this time he doesn’t end up throwing the sword right back in the lake again. Waste of a good bit of steel, that was.”

“What?” Merlin said.

“Anyway, I”d like to go back to Shmirmingard, my castle now,” Catrina said. “I’m taking Susan here with me. Probably stick her in the cells down below or something. I dunno. Anyway. Merlin, old buddy, could you do the honors?”

Merlin made a few waves with his wand, and both Catrina and Susan vanished, along with Mlrning (the Shovel of Thor!). And so he and Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, set off on their own quest to find the new Arthur and save Britain, having retrieved Excalibur thanks to the help of Catrina, Princess of Shmirmingard.

This has been another exciting episode of the Catrina Chronicles. What exciting quest will our heroine embark upon next? Tune in next week to find out!

When you’re writing eschatological humor, as I’ve been doing lately, you tend to write a lot of stories involving what we Catholics would call the Last Things. Case in point: The Angel and the Apocalypse has a number of scenes set in Hell, and a few set in or outside of Heaven. I’ve got a lot of angels as characters, and some people from the other side too. (Cue Adele). This of course leads to the obvious question, and I mean no disrespect at all: what about the Big Guy? I mean, as an author, one trying to do right personally and all that, how do you write… Him?

The way I see it, if you write God into the story as a character directly, you’ve got two problems. If you have Him say anything other than Scripture, you run the risk of coming off cheesy or borderline sacrilegious. I wouldn’t presume to speak for the Almighty in real life, why would I presume to write for him in a story? It’s very tricky to get right. As C.S. Lewis once said when he explained why he didn’t do a good-guy counterpart to the Screwtape Letters, “Every word would have to smell of Heaven.”

Alternatively, you might just borrow from the Bible, but that has its own pitfalls. (Ever read Kingdom Come, the final volume in the Left Behind series? Then you know what I’m talking about). I’m not sure it’s the best approach to have God show up and rattle off Bible verses like He’s a bad copy/paste job. That’s not great either.

In the end, I think the best approach is either the Narnia or the Touched by an Angel way. Either you work God in as a stand-in, like we all know who Aslan is, or you have him outside the story, but you have representatives, like angels (Monica, etc). I’ve taken the latter approach, since I don’t pretend to be on the level of C.S. Lewis. Anyhow, that’s what I think.

Also, as tomorrow is Volcano Day (unrelated, but why not?), I’m offering a free copy of The Angel and the Apocalypse, starting tomorrow through Wednesday, August 25th. Enjoy, thanks for reading, tell your friends!

Following up on my post about real-world implications of superhero movies, let’s talk about car insurance. How does that work?

I think I first wondered about this way back when I was watching an episode of Superman: the Animated Series. I don’t recall the plot exactly, but it involved Harley Quinn kidnapping Gotham City socialite Bunny Vreeland, whose father, Army General Vreeland, proceeded to give chase in a tank. As one does. In the process, General Vreeland runs over some random car in said tank. Naturally, even back then, before law school, I wondered, what about that guy’s car?

Now, I am by no means an insurance expert (and none of this, obligatory disclaimer, should be taken as insurance or legal advice in any way whatsoever), but as I understand it, the basics of the car insurance market are as follows: you pay a premium to the insurance company, they collect the money, and then they pay out when you have an accident. The idea is that they can afford to do this because they have lots of people paying premiums, and presumably all of those people aren’t having accidents all the time, so the math and the money all works out. You also have some basic rules of fault: if you caused the accident, generally your insurance company pays for it, but your premiums go up.

Okay. So far so good. How does that work in a superhero world?

If you watch a superhero show or movie, whichever it is, cars are getting smashed up ALL THE TIME. Seriously, pick a film. Any of them. Let’s take Iron Man, for example. Remember when Obadiah Stane picked up the lady’s Audi and try to smash Tony Stark with it? (Yes, I checked the make. I try to be accurate about these things). Iron Man uses his chest thruster to knock the car from Stane’s hands, catches the car, sets it down, gets run over by it. The mom in the car drives off, the battle and the movie resumes.

What happens to the lady in the car after that? We don’t know, because she’s not part of the movie now. But imagine you’re her. Once you’re home and safe, calm the kids down, try to process the fact that you’ve just survived a superhero duel, your next call is probably going to be to your insurance agent. How’s that call go? “Hello, Geico? Yes, some supervillain in an armored suit just used my car to try and kill Iron Man. Yes, we’re okay. The car’s pretty damaged, though. Can I get reimbursed for that?”

First of all, does your insurance policy even cover superhero battles? Maybe not then, because at that point in the MCU those weren’t a thing. I don’t imagine she had time to take a photo, so would the company even pay out? But let’s assume they do for a minute; after all, the battle is pretty well public; Tony Stark confesses to being Iron Man. I’m certain Stark has insurance; so now the claims come thick and fast. And then you’ve got superhero fights over the next few years, culminating in the Battle of New York, not to mention subsequent events like Sokovia, Johannesburg, DC, and the Battle of Earth. That’s only the mass-scale stuff; there’s all kinds of smaller scale things like Thor’s fight in the little New Mexico town, the skirmish in Seoul in Age of Ultron, and so on. The car insurance market in MCU Earth is going to be swamped, or changed dramatically. If insurance companies are constantly paying out because everyone’s cars are getting smashed by the Hulk or zapped by Chitauri or crushed by Sokovian debris or what have you, that’s not a sustainable business model.

So what happens? My guess is, either the insurance companies had some sort of superhero disaster coverage into their premium models or however that works, or the Avengers and associates themselves step up to provide separate help. Maybe that’s part of the Sokovia Accords (not to mention the Stark Relief Foundation that we hear about). I honestly don’t know how that would work out, but I tell you one thing; the insurance law classes would be upended for years to come.

Thank you for indulging in my superhero movie thoughts; while you’re here, check out my novel, The Angel and the Apocalypse, available now on Amazon!”

So, there’s something that just occurred to me while watching the opening crawl to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The Senate is debating the Trade Federation’s blockade of Naboo so Chancellor Valorum “secretly dispatched” two Jedi Knights to “resolve the matter.” Is he allowed to do that?

I mean, setting aside the whole light side/dark side, Sith vs. Jedi deal, you have the legitimate body of the Republic debating a resolution and the Chancellor’s all, ‘”Screw it, I’m gonna send in the dudes with lightsabers to sort things.” Does that seem right to you? I won’t pretend to be an expert on Old Republic politics; I vaguely recall they had a constitution, but I could be wrong. But even so, I do know the Republic didn’t have a standing army; in fact as I recall that was a major plot point in Episode 2. Doesn’t it therefore seem like a bit of a blurry line that, essentially, Valorum is using the Jedi as a unilateral executive move to enforce a political resolution of a crisis?

Now, of course, the obvious counterpoint is that the Trade Federation started it with their blockade, and that’s a fair point. But here’s my problem: why the secrecy? Why did the Chancellor have to send in the Jedi on the quiet, presumably without telling the Senate? And why were the Jedi okay with it?

Perhaps this is addressed in Expanded Universe novels, or Star Wars Legacy, or whatever they’re called now, but either way, I can’t help but wonder if this sort of thing is why the Sith were able to take over the Republic in the end.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m a big superhero nerd, and also a lawyer. You can probably imagine how my ears perk up, so to speak, when these two things intersect. I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible, but fair warning, this post discusses parts of the most recent episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. I’ll presume you’ve been appropriately warned of spoilers, and also that you have a basic knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

So, to set the scene, the new Captain America, John Walker, is talking to Sam, Bucky, and Zemo when suddenly the Dora Milaje show up. They demand that Zemo be handed over to them due to Zemo’s murder of King T’Chaka back in Civil War. John Walker, you gotta love him (no, you really don’t), refuses. And then he makes what is actually an interesting legal point: he argues that the Dora Milaje don’t have jurisdiction. ‘

The Dora leader, Ayo, responds in an absolutely wham-line cool way, “The Dora Milaja have jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje happen to be,” a fight ensues, and John gets satisfactorily pummeled. However, my lawyer brain naturally wondered: what about the whole jurisdiction issue?

I hasten to note that this is not my field, and I’m drawing mostly on my memory of Civil Procedure in first-year of law school, ten years ago. But here’s the thing: the Dora Milaje are the Black Panther’s bodyguards, essentially, sworn to protect the throne. As such, one could argue their authority ends where Wakandan sovereignty ends: at Wakanda’s border. Latvia, where the whole fight scene is set, is definitely outside Wakanda’s border. So we have a problem.

Ah, you say, but maybe the Dora Milaje are there pursuant to a valid extradition request. Possibly, but this assumes that Wakanda and Latvia both recognize each other and have an extradition treaty, which we don’t know. Remember, Wakanda just made itself known to the international world at the end of Black Panther, Also, the Dora Milaje’s actions don’t seem to me, offhand, to be in comportment with a formal extradition request with all the paperwork and all. My guess is they’re probably going with the good old fashioned off-the-books snatch and grab. That would make the most sense, given what Ayo said.

In other words, technically, had they captured Zemo, and had he stood trial, his lawyer might have been able to raise a valid procedural objection. On the other hand, we also don’t know how Wakanda’s legal system works. Their procedural rules might be totally different than American law. So who knows?

At that point, Zemo’s best move might be to try for a change of venue to a different court, maybe in Austria or through the UN, since that was where he committed the alleged crime, but then again, we don’t know if the Wakandans recognize motions for change of venue. Honestly, escaping down that tunnel was probably his best strategy, really. Lawyers can only do so much in a superhero world.

Thank you for indulging in my superhero movie thoughts; while you’re here, check out my newly released novel, The Angel and the Apocalypse, available now on Amazon!”

So, here’s the thing. I’m a big superhero movie nerd, but I’m also a political-science major and a lawyer. This combination means I tend to overanalyze this movies probably more than I should. (For instance, I like to think a lot about real-world implications of what would happen, like who’s going to pay the insurance on the cars the good guys use to swat the bad guys with, and such.

All that, to say this. I have a query about the MCU, specifically part of Thor’s arc. I sometimes run over novel plots in my mind before I go to sleep, and of late I’ve been running over this and it bothers me, to quote Columbo. My problem is this: what happens to the Nine Realms after the events of Avengers: Endgame?

Let’s walk through this. (Side note: I’m going to assume everyone reading from this point forward has seen the Marvel movies up through Endgame, so this is your one and only SPOILER WARNING. Anyway: we learn in the first Thor movie that the Bifrost allows access to the Nine Realms (Midgard, Jotunheim, etc.). During that movie the Bifrost is destroyed, preventing Thor or any of the other Asgardians from accessing the other realms. The second movie introduces us to Vanaheim, home of Thor’s comrade Hogun, in an opening battle scene in which Thor anticlimactically destroys a rock monster. More to the point, we learn that the Bifrost has been repaired and Thor and his Asgardian friends have spent some time using it to bring peace to the Nine Realms. This indicates that Asgard serves as a sort of inter-realm peacekeeping force. Ergo, as rightful king of Asgard, Thor would be responsible for that force and thus, indirectly, responsible for the protection of the Nine Realms.

So then we get to Thor: Ragnarok. This is one of my favorites, but it is a problem. In this movie, among other things, Thor gets back to Asgard after an absence and remarks that the Nine Realms are in chaos because Odin has been replaced by (surprise!) Loki. This emphasizes that when Asgard is absent, bad things happen to the Nine Realms. As if to drive home the point, after Asgard is destroyed in order to stop Thor’s evil sister Hela, in the next movie, Infinity War, Thanos wipes out the Dwarves on Nidavellir, and leaves only Eitri, a fact Eitri points out to Thor with the poignant lament, “Asgard was supposed to protect us!”

So, events progress from there, the Avengers defeat Thanos in the Battle of Earth, the surviving Asgardians settle in their town in Norway, and Thor appoints Valkyrie as their leader. He then…goes off with the Guardians of the Galaxy on what, for all we know, is a random joyride.

This, for me, is a problem. Let’s remember where we are at this point. Asgard is destroyed. So is the Bifrost, for that matter; Heimdall could wield it, but he’s dead. Thor could wield it with Stormbreaker, but he’s off with the Guardians and seemingly in no mood to do realm-protecting. Maybe someone else could wield Stormbreaker, you ask? Nope: I checked that most reliable of sources, the Internet (specifically the Marvel Cinematic Universe wiki) and evidently Thor took Stormbreaker with him. Also, he did make Valkyrie leader of New Asgard on Earth, but he didn’t say a word to her about the Nine Realms or the Bifrost, or anything along that line. All he said was that he had no path.

Which is all very well. But here’s the thing. And it’s not Valkyrie’s fault; she’s taking care of the New Asgardians, as she’s been doing apparently throughout the Blip. But who’s looking after the Nine Realms? I’m going to assume the Snap and the Blip affected them too, so if you figure they were in trouble after the destruction of the Bifrost in the first Thor movie, and Odin’s trip to Earth in Thor: Ragnarok, what kind of shape would they be in after Endgame? Vanaheim doesn’t have Hogun anymore, and there’s no more Asgard. They all need help. And where’s Thor? Joyriding with Peter Quill and friends on the Benatar.

I mean no disrespect to Quill and Co. But someone, Thor particularly since he’s the one with the Bifrost-wielding super-axe, needs to think about Vanaheim and the guys that don’t have Bifrost-wielding super-axes.

Anyhow. Maybe they’ll address this in the next Thor movie.

Thank you for indulging in my superhero movie thoughts; while you’re here, check out my newly released novel, The Angel and the Apocalypse, available now on Amazon!”