Fantasy-Faction Anthology edited by Marc Aplin and Jennie Ivins

Aha! I have returned from the wilds of England!

As the picture above may have alerted the more eagle eyed amongst you this is going to be a review post.

For a few years now, almost as long as the book above took to produce, I've been a moderator over at Fantasy-Faction's forum. Almost from the time that Marc Aplin and his off sider Jennie Ivins announced that they were planning to produce an anthology I was on board with the idea.

They got some excellent authors on board with the project. Names like Mark Lawrence (The Broken Empire), Anne Lyle (Night's Masque), Kameron Hurley (God's War and The Mirror Empire - seriously everyone with an interest in epic fantasy should read that book, genuinely ground breaking), Richard Morgan (the Takeshi Kovacs books and others), Mark Charan Newton (Legends of the Red Sun), Michael J. Sullivan (The Riyria Revelations), James Barclay (The Raven books and Elves), Myke Cole (Shadow Ops), Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt) and John Sprunk (the Shadow trilogy), to name a few and then really sent the idea into overdrive by announcing a contest open to anyone who wanted to get a short story into print.

The short story project was probably largely responsible for the time it took from conception to actually publishing the anthology. The response was overwhelming. In his introduction to the book Marc Aplin says that they received 1700 entries and he and two other judges had to read through all of those and then pick the lucky few (the reading required amounted to roughly reading the entire Wheel of Time series over 3 times!). However the summit of the mountain was eventually reached and what they got was the Fantasy-Faction Anthology.

I should note here that none of the authors, established or otherwise, were paid for their contributions to the book, neither were editors and publishers Marc Aplin and Jennie Ivins. All proceeds from the sale of the anthology will be ploughed back into keeping the lights burning at Fantasy-Faction and possibly producing similar anthologies in the future.

Unusually for a book of this type not every entry is an actual story. Most are, but there are a few essays sprinkled amongst them. I highly recommend Anne Lyle's piece on doing historical research for a fantasy novel to assist with world building, Kameron Hurley's 'Creating Better Fantasy Economics' which is also about world building, and contains ideas of how to make your world both more complete and believable. Mark Charan Newton's pieces of advice he would have given his younger self should be essential reading for anyone wanting to eventually get their work into print. James Barclay's humorous take on the traditional and changing role of elves in fantasy fiction is also well worth a read, it had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. My personal favourite essay though was Richard Morgan's 'Killing the Magic (And Putting it in a Box)' which speaks about the recent obsession with categorising fiction for marketing purposes and then picking it apart for it's inconsistencies. It's a lovely rant and it contains this little nugget and these are words for a fantasy writer, in particular to live by: 'It doesn't matter how realistic a piece of fiction ends up, it matters how convincing it is.' Those two words realistic and convincing are two very different things and the distinction needs to be clear.

Interestingly enough I found the stories by the unknown authors were by and large the more enjoyable and fresh. Not just because they're new voices to me, but because they were willing to take the change on breaking new ground.

That's not to say the contributions by the established authors aren't good, they are and Michael J. Sullivan's story 'The Autumn Mist' will stay with me for a long time.

Overall the stories run the gamut of the genre and it's various sub genres (no urban fantasy as such, although Michael J. Sullivan's story and that of  John Yeo Jr. come very close to it).

There's something to please everyone. If you're a fan of the established authors it's a chance to see them write outside of what they usually produce, which I found is always interesting and if you're looking for fresh new talent with interesting ideas then the winners of the story contest and the previously unknown names will hopefully prove to be as enjoyable to discover for you as they were for me.

Marc and Jennie have done an excellent job here and I hope the anthology is the first of many to come in the future!

Burn Notice, Season 3, Episode 16

This is it, the season finale. It was almost as if all of Season 3 had been building towards this moment.

The seeds of this episode were sewn at the end of Season 2 when Michael first encountered Management and this episode itself is a springboard into Season 4. I don't know what series creator Matt Nix had in mind when he first came up with Burn Notice, but thinking about how many questions this episode answers and what it introduces, it seems reasonable to think it was at least a 4 season story arc.

Michael finds himself on the run from the police, which has shades of the season opener, and has to use everything he has to get away, eventually hot wiring a jet ski and making his escape over the water.

Fiona and Sam provide support and send word to Maddie to get out of town.

She's packing, making sure to include a shotgun, when there's a knock at the door and it's two men from the government. I can't remember where they said they were from. I don't think it was FBI, because the two guys that Sam and Michael meet with from time to time seem to be the only FBI agents operating in Miami. They were probably CIA, but didn't actually say so.

When trying to threaten and pressure Maddie didn't work, as it was never going to, they start to present images and reports from Michael's file which indicate that he did some pretty bad things. Sam's concerned that Maddie will crack, but Fiona trusts her to hang tough, which she does, ringing Michael and telling him to come home right away, which is code for stay away, it was what she did when his father went on a bender.

Simon lures Michael out into the open and then to a TV store. He's killed the owner and rigged the screens to show images of Michael's 'atrocities' on a loop. It turns out that all those things in Michael's file, the things that got him burned, they were Simon's doing and he was doing it for Management. They want Michael big time. Once he'd served his purpose they tossed him in a South American hell hole.

Simon was played by Garrett Dillahunt. Dillahunt plays an unhinged psychopath very well. I first saw him as John Henry in Sarah Connor: The Terminator Chronicles, but after that I started seeing him everywhere, like in this episode of Burn Notice.

What Simon wants is to take out Management, why Michael should help him with this is because he's rigged a bomb up in a hotel, which is timed to go off at a certain time. Fiona and Sam pressure every bomb maker and gun dealer that Fiona can think of to find the bomb. They disarm it and render it useless, but by that stage Management is on his way to Miami.

Michael tries to warn him, but Simon is one step ahead. Michael actually uses Management to help him take Simon out of the picture, but he's not dead and until he is, he's going to be a problem.

Michael is arrested, but released on orders from very high up and in one of the show's classic cliffhanger endings is taken somewhere unspecified and when the bag is removed from his head finds himself in a sumptuously furnished room.

I think Simon will be Season 4's Big Bad, that is when Michael gets out of wherever Management have him.

Note: I'm heading off on holiday next week and will be away for a month or so. I hope to start Season 4 when I get back.

Burn Notice, Season 3, Episode 15

One episode to go and they made us wait until the very end before we got an indication that the final episode is going to go off like a frog in a sock.

Once again Gilroy uses Michael. This time he infiltrates a house and compound being used by a militant group of 'separatists' or as Michael correctly refers to them white supremacists (do these really exist in the US? They're used in fiction a bit), and while Michael fights a couple of these idiots, Gilroy sneaks in and steals a high powered machine gun.

As usual Gilroy is coy about what he wants it for and what he intends to use it on, but it is all connected to the flight from Chile.

A lot of this episode was about Fiona and her past. A contact called Coleman (Australian actor Jonathan La Paglia, could have played Claude, at least his accent would have been dead on) puts Fiona in touch with an Argentinian called Gabriel. It's never really explained what Gabriel does, but he's paranoid and he has a lot of security and wealth. Fiona's interest is driven by the fact that he's kidnapped a scientist who has a family.

In an attempt to catch Fiona out Gabriel mentions some time she says she's spent in Madrid (she hasn't) and asks her about Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is of course in Barcelona, which Fiona knows. I did think at the time it wasn't a hard question, it's fairly common knowledge. He then sends two of his people to her house to check her passport and see if it has a Madrid stamp.

Michael rushes over and doctors her passport to read right. Again I found this odd. Given what Fiona does (gun running, a bit of bombing on the side) I would have thought she would have had more than one passport and not all the information in them would necessarily be legitimate. It is however another chance for Michael to show off his MacGyver like skills.

Gabriel wastes no time in delving into her background and discovers that Fiona Glenanne once worked for the IRA. We the viewers found out that before Michael got burned she was happily set up somewhere else in the world and dropped everything to be with him. Gabriel doesn't seem to know about Michael.

Sam really only exists in this episode to keep an eye on Fiona and impersonate Chuck Finley, a grass obsessed representative of the local home owners association.

Fiona admits that her involvement with the IRA came about because of the accidental killing of her sister by British forces. Gabriel is using the scientist to try and bring about the downfall of an American company called Apex who dumped deadly waste into the water near his hometown and this killed his daughter. Fiona rescues the scientist and Michael has to rescue Gabriel when he tries to kill himself and Fiona won't leave the burning building unless they at least try and save him.

I had the feeling that this season was the introduction of a character called Simon and that was who Gilroy was trying to get off the plane, for a cool $10 million. There's a double-cross on and Simon leaves Gilroy fatally wounded (always knew he wasn't as a good as he pretended to be), had a bomb strapped to him and Simon is after Michael Westen.

The last episode should be a cracker.

Burn Notice, Season 3, Episode 14

In an episode where I thought they may have been ramping up for the season finale (3 episodes to go) that story largely took a backseat to Michael's other 'job'.

It's largely left to Fiona to massage information out of a Polish diplomat to find out what exactly is on that flight from Chile to Poland via Miami that Gilroy wants so much.

Michael instead gives Sam what he most wants in the world; a job where they spend their time looking at and being around beautiful models.

Unsurprisingly Sam lined this one up. The owner of a a rising Miami based fashion house, a former model herself, suspects that one of her employees is ripping her off and wants Sam and Michael to investigate. You'd think with a buff, suited Jeffrey Donovan up against an ageing, gone to seed, partially shaven Bruce Campbell, the attractive, successful business woman would gravitate to the former, but no, while she likes Michael and appreciates his professionalism, it's Sam she's interested in on a personal level.

It looks pretty open and shut. The company's chief financial officer is skimming, that is until Michael confronts him about it at their client's house and she turns up face down, shot to death in her own swimming pool.

As the CFO has an alibi, he was with Michael at the time, it's a fight to clear his name and protect him from the actual killer; the co founder of the company who has gotten into bed with a very nasty and ruthless accomplice.

Michael gets what he can from the real killer by posing as a drug dealer using the company as a front for his exportation of heroin to the European market. Sam goes undercover by pretending to be a CSI. The show had a little fun with that. On at least two occasions Sam dons mirror shades and uses a bad pun centred around the fashion industry to describe the case. CSI Miami could have almost sued them for it.

While this is going on Fiona is trying to get some of Michael's old military shots from Maddie. to help her with the Polish diplomat. Maddie likes Fiona...a lot, but she knows when she's being lied to and it's something Michael has to explain later on.

The fact that Gilroy is after a person, not a thing and a dangerous person at that is probably what sets up the finale, which will play out over the final two episodes.

Burn Notice, Season 3, Episode 13

For the third episode in a row the show opens with Gilroy meeting up with Michael. This time it's in a spa at a hotel. Michael doesn't like spas, he finds the water too hot. The embassy job is off. Gilroy wants Michael to get him a bunch of flight plans. Michael maintains that this is more risky than stealing something from a foreign embassy. Considering that he did it by asking Sam to hit up an old SEAL buddy working for the Coast Guard for a favour, that seemed to be a rather inaccurate argument.

I did kind of wonder about Gilroy at this point, though. How good is he really? Michael didn't see him activate the firebomb in the hotel, nor does he really know who was shooting at him at the stadium. He knows it was a sniper at the hotel when Fiona got shot at. He's only going on the assumption that Gilroy actually pulled the earlier jobs with the firebombing assassination of the British scientist and the shooting at the soccer stadium because of what happened to him. He didn't want to steal into the embassy himself and he can't get the flight plans on his own. He may be forced to back down if Michael wants to take him on face to face.

The real story is what happens when Michael gets back to his loft and finds a dead body down stairs and Larry the formerly dead spy upstairs. The dead guy works for a Columbian drug cartel and the six tear drops on his tattoo indicate that he has six kills to his name (Larry thinks that makes him an amateur).

Now why does a Columbian drug cartel killer want Michael Westen dead? That would be because Larry ripped them off to the tune of 2 million dollars and used Michael's name as his alias. Larry is currently using the alias of dead shoe salesman Larry Garber (I did wonder if the surname was a sneaky Alias reference. Actor Victor Garber played super spy Jack Bristow in that show). So to get the cartel off his back Michael has to help Larry get away with a cool 2 million somehow, he'll also need to protect Larry's accomplice, the inept stage magician Jack Fleetwood aka Jablonski.

I liked seeing Carlos Gomez as the angry Columbian cartel character Carlos. It was a change of pace from the other role I remember him in; mild mannered Latino coroner Carlos Sanchez in The Glades.

Most of it is standard Michael Westen. He saves Jack, manages to give Carlos back his cartel's money and leaves Larry trying to explain a very sticky situation to the police.

I think they returned Larry to point out that the more Michael gets involved with Gilroy (and I still don't really know why that is) the more like Larry he becomes. There was a bust up this time with Sam over the flight plans and it nearly broke up the friendship.

In other developments Nate came back from Las Vegas with a wife. He met and married card dealer Ruth within a month. I give the marriage about that long. Maddie cannot stand her, but Nate wants her to move out to Vegas. On the one hand that would get her out of Michael's hair and away from the danger that he brings with him. On the other hand it takes away a place to hide, a mother who he is only now starting to actually know and a good friend for his associates. Maddie refuses to go and Nate and Ruth go back to Vegas without her. As Maddie says her place is there in Miami with Michael, and Sam and Fiona. She didn't actually say the word family, but it's pretty clear that as far as Maddie is concerned Sam and Fiona are very bit as much her family as Michael and Nate are.

Now we just have to wonder why Gilroy wants information about a flight from the Chilean embassy in Miami to Poland. Michael doesn't believe the bio weapon cargo story he was told for a minute.

Burn Notice, Season 2, Episode 12

Still desperate to get an in with Gilroy (not really sure why, unless he wants to kill the guy and offer this up to the CIA as proof that he's still really one of the good guys) Michael meets with him in a French restaurant (there's an amusing exchange with Sam outside in which we find out that the former Navy SEAL definitely does not appreciate French cuisine) and is rail roaded into stealing into an embassy with an accomplice of Gilroy's choosing. A thief who goes by the name of Claude.

On Claude, I initially wondered if his background was English, because he had a sort of British accent, similar to the one Michael affected in an early Season 2 episode, but not quite as obviously fake. It turned out that he was actually Australian, formerly of the Australian Secret Service. If American shows are going to cast a character as Australian I do wish they'd at least find an Australian actor, or at the very least a New Zealander (similar to Manu Bennett playing an Australian agent in Arrow), because for some reason Americans CANNOT replicate an Australian accent. This one sounded sort of East End London, but never really entered Australian waters. Thank goodness the character only lasted for one episode.

While Michael is deciding whether or not to take the job, and being urged not to by Fiona, a flashy car rolls up and out gets Sugar. For those who cannot remember Sugar used to live downstairs from Michael. He was a flashy low life drug dealer and Michael 'convinced' him to move out.

Understandably Michael didn't think he'd ever see Sugar again. This time he wants to hire Michael. A vicious, but successful criminal is using his mentally disabled cousin on a job he's planning. Initially Michael doesn't want to take the job, because working for Gilroy is hard enough without having to babysit Sugar on a job. Fiona pressures him into doing it. Apparently she thinks it's rather cute that Sugar is looking out for his cousin. Sam also becomes rather attached to the young man when he meets him.

Sugar's willingness to get involved gets him shot and Michael is lucky to get out and get the drug dealer into hospital.

His method of dealing with the criminal was one of his usual represent himself as another criminal with connections and a willingness to play dirty, then double-cross them and leave the police to make an easy arrest.

Claude's penchant for free climbing is his undoing when Michael sabotages the climb prior to Claude going up and he breaks his ankle. Gilroy still wants to go ahead with it, just Michael gets his wish of working alone. Gilroy claims Claude died of complications with his broken ankle. This is concerning, that Gilroy will so blithely kill anyone he doesn't need, because Michael will try and double cross him.

It may be a result of watching them back to back the way I am, but the show has become a little formulaic. I think what interested me the first time around wasn't the jobs Michael pulled, but more his interactions with his friends and family.

That's on display again in one of the show's nicer moments. To Michael's concern Maddie gets a good citizenship award from the local police force. She got it for reporting stolen cars, usually ones that Michael himself had stolen! The kicker was that Sam nominated her, and he doesn't even really live in the neighbourhood as such. Understandably Maddie wants to show her son off at the event, Nate's still in Las Vegas trying to get his limo business off the ground. She even buys Michael an awful clip on tie to wear. Initially he says he can't go because of the job he's working on. He does eventually attend complete with the gauche tie. Him showing up was all that was important to Maddie and they leave before she's even given her award, she also tells him that he can ditch the tie, which he gratefully does.

Burn Notice, Season 3, Episode 11

We get to meet Gilroy this episode (the British assassin, who Michael refers to as a psychopath), he appears to have taken over from Strickler as the Big Bad.

He apparently worked for Strickler and Michael's killing of the man hasn't done him a lot of favours. Michael claims that he killed Strickler because he didn't want a middle man. Gilroy reminded me of a rogue James Bond actually, although he does one thing Bond doesn't, he uses other people. To underline how much he knows and how Michael can never know exactly what he's going to do or who to, he has a hidden sniper take a shot at Fiona, who has eyes on the meeting between Michael and Gilroy.

I always saw this sort of thing as a weakness. Unless you have allies like Fiona and Sam, who do what they do for Michael out of friendship/love/loyalty, then you're vulnerable. Gilroy doesn't strike me as the type who has friends, so finding who he's using could give you significant leverage against him and even the fight up to a one on one.

Sam's moving out of Maddie's place to move in with Mrs Reynolds and her daughter Miss Reynolds. Apparently either Sam is a phenomenal lover or Miss Reynolds is very forgiving, because everyone thought his bridges were burned there after Michael sent the Buick to it's death from a rooftop car park.

Maddie tells Sam that someone has arrived for him, an old friend. Sam walks in, sees the guy and slugs him in the face. His name is Mack and they have a history. Sam was close mouthed about what it was, saying it was personal, but even if I hadn't seen the episode before I still would have guessed it had to do with a woman. In this case it was Sam's wife, who also later left Mack. It seemed a little at odds with what Sam told Fiona about his wife, who he never divorced, so I'm wondering if she married Mack and thus committed bigamy, or maybe this is a different wife? I'm not sure if he's been married more than once, although if he has that also seems against odds with the story he told Fiona when Veronica wanted to get married to him.

Those things aside Mack is working in conjunction with the police locating kids, mostly they're the subject of custody disputes and he's now after a nasty piece of work, a Latino predator called Rincon. He can't get close to the guy and he's hoping Sam and his associates can. Exactly how he tracked down Sam is also never explained, it's rather like how people just know where Michael is living when it's convenient for the plot.

To get to Rincon, who has hidden in the barrio, they need the cooperation of a local gang banger, Omar. Omar is a gangster, but he tries to do what he can for the neighbourhood. He's not willing to help 'gringos' like Mack, Sam and Fiona, so Michael dons a bright red suit and adopts his best Clint Eastwood Man Without a Name impersonation to intimidate them into cooperating. They made a joke out of every time he snapped his fingers something exploded.

This brought him into conflict with Vargas (cult hero Danny Trejo playing a latino gangster, colour me surprised there!). Rincon and Vargas were working together and he was protecting Rincon. That was until Michael Westen and Co teamed up with Omar. They took Rincon into custody and chased Vargas out, thus reclaiming their neighbourhood.

Progress was made on the Gilroy front too, with Gilroy observing Michael at work with Omar and deciding that he is the type of person he wants to work with.