What If Gates McFadden Hadn't Returned to Star Trek: The Next Generation?

In our world, actress Gates McFadden played Chief Medical Officer Doctor Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation for every season except the second, when she was temporarily replaced by Diana Muldaur playing Doctor Katherine Pulaski. Covering the behind-the-scenes drama causing McFadden's (and Crusher's) temporary absence from the USS Enterprise is beyond the scope of this thought experiment, to wit: What if Gates had not returned for seasons three through seven? And what if Diana Muldaur declined to become a series regular, leaving after season two? 

Enter Anne Twomey

Imagine if the showrunners dipped back into the well of previous actresses who auditioned for the Pulaski or Crusher roles. Imagine further they took a second look at Anne Twomey, who auditioned for Crusher a couple of years before. In this reality, Twomey plays Doctor Rachel Arbogast. 

Doctor with a Difference

To differentiate Arbogast from Crusher and Pulaski, the showrunners give Arbogast a wacky sense of humour; she loves to pull pranks, insert puns into conversations, and tells Mom jokes (though she's not a mother). They also give her a darker backstory than either of the show's previous CMOs. She doesn't warm to the other series regulars until several seasons have gone by, nor they to her, seeing as they've already gone through two CMOs. Wesley Crusher, in particular, is initially the most standoffish. 

As the third season unfolds, we learn Arbogast spent several years ships on the front lines of a mysterious, little-spoken-of war; she survived some gruesome encounters and pulled a lot of people through grave injuries. She lost a lot; maybe she lost everything. She doesn't talk about it. It's in her service record, but you'd never know it coming from her; Riker, Picard, and Troi are the only ones who know the full details, but the other characters (and the audience) won't learn her whole story for a while. 

Alternate Episodes

In many episodes, the show doesn't require a specific character or actress to carry out the role of doctor; any medical professional would do. But in certain episodes, Crusher's replacement by Arbogast would make a difference. Here are a few examples: 

In the real-world version of "Evolution," the show's season three premiere, Doctor Crusher's return is briefly explained and she enjoys a warm reunion with her son Wesley.  But in this version, there's no Crusher and therefore no reunion. Instead, we meet Arbogast when she's called upon to treat Dr. Stubbs, the episode's guest star. Maybe she gets a few extra moments of character development in a meeting with Picard; Crusher and Picard had a short conversation about her return, so there's time in the episode to give the audience a bit of a backgrounder on Arbogast. And maybe the rest of the episode continues as normal; at this point, with the show on doctor number three in as many years, the producers might not yet have decided if Arbogast is going to be a major character or not. Perhaps she gets a scene with Guinan at the end of the episode, just as Crusher did in the original timeline. 

In "Who Watches the Watchers?", maybe Rachel refuses to mind-wipe the Mintakan, Liko. This doesn't change the outcome of the episode, but gives us a bit of insight into Arbogast's character; she's seen such terrible trauma that she refuses to inflict injury on a patient, no matter what the cost. This puts her in conflict with Picard and the Prime Directive, and puts her position (in the real world and the world of the show) in jeopardy. We wonder how long she'll stick around. 

In "The Enemy," Worf's decision to refuse to donate blood to save the injured Romulan results in a long-standing low-key animosity between Arbogast and Worf. Unlike Crusher, Arbogast doesn't have much history with Worf at this point, so her opinion of him is tainted by a decision she must accept as a medical doctor, but privately disdains as a matter of principle. Hard to imagine the TNG writers allowing TOO much tension among characters in the main cast, but maybe they'd allow the thread to play out just a little, at least until events in a later episode cause Rachel to re-evaluate Worf. 

"The High Ground" would be Dr. Arbogast's first big episode, since she's the one that gets kidnapped by Ansata separatists on Rutia IV. Maybe she's more sympathetic than Crusher was to the Ansata point of view; perhaps her experiences on the front lines showed her that sometimes "terrorism" was the last resort of a subjugated people. In fact, we might uncover hints that the Federation was the aggressor in the unnamed war Arbogast participated in. But while she may have some sympathies, Arbogast knows what side she's ultimately on, and for the first time we see that she's no stranger to combat, taking a much more active role in the climactic rescue than Beverly did. Maybe Arbogast is the one that kills Finn, forced to because he was drawing a bead on Picard. 

In "Deja Q," perhaps Arbogast treats the de-Q'ed Q a little more warmly than Crusher did in our timeline, since this will be the first time she's met him. 

In "Hollow Pursuits," Arbogast is less disturbed than her crewmates to find she's objectified in Barclay's hologram, and the episode ends on a dry, suggestive coda: "Let me know if you ever want to try the real thing, Reg." 

There's no romantic plot for Arbogast in "Transfigurations," but from this point forward she develops a strong interest in transhumanism, something most humans in Trek seem to frown on, given the evidence of the various shows. 

In "The Best of Both Worlds" Arbogasts's role is functionally identical to the one Crusher played, but she's more calculated and determined on the away team mission to the cube, though the end result is the same; failure to rescue Picard. And like Crusher, she removes Picard's Borg implants in Part II. 

In "Family," we learn what happened to Arbogast's last commanding officer, the woman who was her best friend and spiritual sister. A holodeck conversation with that officer's avatar reveals something of Arbogast's trauma to the audience, but not to the other characters, providing a bit of dramatic irony for seasons to come. 

"Remember Me" simply doesn't happen in this version of the show. Instead, the producers go for a different bottle episode, a Troi-centric story that has the counselor guiding a severely wounded but recovering security officer through his PTSD--a rare opportunity to see Troi performing her official function. 

In "Data's Day," Arbogast introduces Data to the art of the prank, mostly because she thinks it's hilarious that Data just won't get it. 

In "Q-Pid," Arbogast quips "Now I see why you guys find this maniac so annoying." She also uses a rapier in combat instead of a clay pot. 

In "The Host," Arbogast isn't fazed at all by the Trill life cycle. Of course she and Odan still part ways by episode's end, but only because Arbogast has to stay on the show. The conclusion has more of a "It was a fun ride!" vibe. 

Arbogast doesn't entirely agree with the choices made by "The Masterpiece Society," but following on from her interest in transhumanism established in "Transfigurations," she considers staying behind, in contrast to the Society members who decide to leave thanks to the influence of the Enterprise crew. In the end she decides not to stay on the colony, but because their approach to transhumanism isn't quite radical enough for her...

"Ethics" reinforces the chilly relationship between Arbogast and Worf, but only in lines like "Mr. Worf and I might not get along, but damned if I'm going to risk his life on your experimental treatment." But surprisingly, Worf opens up to Arbogast during a consultation. "I have seen the warrior's fire in your eyes and in your actions. You hide it well, but you know that I cannot live like this. Because you could not live like this." Arbogast realizes Worf is right, and cooperates with Dr. Russell. The operations succeeds, but without the death fakeout of the original version of the story. Arbogast berates herself for working with Russell, going as it does against her professional ethics, but this feeling is tempered by a feeling that sometimes the ends justify the means. 

"Realm of Fear" turns out pretty much the same, but with some more flirting from Arbogast toward Barclay as she treats his "transporter psychosis." 

"Chain of Command" reveals that Dr. Arbogast makes a more badass commando than Dr. Crusher, but the episode goes pretty much the same was as in our timeline. 

"Suspicions" reveals Arbogast to be even more stubborn in her pursuit of the truth behind Reyga's death. 

When Picard and Arbogast are "Attached," Arbogast learns how much Picard misses Dr. Crusher, which explains, perhaps why he's never warmed to the woman who took her place. Picard learns, finally, the full truth of Arbogast's heretofore hinted-at past, and it drastically changes their relationship - perhaps even calling into question Picard's original choice to have Arbogast replace Pulaski. They form an uneasy understanding by episode's end, but the tension will remain for the rest of the series. Note that only Picard knows what happened - the audience isn't privy to this information. 

In "Parallels" Arbogast doesn't appear--but Gates McFadden returns as Doctor Crusher in several of the quantum realities visited by Worf. 

"Sub Rosa" relies completely on Crusher's backstory, so it's replaced by "Uncomfortable Truths," a bottle episode in which an old colleague of Arbogast visits the Enterprise and accidentally reveals a shocking truth: during a battle in the mysterious war hinted at in earlier seasons, Arbogast was forced to choose between blowing up a starship with a full crew infected by an insidious biological weapon or trying to save the crew and risking infection of the entire Federation. 

We learn that against the orders of her commanding officer, Arbogast beamed a photon torpedo into the engine room of the infected ship, destroying it and killing all aboard. A turning point in the war, this act proved the Federation's resolve in the eyes of the enemy, who agreed to a brokered peace. Only this prevented Arbogast from being cashiered, especially when it was discovered that Arbogast herself had dismissed a potential cure proposed by one of her colleagues - a treatment that, further experiments later proved, would have worked. 

Picard, of course, learned all this in "Attached," and he shares his prior knowledge with his senior officers, each of them dealing with conflicting emotions. Worf is surprisingly supportive, given that Arbogast made a "warrior's choice." Data is sympathetic, given that her choice was logical with the information and choices she had at the moment. Riker, Troi, and LaForge are horrified and acknowledge it will make their working relationship with Arbogast difficult. 

Arbogast decides to leave, not being able to bear the umbrage of people she's grown to love and respect. She and Picard share one last scene in the transporter room. "What will you do now?" he asks. "I failed because I was human," she says bitterly. "I'm going to see if I can rectify that." Picard shakes his head in sorrow, but knows she's made up her mind, and beams her over to the USS Kurzweil. In the transporter room of the Kurzweil, an unseen figure greets her: "Dr. Arbogast. Let's talk about your future." 

In the remaining season seven episodes, Suzie Plakson at long last returns as Doctor Selar, newly promoted to take Arbogast's place. She'll go on to appear in all five (!) TNG films. 

Arbogast doesn't appear again until "All Good Things," in the portions set 25 years in the future. She serves the same story function as Crusher did in the original episode, but without the Picard/Crusher romance beats; instead, we see that Arbogast has transformed herself into a cyborg--cold and efficient and in control, far from the practical joker of her early appearances. Old Picard is freaked out by this, given his experiences with the Borg, but knows he has no choice but to work with her. The episode plays out pretty much as it did in our world, but with one difference: before Picard joins the poker game, we see him composing a letter to Arbogast, asking her to meet the next time their ships are (relatively) close; he has something important to share about her future. 

But with Plakson's Doctor Selar taking McFadden's Crusher role in the four TNG feature films, there's no compelling reason to revisit Arbogast's thread in those films. Instead, she doesn't return--nor does Crusher--until the third season of Picard, where we see that her quest for transhumanity has had tragic consequences--though she goes out a hero...

Blood Shed

In a parallel universe, a different version of me is enjoying a successful, if notorious, career as a filmmaker. The latest hit from his Paranoid Productions studio is Blood Shed, currently garnering attention not because of its story, but its unconventional style. In Blood Shed, Paranoid-me grafts modern explicit violence effects to an otherwise mid-20th century aesthetic, creating an uncanny effect disturbing audiences all over Earth-E (for Excessive Violence). 

Blood Shed is a Technicolor western set in a lonely corner of 1870s New Mexico Territory. Horst Horseman is carving farmland from desert scrub, and against all odds, he is on the verge of success. The harvest to come is poised to be his most successful yet, and he is eager to share the bounty with other settlers and their Navajo neighbours. 

But just as his crops ripen, Horst is set upon by a roving band of banjo-strumming bandits who call themselves the Banjo Bandit Band. Horst offers the bandits fresh fruits, vegetables, and water from his hard-won well, but the bandits aren't here for charity--they're here for plunder. After first taunting Horst with a truly dreadful banjo performance, they beat him senseless and toss him into the woodshed, staining it all over with blood--hence the film's title. 

Anytime from the dawn of cinema through the 1950s would generally treat this violence tastefully, either cutting away from the action to let the audience imagine it for themselves or bloodlessly pantomiming the action. In Blood Shed, however, we see every punch, kick, and banjo-clobbering in rapturous slow motion, with every spray of ichor, goose egg, blackened eye, and broken bone captured with intense realism. 

The Banjo Bandit Band leaves Horst for dead in a slowly spreading pool of his own blood as they steal his crops and burn his humble homestead to the ground. Miraculously, the fire does not spread to the titular Blood Shed, and Horst's broken body is discovered by his horrified neighbors. 

Moved by Horst's plight, several of Horst's fellow settlers team up with sympathetic Navajo warriors to chase down the Banjo Bandit Band. As it turns out, they're easy to track, because they won't stop playing their banjos. The rest of the film details the running battle between the bandits and Horst's posse--really just an excuse to create graphically realistic arrow, bullet, and knife wounds in the context of a B-list midcentury western steeped in the production values of the time: some location shooting, canned music, generous use of rear projection, stilted dialogue, continuity errors, and acting ranging from merely terrible to workmanlike. In the end, Horst is avenged and his friends help him rebuild the farm. 

Alternate-Woods would later use the same technique to create similarly dissonant films noir (Teeth On a Midnight Sidewalk, Blood-Soaked Tide*), musicals (The Iced Capades, Xanadoom), comedy (The Three Stooges Go to the Hospital, The Three Stooges in Blunt Trauma), horror (There Is No Anesthesiologist in This Hospital, Castle of Stone Stairs, Brutal Fists of Frankenstein), science fiction (Magnificent Devastation, Attack of the Needlessly Sadistic Saucer Men), absurdism (Who Filled the Washing Machine with Dynamite?), and even the Oscar-winning drama Senseless Violence. 

Poor alternate Sylvia. 

*With product placement of the famous detergent

More Thoughts on My Replay

Several days ago I posted about a daydream I've had of "replaying" my life with all the knowledge and experience I've learned growing up. My first post on the subject was mostly concerned with my overriding purpose: to attempt to forestall climate change. This time around, I'm considering the personal matters. 

First of all, I'm very happy with my life and I have few regrets. I have a wonderful network of family, friends, and colleagues, and I'm happy with my career path. 

The tragedy of the replay concept is that while one might try to recreate the best parts of one's life and omit the regrets, in practice this will be challenging. 

Academically, I think I'd be fine. I should have no trouble at all navigating any grade school or university courses focused on the arts, and while math and science might present some challenges, I should be able to pick up anything I've forgotten. On the whole, I imagine my greater experience and maturity should allow me to do better in school than I did the first time around.

But what about my personal relationships? For one thing, I don't remember the precise circumstances under which I met my dearest friends. With some thought I could recreate many of them, particularly the friendships formed during grade school and university. But even then, how can I create an honest relationship with anyone I knew in my previous life? I'll have decades of experience and memories that would put them at immense disadvantage in the friendship. Much as I'd be desperate to reach out to old friends across the course of my life, my conscience would tell me that they're all off limits. 

Unless I allow myself to become monstrous, my replay would be a lonely one. Even with my parents and my little brother, it would be incredibly difficult not to fundamentally alter the way we interact. I would, in effect, be older than my parents, not in body, but in mind. 

Relationships with women would be even more fraught. Forget hooking up in my teens (not that I did the first time around). And forget connecting with any women I was with in real life, even my wife--absolutely the most agonizing and tragic aspect of the replay. Meeting Sylvia was the result of years of interconnected friendships and chance; even if I could replay all those events perfectly, the odds of running into Sylvia the same way would be very slim. I could easily seek her out; I know where she worked at the time we originally met in 2002. But what would I say? I'd either have to tell her the truth, that we were married in another life, or I'd have to arrange some kind of "accidental" meet cute and hope for the best, lying to her by omission all the while. 

Impossible. 

Then there's the fact that my efforts to convince powerful people that I come from the future with a warning about climate change would completely derail my life if I had any measure of success. I'd probably spend the rest of my life as a protected asset of one government or another. In the best case, they'd let me live my life as normally as possible while I gave them as much information as I could about my experience of climate change impacts; in the worst case, they'd consider me a source of intelligence of future events and try to alter the timeline in nefarious ways. 

The forces of the universe might decree a replay necessary, but what a hard, lonely road for the replayer. 

Unpainted Sentry Bot

Earlier this afternoon I assembled a Sentry Bot miniature from Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. This model is made of resin, which allows for greater detail than 28mm miniatures made of other materials. Indeed, it's so detailed that I'm a little scared of painting it. 

Before I can paint or even prime it, though, I need to wash the mini in soap and water to get rid of the releasing agent that covered the model so that it could be taken out of its mould. If I don't do that, paint won't stick to the mini. 

Another consideration: the characters in Fallout are all a bit worse for wear, so the models shouldn't look pristine. This means I'll need to figure out how to add weathering, grime, and damage to the minis for a true post-apocalyptic feel. This may be why I've been painting pretty much anything but my Fallout minis. 

 

Who's Watching Watchmen?

Well, Sylvia and I are watching Watchmen, and we both found the new HBO series suspenseful, compelling, and even, as Sylvia put it, "dangerous." Dangerous because the show, at least based on the first episode, is about a long-simmering race war that's ready to boil over. In an alternate Oklahoma where black people seem to be finally getting ahead, a white supremacist backlash looms. Masked vigilantes work alongside the police, who are majority black and also masked to protect their identities from racist retaliation. But that protection seems to be ending, as violence suddenly and brutally strikes a police force that has seen peace for several years...

If this sounds nothing like Watchmen--the comic book--it's because the show is using the Moore/Gibbons story as backdrop rather than having it drive the narrative. Watchmen (the TV show) is set in the same alternate history as the original work, but the foci--geographic, character, and thematic--are all new and different. Veidt, Rorschach, the Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan and other characters from the comic are barely hinted at, seen in newspaper headlines or on televisions in the background. This storytelling choice delivers a fascinating look into a world that could have been, and how the people of that world are trying to come to grips with the challenges of racism, violence, and, judging by previews, human extinction--that last the plot driver of the comic. 

I was skeptical that Damon Lindelhof and his team could craft an adaptation that respects the original while seeming anything other than exploitative. So far, they've succeeded brilliantly. 

Dat Other Dominion

One day, I wondered what Canada would look like if each American state bordering Canada joined Canada as new provinces. Here's what that would look like: weird. I'm betting we'd almost double our population, though, given we'd be getting Seattle, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Not to mention Detroit and Cleveland and Minneapolis...

Earl 2020

I enjoy travel, maps, and politics, which is why I started to wonder, after our most recent road trip, if I'd visited enough states to win a US Presidential election, assuming I'd win each state I've visited (and assuming a parallel universe in which I'm eligible to run, not being an American).

I added 10 states to my existing tally on this trip, but as you can see above, that's not enough to reach the 270 votes required for victory by the American electoral college system. On the other hand, Sylvia and I are planning to visit New York next year, and that would give me another 29 electoral votes - enough to eke out a narrow win in 2020.

Given the state of American politics today, it's pretty hard to imagine any two candidates delivering this map. Somehow the left wins Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alaska and Indiana while losing the election, and for some reason the reliably Democrat New England - including Washington, DC - chooses the Republican! But then, I suppose practically anything is possible in this bold new era.

Four Plus One More from Tor

How long before these need to be classified as alternate history instead of science fiction? 

Rude Awakening

The cat awoke me this morning, paws kneading my skull.

"I don't want to work all the time," said the cat, telepathically. At first this didn't amaze me, groggy as I was with uninterrupted sleep. I shoved the cat aside and brushed my teeth, chatting with Sylvia.

It wasn't until I stood under the shower's spray that the incongruities hit me.

"Hey, the cat was talking!" I thought.

And then, "And he was doing it telepathically!"

And then, "Wait a minute - when did we get a cat?"

And then, "Wait a minute - we can't have pets, I'm allergic."

And then, finally, I came to full consciousness and realized the cat was a dream, or a pet from a parallel universe briefly visited, its afterimage lingering for a short span of time after the transition. 

What Might Yet Be

After years of searching used book stores for Alternate Heroes, the second book in the What Might Have Been series pictured above, I finally bit the bullet a couple of weeks ago and just ordered it from Amazon. On a whim I lined the books up side-by-side and the commonality of theme struck me: these books all reinforce a cultural norm that's been drilled into citizens since the invention of history: that conflict is part of existence, it's accepted.

Alternate Empires. Alternate Heroes. Alternate Wars. Alternate Americas. Why not Alternate Romances? Alternate Democracies? Alternate Saints? Alternate Friendships? It's not like such stories would have any less potential for gripping human drama - or even potboiler entertainment of the sort offered here.

I'm not at all criticizing these books or the writers who contributed to them; there's value in exploring these themes. But I find it fascinating how popular culture reflects and directs what we believe about the world around us. For a series based on the concept of alternate history, it's interesting that their collective subtext is one of historical and cultural inevitability. 

Nowhere in the 80s

Never one to leave well enough alone, I could not help but imagine how the covers of the Nowhere series might have looked had Paranoid continued publishing them into the 1980s. All right, they probably wouldn't have looked like this at all, but I think they might have gotten a little more futuristic and a little less pulp. For this exercise I learned how to type text on a curve using Photoshop's pen tool! I used that trick to create the list of contributors to the anthology, friends of mine who've written short stories in real life and who, in a parallel universe somewhere, wrote stories for this nonexistent book. Of course they would have been children at the time, come to think of it...

Anyway, I chose to superimpose a rainbow on a black Alberta as a rather obvious visual joke: it's a rainbow over a pot of black gold, a promised land for the many Canadians who immigrate here during boom times. Why would a bunch of Albertans write stories about Leaf Rapids? Maybe in the parallel universe Leaf Rapids became a tourist hub on the scale of Churchill, attracting notoriety and mystique of sufficient quantity to attract storytellers.

This cover is rather a garish mess, but many book covers share that quality. You have to design a lot of bad stuff before you can design any good stuff.

3 Men in a Boat

A few random frames from an educational filmstrip that might have existed in an alternate 1970s. In reality, Mom took a few pictures of Dad, Sean and I on a couple of fishing trips on the Suwanee River near Leaf Rapids. I imagine fishing up there hasn't changed much, although perhaps everyone brings their cell phones on the boat, and maybe a GPS. Or maybe not even the cell phones - I don't seem to remember having coverage up there when Sean and I last revisited the place.

I have several vivid memories of our summer fishing trips, but the one that stands out most is the time the boat was racing along and I decided to reach out and try to pick a cattail as we passed by. That's how I learned why grass leaves are called "blades." I failed to pick the cattail, but the friction of my hand against the razor-sharp edge of the grass gashed open my palm quite efficiently. 

Don't forget to click to embiggen!

Another Paperback on the Edge of Nowhere

Yesterday's effort to render a paperback novel cover wasn't perfect, so I spent a few minutes this morning crafting the inevitable sequel. I moved or changed all of the text elements, and I think they're all better positioned now. I wonder what the ellipsis in the Tundra Weekly quote hides? Probably nothing too flattering...

Paperback on the Edge of Nowhere

Inspired by Jeff's most recent post, I felt the urge to create something retro - in this case, an imaginary paperback from an alternate 1970s. After sketching out the original design, though, I found that giving the cover an authentic aged look with weathering and so on remains beyond my skills. Still, I'm pretty happy with the design itself. I attempted to emulate the look of the first edition cover of Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, so I chose a jungle-looking font and a green/black/yellow colour scheme. I'm particularly happy with the tagline, which can be interpreted in two very different ways, but I had a heck of a time finding the right place to put the author name and the "complete and unabridged" text. I'm still not sure they're in the right spots.

You can read two journeys to the edge of nowhere starting here and here.

If I'd Written Star Wars II, Part IV

Part I
Part II
Part III

Act IV
The two Moffs played by Lee and Reed (or similar) rush the Imperial copy of the Life Star to completion, despite considerable losses in the workforce - so many that some workers spit ironically, "The rebels build a Life Star and it turns out to be more of a Death Star than we ever came up with." But completed it is, and moves out of Imperial homeworld orbit accompanied by a massive fleet of warships, bound for Yavin. "The Life Star will render their defences inert, and then the fleet will smash their capital. Didn't the fools ever hear the old proverb about keeping all their eggs in one basket?" mocks the Grand Admiral.

Meanwhile, Luke, Leia, and Han reach Bespin, soaring down to Cloud City. Luke has calmed, but Leia and Han are still anxious, both of them hoping that they'll find Laurel and perhaps give Luke some measure of peace after all that he's lost. Luke, for his part, has realized that Vader showing up on Gatta Prime almost certainly means that he picked up the trail on Tatooine...and likely killed his friends. He shares his anxiety with Leia, who can do nothing to allay his fears; she knows he's almost certainly correct. But then they're landing on Bespin, and as they leave the shuttle they're greeted by an old friend of Han's one Lando Calrissian, the manager of Cloud City. Han explains why they've come, and Lando smiles widely.

"Laurel Sundiver? Yeah, she's here. She's my right-hand woman, the best all-around tech and problem solver I've ever seen," he says. Luke, delighted, grabs hold of Lando by the shoulders, demanding to see her immediately.

"Whoa, calm down there, friend," Lando says. "I'll take you right to her."

Lando guides Luke, Leia and Han to his office, offering them refreshments then summoning Sundiver to his office. Han and Leia are all smiles, trying to support an increasingly nervous and tongue-tied Luke. Sundiver arrives, a lovely creature despite her unkempt uniform and carbon scoring dirtying her hands and face. She eyes the newcomers quizzically, offering them a tentative smile.

"Laurel, these people have come a long way to see you," Lando says. But before he can say more, Luke leaps to his feet.

"I'm Luke Skywalker," he blurts. "Ben Kenobi sent me. I'm your son.

Sundiver reacts with a mixture of delight and disbelief. "Luke...Luke?! But...the war's not over...Darth Vader is still - "

"Darth Vader is dead," Luke says. "You don't have to worry about him anymore. We can be a family again."

They embrace. Han and Lando are all smiles, while Leia holds back tears of joy.

But it's chaos on the green moon of Yavin. Thanks to sheer good luck, a Red Squadron patrol led by Wedge Antilles has detected the Imperial Fleet just a parsec away. General Dodonna orders rebel defences hastily mobilized, including the incomplete Life Star. With communications jammed, he sends a runner to the Millennium Falcon, with orders for Chewbacca and R2-D2 to get word to Princess Leia, wherever she may be; if the green moon falls, a resurgent rebellion can only coalesce around her leadership.

Chewbacca and R2 escape on the Falcon just as the Second Battle of Yavin begins. The Imperial Life Star exits hyperspace and blasts half the rebel fleet, knocking out its electronics and leaving the ships drifting helplessly. But Wedge's advance warning allowed the rest of the fleet to disperse, a small complement protecting the retreating rebel Life Star with the bulk assembling a hasty assault on the Imperial duplicate. But Chewbacca and R2 can see that the battle is almost hopeless. Reluctantly they jump to hyperspace.

Wedge leads a valiant assault on the Life Star and the Imperial fleet, and despite the incredible odds, the hard-fought battle ends in a devastating draw, with the Imperial Life Star crippled and several Star Destroyers themselves destroyed - but at the cost of most of the surviving rebel fleet. And enough Imperials have survived to start landing troops on the green moon of Yavin. Before the base is overrun, General Dodonna orders Wedge to escort the rebel Life Star to safe harbour, and to regroup with Princess Leia whenever possible. Wedge wants to stay, but he can see that it's hopeless - better to retreat and live to fight another day. Wedge and the half-built Life Star and a few remaining rebel ships jump to lightspeed as the green moon of Yavin burns. One of the Grand Moffs (Lee or Reed, it hardly matters) watches with a smug grin as AT-ATs overrun the main rebel base. The Empire is well and truly back.

The film's denouement takes place on Bespin, Chewbacca and R2 having followed the same trail to Bespin as the others. The awful news is shared all 'round, with Luke and Leia berating themselves for not being there during the attack. But it's Laurel who shares the final words of wisdom:

"Perhaps the Force guided you all here," she says. "If you'd been in the Yavin system, you would have fallen with the others. But you all live, and with you also lives a beacon of hope. Darth Vader is dead, the Empire is still a shell of its former glory. Your friends here say that some of the rebel forces escape. Find them, regroup, resist, and never surrender. Trust in the Force and find your finest hour."

With all aboard, the Millennium Falcon leaves Bespin, jumping to lightspeed as the final credits roll.

If I'd Written Star Wars II, Part III

Part I
Part II

Act III
On the rebel shuttle, Luke is practicing with his father's - rather, his - lightsaber, duelling against a remote slightly more sophisticated than the one seen in the first film. Blindfolded and expertly deflecting the remote's laser blasts, he fails to notice Leia enter the room. She watches with surprise and admiration, not yet having seen this side of Luke, nor his growing confidence. When the drill ends, Luke removes his blindfold and jerks in surprise when he sees Leia, blushing.

"I didn't mean to scare you," she says with gentle mockery.

"No, that's okay. I just...didn't sense you. I was so focussed on the remote that I guess I forgot to pay attention to my wider surroundings."

"Did Obi-Wan teach you how to do that?"

Luke nods sadly; it's clear he still misses his mentor. "He wanted me to be a Jedi, like my father. He said I was strong in the Force. Maybe he was right. I could never have hit that exhaust port without it, or without his guidance and wisdom. But how can I ever become a Jedi without him to teach me?"

Luke sits next to Leia to rest, his head hung low. In his grief for lost Ben, he's almost forgotten his post-adolescent crush on Leia...but she sees him in a new light. Intending at first only to comfort him, she wraps her arms around him, and suddenly they're locked in a kiss - just in time for Han Solo to enter with the news they're about to reach their destination. Han stops in his tracks, frozen in place, watching with growing dismay. Then, hurt and angry, he turns away, heading back to the cockpit, where Threepio informs him that Gatta Central - the main spaceport of Gatta Prime, planet Ben chose as Laurel Skywalker's initial hiding place - has sent landing coordinates. Han responds gruffly, bringing the shuttle in for a landing.

Meanwhile, a squadron of X-Wings led by Wedge Antilles lifts off from the green moon of Yavin and jumps to lightspeed for an initial recon of the Life Star Expeditionary Force's planned route to the Imperial homeworld. All seems quiet when they re-enter normal space, but unbeknownst to Wedge the Imperials on the Super Star Destroyer have decoded the Life Star plans. The haven't found any obvious weaknesses, so instead they've used the plans begun a crash construction program of their own Life Star, hoping to complete it before the rebels can attack. With the Empire's greater manufacturing capacity, it's possible they can launch a Life Star attack on the forces protecting Yavin, not only knocking out the rebel Life Star but leaving the rebel base vulnerable to conventional attack. Moffs Lee and Reed oversee the Imperial Life Star's rapid construction, ensuring airtight security so that word of the duplicate weapon doesn't leak back to the rebels.

Ignorant of all this, Wedge and his fellow X-Wing pilots map out the route to the Imperial homeworld, turning back before reaching the bulk of Imperial defenses.

"Freedom Corridor all clear," Wedge reports back. "There'll be fierce resistance closer to the Imperial core, but with the bulk of the fleet protecting the Life Star there'll be no way to stop us."

Back on Gatta Prime, Luke, Leia, Han and Threepio walk the streets of the vast city surrounding Gatta Central. Exotic alien life teems busily, but the quartet is virtually ignored - until tentacles snap out of an alley to snatch Threepio into the darkness. "Help, help!" Threepio shrieks, but Luke's lightsaber flashes faster than the eye can follow, sending chunks of tentacle flying. Threepio staggers to freedom with a "My goodness!" as the wounded alien scurries off to safety, howling.

Han and Leia are impressed by Luke's speed and skill, but they also note a sadistic, almost predatory gleam in Luke's eyes. He's about to give chase, to kill the alien, but Han rests a hand on his shoulder.

"Ease down, kid, you got him. He's not gonna bother us anymore."

Luke calms down, reluctantly. Without a mentor, the dark and light sides of the force war within his soul, and Luke doesn't have the knowledge to understand what's happening to him. "Let's just find my mother," he barks, leading the others toward the address Ben left.

At the edge of the Gatta system, Darth Vader jerks in his cockpit, as if suddenly sensing something - a powerful source of the Force. "Laurel..? No...Luke. Luke Skywalker. I have you now." He accelerates toward Gatta Prime.

Luke, Leia, Han and Threepio reach Laurel's home, but it's empty - long abandoned, as Luke half-suspected it would be. As the others look about for possible clues of her current location, Luke squats on the floor, closing his eyes, reaching out with the Force to see if he can track her presence. But he feels nothing, and his brow furrows with anger as his frustration grows.

"There's nothing! I can't feel anything!" he shouts. Leia kneels to calm him, and Han comes to the rescue with the news he's discovered a hidden vault with a holo imager inside.

"Old smuggler's trick," he notes with some admiration for their quarry. "False panel in the 'fresher. I'll bet she left this for you, kid."

Luke turns on the holo, and sure enough it's Laurel Skywalker, a beautiful young woman with a message nearly two decades old. "Hello, Luke. Or Obi-Wan, perhaps, but I hope it's you, Luke, who's seeing this message now. Either way, one or both of you have come looking for me, perhaps with the news that the dark times are over and we can be a family again. I'm sorry that I couldn't wait here; the agents of Darth Vader were getting too close and I fled to a place called Cloud City floating high in the atmosphere of the planet Bespin.Hopefully I'll still be living there by the time you see this message, and I can finally be a proper mother to you..."

Just as the message ends, Vader appears, igniting his lightsaber. Han pulls his blaster, but Vader yanks it out of his grip with telekinesis, and then uses the same power to casually fling Solo out a window; the smuggler lands in an unconscious heap in a garden outside. Threepio, in an uncharacteristic display of bravery, raises his hands as if to ward off Vader. "Stay back, Master Luke!" he cries, and those are the droid's last words, for Vader cleaves him in half straight down the middle, utterly destroying Threepio beyond repair.

Luke screams in rage, drawing his own lightsaber and charging Vader. "You killed him!" he screams. "And you killed Ben!"

Leia watches in horror as Luke and Vader duel. Vader should have the edge, but Luke's youth and rage have given the boy an uncanny ferocity that catches the Sith Lord off guard. Leia draws a sidearm, aiming for Vader, but the saber duel is so fast and unpredictable that she holds her fire, afraid of hitting Luke accidentally. It's a battle to the death, neither man speaking, lightsabers leaving streaks of neon light in their wake as they carve through the air and smash together, errant slashes slicing apart the walls and furniture. Realizing she can do little here, Leia retreats to the yard, finding Han and tending to the unconscious rogue. He awakens with a groan, and Leia helps him to his feet.

"Luke's fighting Vader! We've got to help him before - "

But suddenly there is a scream from within the house. A second later, something rolls out the door, something vaguely spherical, smoking...it's Vader's head. A second later, Luke steps into view, extinguishing his lightsaber.

"My father is avenged," he says, his eyes hollow. "My aunt and uncle and Ben...they can rest now."

It should be a moment of triumph. But Han and Leia's expressions are of horror as they feel the waves of dark rage emanating from their troubled young friend...

If I'd Written Star Wars II, Part II

For the backstory and Act I, click here. 

Act II
In a scene on the Imperial homeworld we see the Emperor for the first time - not the fearsome villain we know from the films, but the puppet described in Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Wars. Two Grand Moffs (played perhaps by Christoper Lee and Oliver Reed) flank the Emperor, looking far more dangerous than the withered old man slumped atop the Imperial throne. Before the Emperor kneels Darth Vader, stripped of his rank and prestige thanks to losing the Death Star plans and the station itself. In a clearly scripted speech prepared for him by the Moffs, the Emperor reluctantly banishes Darth to the galactic rim to show what happens to those who fail the Empire. Clearly the Moffs would have preferred execution, but Darth's mastery of the Force gives them just enough pause to order a lighter sentence. "You allowed a farm boy from some insignificant backwater to destroy the mightiest weapon the universe has ever seen," the Emperor quavers. "Even worse, you have given the rebels a hero to rally around, the name Luke Skywalker galvanizing not only the treacherous rebels, but instilling fear in our own populace. Begone! Let your name be first cursed, then forgotten."

With no cause and no mentor, Darth is left only with dreams of revenge and bitter regrets over the life he might have lived. He's now nothing more than a deformed freak in a life support suit, albeit a freak with some dangerous telekinetic powers. His only consolation is his murder of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but even that victory rings hollow given the mysterious evaporation of his old foe's body.

Darth leaves the Imperial palace to the jeers and catcalls of a riled-up mob, orchestrated, of course, by the Moffs. He's pelted with rotten fruit as he boards an ancient shuttle. His rage hidden by his awful mask, he slides into the pilot's seat and sets course for the edge of the Empire, silently plotting his next moves.

On their way back to the green moon of Yavin, Luke informs Han that if he can get permission from the Rebels for leave, he intends to search for his lost mother. "Kid, this is going to sound harsh but you're talking about a fool's errand. There's no way your mom is still on the same planet where old Ben dumped her - hell, if she had any smarts she'll be parsecs away from there."

But Luke is adamant that he can find her. He's been practicing with the Force, he admits, a revelation that makes Han roll his eyes. "You really believe that hocus pocus? Kid, it's going to get you killed."

"But if I can get close enough to her, if I can even get close to a place she's been, I'm sure that I'll be able to sense her trail," Luke whines. "It's worth a try. She's the only family I have left!" 

The argument continues on the green moon of Yavin. Han expects Leia to back him up, but to his shock and consternation not only does she give Luke permission to go, she insists on loaning him a fast ship - and even worse, she offers to go along. "I know what it's like to be an orphan," she says. "And diplomatic matters here are in good hands. You saved the Rebellion, Luke, maybe even the galaxy - we're in your debt, and the Organa family always pays its debts."

Han, suddenly not liking the idea of Luke and Leia alone together for weeks in a comfortable ship, decides that he'll go along too "To make sure you crazy kids don't get in over your heads!" Chewbacca and R2-D2 stay behind to oversee the latest overhaul of the Millennium Falcon, but Luke invites C-3PO along with his group; on the edge of the galaxy, a translator might come in handy.

As Luke, Leia, Han and Threepio zoom away from Yavin's moon, the sleek, dark shuttlecraft of the Imperial spy crosses into Imperial territory, zooming in toward a Super Star Destroyer. She delivers the plans to the Life Star, and a smirking Grand Admiral orders the plans analyzed, certain that the rebel secret weapon will have a fatal flaw. "Won't those rebel scum be surprised when we snuff out their Life Star just as they destroyed our glorious Death Star?"

Darth Vader flies to Tatooine, where he interrogates - or rather tortures - Luke's remaining childhood friends. To his shock, he learns enough to piece together the fact that Luke wasn't just another Skywalker - a common enough name in the galaxy - but the accursed son of his friend Anakin, the baby he tried and failed to kill two decades ago. And even worse, Obi-Wan had recruited the boy to the side of the rebellion, which ultimately led to Vader's disgrace. Mocked by the universe, hardly able to fathom such coincidences are possible given the vast size of the galaxy, Vader flies into a rage, killing Luke's friends and then tracking down Ben Kenobi's desert home, where he finds the same message meant for Luke. Grinning behind his mask, he follows the same trail as Luke and the others, just a few short steps behind...

Tomorrow: Act III!

If I'd Written Star Wars II, Part I

Like most other kids who were lucky enough to see Star Wars during its original theatrical run, I fell in love with the film. I was enthralled by the space battles, intrigued by the exotic aliens, frightened by Darth Vader and, most of all, utterly captivated by the fictional universe George Lucas and his team crafted. In the beginning, it was a world of infinite possibilities - until succeeding films closed off those possibilities one by one. Sometimes I prefer to pretend that Star Wars was the first and last film set in Lucas' expansive universe, so that I can continue to imagine how the story of Luke, Leia, Han, Darth and the others may have turned out differently...

Though most critics identify The Empire Strikes Back as the strongest film in the series, Star Wars remains my favourite. Empire may feature stronger direction and editing, a more complex story and actors who have grown more confident in their roles, but it also marks the point when Lucas' universe started to contract rather than expand.

When I watched Star Wars though eight year old eyes, Luke Skywalker was my avatar. His trials were mine; his joy and sorrows shared. Like Luke, then, I fell in love with Princess Leia, and grew jealous when Han Solo showed an interest as well. And like Luke, I wished that I'd known my father, and felt hatred for Darth Vader, the dark warrior who'd killed him.

When the final credits rolled on that summer day in 1977, I speculated eagerly about what might happen next. Darth Vader had escaped, so naturally he and Luke would eventually wind up in a face-to-face confrontation. Luke and Han would jostle for Leia's affections. The Empire would launch some kind of counterattack in response to the loss of the Death Star. When I played with my Kenner Star Wars action figures on the sand dunes of Leaf Rapids, all kinds of possibilities raced through my mind. While my fantasies were never as coherent as I'm about to relate, here's what a sensible outline of my thoughts might have looked like...

ACT I
The opening narrative crawl - sans "Episode V" - would inform the audience that after the destruction of the Death Star, a host of new worlds had joined the Rebellion, fortifying the forest moon of Yavin and turning it into an impregnable fortress, the seat of a burgeoning new provisional government. Empire and Rebellion are now at about equal strength, and the as-yet-unseen Emperor has ordered his forces to fall back in an effort to keep any other potentially rebellious star systems under the heel of the Empire. With the fighting at a lull, Luke Skywalker returns to Tatooine with the droids, Chewbacca and Han Solo to tie up some loose ends...

As the narrative crawl disappears into the starfield, the camera pans down from the Millennium Falcon, coming in for a leisurely landing at Mos Eisley. While Han and Chewbacca use their reward from the last film to pay off Jabba the Hutt - without incident - Luke and the droids return to Anchorhead. Here Luke visits the graves of his aunt and uncle, learning that neighbours had to make arrangements for the burial after Luke's abrupt disappearance. He's reunited with his old friends, unseen in the first film: Deak, Windy, Camie and the rest. They hold a memorial for Biggs Darklighter, lost in the battle of Yavin. Luke reflects on how much has changed in his life in so short a time. As his friends depart - some proud of Luke, some angry that he couldn't save Biggs, some not knowing how to react to seeing a boy they called "Wormie" return home as a galactic hero - Luke is left feeling more alone than ever. He rents a landspeeder - the same, it turns out, that he sold in the first film, but Luke fails to recognize it thanks to a new paint job - and drives to the Lars farm to sift through whatever ruins remain. Finding nothing of value from his old life, he wills the farm to the neighbours who cleaned up the smoking ruins and makes one final stop - Ben Kenobi's small home. Intending only to secure Ben's home from Jawas and other scavenging intruders, he discovers that Ben had left a holographic message for him, perhaps foreseeing his own death and Luke's return:

"Luke," the hologram says, "If you're seeing me now, I can only assume our mission to Alderaan succeeded, but that I didn't survive our quest. I knew that you would return here if you could, so I left this message behind to tell you all that you need to know, all the things I didn't have time to share in our race to save the princess. I told you what happened to your father...but we never talked about your mother."

Luke, wide-eyed and shushing the interrupting droids, listens as Ben reveals that as far as he knows, his mother, Laurel Sundiver, still lives. She was an astromech, and she met Luke's father Anakin while servicing his starfighter. Unfortunately, Darth Vader, a rival Jedi, also loved Laurel, and betrayed and murdered Luke's father just as Ben claimed in the first film. In a jealous rage, he slew Anakin only months after Luke was born. Ben - or Obi-Wan, as he was then known - arrived just in time to prevent the sadistic Darth from killing Luke and Laurel as well. Obi-Wan maimed Darth horribly in the ferocious battle, but ensured that his former friend received the very best medical care...care that put Darth in the awful black metal armor and life support system so familiar to audiences of the first film. Darth should have served a long prison sentence, but he escaped medical custody, vowing revenge on Kenobi and the Skywalkers. Growing ever stronger in the dark side of the force, Darth became a constant threat to Laurel and Luke, and Obi-Wan arranged to send Laurel to one side of the galaxy and Luke to the other, to Tatooine.

Ben, via hologram, expresses his hopes that Vader is dead and that mother and son might be reunited. He cautions Luke to attempt reunion only after the war is over and Vader is vanquished, but Luke, still young, impatient and without mentors, vows to find his mother and protect her from Vader and the Empire.

Meanwhile, back on the green moon of Yavin, Princess Leia and the Rebel leadership continue to use diplomatic channels to bring more worlds to the side of the rebellion. Everyone knows the lull in hostilities can't last forever. That's why, aside from diplomatic initiatives, the rebels are working on a doomsday weapon of their own, a Life Star, a huge moon-sized ion cannon designed to render technology useless without harming life forms. A convoy of battleships leading the Life Star to the Imperial capital could end the war once and for all, with relatively minimal loss of life.

But a spy has stolen the Life Star plans, and prepares even now to make her escape...

Tomorrow: Act II!

Dispatches from a Parallel Universe: Pennies from Hell

August 14, 1900

 

Private "Penny Dreadful" Detective Stops Nickel-and-Dime Crook

Special to the Regina Crier by Nancy Fitzgerald

 

Broadview, Assiniboia - Joe Jones, the Welsh-Canadian writer who has thrilled a Generation of mystery lovers with his thrilling Detective stories of Dash Eagle, Private Detective, became embroiled in a real-life Drama yesterday afternoon when he stepped into Broadview Sweets for a stick of candy and instead found himself in the midst of a Villainous Robbery. 

 

Jones witnessed a swarthy, dull-eyed assailant threaten the candy store's aged proprietor, one Nick Applodious, with a heavy cudgel.Thinking quickly, Jones seized a jar of pennies from the counter - presumably placed there for the day's accounting - and hurled the heavy missile like a Champion Rounder.

 

"I yelled 'I'll knock some cents into you' and threw the jar," Jones recounts. "I was probably more surprised than the Burglar when the Pennies hit him square in the forehead, knocking him out cold. Rather than call the cops, this situation called for some Copper!"

 

The Miscreant, identified by Broadview constable Henry McTavish as one Earl J. Woods of no fixed address, was laid low by the blow. Applodious informed the RCMP that even had the robber successfully carried his plot to conclusion, it would have Profited him little. 

"On a slow day like today I've naught but Nickels and Dimes in the register," Applodious confesses. "Had he stolen every coin, every gumdrop, every lolly and all the soda in the store he may have escaped with ten or fifteen Dollars' worth of goods - hardly worth it with today's hyperinflation." 

Woods will be transported from Broadview to Regina for trial this week.

 

Review: 11/22/63

This review contains SPOILERS for Stephen King's latest novel, 11/22/63. Read no further if you have yet to read, or have interest in reading, this book.

Stephen King's latest novel, 11/22/63, is a suspenseful, melancholy fable that uses time travel to explore not merely a bygone era, but the evolution of culture, the ephemeral nature of love and happiness, and the struggles of those who live on the fringes of society. It's the most satisfying novel King has written in years.

The story's hook is simple: Jake Epping, a thirty-five year old high school teacher from Maine, is told by his friend Al that Al's diner contains a time portal to 1958. For years, Al has been using the time portal to buy fresh hamburger for his restaurant, earning huge profits with each burger sold (meat was much cheaper in the '50s). But Al begins to think that perhaps the portal could be used for a more noble purpose: to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy. Unfortunately, Al comes down with lung cancer before he can complete the task, and asks Jake to continue the mission. Rocked by a recent divorce and compelled by the possibilities, Jake agrees.

Every writer approaches the rules of time travel differently. In this case, those rules are simple: stepping through the portal from 2011 to 1958 will always bring you to the exact time and place in 1958, not a second sooner or later. When you step through the portal in the opposite direction, from 1958 to 2011, only two minutes will have passed in 2011, no matter how much time you've spent in the past - whether it's five minutes or five years. In other words, if you need to do something in 1961 or '62 and you mess up, you can't just travel back to that point - you have to start all over again in 1958, growing older by living in the past while time crawls in 2011.

Despite these limitations and risks, Jake makes the leap into the past and explores the possibilities of time travel by righting a couple of local Maine wrongs: he saves a girl from being accidentally paralyzed and prevents an act of brutal domestic violence in Derry, a fictional Maine town King fans will remember from It and other King novels and stories. King tosses in a few easter eggs for said fans, including a short scene featuring a pair of important characters from It along with other surprises. King takes his time in getting to the actual assassination plot; Jake spends years in the past, setting up a new identity, building a new life for himself, investigating Lee Harvey Oswald's movements and connections (he wants to be absolutely sure Oswald was the only shooter) and even finding romance.

King's depiction of the late 50s and early 60s is rich, vividly painted and well-researched, nostalgic while recognizing the less appealing elements of that era, chiefly poverty and racism. Jake marvels at the rich flavour and texture of the era's food, enjoys the fresh air and lack of paperwork while suppressing his 21st century disgust at the prudishness, sexism and racism of the era. Jake finds a teaching gig in a Dallas suburb, splitting his time between teaching, a budding romance with the school librarian and stalking Lee Harvey Oswald. But the past isn't eager to be changed, and Epping finds that the fabric of history itself isn't on his - or Kennedy's - side...

Generally speaking, this is the best King novel in years, with excellent characterization, a compelling story and, for once, a satisfying ending, one of King's weaknesses at novel length. I am a little disappointed that King, here writing a science fiction tale rather than a horror story, still manages to fall into one of the more troubling tropes of the horror genre - punishing female characters for having sex. While the act makes sense within the context of the novel, it remains vexing. While King is a liberal, he's used to writing in a fundamentally conservative genre (horror), so some of those tropes are bound to seep into his other work, I suppose. It's the one true black mark on an otherwise superlative effort.

11/22/63 ends with a riveting moral conundrum for Jake, one that will leave readers wondering which choice they would have made in the protagonist's circumstances. Here again, though, the conservatism of the horror genre makes its impact felt in this nominally science-fictional work; it turns out that altering the past has apocalyptic consequences. Readers hoping for an in-depth exploration of what the world might have been like had JFK escaped his fate will be disappointed; what King gives us is interesting, but not nearly as detailed as alternate history buffs would have preferred. That isn't the story King wanted to tell. Despite its title, this isn't really a story about Kennedy or politics or even time travel; it's a story about finding your place in the world, dealing with loss and seizing whatever happiness you can in a hard, cold world. And on those terms, 11/22/63 is immensely satisfying.