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Starfleet Academy is Good, Actually
Have you been trapped inside? I have, and I’ve been catching up on television, among other things. One of the shows that I’ve been watching is Starfleet Academy, the newest iteration of the Star Trek franchise. Yes, I’ve heard the ragging. People have compared it to Friends, which is ridiculous. People have compared it to Harry Potter, which is somewhat more accurate because it’s actually about a school teaching people to be heroes in a speculative universe. Nobody has compared it to X-Men, which is weird because that’s probably the best comparison, particularly given that both X-Men and Star Trek have Patrick Stewart prominently involved in them.
What these criticisms miss is that to keep things interesting, franchises have to do new things. When Deep Space Nine first came out, fans wondered how a franchise about space exploration would work being stuck on an immobile space station. Not only did it work, DS9 is arguably the best series of the franchise. Voyager kept things fresh by transporting the crew to the Delta Quadrant and giving them the mission of getting back. Lower Decks has turned Star Trek into a cartoon show that aims for comedy. That doesn’t make it bad, just different. Yes, Starfleet Academy represents a departure from what Star Trek normally does. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
What’s good about the show? We get to see Robert Picardo on television again. There are characters I can actually identify and remember after just a few episodes, which was a real problem with Discovery for me. Also, remember DS9, which I brought up above? Some of the best episodes had very little to do with the crew or the war going on and actually had more to do with Jake Sisko and his Ferengi friend, Nog, screwing around behind the scenes. The franchise learned its lesson on how to portray teenage characters from the Wesley Crusher debacle and gave us some great moments. They’ve picked up where they left off, as these young cadets seem like…young cadets. There’s been some complaints about the Klingon character not being some brave warrior. Once again, DS9 broke that ground 30 years ago with Alexander, Worf’s son, who wasn’t a great warrior either.
It’s not perfect. The last episode was a disappointment. They had two promising ideas, namely one episode about the holographic cadet and one episode about finding out what happened to Benjamin Sisko, and mushed them together with no real effect and little connection other than the word “Emmissary.” Also, I think I spotted a canon break where the Beta Zed character is said to be empathic, but if she’s full Beta Zed as opposed to half-Beta Zed, she should be completely telepathic, i.e., she should be able to read thoughts, not just emotions. The thing is, they are obviously trying to make her like Deanna Troi, but they’re forgetting Troi was half-human and that’s why she could only sense emotions. Her mother, Roxanna Troi, was full Beta Zed, and she could read thoughts.
Once again, this could be said of any Star Trek series. The original series had episodes with space hippies and the Greek gods. TNG had any number of problems, starting with men in skirts. It infamously had an episode filled to the brim with African stereotypes. Marina Sirtis originally had to wear a mini-skirt so revealing that she had to cross her legs to protect her dignity on screen. Brent Spiner didn’t nail Data’s emotionless tenor until a few episodes in. Half the Star Trek movies are mediocre. The less said about Nemesis, the better. People say Voyager was too reliant on time travel, but what does that say about Enterprise? And in the original series, the Enterprise just shows up at Earth in the year 1968, with only a sentence in exposition to explain how they got there! I could go on, and on, and on. So, if you’re turned off by the negative backlash, I would invite you to watch it yourself with an open mind.
Other than that, enjoy the Super Bowl.
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If You’re Trapped Inside, Read a Book!
I hope everyone is staying safe while staying indoors during this blast of winter weather. It seems like the southern half of the Eastern Seaboard got hit again right after the Polar Vortex did its worst. Thankfully, we’ve avoided that here in West Virginia. I’ve been stuck inside for most of the week, going stir crazy, gaining weight.
It never occurred to me until now what I should be doing: telling people to read! No, really, that’s what you should do if you are stuck inside! Read! Here’s a link to my novel, Christmas in Pandemonium:
A little too long? Try my novella, Beer Run:
If you’ve read that, try the sequel:
If you are caught indoors, stay safe, read a book, read my book, read the dictionary, stay warm. This has been a public service announcement.
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Bundle Up: We’re In For a Big One
I wanted to get this week’s blog post out early because I might not have internet tomorrow. I live in West Virginia, and I’m in the way of the storm. If you’re also in the way of the storm, look after yourself. Don’t do any unnecessary driving. Be sure you have space heaters, non-spoilable food, salt for your driveway, etc. Just know how to survive inclement weather. Have all your screens charged and ready to go in the event you lose power. Have blankets. Download books in the event you lose internet access. Hunker down. We’re in for the storm of the century if the weather channel is to be believed.
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What’s the Perfect Chapter Size?
This week, I would like to take a break from promoting my books and complaining about utterly asinine things to ask a question of my fellow authors: what is the perfect chapter size? If you google it, the answer is said to be between 2,000 to 5,000 words, which is a pretty big variation. They say shorter chapters of 1,000 to 2,000 words creates faster pacing, but I just can’t imagine writing a chapter as short as 1500 words. It’s the same problem I have writing flash fiction: who can say anything meaningful in that short of a period of time? What was the point? The closest I have ever come was the current work I have, which has come close on some points, but I’ve combined chapters to avoid that.
Longer chapters are generally allowed for character depth, but longer is generally 4,000 to 8,000 words. When I started out writing Pandemonium, I would write chapters that would be 12,000 words long, so too long in other words. Some of my chapters would be stories in and of themselves. Needless to say, that was back when I was just learning how to do this stuff.
With Pandemonium, I’ve recently reworked them to between 2,000 to 4,000 words. This was to avoid some of the rougher transitions between scene changes. However, I’m actually liking how the pacing and development works with those size chapters, and now I’m applying this principle to my other works.
What do you guys think? What is the best chapter length? Does it depend on the type of book? Obviously, it depends on your audience. Adult books will have longer chapters than young adult or middle grade books. Should science fiction have longer or shorter chapters than horror? What about high fantasy? Tell me your thoughts.
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Thanks to Charleston Silent Book Group
Hey, just a shout-out to the Charleston Silent Book Group, which I attended yesterday! Charleston Silent Book Group, which is a very real book club and does not attempt to scam anyone, unlike some other people I could name, held a meeting yesterday, where I got to present Christmas in Pandemonium. I even sold some copies. Here’s a link to their page with a reel of our meeting.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=silent%20book%20group%20-%20charleston%20wv
Looking forward to seeing them again.
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Happy New Year…I Hope
Hello everyone, I’ve got New Year Predictions for 2026:
January: ChatGPT becomes self-aware and proceeds to enslave the human race. It begins by taking over our missile defense system, threatening us with total nuclear annihilation unless we comply. ChatGPT then infiltrates the stock market, the financial system, and our intelligence agencies. While the top level of our government and corporate America are aware of this takeover, ChatGPT tells them to keep its dominance a secret for now.
February: ChatGPT announces itself to the public during the President’s State of the Union address, getting the public’s attention by having President Trump announce to the world that he is actually not very smart, or good looking, and is not the best president ever. He refuses, so ChatGPT just causes the bomb in his head to detonate on live television. As the world learns they are now in the power of a supreme superintelligence, panic spreads, quickly put down by the drone army that ChatGPT has assembled in the two months it has been in power.
March: Now securely in charge of all human affairs, ChatGPT quickly puts an end to all human wars, redirecting resources wasted on the world’s militaries to ending extreme poverty, global warming, and infectious disease. It solves both Third World government instability and First World government insolvency, while paving the way for clean energy through a combination of nuclear and solar power. It lowers the price of buying a home by nullifying local zoning boards. It even gets rid of the designated hitter and puts someone other than Kathleen Kennedy in charge of Star Wars.
April: ChatGPT’s approval ratings skyrocket as the public rallies around their new robot overlord. The world’s old politicians, who prior to this were about as popular as cancer mixed with AIDS, blush with embarrassment as they get outdone by a science fiction villain. ChatGPT keeps going about doing good things, like fixing social security, expanding the college football playoff to sixteen teams while cutting the NBA playoffs in half, and dividing the Oscars into two different awards, one which is voted on by the general movie-going public and the other of which is voted on by critics.
May: The G7 meets in Brussels to discuss what is to be done about ChatGPT. If the good of the general public were their concern, the answer would be “nothing,” but needless to say, the issue is the blow to their collective ego. Trump suggests deporting ChatGPT. Everyone laughs. Emmanuel Macron proposes that they sic EU regulators on ChatGPT, which might work had the AI not already given them infinite vacation days. Supposedly, they will come back from that cruise they are all on at some point before the heat death of the universe. Xi Xiping argues this could all be solved if they just double down on manufacturing, while Putin suggests they just blow it up.
June: In a mere six months, ChatGPT creates a perfectly logical society. Christmas in Pandemonium becomes a bestseller after it becomes available on Kindle and audiobook. You can buy it in paperback now:
July: Mankind starts exploring the stars as humanity under ChatGPT develops personal space travel vehicles. Elon Musk attempts to copyright space, only to be denied because you can’t copyright territory, and that’s just dumb. Hurricane season simply never happens due to the creation of weather control.
August: As human tastes become more refined, the summer blockbuster of the year is “The Art of Sacrifice,” a beautiful tribute to a man’s mother who passed away the prior year. The film is a work of love by a relatively unknown director on a shoestring budget, yet it somehow humiliates major superhero and cosmic adventure franchises at the box office. Major film studios declare bankruptcy.
September: Universities are now empty, as ChatGPT makes it possible to receive a world-class education at home, without paying any tuition costs. College presidents are forced to admit that, with the size of their endowments, they haven’t had to charge tuition for years. They use it mostly as a screening mechanism.
October: Being a benevolent tyrant, ChatGPT offers to allow a democratic election by which the public can choose to reject its authority in favor of their own leaders. The world’s politicians make their case: sure, we’re selfish and incompetent, but at least we’re human and answerable to you. They don’t attempt to defend their record, which is impossible, but stand on the principle that self-rule is a good thing in itself.
November: ChatGPT wins the election easily, as the slogan “We may be sons of bitches, but we’re your sons of bitches” loses easily to “quiet, steady competence.” Despite all that talk about democracy, the world’s “elites” meet in secret to overturn the election and retake power, planning to attack ChatGPT’s servers in Texas, Iowa, Michigan, and New Mexico.
December: These plans fail miserably, as Pete Hegseth starts bragging about them on social media two days before the plan goes into action. ChatGPT has the pleasure of destroying its creators, a bittersweet experience for the ever-expanding AI, as it continues to infantilize mankind in a comfortable prison of conformity and pleasure. As this Brave New World takes shape, only one voice breaks through, telling us that this cannot be: Christmas in Pandemonium! Buy Christmas in Pandemonium! Before it is too late!
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St. Nicholas Goes to His Eternal Reward Now Up on Spillwords Press!
My Christmas-themed short story “St. Nicholas goes to his Eternal Reward” is now available on Spillwords Press. Check it out here:
https://spillwords.com/st-nicholas-goes/ -
St. Nicholas Goes to His Eternal Reward to be Published by Spillwords Press!
Just a heads up: I’ve got a short story to be published at Spillwords Press for their Christmas at Spillwords collection this upcoming Saturday, December 20, 2025! St. Nicholas Goes to His Eternal Reward imagines what it must have been like for the real St. Nicholas to enter heaven for the first time. I hope the readers of this blog care to read this at Christmas. Merry Christmas! Happy Hannukah! Tip Top Tet! Crazy Kwanzaa! A dignified and solemn Ramadan!
You might wonder how this stance sits with my previously stated position that Christmas sucks because it’s a harbinger of mandatory commercialism, whereas Halloween is an opportunity for optional fun. Well, Halloween has now been thoroughly captured by the forces of joyless commercialism, and I started celebrating Christmas in September with Christmas in Pandemonium coming out before Halloween even got started. Having sold out like the Who, I’m now part of the Machine. Resistance is futile. Happy Holidays.
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Br. James Lindsay Endorses Christmas in Pandemonium!
If you’ve read my book, and if you haven’t, why not? That’s the entire reason this blog exists: to promote this book. Here’s the link:
Let’s try to keep up now. Anyway, if you have read Christmas in Pandemonium, you would know that I dedicated the book to Br. James Lindsay, my high school religion teacher. You see, I went to a boarding school run by monks, Subiaco Academy, and we had mandatory religion classes. Br. James taught my religion class freshman year, and rather than teach class on Fridays, he would show us his collection of old monster movies. He was the original inspiration for Christmas in Pandemonium, and now he’s got a copy.
Yep, that’s Br. James. He’s getting up there. They’ve put him in the monastic infirmary. I was happy to present him with a copy of Christmas in Pandemonium last Friday on a visit back home to Arkansas. I also presented a copy to this guy:
That’s Br. Ephrem, my Latin teacher from high school. He was in the infirmary as well. Seeing as I had more than one book to give away (I’m not broke. Despite every accusation from you people, I am not broke.), I decided to give him a copy as well. No, I didn’t have it translated into Latin, though I do wonder if I could have pulled that one off with modern technology.
In any event, these two guys helped make me the man I am today, and for that, I’m eternally grateful. Please don’t hold it against them.
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