New Worlds, New Voices - SFF Shooting Gallery
NWNV "Shooting Gallery" provides writers with the chance to test market their best SFF novels and hopefully score a contract. Agents and TV/Film reps will check in and review work during 2022. AAC will edit beforehand as needed. For Algonkian alums only.
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Exposition and End Game This select forum thread is dedicated exclusively to Algonkian alums who wish to post sell sheets of their completed SFF novels, or novels-in-progress, for the purpose of showcasing them to literary agents and TV/Film reps. We will inform these professionals of new high-concept projects and invite them to stop by regularly during 2021. If they wish to request something immediately, or at a future date, they will either contact you directly, make a post, or else contact us. It is also possible they might wish to video conference with you. The scenarios are various, but all is casual. There is no set schedule. This is how we want this to wo…
Last reply by EditorAdmin, -
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Name: Allora Dannon Title: Sisters, Salt, and Dragons Genre: Contemporary Fantasy Comps: Female The Goonies meets Jurassic Park with dragons. Hook Line: Retired in disgrace to a small, modern-day mining town, an ex-dragon hunter swears the only good dragons are dead ones—until the day a "not-so-good” dragon saves her life. Pitch: As far as Estel’s concerned, the only good dragons are dead ones, and Estel was good as hell at hunting dragons until she failed to stop the one that killed her brother. Now 30, retired, and disgraced, all Estel wants are simple things: love, a non-lethal 9-5, and a quiet life for her family and—most especially—her youngest …
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Author - Matt Varga Title - FLICKER Genre - Near-Future Thriller Comps - FLICKER blends the mystery of Alex Michaelides’ THE SILENT PATIENT with the mind-bending science of Blake Crouch’s DARK MATTER, and the moral complexity of Alex Garland’s EX MACHINA. Hook Line - When therapist Rebecca is assigned as the counselor to dissuade Derrick from state-assisted suicide, she uncovers an online underground movement victimizing young men that threatens not only her family and her life, but seeks to control the very essence of life. Pitch Dr. Rebecca Ansley provides mandatory counseling for assisted suicide patients at Flicker, an organization …
Last reply by Doc Varga, -
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Author Name: K. R. Raye Novel Title: The Replicant Prince Genre: Young Adult Fantasy Comparables: The Replicant Prince is a YA version of Amari and The Night Brothers by B. B. Alston crossed with a less-dark An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. Think “Black teenage Jason Bourne meets Star Wars – A New Hope.” Hook Line: On a distant planet, a beloved prince gets ambushed and suffers from baffling memory loss. After discovering an illicit doppelganger, he must explore a dangerous land to expose the perpetrator before he’s banished from his idyllic kingdom. Short Pitch: Surviving a surprise attack, sixteen-year-old Taj finds himsel…
Last reply by K. R. Raye, -
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Title: The Unmaking of Them Genre: Adult Fantasy Romance Word Count: 113,000 words Book Comps: House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune meets Uprooted by Naomi Novik Media Comps: Howl’s Moving Castle meets The Shape of Water For the antagonist, think the Borg (but magical) meets World War Z Pitch: Twenty-five-year-old Artemis Sanchez has plans: thrive in her dream job in London and care for what’s left of her family. But her carefully-constructed life is threatened when she comes face-to-face with Sevan, an alluring, magical being who, from the shadows, has been absorbing entire communities into their ever-expanding hive mind. Ignorant…
Last reply by Halle Watson, -
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The Pirate of Souls Pitch Document The Pirate of Souls can stand alone, but it also the first installment of a planned historical/fantasy series. Genre: Historical/Fantasy High Middle Grade Book comps: The Traitor’s Blade by Kevin Sands (Book 5 of The Blackthorn Key series, Aladdin Books, 2021), Deeplight by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children’s Books, 2019) Media comps: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pirates of the Caribbean Hook: A 19th century abandoned boy joins a crew of sailor-magicians to rid the world of a legendary pirate sorcerer out to ravage Europe. Word count: 62,700 words Pitch: Thirteen-year-old Senan MacCulloch is sta…
Last reply by R. Heath, -
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NAME: Samantha Wilhelm NOVEL NAME: The Last Touch (the first book of a planned series) GENRE: YA Dystopian Fantasy WORDS: 85K COMPARABLES: Book Comps: Adam Silvera’s Infinity Son meets Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me meets Neil Shusterman's Scythe Media Comps: Steven Knight’s See meets Avatar: The Legend of Korra PITCH: In Fovea, a dystopian interdimensional world hidden in the suburbs of Boston, people are born with magic powers aligned with the human senses. Some are born with the sight (to move objects around with their eyes), the scent (to smell impending doom), the hearing (to hear other’s thoughts), and the taste…
Last reply by Samantha Wilhelm, -
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NAME: Laura Neibaur NOVEL NAME: BLOOD OF THE BELLFLOWER SERIES – BOOK 1: THE SIFTING GENRE: YA Science fiction COMPARABLES: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas and The Starless Crown by James Rollins. HOOK: Hunted by a dark political faction, Razzia and Hild must escape the boundary walls, discover and hone their preternatural abilities, and use them to fight the enemy before the Sifting Ceremony commences. PITCH: Centuries after the fall of the golden age of Eastern Europe, Razzia and Hild discover the grisly truth behind their past and that of their beloved native land. When Razzia leaves the safe boundary of her estate, s…
Last reply by Laura Neibaur, -
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Name - Shola Adedeji Title(s) - War Gods of Africa, The Hollow Glory of a Dumb Kingdom Genre - Alternate History Comps - • the “what if?” spirit of S.M. Stirling’s Black Chamber series. • the world building of Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Lions of Al Rassan. • significantly influenced by the originality of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Hook Line - It is the 1300’s, an untested and naive emissary from a technologically advanced nation in Africa, inadvertently finds himself the only one capable of preventing a genocidal war set into motion by a murderous Pope and his Imperial Roman allies at Constantinople. S…
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Name: Safiya Maouelainin Title: ECLIPSE OF THE SNAKE Genre: Adult Contemporary Fantasy (with a touch of romance) – about 85,000 words Comps: THE BEAUTIFUL ASHES (Broken Destiny Series) by Jeaniene Frost BLACK WATER SISTER by Zen Cho (STORM AND FURY by Jennifer L. Almentrout - but for adult readers of YA). Pitch: Twenty-five-year-old Alila is an untrusting recluse with a debilitating power that makes her experience people’s illness and pain. To avoid triggering this inexplicable empath curse, she lives alone, manages an online business, and keeps her interactions with others scarce. When Alila runs into quirky and fre…
Last reply by Safiya M., -
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TITLE: The Requiem for Cain Book 1 of the Possessions of Eve Series GENRE: Adventure/Paranormal COMPS: Anita Blake – Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris Supernatural Series by Keith R. A. DeCandido Immortal Eve of biblical infamy inhabits the body of a contemporary woman for her final visit to earth. She must go on a difficult and perilous quest to retrieve an ancient relic known as the Core Stone. It holds the secret critical to breaking the vampiric bloodlust curse put on her son Cain and his descendants. Though Eve can no longer free Cain himself, believ…
Last reply by Kimberly Luse, -
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Title: The Frozen War, Book 1 of The Dragonsilk Sea series Genre: Adult Fantasy with Romance elements (about 115,000 word) Comps: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, Cold Magic by Kate Elliot When raiders from the frozen South capture sea dragons with the power to teleport long distances, they go from being a local menace to a worldwide threat. After Astra’s village is pillaged by the raiders and her sister is kidnaped, she sets out with her fiancé, Taryl, to break into the enemy stronghold and save her sister. Before they can succeed, they are discovered, and Taryl is mortally wounded during their escape. In his final moments, Astra intertwines h…
Last reply by Oliviarfrias, -
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Genre: YA Fantasy Logline: A spoiled noble girl with a good heart rebels against her parents to join a dethroned prince on his journey to build a team capable of reclaiming his throne and ridding the magical Islands of Rune of the injustices that plague them. Comparable to: It's can't think of anything with a similar storyline off the top of my head. I feel more comfortable saying I drew inspiration from Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Inuyasha, One Piece, Ouran High School Host Club, and Bridgerton. Pitch: A spoiled noble girl with a good heart named Josie has grown tired of the way her parents treat those beneath their station. While she certainly enjoys…
Last reply by Maria, -
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Last reply by James Charles, -
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Angie D Greenwyn adgreenwyn@gmail.com Fantasy/Horror The horrifying Lovecraftian love child of Neil Gaimen's The Sandman Comics and The Dark Crystal, set in a created fantasy universe. Hook Line: One god’s hunger for power comes at a mortal cost; with friends in jeopardy and a dying world in the balance a young girl must become the monster she feared to save the ones she loves. Pitch: On a mission to save her friends and family, naïve small-town girl Remeus Blakesley encounters a divine messenger on his death bed, who changes the trajectory of her life forever; entrusting her with an important parcel, Remeus is unwit…
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Kathleen J. Waites’ debut novel, The Faithful Ones (95k, upmarket fiction), is based on a true family story. The intertwined saga of a Philadelphia Army recruit’s sudden, baffling fall from grace and his devoted sister’s decades-long mission, to uncover why and restore his honor through the telling of his story, dovetails with national World War II-related events never explored in fiction. In 1941, nine-year-old Mary Hohlfeld bids a tearful goodbye to her beloved older brother Edward when the pacifist-leaning Civilian Conservation Corp veteran reluctantly heads to boot camp and almost certain war. Months later, Mary sits outside the Philadelphia State Mental Hospita…
Last reply by Kathleen, -
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Author: Ryan Ball Novel title: Field of Night Genre: Science Fantasy Comparables: Red Rising by Pierce Brown, Thor: Ragnarok Hook Line: After making a desperate deal with a charismatic alien to save his mother, a young man must gain power quickly to protect his friends, family and humanity from the alien’s manipulative schemes. Short Pitch: Samer Azza, once a college basketball standout with a bright future, desperately needs a way to pay for his mother’s medical care. His luck takes a turn when Tar, an enigmatic alien emissary, shows up offering the chance of a lifetime. Samer will battle other chosen recruits to earn a place in Tar’…
Last reply by rkball, -
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What happens when your vocation as an Executioner keeps you from finding love? Finding happiness while lopping off heads sends this unusual woman into a partnership she never saw coming. This is a 79,000 word Speculative Romance. Maigrede is proud to follow in her family’s footsteps to act as the Executioner, but it is forbidden for women to perform the task so she must keep her identity a secret. One day, she arrives at her hidden home to discover Philip, an injured nobleman. Against her instinctual need for isolation she finds herself falling in love with him. All is well until he discovers the truth about her job. Forced to make a choice between her heart …
Last reply by Theresa Flynn, -
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Name: O.O Owoyemi Title: THE GIRL WITH THE PAINTED WOLVES Genre: Fantasy Comparables: City of brass; Black Sun Hook Line: To avenge her mother, Tella must break the promise she made when her mother died. Short Pitch: Set in 18th Century West Africa. Princess Tella desires two things: overturning the false charges Ga brought against her mother and finding the perfect chance to kill Ga, the most powerful man in Eyeo Kingdom. While she waits, she learns that Ga has rigged the King’s trial, a septennial event held to determine if the sitting King has the favor of the gods. If the trial is unsuccessful, her father will be sentenced to death.…
Last reply by Peju, -
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Author: Cheryl A. Arko Title: Touch of the Elegrian Genre: Science Fiction, complete at 89,000 words Comps: TOUCH OF THE ELEGRIAN is set on a future human colony world and would appeal to fans of Lois McMaster Bujold. Told from the point of view of a near-human alien like Julie Czerneda’s Sira di Sarc in her CLAN CHRONICLES, the story features a protagonist who manipulates technology using mental abilities similar to those wielded by the main character in Gerald Brandt's THREADER ORIGINS. The backdrop to the action shows the clash between opposing cultures reminiscent of ALIEN NATION. Hook Line: In the aftermath of a First Contact gone t…
Last reply by Cheryl Arko, -
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Author: Michelle Henrie Title: Thistle Mountain Witch: A Cricket O'Calleigh Tale Genre: YA coming-of-age fantasy in an alternate 1920s Appalachian Mountain setting Comps: The Nature of Witches meets the Gold Seer trilogy with The Godfather in THISTLE MOUNTAIN WITCH: A CRICKET O'CALLEIGH TALE, complete at 88, 000-words. Hook: A mountain gal rejects her silver magic birthright and escapes the feuds for the city, where she learns to wield her magic to oppose the mob boss. Short pitch: Sixteen-year-old Cricket O’Calleigh fails to claim her ma's silver mine and shuns her magic gift for fear of going mad like her dead ma. While defenseless, a rival…
Last reply by MichelleHenrie, -
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Author: Joy Renee McKinley Title: The Radical Mage Series Title: The Dark Resistance Genre: Fantasy YA Comps: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn and A Song Below Water: A Novel by Bethany C. Morrow Hook Line: A teenage girl caught in the middle of Brooklyn’s civil unrest is forced to reckon with her newfound magical abilities and decide what her role in the underground magical uprising will be, or else all of New York City will be decimated. Pitch: 16-year-old Nia is done with being the family peacemaker, caught as she is between her father’s duty and her brother’s fury. With Brooklyn consumed by civil unrest, all Nia wants is a quiet night without si…
Last reply by Joy, -
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THE SHREWDNESS is a whodunit mystery wrapped in a post-apocalyptic conceit. Imagine the dystopian milieu of Tom Perotta's THE LEFTOVERS or Emily St John Mandel's STATION ELEVEN meets the clue-chasing of Tana French's DUBLIN MURDERS series. In a world remade by an invisible malevolence called The Shrewdness—anyone who gets farther away than ten feet from another person vanishes permanently. Now, two years after the disappearances began, humans are tethered together, solitude has become obsolete, and everyone must travel, live, and work in threes or more in order to survive. But life beats on; the setting maintains a veneer of normalcy even though the world has been r…
Last reply by AmyFeds, -
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Samantha Mineroff | Dreamscape | Slipstream/Fantasy Comps: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, Cake meets It's a Wonderful Life Hook Line: Suppose there was a society where Dream Makers, incorporeal beings responsible for giving human dreams, who must follow one main rule—never meet your dreamer. But depressed, 23-year-old Sasha Hayes, who’s recently been having nightmares, can’t accept the good dreams they create. A noxious fog interrupts them, making it nearly impossible to understand her and what kind of dreams she needs. A Dream Maker risks his existence to find out what she needs. It’s not until her last sleep cycle tha…
Last reply by Samantha, -
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Name Adam Fout Novel Title Frost (70,300 words) Genre Near Future Science Fiction Comparables Glow by Tim Jordan and Dare to Know by James Kennedy Hook Line After entering a Dallas rehab in 2071 for a new drug called frost, a broken addict on his final attempt at sobriety discovers he and his friends are being drugged by the head counselor and struggles to escape with his friends (and his newfound sobriety) intact. Short Pitch Axel is addicted to frost, a drug that literally freezes users within 36 hours unless they take more. He uses to self-medicate the pain of an abusive childhood…
Last reply by Adam Fout,
ALGONKIAN SUCCESS STORIES
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The Usherette (Historical Fiction). Meeting Orson Welles
Scene: Chapter Four. Jo returns to New York from visiting Madeleine in Florida after receiving a telegram from Orson Welles asking to meet. He wants to premiere "Citizen Kane" at the Palace Theater and needs someone to show him around. The scene captures Jo's passions and core decency - and why the movies matter to her. He wanted to meet at midnight.docx -
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Demystifying the Blog Tour: A Powerful Marketing Tool for Your Book Launch and Beyond
A blog tour is a marketing campaign that involves coordinating a series of blog posts and online promotions to create buzz and generate exposure for your book. It typically involves collaborating with bloggers and influencers who have an audience that aligns with your target readership. These bloggers will read your book, write reviews, host author interviews, and feature guest posts or excerpts from your book on their blogs. The goal is to reach a wider audience and generate interest in your book within their established community. The Blog Tour Framework Here's a breakdown of the framework for a typical blog tour: Identify and contact bloggers: Research and compile a list of relevant bloggers who cater to your book's genre or niche. Reach out to them via email or through their website's contact form, expressing interest in collaborating on a blog tour. Provide review copies: Offer a digital or physical copy of your book to the interested bloggers, allowing them time to read and review it before the tour begins. Create tour schedule: Coordinate with the participating bloggers to create a schedule for the tour. Each blogger will have a designated day to feature your book on their blog and share their review, interview, guest post, or any other agreed-upon content. Create content: Prepare author interviews, guest posts, or excerpts that you can provide to the bloggers to publish on their respective blogs. These pieces of content should be engaging and relevant to your book, enticing readers to learn more about it. Promote: As the blog tour progresses, actively promote each blog post across your own social media channels and any other platforms you use. This will help generate more visibility and encourage your existing followers to visit the blogs hosting your content. Engage with readers: Throughout the blog tour, make an effort to engage with readers who leave comments on the blog posts. Responding to their comments and answering their questions will help build a connection and potentially lead to more interest in your book. Blog Tour Benefits The benefits of a blog tour can be significant for your book launch or generating interest long after your book has been released. Some potential advantages include: Increased exposure: By leveraging the established audiences of bloggers and influencers, you can reach a wider audience that may not have been aware of your book otherwise. Social proof: Positive reviews and endorsements from bloggers can lend credibility to your book, encouraging readers to take a chance on it. Networking opportunities: Collaborating with bloggers and influencers can expand your network within the literary community, opening doors to potential future partnerships or opportunities. Enhanced online presence: The blog tour generates online content related to your book, increasing your online presence and searchability, which can have long-term benefits for your author platform. When to Plan a Blog Tour Determining the best time to have a blog tour for your book largely depends on your specific goals, timeline, and the nature of your book. However, there are a few general considerations to keep in mind when planning the timing of your blog tour: Book launch date: Ideally, you'll want to schedule your blog tour around your book's launch date. This ensures that the tour generates maximum buzz and attention during the critical period when your book becomes available to the public; however, a book tour can also help reignite interest in your book long after it’s been published.. Pre-launch promotion: Consider starting your blog tour a few weeks before your book's official launch. This gives bloggers and influencers ample time to read and review your book, and it allows you to generate buzz and anticipation leading up to the release. Pre-launch promotion can help build excitement and generate pre-orders or early sales. Availability of review copies: Ensure that you have review copies of your book available and ready to send out to bloggers well in advance of the blog tour start date. This allows sufficient time for bloggers to read the book and prepare their content for the tour. Consider providing digital copies for ease and quick distribution. Audience availability: Take into account the preferences and availability of your target audience. If your book caters to a specific season, genre, or holiday, it might be beneficial to align your blog tour with that theme or timeframe. For example, a romance novel might benefit from a blog tour around Valentine's Day. Other marketing efforts: Consider coordinating your blog tour with other marketing initiatives you have planned. This could include social media campaigns, advertising, or other promotional activities. A coordinated approach can amplify your book's visibility and impact. Blogger availability: Reach out to bloggers and influencers well in advance to secure their participation and confirm their availability for the tour. Keep in mind that popular bloggers may have busy schedules, so it's beneficial to plan ahead and be flexible with scheduling to accommodate their availability. Ultimately, the best time for a blog tour is when you have everything in place, including review copies, promotional materials, and a solid plan for engaging with bloggers and readers throughout the tour. Take the time to strategically plan and execute your blog tour to maximize its impact on your book launch or relaunch. Did you know WOW! Women on Writing offers blog tours as part of our marketing services? If you're interested in exploring professional assistance for your blog tour and other book marketing endeavors, check out WOW! Women on Writing's book marketing packages. We offer comprehensive and tailored solutions to help authors like you navigate the world of book promotion. Our team of experts can guide you through the process, provide valuable insights, and connect you with influential bloggers and reviewers in your genre. By leveraging the expertise and network of WOW! Women on Writing, you can enhance the effectiveness of your blog tour and ensure your book receives the attention it deserves. Learn more here or contact blogtour@wow-womenonwriting.com with questions. (C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com Visit WOW! Women On Writing for lively interviews and how-tos. Check out WOW!'s Classroom and learn something new. Enter the Quarterly Writing Contests. Open Now![url={url}]View the full article[/url] -
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Whatcha Reading? May 2023, Part Two
It’s time to wrap up May with our second Whatcha Reading! It’s also Memorial Day weekend in the States, which seems like a perfect excuse to get even more reading done before the month is over. Sneezy: I’m reading Right Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin. She takes no prisoners. Sarah: What’s that? The library has the next Veronica Speedwell audiobook? Don’t mind if I do! Currently listening to A Murderous Relation ( A | BN | K | AB ) and having a splendid time. The audiobook performance by Angele Masters is terrific. A | BN | KShana: I just finished a YA romcom that gave me the biggest book hangover, Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert. So much banter and sweetness! I’m now reading The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, and liking it so far. Elyse: I just finished The Daydreams. ( A | BN | K ) Some of it was how awful tabloids were to young female stars in the aughts (Lindsay, Britney etc), but each of the main characters does something really shitty to another so it’s hard to really like any of leads. It was meh. Lara: Elyse recommended Loreth Anne White’s The Maid’s Diary ( A | BN ) and I’m hooked. No romance, but the suspense is phenomenal so far. Whatcha reading? Let us know in the comments! View the full article -
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Book Lovers: Know Your Tribe
Another fundamental that makes a whole lot of sense, esp marketing wise. -
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Writing Hot Sex Scenes - Saints Preserve Us!
I've been trained. It works! -
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Crucial Self-Editing Techniques - Don't be Hostage to a Line Editor
If you knew how many writers this has positively impacted, you'd say, it's no wonder. Fundamentals like this are too often neglected. -
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Podcast 564, Your Transcript has Bunny Ears
The transcript for Podcast 564. Bunny Aliens in Space: Cover Design with JL Logosz has been posted! This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks. ❤ Click here to subscribe to The Podcast → View the full article -
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Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener Doesn’t See the Forest for the Trees
Master Gardener is the third in Paul Schrader’s “God’s Lonely Men” trilogy, in each film of which a weary middle-aged man who has previously experienced alienation from mainstream society contends with his haunted past and hazy future, reflecting on these things, and his rote daily existence, via diary-keeping—a technique that suffices until his world is challenged by knowledge of something greater, and tested by a newfound bond with a distressed young person. Via these characters, the films in this trilogy tend to pair and interrogate the relationship between two normally unrelated topics: religion and climate change (First Reformed, 2017), gambling and the War on Terror (The Card Counter, 2021), and horticulture and racism (Master Gardener, 2022). Schrader is an accomplished, highly literary storyteller and his interests (particularly the the masculine-coded concepts of destruction and violence) have produced some of film’s most fascinating inquiries into the ills of modern society, from Taxi Driver to Affliction to American Gigolo, to First Reformed and The Card Counter. First a film critic and then a screenwriter (responsible for classics like Raging Bull and Obsession and famous for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma), Schrader’s later work as a director is epitomized by the triad of films about “God’s Lonely Men,” three anti-social anti-heroes in crisis: a self-loathing pastor, a troubled gambler, and a secretive gardener, all reckoning with the sudden collision of themes, lives, selves once kept at a distance. Many of his protagonists, but especially these three, can be read as homages to Alain Delon’s Jef Costello in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 film Le Samouraï: cool, reserved, highly-competent professionals whose whose adherence to rituals and observances leaves them unprepared to confront unforeseen cataclysms. It’s almost never useful to compare films in a director’s oeuvre to one another; despite similarities, each is its own discreet contribution. But Schrader’s films are designed to reference each other—or, really, The Card Counter and Master Gardener are designed to reference First Reformed—so please forgive me while I place them all side-by-side for a moment. In First Reformed, Ethan Hawke plays Ernst Toller (no, not that Ernst Toller), a cheerless reverend at a small antique church upstate who keeps a diary of his own stark life the year he happens to encounter a distraught climate activist who opens his eyes to the ravishment of God’s green earth by greedy corporations, as well as the ways God’s own church is influenced by corporatization to the point of disregarding the stewardship of the planet. That film, a simmering hagiography of a soul in turmoil, provides the blueprint for Schrader’s subsequent two films, not only thematically, but also stylistically, in the terms I mentioned in the opening paragraph. The films are dark, lonely meditations into their protagonists’ natures, told via their floridly-written, allusion-rich journal entries, as they finally confront aspects of their lives and their worlds they have kept at bay for so long. The Card Counter inherits the framework of First Reformed, but reworks it enough for it to feel distinct; Oscar Isaac plays William Tell (no, not that William Tell), a former military interrogator and now card-counter, who carpetbags from casino to casino, living out of austere motels, until he meets a young man who informs him that he knows his true identity, as a soldier who served jailtime for his role in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and asks for his help committing an act of revenge against one of Tell’s military superiors. This film slowly explores the human capacity for both empathy and cruelty, teasing out the relationship between “keeping one’s cool” and “losing it.” I don’t have as conclusive a reading of the forces at work Master Gardener, arguably the film in this trilogy with the toughest conceit. Joel Edgerton plays Narval Roth, a taciturn head gardener of Gracewood Gardens, a privately-owned estate with gardens that are open to the public. Narval manages a team of polo-clad young people, overseeing their work but also instructing them in the history, philosophy, and science of horticulture. He answers to no one, except Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), the wealthy owner of the estate, who throws his carefully cultivated world out of order when she demands he take on an apprentice, her grand-niece Maya (Quintessa Swindell). Maya is biracial, the daughter of the “wayward” daughter of Norma’s sister, who left the family and “fell in with a bad crowd,” as Norma purrs. Maya seems to be her only relative left, so she is eager to draw her into the family—but not enough that she doesn’t insist that she work on the family’s land, first. Maya is a curious, intelligent twenty-something, surprisingly accepting of the fact that she’s a minimum wage worker on her great aunt’s estate. Norma wants Narval to educate her, teach her about the maintenance and culture and theories of horticulture, so that she might be able to pursue a career in the field in the future. Maya takes kindly to this earthy finishing school, especially because she appreciates the softspoken and passionate manner of Narval, her teacher. The movie appears to take place in the South (it was filmed in Louisiana), and the house looks like a plantation estate, so it seems like there might be some interesting explorations into contemporary white supremacy, the way Norma insists that Maya be fashioned into a more refined version of herself in order to be welcomed into her family tree, and simultaneously wants this self-improvement to take place as a farm-worker beneath her, and literally in the dirt. But the film wobbles from here on out, mostly because we learn about the haunted, Narval’s past as a soldier of a Neo-Nazi army, before turning state’s evidence against them and going into witness protection. Under his clothes, he is covered in White Pride and Hitler-fandom tattoos, which he looks at disparagingly in the mirror. He likes his current life as a peaceful caretaker of the Gracewood Gardens, is glad to have distanced himself from the silo of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and violence in which (he explains) he was raised. That Maya and Narval form a bond, while he also has flashbacks to things that his proud boy/hillbilly cult leader told him about how his job is to “pull out the weeds,” suggests that Master Gardener will become a thriller about the insidiousness of white supremacy, juxtaposing it with a reading of gardening as a kind of fascism (or at least, a way to disguise it). In other words, perhaps Narval’s solitary salvation in gardening for a racist white lady becomes an outlet for the very impulses that allowed him to thrive in a fascist cult in the first place. Master Gardener doesn’t till this ground, though, which is fine, but it also doesn’t do anything else productive with all of these rich, ripe, and (productively) thorny thematic concerns. What begins as an incredibly fruitful plot soon wilts and shrivels into a wandering love story; and the kind of discipline and restraint that Narvals brings to his gardening becomes, exactly, the element missing from the story itself. Master Gardener quickly forgets its powerful portrayals about white supremacy and racism when it becomes interested in whether or not its protagonist can be redeemed, can be saved, and, in giving him some way to carry this out, represents Maya as needing to be saved by someone, too. If this narrative shoot were to blossom into a meaningful development (unlikely as it is), we would need a clearer understanding of Narval’s life or background, a focused explaining of how he has come to be changed in the first place. But more importantly, this whole angle not only misses out on saying anything thoughtful about race in America, but also robs Maya of the opportunity to be more than a plot device, perhaps (especially in light of Swindell’s elegant performance), the greatest sin of all. What results is a confusing film, overgrown in some areas and under-seeded in others. Instead of becoming as thoughtful and risky an exploration as The Card Counter, Master Gardener becomes like a game of 52-card pickup. It’s as if Schrader has a deck of cards and instead of laying them out strategically, throws them all in the air and lets them come down where they will. Instead of become the focused sermon of First Reformed, Master Gardener becomes one of those themed themed refrigerator poem packs. It has a lot of terms on the table, but shuffles them around until they say almost absolutely nothing. View the full article
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