More or less - after telling Chrisjen basically "you betrayed me and now I'm gonna do what must be done", he tells Mao not to bring anyone else back to Earth. He's so disgusted with Chrisjen that he won't even bother telling her if she'll live or die.

I don't really see "ambiguity" in the novella in any sense that really matters. I mean, sure, the idea of what the military project was doing is spelled out by a different character in the novella who's just speculating based on rumors… but in this kind of horror-fantasy story, in the absence of any other…

I think you're remembering either the novella or the movie wrong. They have exactly the same explanation for the mist.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Sure, but the climax in Caliban's War features Chrisjen facing off against a rogue UN fleet under an Earth officer who's threatening to destroy Mars by throwing monsters at it. Seems like the show won't be doing those things.

That's what those orbital mirrors were for: concentrating the sunlight to Earth levels. Whether such a thing would really work, I have no idea.

Yeah, I love this description of Mao's ship: "The Guanshiyin had a mural painted on it in vivid colors. Bobbie was too close to see what it was, but under her feet were what appeared to be grass and the hoof of a giant horse. Mao had the hull of his ship painted with a mural that included horses and grass. When almost…

- Some ancient alien machinery reactivates on the colony planet, trashing everything pretty badly. The security forces from Earth make things even worse and almost kill everyone.
- Still, the Roci crew manages to at least partly save the day.
- Avasarala isn't happy about that; she was secretly hoping Holden would fail,…

Yeah, Marco is someone who does a few things in book 5. Don't worry about it.

Aw… I thought Intruders was pretty good, in its relentlessly gray and hopeless and depressing way. The kid was great, but I liked Sorvino in it too.

I'm not familiar enough with the various sovcit/tax protest promoters to know if this is accurate, but my vague impression is that part of the appeal is "It's not just you trying this crazy thing on your own - there's a whole movement of us, and even if we lose some [i.e. all] of these cases, we'll wear the Man down…

There's a fair amount of overlap. It's not really a single movement so much as a bunch of confused people building upon each other's bad ideas in the pursuit of whatever their personal goal happens to be - evading taxes, prevailing over their ex in a divorce settlement, etc. - and then a bunch of cynical scammers who…

I think it's in the very first Sherlock Holmes story where Watson realizes that Holmes not only doesn't follow current events, but is ignorant of a lot of basic facts that most people learn in grade school because he decided early on that they were boring.

The Incredible Hulk, too - I mean there's sort of an origin flashback, but the movie starts with him having been on the run for years and basically assumes you know what Hulk's deal is.

Based on what we briefly saw on Errinwright's hand terminal with the picture of the monster, it looks like Caliban is the name for the current project of "control the protomolecule somehow to create superhuman monsters" - as the dying woman on Ganymede said, they made it in their own image. Dresden's protomolecule…

The actor is really excellent. He projects intelligence and focus, and you can believe that he didn't do this for personal gain, but there's still always that little bit of corruption and self-pity peeking through. His passive-aggressive bit with Chrisjen (Will you speak on my behalf? —Never mind, that'd be a bad idea…

Dawes didn't just show up in book 5 - he was in book 1, more or less the same as on the show, looking not particularly trustworthy.

That might not be unintentional - Naren Shankar has mentioned that he and everyone in the writer's room are big Archer fans.

Well, you can tell I was avoiding some other work I had to do yesterday. Jeez. I'll probably keep doing these summary comments, but not at so much length.

Highlights of this week's podcast— guest this week along with the writers is showrunner Naren Shankar. [As usual, I have a lot of trouble telling Ty and Daniel apart by voice, but Daniel was sick this week so I think it was almost all Ty.]