The Star Trek world lost two luminaries this week. My heart goes out, in particular, to George Takei and Ian McKellan, both of whom lost very good friends.

Patrick Stewart’s passing is also hitting the X-Men world hard. He wasn’t the only Xavier, but he was the best, not to mention a fine Shakespearean actor.

And, of course, Walter Koenig was so delightfully evil as Bester.

So, we’re all in mourning, but I’m the kind of person to analyze my own feelings…it’s a neurodivergence thing…

And I realize that right now I am mourning Walter Koenig more than Patrick Stewart for a very simple reason:

I never met Patrick Stewart. I did meet Walter Koenig. I have a clear image of this little, birdlike man sitting on the edge of the stage because so few people turned up to his Q&A at a gaming con, an empty wine glass next to him, showing us how he inhabited Alfred Bester.

Patrick Stewart? I see him in uniform on the bridge of the Enterprise. We think we mourn people we have never met.

In truth, what we are grieving for is the art. When an actor or a performer or an artist or a writer we don’t know dies, what we are truly grieving is the art that will now not be made. Patrick Stewart will never tread the boards again. You don’t have to know the man to grieve the artist.

None of this is a bad thing. In fact, for those of us who know artists, we are often found grieving both…both the person we know and the art they will not make.

And what I would say to everyone out there who IS grieving Patrick Stewart and/or his art:

Take whatever inspiration you took from him and make it so.

And I’ll be thinking about what inspiration I may have taken from fifteen minutes in the presence of Walter Koenig.

Updates

I did promise a couple!

First of all, you can preorder Yuletide: A Black Winter through Amazon now, and it will be on full sale tomorrow. It contains my yarn “Ugly Sweaters.” No, I am not going to be tired of that pun.

Second of all, head over to Itch. Araña is available in the Spaceships and Stars bundle and Daughter of Fire in the Spooky Mythologies bundle. The latter is this weekend only!

And all of my books are half off through November 4 on that site.

I have an eARC of Are You Everything Alright. No, you guys don’t get to see it, but that book is moving forward quite nicely.

That’s everything I have for right now - but hopefully more soon!