Sunday 28 September 2014

Theakerly thoughts: what's making me happy?

This time I’m going to concentrate on what’s been making me happy this week, in honour of the segment at the end of Pop Culture Happy Hour, one of my favourite podcasts. Please just take it as read that my adorable little family is, as ever, making me happy, and that I am thoroughly enjoying my day-to-day work. I just don’t tend to talk about that kind of stuff in detail on here. Because you’re all vultures who would steal my life if I let you.

So, what’s been making me happy?

Expanding my daily to-do lists from ten to twenty items. At the core of it is still the ten big things I need to get done each day, but the other ten give me credit for all the daily stuff that needs doing – dealing with email, my morning pomodoro of writing, taking the kids to school, collecting the kids, and, erm, weighing myself. It’s good. Instead of the morning run being a frustrating obstacle to my tasklist, it’s now a nice simple job to tick off. Best of all, my weekday scores now produce a percentage. (91% last week!)

The Logitech k480 keyboard. Admittedly it’s a bit plasticky, and the T and Y keys on mine don’t work very well (a replacement is on its way), but this is going to be my best friend during November. A groove along the top lets it hold a tablet, and a dial lets you pick between three Bluetooth devices – which might not sound that amazing till you realise that to achieve the same thing with the Apple keyboard you have to power off all the other devices with which it has previously been paired. Really looking forward to taking this out and about for my November novelling sessions, and writing away on my iPod.

The backlog of reviews is finally starting to melt away. Well, it’s down to twenty. Twelve if you only count things I was given for review, and not things I read and began to write about. My goal for issue 50 is to completely clear the backlog, even if it means re-reading some of the books. A pomodoro (25 minutes) of writing each morning isn’t a lot, but it’s a lot more than nothing, and applied to short stuff like reviews it moves things along quite nicely, without getting in the way of anything else.

The new Aphex Twin album, Syro. It’s a lot like the Analord records, and those come very close to my idea of ideal music, so I’m very happy with it.

The youngest of our family gave me some sparkly dinosaur stickers to stick on the side of my PC.

Using my old Kindle again. Reading about the Kindle Voyage make me realise I’m kind of sick of the Kindle Paperwhite, and its damnable lack of buttons. I’m leaning towards the view that touchscreen ereaders are an abomination. The Paperwhite works better than any other I’ve tried (a Sony and a Kobo), but still, it’s a relief to get back to reading on a device that switches pages with a button press.

Nanowrimo is coming and I have an idea! This usually doesn’t happen until October 30. And I learnt a lot from taking part last year, which is going to help a lot in shaping my plans. Even though it was my umpteenth time taking part, it was my first serious attempt in a while, and my first finished novel in a good few years. I wrote a bunch of blog posts about my experiences last year (here, here and here), so I’ll be studying those carefully in the next few weeks. One thing I remember very clearly: don’t start a novel with someone flying through the air over the ocean alone with no way to talk to anyone, because what the heck are you going to write about? This year’s Nanowrimo starts on a Saturday, which is pretty much ideal for getting off to a good start.

If something’s been making you happy, let us know in the comments!

Friday 26 September 2014

Game of Thrones, Season 4 / review by Stephen Theaker

Game of Thrones, Season 4 (Sky Atlantic/HBO) feels for a while as if it has hardly moved on from the beginning of the previous season. Jon Snow is still bumbling around beyond the wall, Sansa still wandering with the Hound, Daenarys is marching around Slavers’ Bay with her army, and Joffrey is still doing bad things like the bad little king he is. The weird army we saw marching at the end of season two has yet to arrive anywhere. In television we’re used to things moving rather more quickly, arcs concluding at the end of a season and new arcs beginning the season after. That doesn’t really happen with Game of Thrones, but season three came to a famously cataclysmic conclusion, and the ripples of that final episode become tidal waves in season four. It’s the aftermath of some things, the beginning of others, and there’s a great big battle by the end featuring the programme’s best special effects yet.

As ever with HBO, the gratuitous female nudity plays havoc with the tone, but I’m still enjoying Game of Thrones very much. If there’s a new episode to watch, that’s what we’re watching. The production quality is stupendous, costumes and set design as good as any film I can think of in this genre. The cast is incredible, and always getting better. Indira Varma is a welcome addition this season, not least because this is one programme where her violent death (I assume it’s coming eventually!) won’t come as such a dreadful shock. Her Torchwood colleague Burn Gorman is almost unwatchably horrid as the leader of a gang of depraved deserters from the Black Watch. Diana Rigg joins as a schemer with a grandmotherly air, but the standout new character of the season is the Spanish-ish Viper, a dashing hedonist with a thirst for vengeance.

Westeros and the surrounding lands are a horrible place to live, even for the richest and most powerful. That absence of security, and our knowledge from previous years that any character could die at any time, makes every battle scene, every trial, every flight from danger – even every harsh glance or raised eyebrow! – a source of intense drama and excitement. It all has weight. This season lacks a bit of mystery: Bran’s mystic quest for a three-eyed raven is less than intriguing, and most events and motivations are presented clearly to the viewer. But perhaps other programmes focus on secrets of the past so much because their futures are so limited, except when contracted cast members decide to leave. It’s thrilling to have one programme where (unless you’ve read the books, and I won’t until this show has finished) you really don’t know what’s going to happen.

Monday 22 September 2014

Return to Armageddon / review by Stephen Theaker

In Return to Armageddon (2000 AD, pb, 148pp) spacers find the frozen corpse of the devil on the other side of a deep space anomaly. As you’d expect of any mad scientist worth his salt, the on-board doctor extracts cells to create a clone. Or was it two clones? Two babies are found with his dead body, one cute as a button, the other with black wings and cloven hooves – the Destroyer! The dead are soon walking the spaceship’s corridors, and that’s just the beginning of a story that ends up with Earth under the devil’s rule, humanity nothing but the squealing meat of Satan’s servants.

This strip by writer Malcolm Shaw and artist Jesus Redondo (with two episodes by Johnny Johnson) began in 2000 AD’s third year of publication, and ran continuously from issue 185 to 218. It’s the kind of thing that made 2000 AD Extreme Edition one of my favourite comics: a self-contained adventure story I’d never read before. It is a serial through and through, its only concern to make every episode the most gobsmacking yet, unceremoniously discarding characters and plotlines the second they’ve outlived their usefulness.

And like so many other stories from 2000 AD’s early days, reading it left me gutted that I wasn’t reading this stuff when it came out (though the Eagle and Doctor Who Weekly were good too). I would have loved its gleeful goriness and boyish malice towards its own characters. This is a comic for kids in which the hero – who spends much of the story as a miserable unkillable monster – returns to Earth after a thirty-year absence to find the oceans are now “vast cauldrons of boiling oil” full of people, and both sides of the planet are in perpetual darkness, the only light “coming from burning corpses”. Kids love that stuff. Me too.  ***

Friday 19 September 2014

From Dusk Till Dawn, Season 1 / review by Stephen Theaker

From Dusk Till Dawn is a television series produced and developed by Robert Rodriguez for his own El Rey network, and shown on Netflix in the UK. Unlike Blade: The Series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or Stargate SG-1, this isn’t a sequel, it’s a remake and an expansion. The outline of the plot is mostly unchanged. The Gecko brothers (nephews of Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs) are bank robbers on the run, trying to cross the border into Mexico. They take hostages, a widowed clergyman and his two unhappy children. They end up at a biker bar, a strip club where the star performer is several hundred years older than she looks. The one big difference is that supernatural elements kick in sooner, as Richie’s visions of a mysterious woman inspire him to kill.

The cast is generally very good. D.J. Cotrona and Zane Holtz as Seth and Richie Gecko have more time to explore their characters and relationship than was available to George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino, and they use it well. Eiza Gonzalez looks the part, but doesn’t live up to Salma Hayek’s star-making performance as Santanico Pandemonium. Her manipulations never quite ring true, though it’s hard to be menacing when you’re half-undressed, as she is in so many scenes. Wilmer Valderrama is wonderfully serpentine as the shapeshifting vampire who commissioned the Geckos to do the job – and unrecognisable as adorable Fez from That ’70s Show. Robert Patrick (who was in the second film as a different character) takes Harvey Keitel’s role as the grief-haunted father from the first film, and if anything his committed performance is a step up.

Robert Rodriguez is a good fit for television. He’s made a career out of making cheap films look expensive, and here he’s making television that looks better than most cheap films. For most of the season this is a very good, well-made programme. It only goes awry in the last few episodes, after everyone reaches the vampire strip club and heads into a subterranean magical labyrinth for a interminable wander around. The tension disappears, characters lose their drive, and the show falls apart, becoming very nearly unwatchable – it’s the steepest mid-season decline since The Twin Dilemma followed The Caves of Androzani. After the first few episodes I had liked this so much that I thought in all seriousness a Reservoir Dogs television series might be a good idea. By the end, I was hoping they would stay away from Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

I’ll certainly give season two a look – the cast are reportedly enthused about heading into uncharted territory – but it’ll need to get back on track quickly or I’ll be the one heading for the border.

Monday 15 September 2014

Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork / review by Stephen Theaker

I had read in the later volumes of American Elf that James Kochalka was working on a video game, but I’d sort of assumed it was going to be a flash game for his publisher’s website or something like that. A big surprise then to find that Kochalka and PixelJam’s Glorkian Warrior: The Trials of Glork (Pixeljam, played on iPod Touch 5; available to buy here) is a fully-fledged app store game, and an excellent one at that. It takes the Glorkian Warrior (whose first book The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza was reviewed in TQF#47) and his trusty backpack and gives them room to run and jump around at the bottom of the screen while waves of invaders attack from above. The backpack constantly shoots, leaving the Glorkian Warrior to worry about dodging bullets, completing missions set by little girl aliens in space armour, and collecting crackers and power-ups. They’re the usual type of thing: fireballs, missiles, wiggly bullets, a tennis ball gun. It’s all a play on Space Invaders, but Kochalka’s designs are so appealing and the gameplay so enjoyable that this became that rarest of things: a mobile game I played out of love rather than boredom or dogged determination. It’s funny, but fair, death always feeling like it’s your own fault, even when the immediate cause is a Magic Robot who throws exploding birthday cakes your way. Points and crackers earn upgrades. The last one, for collecting twenty thousand credits: ennui. The Glorkian Warrior begins to look bored if you stand still.  ****

Friday 12 September 2014

Ernest et Célestine (aka Ernest & Celestine) / review by Jacob Edwards

A one-bear band and a winter’s dream for two.

Ernest et Célestine is the story of a bear and a mouse, who through the shared bond of imagination and creativity forge the most unlikely of friendships at odds with the proscriptive bigotry of their aboveground and belowground societies. Ernest is a musician, hungry and busking; Célestine an artist, orphaned and reluctantly indentured to the clinic of tooth collection and restoration. When Célestine dissuades Ernest from eating her, and instead leads him to the storeroom of a lolly shop, the sweet-toothed bear and the dreamy mouse end up on the run from their respective police. These implacable forces – lawful and righteous upholders of the great prejudice – in one poignantly damning scene find themselves to have accidentally mingled while in pursuit, and must each beat a wary retreat. They are suspiciously alike in their antipathy towards the two fugitives, just as Ernest and Célestine are alike in repudiating the conventional wisdom. It is a simple parable, guilelessly enacted.

Ernest et Célestine is an animated film, but not of the computer-modelled, hyper-realistic school from which we see graduate a larger, slicker cohort every year. Whereas its American counterparts revel in the new technologies and give us fully malleable, three-dimensional animations and a myriad of camera shots to show off each permutation, Ernest et Célestine evokes the old school, hand-drawn approach and for the most part is filmed in wide shot, as if we’re looking at a picture book. Instead of jump cuts and close-ups and micro-focus on detail, each scene plays out broadly and in toto, classic and quaint, as if running frame-to-frame along the fast-thumbed, flickering edge of a sketchbook. Nostalgia aside, this is somehow very engaging; and of course, the faster the characters move, the more chaotic the spectacle. The style is well suited both to heartfelt quiet moments and to the frenetic galumphing of bears in enclosed spaces.

Based on the eponymous series of books by Belgian author-illustrator Gabrielle Vincent (penname of Monique Martin), Ernest et Célestine is, by and large, a warm family hug of a tale, and one that would retain much of its cosy sensibility even if watched undubbed or without subtitles. There are some dark overtones, however, to the bear and mice societies, where utopian conformity is never far removed from browbeating and the heavy truncheon of a police state. The topside bears are fearful of the mice, who serve as de facto tooth fairies and so underpin the bear cubs’ formative introduction to consumerism. The mice, meanwhile, think very highly of the well-ordered commune they’ve nibbled out of the sewers, yet are incisor-obsessed and vilifying of the bears, and thus have become zealously concerned with maintaining their own insular existence. Capitalist enterprise versus communist dogma? Perhaps. And though the overall tone of Ernest et Célestine is that of a children’s picture book, individual characters are shaded in accordance with the strength of their misconvictions, the resulting grotesquery on occasion calling to mind the deformed cartoons that Gerald Scarfe produced for Pink Floyd – The Wall. Amidst the soft watercolours established by Gabrielle Vincent for her fantasy realm, the happily ever after never seems too far away, but nor entirely does the frightening dystopia that lurks beneath Ernest’s and Célestine’s nightmares and within the writhing, demonic surge of the mouse police.

Vincent is said by director Benjamin Renner to have upheld a childlike ingenuousness in her art, keeping the scariness of the world at bay by immersing herself in its charms.[1] Renner and co-directors Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier evidently have sketched their film designs from this outlook, and in doing so have brought Ernest et Célestine to life as a touching and innocent yet menacing at the edges winter fable: a fitting tribute indeed to a greatly beloved author and her two most famous creations. Those viewers who lay claim to an especially nuanced ear might detect actor Lambert Wilson who played The Merovingian in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions voicing Ernest in the original, French language release of Ernest et Célestine, while those who have attained complete mastery of the apperceptive arts will also distinguish Lauren Bacall as the doom and gloom orphanage caretaker in the English dub. This latter piece of casting seems particularly fitting, given that Bacall (born 1924) and Vincent (1928–2000) were contemporaries, and that Bacall unlike the gavel-wielding bears and mice who so fervidly seek to condemn Ernest and Célestine has long been a proponent of liberal democracy. Ernest et Célestine is both sentimental and gently didactic, but it is also very funny; and this ubiquitous humour, rather than being pitched at viewers of different ages and then shoehorned into the script where specially signposted, blossoms instead with spontaneity, and springs up throughout as a natural and heartily observed corollary of the story. Making no obvious distinction between adults and children, yet remaining equally appealing to both, Ernest et Célestine is a lovely film that in years to come may well garner unto itself that much-coveted and (in this instance) tenderly bestowed accolade: timeless.

Directed by Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, and Benjamin Renner, released 12 December 2012 (French, with subtitles); 28 February 2014 (English dub).

1. Benjamin Renner, “Ernest et Célestine Making Of”, Blog 25, posted 19 March 2014 [http://ernestandcelestine.tumblr.com/post/80073422214/25-gabrielle-vincent-or-monique-martin]

Wednesday 10 September 2014

As Above, So Below / review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Scooby Doo gone wild: no-frills subterranean archeological horror offers deep scares despite shallow characters/storyline
   
A group gets lost in a maze-like expanse and the threats escalate. Maybe some make it out, maybe none do. The Blair Witch Project (1999) employed the technique masterfully in a wooded setting. The Descent (2005) took the concept to an underground cave system inhabited by violent creatures. The less well-known but still impressive Grave Encounters (2011) used an abandoned asylum.

With As Above, So Below (AASB), director John Erick Dowdle takes to the catacombs beneath Paris to add another gem to the vault of lost in creepy places films. AASB mixes the treasure-hunting adventure of Indiana Jones with the underground exploration of The Descent.

Young Scarlett Marlowe—is that a Heart of Darkness reference?—is quite the archaeologist. She holds multiple degrees, speaks five languages, and approaches her goals with unflagging determination. Though she has all the introspection of a cave bat, she approaches her mission with, to put it bluntly, “balls of steel”. Scarlett continues her father’s driven-to-madness quest to find the Philosopher Stone that holds the key to alchemy and eternal youth. So the Brit bats her eyelashes, mentions hidden treasures, and talks, talks, talks to convince a group of Americans and French to take to the Parisian catacombs, where she believes the stone is hidden.

During their expedition, the group will encounter an increasingly disturbing and dangerous menagerie of horrors. They will crawl over rat-infested bones and attempt to squeeze through the tightest of openings. They will approach dark passages and descend darker tunnels in which scares both cheap and exquisite await. In the most disturbing scenes, they will confront motionless figures. Are they alive? Will they move? An odd collection of sounds (e.g. female cult chanting, distant growling, even a telephone) augments the ominous tone that pervades this film.

These elements add up to make this one of the tensest films this reviewer has seen in a while.

Critics Don’t Get It
Many critics have derided AASB as thin and rudimentary. Sure, the characters aren’t fully developed and are driven by a Scooby Doo-like mentality, but we do know that Scarlett’s archaeologist father was driven to suicide by his quest, and that (kind of) love interest George witnessed the drowning of his younger brother. Isn’t that enough?

Besides, how much backstory and characterization does a film like this need? We as viewers are, in a sense, accompanying these people (who we’ve just met) into the bowels of the earth. Perhaps we are less interested in getting to know characters and more interested in getting scared.

Several critics have commented on the senselessness behind this quest. Although the map viewing, clue accumulation, and especially the translation of ancient Arabic into rhymed verse that kick off the film are silly, there is also some historical information about the catacombs. Still, none of that really matters once the crew plunges into the catacombs. They could have been looking for a slice of pizza and it still would have been engaging.

Then there’s the ongoing critical gripe about the overuse of the found footage filming technique. It’s too shaky, they complain. There’s no justification for using it. I can’t tell what’s going on. How about this: it makes the film seem real. In an age of selfies and home videos, found footage adds a sense of authenticity.

As Halloween approaches, many of us will line up at abandoned buildings temporarily converted into haunted houses. And if, while exploring the dark corridors and spooky chambers, our hearts are repeatedly jump-started, then we will consider that venue a success. Who says that a movie can’t be judged by the same criteria? **** -- Douglas J. Ogurek

Monday 8 September 2014

Edge of Tomorrow / review by Jacob Edwards

Henceforth, the deceitful must roll a giant jaffa up Hollywood Hill.

Most of Europe has fallen to an alien invasion. Humanity faces extinction. And yet, a new high-tech battle armour brings hope, this being symbolised by Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) who, thus kitted out as a new recruit, was able to kill hundreds of alien “Mimics” in a single day. On the back of this, mankind’s first victory, the combat gear goes into mass production and the army into recruitment overdrive, massing for a counteroffensive. As Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), glib spokesman for the powers that be, sitting safe at HQ, is pressganged into the front line as insurance against an anticipated public relations backlash post-war, so the scenario is set for Edge of Tomorrow (dir. Doug Liman), an action SF film based on Japanese writer Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s illustrated novella All You Need is Kill. Cage dies within the first few minutes of fighting, doused in the acidic blood of an alien he’s managed to take down. Face dissolving, he screams… and regains consciousness the day before battle.

Spoilers, inevitably, but then again the movie’s tagline is: LIVE. DIE. REPEAT. So, not too hard to figure out.

Yes, it’s Groundhog Day rendered as serious SF. (Although with sufficient humour that a homage wouldn’t have gone astray – the drill sergeant slapping Cage awake with a call of, “It’s Groundhog Day, soldier!”, perhaps, in preparation for the D-Day styled landing that’s to come.) The Mimics, it transpires, have evolved the ability to manipulate time. Hence, whenever one of their “Alphas” (a rare breed) is killed, the “Omega” (the brain behind it all) rewinds the clock by a day, resetting events but retaining the Alpha’s knowledge of what has transpired. This makes the aliens nigh invincible, but it’s also their Achilles’ heel. Through inadvertently being turned into a quasi-Alpha (as was Vrataski before him), Cage is able to replay the day prior to his first death, learning from his mistakes and so progressing deeper and deeper into the battle scenario. Computer gaming is an obvious motif here, but the repetition is handled quite well, the viewer being to a large extent shielded from the Sisyphean drudgery that occasionally threatens Cage with despair. Through trial and error all things should eventually be possible, but can Cage and Vrataski find and kill the Omega before Cage himself is hunted down and drained of his new faculties? The scene is set for a SF classic.

Or at least will be, should Edge of Tomorrow die at the box office and take some critical comments back to director Doug Liman and company pre-filming. If not then we’re stuck with what we see; namely, a wonderful premise that has been artificially bent so as to take the shape of a big fat audience hook.

Love him or hate him, objectively Tom Cruise does a good job in portraying Cage through a gamut of personas. Emily Blunt delivers the perfect mix of prowess and pathos, and may well relegate Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton to lesser places on the SF podium of empowerment. Brendan Gleeson is charismatically cheerless in support; and so, in terms of acting, the money has been well spent. And yet Warner Bros. also invested upwards of $100 million in marketing Edge of Tomorrow – retitled from Sakurazaka’s original due to perceived public negativity evinced by the word “Kill” – and there seems to have been an unhealthy level of attention given to charting pre-release audience hype and anticipating how strongly the film would open at the box office,[1] rather than simply making the best movie possible and trusting to an appreciation of quality. Advertising posters showed Blunt and Cruise with pride of place given to their battle armour – the spectacle rather than the substance of a production that didn’t yet have much, the script itself at this stage still lingering through a process of being reworked, re-authored, revised, then re-authored twice more, yet still having no ending by the time that filming commenced.[2] Whether this is more damning of Liman (who at least was striving for a finale, albeit graspingly) or of Warner Bros. (who clearly didn’t care one way or the other), what emerges is an alarming imperative to market first, shoot later and ask questions only in retrospect, all the while making concessions to some profiler’s forecast of what today’s audience must want, expect and (que será, será) be given. One might suspect that this is not how the SF masterpieces of the past came to be made.

Edge of Tomorrow is engrossing, to be sure, and has fought its way to the silver screen without having had its brains blown out; yet, still it has sacrificed something of its artistic vision in pandering to the bottom line, and the supposed tastes of a first- and second-weekend opening crowd. In Sakurazaka’s novella, which is set in Japan, the Mimics take their form from starfish that alien nanobots have forcibly evolved. The beach setting therefore makes sense, but the creatures themselves less so when their initial incursion has been transposed to central Europe. Furthermore, the Mimics are invested with too great a power (oh, blessed effects) to function naturally within a plot that has punched several holes through itself while being many times re-scripted for benefit of Hollywood’s unnatural selection. That the aliens are waiting in ambush suggests that humanity’s charge through France must have played out at least once before, and with sufficient effectiveness to kill an Alpha. Notwithstanding Cage’s first-mission bumbling, however, it is difficult to imagine how this could be the case. Vrataski has lost her pseudo-Alpha abilities (or so she feels; presumably she hasn’t tested this), and without her carefully rehearsed revisions, the army must surely have had about as much chance of mounting a successful onslaught as the actors would have if called upon to extemporise all their dialogue in Japanese. Moreover, it is manifestly unclear why the campaign is being fought by ground soldiers. Memories of Iraq? Normandy? Gallipoli? Yes, it’s something of a paean to futility and our vivid and confronting history of military blunders, but in this instance there are no civilians to worry about; no technological limitations as per World War Two or One. Therefore… Rockets, anyone? Lots of lovely guided missiles, stockpiled for a rainy day and dusted off at last to blow the shiitake out of something multi-leggèd and squidgy? No? Well, maybe next time.

All told, Edge of Tomorrow has too many contrivances – Cage’s blinkered lack of initiative; Dr Carter’s magic Omega-locator; whatever banal version of the ending is showing today – to qualify for anything more celebrated than a single viewing; which is a shame, because for much of that viewing it presents as a film that might not be out of place on the hallowed DVD shelf of SF for the ages. In the end, though, this was Hollywood trying to convince itself while publicity ringmasters inculcated upon prospective audiences the importance of forming sale day queues outside the cinema. History will show that Edge of Tomorrow, sharp-toothed specimen though it may be, was sharp in the wrong places, over-evolved to meet the glittery requirements of Tinseltown’s creative cul-de-sac. Gloss up. Dumb down. Market. Repeat. Thus runs the tepid loop, Alpha blockbusters reporting back to executive Omegas while viewers wait helpless and unknowing for tomorrow to come.

1. Cheney, Alexandra, “Warner Bros., Tom Cruise Gear Up to Make Sure ‘Tomorrow’ Never Dies”, variety.com, May 19, 2014 [https://variety.com/2014/film/news/warner-bros-tom-cruise-gear-up-to-make-sure-tomorrow-never-dies-1201183917/]

2. Lee, Chris, “Doug Liman hopes his wild loop means a hit with ‘Edge of Tomorrow’”, latimes.com, May 31, 2014 [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-ca-doug-liman-20140601–story.html#page=1]

Friday 5 September 2014

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett / review by Stephen Theaker

In City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway Books (US); Jo Fletcher Books (UK), ebook, 9396ll) the cruel, capricious gods have been killed by the people they oppressed and all the miracles they performed have been undone, leaving a world that no longer quite makes sense, and is ruled by their former slaves, the Saypuri. Bulikov, former capital of the gods’ empire, has been left in a particularly curious state, with transparent walls, staircases that lead nowhere, and other weird anomalies. It is the year 1719 and a Saypuri investigator has taken it upon herself to look into the murder of a friend. Like Columbo, her plain appearance conceals a sharp mind. Dangerously sharp: it’s going to get her into a lot of trouble. Bulikov is rife with conspiracies and secrets.

This is a book I loved to bits; it entertains on every level. There is the plot, of course, the mysteries uncovered one by one, the revelations and twists and discoveries. There are echoes of our world – it’s a bit like Taiwan and China, a bit UK and India, a bit USA and Mexico – but for a nice change it’s not a bit like medieval Europe. At the end of many chapters the reader is simply left dazzled by the pace of events in them – the sheer volume of cool stuff. Dead gods, vile monsters, lost kings, fractured realities, politics, oiled-up battles on frozen rivers, sex and hopeless romance – it is rich without ever feeling too much. This is exactly what I want when I read a fantasy novel: a strange new world where thoroughly interesting things that could never happen here are happening.  ****

Monday 1 September 2014

Accessing the Future: interview with Kathryn Allan and Djibril al-Ayad

Kathryn Allan and Djibril al-Ayad are currently raising funds to publish a special anthology of disability-themed speculative fiction, Accessing the Future, to be published by Futurefire.net Publishing, and here is an interview with them. It sounds like it's going to be very interesting.

Hi Djibril, Kathryn. What made you decide to produce this anthology? What are your goals for it?

Djibril: Thanks, Stephen. This anthology will be the third produced under the aegis of Futurefire.net Publishing (after Outlaw Bodies and We See a Different Frontier), and all three are concerned with social-political speculative fiction from the perspective of under-represented viewpoints. The vast majority of the stories we have published reflect the understanding that oppressions are intersectional: so stories about imperialism recognize the fact that colonial oppression is closely tied in with gender oppression, with racism, homophobia and ableism. An anthology that takes as a starting point the marginalization of people with disabilities (both in reality and in literature), also from an intersectional angle, is a close fit to our aims as a press. We hope to raise enough money to produce a full-size, professional rate-paying, properly distributed anthology on this theme, with authors from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives.

Do you feel that disabled people are under-represented in sf at the moment? If so, would you take the excuse that medical advances may leave fewer people disabled in future?

Kathryn: I would say that realistic representations of people with disabilities are few and far between in SF right now (and have been since the inception of the genre). There are many, many SF stories that address disability in some way but for the most part, those depictions are negative, poorly thought out, and insulting to people with disabilities. The idea that medical advances will “erase” or “cure” disability in the future is extremely dangerous and harmful for two main reasons: (1) it ignores the fact that disability is a social/medical construct (i.e., people create disability through language and medical practices, by environmental, social and political barriers to access), and (2) it tells people with disabilities today, “it’s better if you didn’t exist.” Disability will always be with us if we continue to promote an idealized notion of “normal”—we need to recognize that human bodies exist on a spectrum of physical and mental difference, and that people of all abilities deserve the same rights, freedoms, and access to the resources required to live out the lives of their choosing.

Much sf deals with individuals dealing with physical adversity or communications difficulties, albeit because they are in non-terrestrial situations – do you think that makes the genre naturally suited to addressing larger issues around disability?

Djibril: Maybe, yes. For me, though, the interesting thing about science fiction/speculative fiction is the social-political side of the genre. I see SF not just as a medium for high-tech adventures, for world-changing cyberpunk or magical advances, but also and especially for explorations or imaginings of what we might become as the world becomes different in various ways. A world in which society (or some societies) respect and give access to people with disabilities, as well as other marginalized groups, is as mind-blowing and science fictional as a world with space elevators or teleportation technology. And the interplay between the two is the best of all—how does technology enable and lead to better society? How does a more enlightened society develop different priorities for technology and better uses for communication, space travel, replicators…?

Fans of Doctor Who could argue that Davros is one of the greatest television villains of all time, but his name gets thrown at wheelchair users as an insult. Then there’s the Mekon, mutants, cyborgs – should we be more uncomfortable about the association of disability with villainy in science fiction?

Kathryn: Absolutely! Davros is an excellent example of how disability is used as a sign of villainy and evil in our media, especially in science fiction. We should not only be more uncomfortable about the association of disability with some sort of moral flaw or failing on the part of the disabled person, we should be calling such images out when we see them (as we do for racism, homophobia, sexism, classism, etc.). As you point out in your question, these kinds of hurtful representations impact the lives of real people (e.g., a wheelchair user being called Davros). It is simply not okay for the science fiction universe to be populated by people with disabilities who are either (a) evil or (b) to be pitied and “cured”. These kinds of representations need to change: everyone deserves to see themselves, as they are (and not as cartoon-like villains), in the stories they love to read and watch.

Where should we look for more positive portrayals of disabled experiences in science fiction? Are there books and stories that are well-regarded in the disability community, but haven’t had the same impact in the sf field?

Kathryn: I recently wrote a post for Pornokitsch’s “Friday Five” column on positive representations of disability where I pointed to the work of writers like Larissa Lai, Jacqueline Koyanagi, Morgan J. Locke, James Patrick Kelly, and Nalo Hopkinson. I think it’s important to keep in mind that a writer might put out a book that has a realistic or “positive” depiction of disability but it’s not marketed that way. The disability community is quite diverse and I am not familiar with every part of it (my little corners exists as part of the larger SF and scholarly communities) but there are certainly novels and movies that resonate more strongly with some people with disabilities than others. One fantastic resource for people who read YA literature, for instance, is the Disability in Kidlit blog—you can find excellent reviews and discussions of the portrayal of disability in the YA market there.

Some crowdfunding for books runs aground on the criticism that it’s now possible to publish book in print and ebook without it costing the publisher a penny in production costs. Why do you think the Future Fire’s projects have managed to escape that trap?

Djibril: Ha!—primarily because we’ve never raised enough money to completely cover our production costs, for one thing. But seriously, Futurefire.net is not and never will be a profit-making press: any further income we make after cover our costs will go back to the authors. The idea that there are no production costs at all is a fallacy: yes, you can publish via a print-on-demand supplier (as we do); yes, you can hand-craft e-books using XHTML and Calibre (as I do), but that’s not cost-free. Proofreading and copyediting take time; ISBNs and other production/distribution set-up costs money; marketing and review copies cost money. Even a modest, home-brewed anthology has several hundred dollars worth of set-up costs to recoup from sales. (And all this is without factoring in what we pay the authors.)

Why is it important to you that this be a paying publication?

Djibril: From a very selfish perspective, offering a professional rate of author pay is essential, because you receive many more stories this way; most top-notch authors won’t write for free, but even that aside, you need a slushpile of at least a hundred stories from which to select 12-15 great pieces for a themed anthology. On a more principled note, though, it’s important to pay authors a fair rate because writing is hard, it’s feeding your own blood to a beast that maybe no one else will ever love. Writers deserve to be paid (and this is the editor of a ’zine that pays token or “semipro” rates speaking.) Especially since we are hoping to receive many stories from authors who are underrepresented in speculative fiction—people from outside the Anglo-American world, people with disabilities, and so forth—many of these people are already financial disadvantaged, so paying them a fair rate for their fiction is even more important.

How do you approach the creation of perks for funders of your Indiegogo project? Where have you seen other projects go wrong? Has the good track record of the Future Fire in putting out its crowdfunded books, and the good reviews they’ve had, helped with the subsequent projects?

Djibril: We’re by no means authorities on good crowdfunding practice, but I can say that I’ve learned from my own mistakes with a previous campaign. The first is that a four- or six-week fundraiser run is not a long time, so you have to work really hard to get the word out to all the communities who might be able to help. The successful projects are the ones who have tapped into the enthusiasm and support of their networks of collaborators and allies to help with spreading the word, writing or hosting blog posts, and even providing some of the higher level perks (like the story critiques, book bundles and Tuckerizations in our campaign). And yes, I think the success of previous publications both helps with our reputation, our reach and visibility, and increases the size of our network of friends to call on for help.

When the book opens to submissions, what kind of stories will you be looking for? And what aren’t you looking for?

Kathryn: We definitely don’t want stories of “cure” or that depict people with disabilities (visible or invisible) as “extra special” people that are inspirations to the able-bodied. We want to read stories that place people with disabilities at the centre as three-dimensional characters (with strengths and flaws). We want stories that are informed by an understanding of disability issues and politics, and that are intersectional (addressing race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.). We want submissions from writers that think critically about how prosthetic technologies, new virtual and physical environments, and genetic modifications will impact human bodies, our communities, and the planet. We want to know: “What does an accessible future look like?” We want to read submissions from as many voices as possible.

When do you hope the finished book will be available?

Djibril: Our current timescale is for mid-2015; slightly earlier for reviewers and backers of the fundraiser. We’re not committing to anything right now, but that’s a likely target. You’ll certainly be hearing from us when it is!

Read more about the Accessing the Future Indiegogo project here. The campaign began on August 2 and will close on September 16. Tuckerizations are still available! 

Djibril's previous book, We See a Different Frontier, co-edited with Fabio Fernandes, was very good. Read our review here.