tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32853678274461941392024-03-19T04:49:24.051+00:00Theaker's Quarterly FictionPossibly the UK's second longest-running sf/f fiction zine.Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.comBlogger1313125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-89185232470069659962024-03-18T09:00:00.009+00:002024-03-18T09:00:00.134+00:00Hell to Pay by Matthew Hughes (Angry Robot) | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0IUY4B9uLh7QUwKGrJqUyFj0JgS2_hca6fHeew-QHOOFY4eitatV1Bubi2Kj1KEMOnOt3Jp1svh5vsxxaQIxX8DBnwWSwZfypUTDqPHpunOD9zgtNkYa5fLGPaiVN3fIXdXQQMmrS7XFtwfUUhfQR9tFcOkudh_jMKdyOfqBIzkqy2oqraDc2FzucQo/s386/cover25186-medium.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0IUY4B9uLh7QUwKGrJqUyFj0JgS2_hca6fHeew-QHOOFY4eitatV1Bubi2Kj1KEMOnOt3Jp1svh5vsxxaQIxX8DBnwWSwZfypUTDqPHpunOD9zgtNkYa5fLGPaiVN3fIXdXQQMmrS7XFtwfUUhfQR9tFcOkudh_jMKdyOfqBIzkqy2oqraDc2FzucQo/s320/cover25186-medium.png" width="211" /></a></div>Chesney Armstruther should be having the time of his life. The events of the two previous novels in the To Hell and Back trilogy (<em><a href="http://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2011/05/damned-busters-by-matthew-hughes.html">The Damned Busters</a></em> and <em><a href="http://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2014/05/costume-not-included-by-matthew-hughes.html">Costume Not Included</a></em>, reviewed in TQF37 and TQF48 respectively) left him with superpowers, a nice girlfriend in Melda McCann, lots of money, and a cigar-smoking, weasel-faced, wish-granting demon at his beck and call. Plus, thanks to meeting a version of Jesus from an earlier draft of the universe, he’s now free of the autism that had previously bedevilled his interactions with other humans. But he isn’t really any happier. He might understand people’s emotions better now, but that doesn’t mean he knows what to do about them. Previously, he was at least happy within his areas of certainty, his pools of white light, but now it’s all grey areas.<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Short of work for his superheroic alter-ego, The Actionary, he instead sets himself the mission of helping Poppy Paxton, the survivor of a previous incident, traumatised by her time spent in hell. This means finding another Biblical type, Simon Magus, from yet another draft of the universe, bringing him to the present day, and persuading him to work his healing magic on Poppy. Meanwhile, a senior demon in hell, Adramalek, Satan’s first assistant, a giant crocodile-toothed mouse, has noticed the boss is missing, and decides it’s time to step up to the big chair. This leads to trouble for Chesney, since his friendly demon Xaphan is the only one who knows where Satan is: off in the Garden of Eden, writing a new Bible with the historical Jesus.<p></p>
<p>From that starting point the book, like its predecessors, heads off in some highly unexpected directions. In these books, angels and demons aren’t really characters, they are, as this novel puts it, more like forces of nature or the laws of physics. Demons don’t learn things, they simply know whatever they need to know whenever they are required to know it. But Chesney’s questions provoke Xaphan into knowing about something nobody has ever known about before, the mysterious Chikkichakk, and that will have serious consequences. Meanwhile, the angels have a sense that God may be planning to make some drastic changes, due to an overall lack of productivity in the universe. He’s done it before.</p>
<p>Book three for me was very much of a piece with books one and two, so I don’t have much new to say about it. It has another marvellous cover from Tom Gauld, for one thing! The dialogue is smashing, as always in a Matthew Hughes book, and the book’s ideas are as sharp as Xaphan’s spats and French cuffs. I liked the way Chesney and Xaphan had to think their way around their limitations (e.g. Hell doesn’t fight Hell), and find new ways of approaching their problems. But the whole angels and demons and Jesus and God aspect of the storyline didn’t appeal to me as much as when Hughes is writing about spaceships or dragons, or indeed spaceships that turn into dragons when the fundamental nature of the universe changes. I liked the To Hell and Back series rather than loved it, but there was still plenty to enjoy. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">***</b></p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-2004660361563380972024-03-15T09:00:00.002+00:002024-03-16T00:51:49.456+00:00Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRar_iYYuiCHlv56g-gB4BTeOCxrsU89tT_5rVRg-kjnIhhyb0ssjoKTzMw1WlSeAfDTVO6qz13I2Hdf9ImeW0OqBZgdwq9RjF6hrATUpBasQ8Y7Agfci9Jb4qg9kcZlY_vsQ07JmdNgceNijZmPax_GGqWBoASSyuh1HiDUE43UmzpCAs62dpiy-sE0/s1200/43309529.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="797" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRar_iYYuiCHlv56g-gB4BTeOCxrsU89tT_5rVRg-kjnIhhyb0ssjoKTzMw1WlSeAfDTVO6qz13I2Hdf9ImeW0OqBZgdwq9RjF6hrATUpBasQ8Y7Agfci9Jb4qg9kcZlY_vsQ07JmdNgceNijZmPax_GGqWBoASSyuh1HiDUE43UmzpCAs62dpiy-sE0/s320/43309529.jpg" width="213" /></a></em></div><em>This review originally appeared in Interzone #284 (November–December 2019).</em><p></p>
<p>Eye-catching cover art by Julie Dillon gives a good idea of what’s inside: goofball space opera with a more serious protagonist. She is Captain Eva-Benita Caridad Alvarez y Coipel de Innocente, who hasn’t spoken to her family in years, since the awful incident at Garilia. She owns a slightly old-fashioned spaceship, <em>La Sirena Negra</em>, a keep-your-mouth-shut present from her estranged spaceship-dealer father, and we meet her just as she and her crew run into even more trouble than usual.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>In the opening chapter, they are trying to recapture a shipment of super-intelligent mind-control cats that are loose on the ship. More misfortune comes when the sale of those cats falls through, and then Eva gets a message to say her sister, Mari, has been kidnapped by The Fridge, an intergalactic criminal organisation. (Intergalactic travel is made possible by Gates, communications via the Quantumnet.) Eva has to follow their instructions without telling her crew a word about what’s going on.<p></p>
<p>The crew are an interesting and likeable bunch. Leroy had been a mere meat puppet in the army, but knows how to manage a supply chain. His programmable (and hackable) tattoos are quite cool. Pink is a sniper and doctor who can scan for injuries with her cybernetic eye. Min’s neural implants let her plug into the ship, and sometimes she forgets that she has a flesh and blood body too.</p>
<p>Ship’s engineer (and romantic interest) Vakar Tremonis san Jaigodaris is a quennian. His species uses scents to communicate, which seems like a cute idea until the book mentions, fatally, one smelling like cigarette smoke with a hint of fart. From then on it feels like he is constantly flatulent. And I can’t imagine it would be pleasant to smell liquorice, as happens here, whenever a co-worker finds you attractive.</p>
<p>The book is structured episodically, very much like a television programme. This seems at first like a good thing, giving it the shape of an old-fashioned fix-up. Episodes take them to places like the Righteous Sanctuary of the Eternally Echoing Warble, on the otherwise abandoned planet Dalnulara, and Futis, where anyone not carrying documentary proof of sentiency may be hunted for food. They are generally pretty good fun.</p>
<p>But this structure means that characters and plot elements come and go quickly, and the clear motivations of the book’s beginning are pretty much gone by its conclusion. I’d never argue that a modern novel must cleave to the three dramatic unities, or that Chekhov’s gun should be treated as an unbreakable rule, but when a book adds psychic cats to a spaceship’s crew it’s disappointing when they don’t play a further role in the plot.</p>
<p>And there are too many of these episodes. At about a hundred and eighteen thousand words the book is far, far too long for something so cheerfully insubstantial and derivative. There are strong echoes of things like <em>Star Wars</em> and <em>Firefly</em>, and it felt like <em>Mass Effect</em> fanfiction even before reading that the author is a Bioware fan. A later episode is a straightforward, shameless steal from <em>Portal</em>, with the captain getting her hands on portal guns.</p>
<p>Another chapter is called “Woman in the Fridge”, referencing the trope of female characters being killed off in comics to motivate the heroes, as exemplified by Green Lantern finding his girlfriend murdered and stuffed into a fridge. It’s an odd thing to nod to when a woman in a fridge is precisely the motivation in this book.</p>
<p>Still, the novel has many thrilling moments, such as when the captain tries to escape a space station – she has a set of magnetic boots that are frequently used in inventive and entertaining ways – and she has some good lines: when an infatuated emperor promises to pursue her to the ends of universe, Captain Innocente responds that it’s a good thing the universe is expanding. </p>
<p>The dictionaries and translation function on my Kindle gave me a sense of the colourful Spanish she frequently uses: “comemierde” is apparently a vulgar term for a “persona que es considerada despreciable”. American readers are likely to be more familiar with Spanish, while UK readers may find it frustrating, especially in print and when it’s crucial to the plot.</p>
<p>The lengthy acknowledgments might have been better left to the end, partly because it always feels odd to have the author take a victory lap before you’ve read the book, but also because it mentions NaNoWriMo, and that leads the reader to expect a certain kind of novel: lively, energetic, in the moment and good-natured, but not terribly complex or carefully plotted, and that’s pretty much what we get. <i>Stephen Theaker</i> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">***</b></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-52394627654273020922024-03-09T23:50:00.002+00:002024-03-10T11:47:31.671+00:00The Parades | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_8fTy4QkW5h8Yghfjjmic3WOYVPC0cAPpoXQOirlDPUUSdTqrUGyTTQa9en-c8-ewyzDpPFjaxMnkkeYapS7Wo0dA3osROzPMGeoT_WRLZhyD-bp3iEvgo4iD9Jk2sPoQVPDRZ31Ag5bFZfX-qqspC0pWdye1GYg_HxjQcseVZHhS596PGeCuJ0I64uc/s2222/IMG_1595.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2222" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_8fTy4QkW5h8Yghfjjmic3WOYVPC0cAPpoXQOirlDPUUSdTqrUGyTTQa9en-c8-ewyzDpPFjaxMnkkeYapS7Wo0dA3osROzPMGeoT_WRLZhyD-bp3iEvgo4iD9Jk2sPoQVPDRZ31Ag5bFZfX-qqspC0pWdye1GYg_HxjQcseVZHhS596PGeCuJ0I64uc/s320/IMG_1595.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div>After a huge earthquake hits Japan, a 35-year-old single mother and journalist, Minako (Masami Nagasawa), drowns in the subsequent tsunami. Not that she realises at first. She wakes up on a beach strewn with wreckage and of course her first thought is to find Ryo, her seven-year-old son. Rescue workers ignore her questions. So do survivors, and a colleague from work. The first person to acknowledge her is her colleague’s daughter – because the little girl died too. Later, as Minako searches through the rubble, a young man, Akira (Kentarô Sakaguchi), calls to her from his van. He can see her, and she can touch his arm. She’s in such a state that he offers her a lift to where he is staying, a cosy outdoor bar in a little fairground in the middle of nowhere. He tells her it’s a gathering place for people like them, by which he means those who died with regrets and aren’t ready to move on.<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>There she meets four others who seem to be in the same boat, and her five new friends gently break the news that she is dead, news she takes quite badly. Although she never stops searching for news of her son, she starts to get involved in their afterlives, after telling them off for lazing around the bar. Michael (Lily Franky) is a filmmaker who didn’t finish a film about his first love, a political activist, and how he let her down. Kaori, the older woman who runs the bar, misses her children, and wanted to meet an imminent grandchild. Akira is working on a book about their new state of being, and regrets letting his father down. Shori, a young male yakuza, has been there for seven years, and worries about his girlfriend and his dad. Tanaka is a quiet ex-banker.<p></p>
<p>This is a fairly slow film, and so episodic that it almost feels like the omnibus edition of a television programme, each person’s unfinished business taking its turn to be explored. I expected it to be quite bleak, given the subject matter, but instead it has the look and feel of a long summer holiday evening, as they eat, drink, sing and read at the bar, visit their own little cinema, walk on the beach, sleep in lovely holiday huts, and help Michael to resume work on his film. (The latter element takes up a surprisingly large amount of the film, which may be explained by the film being dedicated to “Michael”.) Once a month a bell rings and they join others of their kind on the late-night parades of the title, which give the ghosts a chance to find their loved ones, if they have died too, and move on together. It’s a very human, mundane afterlife.</p>
<p>I’ve always thought the idea of ghosts being created when people die with unfinished business was a bit daft, since almost everybody dies that way, especially those caught in a disaster like the one that kills Minako. This film uses the concept as a hook to explore the past lives and relationships of these characters, and doesn’t prod at the premise as much as I would have liked. When a bullied schoolgirl, Nana, arrives at the bar, having cut her own wrists, I was greatly moved by her realisation that her best friend was now left to face the bullies alone, but disappointed that her desire to kill the bullies as a ghost wasn’t explored; she was just told she couldn’t do it, rather than, say, becoming a vengeful spirit. The film has zero interest in exploring any horror themes.</p>
<p>Its characters aren’t protagonists. They can’t do anything but observe, and learn from what they observe, and come to peace with everything. It’s the afterlife as a therapy session. One odd aspect is that everything they interact with – the food they eat, the books they read, the films they watch, the drinks they drink – are their own creations. If they wanted, they could be flying in jetpacks, living in a space-age utopia. Instead they wear the same clothes every day and mull over their sadness. Perhaps that’s precisely because they can’t move on, and the jetpacks will come later. I wanted to know more about the mechanics of their world, for example why the living disappeared when touched by a ghost, but again, that’s not what the film is about. What it does do, it does very well, and I thought the ending was particularly excellent. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><b>*</b></b><b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">*</b><b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">*</b><b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">*</b></p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-1963430123359022302024-03-08T09:00:00.009+00:002024-03-10T11:51:45.105+00:00Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (Tordotcom) | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib4qTWgr8icIHu-gEoxJqVg9dOMiEYmXoe2QHPZjQsTiIh34uAHMU3OhYeoEephBBDH8DhKT5DPhXDwlMW5FVEQTq0yT0u9lG8cX7rGruTpsjUUk4ZHywfBVFwh5MYzacrSJCgUe0dD7LwuW4JTNGEQac5NXg57bXCX_WRWAnFBje-8FqHfQ9DLrh7PFo/s500/fug.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib4qTWgr8icIHu-gEoxJqVg9dOMiEYmXoe2QHPZjQsTiIh34uAHMU3OhYeoEephBBDH8DhKT5DPhXDwlMW5FVEQTq0yT0u9lG8cX7rGruTpsjUUk4ZHywfBVFwh5MYzacrSJCgUe0dD7LwuW4JTNGEQac5NXg57bXCX_WRWAnFBje-8FqHfQ9DLrh7PFo/s320/fug.jpg" width="200" /></a></em></div><em>This review previously appeared in <a href="https://amzn.to/48GbCyV">Interzone #290-291</a> (March-June 2021).</em><p></p>
<p>The rogue SecUnit (an android "made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage") returns for <em>Fugitive Telemetry</em>, its sixth adventure, though to its own slight discomfort it is somewhat less of a rogue than before. Now it has friends, and its friends have expectations. So when a murder is apparently committed on Preservation Station, a place where such events are extremely rare, SecUnit is expected to help. There is some discomfort on the station about having a former murderbot on board, but its new friend Mensah has enough sway to override objections.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Many of the elements that were so enjoyable in previous books return, like the bracketed asides, which comprise almost a tenth of the word count. Its interactions with other artificial intelligences continue to be entertaining. Its approach to problem-solving is as unusual as ever, and rooted in the intelligent and imaginative use of its abilities. Plus, the former murderbot gives us a unique perspective on ourselves, for example our tendency to have machines mimic our behaviours for our comfort, and also to turn them into ruthless killing machines.<p></p>
<p>But although it is still good, readers may struggle to retain much memory of it as distinct from the earlier books. It's very much more of the same. There isn't a new hook, or a radically different type of environment (the SecUnit doesn't like planets). It's interesting to see it deal with the discomfort of being around people who know its true nature, and it is always pleasant company, but if at the end I had realised that I had already read this book it wouldn't have been a huge surprise.</p>
<p>Part of the appeal of the Tordotcom line of novellas was that they were cheap enough to be impulse buys, and it's possible that the higher prices for this series have raised my expectations for it. Still, people who enjoyed previous volumes are likely to enjoy this one too, while those who haven't read the previous books will probably enjoy it even more. The real-time updates on the SecUnit's threat assessment module prove to be an excellent dramatic device: it's a constant thrill to see it realise that there is danger afoot, then scramble in response. <i>Stephen Theaker</i> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">***</b></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-77011690165311873432024-03-06T09:00:00.003+00:002024-03-16T00:52:20.713+00:00Cackle by Rachel Harrison (Berkley) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2B3l9lgNMbj-eJ7M0TBmvme-F0NsbnGSZxRUeL_f4_hXn3iyFh5zKZT71_uxuWFZzVr2BudIcvNFSdytNv_RlaNT8cbTVgXd9kjkY2rdM6PEGWkEoOfv_R0qPoMR9tzL1gHQ80zQggeZ2Kg8XuwA3TTrORu-R51UD2Cdd5S5oYCXQJXwZuvZh9MpAUc2/s1000/Cackle-RachelHarrison.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="647" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV2B3l9lgNMbj-eJ7M0TBmvme-F0NsbnGSZxRUeL_f4_hXn3iyFh5zKZT71_uxuWFZzVr2BudIcvNFSdytNv_RlaNT8cbTVgXd9kjkY2rdM6PEGWkEoOfv_R0qPoMR9tzL1gHQ80zQggeZ2Kg8XuwA3TTrORu-R51UD2Cdd5S5oYCXQJXwZuvZh9MpAUc2/s320/Cackle-RachelHarrison.jpg" width="207" /></a></i></div><i>Aimless woman desperate for a man finds mysterious woman desperate for a friend in dully taught lesson on female autonomy.</i><p></p><p><i>Cackle</i> is a call for women to stop kowtowing to men and to develop their own voices. Unfortunately, excepting a charming spider and some unruly teens, the story isn’t all that interesting.</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>There are people out there who hate being alone. These people can be quite annoying. This novel brings two such people together. After she breaks up with her boyfriend, thirty-year-old first-person protagonist Annie moves from Manhattan to a cottage in a small town called Rowan. There she meets Sophie, a beautiful and mysterious woman who has some sway over the townsfolk – they are deferential to and slightly intimidated by her. <p></p><p>Sophie repeatedly tries to convince Annie not to return to her ex-boyfriend Sam and to cut off communications with him. But what are Sofie’s ultimate intentions? Is she solely focused on cultivating their relationship, or does she have an ulterior motive? And why are people so apprehensive of her? When strange things happen in Annie’s life, she begins to wonder whether Sophie has something to do with them. </p><p>As the story progresses, Annie learns more about Sophie and herself. But her major hurdle is that she’s constantly thinking about getting back together with Sam. It gets annoying, as do the conversations that take place between Annie and Sophie. At one point, Annie tells her new friend that the story about her ex-boyfriend is a boring one. And yet, that story is a lot of what readers get up to that point.</p><p>Though this is touted as a “frightening” novel, it’s mostly just two women talking and doing mundane activities like cooking, making candles, and trying on dresses. There’s not much conflict, and the protagonist doesn’t really have a goal. </p><p>The message that eventually emerges is that women need to take control of their own lives, and they do not have to be tied to a man all the time. Good message, so-so delivery. <a href="https://douglasjogurek.weebly.com/" target="_blank"><i>Douglas J. Ogurek</i></a> <span style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: 17.6px; font-weight: 700;">**</span></p>Douglas J. Ogurekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08100856154966376053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-3193015381728748682024-03-04T08:00:00.018+00:002024-03-04T08:00:00.311+00:00Lisa Frankenstein | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggr0aS0UbWBDutUzdXri0T0LGv8CE0XugSej0C7ouyAxARgV-s9wMoioBr-B3UzOYH3sGtuN9lU5ly0gnJQLDLF3AHYvG1XAHdOc8RoBgM6jOE5Er8yDDrblzlyGafSOPoH5bZqLGITfSn14n9t2XPxpIETumdjcWqjH7QjqUsqdcuFon_olWk-m10fBM/s1481/MV5BNjJkZDExMGQtNGE2YS00YzJiLWJiNjEtNmYwZjIxZGMxNTZiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjkwOTAyMDU@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1481" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggr0aS0UbWBDutUzdXri0T0LGv8CE0XugSej0C7ouyAxARgV-s9wMoioBr-B3UzOYH3sGtuN9lU5ly0gnJQLDLF3AHYvG1XAHdOc8RoBgM6jOE5Er8yDDrblzlyGafSOPoH5bZqLGITfSn14n9t2XPxpIETumdjcWqjH7QjqUsqdcuFon_olWk-m10fBM/s320/MV5BNjJkZDExMGQtNGE2YS00YzJiLWJiNjEtNmYwZjIxZGMxNTZiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjkwOTAyMDU@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>1989: the unfortunately named Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) has a new home and a new school. When Lisa was a little younger, her mum was killed by an axe murderer. Her dad has now married Janet (Carla Gugino), a nasty piece of work who thinks very little of Lisa. Stepsister Taffy (Liza Soberano) does her best to be nice but isn’t very good at it. After another girl deliberately gives Lisa a spiked drink at a party, and her science lab partner sexually assaults her, she takes a shortcut home through her favourite graveyard. She wishes she could be with the subject of her favourite bit of statuary, a piano player who died young in 1837 (Cole Sprouse, one half of the little kid in <em>Big Daddy</em>).<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>She meant that she wanted to be dead and buried in the ground with him, but that’s not how the universe takes it, and one ball of lightning later he has risen from the grave and shambled to her house. He’s in a dire state at first, time and worms having done their worst, but one thing leads to another and she discovers that by acquiring the body parts he lacks, stitching them on to him, and giving him a jolt from a malfunctioning sun bed, she can restore him to some semblance of humanity. The problem is where those body parts are coming from. Meanwhile she’s got a crush on the editor of the school literary paper...<p></p>
<p><em>Lisa Frankenstein</em> is basically an attempt to make a lost film from the 1980s, albeit taking advantage of hindsight to pick cooler music than would actually have appeared in films back then: the first modern song the resurrected Creature hears is a wonderful Galaxie 500 track – for me, the highlight of the film. Teen films in the 1980s would tap into the desires of boys to get hot girls, like <em>Weird Science</em>, or of girls to get hot boys, like <em>Pretty in Pink</em>. There is that aspect to <em>Lisa Frankenstein</em>, but I think it’s really about what it’s like to be a woman who can’t rely on other women: the mother who died, the schoolmate who drugs her, the stepmother who bullies her, the stepsister who betrays her. And so she turns to the Creature.</p>
<p>The film prompted a lot of heated debate among our cinema squad. Partly because I thought it was by far the worst film I have seen all year, a failure on every level, in scale and quality reminiscent of a weaker episode of <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em>. But also because I thought the Creature, like the historical Dr James Barry, was female, and had adopted a masculine persona. I thought it was rather old-fashioned to use that as a twist, but it led me to read the film as the story of Lisa making a connection with a member of her sex she could actually trust. (Even if the Creature needed to hack a man to death to become, as Tasha Yar once put it, fully functional.)</p>
<p>The girls and women I was with all adored it, giving it four and five stars all round, and thought I was completely wrong about the Creature’s sex. Their view was that he’s just a bloke who lost his intimate bits to the worms, and needs to replace them just like his ear and his hand. So for them, it wasn’t a twist at all, let alone a corny one, and Lisa is more like Bonnie Parker, Veronica Sawyer, Alabama Whitman and all those other cinematic anti-heroines, a damaged young woman who takes up with a violent man who kills anyone who gets in their way. For them the film’s violence was cathartic, and who am I to say that they are wrong? I suspect people will be debating this aspect of the film for years to come.</p>
<p>The two lead actors, both very talented, aren’t terrible in this film, they’re fine, and they give it all they have. It’s just that they are in a film that isn’t that good, with a story and dialogue that, for me, didn’t hit the target. Don’t expect the inventive use of language that characterised Diablo Cody’s breakthrough film as a writer, <em>Juno</em>. Apart from a couple of animated sequences, it looks very bland and unappealing, like a 1980s film that hasn’t been remastered might look on television now, rather than how they looked to us back then on our shiny bright CRT screens. I didn’t think the film made much logical sense – Lisa makes drastic decisions with no reason to think the outcome would be what she wants – and I’m never keen on films that show suicide as a route to self-actualisation. So it’s one star from me, despite the daughters telling me that “you just don’t get it”. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>*</b></span></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-65647666842617438412024-03-01T09:00:00.006+00:002024-03-10T11:57:30.642+00:00Black Adam | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXuF_WXyfw5WM3bCMNBGLylq4slLY3La95W3yaAOKlVrXUUgQd6rJqDm6AgesVPqDcke8oAewd94MidPwZGeU6C1M_9eMCSNdcoXGs2dcr2KZzP7y62DN-0bP3jEPXoykdlTYm8acfjVTE1_dsJnh3sD0vgjAacXnm2cbgEwaT-dYbAipCDXw2E9igsPY/s4096/blackadam.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4096" data-original-width="2764" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXuF_WXyfw5WM3bCMNBGLylq4slLY3La95W3yaAOKlVrXUUgQd6rJqDm6AgesVPqDcke8oAewd94MidPwZGeU6C1M_9eMCSNdcoXGs2dcr2KZzP7y62DN-0bP3jEPXoykdlTYm8acfjVTE1_dsJnh3sD0vgjAacXnm2cbgEwaT-dYbAipCDXw2E9igsPY/s320/blackadam.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><em>This review originally appeared in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2023/04/blog-post.html">TQF73</a> (April 2023).</em><p></p>Archaeologists in the country of Kahndaq, currently in the grip of a private security company, discover the tomb of an ancient hero. Betrayal leads mercenaries to the scene, but when Black Adam awakes, they die, most violently. The film then follows Black Adam as he connects with his country's current inhabitants, fights its occupying force, and battles a quartet of Justice Society members, sent from the US to bring him in line.<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>My expectations for this film, written by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (previously a specialist in Liam Neeson thrillers), were not high. The trailer was not particularly exciting and I was rather dismayed by how the character had been carved out of the Captain Marvel movies, reportedly at The Rock's request. It seemed like a classic example of a film bent out of a shape by the demands of its star.<p></p>
<p>What a surprise it was, then, to find that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Whatever reasons Johnson had for wanting this to be a separate movie, vanity wasn't part of it: he doesn't appear for the first fifteen minutes or so. I won't pretend it is a classic. The final boss is a bit of a nothing and the final act wimps out and gives the people of Kahndaq zombies to fight instead of the revolution against human invaders that the film was clearly leading up to.</p>
<p>But there was so much more that I liked about it. There are shots that look like they were painted by Alex Ross. There is humour, but not so much that it overwhelms the story. And there is the Justice Society of America, one of my all-time favourite groups. Doctor Fate, Hawkman, Atom Smasher and Cyclone are not perhaps its most popular members, but they are all quite faithfully portrayed, by film standards. <i>Stephen Theaker</i> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-weight: bold;">***</span></p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-58794310393381336632024-02-26T09:00:00.023+00:002024-02-26T11:22:55.808+00:00Madame Web | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcxf2HFIx1kwf0KKgOLfi_wMpyafV5Tge_1dUAM7B4fvjMakD2KGcKyGAlc1BTRv4ZcD4ZWyqllmYI6snHKbPK9w8GHbB9wAsSfdd3aS1_1M9rcBuE7eGw4ykaFqoKZfu5RNGpl1oZ8AR_RnYkdFzbUlC5YtfNPadhhreshSBGw8992LOnYlLRBvuKskY/s750/IMG_1593.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcxf2HFIx1kwf0KKgOLfi_wMpyafV5Tge_1dUAM7B4fvjMakD2KGcKyGAlc1BTRv4ZcD4ZWyqllmYI6snHKbPK9w8GHbB9wAsSfdd3aS1_1M9rcBuE7eGw4ykaFqoKZfu5RNGpl1oZ8AR_RnYkdFzbUlC5YtfNPadhhreshSBGw8992LOnYlLRBvuKskY/s320/IMG_1593.png" width="256" /></a></em></div><em>Madame Web</em> has been given a lot of stick for being a bad superhero film, which in my view is a complete misunderstanding of what it is. It’s not a superhero film at all, it’s a comedy horror thriller that takes place in a superhero universe. Comics readers are very used to this kind of thing, but it seems to have baffled some filmgoers. Imagine a <em>Final Destination</em> film, but where nearly all the heroine’s psychic visions are of the same disaster: an evil Spider-Man type called Ezekiel murdering everyone he gets his hands on, in one location after another. Admittedly, he is the film’s weakest link (the animation of his movements looks clumsy, and it sounds as if his dialogue has been dubbed by someone else), but, overall, like <em>Morbius</em>, the film is very far from being the complete disaster that some would have you think.<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>In the comics, Madame Web is an elderly psychic who gets involved with Spider-Man from time to time. In this film, set in 2003, Dakoka Johnson plays Cassandra Webb, a 30-year-old paramedic who grew up in the care system after her mother died. She doesn’t know how it happened, but we know and by the end of the film she’ll know too that her mum was hunting for a super-spider in the Amazon jungle. Her bodyguard shot her, took the spider, and let it bite him, granting him powers quite similar to Spider-Man’s, but without the webbing or the sparkling wit. Ever since, he’s been plagued by visions of three costumed spider-women causing his death, so he’s determined to track them down and kill them first. He has sketch artists draw them and then romances his way into an NSA database to track them down in the present day, before they get their own spider-powers.<p></p>
<p>He comes for the three teenage girls – Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), Mattie Frankli (Celeste O’Connor) and Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney, fresh from success in <em>Anyone But You</em>) – when they all happen to be at a New York train station at the same time. Fortunately for them, Cassandra Webb happens to be there too, and has started to get the hang of her powers. When she has a vision of the three girls being brutally murdered, she gets them off the train and the chase begins. She doesn’t want to look after them, but they are lonely and vulnerable and she simply can’t turn away from her duty. Her colleague Ben Parker (Adam Scott, as good as ever) does what he can to help, but his brother’s wife is pregnant and the baby is due. He’s looking forward to being an uncle: all the fun and none of the responsibility, he thinks, which gets a wry smile from Cassandra and the audience. Some have suggested that there is an error in timing here, since Tom Holland’s MCU Peter Parker was born in 2001, but I took this to be the first appearance of a brand new Spider-Man, specific to the Sony Spider-Verse. We will see!</p>
<p>Previous Sony-Verse films <em>Morbius</em> and <em>Venom</em>, and by the look of it the upcoming <em>Kraven the Hunter</em>, have suffered from the absence of those characters’ natural antagonist: Spider-Man. So they are given their own lesser villains to fight instead, and so instead of super-villain films, they become anti-hero films, which I think is much less interesting. That wasn’t as much of a problem in this film, since it isn’t trying to be a super-hero film, and Madame Web isn’t a super-villain in the comics anyway. Nor is Ezekiel, which may be why he doesn’t really work here, though the scenes of him killing the girls are well done, and reasonably scary, especially for younger viewers. But he could be anything in this film – a vampire, a demon, a killer robot, etc – and the film would have been essentially the same. Although the three teenage girls are shown briefly in action in Ezekiel’s visions, that all lies in the future. In this film they are just three Sarah Connors.</p>
<p>I suppose the question is why I liked it, when everyone else (including Mrs Theaker) seems to have hated it. In her SNL monologue, Dakota Johnson said that this was as if AI had created your boyfriend’s favourite film, and, at the risk of sounding like Barry Norman in his loucher moments, maybe there’s some truth in that. The film’s four female stars certainly won’t dent its appeal to heterosexual male viewers. That’s why we go to the cinema, after all, to stare at people we find it interesting to look at on a gigantic screen. Sometimes that’s Paul Giamatti in an overcoat smoking a pipe, sometimes it’s Sydney Sweeney in a very big pair of glasses. But I don’t think it’s just that.</p><p>For one thing, Dakota Johnson is rather great in it. She brings the sort of amusing, abrasive sourness to the lead role that would normally be delegated to a supporting character, for example during her reluctant visit to a baby shower. Her character uses her skills in some fun ways, and, like a <em>Final Destination</em> film, I did care whether our heroes survived or not. I found all the bits involving the Parker family rather sweet, especially seeing Uncle Ben as a younger man and a best friend. I won’t pretend it’s a classic – I never considered giving it more than three stars – and it’s certainly not a film like <em>Argylle</em>, where a lot of people who watch it in a few years will be amazed by how much they love it, but I certainly enjoyed it much more than the previous Sony-Verse films. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">***</b></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-16247970820042865002024-02-23T09:00:00.003+00:002024-03-10T11:57:49.679+00:00In the Vanishers’ Palace, by Aliette de Bodard (JABberwocky Literary Agency) | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzN_cCDqBjQolbTjzpVXo22HFf-zksQnuhqFa14Kt6IHKxphMTW669J1keiwBTyiccACGo266N1S74waBFsmJNlqte708AlmHQdETqgOfmfwxW2_AmGO6nOphS9KzUUcsoFNA9vB47L8pio3rHTaWU49lo_sSyNvLGCq8-MiHjcmV3P-Jh2tiSvllX-Y/s630/inthevanishers.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="394" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzN_cCDqBjQolbTjzpVXo22HFf-zksQnuhqFa14Kt6IHKxphMTW669J1keiwBTyiccACGo266N1S74waBFsmJNlqte708AlmHQdETqgOfmfwxW2_AmGO6nOphS9KzUUcsoFNA9vB47L8pio3rHTaWU49lo_sSyNvLGCq8-MiHjcmV3P-Jh2tiSvllX-Y/s320/inthevanishers.png" width="200" /></a></em></div><em>This review originally appeared in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2019/12/tqf65.html">TQF65</a> (December 2019).</em><p></p>
<p>Some time ago, the world was conquered and enslaved by beings who subsequently left, vanished, and broke the world. Humans were left to survive as best they could among the wreckage and abandoned artefacts. Resources are scarce, plagues are rife, and life in Yên’s village is extremely difficult, the village elders always looking for an excuse to reduce the number of mouths to feed. Would-be scholar Yên is not regarded as terribly useful, but her mother is a healer, and knows a few words of power. When Head Phuoc’s daughter is seriously unwell, and all else fails, and exile is the price of failure, Yên’s mother calls on a dragon spirit to help. Yên is offered as the price.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>It wasn’t just humans that were enslaved and damaged by the vanishers: the myths and legends of Earth were killed or severely traumatised too. Spirited away to the dragon’s palace, Yên expects to be eaten, but that’s not what the dragon is after, and the relationship they end up with is not what <em>either</em> of them was expecting. What we then get is a romance between a nice girl and a powerful, prideful grump in the tradition of Hades and Persephone, Beauty and the Beast, <em>Howl’s Moving Castle</em> and more recently <em>Uprooted</em>. But it also follows the traditional pattern of romantic comedies: the meet cute, the initial dislike, the slow growing-to-like each other, the seemingly insurmountable relationship obstacle, and so on.<p></p>
<p>It’s weird (the palace itself is a barely-controlled artefact of the vanishers and life there becomes very strange), romantic (Yên and the dragon’s relationship is passionate, intense and believable, right from the first moment they meet) and scrupulously ethical (the dragon being quite aware that a coerced relationship would be meaningless). And I’ve not mentioned some of the more interesting elements of the book because I think the book is better for them coming as a surprise. I very much recommend it. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">****</b></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-68418275381740263552024-02-21T09:00:00.002+00:002024-02-21T11:56:43.016+00:00ProleSCARYet: Tales of Horror and Class Warfare edited by Ian Bain, Anthony Engebretson, J.R. Handfield, Eric Raglin, and Marcus Woodman (Rad Flesh Press) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZMINS1ef776ybwTP8-8cUYhFsM1sow3gV-NpU168I0NRVcUSVTZ_QJsOpC1QJrG1CcqKpX8xgbPUCLuWAONcafotHgm6g4i6IKk2Z_JsdVUlbHGipuevIwcJ1Wk1mCYY1-YsjNOGfjbg4_Fsx3SBTdnPMV6coB445jeLIecQERpftX7q6vRgZoxpY8ri/s1000/ProleSCARYet.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZMINS1ef776ybwTP8-8cUYhFsM1sow3gV-NpU168I0NRVcUSVTZ_QJsOpC1QJrG1CcqKpX8xgbPUCLuWAONcafotHgm6g4i6IKk2Z_JsdVUlbHGipuevIwcJ1Wk1mCYY1-YsjNOGfjbg4_Fsx3SBTdnPMV6coB445jeLIecQERpftX7q6vRgZoxpY8ri/s320/ProleSCARYet.jpg" width="213" /></a></i></div><i>Overlords in saviours’ clothing: anthology takes a shot at capitalism with mixed results.</i><p></p><p>Despite its silly title, this horror anthology sympathises with those fed up with monied capitalists trying to take control of their lives, mostly in office and retail environments. It’s full of low earners (pizza deliverers, landscapers, gas station attendants, baristas) trying to make ends meet while suffering at the hands of the wealthy. In some stories, members of the upper class get their way, while, in others, the “rich fucks”, as one author puts it, pay their dues.</p><p>The worst entries are cryptic diatribes saturated in melodramatic language. These authors make the mistake of thinking readers will invest time in their philosophical ramblings without the backbone of a solid story.</p><p>Nevertheless, the collection offers enough strong pieces to make it worth the read. Several stories feature a bad guy or organisation, often an embodiment of corporate America, attempting to lure young, inexperienced people into what amounts to indentured servitude.</p><p>“Salen’s Found” by Corey Farrenkoph, for instance, introduces a young man working two menial jobs. He and his college student girlfriend struggle with whether they should join a commune, the walls of which they can see from their apartment. As the couple’s pressures mount, the cult’s vague brochures filled with smiling faces and promises of security (not so different from a corporate website) start showing up everywhere… even in the most private of places.</p><p>Another theme pervading this anthology involves the lack of appreciation and downright contempt among the privileged for those in the service industry. Stories such as “Empty”, arguably the strongest in the compilation, spotlight the unrealistic demands that the wealthy impose on others. When a demanding customer’s bratty children discover that a shop is out of Birthday Cake frozen yogurt, Leah and her co-workers must venture into a monster-infested storage area to get more. Risking their lives for their customers is something their corporate masters believe they should be willing to do. Author Noah Lemelson’s first-person narrator Leah doesn’t mince words or go into any kind of philosophical meanderings – the message is conveyed through the highly original story.</p><p>Dustin Walker’s “Return Policy” explores how the idle rich treat the less fortunate as a means to an end. The protagonist works for the returns department of ReGen, which takes advantage of grieving parents by transferring their dead children’s essences into beings that doesn’t live up to the original. He’s trying to help people get away from the company so they can grieve and accept the loss of their children.</p><p>Another strong entry is Tim Kane’s “Sweet Meats: A Grisly Tale of Hansel and Gretel”, which condemns corporate environmental exploitation with a retelling of the classic fairy tale. In this variation, the witch protagonist switches between raven and human, and she uses something very different to candy to decorate her house.</p><p>The authors within <i>ProleSCARYet</i> are likely to elicit one of two reactions among readers: “Shut up” or “Tell me more.” <a href="https://douglasjogurek.weebly.com/" target="_blank"><i>Douglas J. Ogurek</i></a> <b style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: 17.6px;">***</b></p><div><br /></div>Douglas J. Ogurekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08100856154966376053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-11066822015730535172024-02-19T09:00:00.006+00:002024-02-21T11:57:16.855+00:00Poor Things | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJLkmU8yo7vJUjj2pF94rBxRSdXCOJ22qPWGcaeEaMT2p5iowpkwlQOnQwP-WVXLpUMjjrxwekhRQcQ5P9Vs3XftFMxBChF5Nwl_nQ2LLx0aBgCmCRHpmoMbdYM1weF57G0jskhUYMT39zqjZOIusD8OMkHSToCjUpg9K4cdWVGJeS1B5AfAsZ3t_ASuc/s2000/IMG_1586.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJLkmU8yo7vJUjj2pF94rBxRSdXCOJ22qPWGcaeEaMT2p5iowpkwlQOnQwP-WVXLpUMjjrxwekhRQcQ5P9Vs3XftFMxBChF5Nwl_nQ2LLx0aBgCmCRHpmoMbdYM1weF57G0jskhUYMT39zqjZOIusD8OMkHSToCjUpg9K4cdWVGJeS1B5AfAsZ3t_ASuc/s320/IMG_1586.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div>A woman tries to commit suicide, throwing herself off a bridge. We later find out that she was pregnant, with a husband who would have driven anyone to despair. Her body is recovered by Dr Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), God for short. While watching, given that Godwin was Mary Shelley's maiden name, I assumed him to be Frankenstein's monster, now a mad scientist himself, but if so or not, he had a father who performed similarly ghastly experiments on him. Now he continues the family tradition, performing ghastly miracles such as binding the head of a pig to the body of a chicken, or reanimating the body of a suicidal woman by using the brain of her unborn baby.<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>This gives us Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone, whose performance, from first faltering steps to self-assured woman, is both original and brilliant. After the stick she got for appearing in two (excellent) Woody Allen films, and being unfairly maligned for playing a character of mixed ethnicity in <em>Aloha</em>, no one would have blamed Emma Stone for playing it safe and staying well away from a film where she plays a sexually active woman with (at least at first) a child's brain. Instead, this film stands as a perfect example of star power at its best, her enthusiastic participation, not to mention that of Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo, allowing the film to be made with the budget it needed, without being hopelessly compromised.<p></p>
<p>Though Bella rather resembles a bride of Frankenstein, she is more of a daughter to Godwin. Like so many parents, he just wants her to marry a nice young doctor, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), as long as they live at home with him. Unfortunately, their romance, if that's what anyone would call it, is interrupted by Duncan Wedderburn, a louche solicitor played by Mark Ruffalo, who begins by sexually assaulting Bella in her room and then finds to his surprise that she is perfectly happy to be spirited away to foreign shores by him. It is a great pleasure to watch Bella twist the screws on this scoundrel, treating him as an entirely disposable source of pleasure, just as he has always treated women.</p>
<p>Sophie Walker, former leader of the Women's Equality Party, was baffled that anyone would consider this a feminist film, and it's easy to see her point, given, as she said, the role that exploitation and, later in the film, prostitution plays in Bella's journey. Also, Emma Stone spends an unusual amount of the film completely naked for a mainstream Hollywood actress, even if the sex scenes are far from sexy, and don't flatter the male gaze; they are rather mechanical, Bella working her way through a series of sexual experiences as a process of scientific discovery.</p>
<p>I do think a feminist reading is possible, though, in that Bella gives us a naive view of human relationships. She has not been socialised to take a secondary role to the men she meets, to serve their needs, and she feels no compulsion to put their feelings ahead of their own. She defamiliarises male-female relationships for us. She sees it all as if she were an alien, rather like Scarlett Johansson's character in <em>Under the Skin</em>, new to our ways, and judges them harshly. She calls men out for mistreating her, making sure that if they proceed, they are doing so in full awareness of their exploitative actions, no bad faith allowed.</p>
<p>Though I might defend it in that regard, I'm not an unalloyed fan of the film. While it does explain a few times that, intellectually, she is growing quickly after being reborn, the ickiness of all the men having sex with her never stopped being an issue for me. As a science fiction fan, you often encounter stories with such supposed loopholes in the age of consent, and it's always off-putting if not downright disgusting. Here it clearly serves an important purpose, giving us that naive view mentioned above, but it was still off-putting.</p>
<p>In a funny way, despite all the sex, the film reminded me of the film and television adaptations of <em>A Series of Unfortunate Events</em>, thanks to its storybook styling and a plot that throws its naive protagonist into the hands of one oddball after another. But while I loved the steady eye of the camera in the Netflix version of <em>A Series of Unfortunate Events</em>, I found the way that <em>Poor Things</em> swapped between portrait, wide-angle and fisheye lenses, and vignettes, zooms and regular shots, in the same scenes rather annoying, especially on a second viewing.</p>
<p>But don't get me wrong. Despite those grumbles, I enjoyed it very much. I found it very funny, especially Godwin's astonishing bubble burps, and every actor involved gives an unforgettable performance despite being deep into uncharted territory. The costume, music and hair all match the film's ambition, as do the sets, physical and otherwise: you wouldn't think this film had much in common with <em>The Mandalorian</em>, but the ocean on which Bella's cruise ship travels is a large digital backdrop. The story is fascinating and imaginative and surprising, with serious points to make about women's rights among the humour and horror. Any man should come away from it with much to think about. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>****</b></span></p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-40838991731596814322024-02-16T09:00:00.006+00:002024-02-21T11:57:37.663+00:00Bridge 108 by Anne Charnock (47North) | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALeB6HrryVZjN6GvwFCjNuWltjorDFEXLaaNumhf5HaCXvd8DQNTZ7NrK3NfmkvTTOFEZGPCiGLMG7I3bEP01sAjmb4kuV6Fv0Cf3e2nw8ggP5C387dDSr9lbKqO2YkArwg_y94PI7r6zfsYpVKJDl8ME6IEtidvFNWoe1faPegr_zlF5yK8xLgkfsR8/s500/49867289.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALeB6HrryVZjN6GvwFCjNuWltjorDFEXLaaNumhf5HaCXvd8DQNTZ7NrK3NfmkvTTOFEZGPCiGLMG7I3bEP01sAjmb4kuV6Fv0Cf3e2nw8ggP5C387dDSr9lbKqO2YkArwg_y94PI7r6zfsYpVKJDl8ME6IEtidvFNWoe1faPegr_zlF5yK8xLgkfsR8/s320/49867289.jpg" width="213" /></a></em></div><em>This review originally appeared in <a href="https://amzn.to/41F33lz" target="_blank">Interzone #285</a> (January–February 2020), which also included a wide-ranging interview with the author.</em><p></p>
<p>In <em>A Calculated Life</em>, Jayna, a simulant in the midst of a low-key rebellion, goes on a sneaky trip to the Enclave market on Clothing Street and notes with distaste a striped cotton shirt with a fake fur collar. Nauseated to see such disparate things stitched together, she asks her friend Dave who would do that kind of work. Migrants, he tells her. <em>Bridge 108</em> introduces us to the boy who made that shirt, and shows us how proud he was of it, and what it signified for him.</p>
<p>Caleb is a migrant boy of twelve years old who has been separated from his parents for some time. Europe is so dried out by global warming that starting a wildfire in France will see you imprisoned for life, and an arsonist in Portugal could face the death penalty. England and Wales, for now at least, have what we would consider a pleasant Mediterranean climate, warm enough for vineyards and sleeping outdoors in the summer.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Caleb’s father left Spain first, but stopped sending messages back after five weeks. Twelve weeks after that, Caleb and his mother set off for England, in hopes of nothing more than indentured labour and a difficult path to becoming a citizen. The boy speaks and writes English well, which made his mother think he might find good work here as an adult. But the journey was extremely difficult, full of violence and danger.<p></p>
<p>After his mother went missing on the road, Caleb was caught by a trafficker and sold to Ma Lexie and her underage sweatshop. That is where we meet him. His flair with the shirt earns him a promotion, to be supervisor of the other children, a position which provides him with a set of keys, and thus the opportunity to escape. But where can he go? And would it be wise to go on the run with a girl he knows only by way of brief messages thrown from her roof to his?</p>
<p>Caleb is pretty much the typical hero of a juvenile science fiction novel. He’s friendly, resourceful, loyal to his friends, hard-working, keen to learn, and everyone he meets seems to like him (as will readers). In a Robert Heinlein book he might become a starship captain. In a Jack Vance book he would find the people who hurt his parents and make them pay. But in this book he is continually frustrated, by people who betray him, by a bureaucracy that barely cares, even by the weather.</p>
<p>This is an England where people are inoculated against addiction and the most well-off get bionic implants. Life choices are limited for anyone without those enhancements. For the people Caleb is able to move among, success means getting the job of janitor for your apartment block, so that you can run a side business on the roof. Every page of the book warns against allowing the march of technology to worsen and accelerate the stratification of society.</p>
<p>As in the author’s other books, we see events from multiple, enlightening points of view. Skylark is a trafficker who hunts children, and Evie puts them to work, but the book shows us why they do it. We see how few options they have themselves, and how they justify what they do by imagining even worse outcomes for the children.</p>
<p>The book being in continuity with the author’s other titles adds context to everything we see here. This is the same world in which Jayna’s boss Benjamin held lovely barbecue parties for his friends in <em>A Calculated Life</em>, and probably the same world in which Toniah can make a living as a feminist art critic in <em>Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind</em>. Not everyone in this world is suffering to the same extent as Caleb.</p>
<p>When interviewing the author, I asked whether Amazon and 47North discuss with their authors the data that they garner from our reading, but if anything her novels seem quite the opposite of what one might expect to emerge from such a process.</p>
<p>Yes, we might expect a data-driven novel to be this short and focused, but there are no great battles or explosive climaxes here, just small victories and quietly crushing defeats. Caleb isn’t trying to stop the end of the world with some grand plan. It’s happening anyway, and all he can do is try to find somewhere comfortable to sleep. It would be nice to think that this is where the data does lead in the long run: to an interesting and thoughtful book that keeps readers engaged throughout, both emotionally and politically. <i>Stephen Theaker</i> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">****</b></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-77321108031303415912024-02-12T09:00:00.013+00:002024-02-12T09:00:00.270+00:00For All Mankind, Season 4 | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf6Fi5tYegoOx6OAUtJ3SVSW7f3Q7Si54_OBfHAt8VGqfqLblMKSY2jfhQYvhe-6ay9TemjW9-zxhdPYDHsIaKAaueoxaLSZyTW9z8tzqPAjN9g5cB2w03iIk1wIaUsrtqUJ3cI4lQhFvkw342D_Q90sg8krLhXESMhbB61Zq_u8264aUsvueruMdmjlQ/s3000/IMG_6509.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf6Fi5tYegoOx6OAUtJ3SVSW7f3Q7Si54_OBfHAt8VGqfqLblMKSY2jfhQYvhe-6ay9TemjW9-zxhdPYDHsIaKAaueoxaLSZyTW9z8tzqPAjN9g5cB2w03iIk1wIaUsrtqUJ3cI4lQhFvkw342D_Q90sg8krLhXESMhbB61Zq_u8264aUsvueruMdmjlQ/s320/IMG_6509.png" width="213" /></a></div>Season 4 of <em>For All Mankind</em>, Apple's big-budget alternate-history science fiction show, jumps forward eight years. In their world, Stanley Kubrick finished <em>AI: Artificial Intelligence</em> himself, John Lennon played the Superbowl half-time show, and the USA got its first lesbian president. In 1995, humans had barely a toehold on Mars and a bomb had devastated NASA's command centre. In 2003, the multi-national Mars colony is well-established and the next stop planned is asteroid mining. After an early attempt ends in disaster, it takes a particularly valuable prize to get things going again.<p></p>
<p>Though we barely see Jodi Balfour as President Waverley in this season (Al Gore now being President), and many other major characters have died or retired along the way, there are some survivors from the late 1960s. Astronaut Ed Baldwin is a cranky old man now; hardly a surprise since he was such a cranky young man. Joel Kinnamon's performance conveys the character's age better than his rather dusty make-up. He doesn't want to leave Mars, especially with his daughter and grandson on the way there. He's not happy when old friend Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) is sent from Earth to become his boss. Her instinct was to decline the job, but she returns to service out of duty.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Although the Cold War was in theory over, partly thanks to the international co-operation seen in previous seasons, Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt, whose excellent performance had me completely forgetting her actual age) gets caught up in a coup that sees Gorbachev removed from power by hardliners. Her young protégé Aleida Rosales (Coral Peña), who we first met as a little girl, the daughter of a NASA cleaner, is working with Baldwin's daughter Kelly (Cynthy Wu) on a project to find life on Mars. They inspire Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) to take his company back, like Steve Jobs did with Apple, but it's interesting that, like the tech entrepreneur in <em>Invasion</em>, he's not always shown in the virtuous light you might expect from an Apple show. <p></p>
<p>Among other new characters, this season introduces Toby Kebbell (so good in <em>Servant</em>, also from Apple) as a new male lead, Miles Dale. He's an oil rig worker who lost his job to the march of progress. His trip to Mars is motivated by the need to make money to save his marriage, and like a lot of workers on that planet he is disappointed to find the bonuses are small and getting smaller. As their resentment at Earth and its representatives grows, it starts to feel like we are in Heinlein territory: "The Roads Must Roll", <em>The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress</em> and "The Man Who Sold the Moon" all came to mind at various points.</p>
<p>It's impressive how smoothly the show has moved from a realistic retelling of historical events, albeit slightly tweaked, to stories that would have been seen as out-and-out science fiction back in the 1960s, without ever feeling like we have crossed the line into fantasy. Perhaps that's the goal of Apple, and Sony, who make it, to make us feel like it could be real, to get us to think of the future, reconnect with those possibilities, and imagine what could be waiting for us. There are no aliens here, no stargates, no magic, no monoliths, just slight tweaks, like there being enough ice on the Moon to sustain a base. Everything is portrayed as realistically as possible: spaceships, Mars, asteroids, human nature.</p>
<p>And this is a very good season of the show. There are remarkable twists and death-defying adventures galore – as ever, if things can go wrong in <em>For All Mankind</em>, they will – and far less, blessedly, of the family drama back on Earth. Plus, if you enjoyed <em>The Americans</em>, it works well as a sequel to that too. I always think I'm going to find it a bit dry and dull, an intellectual exercise, with too much time spent with grumpy Ed Baldwin, consistently one of television's least likeable protagonists, but once I'm watching it I inevitably get caught up in the drama and excitement and political wrangling and don't watch anything else till I'm finished. It might feel slow-paced, but at the end of each season you look back and realise how far you've travelled. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>****</b></span></p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-71296706664387815152024-02-09T09:00:00.010+00:002024-02-11T01:30:40.312+00:00Barbarians of the Beyond by Matthew Hughes (Spatterlight) | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIM-UF_q19EWo3PeuB0EtpYz3NXHJND82MQWajw4zIbNxbA15bIpE5EcQjsIYslRN7ERyN3uQhZ9lBFuyD06DzivQGzwkzpoGhuMFqlbetZntvKuJPDbsVJyGeHyk1FGDuQ3Hc7U1TlJKI2Kuqaqa1ntPtnMynCaoMmBwZ9XdSwLYFwHsgE0EKVIOFNGw/s1000/books-barbarians.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIM-UF_q19EWo3PeuB0EtpYz3NXHJND82MQWajw4zIbNxbA15bIpE5EcQjsIYslRN7ERyN3uQhZ9lBFuyD06DzivQGzwkzpoGhuMFqlbetZntvKuJPDbsVJyGeHyk1FGDuQ3Hc7U1TlJKI2Kuqaqa1ntPtnMynCaoMmBwZ9XdSwLYFwHsgE0EKVIOFNGw/s320/books-barbarians.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>About twenty-five years ago, in the year 1499 (New Reckoning) five of the galaxy's worst criminals, known collectively as the Demon Princes, led their henchmen in an attack on a farming colony, Mount Pleasant, on the world of Providence, leaving many dead and taking the rest as slaves. Such is the nature of life in the Beyond, beyond the civilised safety of the Oikumene worlds.<p></p>
<p>The parents of Morwen Sabine were among those taken, and sold into slavery, ending up in the possession of Hacheem Belloch, on Blatcher's World. And it was into slavery that Morwen was born. We join her subsequent to her escape, as she arrives on Providence, and makes her way back to the former home of her parents. They left something of value there, hidden in her tree, that might help bring them home.</p><p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>But the town is no longer empty. It is now occupied by new colonists, who meet weekly in a temple to watch each other take mind-expanding drugs, as well as the criminals who export those drugs to the stars, led by one Jerz Thanda. All are on constant watch for the agents of the Oikumene authorities, known as weasels, and their natural suspicion of her is just one of the obstacles Morwen will have to surmount.<p></p>
<p>Despite its pleasantly old-fashioned title, <em>Barbarians of the Beyond</em> is a brand new novel which takes place concurrently with the first couple of novels in Jack Vance's brilliant Demon Princes saga. The best compliment I can pay the book is that I frequently forgot that it was not written by Jack Vance. After this novel was initially announced, I realised that I had never actually read the fifth and final Demon Princes book, <em>The Book of Dreams</em>, and spent a marvellous day putting that right. This could be a pea from the same pod. There is perhaps a bit less of the surprising vocabulary for which Vance was famous, but there's all the toughness, cleverness, food and fashion one could want. It's interesting to see how a female protagonist would navigate Vance's universe.</p>
<p>If I had an issue with it, it would be that at no point does Morwen even consider the fate of the other slaves taken during the Demon Princes' raid, which felt a bit off. The book does stress repeatedly how single-minded she is about rescuing her parents, but perhaps a sequel would see her expand her goals. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would happily read many more in a similar vein. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>****</b></span></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-44938642113861327752024-02-07T09:00:00.008+00:002024-02-21T11:57:57.066+00:00Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester (St. Martin’s Press) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4y5O94V6-P_IsLsRj574yk_HIzEGTL5N8guO7MoDn7ko0V1BSFSteSTFq-Q587IIJRvWxN8oLG2rrTIeGzBebC24IRQ4L1rMsptMIB4ve8PAxpNeGw40K4dh8zusYWGlTM3S_VamNoQf9D8GU2sZqUzg-us6k5RG6Z9DwLwiUd5IdULHOwzlPGqwXixjz/s1000/SuchAPrettySmile.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="675" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4y5O94V6-P_IsLsRj574yk_HIzEGTL5N8guO7MoDn7ko0V1BSFSteSTFq-Q587IIJRvWxN8oLG2rrTIeGzBebC24IRQ4L1rMsptMIB4ve8PAxpNeGw40K4dh8zusYWGlTM3S_VamNoQf9D8GU2sZqUzg-us6k5RG6Z9DwLwiUd5IdULHOwzlPGqwXixjz/s320/SuchAPrettySmile.jpg" width="216" /></a></i></div><i>Unrequited love and somnambulant sculpting: alternating timelines explore mother/daughter bonds and suppression of women’s voices.</i><p></p><p><i>Such a Pretty Smile</i> tells the stories of a mother and daughter dealing with a variety of threats, the most dangerous of which is a serial killer called The Cur. On a deeper level, the novel comments on women having their voices stifled in a society that drives them towards certain behaviours and activities. </p><p>Like many recent horror novels, the action alternates between two timelines. In 2019, eighth-grader Lila Sawyer – a surname with clear implications – has a crush on her attractive but self-absorbed classmate Macie, who is more interested in Cameron, a junior in high school. Macie tries to push Cameron’s awkward brother Andrew onto Lila. To top it off, a murderer who kills young girls is on the prowl. </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>The 2004 timeline, which takes place in New Orleans, focuses on Lila’s artist mother Caroline (pre-Lila) juggling several challenges: insomnia, a dying father, and financial troubles. Compounding these issues are the chauvinistic males in her life. Her new husband Daniel, an ambitious artist, envies her natural talents as a sculptor. He moves in artistic circles; she wants nothing to do with them. Then there’s Caroline’s patronizing psychiatrist, who refers to her as “dear” and treats her like a child who doesn’t know what’s good for herself. She starts giving private art lessons to Beth, a middle schooler who’s been in trouble and whose mother pushes her towards being the perfect girl. <p></p><p>Throughout both narratives, author Kristi DeMeester maintains the threat of girls getting abducted and killed… Beth in 2004 and Lila in 2019. Strong parallels begin to emerge, and the questions accumulate: How much will Lila’s anger escalate as she deals with unrequited love and a dismissive father who’s divorced her mom and married a woman who wants nothing to do with her? What happened at a New Orleans amusement park called Jazzland? Are Caroline’s visions real, or are they just a manifestation of mental illness? And why does Caroline keep waking up to these creepy sculptures she has no recollection of creating? Each of these gets addressed slowly but intriguingly.</p><p>What distinguishes this novel from other recent horror novels is the author’s ability to withhold key information – readers sense there’s something off about 2004 Caroline and 2019 Lila. Typically, horror stories involving teens clearly reveal the “monster” right away. <i>Such a Pretty Smile</i> blurs those lines. <i><a href="https://douglasjogurek.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Douglas J. Ogurek</a> </i><b style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: 17.6px;">***</b></p><div><br /></div>Douglas J. Ogurekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08100856154966376053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-1818862730580770252024-02-05T23:58:00.003+00:002024-02-06T00:01:28.667+00:00All of Us Strangers | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFMlUuAzXyRy6OQ-LJrbbh105ozZlJEd-LIrlea30toUFd5gJZfeRYAlS_pn6mpk7-sdI9RNCUb34w0fg3XOtrQVcmNRf4aeEQG9pswRFG9ZX37iNcTpV5V-CEwRj_h1jFtudBS2yWZgyFzqiwptjA5_igC_wKtccpvlbRONuUAlBTbqyQzFNmieJM1LE/s1499/IMG_6507.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1499" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFMlUuAzXyRy6OQ-LJrbbh105ozZlJEd-LIrlea30toUFd5gJZfeRYAlS_pn6mpk7-sdI9RNCUb34w0fg3XOtrQVcmNRf4aeEQG9pswRFG9ZX37iNcTpV5V-CEwRj_h1jFtudBS2yWZgyFzqiwptjA5_igC_wKtccpvlbRONuUAlBTbqyQzFNmieJM1LE/s320/IMG_6507.jpeg" width="213" /></a></em></div><em>All of Us Strangers</em> tells the story of Adam (Andrew Scott), a gay writer in his forties, living alone in an empty London apartment block. He writes for film, and, when he has to (as he puts it), for television. He's trying to write a script about his childhood, but struggling, so he heads back to his home town to see his parents. Anyone who has seen the trailer will know already that his parents (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) died in a car crash when he was a child. The film, however, doesn't tell you that they died until <em>after</em> we have met them, though one might guess from the conversation and their relative youth. Adam doesn't seem surprised to meet them, nor do they seem surprised to meet him, though they are aware that time has gone on without them.<p></p>
<p>In London, a nice chap knocks on Adam's door with a bottle of whiskey, looking for company. They are apparently the only people to have moved into the building yet and the silence is freaking him out. Harry (Paul Mescal) is from a younger generation, but bears similar emotional scars. Adam hates being called queer, because it was an insult thrown at him by bullies in the 1980s. Harry hates being called gay, because it was an all-purpose insult during the Chris Moyles era. Adam went a long time without ever having penetrative sex, because of AIDS, but for Harry's generation HIV would no longer be a death sentence and PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) drugs can prevent transmission. Though Adam understandably turns the drunk young man away at first, he later invites him over, and a tender relationship develops between them.</p>
<p>Eventually, Adam takes Harry to meet his parents.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>I thought this was a brilliant film. Heartbreaking, but brilliant. I haven't read the novel it was based on, by Taichi Yamada, or seen the previous film that adapted it (<em>The Discarnates</em>), nor have I seen any of writer-director Andrew Haigh's previous work (for example on <em>Looking</em> and <em>The OA</em>), but the use of a Pet Shop Boys song in the trailer was recommendation enough for me, and the film delivered in that regard. Like <em>Argylle</em>, a totally different but equally enjoyable film about a writer I saw on the same day, the use of music in <em>All of Us Strangers</em> is terrific. Blur's Death of a Party perfectly soundtracks a nightmarish trip. Adam and his parents singing Always on My Mind around the Christmas tree made even me cry. And though Adam is fairly miserable most of the time, I still envy his visit to a nightclub where they play a classic Pet Shop Boys b-side, I Want a Dog.<p></p>
<p>From what I've read, the protagonist of <em>The Discarnates</em> was not gay, and he was surprised to meet his parents, who turned out to be hungry ghosts, feeding on the living. <em>All of Us Strangers</em> doesn't take that approach. It's almost as if his parents have been reconstructed in virtual reality for him to visit for therapy reasons, or pulled out of time just before their deaths, or kept in a bubble universe like the one where the Silver Age Superboy went on living with Ma and Pa Kent, all so that Adam's parents can meet their son full-grown, and they can say to each other all the things they never got to say. In <em>American Fiction</em>, yet another excellent film I saw about a writer on the same day, the protagonist's brother is gay, and his mother is unkind about it, and we see how much that can wound even an adult man. So too for Adam.</p>
<p>Being able to talk to his parents as an adult lets him reconnect with his past in order to write the project, but it also lets the past reconnect with him. Whether he is simply imagining how his mum would have reacted to him coming out to her, or whether it is in some sense really happening, his feelings about it are real, and wonderfully portrayed by Andrew Scott, who deserves all the plaudits coming his way. Like Jeffrey Wright in <em>American Fiction</em>, it's a treat to see such an intelligent, thoughtful actor, who has shone in several supporting roles, given the chance to take the lead in an intelligent, thoughtful film. Paul Mescal is equally good as Harry, his grounded performance giving the film a solid sense of reality, and a huge amount of charm. Their romance is highly believable.</p>
<p>On paper the film might sound a bit pat, didactic, patronising: let's drag people out of the past and get them to apologise for their outdated views! But it doesn't feel like that at all on screen. For one thing, it breaks many of the rules that a film concerned only with setting a moral standard and lecturing its audience might feel obliged to follow: it comes nowhere near passing the Bechdel test, for example, and it features a gay character played by an actor who isn't gay, which was widely declared unconscionable last year, and I'm sure someone somewhere is complaining about it featuring unwelcome tropes. It's not a lecture, it's all about character, dialogue, human interaction. It can also be very funny, in amongst the tears, and properly scary at some points. </p>
<p>Though I've compared it above to other films about writers I saw the same day, it reminded me most of <em>High-Rise</em>, about another single man going barmy in a tower block, and <em>Bones and All</em>, another moody, reflective and stylish film which was similarly content to point the camera at a pair of brilliant actors and let us watch their peculiar relationship develop, without telling us what to think about it. That <em>All of Us Strangers</em> connected with UK audiences the way it did, reaching number two in the cinema charts, feels like a very positive sign for British cinema. The relative lack of blockbusters in the early part of 2024 might have been disappointing for cinema owners, but it's been a boon for cinemagoers. Festivals aside, I don't remember a time when there was such a variety of films to choose from in my local multiplex. As the blockbusters return, I hope UK cinemas continue to make space for quietly brilliant films like this one. <i>Stephen Theaker</i> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">*****</b></p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-64910137110524742142024-02-02T08:00:00.004+00:002024-02-07T23:37:24.893+00:00Tales from the Spired Inn by Stephen Palmer (NewCon Press) | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVxwbbyYi6iviAB54_U6VviciNUkbuzcWmIojLrS808xlvCXOwW3FtXiy6dGPSw8uKZ_KsgX8Bizvk2Y2KBE1Vetu6Kl4vGG8Q-h-dUlIjJqXG77h6A6nIwFlwbCPniAHs6famd-3cuLMI8wLuakKSHDZQl7HMC2zWQv_pttuiI3TwO-D4OZaq-xJWs4/s500/48582992.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="335" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVxwbbyYi6iviAB54_U6VviciNUkbuzcWmIojLrS808xlvCXOwW3FtXiy6dGPSw8uKZ_KsgX8Bizvk2Y2KBE1Vetu6Kl4vGG8Q-h-dUlIjJqXG77h6A6nIwFlwbCPniAHs6famd-3cuLMI8wLuakKSHDZQl7HMC2zWQv_pttuiI3TwO-D4OZaq-xJWs4/s320/48582992.jpg" width="214" /></a></em></div><em>This review originally appeared in Interzone #284 (November–December 2019).</em><p></p>
<p>It’s not the end of the world. The planet is doing just fine. But this might be the last year that there are any humans living on it, at least as we know them. As we learn in the first story in this collection, a clever murder mystery called “Dr Vanchovy’s Final Case”, this is an Earth where people are killed by bladder blade plants, falling cushions of fungus, and cats with silicon implants in their claws. Abandoned buildings, thousands of years old, reach up to the clouds, serving only as anchors for the webs of whooping hunting spiders. The air grows ever less breathable and anyone coming indoors has to leave their boots in antiseptic buckets.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>What few humans survive around the city of Kray are bonded in tightly-knit, highly competitive tribes dead set upon mutual murder, and the Spired Inn of the title is the neutral ground on which they can meet. The cannibalistic Cemetery Revellers feature frequently in these stories. In “Funeral for a Pyuter”, original to this collection, they come together with the Temple of Youth to mark the passing of Majaq-Aqhaj, not knowing that Uqeq of the Red Brigade is there with her own plans, surprising the reader as well as those grieving. In “Granny” a mother fights a tense graveyard battle against their champion to earn her daughter a place among their ranks.<p></p>
<p>“First Temple”, another brand new story, concerns a brash but highly entertaining attempt to escape the oncoming doom, while “Memory Seed” (an extract from the novel of the same title, which these stories tie into) takes us on a tour of the post-human world. It sounds quite pleasant. The book ends with “The Green Realm Below”, where misfit Kytanquil is forced into communication with the Slow People and the Venus Heart they tend. It portrays effectively how this interaction changes her perception of time.</p>
<p>This is a book that thoroughly entertains while making serious points about the environment and our relationship with it. It’s literary, careful and densely atmospheric, but describes shoot-outs and adventure with a tremendous clarity of place and action. Packed with big ideas, this is pretty much the ideal small press science fiction title. <i>Stephen Theaker</i> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">****</b></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-52169551338860303332024-01-31T09:00:00.001+00:002024-02-07T23:36:32.309+00:00The Unbalancing, by R.B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications) | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJNXLaiManz25cPrqFdHKO_lu8VMytbCsSJqq1EDZgXy5oNxMU7OZgkXGF2ZCHIbSI1XxHpq7F9ZSvLALn1WS0utfS2bU3DPFNdhhyphenhyphen6Agv77tFv9WnYfc3IVnOvXI6YWRWihhQBulfCzI80mec4YAzvhttnFdxOuiy7U9809-qVC80JgHF64rGxEE3co/s1600/unbalancing.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinJNXLaiManz25cPrqFdHKO_lu8VMytbCsSJqq1EDZgXy5oNxMU7OZgkXGF2ZCHIbSI1XxHpq7F9ZSvLALn1WS0utfS2bU3DPFNdhhyphenhyphen6Agv77tFv9WnYfc3IVnOvXI6YWRWihhQBulfCzI80mec4YAzvhttnFdxOuiy7U9809-qVC80JgHF64rGxEE3co/s320/unbalancing.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The star in the ocean off the city of Gelle-Geu has slumbered for almost a thousand years, but now it is beginning to have nightmares. And because that star is tethered to the Mother Mountain, a nearby volcano, the twenty thousand inhabitants of Gelle-Geu are in no small amount of danger. Unfortunately, the previous keeper of the Star of the Tides decided that nothing could be done to stop the disaster, and so kept it secret.<p></p>
<p>When new starkeeper Ranra Kekeri takes over, and discovers how little time remains, Ranra takes a very different view. If there’s a way to calm the star, Ranra will find it, but before that can be done the new starkeeper may have to figure out what the star actually is – all while dealing with the worries caused by an aggressive former partner, Veruma, a cruel and delusional mother, Adira, and a potential new partner, the poet Erígra Lilún.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Erígra the poet is also a point of view character. As with the previous book I read by this author (<em>The Four Profound Weaves</em>), I didn’t really enjoy the story being split between two first-person narrators, especially at first when it was harder to remember which was which, but Erígra was an interestingly unusual protagonist for a book like this. Most fantasy novels feature heroes who run towards danger, but Erígra sits down, upset, waits for the danger to pass, and would much rather be writing a poem.<p></p>
<p>The way that magic works in this book is also interesting, though it took me a little while to get a handle on it. One’s magic depends on one’s deepnames, and the fewer syllables in those names, the more powerful they are. There’s an element of choice, but names can also be taken from others during fights: Ranra’s first came when defending Adira, and the second from fighting Adira. Ranra’s magic is powerful enough to mend ships and houses even before the book begins.</p>
<p>Like a few books I’ve read recently (e.g. <em><a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-flame-and-flood-by-shona-kinsella.html">The Flame and the Flood</a></em>, reviewed in TQF70), <em>The Unbalancing</em> is reluctant to tell readers the sex of its characters. We learn about their gender identities and sexualities (mostly either orgy-loving pansexuals or asexuals – gay men live on their own island), but not their sex. Some readers may appreciate this: it makes multiple readings possible. But not telling readers how to imagine its characters in such a fundamental respect does adds to the reader’s mental load, as one tries to hold all possibilities in one’s head at once.</p>
<p>That may be why I originally set the book aside a third of the way in. But for my second bash at it I plumped for a particular reading (a female Ranra, a male Erígra), and while that may not be justified by the text and other readings may be possible, it did make the book much less of a chore to read. Between that, coming to understand the magic a bit better, and the impressive unfurling of the plot, it was a book I enjoyed more with each passing page. I’ve read few books with better conclusions. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>****</b></span></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-24305708430251282392024-01-29T09:00:00.008+00:002024-01-29T10:12:42.938+00:00Badland Hunters | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRI7nomSteccZF8yPFwFk8LPpWwY0oqMM0VPhnW3PKjRSznCaftCt9vP3vMbzUfyWBVzAG8BCXSbuoQPHX5XqILVcqdUNUGET6cKrzTAA1rvlQRovFeXms_6dKnPS732sFjZJ5EsuHOiy14chK0Kgxozs4WoiZZ_EGvFSBXUBS24hsX-34F6nfFF1jvA/s2222/IMG_6504.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2222" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRI7nomSteccZF8yPFwFk8LPpWwY0oqMM0VPhnW3PKjRSznCaftCt9vP3vMbzUfyWBVzAG8BCXSbuoQPHX5XqILVcqdUNUGET6cKrzTAA1rvlQRovFeXms_6dKnPS732sFjZJ5EsuHOiy14chK0Kgxozs4WoiZZ_EGvFSBXUBS24hsX-34F6nfFF1jvA/s320/IMG_6504.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div>Although not a direct sequel, this South Korean film is set in the world of <em>Concrete Utopia</em>, which doesn't seem to have had a UK release. Based on a comic called <em>Pleasant Bullying</em> by Kim Soong-nyung, the previous film apparently showed the aftermath of an earthquake striking Seoul so hard that all the skyscrapers collapsed. People tried their best to survive in a devastated urban environment, to build some kind of order among the chaos, but things went awry: a <em>Sight and Sound</em> review described it as "a Ballardian story set in a post-apocalyptic apartment complex".<p></p>
<p>I doubt many reviewers will use "Ballardian" to describe Netflix's <em>Badland Hunters</em>, which is a self-consciously pulpy and over-the-top affair. A prologue shows us that, when the earthquake hit, mad scientist Yang Gi-Su was trying to resurrect his daughter. Three years later, by which time a drought has added to everyone's problems, he is still mad-sciencing away, and with the help of soldiers has taken over an apartment block that still stands. With his new experiments, Yang Gi-Su aims to create humans who can survive the extended periods of dehydration and malnutrition that are practically inevitable in this dry new world.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Our hero is Nam-Sam (played by Ma Dong-seok, aka Don Lee), an ex-boxer with a rock-hard punch and lots of blood on his hands. He and his young friend Ji-wan hunt alligators and sell the meat at a market. During the earthquake, he saved a girl, Su-Na, and now, when she catches the eye of slave traders, he gives them a good beating. Soon after, rather coincidentally, a bunch of sharp-suited folks offer Su-Na and her grandma a place in their community, where they have plenty of water and are trying to keep children safe for the sake of the future. What they don't mention is that they are working for Yang Gi-Su, the mad scientist...<p></p>
<p>This wasn't quite the rip-roaring action film I expected from the trailer. The fight scenes are decent, and Nam-Sam gets plenty of men and monsters to wallop with his hard punch. I liked the athletic fighting style of Sergeant Lee, a female ally, and would have enjoyed more of that. But despite a frisky camera, or perhaps because of it not showing us things properly, the action doesn't really sing, and it doesn't escalate. It feels like we are building to a monstrous transformation of some kind for the mad scientist, and when that doesn't happen the film deflates a little. It felt like the budget ran short at the end.</p>
<p>More positively, <em>Badland Hunters</em> works absolutely fine as a standalone film. I don't think any actors return from <em>Concrete Utopia</em>, and the prologue shows the actual earthquake happening, which is more set-up than we got in the Mad Max films. A handful of humorous moments work well. The performances are good, and the villains are properly villainous. I suppose it's a decent enough three-star film, and I'm just disappointed because I convinced myself that the trailer promised much more. <i>Stephen Theaker</i> <b style="color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">***</b></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-86475290174859518882024-01-26T09:00:00.008+00:002024-02-07T23:37:04.601+00:00Lone Wolf 28: The Hunger of Sejanoz, by Joe Dever | review by Rafe McGregor<p><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Holmgard
Press, hardback, £19.99, November 2022, ISBN </span>9781915586056</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmXpnP4YGmOwXrnLHbrY1mNkKoLC4bCUBf-zwl3hxmM4_o40ipOoykab-84XC4z9aeGBv3xQ3WoUQOimTjRNv6NeEWmTLM0kz4n6NhUPOUqkgGwz6llE7nW1fsY5v1UQhsmmrxflKK4NhWrUKamoxdBDaHMzejoWFstEkevq-4Op2BFWp7SmlVsj_qRMc/s1313/81ldvKW.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1313" data-original-width="850" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmXpnP4YGmOwXrnLHbrY1mNkKoLC4bCUBf-zwl3hxmM4_o40ipOoykab-84XC4z9aeGBv3xQ3WoUQOimTjRNv6NeEWmTLM0kz4n6NhUPOUqkgGwz6llE7nW1fsY5v1UQhsmmrxflKK4NhWrUKamoxdBDaHMzejoWFstEkevq-4Op2BFWp7SmlVsj_qRMc/s320/81ldvKW.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">I’ve
been delaying my review of the most recently published collector’s edition
because I was hoping to be able to report that Holmgard Press had achieved at
least one of its goals: that either the whole cycle of thirty-two Lone Wolf gamebooks
had been published or that a large proportion of the cycle was back in print. Unfortunately,
both goals remain in development at the time of writing. Regarding
availability, there are now three editions circulating: original (paperback and
secondhand only), collector’s (hardback and secondhand only), and definitive (which
can be purchased from <a href="https://shop-magnamund.com/" target="_blank">Holmgard Press</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flight-Dark-Lone-Wolf-Definitive/dp/1915586003/ref=sr_1_1?crid=BH2CPO3MYEO6&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YrEU9PFmUZW5NDn_pwsiYNvQNNdm45H9qZnLHwsnL11izCLaqsv5Co8EkFTnv3572wQYNZ5Hu5vVcHk2gaV0uM74l2Y1GLtd3KWYUmWQ0D7S-E9FPhOEb5JN9QKfkkzdBtAiS9C0mee4wIBgNYLO4KdOt7kZMCd4VdPyGydPmLRjUqDGAFxDw8nNPrqc7S3HESKlaKmYdapX96xf_L-ud3Xg0-IXHreee03dVVMy6j8.Io4g2apQ2hd0ngheAZ-TRcIdE9fTBP3ZYDI_CH3KTKk&dib_tag=se&keywords=flight+from+the+dark+lone+wolf&qid=1705664602&s=books&sprefix=flight+from+the+dark+lone+wolf%2Cstripbooks%2C106&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, and no doubt other online
bookstores). The only definitive editions in print at the time of writing are
books 1 to 12, 1 to 5 (the Kai series) in hardback and paperback and 6 to 12
(the Magnakai series) in hardback. Books 13 to 20 (the Grand Master series) are
relatively easy to find on the secondhand market (and usually not extortionate,
for the original editions anyway), but books 21 to 31 (the New Order series) less so. People seem to be hanging on to the Holmgard Press Collector’s
Editions pretty tightly and I’ve not seen any copies of books 28 to 31
available for a while now. The original edition of <i>Lone Wolf 28: The Hunger
of Sejanoz</i> (which was published by Red Fox in 1998) reached a peak price of
£1894 on the secondhand market in February 2022, but both original and collector’s editions are now completely unavailable fourteen months after the publication of the
latter. Regarding the completion of the series, <i>Lone Wolf 32: Light of the
Kai</i> is going to be released in two parts, which Holmgard aims to publish in
October 2024 and October 2025 respectively. I have to ask <i>why</i>. Two parts mean that
Joe Dever’s original conception of a thirty-book cycle has been changed to thirty-three,
but the press’s stated intention is the posthumous realisation of his vision (Dever sadly passed
away in 2016). I am also concerned that the perceived need to publish the final
book in two parts is evidence of an exacerbation of the source of my criticism
of <i>Lone Wolf 31: The Dusk of Eternal Night</i>, which I <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2020/12/lone-wolf-31-dusk-of-eternal-night.html" target="_blank">reviewed</a> in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2021/04/theakers69.html" target="_blank">TQF69</a>.
Finally, 2024 is the fortieth anniversary of the publication of <i>Lone Wolf 1:
Flight from the Dark</i> (yes, that does make me feel old) and it would
have been great to have the cycle completed in such an auspicious year.</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>As regular readers of TQF will know, I
have reviewed all of the New Order books so far, but I’ll provide a brief
recap here for newcomers. The four series into which the Lone Wolf cycle is
divided have taken three different forms: a single campaign across both the Kai
and Magnakai series, followed by a series of standalone adventures in the Grand
Master series, all with the same player character, Lone Wolf; and the
introduction of a new player character in the New Order series, who is the second
most powerful Kai Grand Master (mine has the randomly generated and rather
wimpy name of “True Friend”), whose adventures alternate between campaigns and
standalones. <i><a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2016/07/lone-wolf-21-voyage-of-moonstone.html" target="_blank">Lone Wolf 21: Voyage of the Moonstone</a></i> and <i><a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2017/01/lone-wolf-22-buccaneers-of-shadaki-by.html" target="_blank">Lone Wolf 22: The Buccaneers of Shadaki</a></i> are a two-part campaign, the aim of
which is to return the Moonstone to the Isle of Lorn in southern Magnamund. The
next four books are all standalone adventures: defeating the robber-knight
Baron Sadanzo in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2020/01/lone-wolf-23-mydnights-hero-review-by.html" target="_blank"><i>Lone Wolf 23:</i> <i>Mydnight’s Hero</i></a> and the warmongering wizard Lord Vandyan in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2020/01/lone-wolf-24-rune-war-review-by-rafe.html" target="_blank"><i>Lone
Wolf 24: </i><i>Rune War</i></a>; rescuing
Lone Wolf himself in <i><a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2020/05/lone-wolf-25-trail-of-wolf-review-by.html" target="_blank">Lone Wolf 25: Trail of the Wolf</a></i>; and
assisting the Dwarves of Bor in the defence of their Throne Chamber in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2020/07/lone-wolf-26-fall-of-blood-mountain.html" target="_blank"><i>Lone
Wolf 26:</i> <i>The Fall of Blood
Mountain</i></a><i>. <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2021/07/lone-wolf-27-vampirium-review-by-rafe.html" target="_blank">Lone Wolf 27: Vampirium</a></i> initiates a
new campaign that will be completed in <i>The Hunger of Sejanoz</i>, revisited
in <i><a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2017/01/lone-wolf-29-storms-of-chai-by-joe.html" target="_blank">Lone Wolf 29: The Storms of Chai</a></i>, and possibly continue
through to the end of the cycle (the nature of its narrative closure is not
quite clear to me and that may well be Holmgard Press’s intention). True Friend’s
mission in <i>Vampirium</i> was to prevent the Autarch Sejanoz of Bhanar from
acquiring the Claw of Naar from the ruin of Naaros. True Friend was, of course,
successful but Sejanoz went ahead with the invasion of Chai <i>sans</i> Claw
and True Friend’s next mission is to escort Khea-khan Xo-lin and his entourage,
which includes Princess Mitzu and her son, Prince Kamada, from the imperial
seat of Pensei, across the Great Lissan Plain, to the safety of the city of Tazhan.
The caravan is under the charge of Guard Captain Chan, who has a troop of elite
Imperial Cavalry to protect the imperial family from bandits, Agarashi, tomb
robbers, nahba worms (one of which is featured on the cover), and the Bhanarian
army.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzRlUTEE1F5jEPfwuVoooczsStRPyPKgV7C7PvrhNB3h0KjiamfYiyAY-M23Wgde4k6p_QLCKIqZE77S7XigkFYAeY-SPSOj7knu0TIGXir10F2cRlyGKz2js9GookgOwx-xw2eg2hgt3V3KO-2TrQqLwHseV1BrQj4Q_kiv_xnKWofb_zuFPnoB9rcDw/s2077/lw28-1st-0.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2077" data-original-width="1298" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzRlUTEE1F5jEPfwuVoooczsStRPyPKgV7C7PvrhNB3h0KjiamfYiyAY-M23Wgde4k6p_QLCKIqZE77S7XigkFYAeY-SPSOj7knu0TIGXir10F2cRlyGKz2js9GookgOwx-xw2eg2hgt3V3KO-2TrQqLwHseV1BrQj4Q_kiv_xnKWofb_zuFPnoB9rcDw/s320/lw28-1st-0.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><i>The Hunger of Sejanoz</i> was originally
published in 1998, when the gamebook phenomenon was in decline and Red Fox had
lost confidence in the series, in consequence of which Dever was forced to
reduce the gameplay sections from the standard 350 to 300, cutting the
adventure short. As further evidence of Red Fox’s lack of interest, the wrong
map was published, a duplicate of the map of <i>Vampirium</i>. (I feel for Dever
– the only thing worse than a lacklustre publisher is one that fails to correct
errors and Red Fox were guilty of both flaws.) The collector’s edition includes 50
new sections written by Vincent Lazarri and Ben Devere, extending the adventure
to its intended length, and an original map drawn by Francesco Mattioli.
Although I did own an original edition briefly, I never played the game so I
can’t comment on the difference made by the additional sections, aside from them
obviously being very welcome. I have no recollection of the artwork in the
original edition either, although I should have because Brian
Williams really outdid himself in his final outing for the cycle (the illustrations
inside the collector’s edition are all identical and the cover is by Alberto
dal Lago, a striking reimagining of the original). Very roughly, the game is
divided into four parts, measured by the caravan’s progress to first Javai,
then Rakholi, then Zanaza, and finally Fort Vlau, which is where the Autarch
catches up with the Khea-khan. Compared to the other adventures in the New
Order series I would class this as intermediate in difficulty, neither overly
easy nor impossible to complete. In addition to the standard perils and thrills
of what is basically a wilderness adventure in <i>Advanced</i> <i>Dungeons &
Dragons</i> terminology, it soon emerges that there is a traitor in the imperial
entourage and the element of mystery racks up the suspense a few notches, which
is a satisfying touch. The Grand Master discipline of Kai-alchemy is
particularly useful, with Kai-surge, Astrology, and Assimilance also assisting play.
My only criticism of the game is that if one has acquired the Arrow of
Atonement, then the final confrontation with the Autarch is a little anticlimactic.
I could perhaps extend that comment to the game as a whole in that I didn’t
enjoy it quite as much as <i>Vampirium</i>. Given the complexity and carnage of
<i>The Storms of Chai</i> to come, however, <i>The Hunger of Sejanoz</i> fits
very neatly into the late cycle trilogy, a relative calm before the storm, and
the trilogy as a whole is one of the most enjoyable parts of the entire cycle.
(The only other part that can compare for me is the first three adventures in
the Magnakai series.) Overall, this is an excellent gamebook, even if you haven’t
played Lone Wolf before (though I would recommend playing this after <i>Vampirium</i>,
whether or not you start there, at the beginning of the New Order, or at the
beginning of the whole cycle).</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal;">In keeping with previous
Collector’s Editions, <i>The Hunger of Sejanoz</i> includes a bonus adventure. “The
Edge of Night” is written by August Hahn, illustrated by Koa, and has 150
sections of gameplay. “You are Altan, an unwilling member of the Vampirium and
a blood-slave of Autarch Sejanoz, the tyrant of Bhanar” and your mission is to use
your newfound freedom to give your enslaved son a second chance at life. T<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">he adventure meets both of my criteria for a bonus
game: the plot dovetails neatly with the main adventure (beginning with the
death of Sejanoz) and provides a contrast of player character – the vampiric
Altan reminded me of a monk whereas True Friend is clearly a ranger (to revert
to </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Advanced Dungeons & Dragons</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> terminology). Like most of the bonus adventures, “The
Edge of Night” is original, interesting, and well worth playing. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In closing,
I must admit some disappointment at not popping up on Holmgard Press’s radar by
now. Courtesy of Stephen Theaker’s forbearance this is my thirteenth review of
a Lone Wolf gamebook (the New Order series plus two of Martin Charbonneau’s discontinued
Autumn Snow series, a total of approximately 17,000 words), with each averaging
a thousand reads on the TQF blog. My hope is that they have introduced at least a few new players to Dever's wonderful world of Magnamund. Never mind... all being well, my next
review will be published this Christmas or early in 2025. <i>Rafe McGregor</i></span></p><p></p>Rafe McGregorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15576985279882853814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-57697750821942423402024-01-24T09:00:00.004+00:002024-01-25T00:18:18.707+00:00The Lost Village: A Novel by Camilla Sten (Minotaur Books) | review by Douglas J. Ogurek<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgVPmtiIXg1T7yzTWZxMu2Q6L1B2IN0DpnUkNhep8U9kRtAF89Qn_piO_iBG_gAthyphenhyphenGJiragiv-BLRy1udz4DwLz_xP-BrOcdOmP5Zb1ahJSyR7daJS9vgLwAh2NVPHsWYcAAm2rbvfuXYmjDkHgF-nRsNYXGnDIDmw3Nacsqe-uxqnz-aW9nUk0eUtau/s400/TheLostVillage.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="263" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgVPmtiIXg1T7yzTWZxMu2Q6L1B2IN0DpnUkNhep8U9kRtAF89Qn_piO_iBG_gAthyphenhyphenGJiragiv-BLRy1udz4DwLz_xP-BrOcdOmP5Zb1ahJSyR7daJS9vgLwAh2NVPHsWYcAAm2rbvfuXYmjDkHgF-nRsNYXGnDIDmw3Nacsqe-uxqnz-aW9nUk0eUtau/w210-h320/TheLostVillage.jpg" width="210" /></a></i></div><i>Strong storytelling compensates for tired concept. </i><p></p><p><i>The Lost Village</i> unites stories from two different timelines. The present-day component covers the danger that unfolds while Alice Lindstedt’s crew shoots a teaser for a documentary about the decades-abandoned Swedish village of Silvertjarn. There is a threat out there, and we’re not sure whether it’s human or supernatural. </p><p>The second piece gradually reveals what happened to this mining town in the 1950s, as well as the story of the birth of a mysterious baby that was left when nearly nine hundred people disappeared. </p><p>What happened? Was this a mass suicide? Mass migration? Was it aliens? Russians coming in and kidnapping them? Alice wants to get to the bottom of this mystery. Author Camilla Sten faces the challenge of creating something new in the arguably oversaturated film-crew-encounters-threat-while-documenting-mysterious-setting horror market. The present story, told from Alice’s perspective in first person present, takes a while to get going — there’s a lot of walking around the site and not much happening to suggest the place is dangerous. Where Sten makes up for that, however, is in the conflicts between Alice and Emmy, whose friendship with Alice was shattered by something that happened in college. This tension will mount as Alice continues to make decisions that put her team at risk. Other crew members include Emma’s boyfriend Robert, Max (interested in Alice), and Tone, an amateur photographer about whom Alice withholds critical information from the others. </p><p>The past story unfolds in third-person narration from the perspective of Alice’s great grandmother Elsa. One of Elsa’s daughters, Margarete (also Alice’s grandmother), has already left Silvertjarn when handsome and charismatic Pastor Mattias arrives and captivates many villagers, chief among them Elsa’s younger daughter Aina. Relationships deteriorate as the pastor’s influence intensifies. </p><p>As the climax approaches, Sten steps up the tension by quickly flipping between timelines. </p><p><i>The Lost Village</i> does not top the charts in terms of scare factor. Rather, its strength lies in its handling of complex relationships and susceptibility to silver-tongued leaders.—<a href="https://douglasjogurek.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Douglas J. Ogurek</a> <b style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: 17.6px;">**</b><b style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: 17.6px;">*</b></p><div><br /></div>Douglas J. Ogurekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08100856154966376053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-54463757184514718772024-01-22T09:00:00.002+00:002024-01-22T09:00:00.135+00:00Hanu-Man | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GvLtifQkCDnA-Kblwnd1TPiBtrMVjFuUwT9TIwS9F-BzeNDGGcBYSDsVIMz_VRjIWBlbRo86kuSiGbgoPzQqAvVtPe5wZokZRbP-sTrWjqebmTEgxquEhBDpBb2WquPDUSWYyQi0N7jwClzxo5_kFLcnnVpdMHFxM9ZxoYlOXyMGXMqzrXaVnaCNzpI/s1227/IMG_6499.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1227" data-original-width="818" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GvLtifQkCDnA-Kblwnd1TPiBtrMVjFuUwT9TIwS9F-BzeNDGGcBYSDsVIMz_VRjIWBlbRo86kuSiGbgoPzQqAvVtPe5wZokZRbP-sTrWjqebmTEgxquEhBDpBb2WquPDUSWYyQi0N7jwClzxo5_kFLcnnVpdMHFxM9ZxoYlOXyMGXMqzrXaVnaCNzpI/s320/IMG_6499.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div>The first film in what is hoped to be a new superhero universe, <em>Hanu-Man</em> introduces us to Hanumanthu (played with a good deal of charm by Teja Sajja), a feckless young man who amuses himself with petty larceny, and feeds himself by taking the food his sister (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) makes, and insulting her while he does it. They live in a picturesque mountain village called Anjanadri, which might be a nice place to live were it not for the village champion, who demands a tax and engages those who protest in wrestling bouts to the death.<p></p>
<p>Hanumanthu is sweet on Meenakshi (Amritha Aiyer), who has returned from the city to spend the summer. After she incurs the wrath of the village champion, skull-wearing bandits attack a coach she is on and brutally murder the other passengers. Hanumanthu, in saving her, gets himself stabbed, kicked off a cliff, and likely to drown, but a kindly god takes note of his heroism. In the water, Hanumanthu is drawn to a pearl, a magic pearl that formed around a drop of the monkey god Hanuman's blood, a pearl which will heal his wounds and grant him the strength to fight.</p>
<p>As long as it's sunny in Anjanadri, that is...</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>And as well as the local trouble, Michael (Vinay Rai), a violent superhero from the city, has become aware of Hanumanthu's powers, and is coming to take them for himself, whatever it takes.<p></p>
<p>There was a lot of potential in this film. I really wanted to like it and there were things I did like about it. Telling a rural superhero story felt quite novel, and the village was full of funny, memorable characters. I liked how the title sequence included a song that explained all the backstory, which avoided lots of exposition in the actual film. More films should do this! The ending promised an epic war of gods and demons to come (the planned 2025 release date displayed over the film's final shot), and the beginning would be hard to forget: a comics-mad kid murders his own parents, to become an orphan like Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne, as his first step toward becoming a superhero.</p>
<p>The premise is, basically: what if Asterix's village was ruled by murderous hooligans? And what if an evil Batman then came to steal the source of Asterix's powers? There have been plenty of evil Batman stories in the comics (my favourite is <em>Nemesis</em>, by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, which imagined how Commissioner Gordon would cope), but not yet in cinemas, and on paper this film should have been perfect for me. I'm not a fan of musicals, granted, but Indian films make space for the songs by making the films longer, rather than cutting down on story, and the songs in this film are few, and well-integrated, rather than pausing the action for the duration of a sing-song.</p>
<p>But although I quite enjoyed it, the film never really took flight. The tone wanders all over the place, which isn't uncommon in Indian films, or Western superhero films either, but it was bizarre to go from bandits slitting the throats of innocent passengers to their fight with Hanumanthu being soundtracked by a jaunty song about making mango chutney. The biggest problem is that the fights just aren't good enough. Other Indian films I've seen recently, like <em>RRR</em> and <em>Leo</em>, have set the bar high for action scenes and my hopes of seeing a similarly innovative approach to superhero action were dashed here. The fights are thoroughly pedestrian, on the level of something like <em>Arrow</em>'s disappointing first season.</p>
<p>And though on the whole I liked the comics references – the villain had I think an Alex Ross painting of Superman and Batman looming in his lair! – if Michael's henchman had said "Shazam!" even one more time I might well have thrown something at the silver screen!</p>
<p>In short, I liked the characters and setting, but if the idea of a Hanuman-inspired superhero appeals, I'd recommend Shah Rukh Khan's extended cameo in 2022's <em>Brahmastra Part One: Shiva</em> instead. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>***</b></span></p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-11130792172859979902024-01-19T09:00:00.003+00:002024-01-19T09:00:00.129+00:00Hounds of the Underworld by Dan Rabarts and Lee Murray (Raw Dog Screaming Press) | review by Jacob Edwards<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZBh9At8sEmX1PEW5DdRlqcQfabdDacJRA4LaglLWqA9qYUuwYFZ5DSIHyiY2ltD597mVOvwVoiddk5jYyAeOvB0jfY0i5IjWvZnr3nm9DXm0GujSZEmBcLHVl41sSx7tELZt54d-uOkFbhGP7iKq-8VEW8jQIb-0IdAa7wgaahgDtgdoFoqoncG_7bs/s1024/books-hounds-of-the-underworld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="685" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZBh9At8sEmX1PEW5DdRlqcQfabdDacJRA4LaglLWqA9qYUuwYFZ5DSIHyiY2ltD597mVOvwVoiddk5jYyAeOvB0jfY0i5IjWvZnr3nm9DXm0GujSZEmBcLHVl41sSx7tELZt54d-uOkFbhGP7iKq-8VEW8jQIb-0IdAa7wgaahgDtgdoFoqoncG_7bs/s320/books-hounds-of-the-underworld.jpg" width="214" /></a></em></div><em>This review originally appeared in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2019/03/theakers-quarterly-fiction-64-now-out.html">TQF64</a> (March 2019).</em><p></p>
<p><em>New Zealand’s answer to Richard Morgan.</em></p>
<p>I don’t read as much as I’d like to – life spills over; time seeps away – but there are names from my editing days at Andromeda Spaceways that I still look out for. Dan Rabarts is one of them. I particularly like the way Dan builds his stories, grounding them in both character and setting and then pursuing an idea of real substance. When I heard he’d written a novel – co-authored with Lee Murray – I put it at the top of my short but optimistic “to read” list.</p>
<p>And so: <em>Hounds of the Underworld</em>, a 199pp near-future SF detective piece with lashings of horror.</p>
<p>Penny Yee is a scientific consultant to the police; her adopted brother Matiu is a reformed ne’er-do-well. Where one is upstanding and rational, the other follows his instincts and holds himself to a less rigid code. Written in the third person, present tense, <em>Hounds of the Underworld</em> alternates between their two viewpoints, and it is the dynamic between Penny and Matiu that sets the book apart. The clash of their personalities – of aspects of their shared Maori-Chinese heritage – brings uncertainty to the flow of events, yet is offset by their unshakeable sibling bond. Matiu, sensitive to shades in reality, pushes the narrative forward, and is the more interesting of the two. Penny keeps the story grounded; without her, Matiu would become untethered. They are an unlikely pair and yet their relationship is more than just believable; it is the kernel of a murder investigation that would fail to resonate if carried out by either character on their own.</p>
<p><em>Hounds of the Underworld</em> takes place in New Zealand in the year 2045 – not a dystopia, as such, but a rundown, shabby sort of future in which problems have outstripped progress. The setting emerges slowly, naturally, and lends the story both a noirish charm and an individuality often found lacking in analogous works. The mystery itself is one that Sherlock Holmes might have described as singular. It creeps up on the reader, hiding at first behind the twin character studies but then breaking loose alongside the Lovecraftian horror. <em>Hounds</em> is well-paced, and in reading feels more substantial than its length would suggest. As a self-contained novel it perhaps flourishes too briefly; but then again, it is also the first book in a series – <em>The Path of Ra</em> – and any small sense of disappointment upon its conclusion quickly gives way to anticipation of what is to come.</p>
<p>A beguiling collaboration, original yet accessible. A must for connoisseurs of small press speculative fiction. <em>Jacob Edwards</em></p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-45366945455194145192024-01-15T09:00:00.006+00:002024-01-15T09:00:00.131+00:00Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Season 1 | review by Stephen Theaker<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmwkoHzOyQjhSZvSuQ6bE8BeIoPxVuCza_3D6fHqZ6qjD63oB-6W5M1-v2xJwMoLRWYvO_3snadLilTggdFCEXiQO-j2eZyUSLq7DgDi4wbgzuCwy2073Q-a7xd45A4a-WJzJEGKZH5UjhWjUrrRF3QytKjGniOx6a9AjMHPBn9pPPkKAmvBWaTRMVDBo/s1250/IMG_6485.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmwkoHzOyQjhSZvSuQ6bE8BeIoPxVuCza_3D6fHqZ6qjD63oB-6W5M1-v2xJwMoLRWYvO_3snadLilTggdFCEXiQO-j2eZyUSLq7DgDi4wbgzuCwy2073Q-a7xd45A4a-WJzJEGKZH5UjhWjUrrRF3QytKjGniOx6a9AjMHPBn9pPPkKAmvBWaTRMVDBo/s320/IMG_6485.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div>Shortly after the events of the excellent 2014 <em>Godzilla</em> film, a young American woman, Cate Randa (played by Anita Sewai), and a young Japanese man, Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe) discover that they share the same father: Hiroshi Randa (Takehiro Hira), who disappeared after Godzilla fought the two MUTOs in San Francisco. He didn't die in the fight, he just said he had important things to do and scarpered, a bigamist abandoning both his families to the vagaries of an increasingly dangerous world. Cate's search for answers brings her to Kentaro, then to Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell), a mothballed Monarch monster-hunter with his own agenda, and then brings them eye-to-eye with a monster or two. For Cate and Kentaro it's the adventure of a lifetime, but this isn't Shaw's first monster mash.<p></p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>In flashbacks the young Lee Shaw is played by Kurt Russell's son Wyatt Russell, who is rather fantastic in the role. Shaw is a military man, a bit stiff, rather beholden to authority, and could have been quite a dull character in other hands, but Wyatt Russell gives him substance and dignity, even as he sees, for example, the woman he loves choosing another. Shaw plays a key part in the development of Monarch, after being assigned to the protection of a scientist, Dr Keiko Miura (grandmother to Cate and Kentaro, played by Mari Yamamoto), for whom he understandably develops strong feelings. The third to join the team is the eccentric Bill Randa, played originally by John Goodman in <em>Kong: Skull Island</em>, and played here as a younger man by Anders Holm, who is strikingly good in a more dramatic role than usual.<p></p>
<p>This programme is very similar in some ways to <em>Agents of Shield</em>, with the characters (past and present) getting involved with a secret organisation that defends the planet, then weaving their way between a series of cinematic adventures. <em>Monarch</em> has a clear advantage, though, in setting itself among films that have already been released. We see Cate and Kentaro and their friend May (<em>The Flash</em>'s Kiersey Clemons) search through the destruction left by Godzilla's fight in San Francisco, while knowing, with a growing sense of dread, that the global titan break-out of <em>Godzilla: King of the Monsters</em> is still to come, despite Monarch's best efforts to prevent it. <em>Agents of Shield</em>, for all its strengths, had to play things much more carefully.</p>
<p>Another difference is that while <em>Agents of Shield</em> generally had to be content with supporting characters, <em>Monarch</em> gets to play with the big toys: Godzilla makes more than one appearance. We see him in the past, when the US military, against Keiko's advice, tries to nuke him at Bikini Atoll, and in the present, when Keiko's son wakes him from a nap. The effects throughout are extremely impressive, the monsters putting most films to shame. Apple TV+ doesn't do things by halves. Having said that, would I have liked more monster action? Definitely. <em>Godzilla Minus One</em> had plenty of it despite what I bet was a budget smaller than any given episode of this. <em>Monarch</em>'s main concern is with the human characters, and their investigation of the portals to the hollow earth from which the monsters would pour forth, if Kong and Godzilla weren't around to stop them.</p>
<p>But still, I enjoyed it very much. It looks great, for one thing, and has a marvellous score by Leopold Ross. If they were two separate shows, I would have given the globetrotting flashbacks, in which we are with the characters discovering all the crazy stuff, five stars, and the 2015 story, in which we are instead with people <em>searching</em> for the guy who discovers all the crazy stuff, three stars, despite the presence of Kurt Russell. He and his son would apparently watch each other's scenes to pick up on elements they could incorporate in their own performances, and it really paid off. It's quite a superb joint performance. The cast is strong throughout, not just the leads, but also people like Frasier's new neighbour Jess Salgueiro as a Monarch employee, <em>The Expanse</em>'s Dominique Tipper as an evil boss, and Christopher Heyerdahl as General Puckett, Lee's tough but fair superior officer back in the 1950s. The tone of the show is quite perfect: not as glum as <em>Godzilla</em>, nor as over-the-top as <em>Godzilla v Kong</em>; it's closest I think to <em>Kong: Skull Island</em>.</p>
<p>Here's hoping it devours the ratings, and <em>Godzilla x Kong</em> stomps its mark on cinemas, so that Apple give a second season the go-ahead!</p>
Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285367827446194139.post-43551548735654911272024-01-12T09:00:00.003+00:002024-01-15T09:04:11.598+00:00Star Trek: Picard, Season 3, by Terry Matalas et al. (Paramount) | review by Stephen Theaker<p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsLvzascaAy8HOpHrVuuJGs-wufI_vWhJFRhYWonaAS1fdmsOvNgApX4Mqph3ZbylZkEpuEJl1C-YfYyrBOFNkAivMJJtsVs-mrdHTKiHnCiUF7Vs1IzPfxagZ7ydWedj7fZarQSybq2LA7ylJ3FZe5wehYvyeHWBDxE9oRB-CNjt-wXkl439sdVoqbfI/s4000/Picards3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="2700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsLvzascaAy8HOpHrVuuJGs-wufI_vWhJFRhYWonaAS1fdmsOvNgApX4Mqph3ZbylZkEpuEJl1C-YfYyrBOFNkAivMJJtsVs-mrdHTKiHnCiUF7Vs1IzPfxagZ7ydWedj7fZarQSybq2LA7ylJ3FZe5wehYvyeHWBDxE9oRB-CNjt-wXkl439sdVoqbfI/s320/Picards3.jpg" width="216" /></a></em></div><em>This review originally appeared in <a href="https://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2023/11/theakers75.html">TQF75</a> (November 2023).</em><p></p>
<p>The first two seasons of <em>Star Trek: Picard</em> were divisive, to say the least. When it was first announced – with Michael Chabon on board! – I was delighted. The first two seasons of <em>Discovery</em> had been smashing, so I had high hopes. Hopes soon dashed by a programme that seemed to have exactly the same problem as the final film, <em>Star Trek: Nemesis</em>: it had been bent out of shape in order to tempt back its two biggest stars, giving them leaden, actorly storylines.</p>
<p>Patrick Stewart had rejected the proposals for season one several times before finally agreeing to it, and one of the things he didn’t want to do was a mere reunion. And so we had two seasons of a substitute crew running around while Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner got their teeth stuck into some proper acting. There were episodes I enjoyed, there were others I didn’t, but it was disappointing and often quite dull. The lowest point was Picard persuading Guinan to stay on Earth for humanity’s sake, despite World War III being imminent.</p>
<p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Season three is completely different. Showrunner Terry Matalas brings back the original crew: Dr Crusher, Worf, Data, LaForge, Riker and Troi. Each is given interesting things to do, an important role in the plot, and lots of funny lines. The only substitute crew member to return is Raffi, played by Michelle Hurd, put to good use as an undercover ally for Worf. The only original crew members missing are Yar, who left the show after only 22 episodes, and Wesley, who became a space god or something and already appeared in season two.<p></p>
<p>The cast gives the best performance they have ever given as these characters. Though her other career as a choreographer means Gates McFadden has spent much less time on screen than Patrick Stewart, you wouldn’t know it from the bristling scene when the two of them go toe-to-toe. Jonathan Frakes as Riker is particularly brilliant – from portraying Riker’s pain at the loss of his child (and his guilt over his wife Troi, an empath, having to bear his pain as well as his own), to his deep friendship with Picard, and his bravery in command.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to say too much about the plot without giving away the programme’s surprises, but, essentially, Starfleet is gathering its ships together for a huge celebration, Frontier Day. Old enemies have noticed the opportunity that this presents, and are drawing their plans against us. Amanda Plummer follows in her father’s footsteps, giving Picard an antagonist every bit as relentless and determined as General Chang was for Kirk.</p>
<p>I found this season absolutely thrilling. I never wanted the episodes to end. Every time the screen went black, I crossed my fingers that the credits wouldn’t start. I haven’t felt like that since watching <em>Lost</em>. If seasons one and two had to give Patrick Stewart what he needed from the programme, in order for us to get a season three as good as this, it’s a good trade. Some might call this season pure fan service, but if it is they are serving aces.</p>
<p>If I have any criticisms at all, one would be that the finale episodes were not shown in British cinemas. I am almost unbearably envious of those Americans who got to see them in Imax. The other is very minor, in that it’s stated very clearly in dialogue that some of these characters have not met each other in decades, which will make life difficult for writers of tie-in novels and comics in years to come. The programme itself: perfection. <em>Stephen Theaker</em> <span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>*****</b></span>
</p>Stephen Theakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11394493689032839157noreply@blogger.com0