Ten programmes we gave up on before the end

Ten programmes we (Mr and Mrs Theaker) gave up on before the end:

1. Heroes
2. Sliders
3. Earth: Final Conflict
4. Andromeda
5. Xena: Warrior Princess
6. Red Dwarf
7. Bugs
8. Star Trek: Deep Space 9
9. Smallville
10. V (2009)

Wednesday is list day. This is list #5.

The Conjuring, reviewed by Douglas J. Ogurek

Scare Magician Wan Conjures Up another Haunted House Hit

Just before The Conjuring started, my wife said, “I dropped my wedding ring.” When the theater darkened, we still hadn’t found it. We decided to resume our search after the film. Unknowingly, we also challenged director James Wan (and writers Chad and Carey Hayes) to take our minds off our dilemma for a couple hours by cranking up the scares, like Insidious did.

In the early seventies, renowned demonologist/paranormal research duo Ed and Lorraine Warren confront their most frightening case. It starts when the financially strapped Perron couple and their daughters move into an old Rhode Island house. True to the haunted house formula, creepy things – Wan’s forté – start to happen. Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor of The Haunting) reaches out to the Warrens.

Ten programmes we watched from the beginning to the very end

Ten programmes we (Mr and Mrs Theaker) watched from the beginning to the very end:

1. Babylon 5
2. The X-Files
3. Star Trek: Enterprise
4. Fringe
5. Alias
6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
7. Battlestar Galactica (2004)
8. Firefly
9. Dollhouse
10. Highlander

Wednesday is list day. This is list #4.

Fifteen albums I bought without hearing a single song by that artist, and whether I like them now

Fifteen albums I bought without hearing a single song by that artist, and whether I like them now:

1. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, M83 (yes)
2. Digital Dump, The Jackofficers (no)
3. Volume Two, Echoboy (no)
4. Surfing on Sine Waves, Polygon Window (yes)
5. Compilations 1995-2002, Hood (no)
6. This Is the Day, This Is the Hour, This Is This! Pop Will Eat Itself (yes)
7. Possessed, The Balanescu Quartet (yes)
8. Alpha Centauri, Tangerine Dream (yes)
9. Unreleased? Fire! with Jim O'Rourke (yes)
10. 69 Love Songs, The Magnetic Fields (yes)
11. Decade, Neil Young (yes)
12. Avant Hard, Add N to (X) (yes)
13. Endtroducing, DJ Shadow (yes)
14. You Make Me Real, Brandt Brauer Brick (yes)
15. The Noise Made By People, Broadcast (yes)

Wednesday is list day! This is list #3.

World War Z, reviewed by Douglas J. Ogurek

Zombies storm the box office, again. Last winter, romantic zomedy Warm Bodies reached number one at the box office. This summer, a different breed of zombie film clambered its way to the top.

Something threatens the fate of the world. Cities burn. Monuments crumble. In government control rooms, dumbed down charts and maps glow with death tolls and devastated regions. One man will make a difference. We’ve seen it with weather. We’ve seen it with disease. We’ve seen it with aliens. We’ve seen it with robots. But we haven’t seen such worldwide chaos with zombies. And, we haven’t seen it with Brad Pitt. Until World War Z (directed by Marc Forster). Or perhaps a more fitting title would be World War GQ.

Ten actors who might have played Dr Who on film had Peter Cushing regenerated

Ten actors who might have played Dr Who on film had Peter Cushing regenerated:

2. Peter Sellers
3. Jane Fonda
4. Sean Connery
5. Sigourney Weaver
6. Gary Oldman
7. Morgan Freeman
8. Ewan MacGregor
9. Johnny Depp
10. Michael Sheen
11. Gael Garcia Bernal

Wednesday is list day. This is list #2.

What contributors did next #3

John Greenwood, TQF co-editor, has begun to submit stories elsewhere. "Consumer Testing" appears in Bourbon Penn #7 and "Didcotts" appears in the forthcoming Rustblind and Silverbright, edited by David Rix and published by Eibonvale Press.

Bruce Hesselbach, who all the way back in 2007 contributed three stories to our magazine, has a new steampunk novel out from Cogwheel Press, Perpetual Motion.

The Not Yet by Moira Crone, which I reviewed for Interzone #240, reached the shortlist of the Philip K. Dick Award. Very interesting novel, well worth a look.

I have a review of Jad Smith's book John Brunner in Interzone #245, and the new Interzone #247 includes my review of Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe.

David Tallerman has a second Easie Damasco novel out, Crown Thief, with Prince Thief due this October.

Douglas Thompson has published Entanglement via Elsewhen Press.

While I'm here, apologies for the quietness on the blog this past month. I've been reading TQF cover artist Howard Watts' as yet unpublished (and very good) novel Master of Clouds and submissions for our next issue, so I haven't read much for review, while work and other responsibilities have kept me from blogging. But new reviews and a new issue are coming soon, so hang in there!

Ten albums I bought as presents that I was chuffed to get via Amazon Auto-Rip

Ten albums I bought as presents for other people that I was chuffed to get an MP3 copy of via Amazon Auto-Rip:

1. 5:55, Charlotte Gainsbourg
2. Fever Ray, Fever Ray
3. Has Been, William Shatner
4. Mr. Machine, The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble
5. Oracular Spectacular, MGMT
6. Room on Fire, The Strokes
7. Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Various Artists
8. Total Life Forever, Foals
9. Witchazel, Matt Berry
10. You've Stolen My Heart, Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle

Wednesday is now list day on this blog! This is list #1.

Randalls Round by Eleanor Scott, reviewed by Harsh Grewal

Randalls Round (Oleander Press, pb, 176pp) collects several well-written tales of horror and suspense. They were written by Helen M. Leys, under the pseudonym Eleanor Scott. They were first published over eighty years ago and feature highly articulate posh people being scared – or worse. The stories were apparently inspired by the author’s dreams, though one suspects the sexual aspects of the dreams have been somewhat diluted.

The author isn’t as fascinatingly keyed-up as Poe, nor as brilliantly off her rocker as Lovecraft, and there is generally little to distinguish her from other writers in the genre, but the last two tales, with female protagonists, are interesting. Honor Yorke and Annis Breck are smart and cool, shrewd, with a dislike of girls who get giddy and terrified and scream for help. It’s a shame there isn’t more like this here from an author who was herself an emancipated Oxford woman.

British Fantasy Awards 2013: the nominees!

I'm back running the British Fantasy Awards this year, and the nominees have just been announced:

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
Blood and Feathers, Lou Morgan (Solaris)
The Brides of Rollrock Island, Margo Lanagan (David Fickling Books)
Railsea, China Miéville (Macmillan)
Red Country, Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz)
Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce (Gollancz)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)
The Drowning Girl, Caitlin R. Kiernan (Roc)
The Kind Folk, Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing)
Last Days, Adam Nevill (Macmillan)
Silent Voices, Gary McMahon (Solaris)
Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce (Gollancz)

Best Novella
Curaré, Michael Moorcock (Zenith Lives!) (Obverse Books)
Eyepennies, Mike O’Driscoll (TTA Press)
The Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine, John Llewellyn Probert (Spectral Press)
The Respectable Face of Tyranny, Gary Fry (Spectral Press)

Best Short Story
Our Island, Ralph Robert Moore (Where Are We Going?) (Eibonvale Press)
Shark! Shark! Ray Cluley (Black Static #29) (TTA Press)
Sunshine, Nina Allan (Black Static #29) (TTA Press)
Wish for a Gun, Sam Sykes (A Town Called Pandemonium) (Jurassic London)

Best Collection
From Hell to Eternity, Thana Niveau (Gray Friar Press)
Remember Why You Fear Me, Robert Shearman (ChiZine Publications)
Where Furnaces Burn, Joel Lane (PS Publishing)
The Woman Who Married a Cloud, Jonathan Carroll (Subterannean Press)

Best Anthology
A Town Called Pandemonium, Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin (eds) (Jurassic London)
Magic: an Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane, Jonathan Oliver (ed.) (Solaris)
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women, Marie O’Regan (ed.) (Robinson)
Terror Tales of the Cotswolds, Paul Finch (ed.) (Gray Friar Press)

Best Small Press (the PS Publishing Independent Press Award)
ChiZine Publications (Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi)
Gray Friar Press (Gary Fry)
Spectral Press (Simon Marshall-Jones)
TTA Press (Andy Cox)

Best Non-Fiction
Ansible, David Langford
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (eds) (Cambridge University Press)
Coffinmaker’s Blues, Stephen Volk (Black Static) (TTA Press)
Fantasy Faction, Marc Aplin (ed.)
Pornokitsch, Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin (eds)
Reflections: On the Magic of Writing, Diana Wynne Jones (David Fickling Books)

Best Magazine/Periodical
Black Static, Andy Cox (ed.) (TTA Press)
Interzone, Andy Cox (ed.) (TTA Press)
SFX, David Bradley (ed.) (Future Publishing)
Shadows and Tall Trees, Michael Kelly (ed.) (Undertow Publications)

Best Artist
Ben Baldwin
David Rix
Les Edwards
Sean Phillips
Vincent Chong

Best Comic/Graphic Novel
Dial H, China Miéville, Mateus Santolouco, David Lapham and Riccardo Burchielli (DC Comics)
Saga, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
The Unwritten, Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Gary Erskine, Gabriel Hernández Walta, M.K. Perker, Vince Locke and Rufus Dayglo (DC Comics/Vertigo)
The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard (Skybound Entertainment/Image Comics)

Best Screenplay
Avengers Assemble, Joss Whedon
Sightseers, Alice Lowe, Steve Oram and Amy Jump
The Cabin in the Woods, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro

Best Newcomer (the Sydney J. Bounds Award)
Alison Moore, for The Lighthouse (Salt Publishing)
Anne Lyle, for The Alchemist of Souls (Angry Robot)
E.C. Myers, for Fair Coin (Pyr)
Helen Marshall, for Hair Side, Flesh Side (ChiZine Publications)
Kim Curran, for Shift (Strange Chemistry)
Lou Morgan, for Blood and Feathers (Solaris)
Molly Tanzer, for A Pretty Mouth (Lazy Fascist Press)
Saladin Ahmed, for Throne of the Crescent Moon (Gollancz)
Stephen Bacon, for Peel Back the Sky (Gray Friar Press)
Stephen Blackmoore, for City of the Lost (Daw Books)

Thanks to everyone who voted and all the jury members. The winners will be announced at the Fantasy Awards banquet at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton on Sunday, November 3, 2013.

UPDATE: If any nominees would now like to attend WFC, the banquet, or even just the awards ceremony, a small number of places have been reserved for a limited period of time. Email me via bfsawards@britishfantasysociety.org for details. Information about the convention here: http://www.wfc2013.org, and about the awards banquet here: http://www.wfc2013.org/banquet01.html.

Double Feature: Rise of the Guardians and Hotel Transylvania, reviewed by Jacob Edwards

Double Feature: Rise of the Guardians / Hotel Transylvania. Accentuate the positives. Whether from the last, clutching vestiges of British Empire, the nearer, star-strangling embrace of Uncle Sam, or merely the white-capped tyranny of distance, Australian accents seem particularly susceptible to being subverted and then cinematically or televisually remodelled. House’s Jesse Spencer just about held his own as Chase (although, given that producer Bryan Singer didn’t realise at first that Hugh Laurie wasn’t American, the “Australian-ness” of Spencer’s character equally could have been recognised only after the fact, and so necessarily made more subtle than the quintessential Ozzie Norm), but for the most part there have been only Rolf Harris and Crocodile Dundee-styled tyre marks to follow, and so Australian personas have tended to be about as true to life when depicted abroad as are the on-screen dead-pigs-in-pokes that seems to constitute your average writer/producer/director’s conception of an intellect-defining game of chess… Brisbanite Janet Fielding, for instance, drawling the short straw as Tegan Jovanka in Doctor Who (Seasons 18.7 through 21.4); or crocodile hunter Steve Irwin as— well, okay, he really was like that; but now Hugh Jackman, his born-and-bred Australianness belied by an injection of “strewth” serum and the poor man being forced to wrap his Adam’s apple in coloured foil as a rough-as-guts Easter Bunny from Down Under.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 – reviewed by Douglas J. Ogurek

The filmgoer hoping to evade Edward Cullen’s (Robert Pattinson) constipated-while-sucking-on-a-lemon smile or Jacob Black’s (Taylor Lautner) shirtless torso in Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (directed by Bill Condon) is out of luck. However, despite those and a few other minor irritations, the film combines suspense, violence and commendable acting to gracefully conclude the Twilight saga.

Heroine Bella Cullen (Kristen Stewart) must hone her newly-acquired vampiric powers. That means not only resisting the intense desire to drink human blood, but also keeping safe her newborn daughter Renesmee. The Volturi, an Italy-based coven of vampire rule enforcers, erroneously suspects that Renesmee is an immortal child (i.e. a human child turned vampire) with the potential to go on a bloodsucking blitzkrieg. That threatens the secrecy the Volturi strive to maintain among vampires. However, with their black cloaks and cadaverous faces, the members of the Volturi are not exactly the epitome of inconspicuousness.

Martian Sands by Lavie Tidhar, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

In Martian Sands by Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing, hb, 224pp), Mars has been settled. The New Israelis are governed by a succession of simulacra, Jewish leaders of the past recreated to act as figurehead prime ministers, but their new Golda Meir isn’t sticking to her programming. “Something is fundamentally flawed with reality,” she tells Miriam Elezra, the woman who commissioned her. There are rumours of time travel experiments, rumours the reader knows to be true having already seen Bill Glimmung in the Oval Office on December 7, 1941, the day before the first death camp opens, offering weapons to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in return for preventing the Holocaust. And yet on Mars we see that Bill Glimmung is a character from the film Martian Sands, “Elvis Mandela’s second masterpiece”. Carl Stone, who built the Golda, has four arms, two extras grafted on to reflect his status as “a Martian warrior, reincarnated in an alien world”. His Revolutionary Brotherhood of Martian Warriors share Barsoomian dreams, visions supposedly sent by their emperor. The most mysterious beings on Mars are the Others, artificial intelligences sometimes ferried by compliant humans, sometimes controlling host bodies. All roads lead to a remote kibbutz in the FDR mountains, the same kibbutz to which Josh has just made the kind of manure sale that could do wonders for his career.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, reviewed by Jacob Edwards

Another streaming pile of BS. Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, directed by Jonas Pate, released 9 November 2012 (online); 10 February 2013 (television).

War with the Cylons has been raging for ten years when gung-ho new pilot William Adama (Luke Pasqualino) is posted to the Battlestar Galactica. His first mission, alongside jaded co-pilot Coker Fasjovik (Ben Cotton), turns from placidity to peril when their “cargo”, Doctor Beka Kelly (Lili Bordán), redirects them to a top secret rendezvous and subsequent infiltration deep within Cylon territory. As sacrifices are made and motivations uncovered, the idealistic young Adama must come to terms with war’s gritty reality…

—or some such. Consider it an exercise in loose terminology.

The Host, reviewed by Douglas J. Ogurek

Don’t expect another Twilight. In her hugely popular Twilight Saga, author Stephenie Meyer perfected a strategy that compelled people in droves to purchase her books (over 100 million copies sold worldwide) and then convince their partners to accompany them to the films. Meyer’s formula involves two young men vying for the heart of a female protagonist, while outside forces threaten that triangle.

The Host (directed by Andrew Niccol), the film inspired by Meyer’s first post-Twilight Saga novel, relies on a similar strategy. However, the characters, the threat and the action in The Host are diluted in comparison.

Borderlands 2, reviewed by Howard Watts

It’s impossible to cover every complexity Borderlands 2 (2KGames, PS3) provides the player. Its scope is astonishing, its detail overwhelming both visually and from a character POV, even though the scenario is fairly basic. In short, there’s a bad guy called Handsome Jack in partial control of the planet Pandora, and the player or “Vault Hunter” is pitted against him, his minions and the indigenous lifeforms of the planet. Did I say player? You can choose from four characters (with a fifth, the mechromancer, available via DLC): an assassin, a siren, a soldier and an atypical heavyweight grunt. Each character enjoys their own unique special combat action skill, which is enhanced via levelling up. These characters also enjoy three skill trees, enhancing combat in a variety of ways.

Señor 105 and the Elements of Danger, edited by Cody Quijano-Schell, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

“I am Señor 105 of Mexico. I fight for freedom, the defense of mankind and I am a friend to all children.” Iris Wildthyme’s superluchador chum, who has a mask for every element and (I think) a power for every mask, takes his place in the spotlight in Señor 105 and the Elements of Danger (Obverse Books, 106pp), edited by the character’s creator Cody Quijano-Schell, who also supplies the cover design (Paul Hanley being the artist) and a story, “Jackalope”, in which a pair of skinnydippers are attacked by horned bunny rabbits. That gives you a taste of what to expect here! If you go back far enough I think this book counts as a spin-off from Doctor Who, but the tone is more reminiscent of the quirky (and sadly short-lived) television series The Middleman, which also featured a luchador or two; its comedy comes from the seriousness with which a rather silly world is treated by its unfortunate (from our point of view) but happy-go-lucky inhabitants.

Aliens: Colonial Marines, reviewed by Howard Watts

Aliens: Colonial Marines (Sega, PS3). It would be pointless for me to go into great detail regarding the backstory to this game: suffice to say, it follows straight on from the events of James Cameron’s rather excellent Aliens.

From the outset, it’s clear the developers have attempted to maintain a cinematic experience in this game. The titles and original music by James Horner create the perfect atmosphere, and we’re assured by this beautifully rendered intro that we’re in safe hands. From then on the backstory establishes the game’s scenario: explore the Sulaco…

A Game of Groans by George R.R. Washington, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Comedy is an awfully subjective thing. Much as I adore Annie Hall, I reckon Dana Carvey’s The Master of Disguise runs it darn close as one of the funniest films of all time (“Sometimes the Master of Disguise he comes back, sometimes he don’t!”), an opinion likely to earn me the hatred of most right-thinking IMBD users. It just tickles me, as do The Animal, Jack and Jill and The Love Guru. So I understand how subjective comedy can be, and I’m not a comedy snob. I’ve watched every single episode of Two and a Half Men.

Having said that, I can now go on to discuss A Game of Groans by George R.R. Washington (chortle!) (Virgin, pb, 232pp), and, while acknowledging that you might well find this parody hilarious, explain why I thought it such a miserable, joyless experience. It just isn’t funny. I read the entire book stony-faced, never cracking a smile and laughing just once, on page 128, at the name “Lord Analwarts Candlestick”. Even that was a quick, thoughtless bark rather than a sign of true appreciation, mentioned here only to pay the book its due, small as it is. Most of this book’s jokes revolve around wind-breaking (chapter one begins “Allbran Barker broke wind”). Normally a fart joke is all I need to make me laugh (Brent Spiner’s inadvertent squeaking in The Master of Disguise was so funny our children came downstairs and asked us to laugh more quietly so that they could sleep) but these weaker emissions dissipated without provoking the slightest mirth.

A Coming of Age by Timothy Zahn, reviewed by Jacob Edwards

Second life, not secondhand. A Coming of Age by Timothy Zahn (Open Road, 2012).

When people who were born in the twentieth century grow old and look back upon their lives, one topic they are sure to reminisce about – to the utter bafflement of those younger generations who dutifully will now send forth their avatars to visit – is that of the secondhand bookshop; a dying breed even today, but each with its own idiosyncrasies and charm, its unique layout and ever-changing stock, its worn carpets, creaking floorboards and double-stacked shelves (or occasionally just high-risen piles that have become structurally integral), its ensconced, often erudite owner and of course its ever-curious and -acquisitive, peripatetic clientele of book-loving nomads, who whenever they arrive somewhere new find themselves drawn inexorably to the tell-tale bargain bins out front, and then nosing forward and inside, lungs swelling contentedly at the heady inrush of old book smells.