Alcatraz, Season 1 – reviewed by Howard Watts

Alcatraz. JJ Abrams is a sensationalist. A sensationalist in a genre that doesn’t need him. He’s muddying the waters of good storytelling, breaking the time honoured traditions laid down centuries ago, creating a dumbed-down environment where it’s deemed acceptable to produce sub-standard, unfinished, not thought out work, masquerading as revolutionary.

Agreed, he creates circumstances that hook—which is part and parcel of our genre, any genre for that matter. However, his fictional circumstances are contrived and will never reward those foolish enough to go the distance with him.

Okay, using Lost as an example is an easy target. We were promised, or rather given hints of, great rewards for our devoted following week after week. But then we began to glance at each other as the contrivances began to pile up to the point that only a special double episode would be sufficient to tie up all the loose dangling plot strands woven into the story. I’m not going to go into detail regards this show, as many before me have written on the writers’ admittance the Lost storyline was made up on the fly. A real shame, because at some stages it all began to make sense…

Then JJ took Star Trek and shafted it, created a Spock that see-sawed between wanting to be Vulcan and human, indecision his most notable trait. He rewarded a cheating and lying Kirk—a character who should have been represented as hard working and dedicated—with the captaincy of an ugly new Enterprise, one any fanboy with a basic knowledge of design and tolerances could have bettered with a handful of Lego and plasticine.

Now we’re told JJ’s latest offering, Alcatraz, is the next best thing in genre TV. Abrams is hailed as a master of his craft. I won’t argue with that—depending on the “craft”.

The show’s premise is interesting enough. 63-odd imprisoned criminals, having vanished without explanation from Alcatraz on their day of transference from the facility are now reappearing in the present to continue their crimes. The hows, whys and WTFs mount up. Intrigued, we reach for our remotes.

We watch as a team is assembled to investigate these reappearances, and from their viewpoint we follow the scenario as it unfolds. Now, there’s the problem. It doesn’t unfold—and for my money never will. Abrams and his team of sensationalists will rely on the characters of the “team” to keep us hooked, to keep us invested in their story, rather than the core theme at hand. Sound familiar?#1.

Why the f*** would any force pluck convicts from Alcatraz and then drop them off in the present day? What is this force’s agenda? What possible motive could there be for such actions?

In the minds of the writers / creator, I’ll tell you. None. It’s the neverending story JJ champions again and again. The scenario is there simply to create an investigation team, headed by a frowning Sam Neil whose countenance undoubtedly reflects his having read the script, and our job is to join them on their journey week after week, searching for answers no member of the writing team has any intention to answer. Admittedly, some of the flashbacks intended to develop character are shot well, with a slight sepia toning—but these scenes cut with a sound cue of a prison door rattling shut simply pad the episodes.

This pilot episode plays (either purposely or not) like a cheap pastiche of the first Terminator movie, with an expressionless convict stomping around like Arnie to the deep beat of a distant drum, asking a name and then shooting his Sarah Connor equivalent. The faint light at the end of the tunnel, reading between the lines, is that perhaps person/s unknown are responsible for kidnapping these convicts, and instructing them to kill certain targets to alter the course of future history. Perhaps these person/s exist in the future to that of the show’s present day, a future they’re unhappy with, and they believe the deaths they’re bringing about will change the course of history for the better, thus putting their world back to how they want it to be. There, you see? JJ’s got me at it already—trying to figure it all out. The problem here is that just one change in the present would affect the future with incalculable results. It’s all been written about many times before, so I really hope the above is not what JJ and Co are going to finally hit us with as the reason for all this. Indeed, this Terminator comparison would be all the more obvious, had said unseen person/s simply sent back killers from their present. But that would negate the Alcatraz aspect of the (okay, I’ll type it) storyline.

We watch these convict “characters” appear in the present day. But they are not characters: they fail to question where they are, where they’ve been, why they’re here—to stare and wonder at their future, the architecture, advancements in automobile design, communications and entertainment technology, to search for relations, friends and loved ones. When captured and asked where they’ve been they simply reply, “I don’t remember.” Oh, please. Just a little development here would have served to add depth to the scenario. But no, that carrot suspended on a string from a rod held out in front of us will always be out of reach as we follow unrewarded week after week. Sound familiar? #2.

What’s the point of all this? You will never know—and that’s where JJ and co fall down. There is no plot to Alcatraz, no chance of a resolution; no choice for the viewer regards the moral high ground, the left or right, to view these possible future antago/protagonists and choose a side, to see valid points behind their actions. I’m not saying we need a blatant moustache-twirling villain to boo and hiss at every week, but sadly it’s all exterior conflict with never a hint at the interior with these cardboard convicts. There should be a splash screen before each episode rolls, “Thinking is neither required nor encouraged. For viewing purposes only.”

We need more, JJ. It’s not enough any more to dangle the bait in front of us. We want intelligent answers—or at least, development from what’s established. We want a strong tangled web that we can at least see and become entangled with, rather than one that’s just hinted at and is nothing more than a discarded cobweb swept away by indifference. We know you now, and your game’s up mate. You don’t have a full plot, you don’t know where everything’s going, or what the ultimate reveal or revelation will be, because you’re quite happy to carry on week by week until your show’s cancelled. Advertisers buy airtime from the network/channel, carrying your name before it, knowing us feeble-minded individuals will keep coming back for more, for just the chance that something might be unravelled. Sky announcers hail Alcatrash as “JJ Abram’s hit new show, Extraordinary hit prison drama, So out of the ordinary, it’s extraordinary.” While my Sky guide calls it “high concept”. You’re not proud to be a writer, but are to be a money maker. Joss Whedon you ain’t.

Alcatraz just smells and sounds of Lost, where I’m betting we’ll all be when this show is cancelled. And not too soon. Perhaps then JJ and his company of writers will finally see the error of their ways, and start afresh having climbed out of their muddy waters of deceit to join the real writers sunning themselves at the poolside. I just hope it’s a long while before one of them decides to lend him a pen.—HOWARD WATTS

Editors’ note: Alcatraz was cancelled by Fox on 10 May 2012. But that didn’t mean Howard was free to leave.

Alcatraz (second spell inside). This is all my son’s fault. He recorded the final episode of Alcatraz, telling me “They’re gonna tie it all up.” I decided to give the lad and the show the benefit of the doubt, as he’d read the first part of my review, and was convinced a conclusion of some description would be met and I would be forced to eat my words…

I’ll admit, I have missed a few episodes. Hauser’s (Sam Neil) team were after a key that combined with another two would open a door beneath Alcatraz and possibly reveal all the answers. I’m not that stupid—I knew there would probably be one of those fake brick walls—or at least the equivalent from a story point of view waiting for us. However, the final episode is pretty good—there’s a lot of backwards and forwards from 1963 to the present, drip-feeding us backstory. This works very well, is shot nicely with a good range of angles used and looks superb in HD. It seems “the warden” is back, indicating that he has been up to no good for a long time, the use of his job description rather than his name making him seem like one of Batman’s adversaries. There is even a reference to Hauser’s inner sanctum as “the Batcave”, by Solo, later on in the episode.

So when Rebecca’s grandfather chases down the guy with the key, he refuses to give it up, preferring to jump through a window (securely shut, by the way) to fall to certain death on the sidewalk below. Hauser and his team are not far behind, and a traditional car chase ensues with Rebecca at the wheel of a Mustang. Meanwhile, Sam searches the dead guy’s back pockets and pats down his flanks, looking for the all important key, stating “It’s not here.” Desoto then explains “Alcatraz inmates were always finding ways to hide things from guards.” Really? You don’t say. It’s absolutely daft that Hauser doesn’t turn the body over and search his front trouser, or shirt pockets if the key’s so important, that and the fact he’s a top ranking FBI agent and would have been trained to do so. Soto then finds the key hidden in a sock, refuses to hand it over to Hauser, even when he pulls a gun on him. The car chase continues, and for the most part is shot well, mirroring the car chase from Bullitt in a direct homage—you’ll notice the infamous green VW Beetle jump shot is cloned, as is the clipping the hedge shot. Rebecca manages to clip her grandfather’s car and it spectacularly rolls. She pulls him from the wreck and they run as it explodes.

After that, it all gets a little silly.

Now I don’t know if this final episode was written before the show was cancelled by Fox. But it seems all too obvious the time travel element would be employed if a second season was greenlit, to somehow prevent [REDACTED]’s death—I’m guessing this would have been Soto’s arc. All in all a disappointment if this final episode was written after Fox’s cancellation notice—okay, not a huge fanbase judging by the viewing figures, but a fanbase none the less that requires closure. I’ll admit, despite a few niggles regards plotting and character behaviour, I would like to have seen how the second season would have developed the story, building upon the Warden’s agenda. The last episode certainly had a good pace and was superbly edited—the nod to Bullitt helped—and it at least brought to a close the “behind the door” mystery—too little too late.

Perhaps the cancellation will convince writers to change their attitude towards their audience when developing new shows, as the ratings for Alcatraz hint that the game’s up, and that the US market will not tolerate a plot spread so thinly across a first season any more.

Shelflings #3 is imminent!

Shelflings is a British Fantasy Society members-only ezine compiled by me from reviews edited by Craig Lockley, Phil Lunt and Jay Eales for the BFS website.

Links for downloading issue three will soon be emailed out to members, so, if you're one of them, make sure the BFS has your current email address on file, especially if you didn't receive the emails sent out for previous issues. Send updates to the BFS membership secretary at secretary@britishfantasysociety.org. If you're not a member, this would be a perfect time to join.

Issue three features over 30,000 words of reviews by Catherine Mann, Chris Limb, David Brzeski, David Rudden, Elloise Hopkins, Glen Mehn, Guy Adams, I. O’Reilly, Jeff Jones, Jim McLeod, Katy O’Dowd, M.P. Ericson, Mario Guslandi, Matthew Johns, Mike Chinn, Patrick Henry Downs, Pauline Morgan, Phil Ambler, Phil Lunt, R.A. Bardy, Sandra Scholes and Steve Dean.

In this issue the team considers the work of Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Adam Baker, Alan Bundock, Barnaby Edwards, Beenox, Buddy Giovinazzo, C.J. Henderson, C.L. Werner, Christian Dunn, Christopher Nolan, Christopher Paul Carey, Chuck Wendig, Curtis and Sarah Lyon, Daniel O’Malley, Daniel Polansky, David A. Colón, David Mazzoni, David Moody, E.J. Alvey, Frank Henenlotter, Graeme Hurry, Graham McNeill, Ian Sales, James Edward Raggi IV, Jason A. Wyckoff, Jennifer Brozek and Alan Bundock, Jim Beard, Joseph Goodman, Justin Richards, Lamberto Bava, Lloyd Kaufman, Luke Geddes, Margarita Felices, Mark Valentine, Matt Codd, Michael Cisco, Mike Lee, Mike Shevdon, Myke Cole, Nicholas Briggs, Nick Kyme, P.R. Pope, Peter George, Peter N. Dudar, Philip José Farmer, Robot Entertainment, Rowena Cory Daniells, Shaun Hutson, Simon Guerrier, Stephen Amis, Stephen King, Steve Dean, Tad Williams, Tim Pratt, Tom Mattera, Tom Pollock, Tony Lee, Vicky A. Beaver, William Gallagher, William Lustig and Zach Welhouse.

Goliath by Tom Gauld – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The Goliath of the title (Drawn & Quarterly, hb, 96pp) is the one from the Bible, and this is Tom Gauld’s version of his ill-starred battle with David, or rather the build-up to it, the actual confrontation and its aftermath taking up just the last seven pages of the book. Goliath is part of the Philistine army, but he’s not the mighty warrior of legend. In fact, he’s the self-confessed “fifth-worst swordsman” in his platoon. Reading the challenge he must make to the Israelites, his first response is to faint. Upon waking he says, “I do paperwork! I’m a very good administrator.” He isn’t a coward, exactly; he’s just sensible and doesn’t like fighting.

He’s been chosen for this dangerous task just because he’s tall. Goliath’s captain, given free rein by a king who can’t be bothered to read the plans, thinks that in a suit of ceremonial armour Goliath will be so intimidating that no Israelite will dare to take up his challenge. Goliath is simply going where he’s told, with no conviction that what he is doing makes any sense, his eventual fate made all the sadder by the friendship that develops with his nine-year-old shield bearer. When he dies he’s just looking for his little friend, and barely has time to realise what is happening.

I’m familiar with Tom Gauld’s art from the superb covers of The Damned Busters, Costume Not Included and the deluxe Penguin Classics edition of The Three Musketeers, but Goliath is the first of his comics I’ve read. The art is in black and white, simple, cartoonish and emotive, with sepia shades, cross-hatching and plain backgrounds enhancing the reader’s sense of Goliath’s loneliness and hopelessness. Goliath is a man made lonely by what makes him useful to other people, and eventually—after a tedious forty-day mission—dying because of it. This sad, funny comic doesn’t take long to read, but leaves the reader with much to think about.

The Lorax – reviewed by Jacob Edwards

“I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees, but cutesy sells tickets, so do what you please.” The Lorax. Directed by Chris Renaud (with Kyle Balda).

Twelve year old Ted Wiggins (Zac Efron) lives in Thneed-Ville, an artificially happy and colourful bubble city with inflatable trees and commercialised fresh air. To win the affections of girl-next-door Audrey (Taylor Swift), he must first brave the wasteland outside of Thneed-Ville and speak to the crotchety, reclusive old Once-ler (Ed Helms), then plant a Truffula Tree in defiance of the nefarious and unscrupulous Mayor O’Hare (Rob Riggle). As the Once-ler confesses the details of his greedy, younger day Thneed-mongering and ecology-cruelling defiance of the Lorax (Danny DeVito), Ted’s determination to bring back a Truffula Tree comes to be shaped as much by environmental concern as by his romantic interest.

Of all Dr Seuss’s books, The Lorax (1971) is perhaps the most memorable—visually, linguistically, moralistically—and should therefore have been, if any, the most likely candidate for successful adaptation into a feature length animated film, as was achieved with Horton Hears a Who! (1954/2008). However, whereas Danny DeVito is undoubtedly an inspired piece of casting as the titular character—encapsulating not merely through association but also via artfully nuanced voice acting the impotently powerful, comically short, ineffectually good-hearted and sincere walrus-moustached guardian of the trees—other aspects of The Lorax’s production fall well short of Seuss’s original work.

The movie’s most obvious failing lies in its repeated inclusion of big piece musical numbers, the lyrical thrust of which seems to suggest a wannabe Seuss-ishness by co-writer Cinco Paul, but one that holds no great regard for the original text, and in any case hides itself behind cluttered spectacle and bombastic instrumentation. (Ben Folds may have prostrated himself in Over the Hedge, but at least he had the guts to do it bold-faced and “out there”.) Notwithstanding that there is no legitimate place in animated cinematography, generally, for the great and somewhat inexplicable American fondness for musicals, in The Lorax, specifically, where at a pinch all the Mickey Mouse singing might have been excused as filler to help pad a 61–page picture book into 86 minutes of film, clearly it doesn’t even serve this purpose. Indeed, very few of Seuss’s own words feature in the movie, and the most hauntingly evocative section of his original narrative—20 pages of denigration in which the “smogulous smoke” and “gluppity-glupp” and “schloppity-schlopp” of the Once-ler’s factories turn the Truffula paradise into a grey and poisoned wasteland—is compressed into a verse or two of the song “How Bad Can I Be?” and otherwise ignored, as if those Hollywood spirits who now speak for Theodor Geisel were somehow embarrassed or afraid to linger (or, more accurately, do more than touch fleetingly) on the sickened spectacle that lay at the heart of his cautionary vision.

Much though readers of Dr Seuss might approach a cinematic viewing with trepidation, film treatments of Theodor Geisel’s books were always going to require the creation of new material. That such could be scripted while staying true to Geisel’s imaginative scope was shown by the 2008 rendition of Horton Hears a Who! and, with the exception of the aforementioned musical numbers, The Lorax again demonstrates the writers’ capacity to don the big, zany hat without becoming hopelessly lost in it. Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul comprised half the team responsible for the Horton screenplay, and the non-adaptive aspects of their Lorax script are similarly impressive in capturing the unexplored peripheries of Seuss’s book. Thneed-Ville, for example, is transformed from a dour, subsistence town backdrop into a colourful, walled-off settlement of false cheer and prosperity. The contrast between the two short-of-stature characters—the doddering, overwhelmed Lorax and the pernicious, over-compensating Mayor O’Hare—is played up in suitably Seuss-esque style, and the fleshing out of Ted Wiggins from nameless listener to spunky and modern-generation adolescent participant is achieved without going beyond the essential boundaries of the determined and inquisitively undaunted stock child character who appears regularly throughout Geisel’s works.

These new elements of The Lorax are handled with finesse, yet aspects of the original book are treated with less fidelity, and pointlessly so, perverting some of its charm and effect. Most seriously, the Once-ler and his fellow capitalists have ceased to be a family of mostly-hidden individuals with mysterious green arms emerging from off-page or behind bushes or inside buckets and wagons and buildings. Instead, they are presented as “ordinary” caricatured hillbillies—even the typically outlandish Once-ler Wagon is rendered mundane—and the Once-ler himself is made to physically resemble an older, less fortunately circumstanced version of Ted Wiggins. Through substitution of this seemingly obligatory (by American movie sensibilities) dysfunctional family background, the Once-ler is given an excuse for doing what he does, and although there may be some merit in moralising to children the importance of keeping to one’s promises and integrity, it nevertheless seems terribly unfaithful to take the formerly opportunistic and entrepreneurial Once-ler—in blatant allegory, the faceless arm of short-sighted industrial “biggering”—and to strip him of his corporate anonymity, thenceforth colourising his actions as merely the misguided selfishness of a good-at-heart kid whose failings can be blamed squarely on his parents. The concept of the Once-ler as “victim” is in no way part of Geisel’s story, and to see the carelessly destructive villain offered this level of pardon (he is even shown to have “redeemed” himself by growing a Lorax-like moustache) will be thoroughly galling to anyone evenly vaguely cognisant of the book’s original premise.

The shame of this conceptual faithlessness is that The Lorax, in terms of its technical aspects, captures quite beautifully both the verdant paradise and chilling devastation of Geisel’s illustrations, not to mention his mad flare for steampunk contraptions and wondrously warped architecture. The Truffula Trees are as divine as their felling by the Super-Axe-Hackers is hellish, and the chopping down of the last tree—presented as a wearied labour, almost; the inevitable conclusion of a sequence over which the initiator assumes neither control nor responsibility—is without doubt one of the most forlorn and poignant moments in modern cinematic history. This isn’t something that the film dwells upon, however, and the overwhelming impression one receives is that the box office “biggerers” were given too much say in keeping The Lorax as light and childishly palatable as other, well-known works in the Dr Seuss library.

The result, sadly, is that Geisel’s grim and masterful book has been done a disservice—likewise its adherents—and the film, though containing much that is funny and enjoyable, falls far short of being the ominous and overtly portentous classic it could so easily have been, had only the cinematic realisation been knitted together with a Once-ler’s great skilful skill, then brought to the big screen through judicious use of a Thneed.

A Woman of Mars by Helen Patrice – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

A Woman of Mars, by Helen Patrice (hb, 48pp, available here) is the sixth collection of poetry from PS Publishing’s Stanza imprint, telling the story of a fifteen year-old girl who falls for a handsome twenty-six year-old astronaut—“Only from within his eyes, / did I see clear / for the first time, / a future of steel and stars” (“The Stirring”)—and travels to Mars in the spaceship he pilots to join the founding of a colony. Hence the subtitle: the poems of an early homesteader. The story it tells, of dust storms, disasters and terraforming, isn’t particularly novel, but its point of view is, as shown by the title: she’s a woman of Mars, not a princess, warlord or god; it’s the story of what a normal life might be like, lived on Mars, coping with life and with death, and the subtitle suggests that these are not just poems about her, they are to be taken as poems by her. Not every poem is in the first person—“Buried”, for example, imagines a series of messages sent out to Station five during a sandstorm (“Mining station five, / the storm is abating. / What is your status?”)—but most are, and we see both old and new Mars through the prism of her life and relationships.

In “Transition” she reads all at once the emails that her mother, left behind on Earth, sent while the colonists were in transit and asleep, changing from anger to sadness: “I read her moving from / three word missives: / ‘I hate you’, / through to ‘I would kill him’, / to ‘come home’.” We see the couple search for useful work: “There is no need for an old / boy cosmonaut” (“Finding Home”); and her changing attitude to Mars and its red dust: “The sand eats my booted foot, / even as I stand. / Mars is starving for us all” (“Buried II”). Years later, the red dust driven away by green and yellow, she begins to miss it: “I will never see clear red Mars again, / now that terraforming is begun” (“Mars, Lately”). Having lost Vassily, she now loses even the planet on which they lived. The thirty-three poems vary in length and style, although none rhyme and only two are longer than a page. The poems are direct rather than elliptical or metaphorical, speaking plainly of events in a way that leaves the reader to appreciate their importance to the writer, stories stripped down to the fewest words necessary. It’s a brief book to read, but an interesting one, even to an infrequent reader of poetry like this reviewer.

Brave – reviewed by Jacob Edwards

And so the spoils…Brave, directed by Brenda Chapman, then Mark Andrews.

Tenth century Scotland is ruled by King Fergus of the Clan DunBroch, but remains united largely through the diplomatic nous of his wife, Queen Elinor, who keeps the high-spirited squabbling of Fergus and his three most powerful allies (Lords MacGuffin, Macintosh and Dingwall) from escalating into pride-fuelled clan warfare. Elinor is schooling her teenage daughter, the Princess Merida, in the ways of queenliness, but Merida is as independent as her hair is red, and when she baulks at the prospect of being married off to whichever of the three clans’ firstborn sons should compete for her least ineptly in a betrothal contest, there develops between she and Elinor a mother/daughter rift that threatens not only the happiness of the Clan DunBroch but also the sanctity of Scottish traditions, upon which balance (somewhat precariously) the brotherly affections and rivalry that define Fergus and his fellow clan leaders. Merida hot-headedly bargains with a witch to “change” her mother, but must then deal with the consequences of that (over-literal) change and put things right before the scrambled yolk of second dawn breaks its permanency upon her wish.

For those who may happen upon Brave without the benefit of a trailer, the film’s first pleasant surprise will doubtlessly be its Scottishness, which comes as a revelation not so much in its existence (there being a real world, not a fantasy setting) but rather in the authenticity of its manifestation. This is not clichéd Scotland with outrageously fake accents, nor is it some grittily realistic historical re-creation so true-to-life that it becomes utterly bewildering to anyone who’s never played the bagpipes. Avoiding these extremes, Brave presents instead as a modernised but faithful depiction brought out through its genuine connections to the Scottish Isles. The score, for instance—which is comfortably saddled to the moods of the story and carries it along with a laudable measure of originality, bolstering rather than distracting—is by Scottish composer Patrick Doyle, and is distinctive in featuring (albeit sometimes in revamped, electronic form) a plethora of traditional Scottish instruments and cadences.[1] The voice cast, too, consists primarily of Scots or actors of Scottish descent, from Fergus and Elinor (Billy Connolly and Emma Thompson), through the Lords Dingwall, Macintosh and MacGuffin (Robbie Coltrane, Craig Ferguson and Kevin McKidd), to Merida herself (Kelly Macdonald of Trainspotting fame), whose part was to have gone to Reese Witherspoon until “scheduling issues” (read “the odds against successful dialogue coaching within the lifetime of the film”, or perhaps just “sanity”) prevailed.[2] The only notable outsider is the woodcarver/witch (Julie Walters), whose bear-plagued magic in any case lies very much on the peripheries of the Scottish world.

Second on the list of pleasant surprises will be the quality of Brave’s animation. The vast majority of Pixar feature films (of which there have been twelve, prior to Brave) have starred non-human characters—a practical decision, apparently, based on the limitations of what the studio’s animation system could realise—but with Brave that technology has been broken down and rebuilt to allow for the tremendous nuance that the Scottish folk show in both movement and expression.[3] This isn’t to say that the animals are lacking in any way—on the contrary, Merida’s horse Angus is supremely lovable, and Elinor is nothing short of award-winning when first transformed into a bear—but the depiction of people offers vast new scope and thus constitutes a tremendous leap forward for Pixar. (Perchance, therein lies the real significance of Enrico Casarosa’s short animation La Luna, which in theatrical release has been screened as Brave’s curtain-raiser?) To those of the “now” generation, Brave’s Scotsmen (in particular, no disrespect to the women) may call to mind the Vikings of How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks, 2010), but for those of us who grew up on static images, there is something in the poses and physiques of the Scottish protagonists—in their baffled expressiveness, their sudden interjection into proceedings, even the timing of their dialogue—that is ever so wonderfully reminiscent of Albert Uderzo’s Asterix comics, only brimming with all the vigour and vim so lacking throughout countless, soulless attempts elsewhere to animate our Gallic heroes and bring their comic poise to life. French visual effects company Mac Guff (Despicable Me, The Lorax) is planning a new Asterix animation for release in 2014,[4] but even at this early stage, judging by what is evidenced in Brave, it seems likely that fans will be more inclined to lament Pixar’s non-involvement than celebrate Mac Guff’s efforts to brew the magic potion.

Brave is structured around a female lead—this much is obvious from the theatrical poster—and has attracted further attention (and then renown) in the pervadingly male world of feature length animations for having a female director (the story’s originator, Brenda Chapman) who then was replaced mid-production.[5] For many of us, however, (adults and children alike), these gender issues are very much by-the-by. The beauty of Brave—and the third item on any speculative cinemagoer’s list of pleasant surprises—is not that it offers a challenge to the traditional male dominance over scripting and production elements, but rather that it tells a good story, and in doing so constructs a parent/child dynamic (which is easy to understand, whether one relates to it directly or not), and then pursues this storyline and relationship dynamic with clarity and purpose sans the hodgepodge elements that so many animated films seem to litter about the place in trying to pitch their product at four or five different age groups they clearly have judged to share nothing in common. Brave is a comedy, but its humour is such that everyone laughs at once rather than taking it in turns to be tickled (younger viewers boggling with incomprehension while teens snicker or oldsters wince their abhorrence of cutesy singing lemurs or such inanity). Brave is consistently funny, but achieves this through dint of astute peppering rather than saturation bombing. It also presents as both serious and emotional, and—whether due to its distribution by Disney, its much-vaunted feminine touch, or just the unabashed Scottish attitude that no man is too manly to wear a kilt or cry when he’s sad—tells its tale openly and without hiding its message behind an embarrassment of walk-on characters or paper-thin layers of substandard subplot. Behind the comedy, Brave is a film about responsibility, and just as Merida grows from impetuous beginnings to express herself within more measured constraints, so too does Brave learn from the capricious mistakes of some of its predecessors in the genre; by taking seriously its responsibility both to the subject matter and to the audience, Brave hurls the haggis far and blossoms as an animated comedy of considerable substance.

1. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sounds-of-the-highlands-disney-pixars-brave-transports-moviegoers-to-ancient-scotland-with-oscar-nominated-composer-patrick-doyle-plus-performers-julie-fowlis-and-birdy-with-mumford--sons-152256415.html [21 May 2012]

2. Lussier, Germain, http://www.slashfilm.com/pixars-brave-update-voice-cast-directors-concept-art/ [28 March 2011]

3. Parry, Stephen, http://disneyvault.net/pixar-rewrote-their-animation-system-for-the-first-time-in-25-years-for-brave/ [9 April 2012]

4. http://www.lyricis.fr/cinema-serie-tv/asterix-le-domaine-des-dieux-3d-decouvrez-les-premiers-visuels-exclusifs-de-ladaptation-par-alexandre-astier-40109/ [17 May 2011]

5. Sperling, Nicole, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/25/entertainment/la-et-women-animation-sidebar-20110525 [25 May 2011]

The Orphan Palace by Joseph S. Pulver Sr – reviewed by John Greenwood

What would be an effective method to convey a character’s emotion of overwhelming hatred, say for his parents? Here’s how Joseph S. Pulver Sr goes about it in The Orphan Palace (Chômu Press, pb, 376pp):

“The HATE…The HATE…grinding…The HATE…LARGER…LARGER…hatehatehatehatehate…”

These are techniques that Pulver uses throughout the novel: ellipses (more than in any other book I’ve read), sentence fragments or just single isolated words, words capitalised for emphasis, words run together, and of course repetition (of the fourteen words in this fragment, eight are just the word “hate”). It doesn’t express, it just reminds us what the author should have found some means of expressing.

To describe The Orphan Palace as experimental fiction doesn’t give much of an indication of how Pulver organises his material. “Stream-of-consciousness” isn’t a term that helps much either, because the chains of sentence fragments, strung along long threads of ellipses like a funky gothic necklace, are not merely an attempt to reproduce the inner monologue of the protagonist. This is fairly typical:

“The stiff wall of Nightblack frozen forever takes all of you into its disaster of old rage… 

The monster mask growls, hungry knife-thorn swallows dawn.

Smears ointments of blind worm seed and dead tongue curse on crouching hearts smashed on Null…

The blind moon-tempest mask ringing with translations of All Fall Down-rises, its seven torch-eyes writhe…shines as a shadow drinking the tear-miles of open blood veins…”

I suppose you could call it a prose-poem, or beat poetry, but what it brings to mind most readily is the lyric sheet of a heavy metal band. Like an extended rock opera, there are whole pages where no line reaches the other side of the page, and no sentence finds its full stop, on occasion even using the “/” character to break the line. Pulver quotes Springsteen before the book gets going, and lists his preferred soundtrack at the end. Since the advent of Spotify it would be possible for readers to listen to Pulver’s recommended tracks while working through the book, but the artists he cites (from Kronos Quartet to Steve Earle) have little in common with his unvarying vocabulary of blood, death, sexual predation and insanity, familiar to me from early eighties metal bands (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Accept, Dio, early Metallica) but no doubt still the core business of contemporary metal and goth bands. When not staring into the Abyss, Pulver has us adrift in a small-town America of sleazy bars and cheap motels, whisky slugged from the bottle and cold coffee from paper cups, easy girls drawn to the mysterious drifter (morphing into the iconography of Hair Metal).

It’s not all improvised coda: there is a plot, and it concerns Cardigan, ex-inmate of an occult, abusive orphanage, hard-drinker, arsonist and serial killer, who is making his way East across the USA, shooting up lonely gas stations, burning down motels, picking up women in bars before murdering them and mutilating their bodies. He’s on a mission of revenge against the evil Dr Archer, whose obscure but depraved experiments on the kids in his charge have turned Cardigan into a monster. Along the way, Cardigan tries to penetrate the mystery of a series of pulp noirish novels he finds in every motel room he visits, and is advised along the way by a number of supernatural or perhaps hallucinatory mentors.

A lot of strange things happen: plot devices are introduced (such as a coin to magically detect lies, and a ghoulish impregnation) and are promptly forgotten about. Stranger still, Cardigan, who is seen casually slashing up women for fun in the first half of the book, is by the second half almost one of the good guys, at worst troubled, if rather more than misunderstood. An old friend from the orphanage urges him to give up his quest and settle down to run a beachside bar with him, as though we had switched channels from American Psycho and found ourselves in the closing scenes of The Shawshank Redemption. His violent outbursts start to take on a more moralising intent. He murders a man who tries to hit a dog in a park, and I got the impression that I was invited to applaud this vigilante justice. He confronts a violent pimp and sets the prostitutes free, imploring them to go and seek the light. Oddest of all, Cardigan shoots the pimp’s bodyguards, only to find them alive and well on the next page, and slays them again.

Over and above such slips, any reader without amnesia or psychopathy should be wondering how this is the same character who was driving around with a woman’s severed nipple in his pocket just a few days previously. And despite over three hundred and fifty pages of impulsive slaughter, theft and arson, the police only appear in the book once, and show no interest in Cardigan’s rampage. While I wasn’t expecting social realism, the complete lack of consequences in The Orphan Palace gives it the feel of somebody who has discovered a cheat to turn off the cops and gain powers of invincibility in Grand Theft Auto.

The best that can be said of The Orphan Palace is that it has a restless, grotesque fecundity, like the random strings of images and words that one is aware of just before sleep descends:

“…a face in the bridal chamber mirror…Baby…HER FACE…BABY…a serpent with seven eyes…I LOVE YOU…the skull of an angel kissed by the mysteries of the worm…she bellows…I will possess your demon art…I knit gloom with your October fables…fly back to the Stygian dew of my texture spread in regal luster…”

But the language sticks so closely to the clichés of Lovecraftian gothic horror that it becomes predictable. The slackness of the narrative, combined with these long stretches of formless ranting about the Hounds of Tindalos and other such touchstones of weird fiction, make The Orphan Palace a slog through well-trodden territory with little compensation other than the grim satisfaction of having made it to the last page.

Still, you have to hand it to Chômu Press. Since 2010 they have been publishing unclassifiable out-on-a-limb fiction on a punishing schedule (twenty books at my last count), in elegantly strange covers that ought to be the envy of mainstream publishers. Like specialist species of insect hiding away in their narrow ecological niches, small presses have traditionally thrived in very well-defined sub-genres where there is a limited but proven supply of readers. Chômu (Japanese for “dreaming butterfly”) is a different creature altogether, willing, one might even say anxious, to take chances on authors who are similarly drawn to such risky behaviour in their writing. Sometimes these risks pay off (see the review of Justin Isis’s collection of short stories from TQF35), but not here.

Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts – reviewed by Jacob Edwards

DNA, the Doctor, and another punt at Cambridge. Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts, based on the original scripts by Douglas Adams (BBC Books, hb, 407pp).

When Chris Parsons, in an attempt to impress a girl he’s serially failed to declare his love for, borrows some books on carbon dating from retired Cambridge don Professor Chronotis, he has no idea that the Professor is actually a Time Lord, that Chronotis’s college room is the inside of a TARDIS, or that one of the books Chris has borrowed is, in fact, the most dangerous book in the entire universe. As the coldly villainous Skagra appears on campus, armed with a mind-sucking sphere, and intent on unlocking the secret of Shada (the long-lost prison planet of the Time Lords), Chris finds himself embroiled in it all and, to his own enduring bafflement, hitchhiking through time and space with a long-scarfed eccentric known to all and sundry (even the college porter) as the Doctor.

Had Douglas Adams novelised his three Doctor Who scripts, it seems likely that readers could have traversed his Hitchhiker’s and Doctor Who books as if they were all part of the same, skewed Möbius strip. (Or, throw in Dirk Gently and one could lap them up as if drinking from a Klein bottle.) Adams’s first attempted involvement with Doctor Who was a rejected script, Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen, which he later novelised, sans the Doctor, as Life, the Universe and Everything. His first actual involvement came as the result of submitting his pilot Hitchhiker’s script to the Doctor Who production office, whereupon he was commissioned to write The Pirate Planet, and subsequently taken on as script editor. It was in this capacity that he wrote City of Death (notoriously in a single, coffee-fuelled weekend) and Shada, the infamous “lost” serial that was abandoned, partially made, after strikes at the BBC. And, of course, it was from City of Death and Shada that Adams drew much of the framework for Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Everything was interconnected. And still is.

The BBC, having launched Adams to stardom through the Hitchhiker’s radio serial, inexplicably turned down the rights to the novel, just as Target Books then declined to offer Adams more than £600 per story to novelise his Doctor Who scripts. The reasons behind these precipitate non-actions have always been something of a mystery … until now, when finally the probability has been calculated of the TARDIS materialising onboard the Heart of Gold, and Douglas Adams’s lost story thus has manifested, not on film or in a paltry Target offering, but instead, at last, between the solid covers and with the gilded lettering of a BBC hardcover. This, one cannot help but feel, is what was always meant to happen when Adams threw himself at Doctor Who but missed.

Of course, Douglas Adams hasn’t actually written this new book, but Adams/Hitchhiker’s/Who fans should rest assured that, in this instance, the act of not writing it has been carried out in rather a good way. To elucidate: when Terry Jones novelised Adams’s interactive computer game Starship Titanic, expectant fans were rightfully disappointed that the book, though true to what Adams had scripted in the game, and funny enough in a Jones-ey sort of way, nevertheless carried no obvious input from Adams himself (who was very much alive at this point); and more recently, when with Adams having passed away Eoin Colfer was bequeathed the task of penning a sixth Hitchhiker’s novel, And Another Thing . . ., he did so with Adams’s characters and overt Hitchhiker’s references yet very much in Colfer’s own—not Adams’s—style. The overarching response engendered by these pseudo-Adams offerings must necessarily be a somewhat muted joy, that Adams’s imagination continues at least in some sense—but not the most important one—to produce new works. Yet, this is not the case with Gareth Roberts’ novel. With Shada, there can be no misgivings or second guessings.

Because Shada—and Adams fans should brace themselves at this point, and promise not to snarl and come after the reviewer with Agrajagian intent—is better than what Adams would have written.

“Would” rather than “could”—an important distinction, representing not the obvious tragedy that Adams is no longer with us, but instead two rather telling features of Adams’s later output (and particularly his ongoing Hitchhiker’s saga): firstly, the fact that his books post-Restaurant at the End of the Universe did not feature the Doctor or any character of equivalent strength, and yet clearly were written anyway, in full and certain knowledge of this shortcoming; and secondly, that Adams clearly had no great desire to write these books at all. The job of crafting novels had become, for Adams, an onerous, unwanted task that was necessitated, to be sure, by having accepted the six-figure advances, but in all other respects was merely a distraction from life, lunches, and everything technological. What’s more, Shada wasn’t something that Adams had fully embraced even at the time of scripting it. He’d had a different idea in mind (vetoed, unfortunately, by producer Graham Williams), and in any case was working concurrently on the Restaurant at the End of the Universe novelisation, the second Hitchhiker’s radio series, and also a script for the Hitchhiker’s television adaptation. Shada, not surprisingly, was put off and put off some more, until inviolable deadlines necessitated that it be written—in just the sort of madcap frenzy that could be guaranteed to trip all the synapses of Adams’s unparalleled imagination—and then abandoned and wiped from his brow with a sigh of relief.

Whereas Adams’s interest in Shada, then, extended no further than delving back into it and reusing the character of Professor Chronotis, Gareth Roberts has approached the story with the reverence of an Adams fan, the professional background of a long-time Doctor Who novelist, and the investigative nous of a screenwriter turned private investigator. He’s tied up the loose ends left flapping by Adams’s hasty scripting and the abandoning of Shada’s production. He’s taken the mind-blowing glut of Adams’s ideas and, while staying true to everything that Adams actually wrote for Shada, has fleshed out and made perfect sense of it all, giving depth to characters that otherwise were there just to project a stream of zany inventiveness onto, and generally managing to make a rounded, humorous novel out of what would, had it been completed, have been a no-less-funny but probably quite shambolic television production.

Roberts channels Adams’s voice remarkably well; not, perhaps, the exquisitely droll prose of Adams at his finest, but certainly the satirical frivolity of the first Hitchhiker’s radio series. In essence, he presents us with another Hitchhiker’s novel (for Arthur Dent, read Chris Parsons), but he does so far more faithfully than did Jones or Colfer, and furthermore, succeeds in the task also while staying within the bounds of—indeed, while managing to enhance—the structured universe of Doctor Who in general and in particular the iconic, some would say sacred, era of Tom Baker. Perhaps this is not so surprising, given that Adams’s Doctor Who was basically Hitchhiker’s with a more established lead character; but even so, Gareth Roberts’ novelisation is a who/ptious achievement indeed, melding Hitchhiker’s to Doctor Who in a way that Adams clearly would have loved to do when writing Life, the Universe and Everything without recourse to that same bond. It remains to be seen whether Roberts will be invited back to novelise Pirate Planet and City of Death, but if Shada is anything to go by then one might certainly hope so. For what could be better, given the constraints of history yet unexpected access to the TARDIS, than another Hitchhiker’s trilogy?

Jacob’s review originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 56. For his review of And Another Thing…, see “A Biro From the Blue” in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 44.

The Moon Moth by Humayoun Ibrahim and Jack Vance – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Adapted by Humayoun Ibrahim from the short story by Jack Vance, The Moon Moth (hb, 128pp) is another interesting comic from First Second, who previously published the very decent Orcs: Forged for War and seem to be making a praiseworthy habit of looking beyond the obvious candidates for adaptation into graphic novels. An opening introduction to Vance’s work by Carlo Rotella is not uninteresting—especially insofar as he actually visited Vance to interview him—but like Brandon Flowers discussing the Pet Shop Boys in A Life in Pop he seems rather too embarrassed about his enthusiasm for his subject. Never mind, the main course is the actual comic, and that is excellent.

Edwer Thissell has a mere three days to prepare for his mission to Sirene, a world on which he will be at constant risk of death should he give offence: the previous representative of the home worlds having been instantly beheaded after approaching a woman in the street. There is no money on Sirene, the only currency being glory—strakh—and everyone must wear masks appropriate to their strakh. Despite being the representative of one hundred billion people, Thissell is discouraged from wearing too showy a mask: “If the home planets want their representative to wear a sea-dragon conqueror mask they’d better send out a sea-dragon conqueror type man!” He settles for the lowly, dowdy moon moth.

And not only must he wear the right mask, he must sing everything he says and accompany it with a musical instrument appropriate to the status of the person to whom he is talking! After three months of music lessons and slow adjustment a message arrives: Haxo Angmark—“assassin, agent provocateur, and ruthless criminal”—has landed on Sirene and must be captured—and if not, killed without hesitation. The problem for Thissell, of course, is that Angmark is now wearing a mask, just like everybody else. In a society where murder falls under the heading of “religious differences … of no importance”, but removing a mask has the gravest possible consequences, how can Thissell unmask—literally and metaphorically—the criminal?

This is a very fine adaptation of Jack Vance’s story. The pacing is excellent, the superbly clever conclusion played to fullest effect, the art bold, vigorous and exaggerated, but ornate and detailed where necessary. Right up until the end Thissell is portrayed in a manner that’s rather more skittish than you would normally imagine of a Vance hero, with flecks of sweat flying from his mask, but in the circumstances his fearfulness is hardly unreasonable. Hilary Sycamore’s colours are nothing short of wonderful, and the lettering manages superbly the difficult task of conveying the way in which words are being sung. I will certainly look out for further work from Humayoun Ibrahim.

The Avengers – reviewed by Douglas J. Ogurek

During the opening weekend of The Avengers (Avengers Assemble in the UK), directed by Joss Whedon, Americans plunked down $207.4 million to watch their beloved Marvel superheroes join forces. The earnings, to borrow a term from the Hulk’s lexicon, “smashed” the previous record-holder, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, by over $38 million. Worldwide, The Avengers brought in over $650 million in 12 days.

Frenetic, heavy on special effects, and one-dimensional, The Avengers achieves its success by giving easily-distracted contemporary moviegoers what they crave. And this film didn’t simply materialise through a portal in the sky; it is built on a foundation of several stand-alone films that show what each Avenger is capable of independently. “And now they’re coming together?” thinks the common man. “I’ve got to see that!” Brilliant marketing.

It is this reviewer’s belief that those who paid to see this film did so for three reasons: to laugh, to see mass destruction, and to watch heroes trounce villains (am I really spoiling anything?). With the force of Thor’s hammer, The Avengers pounds viewers over the head with these three elements. It even keeps the love interests to a minimum. Sorry, Pepper Potts and Jane Foster!

The standout character is “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” Tony Stark (i.e. Iron Man), who keeps the viewer wondering what he’s going to say next. A great deal of the film’s humour comes from Stark’s smart aleck comments. He refers to Thor as “Point Break”. He calls Captain America a “lab rat”. He addresses Hawkeye as “Legolas”. And unlike his cohorts, Stark wants to watch Dr David Banner go green: “Dr Banner, your [scientific] work is unparalleled. And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”

As the Hulk’s third big-budget manifestation, after Eric Bana in Hulk (2003) and Ed Norton in The Incredible Hulk (2008), Mark Ruffalo portrays a more subdued, professorial Banner who has learned, for the most part, to control his powers. Banner repeatedly warns (e.g. “Don’t make him angry . . . ”) others about his alter ego. This builds anticipation for when he will transform.

As in their previous films, Thor and especially Captain America are less about character, and more about action, while Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow and Clint Barton/Hawkeye drift through the film like ice particles in a tropical drink.

Tom Hiddleston maintains his role from Thor (2011) as Loki, Thor’s adopted demi-god brother and the chief villain. With his elegant bearing, smooth tongue, and patience, Loki embodies what many filmgoers loathe and fear: intelligence. Sure, Stark and Banner are brilliant. But Stark wears a Black Sabbath shirt and drives cool cars, and Banner’s just a normal guy.

Learning from recent successes like Transformers and Chronicle, The Avengers culminates in an urban blitzkrieg. This time, the streets and skies of Manhattan swarm with superheroes, aliens, and a fleet of gigantic ships that seem to move through water rather than air. The number of explosions would make Monty Python’s Tim the Enchanter proud. In a particularly impressive filming technique, the camera follows one Avenger’s flight path or weapon trajectory, then switches to another Avenger.

And what’s all this fighting about? A glowing cube called the Tesseract. If Loki gets it, the Chitauri, his alien friends, conquer the galaxy and he takes over Earth. So the Avengers must stop him. Despite all the technological progress in movies, it’s still about the treasure hunt.

Yes, The Avengers is a masterpiece of customisation to the masses’ cinematic preferences. Like Transformers, it even offers longer stretches of explanatory dialogue (about the Tesseract, about technology) so that attendees can check their urgent texts (e.g., “Johnny’s soccer team’s winning!!”) and make critical Facebook entries: “watching avengers OMG this is so awesome!!! And johnny’s team’s winning!!”

Is The Avengers an entertaining movie? Absolutely. Is it a phenomenal film? No. Titanic. Gangs of New York. Signs. Those are phenomenal. However, although my fellow moviegoers did not clap after those films, they did after The Avengers. Hmmm.

Shelflings #2 - NOT available for free download from the British Fantasy Society!

The British Fantasy Society has made issue two of its reviews ezine available for free [accidentally, as it turns out - see below] to the general public. That means you!

SHELFLINGS #2 has been compiled by Stephen Theaker (me!) from reviews edited by Craig Lockley, Phil Lunt and Jay Eales for the British Fantasy Society website. It features almost 30,000 words of reviews by Carl Barker, Chris Limb, Craig Knight, David A. Riley, David Brzeski, David Rudden, Elloise Hopkins, Glen Mehn, Jacob Howard, Jay Eales, Katy O’Dowd, M.P. Ericson, Mario Guslandi, Matthew Johns, Mike Chinn, Pauline Morgan, Phil Lunt, R.A. Bardy, Rebekah Lunt, Selina Lock, Steve Dean and Stewart Horn.

Creators and editors whose work is reviewed include (deep breath!) Adrian L. Youseman, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, Alex Miles, Alison Littlewood, Andy Chambers, Anne Lyle, Anthony Reynolds, Armand Rosamilia, Ben Counter, Bev Allen, Brian-Joseph Baker, Joshua D. Brice, Dillon Langlands and John Bromley, Charlaine Harris, Chris F. Holm, Chris Wraight, Christopher Priest, Courtney Taylor-Taylor and Jim Rugg, Dan Abnett, David A. Sutton, David Elroy Goldweber, David Rix, Deborah Harkness, Frances Hardinge, Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows, Gary Fry, Graham McNeill, Howard Hopkins, James Brogden, Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, Jilly Paddock, Jim Beard, John Charles Scott, John Dorney, Jonathan Morris, Joseph Nassise, Justin Gustainis, Kim Lakin-Smith, Lee Batters, Madeline Ash, Magnus Aspli, Dave Acosta, Jeremy P Roberts, Goran Kostadinoski and Alex De-Gruchy, Mark C. Scioneaux, R.J. Cavender, Robert S. Wilson, Matthew Clements, Maynard Sims, Michael Croteau, Nancy Kilpatrick, Nick Kyme and Gav Thorpe, Paul Dini, Carlos D’Anda and others, Paul Magrs, Paul S. Kemp, Peter Bell, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Reggie Oliver, Richard Davis, Richard Ford, Richard Morgan, Rob Sanders, Sarah Newton, Scott Sigler, Shaun Jeffrey, Simon D. Smith, Simon Yates, Terrance Dicks, Trevor Jones and Liz Williams, and William King.

Shelflings #2 is available to download from these links: in epub format and in mobi format. [Links removed! Turned out the issue had been made publicly available by mistake rather than design.]

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller - reviewed by John Greenwood

In the world of The Dog Stars, humanity has been decimated by a combination of killer flu and a HIV-like blood disease, with only zero point something of the population surviving the apocalypse. The survivors, at least in the USA where the novel is set, can be divided into isolated homesteaders and marauding bands of scavengers. Amateur Cessna pilot Hig is one of the former, and together with his gun-obsessive friend Bangley, he defends a tiny rural airport against any feral remnants of humanity who make it over the mountain. Together they make an effective, if inharmonious team. Hig can't stomach the killing, and Bangley the ruthless tactician cannot secure their perimeter without regular flights to check for intruders approaching their borders. But after nine years of this successful strategy, Hig suffers a shock that leads him to follow a faint transmission from another airport situated beyond his fuel supply's point of no return.

The Dog Stars isn't as big a book as it first appears. There's an unusually large amount of white space spread across its pages. A whole line between each short paragraph and between each line of dialogue means that many pages contain less than 100 words. At first this led me to wonder whether it was a deliberate attempt to express the silence and emptiness of the post-human American wilderness, the way Aaron Copland removed the middle notes from his chords to evoke the wide open spaces of the frontier years. More prosaically, it might simply be that readers in the era of Twitter are growing more intolerant of large, dense blocks of text, combined with the cheapness of paper, and steadily growing expectations of what is a normal novel length.

The other stylistic quirk that jumps out is Heller's tendency to truncate and de-punctuate, so that we get sentences such as "My memory serves but not stellar ha", or simply "And" or "Then" followed by a full stop. Once I clicked with the vernacular rhythm, it felt like listening to a good raconteur who is speaking between swigs of beer at a bar, or more likely trying to concentrate on doing something else (like flying a Cessna airplane) while breaking off every now and then to continue the narrative. Hig's is a very engaging voice, and only in the final third of the book, when he and the female lead character reveal something of their back stories to one another, does the tone lose its tautness and drive, and begins to sound like the sort of monologue delivered onscreen as Oscar-bait.

The pace shifts gears efficiently between meditations on Hig's past during his hunting and fishing trips into the mountain, and grisly skirmishes in which Hig and Bangley fight off poorly-armed but well-motivated desperadoes, Bangley's tactical perfectionism means that the author can ratchet up the tension in these fight sequences, as they are first rehearsed in exquisite technical detail, then enacted in far more chaotic and nerve-jangling fire fights.

Bangley is a fascinating character in his own right - a humourless, merciless survivalist whose day has finally come. His motto is the Hank Williams Jr. song title "A Country Boy Can Survive", and it is his ilk who inherit the earth once the plague has swept the last vestiges of civilisation away. Hig's reflective, impulsive, almost flaky character is a liability for them both. Although far from preachy, The Dog Stars is a novel which opposes two world views. Bangley will always prevail, but as he litters the airport perimeter with corpses, he can ultimately only grow more alone. Hig is not a competent survivor: he loses concentration and hankers after the old days. But it takes a foolish mistake on his part and an admission of his own vulnerability to establish the possibility that communities might again develop between the few atomised individuals left alive.

In the last third of the novel, I began to see the plot rolling out ahead of me according to the standard Hollywood model of redemption, but for the most part this is a well-written, highly entertaining and serious-minded take on the end of the world, and it deserves to do well.

 The Dog Stars by Peter Heller is published by Headline Review on 7th August 2012. ISBN 978-0755392599. Hardback, 320pp.

Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #41 – plus two free books!

I bet you're going on holiday soon, aren't you? And you probably haven't got anything to read. And if you have, I bet you'll read the first page and immediately get bored of it! Why take the chance! Download issue forty-one of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction – or buy a print copy if you're so inclined! – and you'll be assured of a brilliant holiday! And if you don't get a copy I'm going to keep using exclamation marks until you do!

This issue features two long stories – "Milo Don't Count Coup", by Ross Gresham, and Notes on the Bone" by Charles Wilkinson – a shorter one by our old friend Douglas Thompson – "DogBot™" – and fifty (FIFTY!) pages of reviews by Stephen Theaker (and his daughter Lorelei), Howard Watts, Jacob Edwards, John Greenwood and Douglas J. Ogurek. The ace cover art is by Howard Watts.

This 130pp issue is available in all the usual formats, all free except the print edition, which we’ve priced as cheaply as possible:

Paperback from Lulu
PDF of the paperback version (ideal for iPad – click on File and then Download Original)
TQF41 on Feedbooks (direct links here, but they do take a little while to start up sometimes: Kindle / Epub)

Here are the dashing athletes who have been kind enough to run around our stadium…

CHARLES WILKINSON’S short stories have appeared in Best Short Stories 1990, Best English Short Stories 2, Midwinter Mysteries and London Magazine. A collection, The Pain Tree and Other Stories, appeared from London Magazine Editions. “Notes on the Bone” is from a series of loosely linked short stories, another of which is to appear in Supernatural Tales.

DOUGLAS J. OGUREK’S Christian faith and love of animals strongly influence his fiction. His work has appeared in such publications as the BFS Journal, Dark Things V, Daughters of Icarus, The Literary Review, Morpheus Tales and WTF?! He lives in Gurnee, Illinois with the woman whose husband he is and their five pets.

DOUGLAS THOMPSON’S short stories have appeared in Albedo One, Ambit and Catastrophia. His first book, Ultrameta, was nominated for the Edge Hill Prize and unofficially shortlisted for the BFS Best Newcomer Award. His second novel Sylvow was published in autumn 2010, and a third, Mechagnosis, is to follow from Dog Horn.

HOWARD WATTS is an artist from Brighton who provides the cover to this issue, as well as extremely in-depth reviews of Alcatraz and Prometheus.

JACOB EDWARDS is currently indentured to Australia’s speculative fiction flagship Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, as Jack of all Necessities (Deckchairs and Bendy Straws). The website of this writer, poet and recovering lexiphanicist: www.jacobedwards.id.au.

JOHN GREENWOOD is patiently waiting for Theaker to take in the amendments to his novel The Hatchling.

LORELEI THEAKER is a keen fan of the Rainbow Magic series and working hard at school. In this issue she provides her thoughts on the Cosmic Horror Colouring and Activity Book (on sale here). The last time one of her reviews appeared in our pages was back in TQF12 (September 2006), when she was just two years old.

ROSS GRESHAM teaches at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Other installments of the Milo/Marmite saga have appeared in TQF34 and M-Brane SF (August 2011).

STEPHEN THEAKER is the eponymous co-editor of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, and writes many of its reviews. He has also reviewed for Interzone, Black Static, Prism and the BFS Journal.

All forty previous previous issues of our magazine are available for free download, and in print, from here.

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FREE BOOKS: From now on, with each announcement of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction we hope to offer one or more of our books free of charge on Kindle. These books will be free from now until Thursday:

The Mercury Annual, by Michael Wyndham Thomas
Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

Howard Phillips in His Nerves Extruded by Stephen Theaker
Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

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Super Dinosaur, Vol. 1, by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Super Dinosaur, Vol. 1, by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard (Image Comics, tpb, 128pp). Derek Dynamo is a cocky kid genius whose best friend is Super Dinosaur, a genetically-modified Tyrannosaurus Rex. As Rexes go, he’s quite small—only about 300 cm—but he’s intelligent, tough and wears cybernetic harnesses that provide him with weapons, wings and best of all a decent pair of fists, for punching the dino-men minions of Max Maximus, monsters like Terrordactyl, Dreadasaurus and Breakeosaurus. Derek’s dad, Doctor Dynamo, has been a bit fuzzy-minded since the first great battle with his arch-nemesis, but the boy genius has secretly been taking up the slack.

In this book the status quo is disturbed. First by Bruce and Sarah, mom and pop technicians sent by the army who might discover Derek’s little-cover-up once they arrive at the Dynamo Dome. And how will their two cute daughters affect the relationship between Derek and Super Dinosaur? There aren’t any cute Tyrannosaurus Reginas out there, as far as he knows. And secondly, some of the dino-men (and dino-women) are no longer satisfied to hench for Maximus, and led by The Exile and Tricerachops they are making plans to exterminate humanity.

This neat little comic is perfectly pitched at nine-year-old children, full of the exuberance of kicking butt, a Saturday morning cartoon or toy line from the eighties done right. I’m three decades past my ninth year, but even I appreciated the tight, bright, action-packed art, the intriguing little mysteries, the pure-hearted heroes, the evil-hearted villains, the friendly, joyful atmosphere. Adults will find it disposable but pleasant, kids will love it. Buy it as a birthday present for the Ben 10 fan in your life and they won’t be disappointed.

Monkey vs. Robot by James Kochalka – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Originally published in 2000, Monkey vs. Robot (Top Shelf, digital graphic novel, 150pp), written and drawn by James Kochalka, sees a group of monkeys react angrily to the pollution being caused by a factory and the robots who work for it. The pages are square with one to four panels each. There is very little dialogue—a robot declaring “The future is now” early on, and the factory computer begging for its life towards the end, for example—and that makes it a very quick read (so much so that one feels almost guilty to see it took a year to create). It’s a sad tale: imagine the stormtroopers of Return of the Jedi mounting a comeback against the ewoks, drawn with heartbreaking cuteness. The monkeys are essentially murderous eco-terrorists, but one does want them to win. It looks smashing on the iPad, and is available on Comixology at a remarkably cheap price. Good stuff. I could see myself becoming quite a fan of James Kochalka.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wolves at the Gate – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

One of my very favourite television programmes continues in comics form in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Eight, Vol. 3: Wolves at the Gate (Dark Horse, tpb, 136pp), collecting issues eleven to fifteen of the comic. Most of this book is written by Drew Goddard, but it opens with a single issue story by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, “A Beautiful Sunset”, in which Buffy encounters the Big Bad for this season, Twilight. He’s a dangerous fellow—he throws a steeple at her!—whose plan is to take away Buffy’s invincible armour: “her moral certainty”. (It would certainly slow her down a bit if she didn’t just assume all vampires were naughty by nature.) There’s a tease of his identity that would have been cleverly tantalising had I not learnt it already from the Amazon description of volume eight.

The four issues written by Drew Goddard give the collection its title. In “Wolves at the Gate” the slayer castle is attacked by vampires sharing the powers of Dracula, who made a brief, bathetic appearance in the TV series. Investigating takes the slayers and the gang—plus Dracula—from Scotland to Japan, where a vampire clan has plans to undo Buffy’s gift of slayerhood. It’s a story with many highlights—actually, scratch that, it’s a story entirely made up of highlights. Xander’s hilarious and oddly touching relationship with Dracula. Everyone bursting in on Buffy’s latest romantic tryst. Giant dawn fighting a giant mechadawn.

The pleasures of the Buffy season eight comic are essentially those of the original series: stories with consequences, well-planned plots, laugh-out loud dialogue, relationships that develop naturally in unexpected directions. Pencils throughout are by Georges Jeanty, with inks by Andy Owens, and they prove extremely adept at depicting each of those elements. Panels like those where Willow and Buffy discuss the latter’s latest romance display the comic skills of Kevin Maguire, while the action is always clear and powerful. They manage the tough trick of capturing the actors’ likenesses perfectly without the stiffness that afflicts many licensed comics. They draw a very pretty Buffy, and if she sometimes looks very petite, that’s because she really is; that’s what makes it so impressive when she fights the big monsters.

Interzone and Black Static on Kindle (ft. Theaker)

Three Theaker-tastic magazines from TTA Press are now available on Kindle: Interzone 239, Interzone 240 and Black Static 27. Theaker-less issues are also available!

I joke, as usual, but you cannot imagine how proud I am to have written for these magazines. I first read Interzone when I was at school, long, long decades ago. Having my first review appear in there was the greatest writing achievement of my life so far.

In issue 239 I review Andy Remic's Theme Planet, and in issue 240 there's a Theaker double-bill, reviewing Jane Carver of Waar and The Not Yet by Nathan Long and Moira Crone respectively. In issue 27 of Black Static I review Alison Littlewood's A Cold Season.

The issues also feature fiction, reviews, interviews and columns from Lavie Tidhar, Elizabeth Bourne, Stephen Volk, Jim Steel, Suzanne Palmer, Peter Tennant, Stephen Bacon, Nick Lowe, Ray Cluley, Tony Lee and many more brilliant people.

Cobra Gamble (Cobra War, Book 3) by Timothy Zahn – reviewed by Jacob Edwards

Cobra Gamble (Cobra War, Book 3), by Timothy Zahn (Baen Books, 308pp). The second labour of a latter day Hercules—third head, twice removed.

Timothy Zahn first introduced the concept of Cobras—cybernetically enhanced warriors with built-in weaponry—through the novelette, “When Jonny Comes Marching Home”, in the January 1982 edition of Analog. A trilogy of novels soon followed—Cobra (1985), Cobra Strike (1986), Cobra Bargain (1988)—in which Zahn further explored not only the military but also the social and political implications of mankind’s having created soldiers who are permanently armed; in effect, living weapons. Although Zahn then moved on to other projects—most famously, perhaps, his Thrawn trilogy, which relaunched the Star Wars franchise in written form—he has returned twenty years later with a second Cobra trilogy (Cobra War) and has even set the stage for a third (Cobra Rebellion). With his country (the USA) continuing to embroil itself in a series of political/cultural/military conflicts, Zahn (and his readers) might well regard the Cobras as being even more relevant now to society than they were thirty years ago.

Zahn often narrates his stories from multiple points of view, moving from one to the next with each chapter and effectively weaving together three or four plot lines. The technique is particularly well suited to Cobra Gamble, which follows the exploits of the original Cobra Jonny Moreau’s granddaughter Jin Moreau and great grandchildren Merrick, Lorne and Jody Broom—third and fourth generation Cobras (except for Jody)—as they struggle to fight off one race of aliens (the militarily dominant Trofts) while simultaneously upholding an alliance forged recently with a second (humankind’s longstanding enemies, the downtrodden Qasamans). Zahn’s focus is on action and ingenuity, but the real strength of Cobra Gamble (and other Cobra books) is the pervading xenotopical backdrop, which both defines the conflicts and conspires against the protagonists.

Although neither alien race is described physically—the Qasamans have sacred leaders and are male dominated; [the Trofts, they come from feudal demesnes and their speech is translated in square brackets; the Trofts, they seem archaic and slightly ponderous]—their cultural differences are manifest and are the source of much bigotry on both sides. To be sure, those who go looking for analogous real-world diplomatic relations will have no difficulty finding them in Cobra Gamble, but if they make such a comparison with patriotic fervour in mind, or with a view to pointing the finger, then they may well be setting themselves up for disappointment. Zahn’s Cobras have their own ethos, their own morals, and are confounded rather than driven by prejudice. Indeed, it is seemingly inevitable in Cobra history that the bravery and triumphs of the individual be subsumed into a dishearteningly Machiavellian big picture that stands guard over the plot and so prevents it from turning, however inventively (or even righteously), to escapism.

Plenty of Timothy Zahn fans from the early days will maintain that his best writing comes in the form of those truly stand-alone pieces that focus more on scientific (or at least speculative) ideas than upon action. Zahn won the 1984 Hugo Award for his novella “Cascade Point”, and subsequently crafted many shorter works and several novels—Spinneret (1985/1987); Triplet (1987); Deadman Switch (1988)—that are more in the vein of scientific intrigue and suspense than the faster moving military science fiction of his Blackcollar or Cobra books. There have been fewer of these ideas-driven works in recent years, and even those that started out that way—Dragon and Thief (2003); Night Train to Rigel (2005)—have tended to become drawn out into overly long series. This being said, Zahn has remained eminently readable and has well and truly mastered the art of creating, hooking the reader on, and then cleverly solving problems that derive their sting from the interaction of humans and aliens through all their (at times allegorical) differences.

One unfortunate facet of the Cobra War trilogy—Cobra Alliance (2009), Cobra Guardian (2011), Cobra Gamble (2012)—is that it carries on a tradition of titular (and cover design) homogeneousness that may befuddle the unwary so far as to have them reading Zahn’s books out of order.[1] And yet, just as the Battle of Waterloo can be studied either as part of or independent from the Napoleonic Wars that it brought to a close, and likewise the Napoleonic Wars as either an extension of or independent from the French Revolutionary battles that preceded them, so too does Zahn present an unfolding series of conflicts with sufficient individual merit to negate any overarching need for chronological fidelity. By focusing very much on the “now” of Cobra history, by acknowledging the past yet always seeking to pull the reader into the urgent flow of current events, Zahn imbues his writing with a certain vitality in both thought and action, ensuring that each Cobra undertaking can stand independent of its fellows.

Wookieepedia shows Zahn as having written nine Star Wars novels to date,[2] and the proposed Cobra Rebellion trilogy will likewise take his Cobra output to nine books—not quite Mills & Boon in quantity (Moreau & Broom?) but enough of a series to leave prospective readers wary of its becoming overly familiar. People who already have acquainted themselves with Timothy Zahn through his Star Wars and Cobra offerings will indeed find Cobra Gamble to contain variations on a theme, but there is a progression, too, and Zahn pays sufficient attention to new scenarios that those who have only belatedly arrived at his writing—should they opt to check in at Cobra War Book 3 rather than somewhere further back along a road that now spans 30+ years—will experience in Cobra Gamble at least some of Zahn’s distinctive alien world-building and narrative pull.

Cobra Gamble ends Zahn’s second labour—for now, at least—but with a pinkie promise of arcthrowers and fingertip lasers (and antiarmour lasers to boot) it seems the Cobras are destined to fight on. Zahn is certainly prolific enough to launch a third Cobra trilogy (and sooner rather than later, too) but as to what comes next from his pen: only the Delphic Oracle—and perhaps a few Baen Bigwigs—can say.

1. Further complicating the increasingly confusing range of Cobra books is that, subsequent to their original publishing but prior to the release of the Cobra War trilogy, Cobra and Cobra Strike were published as a single volume entitled Cobras Two (1992), and then again with Cobra Bargain as the Cobra Trilogy (2004).

2. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Zahn

Amazon reviews – even more corrupt than you thought, thanks to Fiverr?!

First, introductions! This reviewer on Amazon and Goodreads seems to be this user on Fiverr, who offers reviews of books at five dollars a pop. And this reviewer on Amazon is, I reckon, this guy on Fiverr, who will for his five dollars produce a video review, for another five add your book to Listmania lists, and, for five dollars more, buy your book so that he shows up as a verified purchaser. Sneaky!

I had an email chat today with someone who seems to have been a client of both people. The writer acknowledged that they had made a mistake, being desperate to draw attention to a rewritten, re-edited version of their book following an extremely critical review, and so I asked if they would let me interview them about it, there being a lot of interest in – and bafflement concerning – the business of paid-for reviews at the moment. (We've just had the big flap about SFcrowsnest offering to review for a £300 fee, for example.)

Unfortunately the writer in question declined to be interviewed, and seemed quite distraught (and, I think, naive) about the whole thing, so I won't name names here, but these are the questions I wanted to ask:

• How did you hear about the review services being offered?
• What made you want to hire this reviewer?
• Had you tried to find reviewers in the usual ways, submitting to magazines, blogs, etc? Did you try Goodreads giveaways or anything similar?
• Why are you so desperate to get reviews?
• Did you understand, when placing your order, that hiring people to write reviews of your book is unethical? Did you know that for a reviewer to post such reviews on Amazon was against Amazon’s rules?
• Were you happy with the reviews that the reviewer produced for you?
• When I read the reviews of your book, two things struck me. Firstly, that the reviewer said (on Goodreads) that she’d read your 600pp book in a couple of hours. And secondly that there is very little detail in her review. Do you think she actually read it? How much review do you think five dollars would buy?
• Have you bought other reviews? And have you paid for other services on Fiverr?
• Are you happier with the five-star reviews that you paid for, or the one-star review you got for free from a real reader? Which do you think you should trust?
• Did you realise that if these shenanigans came to light you would look like a complete fraud?
• You seem to admit fairly readily that you struggle with grammar and spelling, and so on. You hired an editor to work on your book, and then hired a second editor when the bad reviews came in. If you aren’t very good at it, why do you want to be a writer? What are your goals?

So I'm still waiting on the answers, but I can guess at most of them. The moral of all this: don't trust anything you read on Amazon, especially about self-published books. Assume it's all bollocks that someone's been paid to write and you won't go far wrong.

I spoke briefly to one of the reviewers too: she suggested I might want to start accepting money for reviews too. Hmm. I'll have to think about that.

And she explained that the review she was paid for was the one on her blog, not the one on Amazon. That one was just for free! I guess that's how they wriggle around Amazon's rules against this kind of thing.

(Why the picture of Superman super-smoking? Because this post is all about bad habits!)

Giant Thief by David Tallerman – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Stories by the author of Giant Thief (Angry Robot, ebook, 4314ll), David Tallerman, have appeared twice in our magazine, and twice more in my issues of Dark Horizons, so of course you must bear my potential bias in mind when reading this review. That said, on to the book. Easie Damasco is the thief of the title, who finds himself dragooned into the army of ruthless warlord Moaradred, who’s on his way to capture the crown of Castoval. Key to Moaradred’s plans are his contingent of giants, kept under his evil thumb by his possession of an object just small enough to be accidentally stolen by a thief hustling his way into the tent. Riding Saltlick, the giant to which he has been assigned, straight off the battlefield and into the hills, Easie is somewhat surprised by the persistence with which he is pursued—and subsequently, the keenness with which he and his huge new friend are courted by the resistance, particularly Estrada, female mayor of Muena Palaiya.

Easie Damasco is not a particularly nice guy. He’s a thief, of course, and he’s selfish—for example in abandoning friends to delay his own capture—and something of a sexist, as revealed by his having assumed Estrada’s appointment as mayor to be a prank of some kind. He assumes Saltlick to be an idiot and exploits him with barely a wince of conscience. Where he has to choose between himself and others, or between virtue and wealth, he’ll make the selfish, greedy choice. The book doesn’t apologise for that. One of its most admirable, likeable characters, Alvantes, brave captain of the Altapasaedan City Guard, utterly detests him, and you can see his point of view. But Easie isn’t too bad: where the chances of survival and financial gain are equal either way, he’ll choose good over evil. As the book goes on, the question is whether the good influences in his life—Estrada, Saltlick, Alvantes—will rub off on him; can he be encouraged to consider his self-interest in more than just the short term. Can this rascal be socialised by contact with upright citizens?

This novel isn’t a startling reinvention of heroic fantasy (although its portrayal of principled civil servants is somewhat novel), and the plot—mostly a long chase seen from a single character’s point of view—isn’t terribly complex, but the book is as much fun as you’d expect the story of a thief who steals a giant to be. It’s a pleasure to read, the author always at pains to give the reader a clear idea of what’s going on and where people are in relation to the action. If I say the book reminded me of an RPG scenario in that sense, I mean it as a compliment. It reminded me of one of the other fun things about playing pen and paper games: if you can do anything, you might as well do the most entertaining thing, and that’s the route this book takes. David Tallerman will almost certainly go on to write more complex, substantial novels, but I hope he gives us a few more like this first.