There is no point mincing my words. As a work of fiction, Bernard Beckett’s Genesis is a bit of a disaster. While there are interesting philosophical points raised, Beckett has made the fundamental mistake of forgetting that the first task of a novelist is to engage and entertain. If instruction is the author’s goal – and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that aim – then it should emerge from the plot and characters. Genesis is too didactic. Beckett is too determined to teach us a lesson – even to the point that the story is told through the framing device of a viva voce examination.

Read more »

Things I’ll be looking out for in the future:

• Screen International reports that Joe Cornish (half of the inestimable Adam & Joe) is set to make his first feature – Attack the Block – about south London hoodies facing an alien invasion. As a long-long-long-time Adam and Joe fan, I can’t wait.
• Attack the Block is a Film4 production and, god bless them, they also seem to be going ahead with Chris Morris’s take on UK teenage jihadists Four Lions. No controversy there!
• Dr Who has a new companion. Karen Gillan. For the record: foxy! In a non-sexist, not treating her like an object, strictly, y’know, just-saying sort of way (especially since I’m officially old enough to be her father…)
• Apart from the fact that it might be directed by Jonathan Blitstein and feature Alan Cummings and that it’s set in some sort of dystopian future, I know almost nothing about Escape to Donegal except that the title’s got me intrigued.
• I think Marvel Studio’s decision to make a Thor movie is going to be the biggest risk in its whole huge Avengers concept – a tougher sell even than Captain America (which could, itself, be a cringeworthy disaster). But at least they seem to be approaching it with the right attitude – talent first. Branagh was a left field choice for direction, but he’s smart and everything he’s said suggests he’s treating the material seriously, while the casting of Tom Hiddleston as Loki is potentially brilliant.
• Last Voyage of the Demeter sounds really interesting – telling the story of fate of the cargo ship that brings Dracula to Whitby. Ships, vampire, fog… could be excellent. Variety reckons Marcus Nispel – who was behind the Friday the 13th remake – might direct.

Before starting this review I want to congratulate artist Chris Moore and the (uncredited) designer at Penguin responsible for the cover of this book. It was a brave design choice to park the title and author’s name on the little spaceship in the bottom left hand corner of the cover, but the masses of negative space created, and the minimalist feeling it lends the cover, immediately creates the feeling that this book is a classy artefact and delivers an image of smallness and isolation that is wholly apt.  Very nice. Read more »

On one level there can have been few television series to debut in recent years that have been quite so utterly ridiculous as Fringe. It would be easy to dismiss the entire thing as a subpar X-Files rip-off, with unorthodox FBI agents pursuing increasingly unlikely – not to say downright ridiculous – Forteana across America while some huge conspiracy appears to unwind around them, which may or may not involve aliens, invasion and alternate realities. Read more »

I wasn’t going to write anything about British politics on the blog for a while. As a Labour supporter there’s not been much to say that isn’t only going to make me more gloomy. Then, like all those who value the good things that politics can deliver the recent expenses farrago has been utterly depressing, even demoralising. I oscillate between anger at the grubby greed displayed by some MPs (a minority of whose actions have been despicable) and dismay at the pompous and often hypocritical way the whole thing has been pursued by some journalists and commentators.

But then tonight I watched the BNP party election broadcast and felt I had to get something off my chest. Read more »

Does anyone need another reworking of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness? It’s not like there’s ever going to be a re-imagining of the story that’s more balls-to-the-wall than Apocalypse Now, so what more needs to be said.

And stories about drugs are almost invariably tedious. When their not moralising at the reader in one way or another (”Drugs are bad! Stay away!” “Drugs are great! Free your mind!”) they’re descending into the self-indulgent ramblings of writers who’ve taken drugs and mistaken the chemical induced ramblings for genuine insights.

So Lucius Shephard’s novella – “Dog Eared Paperback of My Life” – which is the longest story in Other Earths, the short story collection edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake had two strikes against it before I even started reading it. Read more »

Now in many ways this is great news – it is great that the BBC are committing themselves to a British-made sf series and that Clerkenwell Films (Afterlife, Jeckyll & Hyde) are continuing to get commissions for sf&f material on the UK’s main terrestrial TV channels.

Simon Cellan Jones is a really interesting choice as a director – he doesn’t appear to have done any specifically genre stuff before but he is an established name in UK television – Cracker, Our Friends in the North, The Trial of Tony Blair – and work on Generation Kill for HBO.

Writer Liz Mickery’s recent remake of The 39 Steps got quite a bit of criticism – and a lot of it was aimed at the script – but I really liked it, and I liked The State Within (2006) – although most of her other stuff seems to be more or less bog-standard cop show stuff.

Tamzin Outhwaite, however, makes my heart chill. I can’t think of a single show I’ve ever seen her in that I didn’t immediately hate. Red Cap… Hotel Babylon… The Fixer – all cack.

Perhaps she’ll surprise us all.

Overall, though, the rehabilitation of sf on British TV seems to be continuing.

I’ve just finished reading Chris Beckett’s Marcher which takes some of his best short stories (”The Welfare Man”, “The Welfare Man Resigns” and, perhaps obviously, “Marcher” amongst others) and winds them into a novel set in a shared world where the drug slip is allowing people to “shift” between alternate worlds and people are trying to deal with the consequences for themselves and the world around them. Read more »

• @garethlpowell Oh, nasty. I don’t know about Orwell, you definitely look like Baldrick balancing a slug on his lip in Blackadder Goes Forth in reply to garethlpowell #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Punishment for being rude to PGR? Immediately fell ill – again – oh dear. But I will make Eastercon! #
• @bigdumbobject What? How did that happen? in reply to bigdumbobject #
• @bigdumbobject I can do that. in reply to bigdumbobject #

Powered by Twitter Tools.