Veiled by Benedict Jacka

This is the sixth novel in Jacka's highly entertaining Alex Verus series, about practitioners of genuine magic in present-day London. Reviews of the earlier five are on this blog and, if you are new to this series, it is best to start at the beginning with Fated because although each book has one major, self-contained plot, there are sub-plots which develop through the series, which the reader is assumed to know about.

There are some spoilers in the following review.

The key plot element this time is that Verus, feeling threatened by what Richard Drakh, his former master and Dark Mage of immense power, might do to him on his return from a ten-year absence, decides in the interest of survival to join the Keepers, the police force of the Council of Light Mages. Only to find himself in the centre of a crisis between Light and Dark Mages concerning the White Rose, a magical organisation which provides exactly what its customers require to achieve sexual gratification. The moral ambiguity and lack of any clear right and wrong sides in the crisis means that Verus is faced with an uncomfortable decision about who to support between two factions, both of which he despises. In the meantime somebody wants him dead – as usual!

Veiled is just as easy and enjoyable to read as the earlier volumes, but is less satisfying. Apart from Verus joining the Keepers and learning the ins and outs of Light Council office politics there is nothing very new in this one, no further revelations concerning Verus and his friends; just more of the same. Drakh continues to be a distant threat so his relationship with Verus is taken no further, and a sub-plot concerning the advanced training of his apprentice Luna barely has a chance to get going before the end of the book.

I do hope that Jacka isn't running out of steam or, if he is, that he brings the series to a satisfactory conclusion soon. As the old show-biz saying goes: "Always leave the audience wanting more!"

Film: Jupiter Ascending (2015)

This film was produced, directed and written by the Wachowskis, best known for the Matrix trilogy – which suggests that, while probably flawed, it should offer something different from the usual space opera. The basic plot of an ordinary girl who is elevated from poverty to nobility is hardly original, being just a variation on the traditional Cinderella fairy story, but as always it is how the plot is handled that really matters. There are spoilers in the following review so if you don't want to read them, just note that the flaws are indeed there – and considerable – but the film does have a few mitigating aspects which prevent it from being a complete disaster.

The story begins with Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a member of an immigrant family from Russia, working unhappily as a domestic cleaner in present-day Chicago. She is completely unaware that she has come to the attention of the House of Abrasax, the ruling aristocracy of a galactic empire which regards the Earth as their possession, because she is genetically identical to the late matriarch of the House and is by their rules entitled to inherit her position. This does not please the heir of the House, Balem (Eddie Redmayne) who orders her death, but his brother Titus (Douglas Booth) has other plans and sends in Caine (Channing Tatum), a former soldier and a human/wolf hybrid or "splice", to rescue her. Cue a running battle that goes on and on and on interminably, with lots and lots of explosions (I read afterwards that the producers are proud that this scene lasted eight minutes – which is six or seven minutes too long for my taste).

This sets the pattern for much of the rest of the film: the occasional quiet interlude to provide brief periods of recovery between the overlong chase n' fight scenes, of which there are too many to remember. Worse, I found these action scenes mostly uninvolving and was distracted by the obtrusive background music sawing frantically away the whole time. Fortunately the climactic action scene, in a vast, collapsing refinery in Jupiter's Red Spot, was the best, and the only one to get me anywhere near the edge of my seat.

Any redeeming features of this film must therefore lie in the quieter interludes, and these are a mixed bag. Undoubtedly the outstanding one is a bizarre comedy sequence in which the heroine has to work her way through layer after layer of bureaucracy in order to claim her position in the House of Abrasax. That seemed to belong to an entirely different film, something like Alice in Wonderland perhaps. There are other rather surreal moments, such as the performance by Tuppence Middleton as Kalique, the third member of the dynastic rulers, chatting brightly to the heroine rather than making the usual potenteous speeches about destiny.

The plot holes are many and varied, and the not insignificant acting talent deployed in this film is largely wasted, with most of the characters struggling to develop more than one dimension and Eddie Redmayne's curious portrayal of Balem, while admittedly different from the usual super-villain, failing to convince me. At least the ending is a bit unconventional and rounds off the film reasonably well. While the drama is complete there is clearly room for sequels, although given that the film took something of a critical pasting and only just managed to cover its costs it is questionable whether these will ever appear.

Is it worth watching? Probably not; I frequently wondered why I was bothering. I would have liked to see those action scenes chopped drastically and replaced by opportunities to give the characters at least two dimensions and, especially, more of that quirky humour.

Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks

Surface Detail, Banks's penultimate Culture novel, was reviewed here only a few weeks ago, so when the Classic SF discussion group chose for a monthly read the very first one, Consider Phlebas, published in 1987, I thought it would be good to refresh my memory of this work. I say "refresh my memory" because I was certain that I had read this book, but on reading it again after a gap of over 25 years I found that nothing in it sparked any recollections whatsoever, so perhaps I hadn't.

The story is set during the Idiran-Culture War, a far-future galactic conflict which lasted for almost half a century. As summarised in one of several brief appendices (usefully including the perspective of both sides in the war), this was an existential conflict between two opposed sets of principles: the cultural unanimity and religious certainty of the Idirans, who were engaged in a relentless and limitless programme of conflict and expansion, and the relaxed and tolerant Culture, concerned to bring the benefits of civilisation to as much of the galaxy as possible. Some readers might note certain parallels with present-day attitudes in different parts of this world. As the Idirans were on a permanent war footing, the conflict had first gone their way, but the technologically more advanced and less tradition-bound Culture gradually got itself organised and began to fight back.

Despite the grand scope of the war, Consider Phlebas is not about vast space fleets engaged in system-wide battles. The focus is on the small scale, and particularly on a few individuals and their relationships – a microcosm of the greater conflict. The chief representative of the humanoid Culture is Special Circumstances Agent Perosteck Balveda, an appealing young woman as well as a capable operator. The main Indiran characters – massive tripedal beings who are formidable in battle – are Xoralundra, a naval captain, and Xoxarle, a warrior. In between the warring sides come some neutral freelancers, piratical humanoids who try to profit from the war; in particular Kraiklyn, the captain of the Clear Air Turbulence and his crew, most importantly Yalson, a young woman. However, the principal character, through whose eyes we see most of the action, is Bora Horza Gobuchul – a Changer, a rare type of humanoid able to gradually change their appearance to match anyone else. The Changers' home is in Idiran space and Horza supports their cause against the Culture, which he despises.

So given that the Culture represents a marvellous future, the kind which most westerners would gladly grab with both hands and every other part of their anatomy if offered it, it is strange that the principal character in the book is on the "wrong" side. Despite this, we gradually develop some sympathy with Horza as he struggles to survive and carry out the Indirans' commands.

One significant difference from the later books is that we hear virtually nothing from the Minds; the great AIs who run the Culture and mainly inhabit their giant spacecraft. They exist – in fact the main plot driver and the climax of the story is the race to find and secure a lost Mind on a hostile planet – but they don't contribute much. We are not entirely bereft of AIs, though, as one of the main characters and the source of most of the humour is Unaha-Closp, a small robot.

If you like happily-ever-after endings then don't read this book – or any of Banks's other novels, come to that. One of the appendices describes what happened next to the survivors, in a rather poignant finale.

Consider Phlebas received rave reviews, and it is easy to see why. It isn't quite as polished and well-constructed as Banks's late novels; for example, there are occasional scenes – such as a lengthy and decidedly gruesome one set on an island on an Orbital which is about to be destroyed – which add little or nothing to the plot and just seem to be slotted in to fill up the space. However, this is still a good introduction to the Culture stories, one of the finest collections of novels in modern science fiction.

N.B I am taking a break next week, so my next blog post will be in September.

Film: Insurgent (2015)

The sequel to Divergent, reviewed here in February, this continues the series of films based on the trilogy by Veronica Roth. To quote from that review:

The setting is a post-apocalyptic world in which civilisation is maintained in Chicago, kept separate from the mysterious dangers of the rest of the world by an enormous fence. Within the city, the population is divided into five factions depending on their personal attributes: Erudite (the intellectuals); Dauntless (fighters and peacekeepers); Abnegation (who help others and run the government); Candor (who always tell the truth) and Amity (the peaceful; farmworkers etc). Which faction they belong to is determined when they reach adulthood by a psychological test. Those unable to belong to any of these are known as the Factionless, and live on the fringe of society, surviving by begging. The purpose of dividing society in this way was to achieve stability but, at the beginning of the story, Erudite is stirring up discontent with Abnegation's rule.

By the end of that film (spoiler warning, in case you haven't seen it) the heroine Tris (Shailene Woodley), who tested as a hated Divergent personality type with characteristics of all of the others, has been caught up in the coup staged by Jeanine, the leader of Erudite (Kate Winslet), but has escaped to a farming community at the outskirts of the city.

Insurgent starts a few days later, with Tris plotting with her boyfriend Four (Theo James) to overthrow and kill Jeanine in revenge for her parents who died in the coup. What follows is a series of running battles as Tris, Four and friends try to recruit support from Dauntless and the Factionless while Jeanine is trying to capture Tris for her own nefarious purposes.

As is usual with mid-trilogy films (although the movie version is following the now established practice, after Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, of splitting the final book into two films), Insurgent suffers from having no beginning. It does at least reach a provisional conclusion, while setting up the next instalment. I was not as impressed with this film as I was with the last one, with the one visual highlight being a virtual scene in which Tris fights to rescue her mother from a burning building which is flying over the city; I was reminded of the mid-air fight scene in Star Trek into Darkness, but if anything this one is better. However, there isn't much else to point to here which is new from the first film.

I note that while Divergent was critically well received, Insurgent has not been, despite a strong performance from Woodley. I didn't think it was as bad as most of the critics say and don't doubt that most viewers who enjoyed the first film will like this one, but I hope that the next instalment has more in the way of new content.

The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit by Graham Joyce

I was first attracted to this novel by a review which described the setting; a British seaside holiday camp in the early 1970s. I have no personal experience of staying in one of these but they were very much part of the popular culture when I was growing up, with Butlins and Pontins the two leading organisations, managing resorts dotted around the British coastline. For the uninitiated, they consisted (and still consist) of closed camps where holidaymakers (typically families) stayed in basic chalets and enjoyed the free use of various facilities such as restaurants and swimming pools plus a constant round of entertainment for all ages organised by the camp staff, who usually wore distinctive clothing (the Butlins "Redcoats" being famous). Such summer holidays were popular with people who just wanted to relax in a secure environment and have their children taken off their hands. They were a bit like modern, family-orientated cruise ships except that there was more space and the scenery didn't move.

Holiday camps, like the economies of the traditional seaside resort towns they were normally situated close to, were badly hit by the advent of cheap flights to cheap hotels in warmer and sunnier climes for no more money than a domestic holiday. The ever-helpful internet tells me that in their peak in 1962 camps provided 30% of the domestic holiday accommodation, but by 1980 this had declined to 7.5%. In the 1980s, when "Hi-de-Hi", a popular TV series, lampooned such holiday camps and the relentless, cheerful optimism of their staff, they had declined so much that there was an element of nostalgia in the comedy. I was somewhat surprised to discover that Butlins and Pontins still survive, albeit on a much reduced scale, joined by more upmarket companies such as Centre Parcs.

However, that's enough social history for one week. The point of it is to explain the nostalgic appeal of the setting to readers of my generation. In Graham Joyce's story David, a college student, has taken a summer holiday job as an organiser in an unnamed camp by the well-known resort town of Skegness. He has an ulterior motive for his choice: his natural father disappeared in Skegness when David was a very young child, and his mother refused to discuss what had happened. At the camp he discovers a motley collection of staff particularly including the ferocious Colin and his terrified wife Terri, and Nikki, one of the dancers in the evening entertainment programme. As he tries to fit in to the camp life, David begins to be haunted by visions of a small boy with a man in a blue suit, who seem to be watching him from a distance but suddenly disappear every time he tries to approach them. Other visions begin to affect his mental stability as he struggles to discover what is going on.

The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit is a refreshingly different story, a mystery laced with gentle humour contrasting with some tense relationships among the staff, and a journey of apparently supernatural discovery for the principal character. It reminds me of the "slipstream" stories which were very much in vogue a few years ago; not conventional fantasies but not quite of this world either.  This won't be for everyone, but I enjoyed the trip.