ARIA: Left Luggage, by Geoff Nelder

A technician at a US air-base is excited to be one of the first to handle an alien artifact – but he soon finds that his memory is beginning to fail him. And not just him, but everyone he comes into contact with – and then everyone they come into contact with. That’s the starting point for Geoff Nelder’s new SF novel ARIA: Left Luggage.

This is a global disaster story with a unique twist – a highly infectious amnesia virus which gradually destroys people’s memories, starting with the most recent and working backwards. People first forget what they were doing the week before, then as their memories are wound back to their earlier selves, wiping out about a year’s worth every week, they forget how to do their jobs, where they live and who they are married to. To make matters worse, they are unable to form new memories and start each day unaware of what has happened to them. Inevitably, society rapidly collapses except for a few who manage to avoid infection and do their best to survive while they try to work out what is happening and what to do about it: scientists at isolated bases and astronauts orbiting the Earth. Meanwhile, some who have the virus are struggling to find ways to continue with their lives.

Inevitably, the story is reminiscent of The Day of the Triffids which I reviewed on this blog not long ago. If Geoff Nelder’s writing style is plainer, with less of a literary gloss than Wyndham’s, the plot is more complex and there is a series of unexpected twists and turns to keep the reader’s attention gripped. It is an exciting page-turner of a story, tautly written at less than 300 pages, and I read it from start to finish in one sitting. The price of this is a degree of unevenness in the characterisation; some of the cast are strongly drawn but others could have done with more development. Left Luggage is the first book of the ARIA series and concludes with yet another major surprise to set up the next volume, Returning Left Luggage, which I am already looking forward to reading.

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In contrast, I have been struggling to read Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and finally gave up after getting more than a third of the way through. It is set in an alternative world in which the Jews were thrown out of Palestine in 1948 and were granted a self-governing lease on some islands off the coast of Alaska; a lease which at the time of the story was due to expire, leaving the inhabitants to become ordinary citizens of the USA. The principal character is a police detective trying to solve the mysterious death of a chess genius. I found the writing to be of high quality but, although developed in great depth, the setting and the plot were only moderately interesting and the pace very slow. In the end it simply failed to hold my attention or persuade me to continue reading it, a fate which befalls an increasing number of the books I start, due to the large pile of unread books awaiting my attention.

Films: Total Recall (1990 and 2012)

I had first seen the original Total Recall so long ago that I had forgotten most of the plot, but in view of the fact that a remake has only just been released I thought it would be useful to refresh my memory of the original. Both films are described as being loosely based on Philip K. Dick's short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, but since I read that one (if indeed I did) so long ago that I have completely forgotten it, that hasn't affected my view of the film.

First, a brief and general plot summary of the 1990 version, avoiding major spoilers. The year is 2084 when Mars has been colonised and travel throughout the solar system is commonplace. On Earth, Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a bored construction worker forever dreaming of life on Mars. He decides to visit Rekall, a company selling "virtual holidays" through memory implants, and elects to play the part of a secret agent on a trip to Mars. However, in the process he discovers that something is badly wrong with his memories and he gradually comes to realise that his current identity is false and has been implanted in his mind. He comes under attack but receives aid from his earlier self, in the form of a recorded message explaining what is happening and encouraging him to go to Mars. Once on Mars he becomes involved in the battle between planetary governor Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox) and a resistance group opposing his dictatorial rule, with many twists and turns in the plot before the finale.

This is a fast-paced and exciting film, with the plot twists coming so thick and fast that it becomes difficult to keep up and to be sure what is reality and what are implanted memories. I did have the suspicion that there may be some logical flaws in the plot, but there are so many layers of deceit that I frankly became rather lost in trying to work out who was supposed to know what at which point. On the downside it is filled with cartoonish, slapstick violence of the "hero fires a brief unaimed burst from his machine pistol and a whole row of bad guys falls over" variety: keeping track of the body count would be quite an exercise. The special effects team also had some fun with gross-out elements including the bulging faces of those dying in the near-vacuum of Mars and a head appearing from somebody's chest. On a point of detail, I note that it was apparently considered OK to have a mutant woman exposing her three breasts, even though they looked completely real, and even have a man fondling them - but to show real breasts, oh no! The contortions of our bizarre approach to morality never fail to amaze and amuse. No doubt any alien observers of human mores could produce endless doctoral theses on our weird and hypocritical attitudes to such issues.

To sum up, it's not a bad film but it could have been much better with a more adult approach and the omission of much of the juvenile violence. The plot is certainly clever enough to justify more serious treatment, and I would have liked to see it made by the team who produced the excellent Gattaca.

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Since I happened to be staying in a city recently I took the opportunity to see the 2012 version of Total Recall in a cinema rather than waiting for the DVD to be available. This enabled me to enjoy to the full one of the strengths of this film; the dramatic, multi-level, futuristic CGI city-scapes, which are among the best I can recall seeing. Sadly, Mars has disappeared from the plot, being replaced by a rather bizarre Earth which has almost entirely been rendered uninhabitable by chemical or biological warfare, with only (for some unexplained reason) parts of the UK and Australia still supporting human life. The relationship between them is reflected in their names: the United Federation of Britain, and the Colony (bet that goes down well in Australia!).

Strangest of all, the two settlements, on opposite sides of the planet, are joined by “the Fall”, a gravity-powered transport system consisting of shaft bored straight through the centre of the Earth, down which a huge container, able to hold large numbers of people plus freight, drops before re-emerging on the other side of the globe – a system so fast and routine that workers commute daily from Australia to the UK. I have to say that this caused me some credibility problems. For a start there are the vast technical difficulties concerning boring and maintaining such a hole through the colossal heat and pressure existing at the Earth’s core. This is not just impossible now, we could not even see any way in which such a project might be tackled at any time in the future – it makes the task of achieving sub-light-speed interstellar travel look very simple (yet there is no mention in the film of any kind of space travel). Then there is the question of how the container could possibly reach the speeds required to make daily commuting feasible, unless the air in the tube was evacuated ahead of it – but in that case, people wouldn’t be able to survive on the outside of the container, as they do in the film. Oh well, lets move on to the story.

Once more we have Douglas Quaid (this time played by Colin Farrell) in much the same situation as in the original, with the plot following generally similar lines. There are even some direct references to the original film (yep, including the triple-breasted prostitute). Kate Beckinsale makes a suitably mean and nasty opponent, Jessica Biel an appealing good girl. Overall, the acting as well as the special effects is much better. But, but…some of the freshness and appeal of the original have been lost along the way. The overall feel of the new version is darker, more adult, less like a comic strip. Despite this, the plot seems more straightforward than the 1990 version, without so many layers of deception. It comes across as one relentless chase, with lots of the fights, crashes and explosions which contemporary fashion requires, and after a while becomes rather repetitive and tiring.

I strongly suspect that the original version is going to retain its place in viewers’ affections for much longer than the new pretender.

Film: John Carter (2012)

Well, I finally got around to seeing Disney's notorious "flop", based on the first of the century-old Barsoom novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Just in case there is anyone who is unaware of the basic plot, it concerns an American soldier who had fought in the Civil War of 1861-65 who finds himself suddenly transported to Mars - but a Mars unlike the one that we now know. It has a breathable atmosphere and populations of both humans (or humanoids - they have some non-human characteristics in Burroughs' stories) and Tharks; giant green six-limbed beings, intelligent but primitive. Their name for their planet is Barsoom. To be fair to Burroughs, little was known about surface conditions on Mars 100 years ago and the existence of a canal-building civilisation on the planet was widely believed even by serious astronomers (ironically, their opinion shifted against this idea around the time the Barsoom stories were first published).

I read the books as a youngster, far too long ago to recall anything much about them other than the intriguing nugget that the apparently "human" women laid eggs rather than giving birth to babies. I do recall being struck by the energy, enthusiasm and inventiveness of the tales, plenty by themselves to carry along young and uncritical readers, even though I knew at the time that these stories were now firmly in the "fantasy" category as Mars was really a dead planet. They made for great escapist fiction: what lad wouldn't want to be reborn as a super-warrior on an alien planet, fighting for a beautiful princess? I needn't say anything else about the plot, as that sums it up well enough for this review.

The film received a very mixed critical reception when released and its financial failure led to the resignation of the head of Walt Disney Studios. So I was curious to see whether I agreed with the critics or the supporters and watched it with an open mind. I was prepared to like it, but I have to say that on balance I agreed with the critics. The structure of the film is messy and sometimes difficult to follow and the pace is frantic, skipping rapidly through a series of improbable events without much explanation. In the battle scenes I was usually unsure of who were the "good" and "bad" humans as they looked and dressed much alike; I could never distinguish between the "good" and "bad" flying machines they used either. The character-building is weak to put it mildly, with Taylor Kitsch as the hero making little impression (someone with more screen presence, like Chris Hemsworth who made such an impressive Thor, might have made a difference) although Lynn Collins is fine as Deja Thoris - unlike most actresses, she has enough muscle to make the sword-wielding seem feasible. The strength of the film is, as one might expect, in the visual spectacle: the Tharks, the strange flying machines, the dramatic-looking cities (including a moving one), and the fighting. Lots of fighting. The overall impression I was left with was of much jumping and dashing around and whirling of swords.

To be fair, the film-makers had the usual problem in adapting a decidedly outdated novel: do they try to make sense of it for modern viewers, or do they stay faithful to the novel and produce something which is frankly rather ludicrous? On this occasion I think they tended towards the latter end of the spectrum. It was just about watchable for the spectacle, but left me unengaged and unimpressed. This was intended to be the first of a trilogy, but that now seems highly unlikely to materialise.

Incidentally, those who like the basic plot idea might enjoy reading a more modern and realistic (if such a term can be appropriate for this kind of fantasy) approach to the same theme, not set on Mars but on an initially undefined world: this is the seven-book Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron, published in the 1980s. I have reviewed the first three novels on this blog in December 2011 and July 2012, and they are great fun - undemanding escapist entertainment.

TV - Once Upon a Time, Season 1

I've finally reached the end of the 22-episode first season of Once Upon a Time, which I have briefly discussed early in the series (in April and May). To recap: the story begins in the present-day USA when Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), a young woman with a talent for finding people, is herself found by her son Henry (Jared S. Gilmore) whom she had given up for adoption ten years previously. She takes him back to his home town, Storybrooke, and immediately find herself in conflict with Regina Mills (Lana Parrilla), the town's mayor and the woman who had adopted Henry.

Henry has a firm belief that Storybrooke is no ordinary town but is populated by people from another time: characters from fairy tales who have been transported to the USA by a spell from an evil queen - who happens to be Regina Mills. Unsurprisingly Emma Swan refuses to believe him but the viewers of the series know better, since running in parallel with the scenes in Storybrooke are those from the land of fairy tales, in which we see the same characters as they used to be. So we know that teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard (Ginnifer Goodwin) is really Snow White - and Emma Swan's mother - and that her husband Prince Charming (Josh Dallas) has become David Nolan, a local handyman who is inconveniently married to someone else.

The core of the plot in Storybrooke is the tussle between Regina and Emma, with Mr Gold, formerly the evil magician Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) playing a mysterious game between the two of them. Meanwhile Henry is desperately trying to convince Emma that all is not as it seems, and that only she has the power to break the curse which preserves everyone in Storybrooke, frozen in time, and allows none of them to leave. As I mentioned in my previous comment on this series, there's a faint echo of The Truman Show here, except that in this case it seems that hardly anyone in the town except the mayor is in on the secret - although that is not quite true, as we slowly become to realise.

The programme makers have a wonderful time drawing on a wide range of fairy tales for the scenes set in fairyland, where we are shown a whole series of interlocking events (not always in chronological order) which gradually build up a picture of exactly what led up to the mass transfer to Storybrooke. The contrast between the scenes in Storybrooke and the interleaved ones set in an exotic world of queens and princes, magicians and spells, keeps the series interesting. The downside is that there are many characters (some of which play a major part in just one episode before disappearing) and many story lines, which leads to a certain lack of focus and drift from the main story. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the series which finished on a cliff-hanger of an ending to set it up nicely for the forthcoming second season.

TV - Game of Thrones, Season 1

This is my second look at Game of Thrones, as I commented on it in May after seeing the first two episodes. Now I've seen all ten episodes of the first season so it's time for a round-up (the second season is not yet available on DVD hire in the UK).

To recap, the plot is set in an alternative medieval world with its technology, social development and politics very similar to that of the Europe of six or seven centuries ago. At the beginning, the principal difference seems to be that the seasons last for years at a time, with winter being a long period of bitter cold. Initially, there is very little in the way of fantastical elements, just hints and rumours, although these start to become real in dramatic form at the end of the first season. The main plot thread concerns the struggles among the noble families of the land of Westeros for control of the Iron Throne. Two other plot threads run in parallel. One is set overseas in the land of Essos where the last members of the Targaryen family which formerly ruled Westeros have taken refuge. The third plot thread is set on the northern border of Westeros, where an immense Wall, guarded by the Night Watch, protects the land from the frozen territory beyond, where nothing but the Wildings and the dreaded but mysterious White Walkers live.

In Westeros, Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell (Sean Bean), the northern part of the land, is called to the capital city King's Landing to take up the post of the Hand of the King. Here he finds himself in opposition to the rich and powerful Lannister family, which includes Queen Cersei (Lena Headey). Meanwhile in Essos, the young girl Daenerys Targaryn marries the warlord of the barbaric Dothraki and she and her brother plot their return to the Iron Throne. On the northern Wall, the dreaded winter is on the way and the legendary White Walkers are rumoured to be on the move.

The most significant aspect of GoT is that it takes the best part of ten hours to cover the events of only the first of the novels in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. This gives the programme producers huge scope to do full justice to the story, compared with the usual frantic compression which goes on to convert a novel into a two-hour movie. The pacing is therefore deliberate, with time taken to develop the plot and, most importantly, the characters. Even the wicked ones are given well-rounded personalities which allow viewers to feel some sympathy for their positions (especially Queen Cersei); conversely, even the most honourable of the characters faces difficult moral dilemmas. This pacing also gives viewers the time to appreciate the superb production, script and acting.

On the subject of the actors, it is interesting that most of them are little known, with the notable exception of Sean Bean. Although the actors seem to be mostly British, I can only recall having seen a couple of the others before. Most surprisingly, I had never heard of Lena Headey, despite her acting ability and considerable beauty, and the fact that she has been appearing in films for twenty years. Evidently she has resisted the usual self-publicising efforts which sees film stars constantly appearing on the front covers of magazines and in the gossip columns. A special mention is also due to Peter Dinklage who plays the dwarf Tyrion to such effect that he dominates every scene he's in; he's rightly won an Emmy and a Golden Globe. He's my favourite character in the series, if only because he's the only one to demonstrate a sense of humour.

I find it impossible to fault this series on any objective grounds. It is simply magnificent in every respect, and isn't just the best ever effort in the field of screening adult fantasy, it is leagues ahead of anything else. It makes even the best of the current crop of superhero movies look ridiculously juvenile and trivial. Subjectively, some might be uncomfortable with the frequent nudity and sex (this is very definitely an adult fantasy in every respect), while I found the relentless and often grim realism, plus the overall sense of impending doom, rather daunting. As I observed before, this would not be a pleasant world in which to live even as one of the ruling class, and there is a certain predictability that events are going to keep on getting a lot worse before there is any chance of them getting better. Accordingly, I found I had to brace myself before watching, girding up the loins and stiffening the sinews so to speak, but once each episode started I became engrossed again in the tale and am now completely hooked. Even the music and the fascinating animation in the title credits are real treats.

I am looking forward to the availability of the second season. I note that the book series currently includes five novels with two more on the way, so there could be many hours of high-quality viewing still to come.

Plague of Angels, by Sheri Tepper

Sheri Tepper has long been one of my favourite authors. I still recall the impact her first novel, The True Game, had on me in the 1980s - it was the first of a truly original fantasy series, and an indicator of what was to come. Since then, I have read many of her stories and re-read a couple of them which are reviewed on this blog; The Marianne Trilogy and Grass. These two illustrate her range, in that the first is a surreal present-day fantasy while the second is science fiction set in the far future. Most commonly what she writes has a mixture of SF and fantasy elements, often including some social commentary, and that is true of Plague of Angels, published in 1993, which I had not previously read.

This is an awkward book to review in that it starts out appearing to be a pure fantasy but as the plot develops and the reader gradually understands what is going on, it becomes more and more science fictional (although fantasy elements remain strong to the end). In consequence, it is difficult to give a comprehensive review without spoilers, but I will try to avoid this by only giving a brief and general summary of the plot.

Plague of Angels concerns two people, a young man and a girl, who grow up apart in what appears to be a largely rural medieval-type fantasy world except for some strange elements, some of them very modern. It is a quest story, a romance and a deadly mystery, all wrapped up in a journey which gives the author the opportunity to describe a variety of different settings and situations. Tepper is sometimes dismissed as a "feminist author" as she usually features strong female characters and her plots often contain elements which, implicitly or explicitly, criticise male-dominated societies. This is true of PoA, as it contains some painfully convincing descriptions of the adolescent attitudes of the male gangs which dominate life in the few cities, and her "ideal society", in a town described later in the book, is one of complete equality. However, there are strong and positive male as well as female roles and the great villain of the story is a woman, so I wouldn't say that the novel is unbalanced by this - it certainly didn't spoil my enjoyment of the tale.

In a couple of places in the story there is an interesting reflection of the ideas in Vance's The Languages of Pao, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. Namely, that the languages people speak affect their attitudes to life. In this case, it isn't different languages so much as the way they speak a common language. To quote one of the characters, concerning the limited and brutal vocabulary of the urban gangs:

"Like apes, Abasio. No oral tradition, rejecting literacy as unmanly. It's a decadent tongue, Abasio, an impoverished tongue. As vocabulary is reduced, so are the number of feelings you can express, the number of events you can describe, the number of things you can identify! Not only understanding is limited, but also experience. Man grows by language. Whenever he limits language, he retrogresses."

Conversely, later in the book Tepper describes what can only be regarded as social engineering through language similar to Pao, by changing names and deleting words which have harmful associations.

Having said all this, I don't want to give the impression that the novel is some sort of dull social tract. Above all, Tepper is a great storyteller and this tale effortlessly carries the reader along, with characters who are credible and sympathetic. She has a tendency to whimsical quirkiness which comes out in such ways as talking animals (for which there is a perfectly acceptable science-fictional justification, in a typical Tepper mix of the genres). There are revelations, twists and turns, right to the end of the book, to keep the reader engaged and entertained. While this isn't my favourite by this author, I enjoyed the ride. So although the story is complete in itself I may look up her other book with the same setting, The Waters Rising, which only appeared in 2010.

Film: The Awakening (2011)

This film is supposedly a a ghost/horror story set in England in 1921, in the aftermath of the devastating Great War. I don't usually watch such films, but was attracted to this one because it was filmed in Lyme Hall, a stately home I'm familiar with, and I was curious to see what they made of it. The Awakening stars Rebecca Hall as Florence Cathcart, an author and exposer of mediums and other supernatural hoaxers. She is persuaded to visit a remote boarding school where a boy had died in mysterious circumstances and the remainder of the boys were terrified that a legendary ghost had been responsible.

Florence sets to work with the aid of two staff members: teacher Robert Malory (Dominic West) and housekeeper Maude (Imelda Staunton). It isn't long before she exposes a fraud and solves the mysterious death. However, matters then take a different turn and for the rest of the film it becomes increasingly unclear what is reality, what is supernatural and what is delusion. There are lots of twists, turns and plot surprises right up to the intriguingly ambiguous ending, which reminded me of Inception.

I wouldn't describe this as primarily a ghost or horror story, it's more of a psychological mystery thriller - and a very good one. I was impressed by the plot, the writing, the setting and the acting (Rebecca Hall being excellent). All in all, it proved a pleasant surprise and is well worth seeing even if you don't like ghost stories. And by the way, Lyme Hall looks magnificent - and very spooky!

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Incidentally, I've recently updated my list of favourite SFF novels in the left-hand column and extended it from 20 to 25. There are still a few I'd like to include….also, don't forget that linked lists of the books, films and TV programmes reviewed here are further down in the same column.

Survival, by Julie E Czerneda

This is the second book I have read by Julie Czerneda, my review of Beholder's Eye appearing on this blog in January last year. That one (the first of the Web Shifters trilogy) I enjoyed, with some reservations. Survival is also the first of a series, called Species Imperative, and was published six years later in 2004. I decided to read it as it was chosen as a novel of the month by the Classic Science Fiction discussion group.

Survival is decidedly easier to get involved in than the earlier book because the heroine is an ordinary human woman rather than an energy being and the Earth she lives in, while set in the future, is recognisably much the same as ours. Dr Mackenzie Connor (Mac) is a biologist who has devoted her life to studying the salmon on the Pacific NW coast of the North America. Her work routine with students and colleagues, including her friend Emily Mamani, is disrupted by the arrival of an honoured visitor - a member of an alien species. Humanity had been invited to join a galactic community some time before and some alien races were well-known, but Brymn was the first of the Dhryn race ever to visit Earth; and he had come specifically to see Mac.

Brymn is an archaelogist researching what had caused the Chasm, an area of the Galaxy which had once thrived with life but has been completely dead for millennia. Biology is not studied by his race, so he arrives looking for assistance. He is chaperoned by Nikolai Trojanowski, a bureaucrat Mac initially finds very irritating, before realising that there is more to him than meets the eye. She soon learns that there is a deadly threat, possibly connected with the Chasm, spreading from planet to planet and destroying all life on them. And that Brymn is not the only alien with an interest in Mac. This is the start of adventures which take her to alien worlds, fighting to discover what is going on and exactly how her friend Emily is involved. There are many twists and turns in the plot before the final startling revelation.

This is a more involving story than Czerneda's earlier book, and well worth the read. The characterisation is very good, Mac being a credible and likeable heroine. I still have a few reservations, though. I'm not sure of the credibility of a life form which annihilates every living thing on a planet, leaving nothing for itself to feed on. Also, at one stage a budding romance between two of the principal characters acquires something of the flavour of a Mills and Boon plotline (formulaic and slushy multi-author romantic fiction aimed at women) and begins to dominate the tale, but fortunately that phase doesn't last too long. My final reservation is that the story is spread a little thinly over nearly 500 pages which for much of the book slows down the action, making this somewhat less than an unputdownable page-turner. There's no shortage of tension or surprises in the last part, though, and I remain sufficiently gripped to want to read the rest of the series.

Film: 300 (2007)

I don't usually watch historical epics (the last one I can recall being Troy, several years ago), but when I realised that I'd recorded 300 sometime around last Christmas and it was still sitting on my PVR memory, I decided to look through it and see if it was worth watching.

As I expect most readers will be aware, the film concerns the Greek legend of the three hundred Spartans who fought the massed hordes of the invading Persians to a standstill in the Battle of Thermopylae, over 2,500 years ago. The battle certainly happened in the location attributed to it although the situation was, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather more complicated than that portrayed in the comic series by Frank Miller on which the film was based. As recounted by Herodotus, the Greek historian and main source of information on the battle who was born shortly after it happened, there were many more Greeks involved, somewhere in the region of 4,000, from a variety of Greek city-states. When a secret path around the narrow pass the Greeks were successfully holding was revealed to the Persians by a traitor, Leonidas, the Spartan king, did order the majority of his army to retreat, but that still left nearly 1,500 Greeks (including the 300 Spartans) to form a rearguard to enable the others to get away. Almost all of the Greeks in the rearguard were killed, including Leonidas.

From the historical point of view, the film therefore simplifies the tale to emphasise the glory of the self-sacrificing Spartans. It also shifts elements of the story around, putting in incidents which occurred on other occasions. Some of the bizarre menagerie of creatures in the Persian army also owe more to fantasy than reality. Despite this, overall it is probably at least as true to the accepted historical account as any Hollywood historical movie ever is (the notorious U-571 of 2000, in which the warship which captured a U-boat mysteriously changes from British to American, springs to mind). Herodotus' story may itself have exaggerated the achievement of the Greeks, of course. Early historians were often more concerned with telling a good tale (especially one which boosted the grandeur of their own people) than being strictly accurate, and even if that didn't apply in this case, Herodotus was relying on tales which had been told for decades, and maybe grown in the telling.

Setting the historical debate aside and judging it purely as a movie, was 300 worth watching? Well, just about. It is a very violent film, with lots of fighting, hacking, thrusting and spraying of blood, repeated in slow-mo action replays just in case the viewer missed the finer points the first time around. The characters are two-dimensional caricatures declaiming portentously as if they want to sound as epic as possible, with the notable exception of Lena Headey (currently gracing the small screen as Queen Cersei in Game of Thrones - which may alone be enough to persuade some people to watch). She has a strong part as Leonidas' wife in the scenes in Sparta which are interleaved with the battles, providing some contrast, not so say relief from the constant slaughter. The film has a voice-over, describing and explaining what is going on, which seems rather odd until it turns out at the end to have been the account of the one of the survivors; a trick which works rather well. So, if you like lots of gory hand-to-hand fighting, lots of heroically muscled Spartans wearing not a lot, or Lena Headey wearing not a lot, then you might well enjoy this film.

Incidentally I recently tried to watch another 2007 epic with rather less association with reality, Beowulf. This uses "motion capture", effectively taking real actors and sort of "cartoonising" them (if there is such a word). Now I like watching real actors and can happily watch cartoons and computer-generated alien characters such as those in Avatar. But something about the appearance of the motion capture characters put me off completely - I found it very creepy and the film thereby unwatchable. So I only saw the first few minutes.

Interzone 241

The July/August issue of the British SFF magazine includes an interview with fantasy author Juliet E. McKenna plus a review of her novel Darkening Skies, sequel to Dangerous Waters. The other eight books reviewed include A Dance With Dragons, part of George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire sequence, which I avoided reading as I'm watching the Game of Thrones TV series; and something quite different, Three Science Fiction Novellas by J H Rosny aïné, the pseudonym of a Belgian writer who is described as belonging "somewhere between Jules Verne and H G Wells". The three stories, published between 1888 and 1910, are set in the distant past, the present day and the far future. I think I'll get this one - it sounds intriguingly different.

The usual extensive film and DVD reviews, one of the consistent highlights of the magazine, include Prometheus (not too complimentary), Iron Sky and John Carter (both quite positive and on my to-watch list).

Five short stories, rather more varied than usual.

Steamgothic by Sean McMullen, illustrated by Jim Burns. The wreck of an unknown Victorian steam-powered flying machine is discovered in an old barn. Had it actually flown, and could it be restored to flying condition? What seems like an interesting but mainstream tale changes into something rather different at the end. An entertaining read.

Ship's Brother by Aliette de Bodard, illustrated by Joe Burns. Another of this author's "Xuya continuity" in which the Chinese discover America before Columbus. A mother's difficult relationship with her son following the birth of a daughter designed to function as a ship's navigator. Strong on atmosphere but doesn't really make much sense on its own.

One Day in Time City, by David Ira Cleary, illustrated by Richard Wagner. An intriguing notion - a linear city in which people's ages change minute by minute, from very young to elderly, as they travel through the age zones from one end to the other (or back again). This is the background to a story of constant infighting between the two-wheel and four-wheel transport factions.

Railroad Angel by Gareth L. Powell. An old hippy, dying of drugs and exposure, has a revelation at the end of his life.

Invocation of the Lurker by C.J.Paget, illustrated by Dave Senecal. A future world in which a woman from the most privileged stratum of society is cast down to the lower orders after committing a terrible crime. What will she - or won't she - do to get back? This is a winner of the James White Award for non-professional writers. I found it a bit confusing as the nature of the society, and of the crime, were none too clear.

For me, McMullen's story was the stand-out one in this issue. Well-written, interesting and enjoyable even before the surprise ending. The kind of story which makes you hope that the author will carry on and write a lot more about the situation the protagonists are left in.

The Languages of Pao, by Jack Vance

I remembered this one from decades ago (it was first published in 1957, and my copy is dated 1974), and picked it up again because it focuses on a subject which is still fascinating today: the relationship between language and behaviour.

In The Languages of Pao, humanity has spread beyond the Solar System and settled on many planets, including Pao. There is no mention of aliens, or indeed of any kind of alien life: that is not what this story is about. Each planet has its own, very different, culture and there appears to be little interaction between them except for some trading. Pao has a large and mainly rural population which is culturally, linguistically and politically homogenous and ruled by an hereditary Panarch. The Paonese language is remarkably passive and dispassionate, as described on the second page of the novel:

"The Paonese sentence did not so much describe an act as it presented a picture of a situation. There were no verbs, no adjectives; no formal word word comparison such as good, better, best."

The people of Pao are also very passive and intensely conformist, hating change and resisting any progress.

A palace coup results in Beran, son and heir to the Panarch, fleeing Pao to take refuge on the planet Breakness with Lord Palafox, a Breakness dominie. Breakness is a harsh world devoted to intellectual pursuits, with the Breakness Institute (a university) effectively forming what passes for a government: the dominies are simultaneously professors of the Institute and lords of the planet. They back up their intellectual prowess with biomechanical modifications which have given them the reputation of being wizards. Beran, a spoilt and idle youth, is forced to work, initially to learn the difficult Breakness language, very different from Paonese.

In the meantime, Pao has suffered an invasion from another planet, which its passive people are incapable of resisting, and is forced to pay a heavy annual tribute. Palafox has a suggestion: a major project to change the mindset of a part of the population by introducing new languages, starting with a militaristic one called Valiant. As Palafox explained:

"The syllabary will be rich in effort-producing gutterals and hard vowels. A number of key ideas will be synonymous; such as pleasure and overcoming a resistance - relaxation and shame - outworlder and rival."

This would be taught to a large group of young men, brought up in a separate military enclave on Pao and trained in competitive and violent activities to make them dedicated soldiers.

Two other languages would also be inculcated in the same way: Cogitant and Technicant. The first to develop intellectual and inventive abilities to encourage industrial development ("The grammar will be extravagantly complicated but altogether consistent and logical") and the second to facilitate trading with other cultures ("…elaborate honorifics to teach hypocrisy, a vocabulary rich in homophones to facilitate ambiguity…").

The novel follows what happens as these plans are carried forward, in particular as seen through the eyes of Beran as he tries to reclaim his birthright.

No doubt a modern linguist would object that these notions of dramatically changing a culture by changing the language are simplistic, but the idea has a compelling appeal. Incidentally, I recently discovered an interesting fact: the German word for debt - schuld - also means guilt, fault, blame or sin. I wonder if that is connected in any way with the fact that the Germans are noted for being such a hard-working, thrifty nation?

Despite the passage of the decades, this book is well worth reading on three counts: it's an exciting story; the ideas are intriguing and thought-provoking; and the book is refreshingly short at less than 160 pages.

Films: Chain Reaction (1996), and The Astronaut's Wife (1999)

The synopsis of Chain Reaction sounded promising: the development of a source of virtually free and clean energy (splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen in a self-sustaining reaction) sparks all manner of consequences. It isn't hard to imagine what these might be: a big shift in geopolitics, with the oil states losing much of their importance and wealth (although not all, by any means - oil is still used for other purposes, e.g. making plastics); the big oil companies fighting a rearguard action and trying to kill or at least delay the idea while diversifying frantically; the green energy movement having the wind taken out of their sails. So I looked forward to an interesting couple of hours.


Sadly, it was not to be. There was a brief mention of the problems which free energy might cause to the oil companies and the economy, before the film slid into the familiar comfort zone of a conspiracy theory (for control of the invention) and a protracted chase across the winter countryside as a pair of young scientists (Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz) try to escape capture. It isn't a bad film, just a disappointing missed opportunity, and barely SF at all.

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The Astronaut's Wife is in a different league. Two NASA astronauts on a routine space-walk are unexpectedly cut-off from communications for two minutes. When they return to Earth they seem to be normal, but one of them subsequently dies in mysterious circumstances. The other (Johnny Depp) is healthy but his wife (Charlize Theron) becomes increasingly concerned about his behaviour, especially when a former NASA employee (Joe Morton) contacts her with evidence which makes her question what happened to the astronauts - and what is happening to her.

The basic idea of this film reminded me somewhat of John Wyndham's 1950s novel The Midwich Cuckoos (which will be a give-away to those familiar with it!), although the plot takes a different direction. The story is well-constructed and filmed, the initial feeling of moodiness and mild spookiness gradually developing into horror as the tension climbs sky-high, and the acting (from Theron in particular) is excellent.

I was very impressed, and encouraged by this evidence that Hollywood studios could make a really good adult SFF movie if they tried. Then I looked up The Astronaut's Wife on Wiki and found that it had been a critical and (more importantly) commercial flop, the box office takings being little more than a quarter of the budget. Which maybe helps to explain why Hollywood usually doesn't produce such films, preferring to dumb down for the predictable teenage market, with lots of recycled ideas involving spectacular chases and explosions. Plus at least one superhero. Or vampires. Or zombies. Or some combination of all of those. Sad.

The Glass of Dyskornis, and The Bronze of Eddarta by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron

These are the second and third of the novels in The Gandalara Cycle, the first of which (The Steel of Raithskar) I reviewed last December. I gave the background to the series in that review, so I won't repeat it here.

In The Glass of Dyskornis, Ricardo/Markasset (now renamed Rikardon) and his sha'um Keeshah continue their adventures on the strange world of Gandalara. Having saved his father and himself from an accusation of complicity in the theft of the symbolic jewel, the Ra'ira, he decides to travel to the home of the sha'um in order to learn more about the giant fighting cats and their riders. While there, he meets Tarani, a disconcertingly beautiful young illusionist, who appears to be involved in a plot to kill him. Having survived that, Rikardon goes on the hunt to discover who was responsible for the plot and discovers it was a caravan leader called Gharlas, the same man believed to be guilty of stealing the Ra'ira. His pursuit of the man across the deserts and through the mountain passes of Gandalara takes up most of the book. On the way, he learns more about Gandalara and its people as well as himself, and begins to have an inkling of why he has ended up on this world.

The chase continues in The Bronze of Eddarta, in which knowledge of the true nature of the Ra'ira and the plans of Gharlas add more urgency. The pursuit ends in Eddarta, the largest and most powerful of the cities of Gandalara, where there are more revelations for Rikardon and more plot twists and dangers to overcome.

Like the first novel, these are fast and easy reads - they only add up to 315 pages between them. This whole series is a kind of literary comfort food, undemanding escapism to sink into and enjoy without trying to interpret deeper meanings. It is entirely suitable for young adults as well as somewhat older folk like your reviewer. More to follow!

Film: Innerspace (1987)

For some reason I hadn't seen this film before now. I suspect when I heard about the plot I confused it with the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, which I do recall watching several decades ago. Both films feature people in small submarines being miniaturised to such an extent that the submarines can be injected into a person and be navigated around the body. The main difference is that Innerspace is a comedy.


Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid) is a gung-ho pilot who has volunteered to man the submarine on its first exploratory voyage, intended to be in an animal. However, a criminal organisation tries to seize the technology, as a result of which the submarine is randomly injected into a Jack Putter (Martin Short) a hypochondriac wimp. Pendleton is able to tap into Putter's vision and hearing, and to communicate with him. What follows is a protracted two-way chase, as Pendleton/Putter, aided by Pendleton's somewhat confused girlfriend Lydia Maxwell (Meg Ryan), try to recover the part of the technology stolen by the criminals in order to reverse Pendleton's miniaturisation, while the criminals are hunting Putter in order to obtain the submarine for themselves. Meanwhile, the air in the submarine is running out.

There is lots of humour, mostly resulting from Pendleton's efforts to stir the terrified Putter into bold action, and some rather mixed-up romance too. The "feel" of the film is somewhat old-fashioned, more like the 1960s than the 1980s and quite different from anything made today. All in all, it’s a couple of hours of pleasant if undemanding entertainment, and recommended if you've not seen it already.
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I tried reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson over the past week or two. This was first published in 1992 and was well regarded, being nominated for two British SF awards, but I hadn't come across it before. It was very cutting edge in its subject matter, featuring a dystopian future in which democratic control in the USA has mainly been replaced by a patchwork of territories controlled by organised gangs linked to big business franchises. People spend a lot of time in the Metaverse, a virtual world in which interaction is by user-chosen avatars, and the two settings run in parallel in the novel. The title comes from a new computer virus which is causing havoc in the Metaverse.

The story is very clever and packed with good ideas, but I found it heavy going and each time I picked up the book found I had to flip back some pages to refresh my memory as to what had happened or who characters were - always a bad sign. I eventually made it past halfway, but then asked myself the three crucial questions: Am I really keen to find out what happens next? Do I really care what happens to the characters? Do I want to spend another week or so on this book? The answer to all three was "No", so I stopped reading. What put me off the book? I think it was the lack of both a coherent, gripping story and sympathetic characters. The author seems to have been so busy developing his ideas of life in his future world that he forgot the essential point of a novel in any genre: it should tell a story, one which seizes the imagination of readers and keeps them turning the pages to discover what happens next, while really caring about what happens to the characters.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

John Wyndham wasn’t just the best-known British SF author of the 1950s – he was one of the best known authors in fiction. It may be hard to recall, but in the UK SF used to be a lot more mainstream than it is now. In my childhood, Jules Verne was still very popular (I still have my ancient copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) as was H.G.Wells (The War of the Worlds, among others). In the 1930s, Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 raised the literary status of SF to the highest level. In the 1950s, Fred Hoyle, the most famous astronomer of his day, wrote The Black Cloud and Ossian's Ride, and in the 1960s went on to co-write the script for the Andromeda TV series. One of the most popular radio series in the 1950s was Journey into Space (I can still recall our family clustering around the radio to hear the weekly instalments) while Quatermass was a successful 1950s TV series.


Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids (published in 1951) therefore met a receptive audience and created something of a sensation at the time. Most people seemed to have read it and everyone knew what a triffid was, just as they know what a Dalek is today. As was pointed out by another reader on a discussion forum, some people even now (myself included, I realised) still jokingly refer to any large, strange and imposing plant as a "triffid". Nowadays Dr Who and the Harry Potter series are just as well known, but they differ in two important respects: they are primarily aimed at children, and they are fantasies rather than SF (I suspect that Tolkien was partly responsible for that). In the 1950s, SF in the UK was mainstream adult entertainment rather than the niche interest it has become.

Triffids was followed by several other best-sellers by Wyndham, especially The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed exceptionally well in the UK in 1960 as The Village of the Damned, with a poorly-regarded Hollywood remake in 1995) but Triffids has survived better than the others. I hadn’t read it since the 1960s, so I was interested to see how it stood up today. One warning: this review contains some spoilers in describing the plot, but most readers will probably be aware of them anyway.

The first point to strike me was the quality of the writing. This isn’t just fiction, this is literature, and the care with words and descriptions plus the perceptive observations spread throughout the book all stand out from the great majority of SF. No wonder it had a good critical reception. However, in this case "literary" does not imply "slow and unexciting", as it tends to today. The initial chapter, when the protagonist Bill Masen is in hospital having been temporarily blinded, is chilling in its evocation of the helplessness and dawning horror as he realises that something is terribly wrong with the world. This is emphasised by the story being told in the first person, making his emotions all the more intensely felt.

I had a more negative response to the next two chapters which told the story of the triffids. Frankly, this pushed my credulity well over my limit. The potential dangers of genetically modified plants are of course just as topical today, and I would have no problems believing in a commercially valuable crop which was also dangerous to be around due to poisonous thorns or some such. But plants which detect movement with sufficient precision to be able to strike accurately with a poisonous lash from several feet away? Which can pick up their roots and walk? Demonstrate collective intelligence and organisation? Communicate with each other via a drumming code (how did they devise and learn that)? Know that the eyes are the most vulnerable target in a human despite having no vision of their own? Sorry, but such an assembly of impossibilities, accidently emerging in one plant as a side-effect of developing edible-oil quality, would be met with derision if a modern author presented such a concept. Most modern SF might not be as well written, but its attempts at such developments tend to make more scientific sense.

In fact, I am rather baffled by the need to include the triffids at all. The conventional guidance to SF authors wanting to base their stories on some change taking place in the present day is that they should only introduce one “MacGuffin”; one key element, the consequences of which can then be explored. Wyndham has two right at the start: the triffids plus the intense atmospheric flashes which blind nearly all of humanity. I can’t help thinking that the concept of the triffids probably occurred to him first, and that he invented the global blinding in order to enable the triffids to become dangerous. If the global blinding had occurred to him first, the consequences of that would surely have provided quite enough drama to fill a novel without needing the impossible plants at all. In fact, I suspect that without the triffids, the story would have been even more chillingly realistic, and thereby even easier for the readers to relate to. On the other hand, the triffids are what the book is best remembered for, so perhaps he was being clever after all.

The triffids and their origin described, the tale then returns to Masen’s account of survival against the odds, which continues to grip the reader throughout the book. This is one of the classic “what would you do in his place?” novels, and the story doesn’t skate over the harrowing moral dilemmas about whether to try to help the blind survivors, knowing that it would only postpone the inevitable. Masen has great difficulty in casting aside his social conditioning to accept the new reality and change his attitudes and behaviour accordingly. In fact, the story isn’t really about SF at all, in the sense of focusing on bold futures full of gee-whiz technology and zooming rocket ships, as much SF was at the time. This is really about what it is to be human, and how people react so variously when placed in a situation which, while appalling, was not so strange that readers could not easily relate to it. This was, don’t forget, written in the early years of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear annihilation was already rearing its head. Arguably, the disaster which befell the world in Wyndham’s story was even more disconcerting than atomic war would have been; the cities left untouched, apparently fully functioning, yet populated almost entirely by ordinary people whose lives were steadily unravelling and who were certain to be dead before long. The lethal disease which sweeps through the city, horrifying in other circumstances, comes as something of a relief since the alternative for most was a slow death by starvation.

One interesting aspect of the novel is that the female characters are far more than props for the men, as was so often the case at this time. They are drawn just as strongly, in both positive and negative roles; the characterisation of both genders is complex and rings true. One of the male characters rants furiously at the traditionally helpless attitude of a young woman when faced with vital technology - how to switch on a domestic generator to provide electric power - and the essential need in the changed situation for all of the sighted survivors to lose their ignorance and dependence. Even in this instance, the author has the woman responding with some spirit.

That also made me realise that we are even more vulnerable to a global disaster today than the world was in 1951 - we have become highly dependent on a sophisticated web of infrastructure, communications, trade and just-in-time deliveries, and have even less idea of how everything works and what to do if it stops. To give one detailed example of our vulnerability, much of the tinned and dried food which could be expected to last for months or years has been replaced by chilled or frozen products which will start spoiling only a few hours after the power has failed.

As ever with novels from an earlier age, there are some unintentional glimpses into aspects of the past. The universality of cigarette smoking is a common one, but what struck me this time was the wonderment of the survivors at the clearness of the air in London, unaffected by coal smoke and fumes. That reminded me that the first Clean Air Act, which enforced the use of smokeless fuel in some urban areas, was not passed until 1956, and followed London's "Great Smog" of the winter of 1952/3, during which the capital (known colloquially at the time as "The Smoke") was occasionally immobilised by zero visibility and some 20,000 people were estimated to have died from the resulting respiratory illnesses.

The reasons for the runaway success of this novel are clear, and they still make it a compelling read today: the writing quality, combined with the way in which the reader is drawn into and fully engaged in the developing disaster, empathising with realistic and sympathetic characters. I know someone who was so horrified by the story as a young woman that she has never wanted to read it since, nor see any of the screen versions. Yet she watches modern disaster films like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow without any concerns at all, because they’re so unrealistic and superficial by comparison. In conclusion, The Day of the Triffids is an excellent, adult story which fully deserves its place in any list of classic science fiction. It’s just a pity about the triffids…!

Interzone 240

Five short stories in the May/June issue this time:


Beasts by Elizabeth Bourne, illustrated by Martin Hanford. A fantasy set in France during the Revolution, in which a young mother finds herself trapped in a chateau with a decidedly beastly inhabitant and a garden of roses which bleed when cut. A strange but rich tale, one likely to stick in the memory.

The Indignity of Rain by Lavie Tidhar, illustrated by Richard Wagner. A grubby future spaceport in what was once Tel Aviv, from which spacecraft travel through the solar system. A grandmother looks after her curiously gifted grandchild who awaits the return of his father from space, a man she once knew. More like an excerpt than a complete story.

Seeking Captain Random by Vylar Kaftan, illustrated by Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon. The intense dreams of a comic-book designer keep being interrupted by an anomalous figure who has no place in the story arc. Who is he, and what does his appearance portend? His friend discovers that these questions gather a greater urgency after an unexpected turn of events. Mysterious to the end.

Bloodcloth by Ray Cluley, illustrated by Jim Burns. A child's view of a dystopian world which is dominated by the demands of a very strange bloodsucking creature. More horror than SF.

A Body Without Fur by Tracie Welser. An expedition to a new planet discovers a humanoid race with some strange customs and attitudes, but the humans' main problem is the emotional baggage they bring with them. The nearest of this group to a traditional SF story, albeit a rather downbeat one.

I'm not sure about picking a favourite from this group - none of them really struck me as one I'd want to read again, although perhaps Kaftan's tale appealed the most.

The reviews section includes an interview with Nancy Kress along with a review of her novel After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall. Her name is very familiar to me but, on checking, I have nothing of hers on my shelves and don't seem to have read anything by her. Judging by the review, her new novel may not be the most cheerful story but sounds very intriguing - the plot reminded me of Varley's Millennium, in which people from a future in which humanity is threatened with dying out, travel into the past to kidnap people who were due to die soon anyway. One to put on my ever-lengthening list. Other reviews include new books from Alastair Reynolds and John Meaney, which have to be worth a look, and yet another variation on the Carter on Mars stories: Jane Carver of Waar, by Nathan Long, which sounds like fun. Which reminds me: I have been re-reading more of the Garrett/Heydron Gandalara Cycle, and must post those reviews.

The film reviews section includes several talked-about movies including Avengers Assemble, The Hunger Games, John Carter and Battleship. The Carter review is kinder than the usual scathing dismisssal of this film, reinforcing my view that it's something I want to watch anyway. The DVD section contains a remarkable feat of endurance - a review of the complete Six Million Dollar Man collection: three TV movies plus 100 episodes!

Embassytown by China Miéville

I am slowly working my way through Miéville's canon, this being the fourth I have started (although only the third I have finished - see my review of The City and the City). His stories are remarkably varied and he seems able to ignore the supposed rule that no SFF book stands a chance of being published unless it is part of a series which will hook the readers and guarantee continuing demand. Having said that, his tales (the ones I've read so far, anyway) do have one thing in common: the most important feature of them is not one of the characters, but a city. And not just any ordinary city, but one which is fantastical in some way, such as the baroque fantasy settlements in Un Lun Dun and Perdido Street Station or the bizarrely divided one in The City and the City.


Embassytown is no different, the city of this name being the only human settlement on Arieka, a planet populated by enigmatic aliens who have permitted Embassytown's establishment within their own city. The Aliens, known as Hosts, are masters of biotech and everything they make and use is alive, including their buildings. Arieka's atmosphere is poisonous to humans but the Hosts have engineered living atmosphere machines called aeoli, which maintain a blanket of breathable air over Embassytown.

Dealing with the Hosts is very difficult because of their unique Language, which they are born already able to speak. They have two voices which they combine when speaking, and are unable to understand any speech which is not made in the same way. The only humans who can communicate with them are pairs of identical clones, each pair being regarded as one Ambassador, who are trained to think and speak together.

Avice Benner Cho is a native of Embassytown and one of the few who had been given permission to leave - in her case to become an Immerser, a spaceship pilot. Now she has returned, in time to witness a remarkable event; the arrival of a new and very different Ambassador who has a dramatic effect on the Hosts. The story follows Cho's attempts to understand what is going on and prevent disaster, in the face of opposition from both the human and Host populations.

The story gets off to a slow start and it took me a few days to get into, but the pace gradually accelerates and I read the last half in one sitting. The setting and the plot are both novel and intriguing, as is usually the case with Miéville. The aliens are very definitely alien in both appearance and behaviour, although I never did form a clear mental picture of exactly what they looked like. On the downside, none of the human characters made a great impression on me. Despite this, the book is well worth the read, although it has failed to displace The City and the City as, by far, my favourite by this author.

Film: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

What a strange film this is! It is set in an alternative 1939 in which mercenary fighter pilot "Sky Captain" Joe Sullivan (Jude Law) apparently defends New York single-handedly while an evil scientist called Totenkopf (well, who wouldn't be evil given a name like that?) is plotting the end of the world.


After flying robots kidnap his geeky assistant and leave a trail of destruction through New York, Sullivan, accompanied by former girlfiend and persistent reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) flies to Nepal in his Curtis P-40 (which incidentally can fly underwater…don't ask) in search of the origin of the robots. There they are aided by another of Sullivan's former girlfriends, played by a decidedly kinky Angelina Jolie - in skin-tight black leather with an eye-patch to match - as the commander of a huge British flying aircraft carrier (I told you, don't ask!) as they try to thwart Totenkopf's plans.

I find it hard to know what to make of all this. The silly plot seems straight from an adolescent 1930s comic strip and the acting is unrealistic - it could hardly be otherwise, as they try to recreate a make-believe Biggles-like world in which handsome heroes and their debonaire girlfriends stroll into terrible danger with a light-hearted quip and are completely unflappable whatever happens. The result is that the actors don't appear to be taking it at all seriously and the whole film basically seems to be a spoof, although there's no obvious humour in it (apart from Paltrow's reactions when she finds out about Jolie…).

On the upside, it looks terrific with a wonderful 1930s feel packed with Art Deco iconography, although the heavy sepia tinting makes some of it hard to see. The "advanced technology" reminds me of Bruce McCall's humorous drawings of fantasy ships, aircraft, cars and buildings of the period (collected in his book Zany Afternoons - one of my favourites).

Essentially, the film has huge style but very little substance. Is it worth watching? I'm still trying to work that out. I expect that this is one which some people will love and others hate, although having said that, I'm somewhere in the middle. I gather it failed at the box office despite good reviews, but I can imagine it acquiring minor cult status in the future.

Broken Angels by Richard Morgan

Richard Morgan is one of a current wave of British hard SF authors ("hard" in this sense meaning set in distant space-travelling futures with lots of advanced technology), some others being Alastair Reynolds, John Meaney, Neal Asher and (although a lot quirkier) Iain M Banks. Having said that, Morgan has more recently branched out into fantasy. Until now, the only book I had read by Morgan was his first, Altered Carbon, which won the 2003 Philip K. Dick Award for Best Novel. The sequel, Broken Angels, was published a year later.


I read Altered Carbon when it first emerged and was sufficiently impressed to keep it for another read sometime. I have yet to get around to that, but fortunately Broken Angels is set thirty years afterwards and, although it features the same principal character, Takeshi Kovacs, the plot is not related so they do not have to be read in order.


The time is the 26th century when humanity has spread to many star systems, thanks in part to the discovery of the remains of an ancient galactic civilisation, known as the Martians since their remains were first found there. Physical travel between the stars is limited to sublight speed, but communications are much faster through subspace. A person's consciousness can be digitally stored and sent via subspace to be implanted in another body grown for the purpose, known as a "sleeve". Consciousness can also be stored in small data nodes called "stacks" implanted in a body, which can be used to "resleeve" people who have died.


This civilisation is loosely monitored by a United Nations Protectorate which enforces its will be means of "Envoys", highly trained operatives. Kovacs is an ex-Envoy who, at the start of Broken Angels, is working for a feared mercenary organisation called the Wedge. Rumours of a dramatic discovery, in the form of a complete Martian starship, cause him to join a race to find and secure this enormous prize, in which all of his Envoy skills are needed just to secure his survival.


This is a complex novel, told by Kovacs in the first person. It portrays a brutal and cynical world of corporate power overriding any humanitarian concerns. It involves frequently shifting relationships, betrayal, explicit sex and a lot of violence, so those of a sensitive disposition had better avoid it. I found it took me a while to get into it, but I read the second half of this long book in one late-night sitting. A memorable tale, but not for the faint-hearted.

Time travel films: The Time Traveler's Wife (2009), and Midnight in Paris (2011)

I thought I'd group these together, as they make for an interesting contrast.

The Time Traveler's Wife is yet another film based on a best-selling book which I haven't read. So my review will focus just on the film rather than its relationship to the book.

Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana) suffers from a peculiar genetic disorder which causes him to travel in time. This happens at random intervals and he has no control over when it happens, whether he goes forwards or backwards in time or where he arrives, but these events usually last for only a brief period before he returns to the present. One added complication; he can't carry anything with him, so whenever he time-travels he arrives naked. As can be imagined, this leads to all manner of awkward situations.

The plot is really a romance between Henry and Claire Abshire (Rachel McAdams) who keep meeting at various times of their lives from when she is a young girl onwards. There are complicated chronological crossovers here, as sometimes a younger Henry meets an older Claire or vice versa, but it is usually possible to keep up with what's happening, given a bit of concentration. Despite the difficulties, their relationship heads towards marriage but that is far from the end of their problems.

The film hangs on the performance of the two principal characters and they both carry it off well. The basic plot has lots of potential for humour but there is very little of this, the emphasis being on the drama of their personal lives, and there is a growing sense of impending doom as the story approaches its climax.

Overall, I thought it was a good film. It is well-made and well-acted, and the unlike some time-travel stories (see my review of Déjà Vu for an example) the events seem more or less to make sense, given the improbable premise. Worth a look, but if you are emotionally inclined keep a tissue box to hand towards the end.
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I must admit that when I ordered the DVD of Midnight in Paris I didn't realise that it was a fantasy; I merely picked up that it was supposed to be Woody Allen's best film in years, which along with the location (one of my favourite cities) was enough for me to want to see it.

It is essentially a romantic comedy which uses a fantasy element to emphasise the dilemma of successful scriptwriter and aspiring novelist Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), who is visiting Paris with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams, again - not that I'm complaining!) and her parents. Pender is in love with Paris, and especially the era of the 1920s when it was alive with writers, artists and composers, but Inez has little sympathy with him. The rest of this review inevitably contains some mild spoilers so if you like everything to be a surprise, you'd better stop reading - but do watch the film!

Wandering alone through Paris at midnight, Pender is offered a lift by a group of people in an ancient car and taken to a party, where he gradually realises that he has shifted in time and is back in the 1920s. A few hours later, he finds himself back in the present day. He spends the next few nights returning to the 1920s each midnight, meeting many of his idols as well as Adriana (Marion Cotillard) which whom he gradually falls in love, while drifting further apart from Inez during the days.

It really would spoil the enjoyment of this film to reveal more of the plot, but suffice to say that it is neatly and amusingly scripted to make a point, is well acted, and has a rich, romantic texture which makes Paris the real star of the movie. I found it very enjoyable and can well imagine myself wanting to watch it again, which is a strong recommendation as it's something I rarely do.

The War Against the Rull by A E Van Vogt

I last read The War Against the Rull in the 1960s and liked it enough to hang on to my ancient copy, so I was pleased to renew my acquaintance with it when it was selected for this month's read by the Classic Science Fiction discussion group. Its origin is a series of five linked stories published between 1940 and 1950, which were tied together into one fix-up novel in 1959. I should add that according to another review there is at least one more story, from 1978, included in later editions of the book, but I haven't read that.

The setting is the far future, when a human galactic empire is engaged in a long-drawn-out war of survival against the empire of a formidable insectoid race called the Rull. The principal character in most of the tales is Trevor Jamieson, a high-powered trouble-shooter for the Galactic Convention and typical of the "competent man", capable of dealing effectively with any situation, who features as the hero in so much SF even to the present day.

Rather surprisingly, the Rull only make an occasional appearance and that mostly towards the end. The most significant is when Jamieson and a Rull leader are trapped together on a sheer-sided mountain top on an uninhabited world in a classic one-on-one climactic battle of wits; interestingly, the viewpoint alternates between the characters. Another is told from the viewpoint of Jamieson's young son, who has to deal with Rull agents on Earth.

Far more time is devoted to Jamieson's problems with the ezwal; terrifyingly large, fast and powerful telepathic beings who are regarded as non-sentient animals by most of humanity and are targeted for destruction since their planet is needed for a strategic base. Jamieson is the only person who is aware of their intelligence and telepathic ability but has a major task to convince them to co-operate with humanity in order to save themselves, and to persuade other people to believe him. The novel immediately plunges the reader into the middle of a critical situation involving an ezwal who crashes with Jamieson on another remote planet, this time in an equally classic "co-operate or die" situation. As with the Rull, in one story the author provides the ezwal's viewpoint.

In assessing this novel it is only right to remember its origins, and the period in which the original stories were written. It has a decidedly disjointed feel without any clear structure. The characterisation is minimal, as is usual for the period, and is as good (or bad) for the Rull and the ezwal as it is for the humans; in fact, providing their viewpoints adds depth and interest to the stories. There are some intriguing SF ideas, as one expects from this author. The one which caught my attention (and the only part of the story I remembered in advance of reading it again) was ability of the Rull to hypnotise humans to carry out certain actions by the use of carefully-designed patterns inscribed on a suitable surface.

Was it worth reading again? Yes, despite its flaws I enjoyed it, but nostalgia played a part in that. Unlike Bester's The Stars My Destination, another classic novel from the same era, it doesn't stand up well today. Don't expect the kind of approach a modern writer like Cherryh would give to a tale of alien races.

 

TV: Once Upon a Time, and Game of Thrones

This is my second look at Once Upon a Time as I commented a month ago after seeing the first episode, but I've only just seen the first two episodes of Game of Thrones as I had to wait for the DVD (not having satellite TV).

The two programmes are similar in that they are examples of that rare beast, a TV fantasy series meant to appeal to adults. In fact, in the case of GoT only to adults; the language, nudity and sex gaining it an 18 rating. In contrast, OUaT is entirely family-friendly. One other incidental similarity is in the detail: both include evil queens who are far more beautiful than the heroines (those seen so far, at least) - a very subversive feature!

Having said that, the two series are very different. Judging by the first two episodes, GoT is less of a fantasy and more of an alternative history. There are no fantastical elements included and it is little more than a fictionalised but convincing depiction of life as it was in Europe about 1,000 years ago. Perhaps it develops in more interesting directions later; the camera keeps dwelling on some supposedly fossilised "dragons' eggs" in a rather suggestive manner. Anyhow, while viewers are awaiting such developments, we can enjoy a well-scripted, well-acted show with high production values. The only downside is that I find it all rather depressing; after all, life at that time tended to be nasty, dark and dirty, and this is faithfully reflected in the story, which also has a sense of doom about it. Not an alternative world I would choose to live in even as a member of the aristocracy, let alone a pleb.

OUaT is far more whimsical and lighthearted, despite the darker elements introduced by the evil queen and Rumpelstiltskin. It is also completely unrealistic in almost every respect - except that it is set in an ordinary-looking present-day American town, and the heroine is (as far as she knows) an ordinary American young woman. It is the clash between our expectations of the mundane setting as seen from the heroine's viewpoint, compared with what we discover is actually going on in that town, which provides the intrigue. There's a faint echo of The Truman Show here, except that in this case hardly anyone in the town is in on the secret. A picture of the events which led up to the present situation is built up by occasional flashbacks showing the town's inhabitants as they had been in their lost fairy-tale world of castles, royalty, dwarves and magical powers. The series is still holding my interest.

BSFA Awards 2011: shortlisted stories

An unexpected bonus of my membership of the British Science Fiction Association: a booklet containing all five of the short stories shortlisted for their awards (although it did arrive too late for me to vote). Two of them I had reviewed before, but it was interesting to read through them again and I have repeated my reviews here.

The Copenhagen Interpretation by Paul Cornell. An alternative Earth with a strange mixture of the futuristic and the traditional, and some unexplained technologies which the reader has to try to figure out from the context: e.g. "folds" which may refer to folds in space-time, and "embroidery" which is to do with communications. The tale is a spy-cum-romance thriller concerning a British agent and a courier whose messages are kept securely inside her head. Somewhat entertaining, somewhat baffling.

Afterbirth by Kameron Hurley. The life of a woman who is passionate about astronomy, but who lives in a female-dominated religious world in which scientific enquiry is not encouraged, all but the ruling caste are primarily seen as wombs, and boys are merely cannon fodder for the endless wars. Not the most cheerful of stories.

Covehithe by China Miéville. The wrecks of long-gone oil rigs have been slowly reassembling themselves on the sea bed and are now marching onto the land. A bizarre tale, but well-told as usual from this author.

Of Dawn by Al Robertson. This appeared in Interzone 235, which I reviewed in July 2011. A young female violinist goes in search of what motivated her dead brother's bizarre poetry, following clues to a village abandoned since World War 2 when it was incorporated into an army training area. Strange visions and music feature in a story strongly reminiscent of Robert Holdstock. I concluded: my favourite from this issue. Although I am mainly an SF fan, there is something haunting about this story (and Holdstock's work) which appeals to me.

The Silver Wind by Nina Allen. This appeared in Interzone 223, which I reviewed in April 2011. A future in which Britain has elected a right-wing government, resulting in the formation of a police state and the ejection of all non-whites from the country. This is the kind of depressing scenario which doesn't appeal to me and usually sets up a "brave defiance by principled hero" plot, but this author handles it in a more subtle and intriguing fashion. She focuses on a conformist property agent who doesn't question the status quo (it all happened long ago) but who becomes fascinated by the history of a clock made by a talented dwarf, Owen Andrews. He manages to locate and visit Andrews in a remote part of London, separated by a new and dangerously inhabited forest from the main city, and learns of experiments concerning time which are taking place in an old hospital nearby, and their sometimes horrific results. He is captured after becoming lost in the forest and is taken to the hospital, where he finds that there is an alternative to the existing paradigm. An engaging story. I concluded: Nina Allen's story is certainly the stand-out one in this issue, I enjoyed her fantastical take on an unpromising scenario.

A very varied mix of stories, all of them intriguing in different ways. My personal preference is for Nina Allen's tale, with Al Robertson's and then Paul Cornell's following on. I see from the BSFA website that Cornell's story got the award.

Film: Watchmen (2009)

When I saw this film I knew nothing about the plot, having never read the mid-1980s comic book of which (as I learned later from the Wiki entry) the film is said to be a faithful adaptation. I'm not sure whether this was an advantage or disadvantage; at least I didn't spend my time checking its authenticity and was able to evaluate the film purely on its own merits.

The setting is an alternative 1985 in which the USA has had a history of masked vigilantes (superb fighters but otherwise normal humans) now all retired. There is also one genuine superhero with god-like powers as a result of a laboratory accident, who is now a glowing blue figure known as Dr Manhattan. His existence enabled the USA to win the Vietnam War and gave them a dominant position over the Soviet Union. However, he is becoming increasingly remote from normal human affairs and seems to have disappeared, causing Cold War tensions to become increasingly hot: nuclear war threatens. Meanwhile, someone is killing off the vigilantes and the survivors get together to try to discover what is going on.

Having experienced something of a surfeit of Hollywood superhero movies of late, I had certain expectations. I was expecting light entertainment: a fast-moving thriller with a straightforward good vs evil plot, lots of action and special effects, probably a dash of humour in the quieter scenes, and maybe a touch of thwarted romance. I was therefore rather surprised to discover that, although Watchmen has most of those elements (I can't say I noticed much humour), it also has a lot more. It is a generally slow-paced and indeed very long film, running for over 160 minutes. It is also rather confusing, hopping constantly between the present and the pasts of several of the heroes at different stages of their lives: I wasn't always sure who the younger versions of the characters were meant to be. Overall, it is a rather grim and downbeat film with a pessimistic twist in the ending.

I understand that many aficionadoes of the comic book rate this film very highly. My own view is rather more mixed. There are some good elements and some strong scenes, but overall I suspect that the desire to be faithful to the comic has resulted in a rather messy and confused structure with too much packed into it. It was involving enough for me to watch to the end, but I'm not likely to want to see it again.

Revelation by Bill Napier

This is the third of Bill Napier's novels I have reviewed here (although the second he wrote), with two more still in the reading pile. I was deeply impressed by the first one I read, which was his fourth novel, Lure (keep up at the back!). The first novel, Nemesis, was also good although a bit rougher around the edges.

Revelation has what can now be recognised as typical Napier elements: the principal character is a scientist, researching a mystery which puts him in danger from an organisation determined to suppress the truth. This leads to chases across national boundaries and a fair amount of violent action. There is commonly an historical aspect to the mystery, involving scenes set in the past. There are set-piece debates - very well done - which allow the author to explore aspects of his plot in more detail. The core of the mystery is always to do with science, which is unsurprising as the author is also a scientist. And there is a trace of romantic tension, always kept well in the background.

In this novel, the historical background is the development of the atom bomb in the early 1940s and the fate of one of the scientists, Lev Petrosian, who appeared to have discovered something entirely new and very dangerous - but his work had been lost with him. In the present day, Dr Fred Findhorn, an Arctic specialist, is sent to recover some documents from an old plane wreck buried in an Arctic glacier. These documents provide a key to the mystery of Petrosian's work and become the focus of a deadly hunt as competing groups, with very different agendas, are out to get them. The action hops between the Arctic, the UK, the USA, Armenia and Japan as Findhorn (with some attractive female assistance) tries to discover the secret while staying alive.

I was less impressed by Revelation than the other books; it seemed rather rushed and there were various improbabilities, unexplained aspects and loose ends. As I have observed before, Napier is weak on characterisation and Findhorn never came alive for me. There are also an awful lot of characters and I was occasionally left trying to remember who somebody was. Having said that, the science is as intriguing as ever and the adventure exciting, so it is still worth the read, although the SF element is less strong than in the previous books I've reviewed (question: where does the techno-thriller end and SF begin?).

Interzone 239, and Once Upon a Time (TV)

As well as the usual book and film reviews (featuring an interview with Chris Beckett as well as a review of his book Dark Eden) the SFF magazine has an R.I.P. section which this time notes the passing of John Christopher, author of the 1953 disaster novel The Death of Grass (among various other SF works), a title I recall from long ago.

A reversion to shorter stories this time, with six included:

Twember by Steve Rasnic Tem, illustrated by David Senecal. A near future in which strange cliff-like apparitions rise up, move across the landscape and disappear, leaving little physical trace of their passage but causing major disruptions to the lives of the inhabitants.

Lips and Teeth by Jon Wallace, illustrated by Richard Wagner. A long-term prisoner in a despotic state is recruited to use his unique power - but can he use it to help himself?

Tangerine, Nectarine, Clementine, Apocalypse by Suzanne Palmer, illustrated by Richard Wagner. A fruiterer in a society confined within a space station has the ability to see the future - and which fruit he gives out has a meaning. But there is one fruit which he never gives.

Bound in Place by Jacob A. Boyd, illustrated by Ben Baldwin. Ghosts can be made to do all of the housework, provided you have the manual of instructions.

Railriders by Matthew Cook, illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe. A downbeat tale of people on the fringes of society who steal rides on interstellar craft.

One-Way Ticket by Nigel Brown, illustrated by Mark Pexton. An alien world provides a chance of a strange kind of survival for the terminally ill.

I was very critical of the previous issue for publishing stories which were all relentlessly grim and downbeat. This time they are thankfully more varied. Railriders is the grimmest, and only superficially SF - it could have been written about hoboes of a century ago. My favourite is Twember - I like this surreal kind of tale.

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Once Upon a Time is a US TV fantasy series which has just started being shown on UK TV (Channel 5 on Sundays, for anyone interested). As a result of an evil spell from a wicked queen, characters from fairy tales are transported to a hellish place where there are no happy endings: the present-day USA! They now look like normal people and have no memory of who they once were, but one very modern woman unknowingly seems to be destined to save them. An intriguing premise, and the first episode was promising. I not only watched all of it (more than I can say for any of the other US TV fantasy series I've tried to watch in recent years) but I'm even looking forward to the next episode. I'll keep you posted.

Film: Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Compared with last week's post, this is going from one cultural extreme to the other. Yes, I know, the title should have warned me off, but I couldn't resist watching it!

Daniel Craig (the current James Bond, for the benefit of any readers from other planets) plays a gunman in the Wild West who wakes up with no memory but with a hi-tech bracelet firmly clipped around his wrist. At the same time, people are being attacked and captured by small flying machines. One of these crashes, and the tracks leaving it indicate that something decidedly non-human was on board.

A motley posse sets off on the hunt for the alien, and then in search of the source of these flying machines with the hope of rescuing the captured people. Apart from Craig, this includes Harrison Ford as a rich farmer, Olivia Wilde as eye candy (though she does turn out to have a role to play) and various assorted lawmen, cowboys, criminals and even Indians.

This is a lightweight and forgettable film but makes for a couple of hours of trivial entertainment, preferably watched in well-oiled social company in the mood for a laugh.

I do have one gripe (at the risk of a mild spoiler): why are "bad" aliens in such films always shown to be hideously ugly monsters with such deliberately evil intent? Do the film makers not realise that evil wearing an innocent face is far more chilling? Or that the activities of aliens on this planet might incidentally have a disastrous effect on humanity even without any evil intent? Or is such subtlety beyond their comprehension (or at least, more subversive than they think their target viewing public will accept)? Oh well, I suppose I'm expecting too much of a lowest-common-denominator popcorn movie based on (and closely resembling) a comic strip. To be fair, though, the good guys do not all get to live happily ever after.

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

Yet another selection for the Classic Science Fiction discussion group. Something of an achievement for me; I don't think I've managed to read both the classic and modern novels in one month before.

I first read The Dispossessed when it emerged in 1974 but haven't done so since. I had conveniently forgotten everything about the plot so could read the story with fresh eyes.

The setting is the far future, with humanity existing on several worlds but apparently having developed separately since before the beginning of recorded history, the original race who had seeded the other planets being the Hainish. These had more recently provided the technology for interstellar flight to less developed civilisations such as the Terrans (who had by then completely wrecked the environment of the Earth). This background was used for other Le Guin novels from this period: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, and The Left Hand of Darkness.

The Dispossessed is set on Anarres and Urras, a pair of worlds which orbit each other as well as the star Tau Ceti. The Cetian civilisation had developed on Urras, Anarres being smaller and almost barren. However, a revolution nearly two centuries before had seen the revolutionaries, followers of an anarchist named Odo, voluntarily transferred to Anarres to continue the development of their ideal society there. Urras continued as a patchwork of nations and philosophies not very different from present-day Earth. Contact between the two worlds then ceased but for some essential trade.

The story begins with the controversial journey of a ground-breaking physicist, Shevek, from his home in Anarres to visit Urras. The chapters then alternate between his experiences on Urras and his earlier life on Anarres which led up to his unprecedented decision to leave his home world. Anarres is a harsh, dry world permitting little but a survival level of existence, well suited to the frugal, egalitarian society implanted there, and Le Guin paints a convincing picture of the how the society functions, with all its flaws and benefits. On the lush world of Urras, Shevek finds himself not only the centre of attention but also the focus of tension, as competing interest groups are stirred into conflict by his arrival.

The Dispossessed isn't really a traditional SF novel; the setting and plot are merely vehicles to enable the author to explore some fundamental issues about society and humanity in a much more clear-cut way than would otherwise be possible.

This novel is not a dramatic page-turner and isn't the kind of story which would normally appeal to me, but it is so well-written and contains such intelligent observations that it held my attention throughout. It deservedly won both the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as being well-received outside the SFF community. Highly recommended.

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds' first novel, Revelation Space, was published in 2000, since when there have been nine others plus various shorter fiction, much of it published in collections. They might be regarded as traditional, optimistic, hard SF; all (as far as I can judge) set in far futures in which humanity has not only survived but has expanded into space. They are heavily science-based, reflecting the author's background as a physicist and astronomer.

I read his first three novels, all in the Revelation Space series, when they first came out and was sufficiently impressed to keep them for a re-read sometime. I found them intriguing and plausible but also long, dense and rather heavy going - not exactly page-turners. Perhaps that's why he dropped off my reading radar until recently, when his 2005 novel Pushing Ice was selected as one of the monthly reads of the Classic Science Fiction discussion group (which picks one classic and one modern SF novel per month, as well as a weekly short story).

Pushing Ice is a stand-alone novel unrelated to his other books. After a prologue set eighteen thousand years into the future, the story proper starts in 2057, (the near future by Reynolds' standards) on board Rockhopper, a commercial space vessel under the command of Bella Lind, which is mining comets in the Solar System. Suddenly Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, leaves its orbit and begins to accelerate towards a distant star. It soon becomes apparent, as much of Janus' ice cover falls away, that it is really a gigantic spaceship. Rockhopper is the only ship near enough to intercept, so is despatched in pursuit. So far, the plot is strongly reminiscent of Clarke's classic Rendezvous with Rama but, unlike that novel, the landing on and exploration of the alien craft is only the start of a much longer saga. I can't give more plot details without posting important spoilers but suffice to say that the story stretches into the far future and is ambitious in scope, involving alien races and the future of humanity.

As usual with this author, the story is very long (over 500 pages of a rather small font) and densely packed. Other differences from Rama are that there is a strong emphasis on developing the major characters on board Rockhopper as they start their great adventure, as well as on the dilemmas and disagreements they face, and in particular a friendship which turns into bitter emnity between two of the principal characters. The result of this is that the pace of events is slow for much of the book, and at times my interest in discovering what was going to happen next was only just enough to keep me picking up the book to read some more. It wasn't helped by the occasional insertion of gaps of years or even decades in the narrative. Fortunately, the pace then begins to accelerate and I found that I read the last quarter of the book in one session stretching into the night, unable to put it down.

To sum up: an impressive achievement, definitely worth reading, but initially a degree of patience is required. I would have preferred to see a brisker pace from the start.