Monday, 28 September 2009

Battlestar Galactica - End Of

And beware of spoilers ahead.

Hmmm. Watched the final season (or half season) of the new BSG not long ago, a show that I loved the first couple of seasons of, but had mixed feelings about the third. So did they pull it all together in the final episodes? Well ... not really.

There was still much too much of the religious and cylon-related blather, joined now by much incomprehensible waffle regarding the cycle of human/cylon violence and the role of the key final five cylons in everything. And nothing. I guess they'd painted themselves into a corner where they had to try and make it all make sense and, well, they didn't really. Not for me, anyway. One can't escape the feeling that they picked as the final five - and especially the much-touted fifth - a rather random mixed bag of mostly second string characters, which didn't produce much of a "frak me! It was them all along?" reaction, at least from this viewer. More of a - "what, her? Oh."

The result was that the show then focused on these characters a lot more than it really should have, at the expense of the characters the show originally focused on and who were actually a lot better on the whole. Starbuck was sidelined. Admiral Adama did a lot of tortured gurning but not much glorious implacability. Apollo barely showed up in the last few episodes, and when he did his ludicrous hair was really stretching my suspension of disbelief. Baltar was literally treading water for two whole seasons so he could then show up for a much touted final moment that proved to be relatively insignificant. They laid some good action sequences on at the end, but for a show that weighed in heavily with the prophecy and portent the payoff was rather lame, and buried under an awful lot of philosophical mumbo jumbo, and made one think that they weren't really ever thinking much more than a season in advance, and just couldn't pull all the strands together when they needed to.

A lot of things were rushed, and a lot just didn't make much sense once you thought about them. Didn't really believe they'd give up all their technology to live as primitives. Oh, but building a log cabin's apparently alright. Why would Adama snr. abandon his son and friends for no apparent reason, rather than living just down the valley, or whatever? And, for that matter, would the hardboiled political and military pragmatists who'd led the fleet through its first couple of seasons really have gone on a suicidal rescue mission for the sake of one little girl? The subplot about galactica falling apart seemed pretty unnecesary really, but took up an inordinate amount of time with many, many similar shots of people welding.

At times, when it focused more on the human issues - the politics, and violence, and treachery, it was firing on something like all cylinders again, but unfortunately that only served to remind me how frakking great it was when the cylons were just the unknowable other, the enemy within and without against which the human response was measured and assessed, and every episode was full of launch tubes, sweat, doubt, fear, and the endless threat of nuclear annihilation. Bad hair was a constant throughout but, you know, it seemed to denote drama in the earlier episodes, and gritty reality. Here it just made me think of a disco...

Labels: film and tv

Sunday, 20 September 2009

People Suck, War is Bad, and the World is a Bottomless Shithole

An interesting negative review of Best Served Cold from Elizabeth Vail at Green Man Review got me thinking a little bit t'other day, not only because it's quite amusingly snarky, but also because it seems to coalesce some criticisms of the book I've seen a few times, and also hints at some interesting attitudes to what a fantasy story (and maybe just any story) should or should not contain to be successful.

SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS. There may well be spoilers ahead, so those who haven't read Best Served Cold, I strongly advise you to purchase at least one copy immediately and read it (possibly, as Elizabeth suggests, with prozac and a teddy bear to hand, though probably not a copy of the Sound of Music, for its deeply unpleasant subtext of the rise of nazism may tip you over the edge) before returning. Let us begin at the beginning (roughly):

"The twist? Instead of making this an exciting tale of adventure and discovery and colourful world building -- let's make it nauseatingly violent, overwhelmingly bleak, relentlessly depressing, while coming this close to being utterly pointless."

Youch. It's a pretty bleak book, sure, but I'm not sure it's quite so unrelentingly horrendous as she makes out. Still, even if it is - and ignoring the eye-searing (for me, at least) adjectives of nauseatingly, overwhelmingly, and relentlessly - is (the presumably) much preferable "exciting tale of adventure and discovery and colourful world building" fundamentally superior to a violent, depressing and bleak book. In what way is Best Served Cold utterly pointless?

"his novel is hampered by a lack of thematic conclusion. There's too much build-up for too little narrative payoff. There is no point to his story of vengeance. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, because Best Served Cold is nothing but one big, long tunnel that comes to a dead stop at one end. Characters do not improve, and ultimately they do not change."

I'd argue that some of the characters do change. Shivers undergoes a radical transformation. I mean it's for the WORSE, but why is that objectively inferior to a change for the better, from the standpoint of whether a book is worthwhile or not?

"While the world of Styria experiences upheaval, it quickly settles back into bloody-mindedness again. Hope glimmers only to be snuffed out."

Again, I'd say there are significant glimmers of hope within the context of it being a pretty dark story about some pretty dark characters - there's every sign that Monza is a lot less ruthless than she pretends to be, and that she'll make a much better ruler than what Styria has had so far - but even if not, why can hope glimmering only to be snuffed out not be a thematic conclusion? Why is that an inadequate narrative payoff? Why can that not be "the point"?

It interests me, this apparent distaste for a world that is as dark and messy at the end of the story as it was at the beginning. Epic fantasy is full of climactic battles with massive and enduring consequences, of epoch-making events and struggles after which nothing will ever be the same. It's full of lasting victory and purposeful sacrifice. Experience seems to indicate the real world doesn't particularly work that way. Great conflicts rarely change the world, and often carry within them the seeds of the next conflict. The Thirty Years war depopulated swathes of Germany and changed virtually nothing, even politically. The Napoleonic wars killed a lot of people and shifted a lot of big hats around, but one could hardly say Europe did not settle back into bloody-mindedness thereafter. The First World War led to the Second, the Second to the Cold War, and the ending of that ushered in a glorious era of peace, love, and an end to fear, right? Er... Well at least relations between the West and Russia are improving, right? Er... Hope constantly glimmers only to be snuffed out, it's the normal cycle of life. Every victory is touted as the last, great one, and it never is. "An end to boom and bust." Er... "Peace in our times." Er... The declaration of victory and freedom in Iraq, let alone Afghanistan, proved to be a little premature. Sooner or later hope glimmers again. The world moves forward by tiny degrees. Clearly we are a lot better off in all kinds of ways than we were in a state of pre-Roman barbarism, but, you know, it takes a long time and progress, such as it is, seems always to be very painful. I don't see reflecting that in a work of fantasy as overwhelmingly cynical, I see it as relatively realistic, and standing in contrast - by no means with all of epic fantasy - but with a lot of pretty schmaltzy stuff that has been and still is out there. Why should a cynical message be so unpalatable in a fantasy book?

Far from there being no point to the story, it seems to me that Vail got the point very thoroughly, she just really didn't like the point, which is a slightly different argument. But let us continue...

"By novel's end, Monza learns (surprise, surprise) that People Suck, War is Bad, and the World is a Bottomless Shithole. Oh, but maybe also that Revenge is Bad, too. A ridiculously tiny step in the character development of one person is the reward for more than six hundred pages of callous murder"

Again, perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but the implication seems to be that "the reward" for getting to the end of a story should be measured in the improvement of the characters, in what they learn. A little bit like the assessment of a government programme for the rehabilitation of offenders. How many prisoners became productive members of society? Hurrah! How many re-offended? Booo! I've put in my work by reading the book, now I want it payed off! I demand the world and characters be a better place, or at least a changed place!

Now again, I'm not saying she's wrong and the book's ace, or anything (you know I'd never do that), this isn't intended to be a criticism of Vail or her well-written and considered review (cause you know I'm not like that), I'm just pondering here, because they're criticisms I've seen from other people in other places and in other forms. Why should change in the characters, let alone improvement, be a requirement? Classic Epic Fantasy, again, is full of neat stories of growth and change. The coward who leanrs to be a hero. The weakling who finds his strength. The farmboy who becomes a king. The man of violence redeemed through love. You know the kind of thing I'm talking about. Is there something fundamentally superior or more satisfying about characters who change and improve to ones that don't change, fail to change, change by tiny degrees, backslide to their original pitiful selves or simply get a lot worse? To me those options all seem equally, if not more, truthful than the option of neat improvement. Of course, any of those can be done well or badly, something can work for a reader or not, be hamfisted, rubbish, or crap, but she seems, in fact, to say that I'm not totally crap:

"as for his protagonist, Monza is a vivid character. She's single-minded on vengeance without being underdeveloped, and mouths her "morals are for suckers" mantras even though it's obvious she cares a lot more than other people think. This is part of what makes it so frustrating how little she learns from her experience."

So she's a good character, and that makes her refusal to change and learn just *so* frustrating. In this case, it would appear, the better the characters are, the worse the book becomes...

Is it a type of complaint you'd get outside of epic fantasy circles? (and forgive my ludicrously overblown examples drawn from the best the literary and televisual world have to offer) Would folks cuss The Great Gatsby because some of its characters are unable to change or improve themselves? Are even doomed by it? Would folks cuss LA Confidential because Elroy's LA is as dark and cynical at the end of the book as it is at the start? Is The Wire reduced because its central theme is that the world is grim and corrupt and its very, very difficult to change it? I don't know, maybe they would. Maybe that's why a lot more people watch CSI: Miami than The Wire.

One more time, I'm not criticising this particular review. I actually think it's a pretty good review, and there are plenty of reasons why lots of people don't like the book. Too long, too violent, too dark, too unsympathic, and so on. No one's ever wrong about their own opinion, and there's nothing wrong either with a preference for smoothly developing characters or worlds transformed for the better. The massive preponderance of stories of that type seem to indicate that it's a pretty common preference. I'm by no means immune to it myself either - I found the bleakness of No Country for Old Men, its deliberate refusal to provide narrative payoff, and the fact that its central villain could kill with utter impunity, pretty hard to swallow. I'm just wondering how widespread this is - a distaste for the ragged and unchanging, especially when it's also dark and unpleasant, and whether it's something more common in epic fantasy than outside it.

"If fans of the First Law trilogy insist on reading this novel, this reviewer would like to suggest they take the necessary precautions. Remove all razors, painkillers, and lengths of rope from your house. Keep Prozac close to hand, along with a teddy bear and a copy of The Sound of Music. Maybe even a dog-eared copy of The Lord of the Rings, where the good guys actually win once in a while."

Correct me if I'm wrong, by all means, but don't the good guys nearly always win in everything? Are a couple of books in which - not even the bad guys win, necessarily, but the line between bad and good is kind of hazy and we're not really sure who won - really so unpalatable you need to keep a happy ending on hand to wash away the hideous taste of cynicism?

Answers on a postcard, and remember, I don't want to be affirmed, here, nor scorn heaped upon Ms. Vail's head. I'm interested in discussing it...

EDIT: As an amusing postscript to this, Best Served Cold was just one-starred by an irate punter on amazon complaining that, "There was even a happy ending! Also, it wasn't as gritty as the First Law." Truly, you can please some of the people some of the time...

Labels: opinion, reviews

Friday, 18 September 2009

What THEY are saying 09/09

Some time has passed since I last stole from port before first light and trawled the internet for reviews like an illegal trawler trawling the North Sea for cod in contravention of the EU's fishing policy. Except that in my case, however hard I trawl, the stocks never seem to reach exhaustion. What a metaphor. It's shit like THAT that allows me to earn a living as a professional writer, yo. So, who and what have we slithering from the nets in the last month or two's catch?

First up we have a review of Best Served Cold from either Paul Witcover of Matt Staggs (it doth not specify precisely) in Realms of Fantasy magazine. Realms is old-style printed written word stuff and hence cannot be linked to, therefore you'll have to take my word for it (never a good idea) that it says, among other wonderful things:

"When you read as much fantasy as I do, you appreciate a writer who has the restraint to depict the frenzied chaos and bloody confusion of battle in all its beauty, terror, and black humour. And when, as with Abercrombie, that approach extends beyond the battlefield, you know you've found a writer to follow."

Have you ever had that feeling you were being followed? A ha! A ha ha! A ha ha ha haaaaaaaah! It's jokes like THAT which allow me earn a living as a professional writer, yo. Next we have an opinon on Best Served Cold from Elena at Book Spot Central , an occasional visitor to this very blog, here:

"This story could easily have spanned several volumes (then again clocking in close to 700 pages could arguably be considered several volumes), but yet there isn't really a lot of wasted space ... If you like your epic fantasy gritty, well, it doesn't come any sandier than this. Best avoided by those who need happy endings and sterling heroes, but highly recommended to anyone who thinks they might like it - you know who you are"

You know who you are, you grit-loving mo-fos! Someone who might like it, but I'm still not completely sure whether he did or not, is Niall Harrison, who has made a characteristically deep and thoughtful probing of Best Served Cold over at Strange Horizons:

"This inevitably makes Best Served Cold something of a novel of parts - some very good, exhilarating or terrifying or amusing, but no more a coherent whole for that ... Best Served Cold is a novel that can be understood to deliberately deny the higher heroic possibilities of its imaginative premise, because it refuses to believe there are any."

Hmm. I feel ... probed. It's a piece that asks questions about big issues - the role of truth in fantasy, the role of fantasy in truth, the use of fantasy as analgesic, the necessity for historical accuracy in dialogue and setting, and more. Big questions, and it is perhaps a piece that asks more than it answers, though no less interesting for that. Asking the simpler question - is the book good? was Jason Henninger at Tor.com, a man whose doubt-riddled review of The First Law forced me to learn him up good style some time back. Did he learn from the experience, and grow as a reviewer? Let us see...

"Because of the narrower scope, the pace is quicker than before, which means it's gone from the reader feeling like they got jumped in an alley to feeling like they got shivved fifteen times on the way to the prison cafeteria. In an entertaining way."

Exactly the effect I wish to have on readers.

"I've never before read an author so willing to chuck his characters from high places. He just defenestrates the shit out of people."

Good use of the word defenestration. Outside of the context of Prague, it simply doesn't get used anything like enough, especially in sentences that also contain the word "shit". But what of the book, Jason, the book?

"what we get is a thrilling, funny, vicious and exhilarating story, because above all, he writes great characters. That is, as always, the strongest part of his storytelling. I truly marvel at his skill in generating concern for the wellbeing and success of people who are more or less degenerate bastards."

Huzzah for degeneracy! But the darkness/nastiness/unsympatheticness (yes, it is on account of coining catchy words like unsympathicness that I am able to earn a living as a professional writer, yo) of the characters went too far for some, such as James of Speculative Horizons - for those who like their horizons speculative rather than strange, and their speculations horizontal rather than fictitious (presumably):

"The main issue I had was - surprisingly - with the characters. I just couldn't connect with most of them on any real level. Perhaps it's because the entire lot of them - to varying degrees - are cheating, lying, backstabbing scumbags with barely a redeeming feature among them. It was odd to read a novel where there was no 'hero', where it's not clear who you're meant to be siding with (none of them, I suspect). This is not to say that some of them are not likeable in their own way, but I found it so hard to invest in any of them because they are all so morally vacant."

Man, moral vacancy is my occupation! (it is thought provoking juxtapositions such as vacancy with occupation that allow me to blah, blah, blah). To think I actually bought a pint for James when I was up in Manchester recently. And when I say, bought a pint, I don't mean demanded that my publicist put it on his expenses, I mean, actually reached into my own pocket. Last time I'm doing THAT.

Labels: reviews

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Watchmen

How can you take something so good,

Adapt it so faithfully,

And end up with something so dull?

4/10

Labels: film and tv

Monday, 7 September 2009

District 9

Wow, what a great film. Probably the best big-budget sf film I've seen since ... erm ... have there been any other good ones recently? Although the budget, at some $30 million, was pretty paltry by modern Hollywood standards, it certainly looks and feels big budget, which just goes to show, as if it needs doing yet again, that imagination is a lot more important than money. What a shame I have neither...

Aliens have arrived on earth, not in some glistening superstructure over Washington but in a mountain of floating junk over Johannesburg. They have neither attacked nor made dignified contact, but instead been interned in a giant slum (more than a little reminiscent of apartheid-era townships) where they have become addicted to cat food and are preyed upon by gangsters and profiteers while a sinister multi-national experiments on them in an attempt to unlock the secret of their technology. Pencil-pushing company man Wikus is given the task of evicting the "prawns" from the ghetto and moving them to a new one, but it isn't until he starts to mutate into one that he develops some understanding for their unfortunate position in human society...

A lot of its success for me is down to the structure and editing, which is frakking brilliant, seamlessly integrating faux-documentary interviews, pretend news footage and more traditional dramatic sequences into a smoothly flowing whole which grips right away and never lets go, managing to combine the immediacy and believability of documentary with the immersion of traditional drama. It has some great CGI on the aliens, and their weaponry in particular, a great central performance from Sharlto Copley as Wikus (most of his dialogue apparently improvised on location), and some great action sequences. It's funny, it's dark, it's clever, it's exciting, it's sometimes horrifying and occasionally even affecting, and above all it's very entertaining.

You could point to some weaknesses - a few details of the plot seemed a bit creaky, apart from Wikus the human characters were pretty one dimensional (voodoo-obsessed black gangsters, profit-obsessed white company men, "I just love killing prawns!" cackles the gung-ho paramilitary villain). The crazy action sequence towards the end was maybe a little drawn out with a few too many people exploded by alien weaponry (amazing the first time, less so the hundredth), and the second half is definitely a lot less inventive than the first (though it's still done very well). But the main criticism I've seen is that the film doesn't necessarily follow through on the allegorical aspects, and I think to concentrate on its supposed real-life message (or the failure of said) is somewhat to miss the point. Which for me is that this was just a superb action sci-fi film, gripping from the first frame to the last, and brilliantly clever and inventive, not so much in its politics and philosophy, as in its design, structure, editing and acting. To me it's a massive success not so much in the territory of Blade Runner as in the territory of Total Recall or Robocop. Quality, commercial, science fictional entertainment, but with some sharp thinking and a little social commentary behind the explosions.

9/10, and I'm not far from giving it the extra point, either...

Labels: film and tv

Tuesday, 1 September 2009

The Emperor's New Covers

So there is to be a new UK Mass-Market Paperback Edition of THE gritty epic fantasy debut of 2006 (obviously excluding Scott Lynch's, Brian Ruckley's, or Tom Lloyd's, and no, Pat Rothfuss was 2007, you cheeky so-and-sos), The Blade Itself , appearing in time for Christmas, and it looks a-little something like this:


Oooooooooh. Somewhat of a departure, I think you'll agree.

The existing UK Mass-Market paperbacks are B-Format (slightly larger size), these will be A-Format (classic small bookstand size), and hence probably somewhat fatter (so pretty damn fat - 624 pages). The long established parchmenty treatments have, of course, served the books well on both sides of the pond:


As have the slightly updated versions with ego-swelling big name and small title:


Which will continue to be printed, in fact, and so will co-exist with the new treatments for the time being. Indeed the original covers (by design sorceress Laura Brett) have probably been the most consistently admired thing about the series. But there was a feeling that theyweren't necessarily grabbing the core epic fantasy reader as hard as they might be, or at least that an alternate, more classic cover might broaden the market, and possibly encourage better buying-in and shelving from some booksellers.

Art is by Chris McGrath who does a lot of Urban Fantasy covers but less epic-style stuff, and I reckon he's done a bang up job. Gritty, impactful, and says epic fantasy without the slightest whiff of cheesiness (which is not an easy trick to pull off). Not at all a bad representation of Master Ninefingers either. Never an easy thing for an author to see his/her characters made manifest like that. Glokta (Before They are Hanged) and Jezal (Last Argument of Kings) will be following over the next few months, at which point there'll probably be some tweaking to give it more of a unified series feel...

Labels: artwork, news