Not long ago I had half an hour to spare and, being the person I am, thought Waterstone’s was a good place to while away the time. I came across The Atrocity Archives and, having seen the cover before but not read the back, I checked out the blurb and the first page. I got the impression from that The Atrocity Archives would be another present day fantasy fiction with magic and some technology advances. The writing seemed informal, witty and the blurb had enough to hook me. I was expecting Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files meets Computers For Dummies.
There is plenty of the first. For those of you who haven’t read any of the Dresden Files, it is characterised by the main guy, Dresden, who tells the story with a lot of wit and humour. You can tell things about his character simply by the way he says things – for instance, he can joke and being quite blasé about very scary subjects which means he’s brave and possibly a bit of an idiot. And, to an extent Stross has this in Bob Howard. His charm lies in the same ‘not good with authority’ way as Dresden and, as mentioned, the wit with which the story is told. But Stross is not in Butcher’s league. Where Butcher will put in perhaps one or two references to things you might not get – TV show references from the 70s and 80s for instance –, Stross litters them across every page. I’m lost already and I’m only seventeen pages in.
For those of you who want a plot, here’s a summary of what I understand so far: Bob works in an obscure branch of the government who deal with magic and alternate dimensions – don’t expect Tinkerbell or dragons though – as a computer repair man. Then, he gets promoted and has some fun with field work. Where it all goes wrong. (Except the bit where it all goes wrong takes a long time to appear. Nothing substantial really happens for almost the first third of the book.)
I’m not a computer nerd, I’ll admit that. I know how to defragment my computer and I can write basic html but I get totally lost with Stross’s explanations of things, or lack of explanation. What, for instance, is a node when it’s at home? He mentions ‘the Turning result’ but doesn’t explain what that is for another six pages, by which I’ve entirely forgotten what the point of the conversation was when it was first mentioned. What’s worse, no-one knows what the Turning result is, because he made it up, so no-one could possibly know what the reference is to.
The worst offender by far, though, (that is, the worst offender in the seventeen pages I’ve struggled through so far) is this: ‘The theorem is a hack on a discrete number theory that simultaneously disproves Church-Turing hypothesis (wave your hand if you understood that) and worse, permits NP-complete problems to be converted into p-complete ones.’
First off, that wave comment, that’s part of the quote. And I found myself slightly upset that Stross was either talking to the few people who understood what he meant and no-one else or that he was intentionally flagging up the fact no-one’s meant to understand it, in which case, why put it in there? I felt totally alienated. (If anyone reading this does feel they could wave their hand, I’d love to know what on earth it all means.) The other problem I have is…well it’s with his problems. What is an NP-complete problem? The only thing I can think of is ‘no problem’ but that doesn’t really work. A No Problem complete problem?
((Having read a little further after writing this, I found this and felt the need to share.) ‘Most of it boils down to the application of Kaluza-Klein theory in a Linde universe constrained by an information conservation rule, or so they tell me when I ask.’ )
There’s another snag. If you haven’t read H.P. Lovecraft, you’re not going to get the references to his work, such as Shoggoth. I’ve read some Lovecraft but I’ve not heard of that one. Similarly, do you, without looking at Google, know who Knuth, Dijkstra or Al-Hazred are? I’ve never heard of them but apparently I should have because Stross uses them to suggest a person’s character by the material he’s reading.
All this is building up to one very large, very unmoveable difficulty. I cannot follow what’s happening. There’s computer jargon being thrown around, mixed in with philosophy, mathematics, an awful lots of theories and some pretty heavy ideas, none of which I understand. I get the physical things that are going on – he’s walking over there, now he’s hacking a computer – but if the ending hinges on a concept I can’t grasp, what’s the point in reading any further than page seventeen?
Perhaps I’m being unkind and judgemental. Perhaps that isn’t enough material to judge the whole book by. But still, there’s that niggling doubt that if I can’t get the basic premise, all hope is lost.
I always try to judge a book by how friendly it is to the reader. That is, in terms of how accessible it is, not how nicely it can compliment your hair. And, granted, there will be science fiction that’s out of my range. But I’m not sure how many sci-fi fans would enjoy this either. And that’s what it comes down to: an author tries to sell books, which will be difficult if he’s alienated all by a tiny slice of his readership.
Fail, Mister Stross. Fail.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Monday, 5 September 2011
Heaven's Shadow
(Minor Spoilers on the line, delays expected)
I don’t read much sci-fi, I’ll admit that right from the off. I dabble but most space-set novels put me off by their jargon, science or pseudo-science and the general size which tends to come under ‘tome’.
But I picked up Heaven’s Shadow. The blurb was quite exciting. A near-earth-object starts venting air and it quickly becomes obvious there’s a reason for it. ’But by whom – and for what purpose?
Heaven’s Shadow is written by David S. Goyer, a comic book writer, screenwriter and director and Michael Cassutt, author, TV producer and screenwriter. The fact that Goyer and Cassutt work most in visual media is obvious and perhaps Heaven’s Shadow would have made a good film.
It does not make a good book.
The story starts off at a pace that would make a glacier look speedy and while it does manage to up the pace in places, Heaven’s Shadow ruins it all by shooting at it’s feet, with bullets made of long, dull sections where nothing happens and a habit of switching characters.
Talking of characters, there are way too many and a lot of them are introduced together. It doesn’t surprise me that they feel the need to include a character list at the front and I found myself having to refer to it a lot. There are four astronauts and four cosmonauts, various family members, scientists, a large group of people who work for NASA and a girl called Amy who appears, as far as I can see, without explanation. Said girl is meant to be a friend of the main character’s daughter but why Amy is allowed to run around the NASA site with her friend, unchecked, is unclear.
This might all be fine, just, if the author’s had stuck with one name to one character. Yvonne Hall, for instance was introduced as Yvonne but is, at points, called Hall and I had to go look at the character list to who out who Hall was.
The other problem with this huge cast is that the viewpoint moves between quite a few of them. It’s a bit like sharing a bottle of vodka with seventeen people – no-one can really taste it in the coke and no-one gets tipsy. The characters feel like templates at best and the main character is one of the worst hit. There are three things I know about him – his wife is dead, he has a temperamental teenage daughter and he’s an astronaut. That is what defines him. Personality you ask? Well…um…nope, I’ve no idea. If he died horribly, screaming, on the next page I wouldn’t mind because I really couldn’t care less about this 2D, cardboard cut out of a character. A few of the more minor characters manage to rise above it slightly but only slightly and while they might possess a hint of personality, I’m still not given enough to ever care about them.
Which spawns another complication. If I don’t care who lives and who dies, or, indeed, if any live at all, where’s the excitement, the drama, the gripping fear my favourite character is going to be eaten alive?
The other strange thing about Heaven’s Shadow is it’s habit of starting the chapter with a few lines of gripping dialogue and then scrabbling to explain the context in an immediate flashback. It actually does this for the whole first part of the book. We get the excitement of being aboard the space craft before they touch down but for the next few chapters after, it bumbles around some dull, dreary back story. A few snapshot flashbacks, no more than a page long would have been sufficient. Once I’d started noticing it, I realise they do a lot. It’s fine, ooo, once or twice but when they continue it chapter after chapter, it gets on my internal organs.
My last rant point is that the dialogue has some truly botched lines that just don’t
make sense. I even re-read them and I still couldn’t work out who was talking. Again, I wonder if this is because both writers are more used to mediums with visual qualities. Where the confusion isn’t applicable because we can see who’s talking.
Can I recommend Heaven’s Shadow? Well, perhaps if you’re into space sci-fi you might be able to look past its flaws to the juicy ideas beneath. But I’d recommend putting it below some of the better examples and using it as a last resort. A ‘it’s-this-or-watching-golf’ sort of thing.
I don’t read much sci-fi, I’ll admit that right from the off. I dabble but most space-set novels put me off by their jargon, science or pseudo-science and the general size which tends to come under ‘tome’.
But I picked up Heaven’s Shadow. The blurb was quite exciting. A near-earth-object starts venting air and it quickly becomes obvious there’s a reason for it. ’But by whom – and for what purpose?
Heaven’s Shadow is written by David S. Goyer, a comic book writer, screenwriter and director and Michael Cassutt, author, TV producer and screenwriter. The fact that Goyer and Cassutt work most in visual media is obvious and perhaps Heaven’s Shadow would have made a good film.
It does not make a good book.
The story starts off at a pace that would make a glacier look speedy and while it does manage to up the pace in places, Heaven’s Shadow ruins it all by shooting at it’s feet, with bullets made of long, dull sections where nothing happens and a habit of switching characters.
Talking of characters, there are way too many and a lot of them are introduced together. It doesn’t surprise me that they feel the need to include a character list at the front and I found myself having to refer to it a lot. There are four astronauts and four cosmonauts, various family members, scientists, a large group of people who work for NASA and a girl called Amy who appears, as far as I can see, without explanation. Said girl is meant to be a friend of the main character’s daughter but why Amy is allowed to run around the NASA site with her friend, unchecked, is unclear.
This might all be fine, just, if the author’s had stuck with one name to one character. Yvonne Hall, for instance was introduced as Yvonne but is, at points, called Hall and I had to go look at the character list to who out who Hall was.
The other problem with this huge cast is that the viewpoint moves between quite a few of them. It’s a bit like sharing a bottle of vodka with seventeen people – no-one can really taste it in the coke and no-one gets tipsy. The characters feel like templates at best and the main character is one of the worst hit. There are three things I know about him – his wife is dead, he has a temperamental teenage daughter and he’s an astronaut. That is what defines him. Personality you ask? Well…um…nope, I’ve no idea. If he died horribly, screaming, on the next page I wouldn’t mind because I really couldn’t care less about this 2D, cardboard cut out of a character. A few of the more minor characters manage to rise above it slightly but only slightly and while they might possess a hint of personality, I’m still not given enough to ever care about them.
Which spawns another complication. If I don’t care who lives and who dies, or, indeed, if any live at all, where’s the excitement, the drama, the gripping fear my favourite character is going to be eaten alive?
The other strange thing about Heaven’s Shadow is it’s habit of starting the chapter with a few lines of gripping dialogue and then scrabbling to explain the context in an immediate flashback. It actually does this for the whole first part of the book. We get the excitement of being aboard the space craft before they touch down but for the next few chapters after, it bumbles around some dull, dreary back story. A few snapshot flashbacks, no more than a page long would have been sufficient. Once I’d started noticing it, I realise they do a lot. It’s fine, ooo, once or twice but when they continue it chapter after chapter, it gets on my internal organs.
My last rant point is that the dialogue has some truly botched lines that just don’t
make sense. I even re-read them and I still couldn’t work out who was talking. Again, I wonder if this is because both writers are more used to mediums with visual qualities. Where the confusion isn’t applicable because we can see who’s talking.
Can I recommend Heaven’s Shadow? Well, perhaps if you’re into space sci-fi you might be able to look past its flaws to the juicy ideas beneath. But I’d recommend putting it below some of the better examples and using it as a last resort. A ‘it’s-this-or-watching-golf’ sort of thing.
Friday, 29 July 2011
Shadowmagic by John Lenahan
I don’t normally dislike a book for the quality of writing. Sometimes I will bemoan a particular habit or tone of voice – like King’s strange turns of phrase – but I’ve very rarely gone into a book thinking ‘I wonder if this has ever been edited?’. I’m surprised Shadowmagic has managed to get through the trials of the publishing world. I decided to look up Lenhan’s resume, sure in my impression that he’d be a young, first time writer with not much under his belt. Correct on the first timer, wrong on everything else. He’s a fifty year old illusionist and entertainer, who voiced the talking toaster in Red Dwarf. I have to wonder if he got published because of who he is and who he knows rather than because someone genuinely read the book and thought it was sterling stuff.
The story revolves around Conor, the son of a one handed man, who is randomly attacked by some strange people on horseback. He’s knocked out and when he reawakens he finds out he has a mother he never knew about, a murdering uncle and aunt and less chance of survival than a slug at a hedgehog convention. He manages to escape said murdering relatives and thus begins a journey through a magic land.
What Lenahan does get right are the ideas, which I’m not entirely sure were all original, but they were shiny enough to continue enticing me. Talking trees – mental communication before anyone starts thinking of Pocahontas – spells fuelled by gold or tree sap and a rite of passage that can create new lands.
Unfortunately, the plot is so riddled with holes, it falls apart for me. A quick list of some of the most glaring problems (few spoilers coming up here so skip if you feel the need):
1 The whole reason Conor is in trouble is a prophecy saying that he will be the ruin of the magical land. Except, if he hadn’t been kidnapped by his evil uncle in the first place, he’d have never been in a position to ruin anything. I could understand this if the uncle had come up with a reason to kidnap Conor days before he unfolded his master plan but no.
2 Without giving too much away, the prophecy sort of changes tack at the end of the book. It goes from ‘The son of the one handed man must die, in case he buggers up this land’ – I’m paraphrasing – to ‘The son of the one handed man must be sacrificed because…um’. Consistency if you’d be so kind.
3 The magic spell that transports Conor and his father into the land is never explained and one of the characters they meet very earlier on in the book could have performed the spell to send them back again – and does…at the end of the book – but there’s never any particular explanation about why they aren’t sent back immediately. This could have easily been solved by making the spell difficult to perform, or place specific or in need of a particular ingredient.
Then there are those writing quality problems I was chuntering on about before. First off, when introducing a character, it’s a good idea to show them in their natural environment. So…Doctor Who scrabbling around the Tardis or Frodo in the Shire before it all goes tits up. We never get this sort of introduction to Conor. There’s two and a bit pages where Conor helps his Dad put a shirt on and explains a few things but it’s ‘infodumping’ a lot of the time – all tell, no show. And a lot of it is about his Dad. Boring, boring and bad.
From a published book, you tend to expect a good level of literacy as well as a decent writing skill, especially from a children’s book. These are the writers of tomorrow you’re writing for! The sentence: ‘To my right the trees changed to beech but not the thin spindly trees I was used to, but spectacular white-barked beeches with girth and height of Californian Redwoods’ makes me cringe. Two ‘but’s in the same sentence? Two mentions of ‘beech’ and ‘tree’?
Perhaps I’m being too fussy. But this sort of this keeps cropping up. It feels like Lenaham hasn’t gone through enough stages of editing, because that sentence, and others, should have been picked up. There’s an opportunity to get some great description in there. That second ‘tree’? I’d change to ‘sticks. The ‘beeches’ to something like ‘colossi’ or perhaps ‘towers’. And I wonder how many teens actually know how big a Californian Redwood is?
On the front cover, it’s called ‘A Lord of the Rings for the 21st Century. Only a lot shorter. And funnier. And completely different.’ Yes, I’d agree with the shorter and certainly the completely different but funnier? I’ve read the first book of the LotR series and, I suppose, it’s not exactly a bag of laughs or, indeed, any other container of a joyous emotion. But then, neither is Shadowmagic. The blurb includes the phrase ‘it will make you laugh on nearly every page.’ I think I smiled twice throughout the whole book. Could have been an involuntary spasm. Hard to tell.
I do not recommend Shadowmagic. Ever. Do not read it.
The story revolves around Conor, the son of a one handed man, who is randomly attacked by some strange people on horseback. He’s knocked out and when he reawakens he finds out he has a mother he never knew about, a murdering uncle and aunt and less chance of survival than a slug at a hedgehog convention. He manages to escape said murdering relatives and thus begins a journey through a magic land.
What Lenahan does get right are the ideas, which I’m not entirely sure were all original, but they were shiny enough to continue enticing me. Talking trees – mental communication before anyone starts thinking of Pocahontas – spells fuelled by gold or tree sap and a rite of passage that can create new lands.
Unfortunately, the plot is so riddled with holes, it falls apart for me. A quick list of some of the most glaring problems (few spoilers coming up here so skip if you feel the need):
1 The whole reason Conor is in trouble is a prophecy saying that he will be the ruin of the magical land. Except, if he hadn’t been kidnapped by his evil uncle in the first place, he’d have never been in a position to ruin anything. I could understand this if the uncle had come up with a reason to kidnap Conor days before he unfolded his master plan but no.
2 Without giving too much away, the prophecy sort of changes tack at the end of the book. It goes from ‘The son of the one handed man must die, in case he buggers up this land’ – I’m paraphrasing – to ‘The son of the one handed man must be sacrificed because…um’. Consistency if you’d be so kind.
3 The magic spell that transports Conor and his father into the land is never explained and one of the characters they meet very earlier on in the book could have performed the spell to send them back again – and does…at the end of the book – but there’s never any particular explanation about why they aren’t sent back immediately. This could have easily been solved by making the spell difficult to perform, or place specific or in need of a particular ingredient.
Then there are those writing quality problems I was chuntering on about before. First off, when introducing a character, it’s a good idea to show them in their natural environment. So…Doctor Who scrabbling around the Tardis or Frodo in the Shire before it all goes tits up. We never get this sort of introduction to Conor. There’s two and a bit pages where Conor helps his Dad put a shirt on and explains a few things but it’s ‘infodumping’ a lot of the time – all tell, no show. And a lot of it is about his Dad. Boring, boring and bad.
From a published book, you tend to expect a good level of literacy as well as a decent writing skill, especially from a children’s book. These are the writers of tomorrow you’re writing for! The sentence: ‘To my right the trees changed to beech but not the thin spindly trees I was used to, but spectacular white-barked beeches with girth and height of Californian Redwoods’ makes me cringe. Two ‘but’s in the same sentence? Two mentions of ‘beech’ and ‘tree’?
Perhaps I’m being too fussy. But this sort of this keeps cropping up. It feels like Lenaham hasn’t gone through enough stages of editing, because that sentence, and others, should have been picked up. There’s an opportunity to get some great description in there. That second ‘tree’? I’d change to ‘sticks. The ‘beeches’ to something like ‘colossi’ or perhaps ‘towers’. And I wonder how many teens actually know how big a Californian Redwood is?
On the front cover, it’s called ‘A Lord of the Rings for the 21st Century. Only a lot shorter. And funnier. And completely different.’ Yes, I’d agree with the shorter and certainly the completely different but funnier? I’ve read the first book of the LotR series and, I suppose, it’s not exactly a bag of laughs or, indeed, any other container of a joyous emotion. But then, neither is Shadowmagic. The blurb includes the phrase ‘it will make you laugh on nearly every page.’ I think I smiled twice throughout the whole book. Could have been an involuntary spasm. Hard to tell.
I do not recommend Shadowmagic. Ever. Do not read it.
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Where Afterlife went wrong
4/5 stars
The Resident Evil films are a perfect blend of story and fight scenes, just enough of the first, heavy on the second. But that’s fine; if you’re watching them for the love story, you need to work on your choice of films.
Fourth in the series (of the live action films), Afterlife is not bringing out any new surprises on the basic format and I can see most of the plot coming from a mile away. It’s what we expect from Resident Evil films and Afterlife delivers.
Unfortunately, someone on the directing team has been watching too many Matrix films recently. Here’s a list:
Mr Smith has a new face! But it’s so similar, I actually had to look up the actor playing Albert Wesker (not the best evil guy name by some margin) to make sure it wasn’t the same guy who did Mr Smith. They share a love of wearing sunglasses indoors, moving faster than the camera can pick up and generally kicking ass. On the sunglasses note, Wesker throws his at two of the characters for no reason other than, I assume, to make use of 3D. It didn’t distract the characters in any way and he immediately puts them back on again afterwards. Resident Evil wins the Least Subtle Film Ever award.
Bullet time, now used in completely pointless places! I can get the use of bullet time when either one of two things happens: someone avoids a bullet but only just or someone gets shot, significantly. Like Trinity did. Resident Evil appears to feel the need to use bullet time just to show a zombie getting shot.
Falling out of a window while still shooting! That famous scene in The Matrix Reloaded, where Trinity goes backwards through a window and has a falling fight scene with an Agent. That one? Well, it’s copied, almost move for move. Why, Resident Evil? Can’t you come up with your own?
All this makes me want to kick Resident Evil in the shins and tell it to come up with some ideas of its own.
But I still enjoyed the film. Axeman is a severe cutie – I want to take him home – and the overall acting skill is sublime. The characters feel like real people, the kind of people you actually want to survive. At no point was there the Horror genre staple: a cheerleader-like character who I want to feed to the zombies. And, yes, predictably, most characters die. But I’d feel a bit cheated if they all survived.
Afterlife has been set up with no ending, not as such. There is a clear indication, along the lines of a big neon sign, that another film is in the making. And I really really want to see it. Right now.
I should quickly justify the four stars rating. If Afterlife had made itself out to be a serious drama that dug deep into what it is to be human, I would have asked Axeman to kill everyone ever involved in that decision. But it isn’t. You get what you pay for. Except for the expectation that Neo is going to walk across the screen, looking suitably dour.
If you like the Resident Evil films you will be neither surprised by nor disappointed in Afterlife (unless the Matrix parallels kill you inside). It’s a suitable sequel to the other three and has set up an interesting premise for the fifth.
Stupid, annoying, but loveable. Go watch it.
The Resident Evil films are a perfect blend of story and fight scenes, just enough of the first, heavy on the second. But that’s fine; if you’re watching them for the love story, you need to work on your choice of films.
Fourth in the series (of the live action films), Afterlife is not bringing out any new surprises on the basic format and I can see most of the plot coming from a mile away. It’s what we expect from Resident Evil films and Afterlife delivers.
Unfortunately, someone on the directing team has been watching too many Matrix films recently. Here’s a list:
Mr Smith has a new face! But it’s so similar, I actually had to look up the actor playing Albert Wesker (not the best evil guy name by some margin) to make sure it wasn’t the same guy who did Mr Smith. They share a love of wearing sunglasses indoors, moving faster than the camera can pick up and generally kicking ass. On the sunglasses note, Wesker throws his at two of the characters for no reason other than, I assume, to make use of 3D. It didn’t distract the characters in any way and he immediately puts them back on again afterwards. Resident Evil wins the Least Subtle Film Ever award.
Bullet time, now used in completely pointless places! I can get the use of bullet time when either one of two things happens: someone avoids a bullet but only just or someone gets shot, significantly. Like Trinity did. Resident Evil appears to feel the need to use bullet time just to show a zombie getting shot.
Falling out of a window while still shooting! That famous scene in The Matrix Reloaded, where Trinity goes backwards through a window and has a falling fight scene with an Agent. That one? Well, it’s copied, almost move for move. Why, Resident Evil? Can’t you come up with your own?
All this makes me want to kick Resident Evil in the shins and tell it to come up with some ideas of its own.
But I still enjoyed the film. Axeman is a severe cutie – I want to take him home – and the overall acting skill is sublime. The characters feel like real people, the kind of people you actually want to survive. At no point was there the Horror genre staple: a cheerleader-like character who I want to feed to the zombies. And, yes, predictably, most characters die. But I’d feel a bit cheated if they all survived.
Afterlife has been set up with no ending, not as such. There is a clear indication, along the lines of a big neon sign, that another film is in the making. And I really really want to see it. Right now.
I should quickly justify the four stars rating. If Afterlife had made itself out to be a serious drama that dug deep into what it is to be human, I would have asked Axeman to kill everyone ever involved in that decision. But it isn’t. You get what you pay for. Except for the expectation that Neo is going to walk across the screen, looking suitably dour.
If you like the Resident Evil films you will be neither surprised by nor disappointed in Afterlife (unless the Matrix parallels kill you inside). It’s a suitable sequel to the other three and has set up an interesting premise for the fifth.
Stupid, annoying, but loveable. Go watch it.
Hey, Stargate Universe, cheer the hell up!
3/5 stars
I’m a solid fan of the Stargate series. SG1 is as close to the perfect programme as I’ve ever seen, occasionally formulaic but otherwise a shining example of good science fiction. Stargate Atlantis is its slightly disfigured but ultimately loveable cousin.
Stargate Universe, to complete the picture, is the whiny kid in the corner that you really want to like but annoys you to hell and back.
Here’s the basic plot: people, stuck on alien ship, in an unknown galaxy and unable to get home. Survival, struggle, strife. Massive scenes where everyone laments about how bad it is and generally looks depressed.
That’s my main problem with Universe, which you may have guessed from the title. It takes itself so seriously, that the otherwise awesome characters take on this hand-to-forehead-its-so-terrible tone.
Talking of the characters, most of them are 2D and there purely to move the plot forward. I wanted to stab Chloe in the face for most of the first season and, while I understand she’s meant to be the unlucky bystander that got pulled into things she wasn’t meant to, her scenes feel like they’ve been ripped from something set in a high school.
The only characters I’m interested in are Eli Wallace, Nicholas Rush and, possibly, Everett Young. All three of them qualify for ‘actual human’ status- they manage to appear more realistic than a cardboard cut out. Eli is the most likeable, although if you peer at him long enough, you can see the faint outlines of an arrow pointed at his head saying ‘good guy, token geek’.
Rush’s sense of honour appears to be as flexible as Rolf Harris’ wobbly board but that’s fine, he clearly has an agenda and is following it realistically. Robert Carlyle is a fantastic actor and plays Rush very very well.
Young is another matter. I can’t decide whether he deserves a medal or a knuckle sandwich. Probably both. He goes from reasonable Colonel to complete idiot, has the leadership skills of a hermit and in no way deserves the description ‘handsome, capable, former SG team leader’ or indeed, ‘like the Jack O'Neill of ten years ago’. No, no he isn’t. The man doesn’t understand the word ‘humour’, which was O’Neill’s forte. That said, he does come off as human - a flawed, annoying human, but of our race none the less.
Despite all that, Universe is still bringing in big audiences. The story lines are completely new, with the possible exception of Darkness which has echoes of Atlantis’ beginning episodes. They charter new characters, worlds and generally use the series to try out unexplored avenues. It lacks SG1’s focus on the Stargate and the missions through it, instead opting for a more human angle - Universe is about the people, trapped on an alien ship in an unknown galaxy and how they deal, or fail to deal, with it. You genuinely feel for the characters, even a few of the cardboard ones. And, now in its second season, Universe has set up some pretty big questions, which I’m eager to see answered.
So, watch it and give it a chance, especially if you liked SG1 and Atlantis. But line up some comedy after watching. You’re going to need it.
I’m a solid fan of the Stargate series. SG1 is as close to the perfect programme as I’ve ever seen, occasionally formulaic but otherwise a shining example of good science fiction. Stargate Atlantis is its slightly disfigured but ultimately loveable cousin.
Stargate Universe, to complete the picture, is the whiny kid in the corner that you really want to like but annoys you to hell and back.
Here’s the basic plot: people, stuck on alien ship, in an unknown galaxy and unable to get home. Survival, struggle, strife. Massive scenes where everyone laments about how bad it is and generally looks depressed.
That’s my main problem with Universe, which you may have guessed from the title. It takes itself so seriously, that the otherwise awesome characters take on this hand-to-forehead-its-so-terrible tone.
Talking of the characters, most of them are 2D and there purely to move the plot forward. I wanted to stab Chloe in the face for most of the first season and, while I understand she’s meant to be the unlucky bystander that got pulled into things she wasn’t meant to, her scenes feel like they’ve been ripped from something set in a high school.
The only characters I’m interested in are Eli Wallace, Nicholas Rush and, possibly, Everett Young. All three of them qualify for ‘actual human’ status- they manage to appear more realistic than a cardboard cut out. Eli is the most likeable, although if you peer at him long enough, you can see the faint outlines of an arrow pointed at his head saying ‘good guy, token geek’.
Rush’s sense of honour appears to be as flexible as Rolf Harris’ wobbly board but that’s fine, he clearly has an agenda and is following it realistically. Robert Carlyle is a fantastic actor and plays Rush very very well.
Young is another matter. I can’t decide whether he deserves a medal or a knuckle sandwich. Probably both. He goes from reasonable Colonel to complete idiot, has the leadership skills of a hermit and in no way deserves the description ‘handsome, capable, former SG team leader’ or indeed, ‘like the Jack O'Neill of ten years ago’. No, no he isn’t. The man doesn’t understand the word ‘humour’, which was O’Neill’s forte. That said, he does come off as human - a flawed, annoying human, but of our race none the less.
Despite all that, Universe is still bringing in big audiences. The story lines are completely new, with the possible exception of Darkness which has echoes of Atlantis’ beginning episodes. They charter new characters, worlds and generally use the series to try out unexplored avenues. It lacks SG1’s focus on the Stargate and the missions through it, instead opting for a more human angle - Universe is about the people, trapped on an alien ship in an unknown galaxy and how they deal, or fail to deal, with it. You genuinely feel for the characters, even a few of the cardboard ones. And, now in its second season, Universe has set up some pretty big questions, which I’m eager to see answered.
So, watch it and give it a chance, especially if you liked SG1 and Atlantis. But line up some comedy after watching. You’re going to need it.
Outcasts
5/5 stars
Outcasts
I have very little faith in British TV. Most of it is eye-stabbingly awful. I’m looking at you BBC3. You and your ‘Hotter Than My Daughter’.
And then there’s Outcasts.
I’ll be honest. I downloaded the first episode from iPlayer and then ignored it for a good six weeks. But when I finally got round to watching it, Outcasts was ready and waiting to surprise me.
This is what I was expecting:
A low budget, poorly scripted show with more holes than swiss cheese. There’d be some actors working their socks off but ultimately being pulled down by the rest of the cast. And the sort of special effects last seen on the old Daleks (sink plungers included). What I got was something entirely different and wonderfully surprising.
Here’s the basic premise: Something bad happened back on Earth and the human race has been shipping itself to a new planet. Ten years after the first landing, things are going alright, people are surviving. But there’s unresolved history, new arrivals and some seriously bad weather, the kind only seen in the extreme wildernesses and Wales.
Cue drama. What I love third best about Outcasts is its unwavering focus. It’s about humanity - what it is to be human and where the moral lines can or will be drawn when survival is uncertain. Outcasts isn’t too interested in going heavy with the science fiction elements either. The touches of sci-fi are delicate and while they’re occasionally plot-moving touches, they don’t retract from the humanity angle. Most of the science is glossed over but what isn’t is done convincingly and with as much realism as any science fiction show can.
My second favourite thing about Outcasts is the characters and the actors behind them. Each character has been carefully crafted and all of them have shady history, vices or bad personality traits. This, in my opinion, is essential. Evil antagonists are boring, good heroes even more so. But blur the line between the two, as Outcasts does, and you get something approaching reality, as well as interesting and diverse characters.
So far, I've grown most attached to Cass Cromwell, whose heart is in the right place even if his temper isn’t. Portrayed by Daniel Mays, of Ashes to Ashes fame, Cornwell tries to do well but like all of the best heroes in sticky situations, he has to make difficult choices and deal with the consequences.
Also making an appearance is MI5 drama Spooks’ Hermione Norris, Battlestar Galactica’s Jamie Bamber, Eric Mabius of Ugly Betty and CSI: Miami fame and Liam Cunningham who recently appeared in Clash of the Titans. Not the most impressive of films to have on your CV but he plays President Tate in Outcasts, which brings me on to my next point.
My favourite thing of the series: President Tate’s eyebrows. I get hypnotised with how pointy they are. Then he raises one and I can’t help being surprised he doesn’t slice bits off the furniture when he turns around.
So. Would I recommend Outcasts?
Yes, wholeheartedly and without reservation. Even if you’re not big on sci-fi, Outcasts may just surprise you. It’s small enough to not warrant much press but it’s an oasis in an otherwise dead and depressing desert. Give it a go.
--
Outcasts was cancelled on 14th March, due to poor ratings.
Outcasts
I have very little faith in British TV. Most of it is eye-stabbingly awful. I’m looking at you BBC3. You and your ‘Hotter Than My Daughter’.
And then there’s Outcasts.
I’ll be honest. I downloaded the first episode from iPlayer and then ignored it for a good six weeks. But when I finally got round to watching it, Outcasts was ready and waiting to surprise me.
This is what I was expecting:
A low budget, poorly scripted show with more holes than swiss cheese. There’d be some actors working their socks off but ultimately being pulled down by the rest of the cast. And the sort of special effects last seen on the old Daleks (sink plungers included). What I got was something entirely different and wonderfully surprising.
Here’s the basic premise: Something bad happened back on Earth and the human race has been shipping itself to a new planet. Ten years after the first landing, things are going alright, people are surviving. But there’s unresolved history, new arrivals and some seriously bad weather, the kind only seen in the extreme wildernesses and Wales.
Cue drama. What I love third best about Outcasts is its unwavering focus. It’s about humanity - what it is to be human and where the moral lines can or will be drawn when survival is uncertain. Outcasts isn’t too interested in going heavy with the science fiction elements either. The touches of sci-fi are delicate and while they’re occasionally plot-moving touches, they don’t retract from the humanity angle. Most of the science is glossed over but what isn’t is done convincingly and with as much realism as any science fiction show can.
My second favourite thing about Outcasts is the characters and the actors behind them. Each character has been carefully crafted and all of them have shady history, vices or bad personality traits. This, in my opinion, is essential. Evil antagonists are boring, good heroes even more so. But blur the line between the two, as Outcasts does, and you get something approaching reality, as well as interesting and diverse characters.
So far, I've grown most attached to Cass Cromwell, whose heart is in the right place even if his temper isn’t. Portrayed by Daniel Mays, of Ashes to Ashes fame, Cornwell tries to do well but like all of the best heroes in sticky situations, he has to make difficult choices and deal with the consequences.
Also making an appearance is MI5 drama Spooks’ Hermione Norris, Battlestar Galactica’s Jamie Bamber, Eric Mabius of Ugly Betty and CSI: Miami fame and Liam Cunningham who recently appeared in Clash of the Titans. Not the most impressive of films to have on your CV but he plays President Tate in Outcasts, which brings me on to my next point.
My favourite thing of the series: President Tate’s eyebrows. I get hypnotised with how pointy they are. Then he raises one and I can’t help being surprised he doesn’t slice bits off the furniture when he turns around.
So. Would I recommend Outcasts?
Yes, wholeheartedly and without reservation. Even if you’re not big on sci-fi, Outcasts may just surprise you. It’s small enough to not warrant much press but it’s an oasis in an otherwise dead and depressing desert. Give it a go.
--
Outcasts was cancelled on 14th March, due to poor ratings.
Monsters
5/5 Stars
There’s something behind you! But you don’t know where because you’re blindfolded, in a dark room and only have a post-it note for a weapon!
Relax. It’s already eaten your brain.
Monsters is the sort of horror film I like. Where you see so little of the creatures that you forget what they look like and suffer an embarrassing moment trying to remember their names.
The monsters are there, make no mistake, but you’ve no idea where. They loom over the entire plot like the huge walking octopuses they are, but they’re so big, they’ve fused with part of the background and, for most of the film, stay there.
That sounds like a criticism. It’s not. Horror movies should never be about the creature under the bed. They should focus on the quivering child, too scared to sleep. It’s humans that make a horror movie scary. If there’s no one to die, no one to loose everything they have, where’s the drama?
The real piece de la resistance, though, are the two protagonists; Andrew Kaulder, a photographer, and Sam Wynden, the daughter of Andrew’s boss. They fight to get home, travelling through territory ‘infected’ by walking octopuses. Scoot McNairy, who played Andrew and Whitney Able, depicting Sam, acted their socks off, aided by incredible dialogue. Often it’s what they don’t say that’s most poignant, and there are scenes where Andrew and Sam’s only reaction is to stare silently. I can only applaud whoever was brave enough to allow long minutes to pass without a single word. That says something of the actors, the script and the flawless direction.
If I had to have a criticism, it would be that the CGI is obvious. You can generally tell what’s been added in later. But it’s a small complaint and it didn’t hamper my enjoyment one iota.
I suppose, I might add, I wanted there to be…more. The ending is sudden but incredibly brilliant. It leaves you with a question, one that I want desperately to be answered but also one that I don’t think should be. Like Inception, it wants you to make up your own mind, it wants you to think.
And that is all good, if you ask me.
There’s something behind you! But you don’t know where because you’re blindfolded, in a dark room and only have a post-it note for a weapon!
Relax. It’s already eaten your brain.
Monsters is the sort of horror film I like. Where you see so little of the creatures that you forget what they look like and suffer an embarrassing moment trying to remember their names.
The monsters are there, make no mistake, but you’ve no idea where. They loom over the entire plot like the huge walking octopuses they are, but they’re so big, they’ve fused with part of the background and, for most of the film, stay there.
That sounds like a criticism. It’s not. Horror movies should never be about the creature under the bed. They should focus on the quivering child, too scared to sleep. It’s humans that make a horror movie scary. If there’s no one to die, no one to loose everything they have, where’s the drama?
The real piece de la resistance, though, are the two protagonists; Andrew Kaulder, a photographer, and Sam Wynden, the daughter of Andrew’s boss. They fight to get home, travelling through territory ‘infected’ by walking octopuses. Scoot McNairy, who played Andrew and Whitney Able, depicting Sam, acted their socks off, aided by incredible dialogue. Often it’s what they don’t say that’s most poignant, and there are scenes where Andrew and Sam’s only reaction is to stare silently. I can only applaud whoever was brave enough to allow long minutes to pass without a single word. That says something of the actors, the script and the flawless direction.
If I had to have a criticism, it would be that the CGI is obvious. You can generally tell what’s been added in later. But it’s a small complaint and it didn’t hamper my enjoyment one iota.
I suppose, I might add, I wanted there to be…more. The ending is sudden but incredibly brilliant. It leaves you with a question, one that I want desperately to be answered but also one that I don’t think should be. Like Inception, it wants you to make up your own mind, it wants you to think.
And that is all good, if you ask me.
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