Book Review: Railhead

My recent re-engagement with the works of Andre Norton, and something of a re-awakening of an only slightly dormant infatuation with Golden Age Science Fiction couldn’t have come at a better time. My brain was in just the right condition to receive Railhead, the new novel by Philip Reeve. Longtime readers of the blog will know that Reeve is one of my favorite contemporary writers. I first discovered him through his juvenile Jules Verne style romp Larklight, but really came to be a fan with his book Mortal Engines and its follow-ups. With those books, he delved into a lot of the ‘big idea’ Science Fiction spirit I love so much. And he has returned to that with Railhead, a very big idea, Golden Age soaked adventure yarn. A galactic railroad network, threading through stargates, taking humanity from world to world; all under the watchful eyes of ancient AI. Excellent.

What Reeve does that was less common during the era of Asimov, Norton, Heinlein, and others, is populate his wild settings with interesting, nuanced, challenging characters. In Railhead, Zen doesn’t always make great choices. He doesn’t always do the right thing. He’s not a perfect young man. And he’s not alone. Are the villains really villains? Are the heroes heroes? Or are they just people trying to do the best they can with the things they’ve got? Whatever the case, I really like reading about Zen. I love Flex, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, and Nova. I was curious to find out where the Threnody Noon story would go. And the Guardians? The Hive Monks? I want more.

This is the beginning of a longer story; that much is kinda obvious. There are a lot of things introduced, and not all of them are explored to satisfactory degrees. But there is a satisfying story arc to the book. While leaving things in place for events to continue, I like that there is some closure, some resolution. And I’m certainly looking forward to finding out what happens next.

Also, and you’ll know this if you’ve read his other Young Adult novels, Reeve is one of those authors who seems to delight in abusing his characters, and yes, killing them off...especially if they’re one of the ones you really love. This is something that I find thrilling. Knowing that any character, at any time, could get snuffed out makes the reading more intense. And it challenges me, in my own writing, to be more daring; to remember that in life and so in stories, stuff happens. People get hurt, they die, they come into sudden fame or glory or infamy, they fall in love with the wrong person, that make the wrong choice, they find unexpected beauty.

Like Heinlein’s “juvenile” books, and a lot of others from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Railhead features some young protagonists and there’s no explicit sex. Otherwise, it’s written as though for adults, without condescension or the accepted lowering of writing standards frequently found in young adult fiction. This is a good book. And it happens to be appropriate for teenagers. Sci-fi readers of all ages should check this out. And of course, go back and read Mortal Engines and the other books about the Predator Cities. Great stuff. Hester Shaw, man. One of the great characters.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Book Review: Ice Crown

In rediscovering my love of Andre Norton, I got particularly interested in her “Forerunner” series, a set of novels sharing a ‘future history,’ like Alan Dean Foster’s “Humanx Commonwealth,” or Larry Niven’s “N-Space.”  However, things get a bit challenging.  That I’ve found so far, there is little scholarly work on Norton, and no definitive guide to the Forerunner stories. Ice Crown, the book I’ve just read is not listed on several sites I’ve found as being part of it, yet it is clearly set in the same universe, building on some of the same ideas.

Set on a restricted world where local humans live in a medieval style society, it features Roane, a young woman in the Service who has come to the world to investigate the possibility of Forerunner technology. Instead, she gets tangled up in local power struggles, breaks the Service’s rules about interference, and stumbles upon something from a dark time in Human space exploration, the time of the Psychocrats. This book is the first time I remember hearing references to this era of rule by mind-control masters. I’ll be curious to see if they feature in other stories.

On the one hand, I like that Norton gets more into character development in this book than in some of her earlier work. On the other, I find Roane to be a bit dull. There is a story reason, perhaps, for her being a bit of a void. I suppose. But considering the book does start to drag, in spite of its barely over 200 page length, I think, perhaps the character development wasn’t so great.

Norton churned out a ton of novels in her day, and maybe not all of them are winners. This one is OK. If they ever turned her Forerunner stories into a TV series, this would probably serve well as the basis of an episode. Beyond that? Eh. 

-Matthew J. Constantine

Book Review: Star Hunter

    Fans of science fiction simply must read Andre Norton (Alice Mary Norton). She was one of the architects of the genre, writing a daunting number of books that stand alone Asimov, Herbert, and the rest. She creates visions of believable futures, peopled with multi-faceted characters. And she does it in just a hundred or two pages.

    In Star Hunter, we’re introduced to Ras Hume, a safari guide and big game hunter who takes wealthy folk to specially selected game worlds. But he’s also running a con, getting the mob and a desperate orphan wrapped up with him. And when they stumble upon something unexpected, all kinds of trouble drops on their head.

    When I’m reading Norton’s work from the 50s and 60s, I can’t help but think she was crafting a larger universe without every getting too strict about it. I often get the feeling that if you flew far enough in one direction or another, you’d find the characters from one of her other novels going through their particular set of struggles. If I were a better man, I’d assemble some kind of guide to her worlds; try to figure out which stories belong together.

Star Hunter
Author: Andre Norton
Publisher: Bean
ISBN: (book two in the collection Secret of the Stars) 978-1-4767-3674-7

-Matthew J. Constantine

Book Review: Secret of the Lost Race

    Andre Norton (aka Alice Mary Norton) is among the great Golden Age Science Fiction writers (I consider the 50s as part of the Golden Age, though some say it ended in the late 40s).  Though her later career moved into a sort of Cat Fancy/Fantasy thread, her early work was core, essential stuff.  This tale is of a young seeming man with a shrouded past, working in a gambling hall.  When things go wrong, he ends up shanghaied and forced into labor on an ice planet.  From there, conflict, adventure, political intrigue, and galactic revelations.

    Going back and reading books from this era (used to be my bread and butter, but I don’t read nearly as much anymore), I’m always a bit taken aback by how modern they feel.  In large part, I think this is because movies, which I watch more frequently, are always so far behind books.  Settings and styles of books written in the 40s and 50s would not see depiction in film until the 80s, or even 2010s.

    I enjoyed the heck out of the book, but it feels like part of a larger whole.  Often, while reading books of this time, the worlds feel so fleshed out that when the book is done, I wish to read more stories.  Yet, most of the time there are no more.  It’s a testament to the skills of the writers, but it’s frustrating, none the less.   For fans of science fiction, Andre Norton is a must and this would be a good introduction.

Secret of the Lost Race
Author: Andre Norton
Publisher: Bean
ISBN: (I read this as part of a double volume called Secret of the Stars) 978-1-4767-3674-7

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/4-3/10)

When the Moors Ruled in Europe:  There is a time in Spanish history that has been largely ignored, and indeed suppressed.  Far less simple and black & white than the high school text book version of history (as it always is), there feels like a near utopian experiment that almost succeeded beautifully and collapsed depressingly.  This is an interesting documentary, presented with Bettany Hughes’ usual lusty excitement for her subject.  It’s important to remember for anyone interested in history that you must not judge events by, or reshape them to fit, your modern perceptions and politics.  Like any good documentary, this makes you want to read more.  Having read a bunch on Spain during this time, I do find it a bit frustrating that there isn’t more to the film.  At only two episodes, I think it could easily have been expanded to four or six.  Major subjects and important aspects of the era are glossed over or ignored completely.  Again, a good starting point, but nowhere near as comprehensive as  I’d have liked.

Centurion:  If you’re looking for a complex study of the human condition, or a grand historical drama, keep moving.  If you’re looking for a bloody, gory, pulse pounding chase film featuring a band of Romans facing off against a hoard of Picts, check this out.  Beautiful scenery, a driving pace, and solid performances use the simple premise well.  It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it rolls.

The Sex Adventures of the Three Musketeers:  As hard as it might be to believe, this Euro-trash cinema is awful.  Just awful.  Not funny.  Ugly, ugly people.  Feels like it was edited as part of a William S. Burroughs ‘cut-ups’ project.  Skip it.

Why was did I ever put this on my queue?  I don't know.

Natural City:  Neon lights and holograms light the rainy streets of a depressing future city, while cop R’s life spirals out of control in writer/director Byung-chun Min’s reworking of Blade Runner, Natural City (2003).  Even with a chicken alarm clock to wake up with, R isn’t satisfied until he gets his drunk hands on despondent, nearly expired cyborg Ria. There’s also a young prostitute/fortune teller/gardener living in the slums who inexplicably loves R.  Oh, and there’s a cop who likes R for some reason, and keeps trying to save him.  And some killer cyborgs (who never miss a spinning class).  And a creepy little albino-Yoda guy who knows his brain-chips.  These characters very, very slowly start coming together, and I guess a plot begins to develop.  Skip this and watch Blade Runner instead.  (Read my complete review at cineAWESOME!)

Bored to Death Season 2:  Like the best of TV, this show always leaves me wanting more.  I love all the crazy characters and their bent but relatable lives.  Never going quite where you expect, but always taking you to good places, this is one of the best shows nobody talks about, or seems to have seen.  If you’re one of the countless who hasn’t checked it out, do so.  Especially if you’re a fan of Wes Anderson, or any modern surrealist/absurdist type storytellers.

John Carter:  So, this isn’t the amazing film adaptation I’ve been waiting for since I was a wee lad, transported to the mad worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs in the attic of my old house.  And no, it doesn’t live up to a century of anticipation and preparation.  How could it?  But it doesn’t suck.  Part of the problem with this movie finally being done is that John Carter’s story has been looted for so many other popular films, books, video games, comics, cartoons, etc. that not much seems especially new.  But that was to be expected.  Superman, Star Wars, Avatar, and so many others are at least in part inspired by Burroughs’ books.  But what really frustrated me was that the film makers (or the studio) were simply not brave enough to ‘go for it.’  This is a movie about a Civil War vet who gets transported to a fantastic Mars, where giant four armed green men, red skinned, yellow skinned, and black skinned men, plant men, white apes, and lots of other strange things live in constant conflict.  It should be much larger than life; crazy!  Yet, the movie never takes many chances, doesn’t revel in its strangeness, and never quite embraces what makes the books classic (why is everyone wearing so much clothing?).  Even the title is bland.  Not “Under the Moons of Mars,” “A Princess of Mars,” or even “John Carter of Mars.”  It’s like Disney was scared of its own creation, which is sad, and ultimately self defeating.  If you’re going to make a movie like this, then do it, don’t beat around the bush.  Anyway, the movie itself is a solid space opera, if nothing amazing.  The effects are good for the most part, and the cast does a pretty good job.  I’d have preferred the leads be a bit more mature or charismatic.  In the books, Deja Thoris is depicted as a goddess made flesh, yet in the film she comes off too often as an unsure young woman.  Anyway, as Disney seems to have abandoned this film long before it was ever released, and completely dropped the ball on building interest, I don’t see there being any sequels, which is too bad.  I’d have liked to see more of Barsoom (Mars) explored.  It was an OK beginning, but not nearly enough.

Storm Hawks: Shadow In the Skies:  While the dialog on this show is often pretty goofy, the overall writing isn’t too bad, and there are a lot of cool ideas.  The visuals are usually creative and the action exciting.  If you want to sit down and watch some science fiction that’s fun for the kids and not insulting to the adults, this is a good choice.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets:  The goofy Tomb Raider fun of the first film still holds in this sequel.  Look, it’s goofy, and Nic Cage is crazy (though restrained for him), but it’s still quite enjoyable.  Here’s hoping kids watching this will be more inclined to look into history, like I was when I saw Raiders of the Lost Arc as a lad.

Kick-Ass:  OK, so Ebert’s insane rant aside, this is clearly not a kids film.  So leave them at home.  Seriously.  That said, this movie is a lot of fun.  Filled with comic and movie nerd in-jokes, as well as some straight-up clever dialog and excellent performances, there’s plenty to like.  Oh yeah, and it’s ultra-violent.  Not 2008’s Rambo violent, but closer to that than your average action film.  And yes, there is cursing.  *Gasp*  Certainly worth a watch for comic readers, but also good for people who just enjoy a rip-roaring shoot ‘em up, chop ‘em up action film.  And though I’d like to see him in non-villainous roles for once, Mark Strong was cool once again as the big bad guy.  Nic Cage’s Adam West impersonation is flippin’ hysterical, too.

    I got a few episodes of Charlie’s Angels in, which I’m continuing to love.  Silly?  Sure.  But dang, those girls look nice.  And an appearance from Fernando Lamas was totally awesome.  Also got in another episode of From the Earth to the Moon and some Star Trek.

    I read another masterwork in low-key madness from comic writer/artist Jason.  See my review.

    And I finished Andre Norton’s Key Out of Time this week.  When there were only ten pages left, I wondered to myself, ‘how can she possibly resolve this four book series in such a short time?’  Well, she couldn’t.  The book is ultimately very frustrating.  First, the story of a few time agents stuck in the pseudo-Bronze Age of an alien world is OK, but not especially interesting.  Second, there are few particularly interesting ideas and no interesting characters.  But third and most aggravating, it doesn’t do anything to expand our understanding of the greater universe she created.  Even though the ‘baldies’ are a major player in the book, pretty much nothing of their culture or plans comes to light.  Who were they?  What was their civilization doing?  Why did they fall?  What were those ape things left in the ruins of their planets?  No answers.  After the fantastic promise of The Galactic Derelict, it’s deeply frustrating that the series doesn’t go big like it kept hinting at.  It feels like every major issue, be it the space race/war with the Russians, the rediscovery of star maps, or understanding of the Forerunners are left open and unfinished, which would be fine if this weren’t a four book series.  If there were a fifth book to wrap things up, I’d be less annoyed.

-Matt

Prodigal Son: Reading Science Fiction

Part Eighteen

    I’ve been eating up science fiction since I was a wee lad.  Give me laser blasters, space ships, giant alien lizards, and hot ladies (yes, the green ones too) in jumpsuits and I’m there.  Serious stuff, silly stuff, heroic stuff, and sleazy stuff.  I love it.  Not to say I’ll read anything.  Considering I’ve read several Star Trek novels, enjoyed the heck out of the Aliens/Predator books, and love Warhammer 40,000 stuff far more than it deserves (and much more than I enjoy the game), I’m actually quite picky when it comes to reading novels.  Like art or pornography, I can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it.

    After several years with very little fiction outside graphic novels getting jammed in my brain, I recently went on a classic science fiction kick.  I read books by Andre Norton I’ve been meaning to check out since I was a kid.  I read the first in a long series of John Grimes novels by A. Bertram Chandler.  I even picked up a Halo novel set in that video game universe’s distant past (not gonna lie, I absolutely love the universe that game is sit in; the game is a ton of fun, too).  And then, this week, for some reason I don’t fully understand, I was prompted to order and pick up all (well, two aren’t out yet) of Poul Anderson’s ‘Technic Civilization’ books, which have recently been collected in a series of omnibuses (omnibi?) from publisher Bean.  I’d tried a Flandry novel many years ago, at my father’s suggestion, but for whatever reason, couldn’t get into it at the time.  Perhaps, the time is now…ish.  Flandry doesn’t show up until something like the fourth omnibus. 

    Going back to reading Alan Dean Foster’s Humanx Commonwealth books and Larry Niven’s Known Space stories in high school, not to mention Heinlein’s Future History, Frank Herbert’s Dune books, and Asimov’s Foundation a bit later, I’ve loved expansive, well thought out science fiction settings and the cool characters that frequently inhabit them.  I find myself trying hard to imitate the grandiose, sometimes bloated histories and mythologies of these settings in my own work, for what it’s worth, and to varying degrees of success.

    The kind of science fiction I’ve got in mind goes way back.  At least as far back as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars (about to have a film version released as it turns 100 years old), and taken  up several notches by the likes of C.L. Moore with her Northwest Smith stories (as I’ve called them before, The Adventures of Han Solo as written by H.P. Lovecraft…with sex).  It’s the kind of star-hopping, rocket fueled adventure brought to the funny pages in Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.  (Burroughs’ John Carter and the Flash Gordon serials were probably the two biggest inspirations for Star Wars all those decades later).  But it probably had its time in the sun during the late 40s, the 50s, and early 60s, as the postwar era of hope and prosperity, along with the space race and fear of world ending atomic war, drove writers to envision star system and galaxy spanning civilizations, peopled with all sorts of cultures, creatures, beings, and ideas. 

    Each generation of writers built on, and/or reacted to the previous, creating waves of style and concept as technology changed, our culture changed, and our perception of ourselves and our future evolved.  At some point, the reaction against the boundless imagination and hope of earlier generations became the stronger element in science fiction, and the naysayers and neo-Luddites took control of the genre, preaching the evils of progress, the essential darkness and hopelessness of the human condition, and lots of other depressing, self-hating, anti-human nonsense the likes of which has rarely been achieved outside of French film or the Bible.  Not all of this post-Twilight Zone, post-hippie, irony besotted literature was (or is) bad.  And heck, I like a bleak dystopia as much as the next guy, and I’ll always have a place in my heart for cyberpunk.   But a lot of the wonder and thrill went out of the more popular science fiction.  I suppose it migrated over to the Tolkien disciples writing fantasy, but I couldn’t stick with that for long.  Too much ‘chosen one’ and stark ‘good VS evil’ dichotomy for my taste.  Not to mention that spells and demons were never as cool as blasters and aliens, even if their archetypal place within the story was essentially the same. 

    I don’t know if that logically brings me to my next point or not, but, onward I go.  One of the types of gaming I’m most interested in, but have had precious little experience of, is that Golden Age science fiction style adventure.  I’ve played a bit of Star Wars, run some Star Trek, Fading Suns, and Blue Planet.  But, I never played Traveller, which is solidly within the subgenre I’m grasping at.  I suppose there’s almost a spectrum, with Star Wars (and Fading Suns) on one end, and Blue Planet on the other.  Star Trek seems kind of off to one side, toward the Blue Planet end.  And Traveller would be the very center.  Kind of generic, yet balanced in a way that makes it special.  My recent discovery and purchase of Diaspora, which I’m sure was part of what got me back on this kick, seems tailored to my interests and gaming aspirations.  With a setting at just about the right balance that Traveller has, and a system more in tune with my low-maintenance, low-math, simple, quick and easy kind of gaming style, it may be just what I need and just what I want to play (hopefully soon).  

    So, putting together a good reading list for the sort of science fiction I am specifically enamored of at this moment, I’ve come up with a few selections.  They vary quite a bit, ranging across the above indicated spectrum, from the near fantasy of Dune (the RPG Fading Suns is on this end) to the semi-realistic techno-thriller of a Michael Crichton novel or Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (the RPG Blue Planet is somewhere in this area).  They appear on this list in no particular order. 


C.L. Moore- Northwest of Earth: A dashing rogue travels among the worlds of the Solar system, making a quick buck and battling nameless and ancient things that lurk in the shadows of dead and near-dead civilizations.  Moore’s stories manage to capture a lot of the cosmic horror of Lovecraft, but with a subtle humor and an undercurrent of disquieting sexuality that wasn’t all together common in her peers (though few were more asexual than Lovecraft). 

Larry Niven- The Known Space books, especially Ringworld, Protector, and The Integral Trees:  A super-science heavy, deep history featuring setting with lots of interesting characters and cultures.  This is some real Big Idea stuff.  Sometimes reading it, I get that very small feeling I get when looking at the night’s sky.  Don’t take that wrong.  I feel small.  I feel awed.  But I feel more alive than at any other time.  The universe is there.

Mike Resnick- His Far Future books, especially Santiago and The Return of Santiago:  Capturing some of the essential American Frontier vibe of classic Westerns, Resnick weaves myth with science fiction and creates magic.  Santiago was one of the most satisfying novels I’ve ever read.  It felt like I’d just sat across the fire from a master storyteller.  I imagine hearing Homer relate The Odyssey live would have felt something like it.  Also, if you enjoy Firefly’s special blend of science fiction and western, this should have plenty for you to love. 

Isaac Asimov- Foundation:  The Foundation trilogy is definitive Golden Age science fiction, with world-cities, sprawling civilizations, amazing technologies, and epoch spanning plots.  Like an archeologist finding the origins of our modern world in the remnants of ancient ruins, I found myself constantly picking up bits and ideas that would shape everything written after. 

E.C. Tubb- The Dumarest novels:  Though frustratingly difficult to get hold of right now, I’ve read a few of these, and the universe they create is interesting and exciting.  Dumarest is a wandering orphan of sorts, lost out there somewhere, just trying to find his way back home.  His home happens to be the mythological Terra, the supposed birthplace of humanity.  And some very bad people want to find it before he does.

Frank Herbert- His Dune novels:  Well deserving of its place as a classic of science fiction, I would argue that Dune is in fact simply a classic of literature in general, and should be much more widely read.  I even got a friend who HATES science fiction to read it, and he loved it.  It transcends genre like few others.  Juggling complex issues of science, religion, politics, and all the many things that we humans get up to when nobody’s watching, it features world building on a scale at least as big as Tolkien, but with masterful plotting and writing, too accompany.  And you know what?  I like all five of Frank Herbert’s sequel novels, too.  Yes, even God Emperor of Dune, a book where almost nothing happens for more than 400 pages, and I couldn’t get enough.  Herbert’s universe is grand, complex, heart stopping, sad, wondrous, and terrible.  And yet, as crazy as the specifics often become, at its heart, it always feels true enough to the world we live in. 

Andre Norton- Her Forerunner series:  What starts out as a fun but kind of forgettable Cold War era time travel story takes a turn for the crazy near the end, but doesn’t take it very far in The Time Traders.  However, not far into the second book, Galactic Derelict, things go bugnuts and this series demands to be put alongside Asimov as essential Golden Age reading.  Her career spanned a long time, and much of the latter two thirds doesn’t interest me one bit, but Andre Norton’s early work is top notch. 

Alan Dean Foster- The Humanx Commonwealth stories:  Foster has got to be one of the most prolific authors in the field, and sadly, that means he’s written a LOT of garbage.  However, most of the Humanx novels I have read (there are so many) have been good, and a few of them very good.  His particular setting feels very much in keeping with the above mentioned roleplaying game, Traveller.  And his books and stories span a lot of time.  I believe the most popular books from this setting are the Flinx and Pip adventures.  But my personal favorite is probably Nor Crystal Tears, a very cool first contact story told from the perspective of a Thranx, insect-like aliens who eventually become humanity’s greatest ally, but not without some serious problems.
 

    I still have to read more of Poul Anderson’s Technic Civilization, Jack McDevitt’s Hutch books, A. Bertram Chandler’s John Grimes series, and I have yet to even open Charles Ingrid’s The Sand Wars books.  And even from the above list, there are plenty of works I have yet to read, especially Niven and Foster.  And I left off a lot of stuff like the Halo and Warhammer 40,000 books, though some may very well be a part of what I’m talking about.  I’m also leaving off a lot of individual novels, like Richard Paul Russo’s Ship of Fools, because while quite good examples, frequently with lots of implied universe and history creation, they don’t do quite the same job of weaving worlds. 

    After quite a while of reading mostly non-fiction, it’s been nice to get back into reading novels and reminding myself of the wonder of classic science fiction.  It’s so rarely tapped in film, where I’ve always felt it could be stunningly realized if the effort were put forth.  Alas, for now, it’ll have to live in print and maybe, just maybe, in future sessions of a roleplaying game featuring yours truly. 

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (1/1/12 to 1/7/12)

    My first week without reliable access to the internet has frequently reminded me of the old Onion headline about an internet outage plunging the nation into productivity.  I read a graphic novel and finished a book in the first two days.  And in the latter half of the week, I started working on some various writing projects while also doing some major cleaning/rearranging around my living space.  Got a lot of my books out of boxes and up on shelves, which is really nice.  And that let me see a bunch of books I will either never read, or never read again.  Three plus boxes of books are now ready for a trip to the used book store.  However, without NetFlix instant and with being fairly busy, I got very little in the way of movie watching done. 


Doctor Who: Season Six:  The Doctor and friends are up to their old tricks in another round of the updated series.  Matt Smith has become my favorite of the new actors, I think, and his companions Amy and Rory are excellent.  In fact, by the end of season six, I think Rory may be second only to Leela as my favorite companion.  Lots of strange, mind bending stuff is revealed, playing on several ideas that have been introduced over the seasons.  Though it certainly has some major differences, especially in tone, to the classic series (which itself had vast differences over the years), everything still feels right, somehow.  Good stuff.  And, I think The Silence may even top the Weeping Angels in the creepy factor.

Hugo:  Another great love letter to Film, Hugo is filled with all the wonder and excitement that the movies bring out in me.  Two really good kid actors anchor the film, but the cast of adults is also fantastic, as is the story and imagery.  What starts out as a fairly standard lone-kid adventure movie turns into something so much more as the mysteries begin to be revealed.  One of 2011’s best movies, and one any fan of the movies should see.

Doctor Who: Enlightenment:  The third part of the whole Dark/Light Guardian story is certainly weird, if not especially great.  A bunch of detached beings run a crazy race through space on classic naval vessels.  Weird.  Worth a watch and it’s got some excellent guest actors.  Alas, it’s fairly forgettable.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark:  While watching Insidious last week, I was reminded of all that I didn’t like about horror films of the late 60s and 70s.  Watching this movie, I was reminded of the good.  It too had the feel of a horror movie from the 70s, but where Insidious failed, this succeeded.  Cool, creepy creatures, a mysterious location, shrouded history and myth and even a connection to Arthur Machen.  Some of the characters are a bit broad, especially Guy Pearce as the put upon father who can’t see past his own career to notice his kid in danger.  But, Katie Holmes is surprisingly good.  An unusual modern horror film in that it didn’t bore me to tears.

Appaloosa:  Star and director Ed Harris along with cinematographer Dean Semler sure can make a beautiful looking film.  Harris and Mortensen are excellent as two hired lawmen, exuding the gruff cool of dangerous men.  Unfortunately, Renee Zellweger as the female interest in the film is straight-up annoying in every scene she’s in, dragging down the overall quality of the picture.  Her character is interesting, but the actress simply isn’t up to it.  However, the film is pretty good.  And there are some interesting moral quandaries presented, too, with few answers even suggested.  Probably the most realistic shootouts I’ve ever seen, too.  Upon second viewing, I’m struck by the relationship between Harris and Mortensen.  I really enjoy watching the friendship between partners, and all the subtle exchanges between the two.

    I also watched a handful more episodes of Space Academy.  The show is OK, but never quite reaches the levels of imagination it could have.  And the cast is wonky.  The little kid annoying, and the ‘dashing’ lead guy looks like an extra confused Joey Lawrence.  Jason of Star Command was certainly better, not just in production but in writing.

   
    I managed to finish The Defiant Agent by Andre Norton.  I’d been picking away at it on my commute to work for a couple weeks, but wasn’t putting in any serious time/effort.  Without the internet to suck up so much of my time, I banged out that book in very little time.

    And, I still had time to read the Harlan Ellison graphic novel Phoenix Without Ashes.  Look, I know he’s beloved, but I’m not the biggest Ellison fan.  90% of that comes from the man himself.  Seeing him in interviews, on Politically Incorrect, and reading about his litigious antics, he just comes off as the worlds biggest ass (please don’t sue me, Mr. Ellison, for expressing my reaction to your public persona).  Now, that said, he has frequently been attached to projects I’ve enjoyed quite a bit.  He wrote one of the best episodes of Star Trek, wrote some pretty good Outer Limits (even one of the better New Outer Limits episodes was based on something of his), worked on Babylon 5, and though he struck his name from it, the short lived, but very cool 70s show, The Star Lost.

    It is that final tidbit, his work on The Star Lost that ties in to the graphic novel.  Phoenix Without Ashes is pretty much the pilot episode of that show done as a comic.  The idea is great, and it introduces a lot of potential, which the show went on to explore, though it never got very far.  I love the concepts.  Classic sci-fi stuff, with semi-primitive folk discovering they’re living in the ruins of a once great civilization.  Exploring not only the ruins, but the mysteries that created them.  Very cool.  However, here’s my frustration.  This seems to be a stand alone project.  I’ve seen no listing for a volume 2 or any kind of continuation.  This is an introduction, but it seems to have been left to stand on its own.  Erg.  To a degree, that’s more frustrating than the show, which got a season, but ended at a really interesting place.  Anyway, for the ideas alone, it’s worth checking out.  Sure, they’re nothing really new, but they’re done well.  And if you find out there’s going to be more to it, please let me know.

    On Sunday, Ben and I traveled once more into the DC, where we visited The National Archives.  If you’re in DC, check it out.  It works much better as an American History museum than the actual American History Museum.  It has lots of very cool exhibits, including some very interesting stuff about patents and inventions.  And, of course, the documents on display are impressive, though the room they’re in is quite dark, and many of the documents are faded past the point of being legible.  Still, you can almost taste the history.

    So, I’m learning what people did before the internet.  And you know what?  It’s not all bad.  Don’t get me wrong, the internet is awesome and a great tool.  And as soon as I’m able, I’ll get myself plugged back in.  But sometimes it’s nice to tune out for a while, take time to look around, and get back to some things you liked before instant communication became an everyday thing.  Heck, I almost feel like writing letters to folks.  Just for fun.  I’m not going to, but the thought has crossed my mind.

-Matt.