Slow Reader

Game Review - Quake 4 (X360)

2012-01-28T16:52:00.003Z

When the original Quake came out it was a revelation in 3D FPS gaming. You could use a mouse to look around! Wow! It was also an important milestone for multiplayer gaming, being one of the first things I played online with friends with QuakeWorld and all the rest. I also had a go at making levels with the QOOLE level editor, and making funny skins for my online character. Ah, them were the days. Messing with stuff used to be so easy, but sadly that's no longer so.

Quake II provided graphical improvements and a a different setting altogether - technically it was supposed to be another IP for id altogether, but for various reasons the Quake II name had to stick. Quake III Arena provided us with tournament-style gameplay and straightfoward multiplayer action, but Quake 4 (from Raven Software, everyone's friend) takes us back to the setting of Quake II to continue the story of the fight against the Strogg.

You are Corporal Kane - a member of Rhino squad, sent to Stroggos to fight those bastard robot cyborg things, the Strogg. A plan is hatched to destroy the Strogg's means of controlling all their units, which of course you are employed to carry out.

The id Tech 4 engine, used for Doom 3, was used for this entry into the franchise, and it doesn't really like being ported to console. It's not bad - the level of detail is impressive as is the lighting (remember this game is 6 or 7 years old) - but there are constant frame rate dips when...well, when anything is happening on screen that involves something moving. The facial animations leave a lot to be desired, but again this is not a new game.

Gameplay is FPS-standard - move through the levels and shoot things dead, occasionally lift or move things - broken up with a few nice tank or mech rides. Controls are smooth, although you can't use the sticks in the menus which I found quite annoying. Progressing through the levels is a bit of a pain in the arse, as I very quickly learned to save every minute or so, or just after something happened, as you could very easily die in a fight that should have been easy, having to return to a previous save made many moons previous. Returning to the menu to save so frequently breaks up the atmosphere of the game and is quite irritating, as well as being a bit old fashioned. Firefights often unexpectedly spike in difficulty when an enemy you had no trouble with before becomes harder to kill, or starts getting in headshots that sap your non-regenerating health.

There is some nice squad-play in the campaign and it's nice that your compadres can fix your armour or top up your health, but the lack of order-issuing capability means that your squad mates often do stupid things and end up dead, just when you need them.

The music is quite naff, and yet again a Raven game suffers from a lack of variation in their voice actors. Strauss has the only interesting and different voice, and I could almost swear that it's Peter Stormare, though I'm not sure.

One thing that sets the game apart from others is that about halfway through you become Stroggified (a real word in this universe, apparently) which changes things somewhat and makes the game more interesting. The process itself is quite affecting, and the result is a changed HUD and increased speed, but that's about it. It makes you a little more special in the story, in that you can access certain areas that your counterparts can't, but this is a moot point really.

So yes, lots of shooting and reloading and saving is afoot. There are some great boss fights, but the story is drawn out too long and merely serves as a device to provide more firefights, as well as having a really shit ending. The boss fight at the end is great, but the actual ending itself makes your investment of time completely worthless. So, how exactly is the Makron alive after me killing him in Quake II? Not explained. By the way if you want to play on a higher difficulty level so you get the achievements for that and all underlying difficulties, think again. You only get those for the difficulty you chose.

Overall a poor port of what could have been a good game, but instead it's just average, and I'm trying to put my mind back 6 years here.

6/10

Game Review - Prey (X360)

2012-01-21T00:05:00.001Z

I've gone on something of an FPS binge recently, having finished off Rage and Bulletstorm to quickly purchase some older ones I never got around to playing, such as Wolfenstein, Quake 4 (review coming as soon as I'm finished) and this forgotten gem, Prey. For some reason or another I never took much interest in Prey when it came out and I'm not sure why. It may have had something to do with the fact that I didn't have a console or PC capable of playing it in 2006. However, I've played it now, and it's great.

You play Domasi "Tommy" Tawodi - a disillusioned Native American army vet struggling to move away from his culture and his heritage and to confess his affections for his girlfriend Jen. One night in Jen's bar, after a failed attempt at trying to persuade her to leave the reservation with him and a run-in with two lecherous customers, Tommy's world is turned inside out when strangers from the sky arrive and pull the bar into their ship, complete with its occupants. Tommy is then tasked with rescuing Jen and his grandfather.

3D Realms has something of a record in long, troubled productions, Duke Nukem Forever being the most obvious example. Prey was in development in some form or other for a decade, with various engine and developer studio changes along the way. Unlike Duke however (if you believe the reviews), Prey is a great game.

As far as I know, because the id Tech 4 engine wasn't optimised for consoles, the 360 version would never have looked as good as the PC one, but still this version's graphics hold their ground, even 6 years later. The visuals have aged of course, but the environments, weapons and enemies are still detailed and atmospheric, albeit with some suspect underarm clothes stretching when people raise their arms.

Prey's impact really shines through with the gameplay and the no-frills, no-nonsense storyline. The gunplay is old fashioned, point-and-shoot mechanics through and through with no aiming-down-the-sights business, but the weapons themselves are living weapons, and as such appear to be creatures rather than tools, moving and undulating on their own. So yes, the gunplay is decent, but there are other elements to the gameplay that make Prey stand out. I always thought that the portal mechanics in Valve's Portal and Portal 2 were genius and original, but it turns out that Prey beat them to the punch. You can't set portals to wherever you want them (which was Valve's real genius, or at least part of it), but the ability to seamlessly cross from one space to another is mind-blowing, and would have been even more so when the game originally came out. On top of this you have the ability to switch gravity so you suddenly end up walking on the walls or the ceiling, or perhaps you can be walking upside down on magnetic walkways, or you could be flying a shuttle or maybe walking on a small planetoid-like body, complete with reduced gravity. If that's still not enough innovation for you, the icing on the cake is the "Spirit Walk", which is essentially the ability to be in two places at once but in a form that keeps with the Cherokee heritage that the game deals with so well. All of these add up for some truly unique puzzle situations, making Prey essentially a mix of Doom and Portal.

The maturity and respect that the game presents is also a point to be appreciated. There's not a lot more to say on that point - Tommy's conflicted hero is portrayed without stereotype and his voicing is particularly emotional, moving from quiet to pure anger with ease. One detraction would be that immediately after Tommy, Jen and grandfather are abducted, Tommy makes a break to try and rescue them, but suddenly starts to spout almost humourous things despite having just been in mortal peril, and the ones he loves still are. The story itself is simple, and in fact after the abduction the story changes little until you get close to the end when things start to reveal themselves, but the tale off Tommy's transformation over the course of the short campaign is told very well.

Other points I must include - I appreciated the narrative focus of the game and lack of collectible crap to distract you. I also loved the eagle spirit guide, Talon, who travels with you and helps you along without being particularly obnoxious.

This is a game that helped lay the path for others. A mature tale for grown-ups who can appreciate certain things more than younger ones, not just from a visceral point of view, but an emotional one as well. Add to that a great shooter/puzzle gameplay mixture and you have a winning combination. It's also proof that protracted development times don't always mean shitty results.

9/10

Game Review - Wolfenstein (X360)

2012-01-20T16:57:00.001Z

Wolf 3D was one of the first games I played on PC, second only to the likes of my much-loved Captain Comic. Anyone else remember Captain Comic? I remember Captain Comic. In fact I still have the floppy it came on when my father gave it to me in the early 90's.

We've come a long way since the shareware days, and this new(er) iteration bears little resemblance to the Wolfenstein of old. Strange that this is supposedly a sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and yet is named merely "Wolfenstein", and the eponymous castle isn't event present in the game.

Anyway, once again you play Wolfenstein escapee (assuming canon) and US good guy BJ Blazkowicz in his eternal struggle against the Nazis. This time around, BJ happens across a mysterious medallion that requires special crystals to unleash its powers, which can only be found in the small town of Isenstadt. Funnily enough, the Nazis have started mining near the town for crystals themselves, and BJ is sent to investigate.

The new Wolfenstein follows a different narrative model that its predecessors - instead of being simply a matter of working your way from one point to another in a given level, your objectives are more mission/quest-based with a degree of freedom about the order in which you can complete your tasks. This adds new depth to the Wolfenstein oeuvre, although you won't have the amount of choice you get in the likes of Rage or Fallout. The vast majority of the missions are story-based with very few side mission options. However, the main problem with the missions is not their number or the fact that you can choose what ones to do, but their actual content. There seem to be two flavours: one - go to a place to shoot lots of Nazis and maybe collect something, two - go and talk to a person to progress the story. Given that the story itself isn't all that interesting, all of this compunds to make something that becomes a little tiresome by the end. This isn't helped by the fact that there only seem to be two or three different voice actors for the whole game, and the faux-German voices become incredibly irritating.

To make things a little less boring, you have access to a few special powers from the medallion you discovered at the start of the game. Initially it allows you to enter The Veil, a dimension between ours and another, where you can interact with both at the same time. Over the course of the game you gain more Veil powers, such as extra damage, shield and slowing down time, and these help to keep the otherwise bland gameplay fresh in a typically progressive fashion.This is something that Raven improved upon greatly with Singularity. Also, the boss battles are well thought-out, in that it's not usually a matter of simply shooting them as much as possible until they die, but rather there are other things you must accomplish to dispatch them.

Achievement hunters have the challenge of collecting various treasures (reminiscent of the original Wolf 3D) and intel scattered across the various missions. That's good, if you like that sort of thing.

Honestly, about halfway into this game I couldn't wait for it to end. There is a lot of blandness about it - repetitive missions, repetitive enemies, repetitive voices, plain story - but there are a few things going for it such as the use of powers and the Veil, as well as some cool weapons and boss fights. Controls are mostly responsive, but occasionally let you down at crucial moments.

It's just alright.

6.5/10

Game Review - Bulletstorm (X360)

2012-01-11T15:10:00.000Z

I played a demo of this some time ago and found it a bit fiddly to play, plus I heard that it wasn't great (don't know where I heard that) so I avoided it. Recently I borrowed it from a friend, and Im glad I played it, as the gameplay in it is brilliant.

Bulletstorm follows the exploits of Grayson Hunt, the leader of a hit squad under the employ of General Serrano as a means of eliminating his enemies. After some revelations, Grayson's team splits from Serrano's service and go rogue, attacking Serrano when they have the opportunity. After one such attack, Serrano and his ship (along with Grayson's) crash land on the planet Stygia, and Grayson is left with only one crew member left alive, yet cybernetically enhanced to save his life. The remainder of the game focuses on the quest for Grayson to get off the planet, with various encounters along the way.

The story of the game is good fun, a pulpy sci-fi revenge romp with plenty of action and a mixture of different characters. The humour of the game sets it apart from others - intentionally crass with over the top swearing and often unexpected sexual innuendo. This may or may not be your thing, but it was certainly mine, although there are times when they seem to strain a little to make things as rude as possible, with words being shoved in to where they don't make much sense - something I find more annoying than the actual nature of the humour. So yes, it's very funny, but for adults only. The plot is enjoyable whilst not being entirely unpredictable, although the game only takes itself semi-seriously, as illustrated by one particular event where Grayson gets rescued by the token firey female who we thought dead, whereby Grayson shouts "Deus Ex Machina!" There are more serious moments intertwined with the facetious ones, which give the game a nice constrasting flavour with some weight behind the mayhem.

The actual gameplay is where Bulletstorm shines. This could have just been a standard run-and-gun FPS, but with the addition of this idea of "skillshots", it becomes a different game altogether. You are actively encouraged to dispatch your wailing, idiotic enemies in as creative a way as possible, with the hope that you gain more skillshot points to spend on ammo and upgrading your weapons. There are a whole plethora of different skillshots up for grabs, and chasing each one of them is fantastic as it makes you try. You also have a leash in the game, which allows you to ensnare enemies and bring them closer, allowing you to shoot them with various weapons, as well boot them into other enemies, environmental hazards and practically any combination of those things. The selection of weapons and their firing types adds more depth and variety to your options, and the insanity of some of them provide an interesting spectacle. The points system extends to the quicktime events, in that to get as many points as you can, you must press the correct button as soon as possible. Quicktime events are hard to avoid these days, but assigning points makes them more enjoyable and challenging.

Graphically the game has a rich colour scheme, avoiding browns and going more for a pink-orange-blue type mix. Frame rate is consistent, albeit nowhere near as high as Rage, which I finished literally minutes before moving to Bulletstorm. The textures are as good as we can expect from Unreal Engine 3, but the facial animations and textures possibly aren't as good as they could be. The voice actors embrace the roles they have, particularly Steve Blum as Gray who puts in a stellar and hilarious effort.

This game is simply great fun, and I hope it's not the last we hear of it.

9/10

Game Review - Rage (X360)

2012-01-06T13:54:00.001Z

John Carmack is the consummate nerd. He seems to do nothing but code, code, code and more code, generating brand new game engines from the ground up with aplomb. He became a poster-boy for many upon the release of Doom, along with John Romero who fell from grace a little after the Daikatana saga. If you've ever heard Carmack speak, he makes you feel very ignorant very quickly as he is just so erudite that he can continue talking for an age about the same thing and the amount of detail just blurs into infinity. He's give Neal Stephenson a run for his money, I'm sure.

He also does rocket science on the side.

So yes, he's the brains behind the new id Tech 5 engine, the very same engine behind their newest venture, Rage. It seems id are taking a leaf from Crytek's book and recognising the fact that the console gaming market is much stronger now than that of PC gaming, and so developed this new engine in three parallel threads - PS3, XBox and PC. Having said that, this game feels like it's been so long in development that maybe Crytek are following id's example, and not the other way around.

Story-wise Rage is basically Fallout, but with vehicles and less choice, so perhaps more like Borderlands, but better and more interesting. You play an unnamed (male) hero who emerges from an Ark - a protective pod designed to keep members of humanity safe from an impending asteroid - many years after impact. You immediately find that the world has gone to shit, with bandits and mutants terrorising the lands. Very quickly you become the go-to guy for many odd jobs requiring many weapons and much killing, and over time you become more involved in the fight against the shady new government called the Authority. As it turns out, they have something nasty planned.

From the minute you emerge from the Ark the new engine completely arrests you with amazing detail, a consistently smooth frame rate and expressive characters with finely nuanced facial animations. This was not what I expected from id, in a good way - I'm more used to the simple blast-the-crap-out-of-everything gameplay of Doom and Quake, but id have kept with the times and given us a hybrid full of characters that you can actually interact with. The game is a strange mix of FPS RPG racing that works to great effect. The amount of variation in the gameplay all adds up to a very entertaining experience - from the driving elements to the various FPS quests and battles, to the buying of stuff and the mini-games, there's plenty to be done in the world of Rage. Given the fact that this game shot down in price rapidly, it's great value for money.

The graphics are amazing, from the atmospheric lighting to the detail in the destroyed environments and the crags of rocks in caves. The environments themselves are pleasantly varied as well, going from the destroyed to the futuristic with ease. The textures do give up their nature if you look at them closely, though this may be down to the fact that the engine had to be optimised for 360. Apparently a full uncompressed build of the game is one terabyte in size...

The driving elements are fun, but not particularly challenging. The race types are varied and there is a good selection of tracks, though they do pull the old "go round backwards" trick a couple of times (in fact they do this with the FPS levels occasionally, which is a little annoying). Rocket Rally is perhaps the most challenging of race types, but it shouldn't pose too much trouble for anyone with even a little experience with driving games. What's disappointing is that once you have won all the races, nothing happens. Sure, you get an achievement, but nothing really happens in the game itself. Added depth comes in the form of being able to modify your car, to add armour and special tyres etc.

The quests themselves are great, making the most of id's extensive experience in the FPS genre and adding some more contemporary things (the whole CoD looking-down-the-sights element is so ubiquitous now). Again the gameplay here is very deep - you can modify weapons, ammo types, make all manner of tools and medicine from things found on your travels (the wingsticks are very cool), as well as blowing the crap out of your enemies. The gunplay is excellent, and id once again shows how it's done as they well know how.

Despite all this awesome gameplay and all these things to do, the big disappointment with the game lies in the story, and the ending in particular. It starts well, with a nice though familiar setup, and working through the game is a treat as you become part of the resistance and the Authority's grand plan takes shape (albeit feeling like a side story), but the denouement is a damp squib. The final battle is disappointingly easy, you achieve your goal, and suddenly the game ends. Plus there is no option to continue and wrap up loose ends without loading a previous save.

Regarding saves, do it often, as the game only autosaves between areas and that doesn't happen very often.

Overall this is an excellent game with plenty of stuff to do within it, a fantastic graphics engine and deep, exciting gameplay, let down by a crap ending that doesn't seem to make all the hours put in worthwhile. I'm looking forward to a sequel which will hopefully flesh things out, but I'm also hoping that they make good use of this new engine and give us another Doom.

8.5/10

Look!

2011-12-31T23:35:00.001Z

I got some free swag courtesy of Demi-Monde author Rod Rees!

A copy of his new entry in the series, The Demi-Monde: Spring! Neat. All those years of blogging are starting to work in my favour. Look, it's signed and everything...

I like the stamp thing. Here it is next to my hardback of the original...

Pretty! Will read it as soon as I finish Perdido Street Station, which is turning out to be awesome.

Film Review - The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (2011)

2011-12-13T11:05:00.001Z

Does anyone remember when films were fun? I do. Steven Spielberg does too. You might not have thought it from the latest Indiana Jones effort (which I liked, but not as much as I could have), but he can still make a ripping yarn. Put him together with Tintin and you get movie magic.

This film follows the eponymous boy reporter on a quest to uncover the mystery of the Unicorn, after buying a model of it in a market and then being accosted by various shady figures wishing to buy it off him, at any cost. The journey takes Tintin and his dog Snowy on a myriad of adventures across the seas and desert.

The film is simply great fun. The start is a little slow but the pace picks up very quickly and doesn't really let up for the rest of the film, which is admittedly a little overlong. Once we are past the initial setup for Tintin's quest we are taken on a - as trite as it sounds - rollercoaster ride through Herge-land. Every sequence involves some form of escape or chase, and each is made with true glee by the filmmakers who clearly relish the opportunities this new performance capture technology provides. The camera zips along semalessly from angle to angle, through walls and into places that no real camera could possibly go.

The actors themselves portray their characters with surprising humanity, Serkis and Craig in particular putting in stellar performances. Craig is unrecogniseable in his role as the scheming and downright bad Sakharine. Jamie Bell encapsulates the boyish enthusiasm we expect from Tintin very well. On top of that, Snowy's animation is spot on, and anyone who loves dogs will instantly fall for the loyal terrier. Serkis' character of Captain Haddock is perhaps the most developed with Sakharine coming a close second, and the animosity between the two is palpable, but the character of Tintin himself is a little disappointing. Sure, we know he's a reporter and enthusiastic, but why? How is it that he seems to know absolutely everything? He is also a fantastic shot somehow. It's all a little much.

The story of the film is predictable in terms of the outcome but fascinating to see unravelled nonetheless. Haddock's alcoholism lends a more adult tone to the proceedings, something that I appreciated as it doesn't pander to child audiences (let's face it, kids wouldn't get Tintin these days), and becomes a useful plot device as more is revealed as he sobers up. Where the story falls down slightly is the damp ending and the overlong nature of the film.

There are many hilarious moments to recount from the film, and it's been a while since I can say "I loved the bit where..." about a film, but my favourite parts have to be the plane and the bike chase, two (of many) hilarious set-pieces that reaffirm Spielberg's mastery of fun and adventure - and his willingness to experiment with new media - just in case we had forgotten.

Great fun, delivered with panache and summoning memories of Indiana Jones, it has a few flaws, but heartily recommended.

8.5/10

Book Review - The Lord of the Sands of Time (Issui Ogawa)

2011-12-11T16:05:00.001Z

I think it might be a little unfair of me to review this book as I read it in a very on/off manner, but I'll give it a go.

In the future, mankind is under threat from a mysterious alien race that seems to simply want to extinguish the human light from existence. AI soldiers, known as Messengers, are sent back in time to different periods to attempt to "head them off at the pass" - to raise the alarm earlier on in Earth's history and to try and defeat the enemy and preserve Earth's future. One Messenger, Messenger O, has found his way back to early Japan, after jumping back in time several times after several failures. Can this one be the last?

You can tell already this this book has an intriguing concept - time travel is always good - but things become reasonably complex quite early on in the novel, when the characters start talking about saving different timestreams and "upstreaming" as jargon for travelling back in time. It's certainly challenging when trying to fit it all together in your head, but with enough time it will make sense. The fact that the book is very fast paced doesn't help matters, as things are often brushed over perfunctorily.

The book follows an alternating-time structure, similar to that of Banks' Use of Weapons. Between each chapter set in ancient Japan is a chapter set in a period that Messenger O has travelled to prior to ancient Japan, each subsequent one being set further back in time. This structure is interesting and adds a nice flavour to the book and seems well thought-out. Most of the main characters are developed well, but somewhat uninteresting and devoid of humour. Interactions between the characters are handled well, in particular the relationship between O and the Princess is honest and fulfilling without being overtly sexual, whilst the jealous Kan (the Princess' main servant) watches from the sidelines with disdain.

Whilst the story is interesting, under the surface Ogawa is perhaps asking what it will take to get everyone on Earth to stop squabbling and get along with each other. An alien threat capable of wiping out humanity is a good start, something which has been covered somewhat in Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen graphic novel.

A swift read (despite my slowness) with challenging time-travel concepts that doesn't really allow things to settle in. I am however glad that the translator used plain English instead of English slang with Japanese characters, as in the case of All You Need is Kill from the same Haikasoru imprint.

7/10

Game Review - Uncharted 3 (PS3)

2011-12-03T00:12:00.001Z

It's been a while since I reviewed anything (I've nearly finished the latest book, but I've been nearly finished for a long time...) so I thought I would exercise my critical thinking and post something.

Uncharted was a flagship title for the PS3, and a joyous one at that. Echoes of Tomb Raider mixed with proper story and character, great music and fun cover-based gameplay. Uncharted 2 took the series to a whole new level with character development, story, awesome set pieces and narrative. Understandably a lot of people were looking forward to the inevitable sequel, and we are not disappointed.

Following a familiar formula, this instalment sees Drake attempting to locate the "Desert Atlantis", or Iram of the Pillars. He has competition in the form of the evil lady-villain Marlowe who is also looking for the city, but for all the wrong reasons.

This game is story all the way, with shooting and puzzles in between. The bits between the cutscenes (i.e. the game) have changed little since the last game as Naughty Dog seem to take the "not broken" approach - same gunplay mechanics, similar weapons, same nondescript, endlessly-supplied enemies. The settings are what makes the game different, and the set-pieces are present and correct, but after the last game I was left slightly wanting. Don't get me wrong, the likes of the sideways cruise liner are impressive, but after the collapsing building and train sequences of Uncharted 2 there was a lot to live up to, and I didn't quite feel the same thrill I did then with this new game.

In story and narrative the game shines. Moments between the five (yes, FIVE) protagonists are incredibly touching and humourous, and the interactions between them outside the cutscenes are as sarcastic as ever, though not without the odd patronising over-explanation of some puzzles as conversations between - for example - Sully and Drake. I can figure it out myself thanks! The tender moments between Sully, Elena and Drake are particularly well done and adult in the literal sense, and are very welcome. There are also several neat interactive narrative sequences, such as Drake as a wayward child in Colombia and a sequence where Drake must walk across the desert alone. The ending of the game is a little disappointing and stops quite flat - despite a busy escape scene at the very end of the game it is quite procedural and there's no real sense of achievement. It all seems a bit too easy at the end.

Naughty Dog has gone into a lot of detail in the game over small things that add depth to the environments, from an accurate modelling of how sand rolls down sand dunes like water after being stepped in, to a To Let sign in London with a correctly-prefixed London telephone number on it. Details are neat and all, and many may appreciate them, but is it all really necessary? That's not a question that I'm capable of answering.

Controls remain as responsive as ever, and if you walk into/towards/along a wall or door Drake will now put out a hand to helpfully stop himself from hurting himself. Music is also as fantastic as it has been, complete with the rousing theme at the opening screen of the game that you just have to listen to for several minutes before pressing start. The graphics this time round are also marvellous, with crisp and detailed environments as well as superb character design and facial animations. The voice acting adds real depth to the characters, providing touching and humourous moments in equal measure.

In summary this is a great game with a familiar format (not quite stale just yet) and one or two shortcomings that make it slightly less impressive than its immediate predecessor. It's still great though, worth a purchase.

9/10

Game Review - Deus Ex: Human Revolution (X360)

2011-11-04T23:04:00.002Z

I played the original Deus Ex years ago shortly after it came out - I still have it in a drawer in fact - and as much as I hate to admit it I never finished it. I think perhaps at the time I was too young to appreciate the nuances of the game, the fact that you have a first-person perspective where you don't have to kill everything in sight, in deep storyline and the rest. Had I finished it I think I would have appreciated this new prequel more for all its references, but alas I did not.

The new game sees you playing as Adam Jensen, an ex-SWAT security chief at Sarif Industries, a company which makes augmentations - robotic parts to replace/augment human limbs and neural/sensory functions - in the not too distant future. People who get augmented require constant doses of Neuropozyne, a drug that stops the human immune system from rejection of augmentations. However, a scientist at Sarif industries is on the verge of announcing to the world a means of eliminating this need for drugs when the lab gets attacked by a mysterious armed group, leaving Jensen nearly dead. Six months and many augmentations later, he returns to Sarif to try and figure out what happened and why, and ends up in a whole heap of trouble of course.

That's a brief introduction to the deep plot of Deus Ex, something that is pleasantly grown up and politically minded as well as full of cyberpunk trappings such as questions over the impact of technology on humanity and the supposed "singularity" where AI will overcome humanity. The environments are suitably complimentary to the cyberpunk idea - lots of lights, lots of adverts, lots of high-rise buildings and fancy tech everywhere and the gold filter on everything gives the game a unique feel. A little monotonous maybe, but unique. The universe is further built up by conversations with other characters, newspapers, emails and TV news reports. All of this adds up to a truly immersive atmosphere that's incredibly compelling and, like I say, adult.

Gameplay itself is rich and varied, combining RPG style character interaction with action/stealth missions that require care and attention, with added hacking and email-reading. As you progress through the game and upgrade your skills new pathways open up that you had not previously considered, resulting in added value to levels that you thought you had exhausted. Very quickly you find yourself taking great care in playing the game, walking through levels slowly, assessing the risk of taking various routes to your objective and making sure above all that you don't miss any ammo or health items (especially if you play on super-hard as I did, where the benefits of augmented reality are removed). Your decisions on how to progress your character directly effect how hard or easy it is to get past certain choke-points, and if you take the time to hack every single computer in sight it pays off considerably - the final boss battle could have been considerably more difficult had I not obtained a certain code that pretty much negated everything to do with the battle, and all I had to do was wait until it was over. A little disappointing perhaps.

The developers ask some serious questions about technology and the singularity over the course of the game, the morality of augmentations and so forth, though they neatly sidestep making a statement of their own views by offering the player their choice of ending. Supposedly this choice reflects the player's own views, but any player worth their salt will simply go reload and try the next ending selection, at the very least to get the achievement for doing so. Things like this dilute the impact of the final decision. On the other hand, if the develops asserted their own view it would be brave, but it would make the game a different creature, more of a tool of ideology.

The music is excellent - an absorbing deep synth soundtrack that embodies the feeling of the game tremendously - and the graphics and sound are spot-on. One gripe - the character animations are curiously disconnected from the dialogue of the various characters. Fair enough, there are many characters, but there are only so many times I can put up with the same mocap animations for different conversations. It's not unusual during the game to have a conversation with two people who are doing the exact same motions, or to initiate a conversation with someone to suddenly have it cut off as they make a phone call, merely because they were following that mocap animation at the time. Enemy AI is also a little disappointing - you can often walk very close to enemies and they won't react, they walk predictable patrol paths and use cover very inefficiently, leaving their heads exposed for easy headshots with the aforementioned 10mm pistol.

For fans of the original there are plenty of references, but it was too long ago for me to remember them and I had to do a little reading to get some of them. I hope they make a sequel, but who knows with the sales they made.

A fantastic game.

9/10

Film Review - Drive (2011)

2011-10-21T17:17:00.000+01:00

I think perhaps I got to see this on the very last day in the very last place that it was on here, for nowhere else was going to show it. That's a little disappointing, considering that this film is quality.

Ryan Gosling plays a talented stunt driver working in the movies that also happens to do getaway driving on the side. He becomes involved with his pretty neighbour and her son, but this eventually leads to all kinds of trouble.

Nicholas Winding Refn opens the film with a gripping heist getaway, constructed with quiet elegance and superb pace. The decision to film, for the most part of this sequence, from the interior of the car puts us right into the action as well as seeing things from Gosling's perspective.

After this the film slows down quite considerably as the relationship between the stoic Driver and his neighbour Irene is constructed with sufficient depth to make us care - a rare thing in an action/crime film these days. This is fine as long as you aren't expecting a Transporter-esque noise-fest when you go to watch the film - in fact I quite like slow burning films, so it was very appealing. Over time it seems like the film is going in one particular direction, but when Irene's husband is released from prison it becomes a different film. Winding Refn seems to relish doing something that's contrary to our expectations like this, such as the sudden death of a major actor with minimal screen time, the lack of actual car chases and the very end where we are kept in suspense for a unusually long time regarding the Driver's fate.

Gosling performs admirably as the stoic man of few words and he and Irene gel well together on screen with their somewhat muted but charming affair. Supporting characters do what they can, namely Ron Perlman and Bryan Cranston, both of whom are good but haven't got that much to go on. Albert Brooks shines as the menacing gangster-with-the-money.

The soundtrack of the film is particularly refreshing - a synth-heavy pop track is never far from the action and helps to infuse the film with a Michael Mann-esque 80's feel.

I would have liked to have seen more car action though, more scenes like the opening as well.

8.5/10

Book Review - Fall of Hyperion (Dan Simmons)

2011-10-16T00:19:00.000+01:00

Finally I finished this book. It was a long, complicated, drawn out road - a bit like this review - but I got there. Overall I prefer Hyperion, and I'll tell you why.

Fall of Hyperion continues directly from the end of Hyperion with the Shrike Pilgrims arriving at the valley of the Time Tombs on their journey to meet the Shrike, whilst the planet Hyperion prepares for Ouster invasion and the leaders of the Hegemony prepare for war. Hegemony CEO Meina Gladstone has summoned the cybrid version of John Keats (Joseph Severn here) to help her with her plans, ostensibly to draw portraits of her, but he has a connection to the pilgrims that can be used to monitor their progress. Meanwhile there are stirrings in the TechnoCore...

Gone is the structure of the previous novel, the individual tales set amongst the frame story of the pilgrimage, now replaced by a more straightforward narrative, or so you would think. Fall of Hyperion is a complicated, sprawling mess of a book, frequently jumping from world to world, from first person to third person, and from one time to another and back. When I say mess I don't mean that it's terrible as such, but merely that it's all over the place. It begins reasonably enough - chapters alternate between Severn's adventures with the politics of the Hegemony and Severn's dreams of the pilgrims' continued plight in the valley of the Time Tombs. It's not long though before Simmons abandons this and things spin out of control, both with the story itself and the narrative employed in telling it. It's a complicated story that could have been just that extra little bit clearer. Some may find the challenge of understanding it all rewarding.

Complexities aside, this is an engrossing story, full of deceit and huge implications, with well-painted characters and environments - nobody can doubt Simmons' writing chops. Central to the book is a cautionary tale about over-reliance on technology and the dangers of artificial intelligence, whilst at the same time there are many other facets touched on. I'm not the most observant of readers, but I'm sure there's lots going on underneath the surface of the novels here in terms of philosophy and literature. The book starts well and ends well, with several surprises saved until the end (although they could be guessed) and many threads left open for the next books. I do find however that the mystery and confusing nature surrounding the Shrike and its actions is becoming a bit tiresome at this point. There's also too much damned poetry that I can't make sense of - yes, we know you're a fan of Keats, but the poetry and obscure literary references are becoming a bit much for poor old ignorants like myself.

There are some niggles with the writing style, particularly with phrases that are repeated all too often. Phrases such as:

"Vermilion sands"
"Lapis lazuli sky"
" made a gesture with his hand..."
"Sol fed Rachel one of the last nursing paks..." (paraphrasing)

There's also far too much nodding in this book for my liking. Everyone nods too much, or the fact that they have nodded comes up far too often. Next to shrugging this has become my new pet hate for repetition in books.

But yes, I enjoyed the book. Not as much as Hyperion, but I enjoyed it for the continuation of the story and resolution of some threads whilst others were frustratingly unresolved or new ones were added. It's more complicated than it needs to be, but the challenge is enjoyable.

8/10

Note: I will not be reading Endymion for a while, I need a break from this series!

Game Review: Space Marine (X360)

2011-10-03T12:25:00.002+01:00

I was lucky enough to get this so recently after it came out due to a fortuitous find of a gift voucher worth £30. I've toyed with getting into the Warhammer 40K universe for many years, yet avoided it for both financial and social reasons. I had a demo for Space Crusade on the Amstrad years ago and that was about as deep as I got, but I have been holding out for a 40K-based non-RTS action game to come out on console for a while, and here it is.

The 40K universe is very rich in its own mythology and backstory, and this provides a great setting for this game. Not much is explained - rather, you are merely thrown right into the action. This we can appreciate, as we are not mired in exposition or info-dumping, but instead we are thrown right into the thick of the action. 40K fans and non-fans alike will appreciate this for different reasons.

The game is graphically sound although the settings are very similar and the level design is a little uninspired - merely a series of rooms to have battles in, joined by corridors that present a lull in the fighting. The environments vary enough to keep it interesting, and to be fair it is all set in the one place so the similarity can be understood to a degree. The marines and other creatures are reproduced accurately though while the faces are detailed they lack a degree of animation and remain stoic the majority of the time. Most enemies are well-detailed, though the Orks themselves have very little to say other than "Space Marines!", despite their humour.

In terms of actual gameplay the game is primarily hack-n-slash with added guns - lots of enemies to kill with your melee and gun arsenal, and different enemy types do require different tactics - psykers and chaos gunners are best sniped and a few of the bigger enemies like the Ork Nobs tend to require a bit more finesse for example. It does seem though that this is all there is to do - kill lost of enemies with a few cutscenes in between. The controls are fine and the executions are very satisfying, though not without frustrations - quite often your health is low and you need to regain it by executing an enemy, but in the midst of execution you can still be attacked and I've had a few "Game Over" screens after dying whilst executing, much to my chagrin. Some have said that the final boss is a bit disappointing - in terms of the actual final battle itself it is a bit uninspired but still a challenge (I played on hard) but the final final part of it is a bit of a cop out.

The story of the game feels like an opening chapter to a broader saga. I will be there when the sequels come, but as a stand alone product the story was satisfactory.

Overall a decent game with repetitive gameplay but makes good use of the 40K universe, making it accessible to veterans and noobs alike. It has certainly tempted me to delve deeper into 40K again...

7.5/10

New Kindles

2011-09-29T14:39:00.002+01:00

So Amazon have produced a new Kindle for all of us tech-heads to get our literature teeth into. They come in three flavours - Kindle, Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G. Let's do a quick snap-judgement-assessment eh?

The first thing that concerns me is the price point for the vanilla Kindle. In the US it's priced at $79, whereas in the UK it's priced at £89 Sterling. Now I'm no exchange-rate guru or anything, but this stinks to high heaven. Of course it's relatively cheaper than the previous incarnation, but still it sticks in the craw a little. Perhaps they think we're all richer than the Americans?

UPDATE: The US cheapo (relatively speaking) version has ads in it, but they can pay to have one without ads, and judging from my browsings the UK version has no ads by default, so the price is more understandable now.

My next main concern is the actual touch screen of the Kindle Touch variants. I think perhaps Amazon gave into peer pressure a little in implementing this, I mean everyone is doing it these days, so why not Amazon? I however liked the fact that the Kindle was different originally, that the screen was different and it was clearly a well thought-out device aimed at book readers - it was ergonomically sound. What's so wrong with having the page turn buttons at the side of the device, where your thumb already is as you hold it? Now instead of this effort-saving work of genius you need to actually move to turn the page. Maybe I'm being petty, but surely they thought of that when designing it?

So maybe a touch screen is useful in some situations, but why remove the buttons altogether? Why not give people the option of not smudging up their screen with greasy fingerprints after the bagel melt they just had in the cafe whilst sitting down to read the latest hulking SF novel on their Kindle?

On another note the keyboard has disappeared from all variants. This may help in terms of size and aesthetics but at the cost of usability. I don't much fancy trying to type stuff in with the directional pad, Xbox-style, but the unit is nice and small.

On the plus side they haven't gone down the backlit route, their 3G is still free and the screen size remains the same. One caveat - how about a non-touch version with 3G?

Why why why? Always why?

It just seems a little bit like Amazon has lost sight of what they want Kindle to be. A touch screen screams to me to be the next step toward yet another tablet device - and yes, I do know they are bringing out one of those as well in the Kindle Fire - into an already overburdened marketplace. I don't want Kindle to be another tablet - I want it to be the different thing that it was. I like my Kindle 3 with the navigation buttons and the keyboard. I like the fact that it's just different.

Then we have Kindle Fire, possibly Amazon's answer to not yet having colour e-ink. You can now read kids books and graphic novels in lovely colour...on a screen. Yeah. It is however relatively inexpensive in comparison to other tablets of similar capabilities - the Nintendo DS of the tablet world, and look how well it did.

If I were to get any one of these variants I would get the vanilla non-touch version, but right now that seems like the only option in the UK. However I think I will stick with my Kindle 3 for now. Damn the future!

Book Review - Hyperion (Dan Simmons)

2011-09-07T01:18:00.001+01:00

I read Hyperion as part of Gollancz's "Future Classics" series that was brought out some time ago with nice arty covers to drool over, as they tend to do (it has just been released again as part of their yellow-retro-hardback 50th anniversary editions). Why did I wait so long?

Those like myself who have done their extensive research (on Wikipedia, natch) about the novel will know that it is set out as a series of smaller stories within an encompassing frame story that ties them all together. The frame story concerns the travels of seven pilgrims on a journey to Hyperion to visit the Shrike, a mysterious and murderous entity, all steel and spikes and claws. Throughout their journey, the pilgrims tell the story of how they came to be on this pilgrimage and what they would of the Shrike as, according to those who view it as a deity, it grants one pilgrim their wish whilst the others perish. But things are much more complicated than that.

Simmons drops us right into the universe that he has created, avoiding infodumps at all costs and instead opting to divulge things on the fly, something that serves the pace of the book well and the narrative focus, for instead of having reams of universe-building information to read through before we get to the really good stuff (cf. Peter F. Hamilton) we have characters, plot and action. This approach is not without its detractions - some things go right over your head, to be figured out much later, perhaps to entice a second read with more knowledge to hand. That said, it keeps you thinking, and over the course of the book a rich backstory is revealed that illustrates the extent to which Simmons has planned it all.

Illustrating his versatility, Simmons differentiates the individual stories by varying styles of writing, mixing diary, first person and third person perspectives with different flavours, such as an almost pulpy, Chandler-esque story in Brawne Lamia, as well as a time-jumping, almost cinematic story style in the Consul's tale. Each story contains its own characters and narrative, but each inevitably returns to Hyperion by the end and explains the motives of each individual for coming on the dangerous pilgrimage. In dedicating time to each traveller one at a time it becomes an ensemble character piece (or a series of them), something which could have been incredibly plodding and slow burning as in the case of Use of Weapons, but in Simmons' hands the tales are completely absorbing and demand long periods of constant reading to get the most out of them. That's something I don't normally do, but this time I was rapt and offered my time gladly. Of all the tales perhaps it is the Priest's Tale that is the weakest, as certain details are left in the air and not resolved by the Consul's Tale which wraps up several stories quite neatly.

Having said that, Hyperion is quickly followed by Fall of Hyperion which may tie some things up. Simmons claimed back in the day that Hyperion was written as two novels and split and published separately "due to the realities of publishing". In this case I would refer him to the editors of Peter F. Hamilton and Neal Stephenson...

Slight gripes - there are many literary references in the book as well as many philosophical issues being covered, but these will mean nothing to those of us who aren't so well versed in classic literature and the like. The ending is a disappointingly damp squib and it would have been a shame if the novel was standalone, the saving grace being that the follow-up was always intended. Simmons keenly observes human nature with all its grace, deviousness, compassion and hatred, but perhaps indulges in a bit too much sex.

Those notwithstanding, this is a completely engrossing read with a luscious universe and backstory, best enjoyed in long chunks of reading rather than short bursts.

9/10

Film Review - Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

2011-08-26T13:12:00.005+01:00

There's just something really satisfying about seeing a bunch of chimps go ape-shit.

Rupert Wyatt's film serves as a...ugh..."reboot" of the well-known franchise, and in doing so he has crafted a rare thing - a blockbuster with strong characters, scientific rigour and moral implications that stay with you afterwards.

The premise is misleadingly simple - James Franco's character is developing a gene therapy for Alzheimer's (with good reason, as his father suffers from it) and testing it on chimpanzees. While it seems to be successful, it has an unexpected side-effect - one of the test chimpe, Caesar, is becoming super-duper-smart. I think you can probably tell where the film goes after that.

The story can be well-predicted by any savvy enough viewer, but the realisation of it is truly great. What we have here is essentially a slow burner that dedicates time to the different characters, to develop them and to create a solid structure on which the events that follow can be built. Over the course of the running time the tension slowly builds until eventually it all pays off with a few revelatory scenes ("NNNNNOOOOOO!!") and the aforementioned "chimps going ape-shit" denouement that sets the stage for a refreshed franchise to continue. There is also plenty of subtle hints at things to come, such as news reports of a lost mission to Mars, an evil human-hating super-smart chimp called Koba and indications of how the human race disappears, leaving the apes to rule.

The interactions between the different characters are riveting, particularly those between Caesar and the other apes in the facility he is eventually kept in. These moments give great depth to the proceedings. The film slips a little with the human characters, in particular the romance between Franco and the vet seemed a little glossed over, but at the end of the day that's not what the film is about. There are tender moments between Franco and his father (John Lithgow) and more tense moments between Franco and his boss at GenSys, where his desperation to create a cure shows.

Serkis is the true star of this show though.

Everything else is commendable - the music and the action all fit in unintrusively, and the digital effects are entirely believable. It could have been a little heavy handed with the issue of testing on animals, and there are a few moments in the dreadful facility where we're shown how crap it must be for caged wild animals and how some people are just cruel and ignorant, but for the most part it doesn't take any one side in particular and lets you make up your own mind.

A great film.

9/10

Hugo Awards 2011

2011-08-21T11:26:00.003+01:00

So they Hugo Award winners for this year are now proud owners of their rocket-shaped trophies. No surprises for Doctor Who winning all over again - personally I'm getting a little tired of the constant praise and awards and prizes for it. Bit of disappointment for Lauren Beukes and Ian McDonald for not quite beating Connie Willis and her Blackout / All Clear duology or Beukes not getting the new writer award - the latter went to Lev Grossman who I've never read, so really I'm in no place to judge. In fact I haven't read Connie Willis either so I don't know what I'm complaining about. That said, take into account the reviews of Blackout and All Clear and you can be left wondering why it won over the likes of The Dervish House. Also compare the reviews of Lev Grossman's work with those of Zoo City and you'll get my drift.

Just a thought.

Film Review - Super 8 (2011)

2011-08-15T21:44:00.003+01:00

Super 8 (aka Hommage a Spielberg) arose from Steven Spielberg asking JJ Abrams to clean up some of the original film strips of some of his very first movies, made at home in his youth with his dad's super 8 film camera. In doing this Abrams and Spielberg initiated this idea for a new film, and even went so far as to create a trailer for it, without even having done any real filming or writing. It was a brave gamble, but it has paid off well, especially for those of us who enjoyed the likes of ET, The Goonies, Close Encounters, Flight of the Navigator and Explorers in our youth.

This review may contain spoilers.

A group of friends in small-town America are attempting to make a movie on a - you guessed it - super-8 camera for some fun. In doing this they unwittingly witness a massive train crash, but the train has been carrying something so potent the US Air Force is determined to do almost anything to get it back.

Almost everything about this film has its roots in the late 70's / early 80's adventure movies - the story is reminiscent of ET, mixed with Close Encounters with a bit of The Goonies for good measure (as mentioned earlier). The ideas of a group of kids saving the day, outsmarting the "evil" Air Force, combined with a misunderstood alien and an idyllic portrayal of an American childhood of freedom, bonding, classic toys and fun all add up to provide a very nostalgic, very enjoyable experience. The kids in the cast are very convincing, particularly a oddly mature Elle Fanning and the foul-mouthed child director played by Riley Griffiths, who both steal the scenes from the Joel Courtney in the lead, who still does well as the quiet boy who recently lost his mother. The child cast also exhibit a bonding and camaraderie The human story is never forgotten over the course of events - Joe's relationship with his father and that of Alice and hers, the relationships between the families of the town - and provides some emotional foundation on which the rest of the story can stand on.

There are several aesthetic points that add to that nostalgic feeling - the shots of the older daughter begging her mother for permission to go to a party, a certain shot at the family dinner table, lens flares, focus changes and grainy film effects all attempt to plant us back in those past times. The music is also reminiscent of those great John Williams scores of the time.

It's worth mentioning that there are points where the film drags a little. There is some CG in creating the monster and a few other things and this contradicts somewhat with the nostalgic feeling that the film ostensibly aims for.

I look at this film as a homage to Spielberg and the films of the period - a loving tribute to the adventures that we got on screen as kids that stick in our minds even now. In and of itself it is very enjoyable, and whilst there will be some that claim it to be an imitation and unoriginal, a lot of us who need things like this now won't give a shit. I'm sure that Abrams is well aware that people like me will lap a film like this up, which could have been an excellent bit of pre-emptive marketing on his part, but I think that's secondary to what he was trying to do. Bad Robot continues to reinvigorate our TV and cinema, and I'm loving it.

I will admit that I'm biased and I am yearning for those good old days with films like this.

8.5/10

Film review - Captain America (2011)

2011-08-14T13:12:00.003+01:00

So the final individual Avengers film is here at long last, paving the way for The Avengers in 2012. How does it match up to the rest in the series? I'd say it's at least as good as Iron Man 2, better than Thor and The Incredible Hulk and not quite on par with Iron Man.

Here, skinny man Steve Rogers is desperate to join the army and fight the Nazis in 1943, but he's just too damn skinny and hasn't got great health. However he has an iron will, a refusal to give up or run away and is an all round good guy. He is taken in by a professor with the means of making him a Super Soldier, which inevitably he does of course. Meanwhile, Johnann Schmidt aka The Red Skull, the leader of Hydra, has evil machinations of his own.

There is a lot to like in this film - the performances were all good and the interactions between the characters were enjoyable, especially the lighter moments of bonding, for example between the professor and Rogers, and between Rogers and his team of fighters. Evans is perhaps a little wooden as the proverbial Good Guy, but we understand his reasons and motivations very well and come to understand why people follow him without it feeling sudden or forced. Weaving plays the role of the Bad Guy with gusto, and he makes a very good Nazi - he doesn't quite chew the scenery as much as he might have done, but instead goes for a quiet, intelligent and considered menace, albeit with almost no character development. The supporting actors play their parts well, mainly in the form of character actors - the stiff-upper-lipped Brit officer, the American Colonel, the Igor-esque assistant to Schmidt and so on. Overall, everyone was very respectable.

The story itself is entirely disposable - it is clearly a means to an end, a vehicle for the creation of the last (or first) Avenger - but it's enjoyably predictable, a very straight, unpretentious and honest sort of film that you can just sit down and enjoy without feeling dirty about it. The standout moment comes at the end with a nice surprise (provided you didn't watch all the promotional material like I did, stupid) and a very poignant note right at the very last frame.

Everything else about the film is well done - the effects were great whilst not overbearing, the music was suitably rousing, the action was exciting (especially with the shield) and it was overall just an enjoyable experience.

7.5/10

Musing - Lament to Space Opera

2011-08-04T16:09:00.011+01:00

The Star Wars buzz is ramping up with the impending release of the bluray box set. Some are looking forward to it and the inclusion of all-new, previously deleted scenes. Others are up in arms, questioning the quality of the extras. I myself was looking forward to it, but despite my initial interest I had a revelation. I found myself beginning to not care, and I'll tell you why.

I've had to work at events where a troop of fans dress up in replica Star Wars apparel to pose for pictures with the public. These are essentially big Star Wars exhibitions, complete with painstakingly recreated sets from the films as well as actor talks and autograph signings and exhibits of replica props. The first one was stressful as it was a new thing, but with an intriguing element fun. However, as it was popular, it happened again the next year. And the next year. And it's happening again this year, and I'm no longer looking forward to it. Why not? Am I no longer a Star Wars aficionado?

Let me start by saying there are only so many times that I can listen to the cantina band music before it becomes tiresome. Consider then that said music is on a loop all day long for each day of the exhibition, amongst other iconic themes that are also looped. It's alright for the visitors as they are just passing through, but by now I have become incredibly saturated by it such that it no longer holds any magic for me. In fact, this is explains my feelings for the entire franchise in a microcosm.

How many "making-ofs" and "where-are-they-nows" have we seen about Star Wars? How many DVD extras have we seen that explain every little detail about how they created every single effect all the way from an exploding Death Star to Chewbacca's hairy hole? How many times has the music been used, the lines been quoted, the scenes been parodied? Lots. In fact, too many. So many that now I find it hard to invest myself emotionally in the films I once loved, to the sense of adventure that prevailed in me, to the mythos of the universe...I still enjoy them, but now it's hard to not watch them with a critical eye, or thinking about all that background information that we are now aware of thanks to documentaries and DVD extras. Hard to take them seriously after all the endless quoting and parody. Hard to take them seriously after all the dilution from constant infuriating alterations, poor prequels, TV series and the sheer...product-ness of it all. Star Wars is now more of a brand. Nowadays it seems like each new character, each new game or TV series is engineered to plainly sell more plastic crap.

And people lap it up.

For me, all of this has compounded to squeeze out just about every bit of magic the series once had. For me, Star Wars is now tired out and worn out, and it's high time we had a new space opera on the big screen. Sure we had plenty on TV - Battlestar Galactica, Stargate series, the various Star Treks...but these all seem a little niche. Star Wars has been an all-encompassing, equal opportunities beast. Star Trek has successfully refreshed itself on the big screen, but it is still Star Trek. It's time for something new, dammit. The only thing I can think of that had the potential to come close was Firefly / Serenity, but poor Joss Whedon just can't get enough people to watch his stuff, even if it is completely accessible.

Print is the salvation of those looking for new and fresh space opera. For years those of us that read SF have been treated to a multitude of new space operas, from the early days of E. E. Smith's Lensman series to Asimov's Foundation series and all the way to present day with the work of Peter F. Hamilton, Iain M. Banks and Alastair Reynolds. Why haven't we seen anything like this in film form? If producers are afraid that SF just doesn't make enough money, take a note from JJ Abrams' book then - a man who recently can seem to do no wrong, and who managed to wrestle Star Trek out of the hands of precious fanboys and open it up to a whole new audience. There is a time and a place for hard science, politics and diplomacy, but right now we need a space opera that's funny, irreverent, adventure-filled and great fun to watch. But it must be new. Serenity fit the bill perfectly, but it just didn't make the money.

I'm working one of our Star Wars exhibitions. I'm standing watching David Prowse give a talk. He still believes, after 30 years, that they used James Earl Jones instead of him for the voice of Vader because they couldn't afford to ship him over to the US from Bristol (the people of which are of course renowned for their gravitas-packed voices) for the sole purpose of doing some voiceover work. I'm watching another talk from a man who was on screen for mere seconds, behind a mask, and with nothing to say. The man who played Greedo does another - he seems like a respectable man, he comes across as a true thespian, but he is best known for a minute of screen time where he mostly sat stationary then moved his arm to raise a gun. I'm wandering the exhibition, growing tired of cantina music, talking to the odd stormtrooper and admiring his passion somewhat, yet also wondering...why are we still doing this? I am listening to people passionately argue about what has happened in a fictional universe as if it were real history and I can't help but be bemused by people bickering about things that, ultimately, just don't matter. I feel for these people, as they seem to have been stuck in a loop that encompasses years of their lives. I look and see the attending nerds and the not so nerdy with their respective children, dressed-up and smiling and happy, who are merely getting a snippet of what those of us working here must endure, and I see the callous genius in Lucas' empire. To use a quote from the Superman series, the son becomes the father and the father becomes the son - once you have invested yourself in Star Wars, the love is passed down through the generations. And all the while the money...your money...keeps flowing to one laughing fat man.

So when I ask myself why all this continues, why nothing else shows up to challenge the beast, why these torturous exhibitions keep happening, why I must endure complete and absolute true nerd-dom and fanboyism from both visitors and visited, I realise that it all comes down to one simple, depressing maxim.

Star Wars sells.

Film Review - Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

2011-07-24T00:31:00.004+01:00

I don't like films with colons in the title. Unless, of course, they are definitively part of a series, such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Colons in stand-alone films, those not in series or with similarly named sequels, just make them seem...cheap. Tacky. Indecisive. That was just the beginning of my dislike for this film. There will be spoilers.

Aaron Eckhart plays a just-about-to-retire-from-service soldier who is called back in to help repel an alien invasion of, funnily enough, LA. That's pretty much all there is there.

I can't tell what the aim of this film is - is it pro-US Army propaganda? Is it something made to raise the spirits of US citizens tired of a protracted war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Is it just simply a mindless action movie, made for cheap thrills?

Well there isn't a lot of flag-waving, thank goodness. There is a bit of "we will kick the aliens' collective asses cos we're awesome Americans", and of course they save the day while the rest of the world seemingly has no idea what to do, akin to Independence Day. It doesn't get to the point where it grates though. The film sits as one big cliche, complete with nonsensey, glib characters and uninspired dialogue, as well as copious amounts of gunfire and world-saving. Overall you never really feel threatened by what's going on, but curiously detached and uninvested in what's happening. After the cursory introduction of the different characters - one about to get married, one about to have a baby, and other such BS - you pretty much instantly forget who is who as soon as the invasion starts with the exception of Eckhart.

The film sets itself apart by implementing a raw, shaky-cam documentary-style approach to the invasion and the soldiers' trials within the city in their attempts to save civilians. The action is handled well, and Eckhart is convincing enough, but to be honest by about half way (at most) through the film ceases to be interesting and the rest is just simply going through the motions.

To quote Mark Kermode, this film is a big empty nothing. Mindless action if that's what you want, but you can't get the time back. It left me hollow.

5/10

Early thoughts on Fringe Season 2

2011-07-24T00:30:00.002+01:00

Too much Peter, too much Peter pretending to be an FBI agent, too much cheesy Peter dialogue, not enough Dunham or Walter craziness.

TV Review - Fringe Season 1 (2008)

2011-07-20T12:11:00.004+01:00

Lost I liked. Fringe was always considered to be "the other JJ Abrams show" that everyone was excited about when it started in the middle of Lost. Then it disappeared from terrestrial TV because not enough people could get into it. I'm at a loss as to why...

In Fringe we follow the adventures of FBI agent Olivia Dunham, ex-marine investigator newly embroiled in a conspiracy-fuelled world of fringe science, working with Walter Bishop, a prominent scientist recently released from mental hospital to aid the FBI, and his son Peter Bishop, a super-smart guy who has been on the move in many underground circles for many years.

The show is a classic mix of self-contained, monster-of-the-week episodes and other larger arc episodes. The self-contained episodes do have links to the overall plan for the series, but those of the larger story arc are by far the most engaging. That's not to say they're not interesting - all the episodes are well suited to any fan of science and SF, and I'm sure any boffin could pick apart some of the science they try to get away with, but it's all very entertaining. The majority of the episodes follow the same formula - someone winds up dead, Dunham and co. sent in, Walter Bishop seems to know what's going on, case gets resolved - so elements of the first season here are formulaic, and there are perhaps too many conveniences, for example Walter seems to have had a hand in everything they encounter, giving them a neat escape door for solving the cases, and also Astrid seems to produce some amazing skills at just the right moment.

Despite these few shortcomings the show is gripping, moresome TV, and it lives up to the "new X-Files" hype and then some. The character of Walter is funny and endearing, but as his past begins to be revealed our perception of him is challenged. Joshua Jackson is perhaps the weakest of the three, as he can be a little wooden with a face and voice that emote about as much as a brick wall. Anna Torv is fantastic as the lead, hardly ever putting a foot wrong. The individual stories and the overall conspiracy are completely engaging, and the end of the season leaves you wanting so much more. It doesn't suffer from the problem of lack of explanation as badly as the Lost did, but does it just enough to pleasantly tease us.

Plus it's always nice to see Lance Reddick doing what he does best, as he did in The Wire.

The next series are supposed to be even more amazing, so I can't wait to get started on those!

8.5/10

Fringe / John Carter

2011-07-20T09:57:00.004+01:00

So we now have a trailer for John Carter (of Mars), the live-action version of A Princess of Mars directed by Pixar dude Andrew Stanton, barely a week after me finishing reading it.

What do you think? I have mixed feelings. It could turn out to be extremely silly, and superficially the jumping looks silly and the Tharks also look silly, for example their tusks seem to come out of the sides of their heads instead of their mouths, which themselves have presumably been made to look more like human mouths for ease of reading or emoting from. Impossible to tell from this little trailer though.

The Dark Knight Rises trailer is much better, much cooler.

In other news I just finished watching the first series of Fringe which by all accounts was a whopper of a show. Part of me is glad I waited this long to start as I can watch a whole load in one go. there is a chance of it being cancelled though...let's hope not, eh?

New Look

2011-07-14T17:17:00.002+01:00

Decided to have a shot at another Blogger template, it's quite nice no?

Also I have started Hyperion - initially I was afraid that it would be pretentious and difficult to read, but judging by the first few pages my fears were unfounded.

In other news I finished off Darker than Black series 1 and 2, both of which were great although the second was a little too confusing. There is an OVA in between the series that I missed out on which may have helped. Don't think I'll bother reviewing it - instead I might review Baccano which I've started.

Plus I have started on Fringe. It starts well, but supposedly gets super awesome in the next few series. Great!

Book Review - A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

2011-07-13T16:17:00.004+01:00

I forgot to mention that I got a Kindle a month ago or so, and rather quickly populated it with free eBooks from the likes of Project Gutenberg and the Baen Free Library. I probably won't buy anything for it that I can get in print, mainly because a real book costs about the same as an eBook now thanks to the publishers and their "agency model" BS, but there's plenty of good old free stuff (and not so old thanks to Baen) out there. This was one of those.

Burroughs is best remembered for Tarzan and, to a lesser extent, The Land that Time Forgot. A Princess of Mars is the first in an 11-book series of what were called "planetary romances", something of a progenitor to space opera. Here, our protagonist John Carter, an Arizona frontier prospector and war veteran, is suddenly attacked by Native Americans (to be PC) whilst prospecting and escapes to a cave, where he is mysteriously transported to Mars. Adventure ensues as he comes across the native species' of the planet, does battle, falls in love and essentially saves the world.

I was a bit apprehensive at first, thinking that considering the book's age that any science in it would be utter nonsense, but I was pleasantly surprised. Initially some science is taken into account to explain Carter's magnificent stregth and ability to jump great distances and his early difficulty with walking, but let's be honest it was a different time and less was known then about Mars than is known now. The Mars he desribes couldn't possibly be real, but it is a tremendous adventure.

Carter is the perfect hero - brave, romantic, smart and intellignt as well as a fearsome combatant and...well, heroic. He gains the respect of pretty much everyone he meets quite quickly, beginning with the huge, green, six-limbed Tharks through to the Red Men of Barsoom (how the natives refer to Mars). Carter is never really in much peril except for a couple of times, once at the hands of the white apes (which don't appear that often) and another in the great games of the Warhoons, but therein lies another issue - in each case the action is dealt with very swiftly, perhaps too swiftly, for us to feel any danger. I thought the battle between Tars Tarkas and Tal Hajus was going to be something of a pinnacle of the story, but in the end it's pretty much reduced to once sentence. The book moves and a blistering pace, but perhaps a little to fast where it counts, and a lot of the characters outside the two leads are left underdeveloped. The red men and green men share a lot in common with the "Cowboy and Indian" literature of the time - the greens are often brutal and savage, yet with a strong set of rules and justice, as well as being a nomadic people, whereas the reds are highly developed in terms of technology.

It is pulp fiction of course - cheap thrills, action and adventure, kicking ass and saving the girl, as well as the whole of Mars perhaps. It does this effectively and with a flamboyant prose that Burroughs uses to great effect to rouse the spirit of adventure, albeit a little cheesy by today's standards. Obviously I didn't read it as a child as a lot of people seem to have done, but I think anyone could enjoy this, regardless of age.

I look forward to the rest of the series.

8.5/10

Film Review - Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

2011-07-07T08:58:00.005+01:00

Well I thought the second movie was confused and too long. Is this one better? Well yes, it's certainly very enjoyable, but it still has problems that detract from possible greatness.

There will be spoilers.

Sam has done the school thing, the college thing, and now is doing the trying-to-find-a-job-thing. At the same time, the autobots are busy doing things for the US Army, whilst also discovering a mysterious artifact relating to a lost Cybertronian ship (which was discovered on the Moon by the moon landing astronauts in 1961) that has some super-amazing technology on board, as well as Sentinel Prime, Optimus' teacher.

I wrote a longer version of this but it was too long (like the movie) so I'm going to sum up my issues and likes more briefly.

The action is very well done and the effects are brilliant. If anything, this film is a great spectacle. The odd humour is still present and a lot of it is welcome, but the increasing number of odd, superfluous characters is becoming tiresome. The first issue lies with the schizophrenic tone of the film - it tries to be dark and often comes tantalisingly close to greatness in that respect, but simply can't commit and chickens out with sudden shifts to humour or melodrama. The result is that we can't take the film seriously, and when the Decepticons start slaughtering people in droves, it's hard to feel anything.

Some of the humour is very funny indeed, but some is not. The inclusion of Sam's parents seems a little unnecessary. In fact most of the people could be considered unnecessary, including Sam and his new girl Carly, who is played with better-than-expected effort by Huntington-Whiteley, but struggles to rise above the eye-candy stereotype that lots of us saw coming. In fact within about 5 minutes of the film starting we are treated to an ass-shot on screen. Nuff said. The filmmakers have done a good job of making sure she looks good in every shot, as if by magic, no matter how much muck she gets dragged through. Also later on there is a slo-mo shot of her gawping at something, whatever that may have been. Thanks for that, Michael. There is plenty of other slo-mo here as well, if that's your bag.

If you can pay attention enough there is a framework of a story here, but is often tangled in accelerated plot point presentation to make room for more action. The first half of the movie is very jumpy-jumpy with shifts in tone, sudden action scenes and rapid-fire story elements (as well as some occasional flashes of excellence, believe it or not). The second half is all-out action with trademark great effects, but suffers from protraction, predictability (did you really expect the Autobots to just up and leave on a rocket?) and massive plot holes. I could go into that but it would just take too long.

As I say, I could go on and on, but I'll spare you all with a summary. Despite what I've said already, this is a better film than the predecessor with plenty of great action and effects that feels a bit overlong, but you will probably feel that you got your money's worth if you're looking for spectacle and humour. I think the majority of critics have been a bit harsh and the film is certainly flawed, but it is entertaining at its heart, even if it can't decide which path to take - light or dark.

6/10

(P.S. I'm seriously trying to avoid saying "and another thing...", but if I did it would be the first drop of a torrent).

Game Review - Portal 2 (X360)

2011-07-02T20:13:00.004+01:00

I played Half-Life years ago on PC, back when I was still a PC gamer, right about the time when Counterstrike was taking off. It took a while to get to Half-Life 2 - in fact I didn't actually play it until The Orange Box came out. After completing it and the two episodes, there was Portal left, which by all accounts was an unbridled joy of invention and gameplay. Short, but amazing.

Years later, whilst still waiting for HL2: Episode 3 (the new Duke Nukem Forever?), the announcement was made for Portal 2. After the disappointment in the former game not being announced instead, most wondered how they could take a short game like Portal and make it into a full-RRP, AAA title. Well here it is, and it's certainly worth the money. Well, I didn't pay the full RRP, but I still got my money's worth.

Chell has somehow gotten back into the Aperture Labs facility and is once again a prisoner of psychotic computer GLaDOS (which is pronounced "Gladys", which I didn't know - I was all into the Gla-Doss biz), but a personailty sphere called Wheatley has taken it upon itself to help rescue you and get you out again. Using a portal gun, of course.

Whilst you might think that a sequel couldn't contain much of a story, Valve actually fleshes one out extremely well in that true to form, not-in-your-face way. The story has essentially two strains, both of which are very interesting - the growth of Aperture from the early days after being founded by Cave Johnson, and the actual process of trying to escape Aperture along with your encounters with GLaDOS and Wheatley. Both are mixed with the classic puzzle-solving gameplay of the first game in an unobtrusive way, yet very engaging.

The gameplay is unchanged for the most part, with the addition of a few new items for variation, none of which feel out of place. The solving of puzzles is a tremendously satisfying experience and requires some great spatial thinking. The environments in which the puzzles take place vary, but again these are all relevant to the story, and change gradually to mark the changes in Aperture over the years. Great stuff.

The voice acting in the game is particularly excellent, with great turns from Stephen Merchant (completely unexpected), JK Simmons and of course Ellen McLain as GLaDOS. The three help accentuate the dark, ironic, somewhat British humour of the game perfectly. The final part of the final battle at the end is particularly hilarious, not to mention genius.

The graphics of the Source engine are still looking good, so many years on - the capacity to incrementally update it has paid dividends for Valve, and the sound and music are exemplary, both providing a sonic canvas that completely complements the action, situation and story.

I haven't tried the co-op mode as yet, but I most definitely will, as I just want more of this game.

If there were any detractions to mention, I think the only issue I had was with the often-frequent loading screens that break up the action perhaps a bit too often.

A funny, genius game.

9.5/10

Crysis on 360

2011-07-01T13:03:00.002+01:00

Just got news that Crysis is on its way to 360, not long after I finished the sequel and wanted more. Fair dinkum.

Link.

Game Review - Singularity (X360)

2011-06-27T09:43:00.003+01:00

I'm not quite sure what made me go after this game - I had heard that while it was low on the radar, it was actually quite good. So I got it. And I finished it. And I relished it.

Raven Software, the guys behind Soldier of Fortune for those who remember (which was mainly famous as a explicit gore-fest) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (again a game that surprised people with its decentness) are the team behind Singularity, which is essentially a standard FPS mixed with some cool time-manipulation mechanics. You play as Renko, a soldier sent to the island of Katorga-12, where some odd things have been happening. Russian scientists have been experimenting with an element called E99 which when properly manipulated has the potential to control...you guessed it...time. Hilarity ensues.

The first hour or so of this game drags a bit as you are essentially treated to standard FPS-fare, but all this changes the first moment you suddenly go back in time - the transition is simple, but effectively done, and elevates the game to a different level. The plot can be figured out easy enough from this first venture back in time if you watch carefully though. Some time after this you obtain the TMD (Time Manipulation Device) which can do all manner of time-related mischief and is actually very cool to use. Once you get to this point you can see that there are some very obvious influences on this game, mainly Bioshock (TMD instead of plasmids, collect health packs to use later, collect power to refill your power bar) and CoD, and whilst the visuals aren't quite up to par with those games the gameplay itself more than makes up for it. The ability to fix broken staircases or crates and open safes or age soldiers to dust and impulse them into a million gory bits never really gets old. The controls are slick enough and the sound and music are decent as well.

The multiplayer looks interesting but again I couldn't be arsed.

Overall a very enjoyable game with few gripes, with plenty owed to other games but very well managed. Here's hoping for a sequel.

8/10

Film Review - Green Lantern (2011)

2011-06-24T12:06:00.002+01:00

Lots of negative press about this one, and to be honest I don't see what all the fuss is about.

What we have here is an honest SF-actioner with a bit of fun and great visuals where I, at least, feel like I got my money's worth (Orange Wednesdays, excellent). Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, a US fighter pilot who happens upon a crashed alien spaceship, from within which a dying alien passes on to Hal the ring which gives him the green power of will. As well as the lantern to charge it up with, of course. Hal then becomes one of the Green Lantern Corps, charged with protecting the universe from evil and the yellow power of fear. A master of this yellow power, Parallax, has recently escaped and is wrecking the place, and when his eyes becomes set on Earth it's up to Jordan to save the world.

That's a seriously abridged version, naturally. The film doesn't take itself too seriously which is a plus, and is fun enough to enjoy over its slightly long running time. Sure some of the visuals are over the top and gaudy - Sinestro looks a bit ridiculous - but the action within is great and makes for exciting ride. This film is mostly spectacle, and doesn't claim to be a lot else. The narrative is straight and focused, albeit on a well-trodden origin story archetype.

The performances were mixed - Peter Sarsgaard was excellent as Hector Hammond, bringing credibility to a role that could have come off as extremely silly, whereas the others strive to be as good. Blake Lively is simply alright in her role as the pilot wanting to become a desk jockey as well as fulfilling the love interest role, but her character suffers from a bit of lack of development. It's there, but just about. Ryan Reynolds himself has a lot of charisma and all that, but all you see is Ryan Reynolds and no real inkling of the character of Hal Jordan. It's not so much Reynolds playing the Green Lantern, but more Reynolds in a movie about Green Lanterns.

Also I had trouble swallowing the idea that Tim Robbins' character is Hector's father.

Having said all this, overall I was satisfied, perhaps because I went in thinking it was going to be shite. It is a spectacle, but at least it's not all over the place. It's entirely predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless.

At least it's not as silly as The Incredible Hulk.

7/10

Book Review - Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Jules Verne)

2011-06-22T09:37:00.005+01:00

There's a reason why the name of Jules Verne is so revered in SF, and this book is part of that. I wasn't sure what to expect as the story has gotten a little muddled over time with various films and references in other media. Another plus is that it has very short chapters.

There are several versions around after the original had suffered various translations (as well as complete rewrites) but I think the version I had was pretty accurate.

The story is told from the point of view of Axel, the nephew of the indomitable Professor Otto Lidenbrock. The professor is a mineralogist by trade but is also quite learned in many other sciences, as well as being something of a bibliophile (a little like myself, but worse). One day he buys an old book he has found, from which a slip of parchment falls after having been stored for an age. The runic characters on the parchment indicate an amazing journey to you-know-where by a previously adventurous adventurer, and Lidenbrock instantly decides to follow in his footsteps, much to the worry of Axel.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book - would it be full of silly nonsensical non-science? Would it be full of flawed science, or just fluff? On the contrary, what I got what something of a progenitor to the hard-SF books of today, hence Verne is known as the father of modern SF. He presents seemingly unbelievable situations and then provides believable scientific explanations for the different phenomenon (for the most part - some of his ideas have since been refuted) in a very familiar way to anyone that has read the likes of Ringworld.

The first part of the novel concerns translating the parchment, which makes for an interesting few chapters of decryption. Once that is done, the travellers make a move to Iceland, where they hire their stoic native guide, Hans. At this point the book falters a little, as it becomes a little slow and plodding as they make their way across the land to their entry-point of the volcano of Sneffels. However, once they make their descent it speeds up again.

Verne presents quite well-defined characters in his three main leads - Hans, Axel, Lidenbrock - which is a little unusual in more modern hard-SF (Rendezvous with Rama), and the contrasts of their personalities work well and make for some half decent drama and arguments along the way. We initially have Axel and the Professor on the two extremes - Axel is cautious and the Professor wants to shoot in headlong - whereas Hans is quiet and does as his master bids, as well as saving their lives several times over. Verne doesn't go into massive depth regarding their development, but he does enough to provide interesting people to travel with, complete with a few conflicts.

The description of the actual journey, save for the trip to the volcano, is full of wonder and absolutely zips by. His descriptions evoke the lonliness and eerie silence of the caves they travel through, the desperation they experience with losing equipment or food, the constant worry of how to get back out, and the underground sea with its wondrous creatures never cease to amaze. It is truly an extraordinary voyage.

How they survived their escape though, I will never fathom. But let's not let such inconveniences detract from the journey, shall we?

An absolute classic. I am now a fan.

9.5/10

Game Review - Crysis 2 (X360)

2011-06-20T10:04:00.005+01:00

Crysis set a whole new benchmark for PC hardware requirements for games. Devout PC gamers loved this to a degree, as it gave them lots of graphical control options and pushed their rigs to the limit, as well as giving them reason to spend more money on new graphics cards and the like. We ended up with a very pretty game as well as one with good gameplay to match.

Fast-forward a few years, and CryTek have gone down the console route with their new CryEngine 3 to bring us Crysis 2, much to the chagrin of PC gamers, who are being increasingly left behind in this day and age. The simple fact is that there is more money to be made in console gaming, so it makes good business sense. It has also made for a lot of whining PC-philes.

Crysis 2 takes place a few years after the events of the first game and is set in an alien-infested New York City. You play the marine called Alcatraz, initially tasked with rescuing the scientist Nathan Gould from the stricken city, but through a series of events ending up as the nano-suited hero of the game.

A few have decried this game as being linear, once again. So once again I have to say that there's nothing much wrong with that folks - it gives us tightly-plotted gameplay with a great story and less faffing-about than you would do in an open world game. It's not as linear as CoD or the new MoH, as each situation presents you with different tactical options that you could take, or perhaps just go your own way. You can try to force your way through with big guns and grenades (the sound of which is quite awesome) or you can turn on your invisibility cloak and try and stealth your way through. Or a mixture of both, if you prefer - the choice is there for you to make. The gunplay is excellent and the ability to mod your weapon on the fly is a great idea (by the way I never did play the first one). The gameplay is so compelling in fact that I found myself wanting to play it when I wasn't - that speaks volumes.

There are points though where you wonder - a lot of situations could simply be walked through whilst cloaked. So what's the point? Also on several occasions enemies simply got stuck behind objects, illustrating a bug in an otherwise shiny game. One other gripe I have with the gameplay is that there are a couple of moments where there appears to be some sort of countdown until a big explosion or something, but in fact you can still take your own time with the mission as the countdown seems to be non-existent in reality, removing a potentially potent tension-tool.

The world of a devastated NYC is very well realised in the shiny new CryEngine 3. The graphics are very pretty indeed, with a consistent framerate throughout and terrific effects. I find it strange though that your character still has a shadow when cloaked, but that's just me. The environments all convey the sheer destruction of the city, complete with ruined buidlings, cars and ships, torn up streets and so on.

I particularly enjoyed the music which was very dramatic when required and contained a few idioms that gave it a real SF bent - there are moments when Jerry Goldsmith's score for Total Recall is evoked with the use of some "spacey" sounds. It does however have a tendency to get stuck and skip like a scratched CD at points. Some of the voice acting is a little suspect in the accents, but whilst I was playing on headphones I noted how cool the suit voice was and the intercoms with the different characters.

The story is good SF mixed with a heavy dose of bombastic shooter action, and CryTek certainly know what they're doing with that. The lack of a final boss or overmind is a little disappointing, consider the final set-piece is quite a "big" thing - the very end situation isn't that difficult and is a little anticlimactic. It does make sense in the context of the story though.

The multiplayer element is CoD-derivative with added invisibility.

Overall this is a very impressive and compelling game with great gameplay, graphics, music and action. What more could you want?

(I want to play the original on Xbox now).

8.5/10

Endings

2011-06-14T12:21:00.004+01:00

This comment will contain spoilers.

I got hold of the last series of Lost over a year ago, but never actually got round to watching it until the past couple of days. Like most people I got really into it when it first started (seems so long ago now) and after that the next few series were hit and miss. I'm glad I watched the last series now, but it has made me reflect somewhat on how disappointed with myself I can be.

The final series of the show is beautifully composed and constructed, and works very well when watched in one run. There were a few things that I couldn't quite remember as it had been a while since I watched it, but as I did I remembered more. My disappointment lies in my inability to get the subtle nuances without doing some reading after watching it. For example I forgot that the Man in Black as Locke said to Kate in one of the episodes that he had a crazy mother, which is then realised in the later episode where his and Jacob's origins are explained. I understood when Jack's father revealed that the alternate reality was in fact limbo, but for some reason it escaped me what they were all doing at the very end in the church, which, when I finally realised what it was, had such a perfect beauty to it that I couldn't help but be frustrated at myself for not being able to see something so blindingly obvious. I also missed the fact that the very last scene with Jack dying in the bamboo with Vincent beside him was a mirror of the very first scene all those years ago, but I did get the eye-closing instead of eye-opening reference.

Other people seem to have got all these things without a moment's thought.

I've considered myself to be a person of reasonable intelligence, but when something happens to show you how slow you really are despite what you may already think, it can change a person. I'm a little sad that Lost is over and that I'll never experience it again in the same way I did from watching it all once, but I'm even more so at the part of me I thought I had that it took with it at the end.

Retraction - The Demi-Monde

2011-06-10T11:46:00.003+01:00

I think I may have missed a trick somewhat with one of my criticisms of The Demi-Monde, in that I expected the events where Norma initially entered the Demi-Monde to be explained a little more. In retrospect I can now appreciate that Rees is drip-feeding the information on purpose to make us ask questions, in a Lost-esque fashion. So now I feel not a little foolish.

So it goes.

Musing: Why Jurassic Park and Ringworld are Related

2011-06-09T10:41:00.012+01:00

When people have asked me in the past what Ringworld is like, I go into the description of the Ringworld itself, as that is the main concept of the book. I often also draw comparisons to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park as well.

What have dinosaurs got to do with Ringworld?

Well, you have an intrepid scientist / explorer who is initially busy doing his/her own thing when a mysterious person arrives to employ them to come on a trip to explore something they have encountered (or created). After accepting the offer, they travel to this mysterious place together with some others that the employer has asked to come also. Upon arrival, the explorers discuss the science behind everything and have some great discussions about what is going on and how things are possible. Stuff happens, there is an element of peril, then they leave.

Obviously this is just a superficial comparison of the narrative. Jurassic Park is a morality tale at its heart, a warning against messing with nature, whereas Ringworld is a hard-SF postulation of a possibility, focused on mystery and gradually explaining how the Ringworld works and how it came to be.

You get the idea though, yes?

Book Review - The Demi Monde: Winter (Rod Rees)

2011-06-03T21:46:00.003+01:00

I have a problem. Just about every book I buy is previously researched and reviews read, and as such anything I get tends to have been already well-received anyway. I'm perhaps a bit too shrewd to take the risk of wasting money on shitty books I won't like, and so perhaps I'm not particularly good as a reviewer. Maybe I should read a few shite books from time to time to add some context to my reading experience.

The Demi-Monde is not one of those books. It was something I happened upon by accident, had read no reviews of and took the risk of buying it, only to be presented with an awesome debut.

The story follows Ella Thomas, a jazz singer that the US Army wants to enter the Demi-Monde to save the President's daughter, Norma Williams, who has somehow gotten lost within the eponymous computer simulation. That is the basic idea, but it doesn't really do justice to the world that Rees has created. His Demi-Monde is a disc-like world divided into 5 segments both by geography and ruling ideology. This first book in the series is predominantly concerned with the area called "The Rookeries", governed by a Nazi-esque system called UnFunDaMentalism.

Here was the first thing that got to me about the book - in the early chapters there is perhaps an overwhelming number of terms that make use of words with extra capitals. I'm sure there's a reason for it, but if there is it's not entirely clear and in the early part of the book it got to me a little, as they are used a lot in the obligatory info-dump about the world and its philosophies. That said, Rees handles the introduction of the world very well, choosing to give us some concentrated information at the start and gradually feed it to us in smaller bites further on as the plot gathers momentum. The capitalised words also become less frequent and less annoying.

When the story gets going in earnest, you just lap it up. Considering this is his debut novel, Rees writes like a seasoned pro, with a well-developed lexicon that means the prose is never boring and the action keeps moving with considerable pace. His characterisation is spot-on, populating the world of the Demi-Monde with absolute two-faced bastards, perverted low-lifes and a highly articulate, disturbing pinnacle of evil in his realisation of Reinhard Heydrich. This is contrasted with the headstrong Ella, horrified at the institutionalised racism of UnFunDaMentalism and doing her utmost to survive as a black girl in the predominantly white area of The Rookeries. I found the transformation of Trixie Dashwood from quiet, reserved yet closeted rebel into a fully-fledged tyrant quite affecting, if a little bit quick.

Spoiler below.

There comes a crucial point, about halfway through the book where Norma, the trapped daughter of the President, meets her exact double, and mentions that she supposedly was enticed into the Demi-Monde by someone of this description. This is said almost in passing, almost as if we already happened upon this incident - it felt a bit sudden, and I couldn't help but feel that Norma's enticement into the world could have been covered earlier somehow. It did make for an interesting twist.

End spoiler.

Any description of the world and characters of the Demi-Monde that I make can't possibly do it any justice - it would be far better for someone to read the book for themselves. This is an excellent start to a series, as well as a great debut from a new writer who makes the pages fly past, maintains pace throughout, gives us excellent characters to love and hate, develops a new world with intelligence and detail, provides just the right amount of sexiness for my tastes and leaves us hanging at the end with questions that simply must be answered.

One of those questions must be...when's the next book??? I hope I get the hardback so it can sit next to my copy of this one.

8/10

Game Review - Homefront (X360)

2011-05-29T00:00:00.004+01:00

I'll make this review as long as the game.

Situation - North Korea rises to power and occupies the USA, as in Red Dawn (both written by jingoistic John Milius). Player participates in the resistance, in a plan to retake the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco.

I finished the game in two short sittings. The controls are CoD-basic. The graphics are decent. The music is very good. The gameplay is very CoD-esque - lots of bad guys shooting at you lots - with some variation thrown in for good measure. A few of the set-pieces are impressive, and the game and story itself are quite compelling. The rise of DPRK to power is fleshed out well.

But it's too short.

As for the multiplayer I tried it for a few minutes, got killed a lot, and decided I have more important things to do with my life than learn to get good at yet another fucking multiplayer. Switch off.

I might go back to clean up a few achievements, but it's unlikely. The campaign is very enjoyable, with good sound and music, but overall I don't feel I got my money's worth.

6.5/10

Film Review - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

2011-05-27T09:57:00.002+01:00

I went in expecting to be disappointed, after the trashing the majority of the critics gave this movie. I came out quite happy actually, and so will you, probably.

While it's not on par with 'Curse' and not as humorous as the previous trilogy, it's still got more focus and less film-flam than the last two entries. At two hours it might seem a little long, but it's all full of story - a straightforward, focused story that maintains pace and direction throughout. The start is a little fuzzy, but by half way through the train is well on the right track.

Nice.

Most of the jokes fall to Depp who does a stirling job with Sparrow, whilst the tone of the rest is somewhat more adult, by which I mean "grown-up" as opposed to anything else. Less silliness. That's not a bad thing - I found the more adult nature of the film to be quite satisfying. There is plenty of adventure to be had here.

It also doesn't have Keira Knightley or Orlando Bloom in it. Another plus.

Penelope Cruz is feisty and sexy and everything Knightley wasn't and works very well with Depp, though if anything Ian McShane could have been a lot more intimidating than he was. That said, he was adept at barking orders and being reasonably menacing, however his relationship with his ship could have been expanded a little. Geoffrey Rush made the most of his diminished role, and the way his story is resolved, despite it looking a little silly at the start, is quite neat. I also quite appreciated the clergyman Philip (Sam Claflin) and his relationship with the mermaid, Syrena - again, quite grown-up.

All in all this is a satisfying entry into the series and proof yet again of how the cynical critics are out of touch with the wider audience.

7/10

Don't panic...

2011-05-20T14:56:00.002+01:00

...but Chris Wooding's follow up to Black Lung Captain called The Iron Jackal now has a cover and is available for preorder on Amazon.

Shiny.

Film Review - Attack the Block (2011)

2011-05-20T09:28:00.004+01:00

Kids with katanas, eh?

I saw the adverts for this film and interviews with the director on Channel 4. Joe Cornish it said...why do I know that name...oh, Adam and Joe! Wait...Adam and Joe? Really?

Yes, really.

Cornish's directorial debut follows a group of hoodies in an urban tower block council estate (some buildings of which are named Huxley and Wyndham, presumably after the authors) on one particular night. A mysterious "wolf gorilla thing" creature crash lands from space nearby, and the leader of the gang decides to capture and kill it. They do this, but after a while they start to realise that they're in deep trouble, as more of them start to arrive...

What's particularly enjoyable about this film is that, in between the expertly executed action scenes, Cornish makes time to paint an honest picture of adolescent life in city tower block estates without slowing the pace of the film. The mugging at the start of the film between the two main protagonists of the story (one of the kids mugs Jodie Whittaker's character) sets up the audience to feel somewhat averse to rooting for them, but throughout the course of the film our eyes are opened a little more and our feelings towards them are transformed. There is one particular moment where we are given a "bet you feel crap about hating them now, don't you" scene which is perhaps a little heavy handed, but honest nonetheless.

At the end of the day, they're just kids who have been forced astray from the straight and narrow through no fault of their own, but a combination of the environment and people they rely on for support. This is how we feel by the end of the film.

Similarly Jodie Whittaker acts as a voice for those of us that can't tolerate crime, sticking up for herself and constantly reminding the kids that no matter what excuse they come up with, mugging is not acceptable. As one of the characters succinctly puts it, "actions have consequences, you know?" Cornish toes a fine line between opening the eyes of those who judge child criminals, and of those who might partake in such crimes and the impact on the victims. The human story is one of optimism, of redemption of the main character, Moses.

Aside from the human aspects the film is a fantastic action romp, directed with great pace and style by Cornish, who hits the mark with all the action scenes. The creature design is simple but very effective, reduced to the bare minimum of a black shape with lots of glowing teeth. What more do you want? The pumping soundtrack is perfectly suited to what plays out on screen, combining straight beats with orchestral accompaniments. The cast are all excellent in their portrayals of their characters - even if the kids are all pretty much the same character (with the exception of the conflicted Moses), they all do it very well, and Whittaker provides excellent contrast to the brash and tough-talking youngsters. Nick Frost was a little subdued perhaps, and most of the humour came from him, but to be honest any humour that was present wasn't really that humourous.

Solid British action film that makes time for social commentary.

8/10

Game Review - Dead Space 2 (X360)

2011-05-13T22:47:00.006+01:00

This is yet another game I didn't get around to playing until recently, but I'm glad I can get time to play it when I can in peace and quiet.

In Dead Space 2, we find our protagonist Isaac Clarke now on a space station called "The Sprawl", after he mysteriously awakes following his escape from the Ishimura. Somehow a Marker has found its way onto this Sprawl - a cracked Titan, moon of Saturn - and the results are as you might expect.

On the face of it, this game has a very simplistic story, but at its heart this is a character piece for our main man Clarke (now equipped with a speaking voice), who feels intense remorse for the loss of his other half on the Ishimura, and her "ghost" haunts him still. Supposedly.

We're treated essentially to the same gameplay as last time in the "ain't broken" fashion, and the controls are tight, fluid and easy to adapt to. The graphics and sound are very detailed, with the sound being particularly effective, especially when you are in vacuum, as it was in the previous game. In fact, the game is just as good in terms of quality as the previous, but this gives rise to a slight downfall in that it is essentially more of the same. There are a few new bells and whistles, such as a couple of new weapons and enemies, but for the most part they are just the same as last time.

This doesn't mean the game isn't enjoyable (it is very enjoyable indeed), but it makes it seem a little...economical, especially considering the moment where you end up back on the Ishimura. It's a nice touch, and they've made it a little different aesthetically, but it is a bit...ecomonical.

The campaign is atmospheric and compelling, and while initially Clarke's voice seems odd, we do come to empathise with him, and admittedly this does help. The truth regarding his ghostly visions is a little disappointing, in that just when you think it's one thing, it becomes something that came before again, and that's as far as I'll go to explain that. Normal mode isn't particularly challenging and doesn't really get as intense as the last game did at points, but there are many more difficult options. At about 12-14 hours long the campaign feels just about right. I did read some time ago that this game was supposed to have a more open-world feel about it. As you progress you do often double back on yourself mysteriously, but you're really still on a set path. I don't mind this at all, but some might.

A very enjoyable game that's very similar to the previous, but examines the character of Clarke in an interesting way that gives much more depth to the otherwise thin story. There's really nothing to fault it on other than the sameness.

Play it in the dark to get the most out of it.

8.5/10

P.S. I haven't yet tried the multiplayer aspect!

Film Review - Thor (2011)

2011-05-08T00:53:00.005+01:00

So summer has kicked off with a superhero movie, one that people often wondered how they were going to manage given the supernatural nature of this particular one. What it boils down to is this - he's an alien. I think.

Anyway in this stepping stone towards The Avengers the mighty Thor has found himself exiled to Earth from his home of Asgard, just before he becomes king, and...well it pretty much follows your basic Lion King archetype story after that.

Now firstly, I saw a good few reviews before going to see this, most of which were positive and remarked on the jokes. In fact, there aren't that many jokes at all. There are a few funny moments after Thor arrives on Earth, but after that we're stuck onto the straight and narrow. I was expecting a lot more humour than what there was, I suppose that's my own fault.

The film starts well with plenty of action and bravado - Anthony Hopkins provides his best shouty voice and pulls off the role of King Odin expertly - but like Iron Man 2 before it, once we hit the middle section things slow right down. On Earth, we're reduced to some silliness and plodding, complete with a somewhat gratuitous, almost histrionic topless scene. It does hold attention, but becomes uninteresting. Thankfully it is interspersed with scenes from Asgard, where the story of family and betrayal truly is interesting.

The human characters are somewhat uninspired. Natalie Portman does admirably with her limited material, but ultimately she has no character other than a love interest for Thor. Stellan Skarsgard also does his usual best, but suffers the same problem. Kat Dennings has even less to say, and is basically reduced to spouting inane product placement nonsense. Chris Hemsworth does well as the cocky, overeager son of Odin who learns his lesson in humility on Earth and becomes a better person, albeit somewhat suddenly and with no organic development, and his voice contains the gravitas expected although his accent is a little suspect.

Idris Elba is as cool as always. No matter what he's in, after The Wire I will enjoy every minute of his presence.

Once Thor manages to head back to Asgard, which you should have suspected anyway folks, the action picks up again and it finishes respectably. One can't help but wonder though what this film's real worth is - is it just a means of wheeling him out and giving him a reason to join The Avengers?

Thor does improve on the fan service over Iron Man 2, in that there isn't as much, and the appearance of Jeremy Renner was nice and straightforward as opposed to a nudge-nudge-wink-wink thing.

Overall entertaining, but bordering on boring in the middle and with no real effort put into the human characters, but thankfully the skill of the actors (and Branagh presumably) saves them. A stepping stone to The Avengers.

I can't decide what mark to give this film, because even though it is full of faults, I still enjoyed watching it.

Let's say...6.5/10

PS Don't bother going to see it in 3D, it doesn't really add anything, and wasn't really noticeable.

New Assassin's Creed Game: Revelations

2011-05-06T09:25:00.003+01:00

So the next incarnation of the Assassin's Creed series is on its way, and once again we follow Ezio. Initially I thought "not again", but after thinking about it some more it may be a nice idea. In the new game an older Ezio travels to Istanbul to follow the trail of his predecessor Altair, for whatever reasons.

This might be a nice idea because it will most likely bring both the Ezio and Altair legacies to a close simultaneously. We never really find out much about what happened to Altair after the first AC game (unless you play the handheld games, or read various books or wiki entries, but I think all this should be in the games) or Ezio after AC:B, so it will be nice to be able to close their stories and move on to new ones.

It does smack a little of milking it though.

Recent Acquisitions

2011-05-06T09:18:00.003+01:00

Bought some rather tasty books recently - I have almost completed my library of Asimov books (as in bought, not read) and now I am trying to consolidate my Larry Niven collection. One of the tasks behind that is collecting the whole Man-Kzin Wars series, some books of which are quite expensive and have had to come from America. I nearly have them all now - just waiting for VII (last one I got was in bad condition) and X and that's them all collected. I also purchased some more of his core novels (haven't worried about short story collections as such) such as Legacy of Heorot, Gift from Earth etc.

Yesterday I got the nice shiny new hardback edition of China Mieville's latest, Embassytown. I have Perdido Street Station, but of course I haven't read it yet. Embassytown is supposed to be his first foray into clear-cut SF, so I'm looking forward to it.

In the pic below are the two Man-Kzin books that arrived recently and Embassytown. The middle book is signed by Niven himself!

I'll get back to it...

2011-04-26T14:12:00.003+01:00

Haggard's She is on the back burner once again...I will get back to it, honestly! I decided to go ahead and get stuck into Rod Rees' Demi-Monde because, well, I couldn't get my head to commit to going back to She. I have so many other unread books in my collection that they're all very distracting, but I thought I'd give the most recently published one a go and see how up-to-date I can get.

Rees is a known Blogger - it's unlikely he'll read my page, but if you are reading this Rod then I'm looking forward to your adventure!

In other news I started and finished the first series of Darker than Black over the past few days. It was very enjoyable - I'll get a review up if I can be annoyed. I have a number of other series to watch, namely Eureka Seven, Baccano, Durarara and maybe Eden of the East. And The Wire.

Shameful that I haven't finished The Wire.

I have been watching the third series of Parks and Recreation also - one of the best comedies on TV at the moment, hands down.

Book Review - Retromancer (Robert Rankin)

2011-04-26T09:27:00.004+01:00

This is the first Robert Rankin book that I've read, and to be fair he uses a lot of in-jokes that people new to his novels wouldn't get had they not read his previous works. That said, this is still a humourous and typically self-deprecating book, and I enjoyed reading it. The fact that it has short chapters helps.

In this book, the sequel to The Brightonomicon, Jimmy Pooley, aka Rizla, wakes up from his previous adventure to see that all is not right - the local cafe is selling German foods instead of an English breakfast, the street names are in German-gothic font...and the Nazis won the Second World War. In order to right this wrong, he is suddenly taken back in time by his mysterious magician mentor, Hugo Rune, who seems capable of just about anything, including partaking in many large meals and avoiding paying for them. They travel back to the 1940s and through various dealings with all manner of weird and wonderful characters they attempt to set the world back to rights.

Supposedly this isn't Rankin's best work, but having not experienced any before I had no reference. On it's own, this book was an enjoyable read, though repetetive, and some of the running gags fell a little flat (though Rankin does counter this by mentioning how repetetive things are and how some running gags don't quite work within the book itself). Of particular note is his whimsical style of language and writing that is quite endearing, harkening back to Monty Python with a little Douglas Adams mixed in. Had I not done a little research beforehand I wouldn't have got the majority of referential in-jokes that occasionally crop up, but that's neither here nor there as they say. Overall it wasn't massively funny, but there were one or two moments when I did chuckle vocally.

A whimsical, parodical, self-referencing and enjoyable read. If this isn't him at his best, I look forward to reading his "better" works.

7/10

Game Review - Vanquish (X360)

2011-04-11T09:31:00.003+01:00

I got this at Christmas time and never actually got round to playing it through until now. This one came up rather quickly and as a bit of a surprise to people, between it's appearance in game news blogs to it appearing on the shelves (which is interesting given that it was in development from 2007). It was slightly overshadowed by the developers' previous title, Bayonetta, and as such has become one of the legendary underselling yet very well made Japanese new IPs.

In the game we follow Sam Gideon on his quest to defeat an evil Russian maniac and his army of robots who are using an orbiting space station as a weapon to terrorise and destroy cities in the USA. Sam is not technically a soldier, but a member of DARPA - an advanced weaponry research facility - and does battle in a specially souped-up suit that gives him awesome powers. As Sam progresses with standard army soliders through the station and the story, all is not as it seems.

The first thing you notice about the game is that the graphics are sublime. Intensely detailed, smooth and well-designed, all of which add to the immersiveness of the game world. The cutscenes suffer on the 360 due to compression though - had I played it on PS3 I'm sure I would have got the full HD experience.

The next thing you notice about the game is how dire the voice acting is, and the script is often cringingly bad. Admittedly you get used to it after a while - either that or it improves - but initially we've got some bad jokes and awful cliches, as well as forced gruffness from the two male leads and perhaps an overuse of John DiMaggio as "Generic Unnamed Soldier Dudes". Still, this is to be expected of an Japanese-to-English voice translation - the voices are often difficult to bear. The same goes for some anime.

But perhaps all this silliness is part of the charm of the game? Perhaps that's what the developers were aiming for? After all, the rest of the game is suitably over-the-top. Gameplay-wise the action is frenetic and fast paced, and it never really lets up save for a few dialogue sequences between set-pieces. The game is simply a joy to play, complete with a vast array of weapons, enemies, boss battles and absolutely mental gun battles that are reminiscent of those old-school shoot-em-ups. Your suit's powers of boosting and time-slowing add new depth to the third-person-shooter archetype also. The control system is a little familiar, but works very well, and lets you pull off your various tricks with panache.

So basically it's Gears of War on speed.

Some have criticised the short length of the game, but if you play on hard (like I did) it will take you a decent enough length of time to play through it, on the order of 8-9 hours, plus you have the added bonus of feeling proud of yourself for having overcome the game. Hard mode is a challenge indeed, and it is one that should be relished. If you play on casual or normal it's a piece of piss. Some have also whinged about the lack of multiplayer - this is to be expected in this day and age, but a developer shouldn't feel the need to pander to these people. Fair enough, Vanquish looks like a multiplayer-able game, but again to try and tack this on would detract from the intense single-player experience.

Not every game has to have fucking multiplayer.

In summary:

Rampant fun, extremely playable, extremely enjoyable, more so than Bayonetta...only let down by the script and voice acting, and to a lesser degree by the compressed video on 360. Here's hoping it sold well enough to warrant a sequel.

9/10

Film Review - Source Code (2011)

2011-04-06T09:24:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since I last went to the cinema to see a movie within mere days of it's release. I was a little taken aback then, after arriving at the cinema, that I had to look for a decent seat.

Source Code is the second film from Moon (hold on, why haven't I reviewed that yet?) director Duncan Jones, and remains firmly within the SF genre. Since Moon Jones has become something of a darling for SF movie buffs and his first film was very well received. No pressure then.

I wish I knew nothing of the story of Source Code before I went to see it, but here's the general idea - a train in Chicago has been bombed by an unknown terrorist, killing everyone on board. However, using some new and fancy technology, the army is capable of sending someone back to inhabit the body of one of the train passengers for the last 8 minutes of his life. In doing so, they hope to find out who the bomber is and prevent further attacks. Jake Gyllenhall plays Captain Colter Stevens, the man sent back into another's body for this very purpose, but as the film progresses it becomes clear that not everything is that simple.

There have been a lot of comparisons to this new film from other things, such as Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day. This is fair enough, Jones himself makes his influences clear, but to focus on this aspect would be doing a disservice to the film, which is better enjoyed on its own merits. Jones provides solid, clear direction with no hint of pretentiousness, and he takes us through the story without talking down to anyone and assuming the audience is made up of reasonably intelligent individuals. I can respect that.

Gyllenhall begins the film as the audience - confused, wondering what's happening, demanding explanation - and as the film progresses his own story comes out and his character develops quite nicely. Jeffrey Wright puts in a very commendable performance as the eccentric scientist Rutledge, the inventor of Source Code, and Vera Farmiga is an expert at producing restrained empathy in trying to be a professional soldier in the circumstances - I found that this in itself said so much about the story and was particularly effective. Michelle Monaghan does what she can, but there is very little room for her to manoevure inside these "last 8 minutes" segments, and the script does not provide much character development for her, or for most of the other characters in fact. If there was anything to bring this film down a little it's that the supporting characters rely on the performance of the actors to bring them any life and actual character, as it were, whereas Gyllenhall is developed steadily throughout the film as the mysteries about him are revealed. Gyllenhall makes it very easy to relate to him and put ourselves in his shoes, and provides a compelling protagonist.

The film is entertaining and intelligent. Hard SF boffins will be left a little wanting, as the technology is not quite explained or developed, but ultimately this will always fall second to the story and the drama. The mysteries play themselves out well and without any major plot holes, and the ending in particular is enjoyably trippy. It's worth noting though, that anyone with a sufficiently suspicious mind should be able to figure out who the bomber is from the very beginning.

Another fine effort from Jones and co.

8/10

Rankin

2011-04-05T11:07:00.002+01:00

I have discovered Robert Rankin. I had Retromancer on the shelf for ages and I have started reading it (avoiding She). Tis funny.

Rant - Buying a Car

2011-04-02T16:34:00.004+01:00

I reserve the right to rant on my blog, even though this is not SF-related. Let me relay a story to you, abbreviated.

A Ford Fiesta shows up at a local car dealer. They want £7495.

I try it. I love it.

I ask him to drop price. He goes down to about £7300, £6800 with a trade in.

I'll think about it, I say.

Later internet research reveals a couple of things:

a) Recommended independent valuation - £6300
b) Other instances of said Fiesta being sold with lower miles for £7000

Curious, I think. I go to see another one, one of the £7000 ones. I see it, I love it (for it's RED). Unfortunately someone has bought it already.

I try calling original dealer. I suggest the independent valuation I found. He doesn't budge, merely grunts "nah". I mention the other Fiestas, with lower miles and lower price, and he says:

"Well you go and buy theirs then."

What business does he think he's in? Car selling or car collecting?

A word sprung to mind as I hung up.

That word was "fuckwit". It may have been preceded by a "what a", perhaps with an optional "stupid".

Book Review - Orphanage (Robert Buettner)

2011-03-30T12:59:00.004+01:00

Spoilers!

I haven't yet read Starship Troopers, but I have seen the movie. If the movie is anything to go by, then this book is pretty much the same as it. That's not a bad thing though.

On buying this book I expected standard military-SF series fare, as turned out by so many ex-army soldiers/intelligence officers/marines/pilots etc. On that basis, this book lives up to it's expectations.

Again, no bad thing.

Orphanage follows the adventures of Jason Wander, prozac-popping troublemaker who has been on a downward slope since losing his only family - his mother - in an alien attack. "Projectiles" are being launched from Jupiter's moon Ganymede in an effort by the antagonists to kill off the population and alter the atmosphere of Earth to suit their own needs. To help the war effort, and to try and straighten Wander out, he is sent to train to be in the army.

I'm sure you can probably figure out the rest from here. This is a well-trodden archetypal story, but enjoyable nonetheless. And when I say it is just like the film of Starship Troopers, it really really is, right down to the accidental death in training due to stupidity, right down to the love between soldiers angle, right down to the travelling-to-another-world-to-blow-the-crap-of-the-aliens-only-to-get-their-arses-kicked-yet-miraculously-win-after-killing-the-main-brain-alien thread. The drill sergeant is a badass of course. You get the idea - fairly formulaic.

However, in so doing this, Buettner ensures the success of the book as an enjoyable read. This kind of story is familiar yes, but it's familiar because it's successful, and people have enjoyed reading it over the years in many different forms. How important you consider this is up to the reader - personally I didn't mind, as I expected it to pan out as such.

Buettner adds his own stamp to the otherwise well-known story. He explores the loss felt by people and soldiers during war, and how it makes orphans of those left behind. If anything this area isn't explored to it's fullest, nor is Wander's reliance on drugs to keep him going. Buettner is clearly well-read on his military history, and very frequently makes references to events that happened in past wars. As he writes in first person, it follows that Wander is a historian also, but outside of these references he never shows it and seems somewhat ignorant (unless I've missed something and I'm mistaken). This is a little conflicting.

The training element of the story is perhaps a little slow, but when we finally head to Ganymede the action shifts up a gear and moves past in a breeze. Along the way Buettner makes a good stab at how the world has been affected by the projectile attacks (but again, not enough) and takes us on a journey with relatable characters, honesty, and the odd jarring moment of silliness. Certain phrases are often repeated, such as "my heart " as a shorthand for describing how Wander is feeling, as well as the most criminal in my book, the shrug. There is far too much shrugging in this book. Nobody shrugs that much.

Overall this is a good opening to a series that shows promise. It's not particularly deep and doesn't pretend to be, and it is quick and easy to read (short chapters!). The gripes I have mentioned can be forgiven due to the fact that the story is simple and easy to digest.

However, the critic in me must say that it is all very familiar territory.

7/10

Call of Duty: Black Ops (X360)

2011-02-28T20:52:00.003Z

I tried to avoid it for a looooong time, but when this finally came down to £25 I couldn't resist any more, plus I had been getting back into MW2 after a friend recently started playing it.

Luckily for Activision this year was going to get a CoD instalment as it was Treyarch's turn, though with the whole Infinity Ward scandal one wonders what will happen next. Anyway, in Black Ops Treyarch have finally decided to pull themselves out of WWII and swap it for a peak Cold War / Vietnam situation. All the better for it, too - it was high time for something new.

The campaign story follows Alex Mason who has been mysteriously brainwashed and tortured by a sequence of numbers. We find him in an interrogation room being grilled by mysterious people behind a frosted glass window. As they forcefully ask him questions, he flashes back to moments in his recent past as an operative for none other than JFK.

The style of the story is fresh and interesting compared to the rest of the CoD series in the regular flashbacks to different locations and the denouement is satisfying, though if you are wary enough you can figure it out. The campaign doesn't quite have the sheer immediacy and chill of MW2 where we're presented with a Russian invasion of the US, but shares the relentless gun battles that the series is known for. Gameplay is essentially unchanged, with the exception of one or two driving bits and a helicopter flight or two.

A few big-name actors show up for those interested, Ed Harris and Sam Worthington amongst them. Harris is dependable, though possibly on auto-pilot, whilst Worthington tries a lot, but as demonstrated by Avatar his American accent gets a little too shaky a little too often.

In short, the campaign's worth a play though - it's not especially long for a game but that keeps it tight and devoid of extra added nonsense. It is quite linear, but as I mentioned in the review of Medal of Honor I don't find this a bad thing, as it keeps you on track with the story and stops you from doing stupid shit like you tend to do in sandbox type games. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE STORY.

But to be honest, most of us get CoD for the multiplayer. I'm not great at it, but it is very good, very compelling and quite addictive. It's frustrating playing against people who have played this all day every day since it was released, but once in a while you can get a chance to have fun. Again the multiplayer formula remains mostly the same - ain't broke - but a few new things have been added such as the RC explosive car kill streak and a currency system, all lending a few nice things to a largely samey MP.

It's not groundbreaking but you could do worse.

8/10

Game Review - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (X360)

2011-02-28T13:54:00.004Z

A lot of people were worried that, with AC:B, they would do the same to Assassin's Creed what they did to Halo with Halo: ODST, and sell what was essentially a map pack for the same price as a full price new game. They were also concerned about quality, given the short year-long turnaround time between ACII and this, and concerned it might become akin to Call of Duty of any EA Sports game.

They needn't have worried.

AC:B is very similar to ACII insofar as we have the same engine, a lot of the same characters, same weapons etc., but it's different enough to warrant it's existence. We again follow Desmond and Ezio in search of the elusive Apple of Eden, the powerful artifact from a civilisation many years past, in their bid to keep it from the Templars. Ezio's story also focuses on the fall of the Borgia in Rome and the rise of the Brotherhood of Assassins.

Rome is a huge city, full of instantly recogniseable monuments and architecture, but during the period of Ezio's life it has lessened in it's stature at the hands of the Borgia. Part of your job as Ezio is to renovate businesses and rebuild damaged architecture, adding a new dimension to the classic ACII gameplay. The money you earned in the previous game had no real meaning after a while, once Monteriggioni had been rebuilt, but now you watch your finances more carefully in order to bring Rome back to it's former glory. In order to renovate shops and buildings, you must take down the Borgia Towers, which add more depth to the once-monotonous viewpoints.

Something else that will make players bounce with glee has been added - the ability to recruit your own assassins. This new gameplay mechanic allows you to call on your loyal recruits to aid you in assassinations and fights, and is simply a joy to sit back and watch. It does make things a little bit too easy though, as quite often you do just literally sit back and watch. That said, it has been well thought out, as you can dispatch your recruits to missions around Europe to give them more experience and level up, as well as earning more cash for you.

There are many other additions and extra things that give this game the richness and versatility it deserves - Leonardo's War Machines missions, Cristina memories, Romulus Lairs - all of these serve to give variety to the game and, more importantly for me, tie into the story of Ezio and the history of the period. There is very little here that is superficial, yet at the same time some of it is superfluous.

You get to spend more time as Desmond in this game and more opportunity to try out his assassin free-run skills. The majority of this is in the present-time Monteriggioni, discovering artifacts belonging to Ezio's time, but there's effectively no real benefit to the player in doing this section other than a little fan service. People wanted more Desmond, they got more Desmond. The present-day epilogue of the game though is very important indeed.

Other superfluous elements include the courtesan/thief missions which are there ostensibly to give you a little extra cash and unlock a few clothing items by their completion, but if you play the game well enough then you'll have no real need for this. To be honest as soon as I started the game I was renovating away, then in one of the main missions I was told that I was able to renovate stuff.

The story itself suffers in that it's simply about Ezio rebuilding Rome and ousting the Borgias, whilst the Borgias play out their story according to history, and each encounter with them seems disjointed, merely scenes from their time in the past. The epilogue is fantastic though, and Ezio's story is important in his influence on establishing the Brotherhood.

Overall this is a worthy addition to the franchise, with plenty to do and compelling action and gameplay. Not many of our questions behind the conspiracy of it all are really answered, but more intrigue is produced by the end. Roll on ACIII!

8.5/10

PS I haven't really played much of the multiplayer component, so I haven't considered that in scoring the game.

Old Man's War...the movie

2011-02-25T22:11:00.002Z

So, Scalzi has all the right connections, and they're going to make an Old Man's War movie, or at least, Paramount have bought the rights to it. I wonder has his work on the recently cancelled Stargate Universe helped? Anyone else see the dude reading a copy of it in one of the episodes?

Also Wolfgang Petersen is attached.

I seem to remember Petersen being attached to another, somewhat more famous military SF novel film project.

What happened to that, I wonder?

By the way I haven't forgotten to review anything, but completion of things has been rather thin on the ground except for Bleach manga volumes. I've taken a break from She to read Orphanage by Robert Buettner (pronounced Butt-ner? Teehee).

Still Reading

2011-02-07T14:24:00.004Z

I'm still reading, albeit even slower than ever...I'm an another classic right now, She by H. Rider Haggard. Once I finish I'll move on to some tasty SF goodness.

I have nearly all currently released volumes of Bleach now, though I'm toying with the idea of selling them off already, as I'm unlikely to ever read them again. I'll keep volume one though, as I bought it in London on hols. Memories and all that. I also bought the Death Note box set - the anime was awesome, and I've been meaning to get the manga for a good while, so now I have it and I'm super chuffed. Must finish what I have of Bleach first though!

I've also acquired a good few new SF books, namely a hardback of Cory Doctorow's latest For The Win, which I picked up for dirt cheap in what used to be Bargain Books, as well as a curious brand new book called The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees. Supposedly good. Could it be possibly the newest book I will read?

So at the moment I have lots of games to finish, lots of DVDs and TV series and anime I need to watch, plus lots of manga and novels I need to get read. There simply aren't enough hours in the day.

Film Review - Tron Legacy (2010)

2011-01-18T10:03:00.004Z

I finally got to see this after much dilly-dallying and delays due to work and Christmas, and I was glad I saw it in it's intended 3D form. I was familiar with the original until recently when I watched it again in preparation, so I think I got a little more out of this new instalment than if I hadn't. Hype for this film has been high since the test footage was shown a few years ago, much to many people's excitement.

The new film follows Sam Flynn, the son of Kevin Flynn, who has become disillusioned with his life after his father disappeared when he was a boy. After Alan Bradley (a very welcome Bruce Boxleitner) receives a mysterious message from Kevin, Sam returns to his old arcade to investigate, and, as you can probably already tell, ends up in the grid himself.

What follows is a good solid 2 hours of impeccably shot prettiness and action scenes. Visually the film is completely arresting and superbly realised, with Kosinski bringing a wonderful eye to proceedings and creating a unique vision of the Grid. Daft Punk's score is similarly well-suited, with glitchy, bit-crushed beats pervading every frame and emphasising the nature of the anthropomorphised computer world. I spoiled it a little for myself by hearing the soundtrack before the film, but it is simply cool nonetheless. It does teeter on being a little too overpowering.

What of the bad things then? Well the main problem with this film is that, crucially, the main character just doesn't have much more to say other than inane one-liners, cliched quips that people of his age supposedly say. Perhaps this is to help audiences identify with him, but for most of the film he literally has very little else to say other than:

"This isn't happening."
"This is happening."
"This I can do."
"I'm all over this."

All seemingly straight from a Michael Bay movie.

Most of the best lines go to Bridges, who delivers them with conviction and adds much needed humour of his own to a somewhat stale script. There are some nice elements, such as Kevin's dialect being stuck in the 80s and some touching discussions between father and son about the world and motorbikes, that lend some depth to things, but ultimately the main character is empty for the majority of the time. A poorly written main character in a film is a fundamental error to make. All of the other characters are somewhat interesting - Flynn Snr., Quorra, Zeus (Sheen), Clu, Rinzler...it's just a shame that the main guy is so shallow.

After the real-world preamble, the film drops Sam right into several action scenes where he suddenly enters the gaming arena with very little explanation as to why, and nobody really questions his existence until a crucial point during them. Does it not strike anyone as odd, this guy showing up at random in odd clothing?

It's not all negative though, as there are other things to appreciate. The writers have tried to expand on the Tron mythos by adding a decent amount of backstory, using several flashbacks involving Tron and his story, beings called "ISOs", and what actually happened to the Grid in the 20 years of Flynn's absence. This adds a lot of depth. The very final shot of the film is done with such conviction and simplicity that I found it profoundly touching.

The door is left wide open for a sequel which is great, as you just can't get enough of Bruce Boxleitner. There wasn't enough of him in this one.

Overall it's an enjoyable, pretty spectacle, well shot, very loud, with great music and some touching moments of interaction between characters, but unfortunately lacking in characterisation and a decent script for the main character.

7/10

Book Review - Retribution Falls (Chris Wooding)

2011-01-07T09:54:00.003Z

Took me a good while to read this one, not because it was hard going, but I just couldn't read it consistently until Christmas where I actually had some time to myself.

Retribution Falls is best described as a steampunk, sky pirate adventure in the simplest terms. It's both a character-driven and plot-driven story of treachery, thieving, action and often poignant self-discovery. Darian Frey is te captain of the freebooter vessel the Ketty Jay, leading a ragtag bunch of crew members with their own history from one job to the next, as well as getting drunk regularly and gambling away most of the paltry sums of money he makes. One day he is offered a job he can't refuse, but suddenly he and his crew become embroiled in a dangerous political conspiracy, and he struggles to clear his name.

Everything in this story is presented with clarity and sharp humour that never ceases to entertain. The story is well-worn archetype, but it is very well played out and always interesting - each of the characters in the crew have their own story, and throughout the course of the book we learn their secrets, why they do what they do, and how they evolve as people by the end. The various plot threads are very tightly knit together, with the odd sly metaphor slipped in for good measure. The chapters are generally quite short, which is good news for someone like myself.

Wooding's steampunk-influenced future is well realised without wallowing too much in Tolkien-esque over-description, yet providing enough scientific matter to allow you to picture the technologies involved in flying the great airships of the world.

Some have said that this book is slightly misogynistic and I suppose it is to a degree, as most of the female characters are whores, or mistreated by Frey and then almost forgotten about. This is not a reflection on Wooding though, as I believe he is merely trying to portray a certain world we can identify with pirates, and by the end Frey does mention his regret for mistreating certain female people. To be fair, throughout the course of the book the men don't seem any better than the women, and often the character of Jez whips the boys into action.

Overall very readable, very fun, and very fast paced with few misgivings.

9/10

Out of Manga :(

2010-11-28T22:23:00.002Z

I bought 20 Bleach books and I've read them all :( Should I buy more?

The first 20 books have an interesting story arc, going suddenly from one type of story - battling hollows in the real world - to spending so much time in the Soul Society trying to rescue Rukia. Quite a revelation by the end of the first 20 books too.

Yeah. I'll buy more.

Game Review - Enslaved (X360)

2010-11-28T21:27:00.002Z

Ninja Theory made Heavenly Sword, which was awesome. It of course didn't sell well, mainly because:

A - it was a new IP
B - it was on the PS3
C - it wasn't one of a long established line of endless samey sequels

Plus some other reasons I'm sure. I really quite enjoyed it, but I thought that Ninja Theory would have a hard time making a sequel or similarly good game due to lack of sales. I'm pleased to say they've maintained their integrity and given us a new, vivid experience.

Enslaved is loosely based on the classic (so I've heard) Chinese novel "Journey to the West", which some people know better as the late 70's/early 80's TV series Monkey. In the game, the characters Trip and Monkey escape from a slave ship in a post-apocalyptic Earth, shortly after which Trip enslaves him with a special headband that also neatly explains some of the gameplay elements, for example if you go into an area of the game you're not meant to, she can command you to return (but really you turn around on your own accord, or face death), or if Trip dies the headband shocks Monkey, killing him also. Neat, like I say.

Anyway Trip needs Monkey's help to get home, and there's our story. It's told extremely well however, complete with poignancy and metaphor, and the acting from the two leads is excellent.

Some questions have been raised about the legitimacy of the setting, which usually go along the lines of "why is it all so pretty?" Part of this I think is due to our history of drab, grey post-armageddon worlds - for something to take a different view such as this is contrary to our expectations, but in a good way. It certainly is very pretty. Perhaps even optimistic that even after the war to end all wars, natural beauty will win out. There are enough visual clues in the environment that give you a clue to what happened in the past to the world, but it's not overstated and thrown in your face.

Nitin Sawhney's music is excellent and remarkably appropriate for the tale Ninja Theory spin, and there's not really much more to say about that.

What lets the game down somewhat are the occasional graphical issues such as the odd case of the jitters, but the main let down is the control system that's in place. Manipulating Monkey can often feel like trying to move a bulldozer - the controls can often be sluggish and unresponsive, particularly in battle, where the lack of response to your input often means losing a battle and having to start again. Combat isn't complicated, but doesn't quite gel as well as it should. Fair enough, Monkey's a big guy, but this is a game we're playing, and I'm not fussed on this accuracy of momentum.

Other than this, an excellent game. As such, it probably won't sell well - I picked it up around a week after release and the price had already dropped to nearly half that of other new (and not so new) games.

9/10

Game Review - Medal of Honor (X360)

2010-11-15T01:04:00.005Z

First off, I know it's not SF, but I'm bored so I'm going to review it anyway. Secondly I will continue to spell it Honor instead of Honour, as it's an American medal and that's what they call it.

Anyway I borrowed this and played through the single player in about 4 hours straight. All in one sitting. That says a lot in itself - the campaign mode is suitably engrossing to make you want to continue to the next section without stopping. The graphics are good, scripting is pacy and maintains momentum while being varied enough to hold attention. The plot, what little there is of it, is fairly disposable. The same goes for characterisation. What there is a lot of is action, great sound and music, and a few memorable set-pieces and sequences.

A lot of people moan such things as "oh it's so linear" and "I'm not able to go on a random tangent" and blah blah blah. Sure it's linear, but in doing so gives you a tight story and a great experience with less of the dicking around that you would probably do in a more non-linear environment. Not that you wouldn't get a great experience in a non-linear game, but that's not the kind of experience DICE and Danger Close were after this time. What you get here is a campaign that plays like a really good action movie, though with a somewhat more grounded and realistic feel to it than the campaign in Modern Warfare 2.

Some sequences are flat out ridiculous - there is a moment during a Rangers section (they seem to have taken the multiple playable character trait from MW) where you have to take shelter with your squad in a ruined house and fight off hordes of Taliban as they slowly reduce your cover to rubble. Literally hundreds of them all come at you from nowhere. Little bit of a Serious Sam moment there.

With this modern update on a franchise I'd never played before, EA has brought a FPS into line with what people expect today after the genre-defining Modern Warfare series. It's not quite the same, but you can clearly draw similarities and influences from MW to this. Good music, sound, action. Not so good on plot and character. Campaign is a great experience, but not entirely worth the money at the moment if, like me, you don't intend to play the multiplayer.

7.5/10

Game Review - Metro 2033 (X360)

2010-11-03T09:37:00.005Z

It's not often that games are based on novels, but 4A Games (based in the Ukraine) have done just that with Dmitry Glukhovsky's story of a post-apocalyptic Russia. In it there has been a nuclear war, turning the land to a cold, hard wasteland. People have retreated to living in the metro tunnels underground to escape the harsh world outside as well as the mutants and demons that live there. However, a new threat has arised, and we play as Artyom who must travel to Polis station to warn them and get help.

This is a very atmospheric, dark game with a few chilling moments and some interesting gameplay ideas. However, when all these ideas are mashed together it sometimes feels a little like a hodge-podge of different games and often doesn't quite mesh together. The drab, dark environments get a little dull after a while, and the game becomes a chore, and certain elements (such as the librarians or amoebas) become cheap and needlessly frustrating. Fair enough, it's good to change things up a bit, but when you start repeating things it becomes more annoying than challenging. The game is also a little guilty of throwing a lot of enemies at you at once to extend the life of a particular section or chapter.

It's not all bad though. The game seamlessly integrates standard FPS shooting gameplay with stealth, and openly gives you the choice of which way to proceed with a level. What's amazing is how intuitive your choice is - I often found myself sneaking without making any conscious decision of that being how I wanted to proceed with the level. The game is also rich with interesting characters and story, and the final set-piece is intriguing and memorable. Voice acting is good with the exception of the child actor who is clearly American and puts on a terrible accent. There are also a few moments in the more populated stations of the metro where there are far too many people talking at once, and you can't make heads or tails of the background-developing conversations that are going on.

This game is worth playing for a decent story and some good gameplay concepts - some are jarring, but others work well. After a while though it does become repetitive and the environments are consistently dull and uninteresting. Maybe that's not a fault on the developer's part though - surely it would be a dull and drab place after a nuclear holocaust. The mix of stealth and shooting is particularly appealing (reminiscent of Chronicles of Riddick).

7.5/10

Book Review - All You Need is Kill (Hiroshi Sakurazaka)

2010-11-02T11:40:00.005Z

Let me get some preliminaries out of the way - I'm not a massive fan of this translation. Not that I have (or could) read the original, but some of the style in some conversations between Japanese characters in this book is grating. On occasion Japanese compatriots speak in slang to each other, as you would expect. However, the translator has been given the choice of using Japanese slang words within the book itself or making the effort to translate that to English, but it doesn't work. Instead we have Americanised slang words like "ain't", "wanna", "gonna" and such. So, instead of having characteristically Japanese youths, we have Americans. This grates so much because we know that these are not American people, and is something of a large, itchy, five-day-old-opened-double-cream-smelling oxymoron.

Also missing from this Haikasoru version of the novel are the illustrations that are credited by the author in the afterword, but non-existent save for the cover.

Now that I have that out of the way, we can get stuck into the real meat. In our story, our protagonist (Keiji Kiriya) is stuck in a time loop where he continuously relives the same battle against the alien menace of the Mimics. Added to the mystery is the appearance of the Full Metal Bitch - supposedly the greatest soldier alive in the fight against the Mimics. What is her role in all of this?

The story follows Kiriya's quest to break free of the loop and his development as a soldier therein.

That seems like a fairly glib summary of the story, and it's true for the most part, but Sakurazaka does it with great pace while pasting in some decent, while not quite as deep for everyone as for the Full Metal Bitch, characterisation. He switches between perspective, back and forth in time and flippantly dishes out one paragraph chapters so well that you can't help but admire his simplicity. While I don't care for John Scalzi's overbaked, exaggurated seal of approval quote on the cover, the book does indeed read fast moves fluidly.

Sakurazaka mentions the video game influence on this book, and this is apparent in the structure - if you fail at something once, you keep at it over and over while you gradually get better and hopefully come out alive in the end. Regarding the mystery of the Mimics, he gives us a taste of why they are here without completely giving away their story - just enough to satisfy our most basic questions of where they came from, and why they must be fought. Other elements of the world are hinted, such as factions sympathetic to the aliens, but these are passing remarks and not fully investigated.

The explanation behind the time loops is also satisfactory, though becomes (predictably for a Japanese story) a little convoluted towards the end. It serves as something with a little more substance than the sentimental likes of Groundhog Day.

So what do we think in the end? A good novel, not one to take too seriously, but at the same time not one that is to be dismissed. A good, simple yet different military SF story, told with speed and panache yet sometimes lacks in character apart from the two main leads. When he wants to, the author puts in some touching moments amongst the action.

A very good read. Just a shame about elements of the translation.

7.5/10 (almost gave it 7, giving it the benefit of the doubt)

Minor spoiler

2010-10-26T13:24:00.002+01:00

I'm half way through All You Need is Kill now - it reads easily - but at some point I decided to read the blurb at the back (I was still reading the book at this point, rather than before starting it) and it gives away a fairly crucial plot point. It's not something that you wouldn't have suspected yourself, but nonetheless reinforces any ideas you might have had before you actually come to the crucial part of the story.

I can't decide whether to be annoyed or not. Right now though, I think I'll just keep on reading.

Book Review - The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke)

2010-10-20T09:26:00.004+01:00

This book, like many others of his, is often lauded as his best, most perfect work. Is it? The story concerns a young man called Alvin and his efforts to escape the last city on Earth - Diaspar. Supposedly Earth once had a great Empire, but then the mysterious Invaders came and tore all that asunder. Man retreated, and after a last-ditch battle they were left with one last great city. In this city people live forever, emerging from the city's memory banks every few millennia to live for a long time and then return. Fantastic technology is commonplace, people create great works of art and entertain themselves with Sagas (basically highly interactive computer games). Everyone wants to remain safe in the city.

Except Alvin. Alvin is a Unique - a new person emerging from the memory banks who has not been incarnate before. And he's not afraid to leave.

Clarke is a master of big mysteries, and while he doesn't resolve absolutely everything in this book he gives us an enjoyable journey and leaves us with enough to keep us wondering. He covers a lot of themes here, such as the ideal of living forever in a highly technological society and amongst millions of other people, versus the more "natural", rural life based on community and the cycle of life and death. Through this he weaves his mystery - who built Diaspar and why? What's so special about Alvin? Some of these mysteries are solved a little too simply with the coincidental arrival of a conveniently all-knowing alien craft. It's hinted that this craft is destined for something great, but while it tickles our sense of wonder it's somewhat disappointing that this isn't really resolved or explored more. Perhaps Clarke intended a sequel? Regardless, the prophecy seems a bit rushed.

The book isn't fast, but it's not a slow-burner either. The pacing becomes particularly brisk as Alvin uncovers the secrets behind exiting the city and does eventually leave - the element of adventure during this section is irresistable - but at times Clarke slows it right down to look at interpersonal relationships and culture clashes. Not that this is a bad thing - it gives his characters more depth than those in Rendezvous with Rama, for example.

This is a good story and makes for good reading. Clarke keeps making you ask questions about the world he has built right until the end, and while he resolves most he hints at an even bigger mystery that unfortunately is left to your imagination...or perhaps it's not that unfortunate?

It's also worth noting that anyone reading the book should try and remember when it was written - in 1948 in it's original form as Against the Fall of Night and then revised to The City and the Stars in 1957. Basically well before man had even went into space, before computer games existed...keep it in mind when reading it.

Not my favourite Clarke, but still very good.

8.5/10

Still Here

2010-10-06T16:34:00.001+01:00

I'm still here, still reading. Have been distracted by Bleach mainly, but getting back into The City and the Stars now. Also, I've become intrigued by Perdido Street Station which is a massive book, but looks cool. On the shelf it goes...

In other news, just finished season 2 of Babylon 5, which is awesome.

Book received - Zoe's Tale

2010-09-20T00:17:00.004+01:00

Spoilers.

So I mentioned in my review of The Last Colony the two main problems that bugged me - the disappearance of the indigenous aliens on the planet, plus the nick-of-time, deus ex machina arrival of the miracle piece of the equipment that helps the humans win their last battle. Today I received Scalzi's latest book in the series, Zoe's Tale, and I briefly looked at the acknowledgments section at the end to see what he had to say for himself, not just for those two glaring plot holes but also the fact that he said he wanted to leave the series alone.

Well it turned out that lots of other people pointed out those errors to him and he attempts to address them. They also seem to be maybe related, in this reader's opinion. He says that he "already knew the backstory" about where the marvelous piece of machinery came from but didn't want to go on a long tangent to the main story, and also he admits that he didn't explain the disappearance of the aliens very well. Regarding the continuation of the series, he says the more he thought about writing another book only from Zoe's perspective, the more he liked the idea, and so went ahead.

Could it be though, in the same way Niven wrote The Ringworld Engineers to address some of the physics and engineering criticisms of Ringworld, that he wrote this new one to address those two problems that fans pointed out to him and annoyed him so? Well maybe, maybe not. I'll let you know after I read it.

Currently watching lots of Babylon 5. I didn't think too much of it when I was younger and never gave it much thought. Now I'm happy to say I was wrong in doing so. Good show!

Game Review - Dante's Inferno (X360)

2010-09-14T18:12:00.006+01:00

Ugh.

This game has left a bad taste in my mouth after the sublime God of War III. Right now I'm trying to blast through any of my games that I haven't played yet and I covered this one in a couple of sittings. This game is a take on the first part of Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy. In it, Dante is our hero, and he travels to Hell after returning from the Crusades to find his wife and father dead, and so he goes through the various Circles of Hell in an attempt to get her back.

Other than the story, this game is completely derivative from God of War. Not a borrowing homage like Darksiders, but right down to the controls this game is the same, albeit without the finesse of GoW. The level design is suitably hellish, but a lot of the gameplay seems like a chore. Some of the Circles are over in the blink of an eye, whereas some are fairly involved, but the Fraud stage is irritating due to its repetitive challenge-mode style gameplay. That was a little lazy. Or perhaps it was rushed for whatever reason.

But yes, at the end of the day, it wasn't a great game. It owes tons to GoW and suffers from intense repetition. It's playable, but it's arguably not bringing anything new to the table other than the art design and the interpretation of Hell.

5.5/10

Game Review - God of War III (PS3)

2010-09-10T20:08:00.005+01:00

**SPOILER ALERT!**

THEY KILLED KRATOS! NO WAY!

[credits]

Or did they? Hmmmm.....

Anyway, I enjoyed the first two God of War games when they came out on the PS2 - so much so that recently I got the HD-remastered version for the PS3 (which should be backwards compatible anyway Sony, but ho hum). After playing though them again and getting the full taste of the great story I got stuck straight into GoW3, which is - and this is an understatement - utterly amazing, on visceral, storytelling and technical levels. Marvel as you ride the Titans and battle lost souls at the same time, rejoice in the sheer brutality of the combat, wonder at the puzzle-solving goodness and the brave new gameplay experiments. In a similar way to Darksiders borrowing from many other games, GoW3 tries to do things differently as well - there are elements of Portal and echochrome in this entry, as well as some completely fresh ideas.

God of War III delivers in the same way that God of War II did over its own predecessor - bigger, more violent, and more in-depth into our anti-hero, Kratos. All of the environments in this new game are brilliantly realised with crisp, clear images and wonderfully detailed textures. The genre-defining button-pushing minigame has been improved with the required actions appearing at the borders of the screen, so now we can actually watch what's happening and instinctively know what buttons to hit. The gameplay has been well considered, and while it's familiar, it's certainly not exactly more of the same.

God of War I and II had a slight common flaw in that there were often long segments of action without any real guiding story. Here, we have plenty of story to give us reason for our actions, as well as adding considerable depth to the character of Kratos. In short, this new game has an incredibly satisfying story.

In fact, the whole game is just fantastically satisfying from story, gameplay and visual standpoints. You will notice that some of the voices are different - Athena and Gaia being the main changes - and TC Carson's Kratos is considerably more mellowed out and less over-dramatic. There are also a few minor frame rate issues. These are small points though - what we are left with is a great game which fittingly, by the end, becomes something of a Greek tragedy. Or does it?

9/10

Book Review - The Last Colony (John Scalzi)

2010-09-07T17:30:00.004+01:00

Is this possibly the newest book I've reviewed so far?

When it was originally written, Scalzi's The Last Colony was supposed to be the end to the John Perry / Jane Sagan saga...or so he said in the acknowledgements at the end. He went on to write the same story again from Zoe Perry's perspective in Zoe's Tale, which I haven't purchased yet. Maybe some time in the future.

In the third book of the series, John Perry and Jane Sagan are now out of the CDF, no longer working soldiers, and now living a quiet and happy life on the retirement planet of Huckleberry with their adopted daughter, Zoe. However their life is interrupted when a CDF officer arrives to ask them if they are interested in becoming the leaders of a new colony on another planet, Roanoke.

So, without wanting to spoil too much of the story, they up sticks and move out. However they soon realise that not everything is as it seems, and the new colony becomes the focal point of a political struggle between the CDF and the previously mentioned alien alliance - the Conclave.

What we have here is a book which is broadly very different from the previous two novels. There isn't a great deal of explosive action, no soldiering...what we have is political intrigue, conspiracy and battles of wits that all add up to produce an extremely readable page-turner. It's refreshing to have a different story here than in Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades, and one that is full of genuine twists and turns to maintain the sense of intrigue.

It's very hard to talk about this book without using the word "intrigue" so much, but that's exactly what it is full of. Things change so often that you can't help but keep on reading to find out what happens next. A bonus is the fact that Scalzi has returned to his Old Man's War form of prose - sizeable chunks of dialogue interspersed with some effecient, descriptive text that doesn't get mired in info-dumping or over-description. So I think you get the point - fast paced, twisty, turny, and very fresh and enjoyable.

It's not without it's faults - one major plot hole concerns a race of aliens that attack the colony in the first half of the book, after which they simply disappear from the story altogether. One can't help but feel Scalzi merely used this as filler, or perhaps some strange reference to Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead. What was the point of this though? It has no immediate bearing on the main story, and is barely mentioned a few chapters after the event.

Another thing I had trouble with was a piece of equipment intriduced suddenly toward the end of the book which was instrumental to the final battle - convenient much?

Having said that, this book is probably the best of the three. Old Man's War brought some fresh ideas but suffered old military SF tropes. Ghost Brigades had a tight story with interesting concepts on humanity and consciousness, but was a good deal slower than the previous. The Last Colony gives us a page-turning, political story complete with character and action. Well worth the read.

8/10

Musing - Consumerism

2010-09-05T18:13:00.006+01:00

Papa Podjov has spurred me onto an off-topic train of thought. There's no way to cover it all in one blog post, but below I had a long think about it. Opinions are like arseholes - everyone's got one. Even the Slow Reader!

As Batman said in Batman Begins, "It's not who I am inside, but what I do that defines me." I don't entirely agree with this sentiment - it depends on your point of view - but can the same be said for what you buy? Can your purchases and things you own define you as a person? Things you wear, things you drive, things you consume...

In Slow Reader's opinion, it's an interesting train of thought. The one caveat I have with it is the relativity of the term "define". What you do perhaps does define you, but is it not just definition in the eyes of others? Is that the crux of what "defining yourself" is? This idea sits with me uncomfortably. Basic example - Dick and Dom from CBBC seem like tremendous fun on TV - hyper, funny, full of relentless energy - but do we think they're like this all the time? I heard that a child recognised them or one of them in a supermarket on their own time and screamed "bogies!" at them, and they weren't best pleased. So the child's definition of Dick and Dom got confused with the, let's say, "reality" of them, and walls came crumbling down.

So there is a flaw with the Batman Begins mantra, but it doesn't render it completely moot. Perhaps is would be better to say: "What you do on your own time, accord or terms defines you." Again, this is in the eyes of other people, but at least in this case the real you is coming out with no pretense. In this case, the person you are inside comes out. Assuming this is true, then the distinction between who you are inside and what you do becomes increasingly irrelevant. The quote from Batman assumes that who you are inside and what you do are different.

Of course some people will always act differently around others than when they are alone or with their family in the comfort of their own home. Here, false definition is inevitable, so what then? Who knows the real you? Or maybe the definition isn't false at all, that it's just another part of you that comes out around certain people. Perhaps everyone's a little schizophrenic at heart?

All we can say is that the Batman Begins maxim is, at best, questionable.

What of the main topic of this post then - your trends as a consumer. What you buy, use or own can reveal who you really are inside, or can it?

If you really think about a person's possessions you can tell a lot about them. Try it - think of someone's car for example, and picture the person who owns it. What do you think of someone who drives an old, high mileage, rusty yet fully functioning car? Are they poor? Are they careless? Lazy perhaps? Unemployed?

The problem with this, at least in this case, is that this idea is again ambiguous. Perhaps this person has decent money, but is only interested in getting rom A to B without making a statement. Perhaps they have more important things to worry about than the state of their car. The inverse can be true of a person with a high-end German car - perhaps they don't really have the money for it, but want to make people think they do. Maybe they have an addiction to expensive cars. But of course, maybe they're just a wanker with lots of money who isn't afraid to show it.

Brand loyalty can lead to broad definitions of people. Buying own brand items in supemarkets may signify a frugal person. The supermarket you do most of your shopping in can be a sign, but it may have more to do with proximity - what would be more valid would be how much you care about where you shop. The magazines and books you read can show some element of who you are. The clothes you wear can make statement, but perhaps you are wearing this due to peer pressure? For fear of reprisal, should you live in a particularly rough area? If you don't like what you wear, is it "really you"?

How then can we edit our Batman Begins idiom? For something you buy to define you, must it be bought to please solely yourself? Maybe we're onto something here...does what you enjoy define you? Does what you dislike define you just as much? And what you do with these likes and dislikes, on your own time and terms, and outside of the influence of others...does this make you who you are?

I think that's reasonable. I think that this can be applied to all things, whether it's what you do or what you buy.

Judging or trying to define other people is a natural thing, it's how people survive. One has to be considerate though, as more often than not people will assume the easiest thing they can. Old rustbucket car = poor. Hoodie = trouble. Bad grades in school = stupid. Dropped out of school = uneducated, no hope.

Born and raised in a predominantly Protestant area = Protestant.

Let's go back to the Batman idea then. Does what you do define you? I contend that it doesn't define the real you, or at least the whole you, and that what you do only affects your definition that others have of you. What you buy, use or own can define you as well, so long as you genuinely like it, or it fits in with your way of thinking.

In reality, the person you are inside does define you. It's up to you how much you let this real you out into the open.

Film Review - Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

2010-08-31T09:33:00.003+01:00

I didn't pay much attention to Scott Pilgrim until a few weeks prior to release, when it started looking more and more interesting. For a film so un-advertised and un-inyourface all the time, it seems to have become one of the best sleeper hits of the year.

The plot is fairly straightforward, though unusual - Scott Pilgrim lives in Toronto and one day notices a pretty new girl in town, and desperately wants to take her out. She relents after a while and allows him to do so, but along the way he finds that this isn't so easy when he discovers that to continue dating her he must defeat her seven evil exes (ex's? exs?). Obviously there's a bit more to it than that, but that's the main thrust of the story.

What we end up with in the movie is a fun-filled, hyperactive, super-visual thrill ride through pop-culture references and videogame-esque action. Funny, touching, fast paced and occasionally sexy, this film is great, gratifying fun that never really lets go of you. There aren't as many references to specific games and TV as I thought there would be, but there are enough to recognise.

Of course, this film lives in it's own little world, where the contrast between seemingly "real" life and fantasy action etc. is stark, the story is predictable, and the side characters aren't really developed, but all of that doesn't really matter, for that's not why we come to see this film. We come for gratifying videogame action, humour, relentless fun and great visual flair.

Plus it has an awesome lo-fi 8-bit style soundtrack!

One of my favourite films of the year.

8/10

Unexpected Rant - Progress

2010-08-28T15:04:00.004+01:00

So Bleach fever is taking hold - so far I've read another two volumes in two sittings each - and I have about 7 more on the shelf ready for consumption. So far about 30 volumes have been published...how will I fit them all on to the shelf? What do I do with them after reading?

Death Note box set is on the wish list. I enjoyed the anime immensely, the live action movie less so, but I'd like to see where it all came from. I'm interested in Naruto too, but it has about 45 volumes so far and probably isn't going to end any time soon...

I was in Waterstone's today having a brief look at the SciFi and Manga sections (I don't buy anything from there, I just like to look...only fools pay RRP for books) when a stereotypical female stood quite close behind me, perhaps in the hopes that I would move so she could get in to see her precious shojo manga. Being meek I moved, she stepped in and proceeded to read some of her precious shojo manga. Not just browse through it - full on reading. Just buy the damn thing if you want to fucking read your precious shojo manga!

Anyway another stereotypical female with the trendy clothes and the headphones round her neck showed up to do the same thing, so it was getting a little to crowded for me, time to go. Alright, maybe it wasn't too much of a crowd, but people annoy me generally. I had been in Forbidden Planet earlier in the day and it was a bit more relaxing, and they had more of a selection.

This could all be me of course, or all in my head. These could have been perfectly nice people. To be fair I like the kind of alternative-ness of manga and would like it to stay that way, but you can sense the pretentiousness of some of the people who read it.

Maybe I am too, I don't know. Maybe I can't stand myself either.

I think that some people who indulge in alternatives like manga or anime think they're the only people in the whole western world that watch/read it. Try to strike up a conversation with one about manga and you're likely to encounter a long session of them waxing lyrical about it, with very little care for what you think, or an apparent need on their part to bestow their approval on you. But again, this is all in my head, and probably a sign of my growing misanthropy.

And hypocrisy, I guess.

But anyway I think manga is probably going to have a general resurgence now with Scott Pilgrim coming out in the cinemas and getting generally good marks. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? I'd like to think that it's just a thing - on the positive side it will probably increase the availability of manga, but on the other hand I'd probably have to put up with more people blabbering on about it.

In other news - The Last Colony is going well and it reads quite easily and quickly, more like Old Man's War than Ghost Brigades.

The latest issue of SFX has a review of Peter F. Hamilton's latest "The Evolutionary Void", the last in his Void trilogy, and they've given it good marks. Another one to put on my shelf to read fuck knows when - hardbacks of the previous two volumes in the trilogy are up there, so may as well.

Manga Redux

2010-08-20T11:55:00.003+01:00

First there were Oreos, then there were Toffee Crisps, now manga...

While I was on holiday in London in January I went into the massive Waterstone's to check out their SF collection. I walked out with David Brin's Sundiver, but also a copy of the first volume of the Bleach manga. It sat on the shelf until recently when I read through it very quick, and I have subsequently bought about 9 more volumes of it.

Yes, it's that good.

I've been a fan of manga and anime for a long while now, and while I didn't really buy much manga in the past I think my next "thing" is probably going to be buying lots of manga. Lots and lots of it.

It's very difficult to read a volume and not want the rest...

Book Review - The Ghost Brigades (John Scalzi)

2010-08-18T10:55:00.004+01:00

So this one took a good bit longer to read than Old Man's War - not just because of being a slow reader, but other factors which I'll touch on briefly later.

In this sequel to Old Man's War we are told of the Colonial Defense Force's attempts to quell the threat of attack from 3 races who have joined forces against them. They key to survival lies in one Jared Dirac - a new Special Forces (aka "The Ghost Brigades") soldier grown to house the mind of a defector scientist who is seemingly the instigator for the alien threat.

Old Man's War was written in first-person narrative with a lot of text dedicated to speech, and thus is very quick to read. In the case of The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi takes the opposite tack - plenty of descriptive words written in third-person and with less speech, and this makes it a somewhat longer read (despite being of physically similar length) as you slow down to engage your mind's eye. Structurally this novel is again similar to Old Man's War - guy joins the army in unusual circumstances, fights a bunch of battles, past comes back to haunt him, final ending battle - but in the this case everything is more tightly plotted and relevant. So again, this book is similar yet different than the previous entry.

Scalzi writes of Dirac's state of mind well as the implanted memories within him start to wake, and he illustrates the conflict of personality within him as well as the importance of being able to make your own choices, and how they make you an individual. While most of the character development focuses on Dirac, that of the other characters suffers a bit - whether this is due to the nature of the story or Scalzi's writing is debatable, but he does give the other players a reasonable amount of character to differentiate them all.

Overall a slower book with a tighter plot and interesting philosophical explorations, but still with some (minor) shortcomings.

7.5/10

Film Review - Inception (2010)

2010-07-19T11:30:00.004+01:00

Cinemagician - that's what I would describe Christopher Nolan as. A cinematic illusionist, pulling rabbits out of hats, withholding information with sleight of hand and toying with our perceptions in film form. This latest film reinforces his position as one of mainstream cinema's foremost inventive and creative talents. In fact he's so good at it, it's annoying...

Inception is basically a heist film set in the minds of those our protagonists are trying to "rob", as it were. Nolan spends the first half of the movie setting up his rules for how this process works and planning the main heist in question, and the latter part of the film is devoted to the actual heist now that we understand the process that was just explained to us. Provided we are paying attention, that is.

First off, this is a film where you actively need to watch what's going on to get the most out of it. It's not a case of sit back and let it wash over you, no no no - you really need to pay attention. If you are a Nolan fan you will know this already, and start to suspect things from the start and watch for other hints that Nolan may call back on later in the film, as he is so want to do. This is, as others have said, a very cerebral movie, which can be either a blessing or a curse depending on what you're looking for. Character development suffers a little at the hands of this nature of film due to the amount of exposition required, although the character of Cobb is sufficiently fleshed out for us to feel something for him.

If you can wrap your head around the difficult concept and plotline, what you are otherwise left with is an amazing sci-fi thriller with tight action set-pieces (the hotel in particular will go down in cinematic history as one of the best action scenes ever), fantastic music and excellent pace. It is just brimming with ideas, an great ensemble cast and satisfying, never-gratuitous action. For the first time in a long time I was completely rapt with attention with what was going on on screen, and even in my own mind.

Nolan has the touch, a touch so many others lack. Even if I didn't already know he made this, I would still be able to look at it and say "this is a Christopher Nolan film". From the way it's filmed and edited, it has his mark all over it. Personally I really am trying not to read any more about this film, as I'm so satisfied with my interpretation of events and the ending that I don't want these ideas shattered.

A challenging and engaging film, worth repeated viewings, which you could say for all Nolan's other films.

9/10

P.S. The ending...if you watch carefully, there is a crucial point in the film that allows you to work it out. I think.

Film Review - Predators (2010)

2010-07-17T11:38:00.005+01:00

(Watch out for spoilers)

AvP Requiem was an unbridled travesty of a movie. A "film" so bad that if it took a dump, what would come out of it would just be itself again, like some form of perverted faecal fractal. The AvP before it was moderately better, but it was still badly acted and devoid of character, not to mention overladen with re-recorded voice work. In two steps, two respectable sci-fi stories were pretty much destroyed by people who should have known better.

Spare a thought, though, for the Predator, who, after being part of one of the best action movies ever made, only had one sequel that wasn't all that well received originally (it's a different story now), and was basically the same movie as the original, despite the Predator's awesomeness. Thanks to comics and games, the Predator universe is substantially fleshed out outside of the films, but why haven't we seen this on screen? Even this new entry doesn't give us any more insight into the Predator world.

Instead, in this new movie we are treated to another "variation on a theme". A bunch of people get hunted by Predators. That's the basic premise, same as the others. The differences here are the setting, the number and type of Predators, and a few other superficial things. So, just another sequel that studios to churn out as they have done with so many other horror franchises, right?

Actually...I liked it. Not as much as I wanted to, but I did. This movie contains some action set-pieces that we have all been missing since the 80's. The film starts awkwardly, and everyone bands together a little too quickly and easily for common sense. This start is also painful to watch because, let's be honest, we already know pretty much everything that the cast spend so long discovering. However, once we get into some real action, the film starts to take off. The action sequences are very good indeed, executed with bombastic clarity and a source of visceral excitement. For the fans there are a few nods and references, but not so many that you get irritated by them. Laurence Fishburne also puts in a nice turn in a cameo role.

Does this make up for what's missing in the movie? Some interesting threads are introduced - other aliens dropped on the planet, a mention of a Predator blood feud - but they aren't followed up. Sequel material, most likely. The characters themselves are mostly caricatures, and in particular Topher Grace's character's "secret" is no great mystery. What's also missing is the macho dialogue style of the original movies, and while there are some nice moments of humour in this movie, I missed the ridiculous banter of the first film. There are also plenty of plot holes. The fight between one of the Predators and Enzo th Yakuza character is very well done, but due to its nature as a homage to samurai movies sticks out a little from the tone of the rest of the movie.

Despite all this I walked out somewhat satisfied. I set my hopes up a little too high before going to see it, but wasn't totally let down. It's an enjoyable step in the right direction for the series after the AvP train wrecks, but it is still a retread of old material. It makes you wonder - is there anywhere left for the Predator series to go? Let's hope so.

6.5/10 (though I want to give it 7, but something holds me back)

News - Iain M. Banks' Latest Culture Effort

2010-07-14T17:23:00.003+01:00

I'm a bit behind on Banks developments, but I was browsing through Amazor and came across a page for his new book Surface Detail, complete with his middle 'M' and the promise of this being another book in his successful Culture series.

The book was announced long ago, as in towards the start of the year long ago, but the cover has only just become available and as such has appeared on Amazon. I've gone off Banks a little in recent times, but I'm having a rethink.

To the wish list!

Book Review - Old Man's War (John Scalzi)

2010-07-14T16:46:00.007+01:00

Well it seems I've surpassed myself. I have finished a book a mere week after starting it. Either I'm getting faster or I'm just reading more during the day! Probably the latter - although this book was very easy to read. So easy that I've already moved on to the sequel, The Ghost Brigades.

In Old Man's War, 75-year old widower John Perry is faced with the decision of remaining on Earth, merely waiting to join his wife in death, or signing up to the spacefaring Colonial Defense Forces for a tour of duty and a new life, complete with the rumoured promise of new youth. Thankfully for the reader's sake he chooses the latter - he says his goodbyes and takes care of all his worldly affairs and leaves Earth, knowing full well that he will never be able to return. Thus begins his new life, and a whole new adventure.

Scalzi's prose and pace is brisk, humourous and to the point, yet he never skimps on the character development. A significant portion of the text is dedicated to speech, and as such reads very quickly and easily, but somehow he manages to put in enough description and plot for the reader to vividly imagine his universe.

This book could be misconstrued as simply military SF (and to a degree it is), but Scalzi deftly toes the line with his speculative technologies - they are neither explained in too much depth as to become a chore, nor insufficiently explained enough that the seasoned SF reader wouldn't get something out of it. Scalzi's two core ideas are explored in the first and third parts of the book - the first being the rumoured renewed youth of recruits aged 70+, the second being one that I won't really touch upon as it is a nice surprise (although if you are a careful reader you should be able to figure it out). The second part of the book is where Scalzi lets us down somewhat, as it is merely a succession of battles against various alien nasties (is this what standard military SF is like?), but it isn't entirely without merit and explores Perry's humanity in his new situation, as well as providing some important plot progression points.

Human, intriguing, humourous and engaging - Scalzi's debut is a very enjoyable read, and pulls off the rare feat of pleasing just about everyone. Some have compared him to Heinlein - a lofty claim, so if you have ready any Heinlein try this and see what you think.

8/10

Book Review - The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle)

2010-07-06T09:21:00.003+01:00

Huzzah, finished it at last!

Ringworld got me into the writing of Larry Niven, and after some research I found that this book is one of the most revered from his regular collaborations with Jerry Pournelle. Ostensibly, the two set out to create the best first contact story written, and the result is certainly worth your time.

A strange alien craft is detected entering the space of the human Empire. The Empire's naval forces scramble to intercept, as this is the very first time a completely alien vessel has shown itself, and the first proof of alien life. Through careful deduction the humans can trace the probe's origin - "The Mote" - and quickly organise an expedition to explore it and potentially make contact with the alien race. They have to be careful though - this alien race could pose a potential threat to the Empire.

Upon meeting the aliens - the Moties - they seem peaceful enough, but they have a terrible secret that could spell the end for mankind...

This book is a great read, complete with a strong story and the scientific deductions and investigation that made Ringworld such a great novel. The main important technologies suggested - the Langston Field and the Alderson Drive - are very well presented within the context of the universe and add extra credence to the story, for they play a pivotal role in the plot development. It has been set in the CoDominium universe originally set up by Pournelle in other novels of his so there is a lot of backstory here, but knowledge of it is not assumed and anything that is mentioned is reasonably well explained without going into too much detail.

The Moties are an extremely well thought out and intriguing race of creatures - Pournelle and Niven clearly set out to develop a race that is completely alien both in form and society, paying careful attention to scientific detail.

The story moves along smoothly with the book split into four parts. Towards the end of the third part we are given a crucial piece of information that a lot of the main characters are unaware of, thus increasing the dramatic tension of the final part of the book where the human leaders must decide what to do about the Moties. As they consider all the evidence and gradually deduce everything to find out what the reader already knows, you can't help but be impressed by the credibility of it all.

If there was anything negative to say about the novel it would be that it is a little slow in places, and that it often suffers from the old hard-SF problem of lack of character development, albeit more limited to the more secondary characters. The main cast do have memorable and identifiable characters, whereas the more minor ones have very little. Niven and Pournelle often cover the internal conflicts of the main characters within themselves quite well.

This review couldn't possibly do the book justice - you should go read it for yourself.

9/10

New Wave of Japanese Sci-Fi (NWOJSF?)

2010-07-05T16:27:00.003+01:00

Nearly finished Mote, review is forthcoming!

On another note I've recently come across some new Japanese non-Manga SF books that are well received and very intriguing. When I say new, they were originally published in the early to mid 2000s (I make it sound so long ago) and have only recently made it to our shores in translated form.

It's a series called "Haikasoru" (High Castle, perhaps in reference to Philip K. Dick...that reminds me, I read that book and didn't review it...) published by Viz. So far I have one of them on the shelf - The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa - and I look forward to giving it a bash. Title is upside down on the spine though.

http://www.haikasoru.com/

Off topic - Classical Guitar Grade 8

2010-06-16T10:21:00.002+01:00

A quick side note - I did my classical guitar grade 8 exam in May and got the result a couple of days ago - passed with distinction!

Well pleased.

Normal service resumes

2010-05-26T16:16:00.005+01:00

King Solomon's Mines is now finished and back on the shelf, and a very enjoyable read it was indeed. Someone should make a movie out of it....

At least a half decent movie anyway, unlike the so-bad-it's-good Indiana Jones ripoff (even if Indy himself is somewhat based on Quatermain) with Sharon Stone and Richard Chamberlain.

Anyway I'd recommend the book to anyone, especially males, for it's a grand old adventure. Some of the language is a little quaint or dated, particularly his articulation of the Zulu language (seriously overdid the "thee" and "thou" and "-st" elements), but it's exciting, interesting and fast paced.

Back on to The Mote in God's Eye now, at page 214 of 560, so a good bit to go yet.

Reading the last page before the end but not really...

2010-05-19T16:19:00.003+01:00

So I'm thoroughly enjoying King Solomon's Mines (better than Treasure Island), so much so that I'm going to get some more H. Rider Haggard stuff, namely She, which is supposedly a classic like Mines. Unfortunately during my reading about it on Wikipedia I inadvertently discovered the fate of several characters, having no previous knowledge of the story. So now I've ruined one of the most important parts of the book, and not for the first time.

Annoying.

Wikipedia should seriously have spoiler warnings for repeat offenders like myself. Even if the book is old and tons of people know the story already.

Film review - The Incredible Hulk (2008)

2010-05-12T12:07:00.004+01:00

Ang Lee's Hulk film was a thoughtful, psychological, metaphorical look at a man's struggle with inner demons. It was a engaging film that invested in its characters and contained considerable depth beneath the comic-book-movie exterior. What it wasn't was what people were expecting - a retread of the 70's TV movies with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. The reaction was mostly negative, save for a few people including this reviewer.

The newer film - be it a reboot or sequel or whatever - panders to the audience desires and expectations. The plot is a paper-thin excuse for a series of action set-pieces (which are admittedly very well put together by action-veteran Leterrier). It also boasts zero character development and a terrible script. Exactly what the audience wanted?

The brains and heart of the first film have been replaced by pure brawn and infuriatingly constant nods to the 70's incarnations. Example: Ferrigno shows up as a security guard, Ed Norton talks too him, and basically worships the man for absolutely no reason within the context of the film world. Even some purple trousers show up. The lonely hitch-hiker. One nod I did enjoy though was the use of the theme from the Hulk TV movies.

There are ridiculous moments aplenty. General Ross attempts to capture Banner at a University, making him angry, so he goes green and wrecks the place. This all happens in broad daylight with nice sunshine, and suddenly just as the fight finishes it conveniently starts to piss down. They tried to cover this by putting some rather fake-looking storm clouds in the background at the beginning of the scene. Also when Blonsky tries to get the power of the Hulk from Dr. Sterns he says "Are you sure? The results could be....an Abomination!"

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN!!!!!

Characters are reduced to cliches - General Ross has become an order shouter that wouldn't look out of place in a Michael Bay movie (and in one scene in particular does nothing but call in various weapons by saying "where's the damn..." for each), Betty Ross is a girl Banner used to go out with, Banner himself is the guy that becomes the Hulk, Blonsky is a mad English guy (who for some reason uses Americanisms and wears US army uniforms) who becomes the big bad guy. And that's it. What's more annoying is that these characters have very little of note to say. In fact the only character of any interest is played by Tim Blake Nelson, who is ONLY IN THE FILM FOR ABOUT 5 MINUTES AND ABOUT TWO THIRDS OF THE WAY IN.

The music is good though.

And to be fair the action is well done.

In fact there is one brief shot that stood out, shortly after the Abomination arrives, where some army guys are walking through a wrecked street and various things are exploding or crashing around them. Even though it was short, it was very effective and well put together.

Idiotic, but with good music and action.

5.5/10

Taking another quick break

2010-05-06T16:14:00.002+01:00

Taking a break from Mote in God's Eye to read a classic recommended to me by a friend - King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard. It's a fairly short read, so normal service will resume soon.

Also apologies to Papa Podjov again for the "Chinese Takeaway Incident", I regretted it shortly after initiating it.

Film Review - Iron Man 2 (2010)

2010-05-01T10:17:00.004+01:00

Yes I'm still reading the book on the right, but rather than wait ages before posting I'm expanding horizons for all you...maybe two or three readers.

Iron Man 2 is the sequel to 2008's sleeper hit. In this film, there is a new threat to Tony Stark i nthe form of Whiplash. In the meantime, the US state is trying to acquire the Iron Man suit for military use. That's the basic cut and thrust.

Some critics have complained about this film, but the truth of the matter is you should probably just ignore them and go and see this incredibly fun and funny movie. Yes the plot's thin, but most of the performances are great and the action is fantastic. It lacks the political commentary of the first film and instead this time the focus is on a more superficial level, but it is still a deftly made, fun piece of entertainment. Structurally the film starts strong and loses it's way in the middle, meandering though the different plot threads somewhat aimlessly, but brings it all back together for the final action set piece. It's not convoluted, but maybe a little stretched. Downey Jnr., Paltrow, Rourke and Rockwell all put in great performances.

There were enough hints for Marvel fans as well, and not enough for non-fanboys to get annoyed at constant in-jokes and nods to the upcoming Avengers movie.

Stay after the credits.

7.5/10

Anime Review - Planetes

2010-04-19T11:19:00.003+01:00

First anime review here, but there's probably no better way than to start off with this excellent hard SF series. In the near future, the amount of junk left over in orbit around Earth from discarded satellites, ejected casings etc. has reached dangerous numbers. Some of it orbits the Earth quite rapidly, causing serious threats to safety of orbital travel. The story follows a group of debris collectors as they try to clean up space.

You don't get to see too many hard SF anime series out there - most SF anime focuses either on big robots or space battles, or even both. There are exceptions of course, and this is one, and a blinding one at that. A lot of the focus of this story is the idea of "working stiffs in space", and the constant political battles between different levels within the same company, different companies and even between countries. There is a lot of social commentary here - particularly affecting is the monopoly that richer countries hold over poorer ones in space, resulting in terrorist movements with a real reason for being. Also apparent are the class distinctions between those in "Debris Section", considered as working class lowlifes, and "Control Section", the upper classes.

The overall human story of Planetes is very strong and compelling, full of humour and drama, and endlessly watchable. Generally the series doesn't put a foot wrong, and is well worth investing your time in watching it.

9/10

Film Review - Kick-Ass

2010-04-15T17:01:00.005+01:00

Two reviews in one day? What's going on? Prolific writing or just boredom? I'll let you decide that one.

Kick-Ass is a new superhero movie based on the comic by Scottish comic writer Mark Millar, and both the film and the comic were made in parallel. That said, they aren't exactly the same. In the film our young, hormonal, comic book fan protagonist Dave Lizewski decides to try becoming a superhero in the "real world", after questioning why nobody has ever tried it before. The film details his rise to fame and his attempts at fighting crime, as well as get the girl of his dreams. Along the way he meets other vigilantes, mainly Big Daddy and Hit Girl, who show him how it's really done, getting caught up in their affaris in the process.

If that plot sounds generic, it's probably meant to be. As far as one can tell this is supposed to be an irreverent, postmodern take on comic superhero lore. What is striking about the movie is the dark humour contrasted by the somewhat serious moments between characters - a juxtaposition that doesn't always seem to work. The action pieces are very well put together, the music is cool and the actors put in good performances (Cage puts in a good impression of Adam West, and there are a few Stardust veterans around for show). Hit Girl in particular was a nice surprise, complete with swearing and hilariously excessive violence. The main character is somewhat annoying though.

If you do decide to watch this movie you will probably be bored by quite a lot of it. As our cinemas are saturated with superhero movies, the origin story in this one seems like so many others that it fails to keep your interest. Despite all its irreverance and genre-lampooning, it's still a generic superhero movie at the core, and still not really in the real world.

Seen it all before.

Possibly a minor point - a lot of emphasis is on technologies such as MySpace, and there is plenty of product placement for iPhones afoot, and after a while it becomes very irritating.

This is a frustrating movie that you will want to like more than you actually will - full of good, dark humour, with poignant moments, excellent action and flashes of brilliance, let down by tedious sequences and sometimes inconsistent pace.

7/10

Game Review - Darksiders (X360)

2010-04-15T09:59:00.004+01:00

Haven't done a game review in a while so here goes nothing...

Darksiders is a game like many others, all rolled into one. You play as War, one of the Four Horsement of the Apocalypse, and you have a big sword. After a somewhat contrived exposition, War is called to the human realm to intervene in what appears to be the Endwar between the forces of Heaven and Hell. Something is wrong though - War is alone, and the other Horsemen should be with him. War is overwhelmed and manages to escape, and the remainder of the game focuses on him regaining his strength and discovering what exactly happened.

On the whole this is a very enjoyable game, but you could look at the gameplay in one of two ways - as a homage to some of the best games of the last ten years, or as a game with derivative mechanics that we've all seen before. Most of the influences here would be the likes of God of War (even the name sounds resonant to the plot of Darksiders), Devil May Cry and even Portal, the latter providing possibly the least subtle of borrowed game mechanics. This doesn't mean that it's a bad game - it's thoroughly enjoyable and keeps introducing new gameplay elements right until the end - though you have to wonder. The puzzles and combat are both very satisfying and challenging, yet not impossible, even on the hardest difficulty setting.

The game is very polished and well designed and paced - the comic book style pervades most aspects of the game from the over-the-top story and arguably nearly overdesigned environments. The visual style is solid though and it all gels together well. While the game isn't short, it isn't long either, but just right. The music and voice acting are also very good, with Mark Hamill using his Joker voice for that of The Watcher, War's "guide". The reported occasional frame rate drops on the 360 are noticeable, but don't really detract from the gameplay. Loading is seamless and fast.

One gripe would be that in order to do any fast-travelling between areas of the game (it's fairly non-linear) you have to make use of "Serpent Roads", where you walk along a path in a mysterious dimension and end up at the place you chose. Having to walk these roads is less of a chore than having to walk from one area to another directly, but it's still a boring chore with no real value.

All in all a very enjoyable game if you enjoyed the aforementioned influences, and worthy of your time.

8/10

Book Review - Second Foundation (Isaac Asimov)

2010-04-06T09:47:00.004+01:00

Isaac Asimov, one of SF's most synonymous names, didn't speak a word of Russian, despite his heritage and birthplace. He was raised in Brooklyn, had a high-pitched New York drawl, and was expected to work in the family sweet shop business. Much to the benefit of us SF readers, the latter didn't quite turn out that way.

The Foundation series is one of Asimov's most enduring legacies, if not the most enduring. In fact, it has been awarded the Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966 (the only time this award has been given). The first three books - Foundation (1951), Foundation & Empire (1952), Second Foundation (1953) - make up the core of the series, with various sequels and prequels coming decades later due to fan pressure and a desire of Asimov to tie up his Foundation, Empire and Robot series' of books.

Second Foundation itself is concerned with the rest of the story of the dangerous mutant named "The Mule" (continued on from Foundation & Empire), and the location of the Second Foundation set up by the psychohistorian Hari Seldon in the first novel.

Assuming you have read the first and second novels, what is noticeable is that Asimov's narrative improves with each entry in the series. In the first novel, we have essentially short stories set within a frame story of the Foundation's development. In the second, Asimov expands on the story of The Mule, as well as some other stories, and here in the third he concludes The Mule's story and builds to an inspired, satisfying climax, complete with a strong narrative that short stories tend to lack.

In the first part of the book The Mule is still searching desperately for the Second Foundation in order to crush it and bring about his own Galactic Empire. Asimov's characterisation of The Mule is subtle yet profound, illustrating with ease that this is a person angry with the rest of humanity for his mutation, and so wishes for everyone else to suffer his isolation. Asimov fills the pages with so much skulduggery, suspicion and underhandedness that the reader is constantly kept guessing as to who is who, is this person really who they say they are, is this person from the mysterious Second Foundation...the list goes on. By the end of this first part, it does seem to have happened a little too easily, but is nonetheless satisfying.

The second part is possibly the most interesting and involving part of the whole trilogy. Asimov continuously teases us all the way through with the fact that several characters seem to know where the Second Foundation lies in the galaxy, so much so that you can't help but press on to the end to find out for yourself. He also seems to provide you with a feasible answer, yet just when you thought it has finally been resolved, one more revelation bares its teeth and sinks them into your disbelief. By the very final reveal, you will probably end up saying "I noticed that, but why didn't I think any more of it?", or perhaps "I knew that all along", but the truth of the matter is that Asimov has led you along a winding path all the way, so winding that you probably suspected everywhere at once. By the end, good old Isaac has finally put it to bed with the best answer there could possibly be.

By far the best of the trilogy.

10/10

Final Fantasy XIII - Saga Conclusion

2010-03-27T11:04:00.002Z

It seems all the boxes for the 360 collector's edition of the game are damaged, regardless of what retailer you go to.

So...shame on you, Square Enix, for your shitty choice in boxes.

Final Fantasy XIII came and went...again

2010-03-21T22:24:00.001Z

A shiny new copy of Final Fantasy XIII Super Special Collector's Edition arrived, very quickly I must say, but damaged yet again. I've emailed Amazon to ask about returning the thing yet again, and await their response.

Exciting isn't it?

Final Fantasy XIII came and went...

2010-03-18T22:59:00.002Z

So close yet so far. I ordered a copy of the Collector's Edition of Final Fantasy XIII off Amazon. £50. Arrived today, the flimsy box it was in had been crushed and damaged, so off it went again, back to Amazon, not even opened or played.

Amazon, your packaging sucks. I mean really - how am I meant to resell something an an extortionately higher price when they're all sold out, and it's already damaged despite not being opened?

I will play the game one way or another though, trust me. Just not this one. It's going on the shelf for a while, still sealed. Then, after a while, it's eBay time.

Book Review - Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

2010-03-18T22:24:00.004Z

This would be my second Clarke book that I've read from start to finish (I read 3001 when I was in upper 6th, when I should have been revising, but I can't remember if I finished it or not). First published in 1953 (and later revised in 1990 after the Cold War ended), Clarke's possibly most revered novel is essentially his take on the "alien invaders" concept, all be it more provocative and metaphysical than you might expect.

In this story, strange ships arrive in the early 21st century and begin to influence events on Earth, seemingly for the benefit of mankind. There is some resentment however from people who believe that mankind should be free to live its own life without interference, and that there is some malevolent master plan behind all the Overlords' seemingly benevolent actions. As humanity achieves peace, only one question remains - why?

And that's the basic premise. To tell you more would spoil an awesome story with amazing scope and impact, full of imagination straight from the mind of one of the pillars of modern SF. What starts as an alien invasion story quickly becomes much more deep, dark and meaningful, about the future of the human race and what lies therein. Clarke's fascination with the paranormal is present and weaved effortlessly into the story, which moves in leaps and bounds across time yet each chapter lends a slow-burning feel. Some elements seem a little dry at first, but after reading and in retrospect almost everything written has some purpose in the long run.

This is a book that keeps you guessing until the very end - which is bleak yet hopeful - and defies your preconceptions to become something altogether more interesting. Not to be missed.

9.5/10

Book Review - Mass Effect: Ascension (Drew Karpyshyn)

2010-03-05T14:46:00.003Z

I was, and still am, a PS2 owner. So when the opportunity arose, I got a PS3. I tried to stick with it, to resist the temptations of other consoles, but I caved. All my friends went the 360 route, the exclusives for the 360 were better, and the 360 seemed to perform better on graphics and gameplay comparisons. The PS3 has tons of potential, but it was squandered by high release prices and lack of backwards compatibility.

I flirted with the Wii, but it's a disgraceful console if you are real gamer.

So I got a 360, complete with Gears 1 and 2. And now it's pretty much the only console I play, save for a couple of PS3 exclusives.

And it has Mass Effect.

Mass Effect is one of the best game experiences I've had. Upon learning of the upcoming sequel, I got hold of the prequel and 'interquel' books, and set about reading this one, set between ME1 and 2, just before ME2 was released. The story focuses on the character of Kahlee Sanders and her efforts to rescue an autistic girl with amazing biotic abilities from the hands of The Illusive Man, the leader of the Cerberus organisation. For more background, you really should play the game.

Karpyshyn writes cleanly and without too much superfluous waffle (although there is some of it), and gives us a good, solid story set in the ME universe. The pace is brisk and the story is action-packed, but not without moments of sincere tenderness. His depictions of the autistic child seem either well researched or as if he has had experience in the past with autism. I have to say though that I found the ending rather abrupt, and too much was left unanswered. It's also crippled if you haven't played the games, as a fair amount of ME knowledge is assumed by the author.

I'm not sure if all game books are like this, but if they are then I will keep on reading them.

7/10

Book Review - The Skylark of Space (E. E. "Doc" Smith)

2010-02-14T11:40:00.001Z

Adventure! Peril! Danger! These are the things that the original space opera are made of!

Doc Smith's perennial Skylark of Space series is considered to be the first true space opera, taking a genre from simple space exploration to new heights of alien encounters, romance and epic space battles. Originally published in serial form in 1928, the first Skylark story was novelised in 1946, and Smith has since been considered as the father of the genre that gave us Star Wars and Star Trek.

In the first book, chemist Dr. Richard Seaton (who is depicted as being stong, handsome, square-jawed and super smart - basically perfect) stumbles upon a means of "releasing the atomic energy of copper" and using this energy to create a reactionless space drive, capable of making a vessel travel faster than light. Together with his wealthy friend M. Reynolds Crane he decides to create a space vessel with this new technology - the Skylark. However, jealous and evil colleague Dr. Marc DuQuesne (not sure how to pronounce that one) devises a plan to steal this new technology from Seaton for himself with the aid of the World Steel Corporation (very evil sounding). During part of his plans, DuQuesne kidnaps Dorothy in his own spacecraft and (accidentally) travels many light years into space. Seaton must chase them in his ship, no matter how much it costs or how far it takes him, and in the process of trying to return to Earth he wades into a war between two factions on the alien planet of Osnome...

The book shows its age in many ways - the terminology used, the attitudes of the male crew members towards the female crew members, the lack of character depth other than the bad guys are really bad but smart and strong and handsome, and that the good guys are really good and smart and strong and handsome. Seaton himself falls squarely into the stereotypical all-American hero of the early 20th century. A lot of what goes on in the story is very hard to swallow - the lack of hesitation to interfere with other cultures, the rapidity of the romance between Crane and Margaret...but it's still a decent story.

There had been similar space exploration stories before this but nothing on the scale to which Smith wrote back in 1928. The Skylark of Space set the standard for space opera, and anything that has come since then in the genre has owed something to Smith's work.

There are some slow parts and some of it is a little hard to take, but all in all it's a good read by 21st century standards.

8/10

Book Review - Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)

2010-01-21T01:10:00.003Z

This one is part of Gollancz's 2006 special round-cornered editions of a select few of its SF Masterworks series, and they're actually worth quite a bit of money on the old online marketplace. I got mine for £2.50 out of Bargain Books, hah! I've bought al the books from that series now (which includes previously reviewed The Stars My Destination), although I'm still waiting on Ubik coming in the post.

Flowers for Algernon is about a man - Charlie Gordon - who has a low IQ and learning disabilities, and makes a small living sweeping floors in a bakery where the other employees constantly play jokes and make fun of him. Desperate to become smart and to learn and be able to be part of debate, he agrees to undergo experimental new surgery to increase his intelligence - an operation conducted before on lab mice, Algernon being the most stable of them. After the operation he gradually becomes more and more intelligent, surpassing his teachers, and while this all seems like a dream come true he begins to learn of the difficulties of becoming extremely intelligent and his past becomes more and more clear. As the story unfolds and Charlie watches Algernon deteriorate, he begins to wonder if he has all the time he thought he did...

This is a wonderfully written and observed book which illustrates how past events can shape people's lives far down the line and how being extremely intelligent can distance you from society, hindering the ability to form relationships. Keyes addresses the treatment of mentally disabled people, asking for us to treat them as human beings and not to make them the butt of jokes. The pictures Keyes paints when Charlie delves into his past as it becomes clearer to him are vivid and heartfelt and add incredible depth to the story (something that was omitted from the film version, Charly).

Easy to read, over in a flash - recommended reading (the film is alright, but leaves a lot of the interesting stuff out and isn't much more than a vehicle for the star, Cliff Robertson).

9/10

Book Review - A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge)

2010-01-13T16:21:00.002Z

This is another one I read some time back, maybe a year and a bit, and I haven't gotten around to posting a review of it. This one is an interesting space opera with Vinge's idiosyncratic computer science influence spread across it. Vinge is a fan of newsgroups, and throughout the book there are newsgroup-like messages acting as a major form of communication between parties in his universe. The book was written at the time just before the internet became prevalent.

In the story, the Milky Way is divided into circular, concentric areas called the Zones of Thought. In the zone nearest the centre of the galaxy (called the Unthinking Depths), AI finds it difficult to function and FTL travel is impossible. As you pass further from the core of the galaxy into the other Zones, machine intelligence works better, FTL travel can be attained and electronics and communications function more effectively. The Transcend, which is the furthest zone from the centre, is where races that have developed so much that they have transcended organic existence into other forms reside.

A research expedition from a settlement near the Transcend unwittingly unleashes The Blight, an entity capable of taking over computer systems and controlling biological beings. Before long, all hell breaks loose, and the Blight threatens to penetrate further into the galaxy and take control. A Countermeasure to defeat the Blight is developed, but it destroys the research base before it can be deployed. A small family manage to escape on a sleeper ship full of children in suspended animation, carrying the Countermeasure as well. The ship disappears, and the search for the Countermeasure and the fates of the passengers of the escaped ship make up the two threads of the main story.

Clearly a fair bit of setup and preamble is needed to get the most out of this book. Once you have gotten your head around the main concepts, you are transported to a universe where information and communication is king. Vinge spins a great story by alternating between the search party and the survivors of the attack on the research lab. It's not quite edge of your seat material - space travel takes a long, long time - but it is riveting nonetheless. Without wanting to spoil too much, the aliens that the survivors' fates become intertwined with are fresh and well-developed, following the concept of pack mentalities producing higher forms of intelligence. The simple contrast in technologies between the two threads provides an interesting narrative that you may or may not have expected to find in a typical space opera.

This is a story full of character and action and computer science, although the actual Blight itself feels a little underdeveloped, or too mysterious. Recommended reading.

8/10

Book Review - Ringworld (Larry Niven)

2010-01-13T15:27:00.003Z

Countless SF stories in various media owe something to Larry Niven's Ringworld. The Halo series obviously draws influence from it, as does Iain M. Banks with his Orbitals. Like Rendezvous with Rama, this is another well-regarded hard SF novels with a slightly more space opera spin to it.

Louis Wu is celebrating his 200th birthday in the longest possible way - by attending parties in different time zones. He spends a couple of hours in one, teleports to another, and does it all over again in a different country. During one of these teleports he is greeted by Nessus, a Person's Puppeteer, who tells him of the mysterious Ringworld and his desire (for reasons that become clear later in the book) to hire a crew to investigate. Louis agrees, two other members are recruited (Speaker-to-Animals, a warrior Kzin, and Teela Brown, a human girl) and the adventure gets under way.

Niven's book is a great yarn with plenty of action, science and depth of character you might struggle to find in the hard SF works of the likes of Clarke. The bounty of alien races and other conventions gives a space opera slant to the story, while elements of theoretical astrophysics play not insubstantial parts. As a part of the "big thing in space" type of story, a lot of the joy of reading it comes from the conversations between the characters as they postulate the reasons and uses behind the design of the Ringworld and the fate of the creators. Niven's style is clear and simple, although perhaps not as well-put as those of Clarke, but he creates a vast, exciting image of this new, gigantic ring in space. The story zips along and, apart from one or two plodding scenes, almost never gets tedious.

An exciting read, one that fans of hard SF and space opera will appreciate in equal measure. It still suffers from the same hard SF issues like thin characters, but Niven does make the effort to beef them up a little before moving on.

9/10