'Queen of the Damned'

There's a stack of stuff I should be reviewing right now, but one of them is 'The Mist', the review for which will include a massive spoiler, and I know at least one of people who read this blog hasn't seen it. So I will hold off on that until we watch it at one of our film evenings :)

In the meantime...heavy, almost primal drumbeats echo, evoking memories of many, many hours spent listening to the surprisingly good soundtrack for a very bad but very stylish vampire film, long before 'Twilight' even existed. It's time for some Anne Rice, baby.

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles were a staple of my teenage years. I didn't read anywhere near all of the books (like, two), but I loved the films made of them in the nineties/early millenium. The novel 'Interview With the Vampire', illicitly picked up in the horror section during my first tentative forays into the genre, was for me the first experience I'd had of vampires being sexy, not monstrous (well, 'Dracula', but he's mostly monstrous in the original novel), and a whole world opened up. I also read 'The Vampire Lestat', but I never got as far as 'Queen of the Damned' in book form as I realised the author had got a little precious about the sociopathic and gloriously snarky creep from the first book and had decided to make him a lot more likeable.

Basically, there was no particular reason for me to like any of the characters any more, as I find the 'sympathetic vampire' one of the most boring tropes of modern horror fiction when not balanced by a touch of monstrosity (even if Rice was one of the first to do it). I can't help but see it as paving the way for insipid characters like Edward Cullen. So, I stopped reading the books. By the point that I read 'The Vampire Lestat', I'd already seen the 'Interview With the Vampire' and 'Queen of the Damned' films, so I had a very definite mental picture of what the characters looked like, which was sadly not helpful. I like 'The Vampire Lestat' a lot - it's a highly enjoyable if rather overly-romanticised novel. The film 'Interview With the Vampire' was pretty much everything I wanted from a film adaptation, even with the changes they wrought (because, well, I'd always rather have Antonio Banderas as Armand than a teenager if I've got the choice, even if it's less close to the books). Anne Rice wrote the screenplay, so it's pretty close to the book.

Still, 'Queen of the Damned', with its stylish, silly goth-ness and genre soundtrack, was a film I watched over and over again, pretty much uncritically.Where 'Interview With the Vampire' follows Louis, a recently-turned vampire, 'Queen of the Damned' takes up the story of Louis' sire/maker/whatever, Lestat, who mostly functions as an antagonist in the first book and film, as well as an example of a vampire who just loves being a vampire. Where the first film (which is, frankly, quite a lot better), is a period piece full of floppy shirts and big dresses, with surprisingly good performances from Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and a very young Kirsten Dunst, 'Queen of the Damned' throws the previous continuity out of the window. Cruise's blonde, charming, unbalanced Lestat was a dead ringer for the book Lestat. Stewart Townsend's Lestat is a smug, self-satisfied goth kid who thinks he's God's gift to emo girls and rock music. Jesse Reeves (Marguerite Moreau) is an occult investigator with a past that's apparently a lot more complex in the books but is hardly delved into here except to assist with plot expediency. Most of the action takes place in [swinging] London for pretty much no reason, except that all ancient occult societies come from England, duh...despite the fact that Lestat is French, Marius is apparently a French Roman (he's a Roman in the books, but played by French actor Vincent Perez), and Marguerite Moreau is American (and her character is at least part American, though also seems slightly French given 'young Jesse's' accent).

So Lestat is woken from his centuries-long slumber by rock music (as in the book) and becomes a rock star who is openly a vampire. The first half of the plot is really quite like 'The Vampire Lestat', but as I've said before, I can't speak for 'Queen of the Damned' as I haven't read it. The world treats him with a kind of bemused admiration and he acts like a pretty princess who gets all the groupies he wants. Meanwhile, a member of the Talamascan occult group, Jesse, is delving into Lestat's history with the help of her mentor David (woo, Paul McGann!) who is a bit obsessed with Marius, Lestat's sire (I don't blame him). Through Lestat's journal, we flashback to his making/Embrace/hot man lovin' and how he was favoured by Akasha who, with her husband Enkil, is the originator of vampires. Akasha and Enkil turned to stone long ago: Marius had been keeping them in the basement for centuries but when Lestat drunk Akasha's blood (in an awesome bit with a lovely crunch of marble-flesh) he abandoned Lestat, taking Akasha and Enkil with him. In the present day, Marius turns up again because a) Lestat is annoying a lot of vampires by being so open and b) Akasha, the most powerful vampire in existence, ripped out Enkil's throat and is up and about, btw.

Lestat and Jesse have a slightly weird relationship as she tries to get close to him and he wonders why she bothers, but then Akasha decides Lestat is about right to be her new king and grabs him when he's being attacked by the other vampires during a concert in Death Valley (if they want discretion, why would they attack him in such a public, filmed place? Bad vampires, no Masquerade for you). The other ancient vampires (Armand, Marius, Pandora, Maharet, Mael and Khayman) unite against Akasha. She commands Lestat to drink Jesse dry, but the Ancients all attack Akasha together and drink her blood. Maharet drinks the 'last drop' and turns to stone, Lestat turns Jesse into a vampire to save her life and they walk off into undeath together (blah). On the plus side, Marius does actually come and see David *fangirl*.

So basically, ignoring Jesse's role in the book version, the film is about Lestat being pulled between a hot all-powerful vampire chick and a boring human girl. And of course, this being written by a human girl, he chooses her. The film is tightly-made to a large extent - if you're invested in the love story or the overarching narrative, you'll probably enjoy it as it goes along at a fair clop. But the Death Valley fight feels like it should be the climax of the film - as a result, the ensuing bit where Lestat and Akasha bathe in rose petals, have kinky blood-play sex and kill people is (ironically) an anti-climax. The final fight with the Ancients is really cool, especially for fans of the novels (although I've only read the first two, I know the backstories of most of the characters) and has some lovely cameos (Lena Olin is Maharet, 'Farscape' veterans Claudia Black and Matthew Newton are Pandora and Armand, who does look much more like the book character in this version), but it feels tacked on, like they wanted to include the big narrative of 'The Vampire Chronicles', but had difficulty integrating it with the teen wish-fulfillment vampire lover plot.

Though admittedly, this is suprisingly self-conscious: Lestat is meant to be a bit of an arrogant prick, and when he wants to show Jesse that he's a monster, he rips a woman's throat out. And...well, Jesse's still keen, so you can't fault her on that one. Also, Jesse is the one who stalks Lestat, not the other way around, so she mostly just comes across as a groupie. I personally assume that Lestat will get bored of her at some point after the film has ended.

The whole Talamascan thing is weird, too. I mean, I'm all for ancient monster-hunting societies but there's no reason for them to exist beyond referencing the books and meaning Jesse and David aren't just crazy loners. The script is also cringingly terrible. Any film where what passes for sexy seduction talk between the two leads is "Boo back" is a bad, bad idea. I don't like Stuart Townsend as a rule and in this he either gives the most wonderful parody of a film vampire or a laughably bad performance. I think you have to buy into him being attractive before you can find Lestat at all engaging and he's only been attractive as Dorian Gray (and was therefore the only good bit about 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' film). The dark-haired sallow emo kid thing does not do it for me. Luckily, there is also Vincent Perez in a performance that includes a playful, almost whimsical side, but fails to convince as he struggles with dramatic vampire lines that are a) not in his first language and b) bad. He is extremely attractive and charming, though. A wonderfully cultured vampire, and his ye olde outfit from the flashbacks is delectable.

'Queen of the Damned' is silly and gothy and yet highly enjoyable. I suspect I've got rather a skewed view due to enjoying this film so much as a teenager, but it's genuinely not that bad. Just really, really trashy, and proud of it. It's laughable and loveable and if you can cope with the badness, at least it's got more of an edge than 'Twilight'.

Edit much after the fact to add: I realised upon re-reading this that I totally ignored Aaliyah, who played Akasha, a singer, actress and model who was tragically killed in a plane crash not long after this film was made. I'm afraid I don't know much of her music, though I am assured by my more R&B-savvy better half that her songs were good. I have seen 'Romeo Must Die', in which she plays Trish, the Juliet stand-in (her debut role and the film credited with bringing Jet Li to the attention of the American film industry). She was actually a good actress, and in 'Queen of the Damned', Akasha is really cool. I'd personally define her performance as 'lissome': she moves and dances with snakelike grace but manages to bring weight, power and (amazingly) credibility to the character. Because she never winks at the camera, even when she was given laughably clueless lines, Aaliyah managed to convince as an ancient vampire with a completely alien mindset. RIP.

Lestat: "Well, that makes you a very clever librarian..."

Violence solves nothing but it sure makes the headlines

You know what's sad? That people in a modern civilised society feel they have to fall back on violence as the only way they'll be listened to. Because the ideas that David Cameron puts forward about 'asking the public' about where they want the budget cuts and 'measuring happiness' are just gimicks, and not even convincing ones. David Cameron doesn't care about the British people or the vulnerable members of society or the potential that's being wasted by making further and higher education fees prohibitively expensive except for the rich - but I think he does genuinely care about Britain and its economic prosperity. The budget cuts are tough and highly unfair, but you can't fault him for cutting spending. Unfortunately, he's hamstringing the average person as he goes.

And to anticipate one of the tiredest and most depressingly selfish arguments I've heard about this whole matter, it does affect everyone. OK, so some people went straight into work and never got the chance for university, but what if they had wanted the chance? What if they wanted more than anything to be a doctor or an environmental scientist? Hell, what if they wanted to be a plumber and needed a vocational qualification? What if they wanted to be a teacher? For that matter, what if the next great film-maker or an inspiring politician who could one day be PM doesn't follow their dream because they can't afford it? Just because you never had the opportunity (and are just fine without a degree), it doesn't mean your kids shouldn't have the opportunity. You're going to be the one telling them they can't study law because you can't afford it. You're going to be the one who has to put everything you earn into paying for their degree because with all the funding cuts, surely universities are going to only provide the minimum amount of bursaries they have to. If your children are grown and got through university already, how will they feel about their children coming out of university with truly crippling amounts of debt? Launching into the start of their adult life owing tens of thousands of pounds already with no guarantee that they'll get a job any time soon. This affects everyone. Except the people who are implementing it, because they can easily afford the new fees.

In this article in the Guardian the education secretary says that he will respond to arguments but not violence. Because, frankly, violent protests do not achieve anything beyond vilifying those who commit the violence. An awful, awful lot of people who would otherwise have shown sympathy for the student protests now say "Yes, but I can't condone or associate myself with a cause that involved violence towards the police." Hell, I truly care about the top-up fees issue (or, rather, the wider spending cuts issues) but I have a good friend who's a special in the Met (and would have been a full police officer now if the recruitment hadn't been cut) and if he was injured, my sympathy with the cause would be really difficult to maintain. But to anybody who justifies it by saying that to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs - well, I suspect that's rather the PM's attitude too. And stop having a go at Nick Clegg - he's certifiably a slimy bastard who's ruined his political career now, but he probably did have pretty good reasons for betraying his voters.

My problem with the above quote from Michael Gove is that it's a lie. People tried arguments and no-one listened because as long as violence isn't involved it's OK to ignore protestors. The coverage is limited to one or maybe two articles per newspaper and it just reads a variation of "Students protest - nothing interesting happens". When peaceful protest is ignored, people who are both ideological and frustrated will take matters into their own hands, and they will get an awful lot more coverage in the newspapers. That photo of a hooded, anonymous student spraying 'Revolution' on a wall is now iconic. It's not right, and it's counter-productive, but it's also the way things go. Ignoring public dissent about measures that directly influence their finances and even their livelihoods has far-reaching consequences.

Sometimes the reverse is true, too...

So after yesterday's fluffy and bubbly post about how amazing NaNo is, I read Nicola Morgan's post on how some people might feel pressured into it. I guess I never even thought about it like that. For me, I never feel like I should do NaNo. For me, it is fun, pure and simple. It's the one month of the year where I feel I have a legitimate excuse to just sit down and write. I'll make myself write rather than playing computer games or wasting time on the Internet because 'it's just for one month' and after that I can go back to wasting time. I'll feel like a bit of me is missing if I don't write every single day. Basically, November is how I should be living my life if I ever want to be a published author. So I suppose for me it's a month of pretending I'm a real writer.

But seriously, it's geniunely not for everyone and, frankly, I don't produce my best work in November. I don't use any of the projects that are close to my heart for NaNo because I know I'll have to make some compromises of planning and thinking to get the daily word count. OK, the last two NaNos I've done have been things I don't think I would have ever produced without NaNo, but certainly the first one is distinctly pedestrian and the second one is an absolute mess. I never get a free bound copy of my book from the NaNo offer because it's never fully drafted by the time the offer expires, so it would be a waste to me.

I love NaNo and try and make sure everyone knows about it, but it's not useful to everyone and could in fact set some people back. I suspect I'm always going to do it, though, because it's a month to just go for it, not thinking, not doubting, not looking back. It's refreshing and revitalising and (eventually) exhausting, like an impulsive and ill-advised sprint down a beach that leaves you panting and painful, but was totally worth it. But not everyone sees the point in running down a beach, or even understands your motivation in doing so. And very few people want to sprint all the time!

An update

It's three days in and I'm already behind. Food and water are getting scarce and I think I heard something rustling in the bushes last night...

I've only done about 1200 words of my primary NaNo but about 3000 words of a secondary one which is designed to stop me from putting more adult content in my primary (which is a Young Adult novel) by giving me somewhere else to work out those violent, sexy, foul-mouthed and cynical itches I can't put in my primary. It currently looks like my primary is the winner right now, but I'm trying to work on both so I don't get bored. Not sure how I'll work it out in the end, since I had started my secondary before November, so it's technically cheating, but I'm hoping that added together the words I write in November on the two pieces will make 50,000. Must...resist...temptation to just write the violent, sexy piece and actually write the other one, because if I don't, the characters that need to be in it will never exist.

One of the best aspects of the NaNoWriMo site is the large archive of pep-talks dating from 2007 to the current year. These pep-talks are also sent out via e-mail to participants who've signed up on the website, but it's good to have past years archived. They're definitely worth looking at, as event organisers Chris Baty and Lindsey Grant write regular pep-talks for every week of the process and one before and after November itself, and they also get established authors to write pep-talks, which are often wonderful if you're a fan of the author. You'll find Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Gail Carson Levine, Robin McKinley, Jonathan Stroud, Piers Anthony, Meg Cabot, Kelley Armstrong, and many, many more. Also, Kristin Cashore, whose blog (and writing!) I am a big fan of, wrote a pep talk one year and still blogs about NaNo, and Nicola Morgan is also supportive of it on her blog. The one thing to be wary of is that while Chris Baty's pep-talks are organised and dated by year and date (so you can tell at what point in the month you are meant to read them), the others are organised alphabetically and it's impossible to tell what time of the month they refer to, which can occasionally be an issue. So I made myself a handy chart of 2008/2009 (I wasn't doing it in 2007) so I could remember when to read the pep-talks. Of course, most of them are just general advice, but it's a bit unnerving to open one up and read "Congratulations! You've finished your novel, isn't it a great feeling?" when you're only a week in. They are definitely worth a read, though, and a really great motivator.

The Forums are lovely and a great place to go if you feel lonely or angsty or frustrated. There are word wars, inspirational prompts, dares and challenges, and plot-solvers aplenty. It's a great community and a fun place to be. For those who've formally signed up and are keeping their wordcount up to date (I'm infamously bad for forgetting to do so), there are cool charts and stats for your progress, as well as guilt-tripping things saying you're behind schedule and what your current cumulative goal is. There's almost daily news on the site throughout November, videos, the personal experience of spotlit NaNo writers, a massive cumulative wordcount of all NaNos put together and a 'Procrastination Station' where you can find challenges, dares and suggestions of things to do when you're bored. Overall, the support provided by the Office of Letters and Light is phenomenal and a big part of why NaNo is so brilliant and successful.

On the downside today, if the university puts up its fees for the second year of my part-time MA in accordance with the government report, I will probably not be able to afford to do my second year. But that's fine, though, because I'm being self-indulgent by doing further education in a non-vocational subject, right? I mean, I should probably get a real job and become a useful member of society instead of splitting my time between a part-time job, a part-time degree and working towards what I hope will someday come to fruition as a writing career. After all, survival is what matters, not self-fulfilment or being all you can be. The intellectual disciplines are dead because they are not useful, and do not serve the great Capitalists in the sky, unless I'm rich enough to cough up almost treble the previous fees or poor enough and doing a pre-decided subject area that means I can get support.

Ugh, sorry, I sound like an overexcited Socialist (not that I have anything against Socialists in general), but it really gets me down. We're ending up in a world that is putting the divides back up so the only people who can access purely intellectual disciplines are the rich, and the poor must become the workers once more. I'm glad I've got my BA at least, but I really feel sorry for those who are coming to the end of their schooling and have to start making decisions about university. What the hell legacy are we leaving? Without the arts and humanities, you end up with a functioning society that works like clockwork, but that's not enough for a civilisation.

On the other hand, today brought good news of the developments of medical technology: read this report on a retinal implant to help a blind man and see if it doesn't warm your cockles just a little.

It begins

Oh God, it's the 1st of November. That means NaNoWriMo 2010 has officially begun.


I have a load of reading for tomorrow's seminar and I'm working extra today to make up for the hours I have to spend at my seminar. I have an idea but haven't started work yet. I have another thing weighing on me for stuff I have to do that is way overdue.


*sigh* sounds like the month's begun. But you know what? That's totally OK, because one of my friends got some awesomely awesome promising project news on Saturday about her artwork and I am suddenly insanely happy for her, and hopeful for the rest of us who are still working towards that first step. She deserves every success this brings her, and so much more in the future :D


So ups and downs, and starting the month at a nice even keel. Unlike last year, I didn't start my novel early (I made compensated for it in the word count), and unlike the year before that, I do have an idea before I start writing. In fact, I basically have the whole thing plotted out roughly, which is good (and unusual). I'm psyched about the idea but I won't die inside if it doesn't come to anything or turns out awful.

BPAL of today: Fearful Pleasure :)

"I try to leave out the parts people skip" - one of my favourite quotes about writing, from Elmore Leonard.

Puppy Power!

The Nostalgia Critic did a review of the Pound Puppies movie, 'The Legend of Big Paw' and was suitably scathing about it. I can understand, since it's not exactly quality cinema, but this film was one of the staples of my childhood, along with the Care Bears film. Both were adventurous and fun, not too girly (for a kids film, I mean - I wanted to be Nicholas in the Care Bears film, with his ultimate cosmic power and Faustian descent into evil, rather than the kids who had to 'learn to care') and had songs that, while they sound dumb today, were plenty impressive to kids of the right age. I'm not arguing for quality here, but there are some aspects that are OK when you're six. Nicholas' character arc is surprisingly dark and in the Pound Puppies movie, almost all of the sympathetic characters are transformed against their will into ravening monsters. OK, they are saved by the power of love, but it's still pretty sinister seeing the previously maternal dog Collette snarling at her puppies.
The main reason I still have a lot of respect for the Pound Puppies movie is that, contrary to the Critic's constant rants against the songs, they aren't all that bad. Not because of the lyrics, or the performances, no. Because they're based on rock 'n' roll songs of the 50's. As a child who was brought up in a house ruled by Classical music and the occasional dip into the 60's when my dad wasn't listening, this film was a revelation. The languid beats of these songs based on Elvis and Danny & the Juniors provided some of the most enjoyable musical experiences of my childhood, even if they are the deformed children of an incestuous meeting of 50's rock 'n' roll and knock-off Disney.
So while it wasn't the best introduction to the joys of Elvis, for a kid who was sung to sleep by Mahler's endless symphonies played far too loudly downstairs, it was a revelation.

True B-Movie genius

So what could possibly be better than vampires?

Vampires...in Space!

Out of D&D games come glorious things. One of my fellow roleplayers has decided to write a script for one of the trashiest movies I've ever heard of, but I will not tell you its name as it is not for me to wow the world with its brilliance until it comes out. The one thing that has ever motivated me to write a script? The idea we came up with afterwards...'Vampires in Space'. Hell, there could be a whole series of them: 'Werewolves in Space', 'Mummies in Space', 'Zombie Flesh Eaters in Space', etc. Hell yeah.

Oh, and 'Sci Fi Musketeers', since it's shocking that 'Lux Aeternum' never spawned any kind of offshoots in fiction or film. It has musketeers with freaking energy swords! What more do you want? Oh yeah, it also has psychic alien jellyfish, piratical dragon people, and cyber Catholicism. It's awesome.

Wilfred the Green Duck.

So I wrote last night in a power cut. I wrote this morning when Robin woke up for work, despite not needing to be at work until half eleven. Then I missed the early bus to work and was therefore five minutes late.

Um, yeah. Turns out writing before work is not a good idea, because I push myself for 'a little longer' and then leave it too late before I get up for work, and then I'm late, and then I get stern looks and have to stay afterwards. But it does leave me raring to continue writing. Plus, today it didn't exactly matter because I've agreed to stay the afternoon due to excessive busyness.

But I also have Wilfred the Green Duck. Wilfred the Green Duck came into my possession today as I bought a ticket for a local duck race and got an adorable little green duckie as a souvenir. For those unfamiliar with the tradition, British people sometimes do a weird thing where we all buy a ticket and in doing so sponser a rubber (well, plastic) duck. A big sack of these ducks, which are numbered to correspond with the tickets, get chucked into a local river and they then race downstream to the finish line. There are usually prizes given from the pot of money from participants, though most of the money goes to a particular charity or cause. I think it's a brilliant tradition and I love buying ducks for duck races. But this time I got Wilfred.

Wilfred is now sitting on top of my computer screen with his newly-given name blutacked to his chest. My day went from hellish to bearable the minute I got a small green duck :) It's the tiniest things that make the world awesome.

Am I middle-aged already?

Twitter confuses me. Like, really confuses me. It's...how does it even work? I mean, I've got a Twitter account, posted a couple of tweets but I don't talk to people in real life on a regular basis...why would I have staccato discussions on the Internet with them mostly consisting of symbols and text speak?

Plus there's this whole weird culture of being able to actually talk to famous people on there. Internet stalking reaches new levels and I am simultaneously in awe and slightly scared. First there's Google searches with IMDB, online pics and celebrity stalker sites, then there's Facebook and Myspace where you can suddenly type in someone's name and find out if they have a profile there, and then Twitter where you can follow their daily mundanities like some kind of reality TV show. Now, I'm not ragging on Twitter - I love Felicia Day's tweets and I'm sure if I were to think of something worthwhile to tell the world about in 140 characters (as opposed to the lengthy ramblings I post here), it would be a highly useful tool, but half of it is incomprehensible anyway.

And following...that also confuses me, I mean, it's awesome to be able to see what your friends and favourite musicians/writers/actors/whatever are posting on a day to day basis but the rapidity of Twitter makes one piece of information obsolete by the next minute.

It makes me wonder if I'd had my heyday of laughing at my parents for not understanding the Internet and am now one of the intellectually out-of-date. But then I suppose if I can get over the shame of Internet fangirling, maybe it could be useful to know when Neil Gaiman is bathing his dog or whatever.

'Inception'

This is the kind of film where I'd usually leave it a while before making definitive comments to allow it to percolate and make sense in my head, but goddamit I just can't stop thinking about it. I guess this is how people who watched 'Avatar' and decided they wanted to live on Pandora felt, only instead of a tropical world filled with aliens I can't stop thinking about dreams. I've always had incredibly vivid dreams but no ability to lucid dream except when directing a narrative, and that doesn't usually work for long (and I'm kind of grateful -some of my best ideas have come from dreams). But, like the very concept of 'Inception' (an idea planted subtly inside the mind so it can influence someone's decisions), the film refuses to leave me alone. Damn you Christopher Nolan, stop sneaking into my dreams and influencing my life!

Worst thing is I was actually put off by the coverage it got in the film magazines I read. I just got kind of sick of seeing pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio in a suit staring just above the camera, but I'm terribly glad I bothered.

I kind of feel like I've been waiting for 'Inception' for quite some time without realising it. It's a brilliant piece of cinema that doesn't make you question your reality to the same extent as 'The Matrix', but shows you the possibilities of what virtual worlds can be. It's cyberpunk for the new millenium, without ugly jacks and 'Avalon'-esque cyber suites, instead an organic and psychic journey into different levels of consciousness. Honestly, I was mentally designing a roleplaying game as I watched the film, because the world's internal consistency is really really good. Of course, flashy special effects and high-concept awesomeness are nothing without a good story and characters, as the Matrix sequels showed us. The thing that makes this film so damn good is the actors. Leonardo DiCaprio is Dom Cobb (I consistently misheard names throughout the film - 'Dom' as 'Tom', 'Mal' as 'Mol' and 'Seito' as 'Zeito', so forgive me if any are incorrect), a highly skilled 'Extractor', who breaks into people's minds and steals their secrets. Cobb is deeply messed-up on many different levels and the audience's journey of discovery is with him rather than the plot. The plot stands up really well on its own, but it also provides a fantastic vehicle for bringing his personal issues to crisis and resolution. Cobb's wife, Mal, has been haunting his journeys into the dream world, causing problems and messing up his heists. In a wonderfully James Bond-esque section at the beginning, cross turns into double cross with pace and tension, while the audience is still desperately trying to understand why they're in Japan...and then someone's dream...and, yeah, OK, let's just go with it till they explain it. Cobb's attempts to reconcile with his wife, get back to his children, avoid men who are hunting him and clear his name are all carefully woven around the plot. DiCaprio portrays Cobb's inner life and emotion with depth, realism and subtlety that show his acting skills: he is Cobb, just as Heath Ledger was the Joker in 'The Dark Knight'. It never feels like DiCaprio is acting because you can't see the cracks, the self-consciousness and the decisions to play it this way or that. The supporting cast (if they can even be called that - this is an ensemble piece) are brilliant too. Even the characters with the least screentime are well thought-out and likeable. Ellen Page is wide-eyed and adorable with that nice edge of intelligence she does so well, but her character Ariadne (get your subtle Greek myth references here) is smart and audacious enough to basically save the day, which Page plays well. I hope I'm not the only one who noticed the slightly creepy but brilliant vibes of emotion between Cobb and Ariadne (symbolically she mimics both Mal and Cobb and there's a definite 'other woman' feel to the scene where Adriadne breaks into Cobb's memories). But I like that there isn't a love interest (except Mal, kind of, in a messed-up way) - it would have been all too easy to have a brilliant architect from Cobb's past as Ariadne so he could simultaneously resolve his issues with Mal, move on to someone new and tick a Hollywood box. Thank you, Mr Nolan, for constantly surprising me.

Man, I'm going to go on about this all day, but every character in the thing was good. Like Eames (Tom Hardy), the guy who mimics figures from a person's life while in their mind, and has some of the best snarky lines (plus is British and therefore awesome). Then there's Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). I adore Arthur for his deadpan exhanges with Eames and Ariadne. If Gordon-Levitt had played the character weakly, he could have faded into the scenery, but like every other character in this film, Arthur in 'Inception' just makes me want to know more. Even the 'Chemist', Yusuf (Dileep Rao), Cillian Murphy as the 'Mark', Ken Watanabe as Saito and Marion Cotillard bring depth and brilliance to their performances, however little they're onscreen or archtypal they're required to be. I mean, this film had Michael Caine and Pete Postlethwaite as bit-parts, for God's sake! The strength of the cast really elevates 'Inception' to awesomeness.

The effects are top-notch, too. Nolan likes to do things the hard way rather than relying too much on CGI (thank God somebody does) and the fight scenes are enjoyably non-Matrix-y. This isn't beautiful, balletic wuxia fighting: it's people who are pretty decent at fighting punching and shooting each other. Still, if that sounds boring, bear in mind that one fight scene takes place in a hallway as it tips to bizarre angles and eventually goes into zero-gravity. Yup, zero-gravity. And Nolan did that with a minimum of CGI. It looks awesome. The conceptions of the dream-worlds are beautifully done as well. They're shot to look real, giving the minimum of clues that you're in a dream, but then Paris folds over on itself or water starts bursting through every window. And then there's the great, eerie city of Limbo, filled with crumbling edifices and memories. Some critics have commented that Nolan's dreamscape is very limited and mundane, and I must say my dreamscape would likely be some kind of floating zeppelin library, but it's necessary. See, the whole point is to trick the Mark into thinking they're not dreaming. Or, sometimes, to think they're dreaming, and then think they wake up, and they're actually still dreaming. So a city made purely of hamburgers is probably not what the dream thieves are going for. Still, I'd be interested to see what characters made inside their own heads when they dreamed (we see the dreamscapes of Cobb, Ariadne and Seito, but they're all pretty mundane. I like to think Eames's would involve some kind of stately pleasure-palace where he can snark all day long).

The pace of 'Inception' is weird, more novelistic than movie-pace, but it kind of works. Frankly, when you have a climax consisting of three action scenes across three dream worlds, each with its own level of time distortion, I have to give serious kudos. Pretty much the only criticism I can level at 'Inception' is that it could have been several different films and each is one I would watch. Or a TV series. I would love a TV series with this kind of conceit and talent behind it, but that would never happen or would end up like 'Dollhouse'. There is an awful lot squeezed into the film and it's already pretty long. Nolan doesn't suffer fools gladly in his films and you know if you're going to see a Nolan sci-fi thriller you'd better be prepared to keep up, but the expectation might well put off some viewers. But damn, I would love to see more heists in the dream scape and exploration of the concepts behind it, as well as the characters I now like so much. I was really sad when 'Inception' ended (though also satisfied with its conclusion) because there was no more of it. I simulataneously hope for and fear a second movie, because Nolan has built a world I want to spend more time in, but the thing that makes 'Inception' really great is its emotional heart, and I'm not sure that could be sustained for another film. Still, I want more Eames and more Arthur, more Ariadne and Seito: I want to see where they come from and how they develop. It's enough to drive a girl to fanfiction.

'Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror' by Chris Priestley

I was captivated by the scraggly illustrations of 'Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror' in the library, produced by David Roberts, that were somewhere between Ronald Searle, Edward Gorey and Quentin Blake. The book itself is a series of short stories with a framing narrative, each story told by the eccentric Uncle Montague to his (insert indeterminate number of greats) nephew Edward in his creepy house in the woods. Every story is punctuated by Edward's realisation that an object from the story, often irredeemably lost within the story itself, is here, on the wall as a trophy (or a warning...)

There are (un)healthy doses of Edgar Allan Poe in 'Uncle Montague...', as well as a clear influence by the Victorian children's exemplar books which meted terrible and extraordinary punishments to any children who disobeyed their elders. Every character in the stories has an identifiable transgression (except maybe the final short story, which is also the creepiest) and each pays in an appropriate way. Priestley admirably weaves subtle horror with a faux-Victorian setting to build up an atmosphere that fully lends itself to the twist in the tale so common in ghost stories of the time.

Priestley's prose isn't action-packed or thrumming with anticipation, and sometimes I felt the denouement fell a little flat as a result, but the style Priestley pastiches effectively is instead full of creeping terror and things half-seen out of the corner of your eye. This is not the place for oh-it-was-only-a-cat scares (unless they are of the Silent Hill double whammy variety!) The stories grow more grotesque and scarier as they go, each introducing more explicit horrors, until we reach the climax of the book: the framing narrative itself. I thought Priestley overdid the ghostly phenomena at Uncle Montague's house slightly, but perhaps it is just that, as the stories slowly build pace, the framing narrative must build faster, since it only has the bits between the tales to work in. Trust me, hang in there. It's totally worth it.

This isn't the sort of book to become an instant worldwide classic like His Dark Materials or Harry Potter, but it's really worth checking out. It's the sort of odd little book you stumble upon and that piques your interest on its own terms. I find that's a common thing with short story anthologies, especially, but I hope that in the future children (and maybe adults like me too!) will dig this out of the rows of Twi-likes and find joy in a horror style that never truly goes out of fashion.

Useful things

So I'm trying to formulate lists using the handy list features of blogger of useful writing resources online and also generally interesting writing blogs or websites that haven't been as personally useful to me. The reason for the divide is that many blogs are, for instance, primarily about publishing or getting an agent, which is currently not relevant to me, but they're still really good, enjoyable blogs with valuable advice. Also, there are blogs which are writers' own blogs about the process of writing which are not so much tools for others to use but merely observations on their own work, which again are fascinating but not necessarily useful.

I'll try and keep them updated, since it helps me to make a note somewhere central about new sources of inspiration and advice (I'm rubbish at remembering web addresses). Writing books are something I'll also try and assess somewhere (since it's very difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff at a quick glance-through), but that's a different form and therefore won't be included in the lists. Note that the kind of advice I personally like is very specific (very much not of the 'write a scene where your character is sitting in a park' or 'write about your last holiday' because they feel like primary school again to me) and I am in no way deriding others' working methods. I find concrete advice about plot and characterisation to be useful, personally, as well as more inspirational ideas about the creation of story and the importance of narrative, so that's what I'll be focusing on.

'The Carbon Diaries 2015' by Saci Lloyd

I've literally only just finished this book but I've barely been able to put it down. Therefore this will be a slight rave review, be ye warned ;)

So 'The Carbon Diaries 2015' is a fictional diary by a teenage girl called Laura Brown in 2015. A big storm hits Britain in 2010, costing thousands of lives, and to combat global warming, the British government (Saci Lloyd is careful not to predict the outcome of the 2010 General Election, since this was written in 2008, so she just refers to 'the prime minister') makes the UK a guinea pig for a new carbon rationing system which means that life must change drastically for Brits. Add to this increasingly extreme weather conditions that are linked to the predicted results of global warming. But Laura doesn't care about that stuff: OK, it makes her life more difficult, but all she wants is a normal life where she can get decent results at college, play with her punk band and go out with the boy next door.

I don't respond well to preachy books, but the nice thing about 'The Carbon Diaries 2015' is any preaching it does is either very subtle or very obvious and put into the mouths of characters presented as self-righteous. But still, it gets the message across with terrifying alacrity. Where before I enjoyed apocalypse and disaster movies out of a kind of combination of schadenfreude, vicarious thrill and general amusement, now I don't want what happens in this book to happen to anyone, ever. Laura never turns round and says "Oh, God damn you, older generation! Why did you do this to us? Why?!!!" She grumbles that they were selfish, but she just deals with the way the world is because that's the only way to survive. The people she gets angry at are the people who continue to be selfish and make the world worse. Gradually, the trappings of civilisation fall away and people either sink or swim, but it's written in such a personal way that Lloyd never breaks the illusion that this is a real diary, about real people.

The style is natural and fun, though occasionally it strays into 'totally rad' territory with jargon that'll be dated pretty soon, and Laura presents the world she lives in with wit and wry observation. For instance, her friend gets stuck in John Lewis due to snow storms and power cuts. Laura's response? "Serves her right for being middle class." There are so many little moments where Laura expresses something I've thought but never said, and Lloyd really does tap into the zeitgeist of modern Britain, even if things do get a little unbelievable at times (Laura's parents, a couple of aging hippies, are taken a little too far). Not only that, but when it's time for pathos, Lloyd shows she can handle that admirably too. I'm not sure she succeeded in her aim of showing how a global crisis can pull people together (attempts to do so are treated with cynical humour) but she certainly shows how it strips away the pretences we put up to make our lives more interesting.

All I can say is, this book is amazing, and it really makes you want to both change the world and stock up the cupboard with tins and blankets. The thing is, 'The Carbon Diaries 2015' doesn't preach that whole 'changing the world one person at a time' shtick - what it presents is the necessity of a change in culture and mindset which, Lloyd suggests, is something that's not going to happen till it's almost too late.

'The Poison Garden' by Sarah Singleton

I find this cartoon of a rhino on Kristin Cashore's wonderful blog This Is My Secret almost unbearable to look at or think about. It makes me really sad for the rhino and frustrated that I can't help it, despite the beauty and humour of the cartoon. So yeah, I'll cry about a cartoon rhino desperately trying to become a unicorn :( And that is why I cope with the world through dreams and pretend dragon-slaying.



The other picture makes me laugh though :)


'The Poison Garden' by Sarah Singleton is fabulous. And I don't just mean that in the sense of 'good', I mean that it's story-licious. It's like stepping through worlds I never want to leave. Dammit, I want a magical garden where I can grow plants that make perfumes and live forever in the real world, so that beautiful red rose won't wilt and those daisies will stay fresh. 'The Poison Garden' is a bit untidy in places but the plot is enjoyable enough to keep me reading despite the slightly odd pacing. Plus I love any books which revolve around the intricacies of old-fashioned pharmacology or magic. I feel this is comparable in style to 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susannah Clarke, though less dark and adult in tone.


'The Poison Garden' is about a young boy called Thomas whose grandmother dies, leaving him a mysterious box that lets him into a magical garden. He discovers that she was part of a group called the Guild of Medical Alchemists who all have their own pocket-dimension gardens and that one of them poisoned his grandmother, as well as being told he is to inherit the power to remake his own garden as he wishes.

I may just have been being dense, but it took me quite a while before I realised that 'The Poison Garden' was set in the nineteenth century, but it has such a lovely nostalgic feel that it didn't seem out of place when I did realise. A label at the beginning wouldn't go amiss, however. The subject matter probably struck an extra chord with me because I have fond memories of playing in my grandmother's garden, which she spent a lot of time caring for before she had to move into a bungalow due to her health. Singleton gives you mental gardens to play in and you feel the joy in discovering them that (I hope) she felt in creating them. She manages to bring across so much individuality in each garden: I suspect everyone would choose a different one as a favourite. My mum would love Albion, as it's near the sea, whereas I would enjoy Nineveh a lot. That's actually one of the pities about this book - Singleton is more concerned with the story than the setting, which is admirable, but we barely get to explore the gardens at all. I would love to have seen more of them, especially the ones near the end, and have a few choice details explained (like who the lady in Nineveh was - I always assumed Hegel was gay from the way he talked about Karsch). Thomas is quite likeable but his female counterpart, Maude, is darned creepy, as he acknowledges in his narrative. It's weird therefore, that she ends up being presented as suddenly less creepy and more well-adjusted than expected. There doesn't seem to be a character arc there, more a character shift to provide him with an ally of his own age. But the adults in the Guild of Medical Alchemists are nicely-drawn characters and the idea that one of them is a killer adds a nice level of suspicion about their motives. Unfortunately the killer is a bit of a late addition to the story and the traitor is a pretty obvious choice, which means we don't end up having to question our assumptions about any of the Guild members. It also feels a bit of a cop-out when an extra party is added halfway through a story and is very obviously the killer, ruining the carefully-wrought tension and suspicion that had been built up.


Essentially, this book could have done with being two books in which Singleton could fully flesh out the characters and magical gardens. It would also allow her to dwell more on the main character's years in the pharmacy of Dr Constantine, which I found highly interesting, as well as developing Dr Constantine's character and maybe spending more time getting to know Mrs Lawrence and Miss Hudson, who feel a bit underdeveloped. Still, it's highly enjoyable, well-written and terribly imaginative, reminiscent of classic Diana Wynne-Jones. Recommended, if you like magical tales of weird and wonderful dreamscapes.

A brief word on politics before we continue with the reviews

It amuses me to see Labour get their own back on the Conservatives' reactionary sniping over the past couple of years. I dislike it when the opposition, whoever they are, sit there and pass judgement on the current government's decisions, since I'm pretty sure they'd do a similar or worse thing in the same position, but damn is it good to hear Labour gleefully pointing out the flaws in the Coalition Government's budget choices. And I'm not even a Labour supporter, but I feel the Lib Dems, now they've been given a chance to make a difference, have flailed and compromised until they have lost sight of their goals completely, overwhelmed by the Conservatives. It's sad to be proven right about both the party I support and the party I mistrust.

On to less inflammatory things. 'Dark Harvest' by Norman Partridge is a teen horror book with aspirations to the style of Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. In fact, its lyrical phrasing and rolling, elegant style is highly reminiscent of 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' by Bradbury. I found this novel in my local library, displayed face-out by some helpful librarian soul in the teen section. I'll admit, I'm dreadful for judging books by their covers, and this one is a corker. However, the novel itself entirely justifies it. 'Dark Harvest' tells the story of a little unnamed midwestern town with a sinister ritual: every year, an entity called the October Boy, a living pumpkin man, has sweets stuffed inside it and is given a knife. Its aim is to get to the church by midnight and the aim of every boy in town is to knock the stuffing out of the October Boy and feast on the sweets within, winning fame, money and a chance to get out of this sinkhole of a town.

The characters are a little generic and I must say I find it difficult to remember their names (hero is a teenage boy blah blah alcoholic father blah blah big dreams, small town) but they do fine for a story that is well-constructed and atmospheric, full of rustling cornfields and dark tarmac roads. The story is much less slow than 'Something Wicked...' (which I still haven't got through) but it defied my expectations. This is no slaughter-a-minute teen slasher movie in book form (unlike the film of the same name, which is unconnected as far as I can tell) but a dark meditation on small-town life (as seen in 'American Gothic', 'Something Wicked...', 'Stepford Wives' and most of Stephen King's canon) with really interesting overtones of ancient ritual. I can't talk about my interpretation because it would be a massive spoiler but there's more going on than meets the eye in this simple set-up.

Overall, it's not unlike a lot of other things in this vein, but 'Dark Harvest' is a highly enjoyable read and well-worth having a look at.

'Def by Temptation'

Yesterday we made an Aztec (or Mayan, I'm rubbish at remembering which one's which!) Sacrifical Temple Cake. With gummy bears as the Aztecs and jelly babies as the helpless conquistadors being sacrificed. It was a delicious day :)


It was a follow up to our earlier project, the Gingerbread Fortress of Doom, but in this instance we actually made almost all the parts of the structure rather than using a gingerbread house kit.

So, while we were doing this, we had to have some rubbish film going on in the background because watching 'The Princess and the Frog' meant we didn't get the baking started till around 3:30 (it's a good film, though). One of our number of creative cooks has a wonderful ability to collect really random bad horror films, so we put on the dreadful 'Def [sic] by Temptation'. It has Samuel L. Jackson in, somehow.


I don't really feel I can review it properly as we didn't get through it, but 'Def by Temptation' (1990, Troma Films) concerns a succubus/vampire preying on lecherous gentlemen. My friend originally bought this (very cheaply) because it a) looked awful and b) had Samuel L. Jackson in. Well, we reckon Mr Jackson owed someone involved with this film some money, because he is in it for five minutes, during which time he shouts a blood and hellfire sermon, is threatened by the succubus and then dies in a car crash. It's...terrible. Like, really terrible. It's directed, written and produced by James Bond III, the main characters (James Bond, played by James Bond III) and Kadeem Hardison have massive chunks of completely irrelevant dialogue that presumably Mr Bond thinks is deep (including a section about how amazing New York is because "y'know, everyone's a character", kill me now).

The scenes where the succubus kills people are high on the softcore and disappointingly low on the gore. Cynthia Bond is very game as the 'temptress', but the reason we gave up on this film was that, despite having more murders per hour than a lot of modern films, it was unbearably boring. So we can't really put forward a reasoned judgement, and judging by the Wikipedia article on 'Def by Temptation', the pace presumably picks up after the bit we watched, in order to fit all the action described (which would have made it rather more exciting). The article reads like James Bond III himself may have written it, as I'm pretty sure the film itself wasn't that coherent. Essentially: disappointing, even as a bad film, due to the director/writer/producer's pretensions to something more than a trashy mess. Characters were introduced and murdered before we got to know them, and I honestly couldn't care less what happened to the ones who stay alive more than five minutes. The plot is surprisingly coherent, but I suspect that's only because there isn't much of it. Overall, avoid. Like 'Blue Blood', it has much promise as a trashy treat, but never comes close to living up to it. And unlike 'Blue Blood', 'Def by Temptation' doesn't even have Derek Jacobi wrapped in a tennis net and sacrificed by Satanists (note that the Wikipedia article on 'Blue Blood' refers to an entirely different, and probably better film).

Thoughts on editing

You know, it might seem like a trivial point, but people who write books on writing seem to regard editing as some magical process that just happens. After all, once you've written a whole novel, how hard can it be to draft it?

Well, it turns out it can be pretty hard. Because you have to reread your work, which can be unpleasant at the best of times. Of course you'll come across sections where you think "Oh, the cleverness of me!", but for the most part, it will be cringeworthy. Because, apparently, as all the books tell me, the first draft of every novel ever written was bad. I don't believe them. There's no way it could be as bad as mine.

At some point I need to post up a list of useful resources on writing, for myself as much as anyone else (I always forget what that website was called, or whether that book was any good). One that would be up there is the NaNoWriMo website, specifically for its pep talks. They are almost exclusively on writing the novel rather than editing it, but Katharine Paterson's one mentions editing, comparing it to smoothing and carving mined granite (from a speech prepared for schoolkids in a town with a granite-mining industry, so it was a metaphor they understood). At the time I thought it was a fairly obvious way of expressing the idea, but after spending yesterday evening editing, I think I understand it a lot better. Paterson actually provides a useful paradigm for considering the difficulties of editing.

See, I think what defeats me in editing (and I do avoid it where possible, where it used to be my favourite part of the process) is that nobody mentions that once you've got your words down on paper, that's just the first part of the slog. The writing itself is horribly difficult at times, but taking part in something like NaNoWriMo can really help. That's just false economy, though: when you've done the mad rush of NaNo, you've wept and laughed and banged your head on the desk, and you've been lucky or detemined enough to make it to 50,000 words, you're ready to dive right into editing. The site (and many participants) advise against doing that, as leaving it to stew for a couple of months is always good. However, if you're anything like me, when you've left it for a couple of months and are ready and raring to edit, you fish the manuscript out from its drawer, open it up, red pen at the ready and...promptly become disheartened. Because all that time you saved in NaNo by shutting off your inner editor and letting the words flow as they would, all those hours just pressing on, not caring if what you wrote was rubbish, the race to get finished - all that means that editing takes twice as long, because you have to do a draft just to make it readable first.

I think NaNo is a great thing and I certainly wouldn't have one of my now favourite stories around if I hadn't taken part, but trying to edit it is like chipping slowly away at an ugly, rough bit of granite. You have to trust that there's a shape in there to be found, and chip away at the parts until you find it. It's horrible, tough work, and you have to cut off promising bits of stone and sometimes you have to just close your eyes and make a drastic change, risking ruining it completely on the offchance you'll make it better. Then comes the smoothing and the prettifying, but if you've not been sketching out the shape as you go along, you'll have a lot more work to do come the editing phase. Luckily for us writers as opposed to stone cutters, we have a nice handy 'undo' button if everything goes wrong, like the equivalent of being able to rewind time and stick a bit of stone back on. But, if you keep on chipping away, even if there doesn't seem to be a beautiful statue inside this rough bit of stone, you eventually start to see the curves, and maybe they'll build up to something beautiful. I suppose we just all have to trust to our skill that we can effectively make art from a block of stone.

This week...#2

Monday: I did not write because I was working full time.

Tuesday: I did not write because I was running about trying to tidy up before my mum visited.

Wednesday: I did not write because, again, I was working full time. However, I also forgot to go to a staff meeting in the evening, so what was I doing instead of writing in that time? Rewatching Babylon 5, that's what.

Thursday: I did not write but I did edit. I got a new netbook, after having been without a working laptop for quite a while, and now I have a tiny little computer that I have already started working with. The downside? It's got Windows 7 Starter Edition installed, which means I can't put my favourite desktop wallpaper up, since you can't change the wallpaper on Windows 7 Starter. So no Castiel to inspire me :(

Friday: The day is yet young, and I intend to try and fit some writing or editing in, but my day is pretty goddamn full. Still, at least I'm champing at the bit. Sigh.

Saturday: Work/taking advantage of mum's car to go shopping. However, hopefully I will have time to write in the evening. I might be too tired.

Sunday: Will probably not write as I am seeing friends and we will be baking things that man was not meant to bake, hopefully to rival the Battle for the Gingerbread Doom Fortress. Still, a wonderful day will no doubt be had by all.

This week...#1

This week

...I didn't write on Sunday because I was recovering from work on Saturday. And because it was my one day off and I'd damn well do as I pleased with it. So I played Patrician III all day, noted some pleasing but not immediately obvious improvements upon Patrician II and accrued vast amounts of money. Then lost the game while I was helping Robin put up a wardrobe. So started a new one. I wouldn't have been able to write anyway: too many distractions.

...I didn't write on Monday because I got home from work and decided to read a Let's Play of Resident Evil for a day, and then play some Spore.

...I didn't write on Tuesday because I was totally going to and then Robin e-mailed me at work and said I had to go to pick up some post from our Housing Agency and then I shopped a bit since I was in town anyway and then there was no point starting to write since we had to go out to a game.

...this afternoon I shall not write because I have to plan a game I'm running at short notice tonight.

...tomorrow I probably will not write because I'll come home and there'll be a game I have a hankering to play or something important I have to do.

...on Friday I probably will not write because I don't have a working laptop currently, so honestly it's a bother trying to write, and I don't feel like writing longhand, and our PC only has Staroffice or something weird like that on it. I hate writing on Staroffice.

...on Saturday I'm going to be working until the evening. Then there's statting to be done for a livegame.

...on Sunday I'm gaming in Cambridge all day. It's not something I really want to go along to, but I usually end up going anyway. I'd probably just play computer games all day if I didn't go.

These are the myriad reasons I don't write. Maybe by posting them publicly I will shame myself into writing, just so I have something to report. Tune in next week for full-time work week fun!

P.S. I honestly believe that Monday is the first day of the week. But Sunday was relevant.

Things I am enjoying right now

The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. The first one, 'Mister Monday' is brilliant, easily as good (for me) as 'Sabriel', and the teaser for the second, 'Grim Tuesday' in the back has made me champ at the bit to read it. Unlike 'Sabriel', 'Mister Monday' reminds me primarily of vintage Diana Wynne Jones, specifically 'The Lives of Christopher Chant', one of my favourite of her books. The level of detail and vivid realisation of the setting and characters is incredible in 'Mister Monday', and it's rare to find something which takes me so completely on a mental journey to places I'd never imagined. It's like reverting to childhood, and I want to explore further.

'Graceling' by Kristin Cashore. My friends love her writing and I've become quite partial to her blog, This Is My Secret, but now I've taken the plunge and started reading 'Graceling', I see what all the fuss is about. The main thing that struck me (as has been commented on by one of my friends in her blog) was that Cashore has created a character who, by all rights, should be a Mary Sue. She's a tough, confident woman who's niece to a nasty king, has different coloured eyes and a magical ability which makes her literally more kickass than everybody else. She's pretty but doesn't wear dresses and doesn't want to marry all of the lords her uncle puts before her as suitors. She has a strange attraction for an elf-a-like (called Lienid in this) with one eye gold and the other silver and has at least two if not three men fancying her, as well as being the leader of a rebel group who help the helpless. But Katsa is just incredibly likeable as a character. Instead of being a Bitch Sue, she's genuinely misanthropic and cynical for a very good reason - her cruel uncle has her torture and kill folk for his amusement and everybody is afraid of her. Instead of her powers making her a Godmode Sue, they're really not very nice and actually cause her to be a feared and hated figure rather than people looking at her in awe. Her love interest (I'm assuming that's what he is) is called Po, which is an awesomely silly nickname but he is an extremely nice fellow, and the only suitor we've actually seen so far in the book (I'm not hugely far through) isn't a weak idiot to make her one true love seem more wonderful and perfect but is actually smart and cool.

'Red Dead Redemption' is...well, it's like 'Grand Theft Auto IV' with the boring bits surgically removed, crossed with 'Sid Meier's Pirates' and then given cowboys. It's well-made, fun and engaging. It's got the charm of having your fearless bounty hunter dismount from his wild ride across the plains to pick some flowers. It's got bizarre and unique characters with special kinds of '-philia' (Seth, as just one example), the horse riding is amazing and soooo much easier than driving a car in any game ever, the combat system is something even I can understand and frankly it's just all kinds of fun. I think it was made for a better player than me, though. I keep dying, like all over the place. And while I've found the one game where I don't utterly suck at race sections, I was grateful of the option to skip over them when I failed enough times the game took pity on me. There are some bizarre glitches: at one point all the horse-drawn vehicles were standing in place vibrating with a weird noise. Like, the horses and driver and everything were just bouncing up and down in place. Hilarious. Then my favourite horse got eaten by a cougar and I haven't been able to catch another of the same kind. So now I have a nice white horsey instead, though I really want either a black one or a pearly beige one. I really really wish you could keep more than one horse, like stable them somewhere, since inevitably just as I get a nice one, it'll get shot, eaten by some of the wildlife that is constantly trying to kill you, or buck me off and disappear into the wild blue yonder. Still, lassoing and breaking horses is ridiculous fun, so I don't object too much, I can just never find the kinds I want when I go looking. The game does keep you constantly supplied with horses, btw, they're just usually the rubbish kind that have average speed. So, froth finished on that one.

'Sherlock Holmes' (can't remember what all the series are called). My mum got me the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series in its entirety for my birthday, and goddamn are they good. I'd forgotten how perfect Brett is as Holmes. Much wuv.

And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings...

Let's discuss the weather.

It's raining today. Started off a bit grey and gloomy, but quickly developed into heavy, pregnant clouds and now the window before me is peppered with light dashes of rain, rapidly getting more frequent. This is only interesting (this being England, after all) because the last couple of weeks have been positively Mediterranean. The sun was out, the air was humid and the ice cream cart was out near where I work. Of course, this meant I scurried from shade to shade and watched the summer people drift by lazily in their sunglass- and sandal-clad groups to enjoy the beautiful (and rare) weather. Now the air is soft and humid and the light is grey with nary a silver lining in sight. And somehow I feel better, more like writing. I actually find that when it's grey and rainy, properly rainy, with misty fields and dripping eaves and the smell of wet leaves and damp earth (or concrete), the weather tickles at my mind, makes me jittery and ready to be creative. Inspiration scratches round the edges of my consciousness and snuffles at my free time, reminding me every so often that it would be fun to do some writing, wouldn't it?

Whereas in the sun, I am productive in real world ways, involving unpacking some of the boxes of the move, or going into town. I am also unproductive in time-wasting ways, playing 'Red Dead Redemption' being this week's example. The problem is, I have a million and one non-writing and non-gaming things to be doing that need to be done really quite urgently, but instead, that dozy little bit of my brain that likes to write has woken up and wants to be going. Perhaps the important things I have to do can wait for a day...

Bee in my bonnet

This post is far from my usual style, but I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet. You see (for those who do not live in Britain), there are currently two campaigns called 'Look 21' and 'Look 25' which are designed to provide guidelines as to selling age-restricted products. The idea is that if someone doesn't look 21 or 25, depending on the scheme the company adheres to, they should be asked to provide proof of age. This is either a passport or a driving license. There are other things that can be ID, but I'm not confident they'd be accepted everywhere. In theory, maybe they should be, but in practise I've seen a place advertising that staff will not accept a driving license as proof of age, which might be illegal, I'm not sure. Both of these things require a reasonably significant investment of money: certainly more than I ever had to spare while I was a student. Bear in mind that the drinking age in Britain is 18, so 'Look 25' actually asks people who are anything fewer than seven years past the drinking age to provide proof of age. A fair margin for error, some might say, and at least the legal drinking age is 18, not 21.

Except every person has stories like the ones in this article from the BBC. I'm glad there's finally starting to be a backlash against this attitude.

My pennyworth on the subject.

While it is highly unreasonable that people twice the drinking age are asked for ID, it is unfortunately mostly employees being wary due to the high penalties for serving underage drinkers. As someone who works in a place that, due to recent company expansion, sells age-restricted goods, employees who handle age-restricted goods are subject to an atmosphere of fear of potential prosecution if they don't ask for ID and fear of aggression on the part of the customer if they do, as well as in many cases sympathy with the plight of the customer. We're heading towards a culture where literally everybody is asked to prove their age when buying alchohol and 18 certificate DVDs. It's not fun for anybody, but it's a flailing attempt to try and pull the potential media backlash against things like violent video games and binge drinking culture. From the POV of people in the arts industry, age certification on products provides a useful way of pointing to the certificate and saying, "Er, sorry, but it's not intended for kids, so it's not our fault Little Timmy was mentally scarred by 'Generic Soldier: Guts and Glory' or is [probably more likely] taking joy in pretending to viciously slaughter alien monsters, with extra blood splatters in 'Alien Invasion V'." Not that the media takes any notice whatsoever of the age certification system, so busy are they leaping on the next 'Serial Killer played Mankiller: Bloody Revenge IV' story. But that's a different bee for a different bonnet. Please notice that I don't mention the government anywhere else but in these two sentences. I'm unwilling to lay this blame at the feet of Labour, as seems to be the current trend: yes, they implemented a lot of the obsession with IDing, but I think any middle class, middle-aged government would have reacted in the same way to such a monumental problem. Let's just not talk about the Digital Rights Bill.

There are a few beefs I have with this whole system that aren't linked to IDing when buying. For a start, Tescos and some other supermarkets require ID for everyone going through a checkout with someone buying age-restricted products, which is extremely irritating, especially when parents cannot buy a bottle of wine when going through a checkout with their child. The culture of blame is putting the responsibility for drinking culture on the retailers, not on the individual and while there should be some level of corporate responsibility for one's products, shops shouldn't be required to make up for inadequate education about the dangers of drinking, nor should they be expected to treat adults as though they had no awareness or maturity regarding their own decisions.

When places like Wetherspoons ask someone to leave the pub at seven o'clock on a Tuesday evening for ordering a slice of chocolate cake and a glass of water without ID, something has gone wrong. I understand that ID measures are there for a good reason, but before I had ID I could potentially be thrown out of a pub when sitting with my friends drinking a soft drink. When you get to an evening's socialising, you'd be hard pressed to find somewhere open at that time that does not serve alchohol, and so by introducing such strict measures, innocent people are having their freedoms heavily restricted. My liberal soul rebels against the idea of guilt by association. ID is expensive and, for the only two definite pieces of ID that are accepted almost anywhere, are linked to facilitating either driving or leaving the country. In addition, for those who are teetotal, it verges on offensive to them that they must shell out a lot of money for ID just to sit with their friends in a pub with a soft drink. In an ideal world, their most suitable system would be an opt-in system rather than an opt-out one.

In short, if I'm attempting to buy an age-restricted product, feel free to ID me. I knew that was a possibility when I decided to buy it. OK, if I'm clearly not under 21, it's annoying, but you're just doing your job, I'll let it slide. But when I'm ordering a soft drink in a pub, or when I'm not directly buying an age-restricted product but someone vaguely nearby me I clearly know is, what right do you have to tell me I need ID for that? I don't buy drinks or cigarettes for underage kids when approached - please trust me as an adult to make that decision for myself.

Idea-situation-plot

Nicola Morgan wrote an amazing and awesome post on Help! I Need a Publisher (a blog well worth reading for her glorious snark, down-t0-earth advice and an unwillingness to coddle writers I haven't seen since Stephen King). It's about ideas, not where they come from but how they end up as books. The post on Kidlit she links to is also extremely good: that's about the difference between situations and plots.

I think I figured out what's wrong with so many of my works-in-progress. I have ideas, situations, characters or settings (often some or all of the above) but not the 'and then...'.

So, Arthurian legend meets Judge Dredd. A teenage girl goes into training to become a Cyberknight, squire to a knight who doesn't play by the rules. And then...?

Pirates of the Caribbean...miles above the planet surface, with flying ships. James Colney returns from a three-year stint in the aerial navy to find that his one true love has married someone else. A duel ensues, then a murder, of which he is accused. He and Max flee the floating island they called home. And then...?

The climactic battle between heaven and hell happened, without anyone on earth noticing, but the effects were felt through natural disasters, riots and war. The battle was ended by a great last-ditch effort by the Archangel Michael which destroyed the Antichrist and shattered the angels and demons into pieces, scattered across the world. Their broken ethereal forms joined with the nearest human they could find and now they seek to unite with the other parts of themselves, while still fighting their eternal battle between light and dark. And then...?

A world where the gods walk among men, Paragons arranged into Courts and led by Monarchs. Thousands of years ago, the Monarchs murdered two of their own, one of them the Monarch of Change, the Harbinger, because they did not wish for a potentially cataclysmic change he would bring. Now the new Monarch of Change has arisin, and they must decide what to do about him, or risk losing their power or even their lives. And then...?

It's like playing consequences, but I should already know the answers, with the amount of thought I've put into to every one of these. And yet I don't, which is probably why I'm having so much trouble with them. Thank you, Nicola Morgan and Kidlit, you've shown me precisely what is wrong with my writing method. Now I just need to figure out how to solve it.

Last night I had an incredibly detailed dream about trying to rescue a ginger-and-white cat called Jericho from Queen Elizabeth I who had been resurrected and was running a supertech hospital as big as a small town surrounded by SWAT teams. She needed the cat to take over the world, but by God, me and a group of heroic individuals weren't going to let that happen - I woke up when one of the scientists who was helping us was cornered and jumped through a plate-glass window several stories up, hoping that her body would shield the cat she was escaping with from being hurt when she hit the ground and died. I'm once again baffled by what my brain does while I sleep.

'Uglies' by Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld is one of the belles of the ball at the moment in YA fiction. And rightly so.


'Uglies', the first in his series of the same name, is...brilliant. Westerfeld combines speculative fiction, a touch of philosophical meandering to get the leetle grey cells going, well-realised characters and style decidedly lacking in pompous self-importance. I realised after sitting on the bus with my eyes glued to the page for the first few pages that Westerfeld has realised what so few writers do: sometimes, style needs to be invisible. It seems effortless, and I found that I didn't even notice I was reading to some extent. Things just seemed to happen inside my head as I read. I really feel like I've been told a story.


The setting of 'Uglies' has to be read to be fully felt, I think, but the basics of it is that at the age of sixteen, every child in the city (and all of the cities across the country/world as far as we know in this book) is given an operation that physically alters them to make them fit an idealised standard of beauty. It's a simple idea, but Westerfeld runs with it. There are no 'Anathem'-style chunks of exposition here: the details of Westerfeld's world almost slip in round the edges, often not mentioned until the characters encounter them. This can be confusing at first, but you can rest assured that everything you need to know will be told later. I always find it distracting when someone in a sci-fi novel reflects on how the things they've been familiar with all their life work. I mean, I vaguely know how a car and a TV work, but I don't use one and think, "Ah yes, that is the internal combustion engine at work there, first patented in 1861" (I had to look that up and it's probably wrong). So in 'Uglies' we don't get an explanation of how hoverboards work until they stop, or the technology that allows people to navigate computer screens by thought and eye-movement.

There are interesting Matrix and Equilibrium-style (among other things) issues of free will, authority, conformity, the honesty and brilliance of natural human emotion, beauty and the influence it has on society, but Westerfeld doesn't bother us with long philosophical rants on the matter, expounding his theories to make sure we get the point of the novel. Nope, he trusts us to get the point, and if we don't, at least we get a good story along the way. And there are advantages to being 'pretties'. Endless food, a beautiful city, parties all the time, literally eternal contentment. And youth and beauty for as long as your body can stand the life-extending treatments. I know several people who would go for that without question.

So when Tally Youngblood, our hero, finds herself running away to join a rebel faction of 'uglies' (pre-op people) who refuse to be turned 'pretty', we really sympathise with her whining. I'm not sure I'd give up New Prettytown for that. But Tally changes, as people do. It's what makes this good - a good setting is nothing without great characters, and Tally is awesome, with her quick mind and almost unconscious bravery. I think a big part of the whole idealised female character/Mary Sue thing is that they rarely go through a genuine change. Oh sure, they have superficial 'flaws' at the start, and might even have them still by the end, but on the way they discover how wonderful and heroic they are inside, usually with the help of a male love-interest. Tally starts out a whiny, unpleasant character, a slave to the conditioning she's undergone throughout her life. She is brave, sure, but also kind of pathetic at times, because she's learned to be reliant. And then she is forced to become self-reliant. There is a male love-interest, but the only thing she needs him for is the realisation of that whole beauty-comes-from-within thing. Other than that, she learns because she has to, she adapts, and she becomes a strong character who is both sympathetic and awesome.

Literally the only flaw I can come up with for this novel is the story. It's a bit...simple. If you wrote out the events, not that much actually happens. In the same way, the intuitive way Westerfeld doesn't over-explain the issues brought up by the story or the technology of the setting makes it seem a little slight as a sci-fi novel. But that's actually kind of fine. 'Uglies' is never dull, never boring, because even the slight tension that's there is wonderfully handled. It feels almost like half a book, but at the same time, I wouldn't have Westerfeld condense this any further, and while I want to read the next part of the story desperately, the first was substantial enough to keep me going for a while.

'Birdemic: Shock and Terror'

OK, so I decided reviewing serious and worthy stuff was boring. As is trying to give balanced and professional reviews. So here's a review of a truly awful film, hailed by some as a rival to 'Troll 2' and 'The Room' in badness quotient.

I refuse to accept that 'The Room' is a filmic troll, but this...well, for the sake of my sanity, it has to be. And given I've seen films of a similar quality (such as 'Hell Asylum') played entirely straight, I will treat this as a serious endeavour to make a genuine tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'. 'Birdemic' has got quite a lot of press for being so dire that it has reached the attention of the real world rather than just the geek community. And...well, it lives up to it. This isn't 'Death Nurse' levels of squirmingly they-just-didn't-care bad, this is a 'Troll 2' for our time, though it lacks anything to rival the sexy corncob scene. I'd say it's on a level with 'The Stuff' for bad and 'The Room' for the sense that this was a film the director genuinely cared about and wanted to make (assuming it's played straight for the sake of argument).


Its place in the canon considered, 'Birdemic' has the potential for being an OK scholocky horror film. If you replaced its script, actors, director and CGI with...you know...something a lot better, it might even be a passably funny B-Movie. But the acting is...well, wooden really is the right word, but we use it so casually now that we need a much stronger, more precise word to cover the hilarity of this. I suggest 'paralytic'. The main character has stock options. Which he tells us about at great length. He is incredibly successful at some kind of cubicle-based cold-calling job which somehow nets him a deal for millions of dollars. He practically stalks a girl he fancied at school who, instead of doing what a normal person does and getting a restraining order, agrees to go out with him. And she's a model.

'Birdemic' spends an awful lot of time setting up the relationships between the protagonists. Like, a lot. We didn't have a hint of horror until the hero (I use the term loosely) had asked the girl out, made his company lots of money, gone out with said girl, had sex with said girl, developed a brand new form of solar panel that makes solar power sensible as an energy source, and has told us and his girlfriend about his stock options at length. The whole thing felt like a really boring and amateurish green aesop, even referencing and talking about Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Then badly-CGI'd eagles start attacking people and the hero, his girlfriend and assorted random helpers have to try and escape the...I guess, city?...by shooting eagles with automatic guns one of the supporting characters just happens to have and driving away. I honestly don't know what they expect to find, but it gives much opportunity for awful CGI-eagle attacks, shooting with a ridiculous amount of ammo, explorations of how crazy and evil people get when they're in a bad situation and a scientist who provides exposition and I swear was behind the whole thing. Seriously, if I had made this movie, he would have been controlling the eagles with tiny hats in revenge at humanity for laughing at his crackpot ideas.

Oh, and there's a survivalist hippie who looks like Christopher Walken having a weird day while strung out on dope. Apparently the eagles don't attack people who aren't near the trappings of civilisation or something. At this point we were shouting at the screen for the heroes to kill the hippy and take his treehouse, but alas the forst burns down randomly and they flee. Eventually for no reason the eagles just go away. Like they got sick of the slaughter or something. I guess they were trying to do the vague thing that Hitchcock did with 'The Birds' and not actually explain why the birds attacked, but they just fly off into the distance. For no reason. It's not creepy, it's dumb. Like this movie.

I mean, seriously, nobody could have set out to make a film that was this bad. It's the beauty of bad fiction and film - those who try to make a 'bad' film or novel rarely succeed because they're always winking at the audience. To believe that 'Birdemic' is a self-consciously bad film is to restore one's faith in humanity, but it also denigrates the people who are in it. After all, if they made a bad film, it'll become cult for being bad. If they made a parody, it's so bad it's not even funny. It couldn't have ended up that bad by artifice, so it must have had intentional jokes that were badly-done to the point of becoming really bad. The meta of this explanation breaks my brain, so I'm going to go Ockham's Razor on this and say the simplest explanation is that they really thought they were making an OK movie, and that they ended up with something so hilariously bad it's now secured a spot as something all new comers to our bad movie nights has to see.

Productivity

I like that site, dailyprompt. Yesterday it spontaneously produced over 5400 words from a single prompt, "Rest in peace" (also now the title of a reasonably extensive Daniel Creed story).

Today's looks pretty promising too: "Don't you ever get sick of this?" My dour demon hunter, sick of killing? Never! But the scene involving that line could be interesting.

That's four completed Daniel Creed stories, each longer than the last. Sigh. I really don't get this whole 'short story' thing, do I?

I'm not quite confident enough to post my completed story on dailyprompt as it suggests, though, or up here. Alas, my work is destined never to see the light of day. *flounces dramatically*

'Cirque du Freak' and 'Lord Loss' by Darren Shan

Darren Shan is an interesting phenomenon. He's been on and off popular for years with his 'Cirque du Freak' series, and now with the current vampire craze, kids' books taking off and the film based on the first three books of 'Cirque de Freak', he's regaining his title of king of YA horror. It's kind of sweet seeing kids half my age discovering Shan's books when, nearly ten years ago, I did the same thing. Also, it makes me feel old. This post will be spoilerful because 'Lord Loss' especially has some very dark twists that could do with exploring. Be ye warned: the full impact of 'Lord Loss' will not be felt without the shock factor, so if you're planning on reading it, do so without reading this review first.


'Cirque du Freak' is the first novella in a series by the same name. It features a normal kid named Darren Shan (self-insert? Never) who lives his life and then becomes a vampire through a slightly twisty-turny contrived set of events. That's the entire plot of the first book. It's short and sweet and leaves you wanting more. I certainly recall reading these at a startling rate when they came out, but the waiting period between the books meant I got bored and wandered off. The shortness of them means that they're not really worth the...*goes to look it up*...bloody hell, six quid (!) this costs. Ok, the Angels Unlimited/Agent Angel books are shorter on the whole, but they have so much more substance. These would, however, be a nice undaunting way of getting a kid who is not easily freaked out (especially not by spiders!) and likes a good child-friendly gorefest into reading.

Darren isn't actually much of a Gary Stu. He may have traits in common with his creator, but Darren is a very normal kid (apart from his love of spiders, which frankly I can sympathise with). His friend Steve is much more skilled, smart and knows a helluva lot more about vampires. And he's set up to be a major antagonist. I was, I will happily admit, a very tomboyish teenager. I had long hair and didn't run about climbing trees and playing football, but I have always much preferred books by male writers or about male protagonists. So Darren is pretty sympathetic, but Shan's style of writing irritates me a lot. He's billed as YA now (possibly due to a later occurrence in the 'Cirque du Freak' series or its association with 'The Demonata') but 'Cirque du Freak' is much more aimed at 9-12, imho. The writing style is immature (I assume deliberately), with far more exclamation marks than are strictly necessary, but if I was allowed to tip-ex out 90% of the exclamation marks, it would be pretty much OK.

'Cirque du Freak' starts out slow as most of these kind of books do. We're introduced to Darren's parents, his friends, his sister, his best friend (see above), his teacher, see him at home and school. There is mild mystery when the titular 'Cirque du Freak' is mentioned. It, like the Carnival in Ray Bradbury's 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', is condemned and forbidden by the adults, making it immediately interesting. There is some helpful exposition by the teacher on why freak shows are banned and evil, so at least Shan can't be accused of encouraging kids to attend them, but the real treat is with the 'Cirque du Freak' itself. The descriptions of the 'freaks' are as visceral and shocking as any kid could wish, and the gleeful anticipation is definitely paid off, even if older kids might be blase about the whole thing. The plot continues, a bit oddly, and the pacing kind of totters around a lot, but the book is so short that scenes must be quickly dispensed with and it all leads up nicely to the set up for the rest of the series: Darren becomes a half-vampire to save his friend from the bite of the tarantular from the freak show, and goes off with the delightfully nasty Mr Crepsley to become his apprentice. And in this timeframe comes a beautifully observed scene that had me choking back tears, even at the age of twenty-two. See, the reason we had so much detail on Darren's family and friends? We get to see the funeral from his perspective. As he is in a deathlike but conscious sleep. The pain he feels for making his parents and sister believe he is dead is very affecting, and something rarely explored in vampire fiction beyond a nod.

Of course, he then gets dug up by Mr Crepsley, far and away my favourite character, and taken off to be a vampire. Larten Crepsley barely appears in this book, but he's pretty cool. And don't worry, we'll be seeing lots and lots of him in later books, with a decent amount of character development too. He's not a nice person by any means (as in 'Lord Loss', the adults involved with the supernatural, and therefore the people the protagonists must rely on, are on the whole quite unpleasant), but he grows more likeable as the series progresses. I haven't seen the film of 'The Vampire's Assistant', which is based on the first three books, but John C. Reilly, while a fantastic actor, is a very wrong choice for Mr Crepsley, in my opinion.

So, overall, highly enjoyable, much more suitable for 9-12 year olds than they make out in bookshops, as long as they like big hairy spiders, what is described as 'peril' on those lovely patronising movie ratings and creepy freak shows. I did, and I loved these books. Best to get them out of the library, though, as they're very quick to read.

So, after that (rather longer than intended) summary of 'Cirque du Freak', on to 'Lord Loss'. 'Lord Loss' solidly belongs in YA. It's dark, it's nasty and it's got gore in it that would make some horror writers blush. The setup is the same: ordinary kid of two chess-obsessed parents, sister he has a mildly antagonistic relationship with but actually cares for, friends, school, homework, etc. There are two major differences: this seems set up as a more comedic horror novel, like a zany horror thriller for 9-12 year olds. The main character is called Grubitsh 'Grubbs' Grady, there's a character later called Bill-E Spleen, it all promises zany adventure. The other difference is that the darkness level is set to eleven. Shan says he doesn't write horror but characters in extreme situations, and while these characters are in extreme situations, there's a healthy dose of horror here too. Grubbs, for a start, is already kind of a sociopath. In revenge for something fairly mild his sister verging-on-OCD sister did, he rubs rotten rat guts all over her towel while she showers. Now, I only have one shower a day where she has two or three, and I would find that horrible. If my kid did that to anyone, I'd be putting them into therapy. Grubbs' friend, Bill-E, collects dead animals in a black bin liner as evidence of a werewolf (or so he claims...it might be he just likes collecting dead things).

Of course, none of this matters soon, because Grubbs returns home after being sent off to a friend for some mysterious reason to find his parents and sister horribly mutilated by a demon called Lord Loss and his two hellspawn servants, Vein and Artery, one a demonic wolf with human hands and the other a freakish child monster. Barely escaping with his life, he mans up, goes on wacky adventures and hunts down the demon that killed his parents. Wait, no he doesn't. He goes insane. Like, properly insane. The extended section where he's locked in an asylum is harrowing and creepy, and he doesn't just snap out of it either. Seeing his family gutted, dismembered and hung from the ceiling haunts him for the rest of the novel, and as for Lord Loss, Vein and Artery, he can't even look at pictures of them without being freaked out but he still has to fight them, even as they rip his legs to shreds, and play Lord Loss in a chess match he is almost certain to lose. Yup. It's not just Shan's style that's matured: his realisation of character and the 'extreme situations' he puts them in are so much more monstrous. Sure, it's not subtle: gore's splashed around and it's almost horribly funny when Artery puppets Grubb's sister's corpse from behind, but goddamn if it isn't effective. There's a rather dull subplot about a werewolf in the village Grubb goes to stay in with his uncle, but it turns out to be vital to the main story. And, of course, Dervish Grady, Grubb's uncle, has a more than slightly weird sense of humour. You'll see what I mean at the end of the novel.

This is a gory horror novel on the border of what can class as YA, but it's something that kids will read and will enjoy. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, it's part of a natural progression towards reading adult horror. Still, I always warn people when they buy this book in the shop, and I'll warn you now: it's violent, gory and dark. If it was a film, it'd be an 18, but people are much more willing to accept a violent book than a violent film. Still, it's worth a read, and in many ways better than the 'Cirque du Freak' series.

'Tithe' by Holly Black

'Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale', by the author of 'The Spiderwick Chronicles' (which I have never read, but intend to at some point), is a Dark Romance novel I'd be proud to recommend to pretty much anyone.

It concerns Kaye Fierch, a girl who has always been...well, a bit different, in that magic happens around her and she can see fairies. Like every faerie romance, there's an attractive and tormented supernatural love interest, and some slightly confusing court politics, but this is pure stardust. Black has written a fairytale with roots in concrete - Kaye's world is one of very mundane glitz and glamour, with her wannabe-singer mother dragging her from city to city and passing down a sparkly catsuit to her daughter. The crossing place to the fairy world isn't some mystical glade but a creek filled with old, broken bottles. This is Neverwhere with fairies, baby, and it's as down-and-dirty as you want.

When she comes across a man wounded late at night and helps him, Kaye can't possibly understand what she's starting. He's gorgeous, but this isn't a normal love story. For a start, the good and evil fairy queens he's enslaved to are equally nasty in their own way. Practically no one in this is pure good. Also, (spoiler warning!) when Kaye finds that she's actually a changeling, her skin peels away and she is green all over. Quite a contrast to, say, the shiny shimmery vampires of 'Twilight', but charmingly weird.

Black clearly knows her myth (Janet, Kaye's friend, is hopefully a reference to the Janet who saves Tam Lin in folklore, and there's a depiction of a kelpie that is perfect and chilling) but she doesn't use it as a way to avoid making up her own. The spider-spinning dressmaker is a memorable example, as is Nephamael, the Unseelie knight, who exemplifies the twisted pleasures of the Unseelie court with his cloak covered with thorns on the inside.


Kaye is not always sympathetic, and she often has a resonance of that feeling that all imaginative young teenagers get, that they are somehow out of kilter with the real world, but she's got a good reason for it at least. 'Tithe' itself feels like a dream, swerving between a real world that verges into magic and Faery, beautiful, fascinating and terrifying. Kaye has a distinct character, but when I came to the end of the novel, I felt like I had lived the dream myself rather than through Kaye.


It's a difficult novel to take, darker than most of the vampire 'dark' romance for YA out there right now, and definitely a change from the pretty fairy and angel stuff, but it's enchanting. This, along with 'The Stolen Child' by Keith Donahue, is the closest fiction has come to the World of Darkness roleplaying game 'Changeling', that I've found. Gritty and weird, but beautiful at the same time.