11th book of 2010

Wastelands
Sories of the apocalypse
by multiple authors

Love! I love love love apocalypse stories and this is one big ole book full of em!

There's stories from authors including Octavia E Butler, Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Bear, Stephen King and Gene Wolfe...

My favourites were:

The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi. Vivid, a grey and grainy feel, terrifically sad in this brilliant way where the narrator and characters are not but you, as the reader, your heart breaks a little.

Never Despair by Jack McDevitt. Because it has Churchill and he's painted so very neatly. A quiet character study in a ruined world.

Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr. Rockingly rowdy and fun approach to the apocalypse, flavours of Tank Girl and Mad Max, as Ginny drives around with her companions selling sex, tacos & dangerous drugs. Great stuff.

Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers by John Langan. The last story in the anthology and the best by far, in this huge way, this engrossing phenomenal story way. From the construction of the words, to the characters and how they are forced to change in mere moments, from the crazy fucked up world that he's invented here - roaving savage beasts and people turning into flowers - it's all amazing. I feel like I could read this story over and over again and get more out of it every time.

If you like post-apocalyptic stories then you should check out this book!

One day I will write my own version(s). I think you can write as many shorts as you want but you only get one novel (Don't ask me where that rule came from. It just appeared!) So, as much as I desperately want to write a sprawling post-apocalypse novel, I'm going to let it simmer in my brain for a while until I have the best kind of skills to write it well, to write it the way it deserves.

Alice in Wonderland vs Return to Oz

I have had a busy week, with no writing so far and it's Sunday already! April should be a better month though, with Easter and another long weekend that I'm taking at the end of the month. Whole DAYS for writing. I shall be like A Real Writer(TM).

As part of that busy-ness, I saw Alice in Wonderland on Wednesday, with buddies from my old job. We went to Imax and got the full 3D experience, which was a tad overwhelming at times when there were character close-ups. I was only able to focus on, like, a single nostril or an eyelash, rather than their whole face.

Verdict: D. It's "missing something", as Julia put it, and I agree. Like a soul. Or a heart. I didn't care for any of the characters. En passant, why is it called Alice in Wonderland when in this movie it's not, it's "Underland"? So, I giggled a few times, got vertigo a couple of times. I liked guessing who all the voices were. Even though I didn't care for any of the characters, I thought the casting was absolutely brilliant. But those things don't really add up to anything that can redeem the shabby story. It's not the one you know; it's a made-up sequel where an adult Alice returns to Underland where the Red Queen has run amok with her Jabberwocky.

The story makes me think of Return to Oz. Have you seen Return to Oz? The 1985 'sequel' to the Wizard of Oz. But it ain't no musical. It's dark and crazy and terrifying and enthralling and everything Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" wanted to be.

In Return to Oz, Dorothy is sent to a mental institution because she refuses to stop talking or dreaming about this "imaginary" world. She manages to escape before she can be given electroshock therapy (yeah, you heard me right!) and finds her way back to Oz. But it's a world changed from the one she last visited: the evil Nome King has taken over in co-operation with the wicked Mombi. Mombi's minions are the Wheelers, a gang of gurgling gulping punkish creatures who have wheels instead of hands and feet. The Nome King has turned everyone to stone and Mombi has chopped off all the beautiful maidens' heads, which she keeps in a room of glass cages AND SHE WEARS THEM, changing her head at whim. There's a desert that turns everything living that touches it to sand. There's the crumbled and deserted ghost town that was once Emerald City, a destroyed Yellow Brick Road, the imprisoned Scarecrow... This movie is actually based on the books, in a way the musical wasn't, so it's not really a sequel but a whole new imagining.


I adored Return to Oz as a kid. It was absorbing and scary and awesome. And the best thing is, I watched it again about 5 years ago and it was still cool. There's movies you loved as a kid that don't stand the test of time but this one does (I'm sorry, Dark Crystal, but those weird puppet voices freak me out, I can't stand em. That one has to stay in my childhood).

I can't help but compare Burton's Alice in Wonderland with Return to Oz, as the storylines are so similar and so are the character roles, and they are both filled to the brim with quirky weirdness. But in Return to Oz, you care about the characters. You WANT Dorothy and Tik-Tok and Jack Pumpkinhead and Gump and Bellina to succeed.


Dorothy is resourceful and good-hearted, she doesn't pine & mope into the sunset like Alice or declare that she can't do something (Don't you find Alice a bit... bland?). The Wheelers are wonderfully scary and would knock over the Red Army without a backward glance. Mombi is sadistic and mean and would KICK the Red Queen's ASS. The Red Queen cares too much, she wavers on whether she wants to be loved or feared. Mombi has no such qualms.


As for the Knave of Hearts, his limp-wristed posturing is no match for the vengeful and deep voiced and threatening Nome King -- even if the Nome King has a secret achilles heel issue... I guess we'd have to compare the Mad Hatter to Jack Pumpkinhead, the latter being a bit sappy, so this might be the only case where Alice in Wonderland has the edge. But that weird talking dog Bayard is boring compared to Tik-Tok, the fierce metallic army of Oz with his twitching brass moustache and habit of winding-down at inconvenient times, and the Dormouse is cute but ineffective and not quite as entertaining as Gump, who is quite possibly the weirdest character I've ever seen in a movie, being half moose and half couch (that's right: he's furniture).

Plus, in Return to Oz, there's Bellina the talking chicken, and a tree that grows lunchboxes! I think I want to watch it again now...

Second book of 2010

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie.

In 1971, during Mao's cultural revolution, 2 sons of doctors are sent to be 're-educated' by living with peasants in a mountain village. They meet the daughter of a local tailor and both fall in love with her, and with Western literature when they get their hands on a suitcase of illicit novels (all books banned at the time). Various little scenes and adventures abound.

The writer was apparently 're-educated' himself, and left China to live in France in 1984. The book was translated by Ina Rilke. I found this quite a nice read, feeling like I was reading a folk tale. I wish I had read some of the books the boys found - some Balzac for instance! - as I think that'd add another dimension to the story.

Onto book 3 now - It by Stephen King. This massive brick of a book is quite hard to hold! But it needs to be read. Borrowed it from Notwelshman.

I have quite a few books on the menu now thanks to my incredibly thoughtful ex-workmates, who snuck onto my Amazon wish list and got me a selection for my leaving pressie! Bless them. I'm so excited about getting into some of these!

the road on the big screen

I saw The Road last night. (It has just been released here in the UK. I hate how movies take 17 million years to get to this country after being released everywhere else).

When I saw the trailer for the movie a few months ago, I was super doubtful. It looked... colourful. The book is grey. How could they translate this book into a film? It's the best story I've read in the last 3 years. So I felt a little protective.

Well, Mr Director Man, I apologise. And Mr Screen Writer Man. You did good. Real good. This is possibly the best book adaptation I've ever seen. True to the book, evoking all the same responses and absorption. I was really impressed.

I loved it.

So, here's an interview with Cormac McCarthy about the movie -- the Wall St Journal managed to wrangle an interview from the private fellow -- alongside John Hillcoat, the director. It's a really great interview, about themes and writing and turning books into movies and apocalypses and fatherhood and luck... so do read it.

And here is Cosmo Landesman's review in the Sunday Times, which is on-the-button.

first book of 2010

The Fire Gospel by Michael Faber

Theo is an Aramaic scholar who discovers nine previously hidden scrolls in a bombed Iraqi museum, and he promptly steals them for translation and publication. The scrolls are a 2,000-year-old gospel, written by Malchus, an associate of Jesus. And he has some new and real things to say about the man, particularly of his last days and the crucifixion.

I first discovered Michael Faber from the Bustees! Back in the day we had a bookclub thread on the forum, and his book The Crimson Petal & the White was one of the books we read for it. I found it long and, to be honest, kind of boring. Following that, I read his novella Under the Skin (hmm, just checking Amazon, the title proclaims it to be a novel. I remember it as a lot shorter than that!) Under the Skin is still my favourite so far - dark, creepy, speculative, an unfurling story - highly recommended.

I like his writing style; it's very readable, balanced and easy. I liked the dark humour in The Fire Gospel, plus the (even if snarky) insight into life as an author, post-publication. E.g., Theo obsessively checks his book's sales reports on Amazon and reads the Amazon reviews (although I did think the book contained too many of the reviews that Theo peruses). I also loved Malchus's ridiculous prose, his self-absorption and bodily ailments, plus the downright deliciousness blasphemy of his accounts of Jesus. According to Malchus, his last words on the cross are: "Somebody please finish me."

But the story itself feels thin and patchy and I felt though it didn't really go anywhere. Meagre character development. At least it's a short book - another novella passing itself off as a novel? - so easy to get through. I found out after reading that it's a retelling of the Prometheus story.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I just recently finished watching the second season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And I'm in love. This is some show. And I'm heartbroken, because it hasn't been renewed for a third season.

I like so much about this show, and I wish I could give a better and more critical review than the one I'm about to do. I wish I could be a more critical reader and watcher in general.

This is a very spoilery post, so please avoid it if you haven't watched the series. Seriously.

edit: I thought that James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd were involved with this show as they were credited as writers, but further digging revealed they were credited with the (characters) so I am unsure whether they actually had any input!

The first series took a little to get going. It looked like it might be all about running and running and chasing and so on. I thought there were dropped storyline threads, especially around the school. But it picked up. And the second season is great.

It's clear that the writers are not making this shit up as they go along. They have story arcs and character arcs planned. This means I found the show satisfying. I want shows to be satisfying. Like, Battlestar Galactica or Lost never were – those shows ultimately disappointed me.

I felt like Chronicles wasn't trying to reinvent the mythology of the franchise, but build on it. For instance, there's an episode where John finds the polaroid photo of his mother, the one of her and the blue heeler in the desert, the one he will give to Kyle Reese in the future. It's just a moment, but it's there.

The characters are layered, developed. I even found the secondary characters more interesting sometimes. Perhaps this is because they are able to have more scope simply by being new to our screens compared to Sarah and John, with their familiar struggles and needs. Derek Reese is just awesome. The scene where he watches Cameron dance, in the first series, could be one of my favourite moments on screen, ever. He brings scarred, he brings internal struggle.

Cameron the 'good' cyborg has these wonderful touches of humour, and then can be so unsettlingly inhuman. The final episode has her echoing Arnie's rampage through the mental hospital in the second movie, as she breaks out Sarah Connor from prison, and she is a much finer and more competent and threatening cyborg than Kristanna Loken ever was. Then there is Riley's final scene, when she confronts Jesse about the truth of her mission, and I could really feel it as a desperate struggle of life and death.

Although - I felt Jesse was miscast, and I'm not that interested in Mr Ellison. During his scenes, I was always waiting for the rest to come back. And there were some episodes that I didn't care for - especially the dream sequence vs dream sequence one about Sarah.

But the second half of the second season got particularly interesting, with the development of John Henry, and Mrs Weaver starts saying more than, "Ah, Mr Ellison." It became clear than Savannah is very important. We already knew she must be important because Mrs Weaver – a cold-blooded liquid metal monster – had kept her alive when she'd killed her parents, and was concerned for Savannah's wellbeing and mental health. What is her motivation? I'm still super intrigued but I guess we'll never really know. Mrs Weaver – she of the moray eel – and the eel that worms its way out of the doomed submarine – I think are one and the same. They ask and reply to the same question, in the present, and in the future. She isn't Skynet after all, as she is actually against Skynet, but what she is creating with John Henry is actually not on the same side as John & Sarah either.

The end of this season – gosh. The loss of Derek, so brutal and sudden and then pushed aside because John & Sarah don't have time to grieve – nor do we, not yet. My heart broke a little bit.

And the final episode is brilliant. It ends on this note, this perfect and sad note, as John Connor looks at Derek and Derek does not know him, as he sees his father Kyle for the very first time, and as he sees Cameron - and then realises that she is not Cameron. That change of expression on his face is done so, so well.

There's references to the Wizard of Oz several times – the last names they take on as part of their false identities (Baum, Gale), the reading of the book by a child in one episode. I noticed the references and I'm still thinking about why - the tinman, maybe, who wanted a heart. The search to go (find) home? The wizard behind the curtain – perhaps this was John Henry. It has been a while since I read that book, feel like I need to do so again.

What else? I keep thinking, churning it over. I'm sure more will come up in my brain.

And there it goes. I fell in love with another amazing and cancelled sci-fi show. I can't believe that hohumblahmeh Dollhouse got renewed, and Chronicles didn't.

Lords of Dogtown

I saw Lords of Dogtown yesterday, finally. It's been sitting on my laptop for a while. I got it solely because of this beautiful version of 'Wish You Were Here' by Sparklehorse, which plays throughout. That's one gawguss song.

Years ago when I was working at the ice-cream shop at Rialto, I saw the doco Dogtown & the Z-Boys when it played there, so it was interesting to see the theatrical version.

But, er, you sure could tell this one was written by Stacy Peralta. On account of how in the movie the character of Stacy Peralta is the 'good guy'... without the faults that grace the other characters. Hence, he is the most boring one on screen. I certainly get that he seemed the one with the most screwed-on business-mind, which is probably why his name is the one I recognise the most - and also why this film is now here. If he wasn't that guy, we'd not have the movie nor the documentary (that Peralta was also behind yet didn't seem to have that skew). Still, the other characters were more interesting.

Heath Ledger was amazing as Skip. He's a real chameleon, one of those actors that becomes. I wanted to shake him and tell him to work it out, dude. Emile Hirsch is delightful in that scrummy-isn't-he-pretty-and-pouty way. All that long blond-tipped hair; boy was I sad to see him shave that off (en passant I love it when actors actually shave their heads on film - particularly women, go Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta). And I'm not saying he was bad at all, in fact I liked the arc his character took the best. The moment where he dances around Kathy Alva made me grin. The moment where he walks away from skateboarding - he literally does.

There's some beautiful imagery. The sun setting behind the crumbling and broken black facade of the old Atlantic pier - dead ferris wheel against the luminous grey morning sky. Surfers catching waves between the pilings. Wind in blond hair as Hirsch skates slow and lazy curves down sloped tarmac streets.

There is an awesome cameo by Tony Hawke as an astronaut who tries to ride a skateboard and he falls off and gets up and says "it's harder than it looks" - hehe.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke - who did Thirteen and has just done the teenybopper vampire flick, Twilight.

I want to see the doco again now.