The television knows best....

It's been almost two months since I posted something. I've been neglecting my reading because it's been too hot. I've been absorbing movies instead, so many movies, too lazy to turn pages. But I thought I'd throw out a few things about some TV I've been watching but maybe never mentioned.

Daredevil - Finished it, great show, good fight scenes. A bit dark occasionally, it never seems to be daytime, but I suppose that's its thing. I do wonder how much it's going to embrace its comic roots. I keep getting a weird supernatural vibe from some of it, but that's probably just me.
Penny Dreadful - This show is so Victorian it almost hurts, so many angsty Victorian faces. I always enjoy the hell out of all the drama and all the clothing and all the crazy Eva Green liberally sprinkled through every episode. Also ugly nightgowns, so many ugly nightgowns.
Hannibal -  Every time Hannibal comes back, I always forget how beautiful all the violence and fine dining is. Also they're not even trying to pretend any more are they. I love everything about it. No show is even close to this interesting to look at.
Dark Matter - Really wanted to like it after being disappointed with the graphic novel, but I'm finding it a little boring and predictable. I'm watching it just because it's sci-fi at the moment. Killjoys might be more fun but I haven't gotten to that yet.
Sense8 - I watched the first episode. I was tentatively interested in some of the characters, and the whole hive mind thing they teased hooked me. I wanted to like it. But I found the dialogue clunky, jammed with exposition and hard to take seriously. I've been told by the internet that I have to give it at least three more episodes because it gets better. Also apparently interesting stuff happens.
Humans - Honestly should have been the sort of thing that I really enjoy, and I kind of loved what they were doing with Anita and Odi, but I kept forgetting it was on, and I just couldn't be bothered to catch up.

I'm going to marathon Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I've been saving it up for some nebulous future time. And there are a couple of things around that sound interesting that I might end up watching. People keep talking about Zoo and The Whispers. Also Dominion is coming back soon, my crazy angel apocalypse show. And Agent Carter starts airing here next week. I shall definitely be watching that.

A Book With Pictures - Dark Matter by Garry Brown, Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie.

The six-person crew of a derelict spaceship awakens from stasis in the farthest reaches of space. Their memories wiped clean, they have no recollection of who they are or how they go on board. The only clue to their identities is a cargo bay full of weaponry and a destination-a remote mining colony that is about to become a war zone! With no idea whose side they are on, they face a deadly decision. Will these amnesiacs turn their backs on history, or will their pasts catch up with them?

This is the graphic novel that a new pilot for a TV show is supposed to be based on, and I like sci-fi shows so I thought I'd have a look at the source material. Also, because I'm a sucker for an amnesia storyline.

The art style is dark and angular, it's not a style I would go looking for, but it's not completely off-putting either. I did find it hard to read facial expressions. I would have liked a little more colour, and some detail to the characters though, at times I was even getting two of them confused.

The story moves along very fast, there's no real time to get a look at the new characters before things are happening to him. But the mystery of who they are is solved very quickly, with the larger mystery of why their memories were taken and by who, and if there is a traitor on board, quickly becoming the new questions (which was a little disappointing as I would have liked the characters to come across as something and interact a little bit at least, before learning who they were supposed to be.)

By far my favourite character is the robot on the ship, his bright colouring, ominous dialogue and detailed eyes make him stand out, and his actions, motives and strange watchfulness as the plot played out intrigued me far more than any of the muddy characters.

I wasn't really hooked by any of the characters or the mystery surrounding them. They definitely seem to be going for a Firefly flavour, and I can see how people would like it, but it didn't work for me. It's a shame, as a little more personality and colour could have made it a book I might have recommended.

A Book With More Than 400 Pages - The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.

When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite. But they don't laugh.

Melanie is a very special girl.


This is another book which I'd seen in a lot of the 'best books of 2014' lists. For some reason I was under the impression this book was about super powers. I'm not entirely sure why. I think I'd somehow come to that conclusion by catching half of a conversation or something. So I was very enthusiastic for this novel about a little girl who had super powers that were somehow so terrifying that she was kept in a government facility. It quickly became very clear that I was totally wrong, and the fact that I was disappointed was completely my own fault in this case. I know that's a problem of mine sometimes. I get too excited about what I think a book is about, and where I think it's going, rather than letting it just tell its story. I'll admit to that one.

The Girl With All The Gifts is a zombie book. Which I tried not to hold against it. I think there's still room to have new and interesting ideas in the genre (I think convincing people to read them while the genre is so overstuffed is much more difficult.)

The story is a fairly familiar post-apocalyptic one, it pulled up one or two new ideas but on the whole it is something I've seen done before, in a few novels, and more than a few short stories. It's a direction I don't really mind and the characters were good, engaging, real-feeling people. It also helped that Melanie is one of those narrators that I like, where it's clear they're more naive than the people around them, and the reader can work out far more of what's happening in the world through their observations than what the main character is aware of. I don't know if there's a word for that...something something narrator?

But if you're willing to read another zombie book, I think it's worth giving a look.

So there was a trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I'm not really a huge Star Wars fan but everyone seems very happy. So I'm happy for you guys and your new Stars Wars movie.


Also, the Batman Vs Superman trailer teaser thingy appeared last night. And I just wanted to talk about DC movies for a bit before I head out.
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I was going to post something that wasn't a book review for a change, but then I had two books on the same general theme for the weekend, and I ended up reading them both. So I thought I'd review them both at the same time. So, on the theme of disaster, isolation and survival in a sci-fi setting I take on The Martian by Andy Weir, and The Explorer by James Smythe.

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A Book By A Female Author - The Iron Wyrm Affair by Lillith Saintcrow.

The game is afoot!

London's geniuses are being picked off by a vicious killer, and Emma Bannon, a sorceress in the service of the Empire, must protect the next target, Archibald Clare. Unfortunately he's more interested in solving the mystery of the murders than staying alive . . .

In a world where illogical magic has turned the Industrial Revolution on its head, Bannon and Clare will face dark sorcery, cannon fire, high treason and the vexing problem of reliably finding hansom cabs in the city.

This book looked like fun, it sounded like fun. I was expecting Morgana and Sherlock Homes solve crime! That sounded like a fun book. A mostly romance-free adventure with a victorian theme, a little like Soulless by Gail Carriger, which I quite enjoyed.

But the first thing I have to say about this book is not a compliment. It annoyed me from beginning to end. Constantly describing your adult female heroine - or any of her body parts or mannerisms - as 'little' or 'childlike' is throwing me the hell out of the book. Especially if they're observations being made by a man with any romantic interest in her. No. No. Stop it.

Emma Bannon is a bearable heroine, though at times she feels frustratingly like a collection of female protagonist tropes. I feel like we never really get to know her as much as I wanted to. Archibald Clare gets to be our pov character for alternate chapters. He seems to get the meat of the fleshing out, dialogue, interesting companions and inventive steampunk plot. The world-building has some interesting ideas, though it does jolt from alternate Victorian London with magic, to heavily steampunk-flavoured, mechanical human craziness with dragons, in a way that doesn't quite feel earned.

It's not exactly romance free - but weirdly the love interest is almost completely extraneous to the plot, he has barely any personality and no chapters from his pov. He barely does anything but look grumpy/jealous, occasionally fight things and protest the heroine doing stuff. Poor cardboard love interest. He feels like he was just stuffed in so the book had a love interest. You could cut him out of the book entirely and it wouldn't have made the slightest difference. I suspect people with no real interest in romantic sub-plots or main plots might find him an annoying diversion, and people who like to read romance will probably find the lack of it disappointing.

Honestly, the book works best when Bannon and Clare are interacting, I thought the book was better when they were together, driving the plot forwards. I would actually have read more of their adventures if Emma was fleshed out a little more, and if there was a little more for them to do, and a little less in the way of over-used urban fantasy tropes. And if they could stop talking about her little childlike face of course, because that's just weird...

A Book With Magic - The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

In the far future, unbeknown to humankind, an apocalyptic war is brewing. Fearsome, vengeful Demons rage at the boundaries of the world, held at bay by a spell called the Forbidding. But now that barrier is dying. Evil is beginning to break through. And only the Chosen can banish the Demons back to their realm.

Wil Ohmsford is a healer, not a fighter; a man of duty, not great deeds. But this epic battle seeks him out, for he holds the Elfstones: mysterious protective talismans passed down by his grandfather. Wil is recruited to act as guardian to the Elf girl Amberle, who must venture far to deliver a seed that will help the Forbidding to grow again. The fate of civilization rests upon her shoulders—and the completion of her mission rests upon Wil’s. Now, as the forces of darkness descend, Wil and Amberle embark on a perilous journey, placing their faith in each other to survive the bloodthirsty terrors that await.

The second in the first Shannara trilogy (though the books standalone). I didn't enjoy the first book that much. The world-building didn't feel that interesting, it felt like the plot was mostly on rails, and none of the characters felt like they had any real agency. It also overused its magical macguffin to a ridiculous extent. But this second book is the one they hope to make into a TV show, and I'd been told it was much, much better than the first.

The first half of the book didn't leave me that impressed, I found the main characters, Wil and Amberle (both drawn as fairly passive and childlike, constantly reacting to things happening around them) bland and uninteresting, the magical macguffin makes another appearance (weirdly I think the stones are actually used/focused on less, considering this book is supposed to be about them.) Interesting characters show up just long enough for you to think they might improve the story/cast, only to leave just as quickly. But halfway through the book the focus splits - and the story quickly improves. The plot becomes something other than 'constantly running away' and main character's chapters become a little more satisfying as they're given things to do, and I found the secondary story genuinely compelling with good characters. I really, really wish this book had concentrated on the armies under siege. Or made Ander, Crispin or Stee Jans (or anyone else really) the main character. I don't understand why most of the good characters, development, interesting choices, compelling plot and action/fight scenes were given to the secondary plot/second half of the book. Though the second half did make it a much better book.

But for all that it's a book full of demons, death, and dangerous questing it's all very...clean. I'm not sure if it was originally a young adult book before it became popular, but it feels familiar in that sort of way.

A Book That Made You Laugh - What If? by Randall Munroe.

Munroe's hilarious and compelling answers explain everything from the odds of meeting your one true soulmate to how many humans a rampaging T-Rex would need to eat a day.

This book was very silly and immense fun. Written and illustrated by the mind behind xkcd it's a fun blend of serious science, absurd thought experiments and ridiculous hypotheticals. The author does his best to answer both utterly ridiculous questions and genuinely intriguing random thoughts and flights of fancy, to the best of his ability (when he's not accusing the questioners of wanting to feed their friends to a T-Rex.)

But there's also a constant, and amusing tendency to go off on tangents and colour outside the lines - answering questions that would need to be answered as well as the original question, or questions that arise that he finds interesting. There's a section on what would happen to the earth if everyone jumped at the same time - but it goes into far more detail getting everyone to the same place for the grand jumping, and then explaining the difficulties of everyone needing to eat, go to the toilet and then fly home (spoiler, most of us would starve to death.) It feels like it was a lot of fun to write, it was definitely fun to read.

Though I'm still curious about that whole feeding T-Rexs to Sarlacc pits that never got answered.

I thought I'd do a snake post, since Niko's fully grown now and I haven't put up pictures of him for more than a year. For anyone that doesn't know, in September 2011 we found a baby snake curled up in the recycling, and I kept it. Because in my family that's often how we end up with pets.
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A Book Set In The Future - Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear.

A starship hurtles through the emptiness of space. Its destination - unknown. Its purpose? A mystery. Its history? Lost.

Now, one man wakes up. Ripped from a dream of a new home, a new planet and the woman he was meant to love in his arms, he finds himself wet, naked, and freezing to death. The dark halls are full of monsters but trusting other survivors he meets might be the greater danger. All he has are questions: Who is he? Where are they going? What happened to the dream of a new life? What happened to the woman he loved? What happened to Hull 03?

All will be answered, if he can survive. Uncover the mystery. Fix the ship. Find a way home.

I was in the mood for something science-fiction flavoured and I knew that Greg Bear's Hull Zero Three was on my list of stuff to read as a 'generation/sleeper ship gone wrong' book. The general feel of it is a little like the movie Pandorum, if you've seen that (if you haven't - think waking on a spaceship that's in a worrying state of collapse and decay, with no idea what's happening and the nagging sense that things have gone wrong in a way that may involve monsters.) The book has more of an emphasis on zero gravity and a way of suggesting that the monsters may not be the most obvious. I enjoyed reading it, finding out what had happened, how long they'd been travelling, why everything had gone so horribly wrong. It's not a huge book by sci-fi standards, only 310 pages, and it has a good pace. I'm a sucker for space mysteries and sometimes if the journey has good characters, or is compelling enough, or has enough interesting or unsettling twists/shocks, I can forgive a shaky ending (though not a stupid ending.) The book was satisfying enough that I came away with no real complaints. Good science fiction.