Book Review: TRIGGERS by Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer is a hell of an idea man. Every time he puts a book out, without fail, it quickly makes it way to the top of my ‘to read’ pile. Because, hell, who doesn’t want to read about the Internet gaining sentience, or first contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization or a parallel world where Neanderthal man survived to become the dominant life form? Those are all really interesting premises on which to base a story.

In TRIGGERS the United States is under assault by a terrorist organization that has successfully carried out a number of attacks on American soil. When President Seth Jerrison is shot delivering a speech in front of the Lincoln memorial it seems as if there is nothing that can be done to stem the tide of destruction and misery.

Led by Secret Service agent Sue Dawson, Jerrison is rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. As a team of surgeons struggles to save his life a powerful bomb destroys the White House and releases an EMP which scrabbles the machinery of Dr. Ranjip Singh, who is attempting to provide relief to patients suffering from traumatic memories.

But there is an unexpected side effect. Singh’s equipment has linked 24 minds within the hospital to one another, including Jerrison’s. These 24 people can now read the memories of one other person caught in the blast radius.

Now, with time running out, Dawson must figure who has access to the President’s memories and how she can stop them from revealing American’s deadly planned response to the terrorist threat.

Looking back over his bibliography Sawyer pushes out nearly a book a year. That’s a pretty impressive output when you consider that it takes GRRM the better part of a decade to cough up a single novel. But as we all learnt in primary school quantity doesn’t always add to quality and even the most prodigious idea-generating machine will sometimes trip up on the execution of it.

Unfortunately TRIGGERS is one of those times.

The big problem underlying TRIGGERS is that it doesn’t really know what it’s supposed to be about. The book’s lack of identifiable personality drags it down as it lurches unsteadily between genre. Is it about the sci-fi hook or the political intrigue? Are we supposed to be paying attention to the social commentary or the mystery/whodunnit angle that plays such a visible part in the first half of the book?  It feels like Sawyer took a mixed bag of literary tropes and just threw them up on the page in whatever order he felt was most appropriate. Rather than create a single cohesive storyline that blends and mixes the motifs of the various genre it feels more like a Frankensteinian monster, with the central narrative marred by the strange limbs that have been awkwardly grafted onto its body.  

This genre excess contributes to the feeling that the book could have used a serious rethink on its structure. With so many distinct story hooks bubbling up and demanding the reader’s attention every plot development feels truncated as Sawyer trundles along to the get to the next beat.

I feel that so much of what bothers me about the nature of the story could have been solved if the story had been stretched out for a couple novels. For example the subplot where Dawson has to figure out who’s reading the President’s memories is the dominant story of the first half of the book, more so than any other plot point. When that storyline comes to a screeching halt halfway I had to flail around for a bit until I figured out where Sawyer was going to take the story now.

In fact, at times it feels like even Sawyer isn’t sure where the narrative is going as he seemingly abandons telling a story to just check in on how his characters’ are coping with the memory linkages. The discovery of who is reading the president’s mind feels like it would have been a natural ending point for the book. I think if Sawyer had made the decision to wrap the story there it would have given him the opportunity to flesh out other subplots, like the simmering geo-political tension and possible traitor within the Secret Service, that are currently given short shift.

Another failing of TRIGGERS is that it feels like a very dry, emotionally reserved story. Despite the rich subject matter Sawyer maintains a scientist’s detachment throughout the book, delving into a number of complex and diverse characters but somehow imbuing them all with the same objective authorial voice. I don’t get a sense of distinct characters or personalities, but instead I’m treated to a series of interchangeable ciphers who’s only distinguishing features is the amount of knowledge they have at their fingertips.

A hallmark of Sawyer’s writing is his willingness to editorialize and educate throughout. Like any good scientist he knows the importance of peppering the lecture with a couple interesting facts to keep the audience paying attention. As an author Sawyer has always worked to make sure his subjects are impeccably researched and chronicled as faithfully as possible. But there’s an incongruity within TRIGGERS, a feeling that despite all the historical accuracy he may have stuttered on some of the practical aspects of his story.

I never really feel like Sawyer has a grasp on how the world would react to the possible assassination of an American President and the destruction of the White House. Once Jerrison is taken to the hospital the Secret Service seems awfully laissez-faire about security measures. Despite a series of incidents that, in the real world, would result in a security shit storm that sees Secret Service agents placed around the President a hundred feet deep, people in TRIGGERS seem to come and go as they please. Hell, hospital security guards even get to keep their sidearms, despite the fact that there’s clearly an ongoing conspiracy to destabilize the American government.  The gravity of the situation, the fundamental change of the American status quo is glossed over or completely overshadowed by smaller events. Key characters behave in a manner that is at odds with the events that are taking place around them. Their priorities never match up with their personalities.

I always enjoy reading Robert J. Sawyer. Yes, his books are more intellectual exercise than gripping sci-fi drama, but he has struck a balance that works for him and most times works for me as well. Unfortunately this time around I feel the normally rock steady author has delivered an unfocused and uneven final product. I look forward to his next book and hope that he can recommandeer the style and presence that has served him so well in the past.  

Movie Musings: THE HELP

I couldn’t help but get THE KING’S SPEECH taste in my mouth when I was watching this film. Both movie’s rocked strong character work, but neither had the slighted whiff of taking a substantial artistic risk. It felt that Oscar nominations, not uncompromising art was the true goal of both movies. 

You just can’t get away from the notion that THE HELP is a very safe film, not only in its artistic choices, but in its execution of the subject matter as well. Despite dealing with some very heavy stuff, Civil Rights in the Deep South in the 1960s, all the really scary material is kept offscreen. Instead the characters talk about some of the bad things that are happening and the news hints at some of that same stuff, but it’s all carefully neutered and hidden away.

It felt like the worst thing that could happen to these women for telling stories about their employers was that they could get fired. While in reality, they were doing was taking their lives in their own hands. The danger and risks inherent in their decisions were talked about, but never illustrated, giving the audience a false sense of what was really at stake in the film.

At times the stakes in THE HELP seem deliberately downplayed in order to broaden the film’s commercial appeal. It’s a shame, because I would have liked to have seen what this film could have been if the training wheels had been taken off.

Book Review: THE DEATH OF NNANJI by Dave Duncan

Sometimes you do get to go home again.

Dave Duncan’s Seventh Sword trilogy (SST) is one of those rare fantasy series that actually had a lasting impact on me as a reader. First published nearly a quarter century ago the trilogy was an epic fantasy story, starring a contemporary hero and containing an almost sci-fi underpinning to the whole narrative.

It was like writers had finally gotten the message and started making books just for me.

The SST was about the struggle for the soul of the World between the forces of science and ignorance. The World being an Earth analogue, if you squinted your eyes slightly and the light caught it just right, with technology that was roughly equivalent to that of our own Dark Ages. For centuries the World had been governed by a pre-literate priesthood whose edicts were carried out by increasingly corrupt swordsmen.

Into this moral vacuum a group of ruthless scientists emerged, who used their scientific discoveries to cow and control an ignorant populace into believing they are all-powerful sorcerers. In order to combat this threat and return honour to the profession of swordsmen the Goddess relocates the soul of a dying Earth chemical engineer Wallie Smith into Lord Shonsu, one of the World’s greatest swordsmen, and tasks him with the job of bring the sorcerers to heel.

The original trilogy chronicled Wallie’s successful campaign against the sorcerers and wrapped up with the gods withdrawing from the World in the wake of the first signs of the industrial revolution.

THE DEATH OF NNANJI picks up the story again, roughly 15 years after the SST.

Liege Lord Nnanji, Wallie’s protégé from the original trilogy, is now leader of the swordsmen tryst and has nearly succeeded in his mission to rid the world of the amoral sorcerers. However, a co-ordinated assassination attempt on Wallie and Nnanji reveals that the sorcerers are not as close to defeat as they had hoped.  Now, with Nnanji fatally wounded, Wallie must retake the leadership of the tryst and finish the job he started 15 years ago. With his son Vixini in tow Wallie plans to cross the face of the World and bring down the sorcerers once and for all.    

I was really looking forward to checking in with the world of Wallie and Nnanji again. As I’ve blathered on about in previous posts, I’m a huge Dave Duncan fan and this series was my first exposure to his work. So, Disclosure, I’m carrying a fairly substantial nostalgia torch when it comes to these characters.

Duncan just seems to be one of those writers whose work lends itself to endless speculation about the possibility of new entries. Despite, his clean and direct prose it seems like he can’t help but leave the endings to his books deliberately opened ended. Yes, he’ll wind up the immediate story thread. But there’s also an acknowledgment there on his part that just because this particular tale has wrapped up that doesn’t mean the characters’ lives come screeching to a stop. It feels like he’s handing off the baton to the reader, saying,

“Here you go, I’m done with these guys, why don’t you run with it for a bit and see what happens.”

And with Duncan’s gripping characters and gloriously detailed and open ended worlds in which to adventure in, this kind of endless reader speculation isn’t so much encouraged as it is inevitable.

But while Duncan has shown a willingness to play around for an extended period of time in these worlds its fairly obvious that once he’s closed the chapter on something he’s never really been interested in going back.

Until now.

Spurred on by these messy, unfinished endings, a story like DEATH feels like a natural continuation of what’s gone before rather than a forced entry into a closed system.

In fact its Duncan’s in-depth understanding of the structure and shape of long form writing that makes his work so compelling. Duncan not only knows what ‘rules’ can be broken, but more importantly, he knows when to break them in service of the story. It’s not a silly gimmick, or screwing around for the sake of screwing around, it’s an acknowledgment of the genre’s conventions and motifs and a complete refusal to be unnecessarily bound by them.

Duncan’s treatment of characters is an excellent example of all this. He’s sort of mucking about in the same wheelhouse as GRRM, where the characters worth to the story will have no bearing on how they are treated within it. Very bad things can and will happen to our heros and major characters can and will be treated like red shirts, summarily dispatched with no pomp and circumstance whatsoever.

Take Krandrak, a sorcerer that Duncan builds up throughout the course of the novel as a ruthless and unprincipled master strategist and one of the book’s big bads. Duncan puts a lot of work into positioning the character and managing reader expectations for a climactic battle and then discards him out of hand in less than a paragraph. I had to read and reread a measly half dozen sentences to make sure I was following the action properly and hadn’t glossed over some important aspect that I had apparently missed.

It’s this willingness to mix things up, to inform the reader that there are no sacred cows at play here that keeps Duncan’s work so interesting and enjoyable to me.

THE DEATH OF NNANJI is a rare opportunity for fans to check in with characters and a world whose canonical appearances had seemingly run their course. If you’ve never checked out the Seventh Sword trilogy now is the perfect time to run out and see what the fuss is all about. Duncan has created strong and moving characters whose fate you can’t get help but get caught up in and a world as rich and layered as our own.

Movie Musings: FRIGHT NIGHT

A kind of brainless teenage vampire film aimed at teens who were lucky enough to avoid the TWILIGHT phenomenon but still prefer their vampires to be better than average in the looks department.

There’s nothing really new here. Vampire drinks blood, turns neighbourhood into vampires, fends off hero vampire-slayer type.

A bit of a disappointment to see Oscar-nominee Toni Collette in the tough Mom role, playing strong and spunky until she needs to be shuffled offscreen for a bit in order to let our 20-something teen hero save the day, er, night. Colin Farrell is all over the map in his career choices so he gets a pass. But when you’ve got someone like Toni Collette looking for work…generic maternal figurejust seems beneath her.

Oh and FRIGHT NIGHT also does that gahd-awful hackneyed 3D thing where shit comes flying really quickly towards the screen to try and freak you out and maybe justify that extra money spent on yer ticket.

Crosses! Motorcycles! Paint cans! Things you always wanted coming zipping towards your eyeballs can all be found HERE!

But you know what, FRIGHT NIGHT does have David Tennant doing his thing. It was kind of like watching a lost DOCTOR WHO episode, only one where the Doc walks around with his shirt off an awful lot, boozing it up and not afraid to use salty language if given a chance.

Fun but fluffy.

Rant: Hollywood, STOP THE 3D!

Let’s talk 3D shall we?


First off, this post will be available in TWO DIMENSIONS. In BOTH of those dimensions you can see Chris and I standing with our arms crossed, and a scowl on our faces that is directed at Hollywood executives that are looking to fleece their audiences.

Blogger Note 1: First and foremost I would like to specify that films that are conceived, constructed, and shot in 3D with proper cameras and attention to details of how 3D works within film…I have no problem with. AVATAR is a good example, and without having seen it yet I’ll wager that THE HOBBIT films will have this attention to detail. If used correctly, it can add depth of field and help to delineate action set pieces that are wholly chaotic (as it did in THOR or AVENGERS) and it can even add beauty as I assume PROMETHEUS will do. I have no problem with the 3D in these films, since they were designed to be that way from moment one. Basically, when a film is conceived and shot in 3d at the very least there’s a reason for that artistic choice. The director and the creative team build the sets, frame the shots and design the action to incorporate the 3d element as seamlessly as possible and for the maximum visual impact. Post 3d conversion is the artistic equivalent of using a trash bag to keep dry in a thunderstorm. It’ll do the job, but it’s not particularly pretty.

Blogger Note 2: The above statement does NOT mean that EVERY film should be in pre-production-conceived 3D. It basically is an addendum to this article that when I talk about 3D I am mostly speaking of post-converted, crappy, murky, ultimately useless 3D. I will be speaking about the recent notion that Hollywood feels they should convert EVERYTHING to 3D and the reason they seem to always give (which is utter crap and a lie) is that they wish to make it a more fulfilling audience experience…when we all know that it’s so they can pump up ticket prices and gouge us all a little more.

The idea for this post came about of Chris and my continual dislike of this trend, and that came to a head with the recent revelation that G.I. JOE: RETALITATION (a film that for all intents and purposes looked like good fun and a damn sight better than its predecessor), a film that was meant to come out next month and has been marketed six ways from Tuesday for the last six months (including a pricey SuperBowl spot) is now being pushed back almost a year to March of 2013 to…and I quote…”post-convert to 3D to offer a more fulfilling experience for fans”. This is crap, we know it’s crap and I’m not going to go into the myriad of other REAL reasons for this delay, but if you look around the net you will find them.

What I’d like to know is this. Why does Hollywood think that they can foist the idea of 3D onto an audience that (aside from the ones mentioned in Note 1 above) clearly LOATHES it. We don’t like the crappy quality of 80% of the films released in it (post converted or not), and we sure as heck don’t like a bloated ticket price on a movie ticket that was ALREADY bloated to begin with. And yet the Studio’s seem to get away with pushing this on us and claiming it’s because we are asking for it.

I'll say this very clearly, We are NOT asking for it.

In fact, the seemingly resounding consensus (at least online) is that we all hate it. There is more snark on the internet about 3D being a gimmick and something that can ruin a perfectly good film (CLASH OF THE TITANS gets a bad rap, but personally I liked it. The seeming answer is that people disliked the murky 3D conversion and not the film itself more than anything in the narrative.

So are the suits at the Studio’s who make these decisions bothering to look at fan or news sites where the audience they claim to be trying to please are decrying 3D En-Masse as unwanted? You know what? I actually think they are seeing that and they are simply ignoring it. Why? The healthy bottom line of getting to charge more for a ticket for a shitty post-3D conversion is worth more to them than the naysayers. That's it. It's about the all-mighty buck, not "a more full-filling fan experience" as they pedal it to us.

Well, I’m saying this needs to stop. We need to stop seeing these post-converted, or crappily planned movies in 3D. See them in 2D, or not at all till DVD/BluRay. The studios won’t get the message until they begin to lose on these films. We are the ones who have that effect on ticket sales. If we keep seeing the crappy films in 3D then they will keep shoving them into the market.

Now, this sounds like I am getting really down on the film industry, and I’m not at all. In fact, this year is shaping up to be one of the best for good movies since 1999, and with films like PROMETHEUS, AVENGERS, HUNGER GAMES, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and this winter with THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, we are looking at a renaissance of GOOD stories in GOOD movies with 2012 looked at as a huge success for the industry. What I AM saying is that 3D is NOT (as it is touted) the next leap forward in movies. It’s a nice thing to do when it incorporates into the film and makes of it something a little more (like the ones mentioned in Note 1) and it is worth it in those cases…but when it is done as an afterthought I want us to let the studios KNOW that we see what they are doing. We aren't stupid. The G.I. JOE 2 fiasco is going to be a good step in the cease the 3D madness direction since the move to next year is going to absolutely kill any fan interest and they are going to lose hard on the box office. When funnily enough had they released it next month as planned (and with the buzz around it so far having been decent) it would have done decent cash (if not stellar in a summer that includes such other juggernauts) and the fans would have rallied it, had it been entertaining. Now it will have to be re-marketed next year and by then no one will care.

So Hollywood, STOP THE 3D. It's not a good enough gimmick to screw over legions of fans who simply don't want it.

A Year Of Tolkien: The Plan

This is something I was planning on doing in the latter half of 2011, and it’s probably a significantly daunting task to set myself for 2012 when we near summer already, but I’m going to do it anyway.

I’m going to read the entire history of Middle-Earth starting with THE SILMARILLION. The plan is to try to get the majority of it read (and this includes a re-read of both THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS) before the December 14th, 2012 release of Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY debuts in theatres.

Now, I didn’t come by this course of action flippantly. I’m a fairly big fan of both THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS and I knew there was a lot of periphery material. Chief amongst those is of course the complex history of the shaping of the world and the First and Second Age of Arda (and Middle-Earth) as seen through the Elves called THE SILMARILLION. Now, I have been told for years by many sources that this book is singularly difficult to get through as it reads more like a religious tome, filled with hundreds of names, places and events and even a lot of somewhat abstract concepts. It’s considered dense and not at all for the faint at heart or the casual reader. So I’d wager I’ve been scared off reading it ever since I was in my early twenties (when I first contemplated it). I’m no stranger to complexity, but this just sounded like a lot of work.

Then one day I was doing my daily reading over at TheOneRing.net and noticed that a poster over there had been doing the same contemplation, but had the same initial trepidation. There was light on the horizon though, in the form of Professor Tolkien (Corey Olsen, a professor of English at Washington College). It turns out he teaches a course each year on Tolkien, and more specifically he does a seminar on THE SILMARILLION. And what’s better? The whole thing is podcasted and available free on iTunes! So each episode consists of discussion between him and his students as they go through the book a chapter at a time. The poster at OneRing.net was able to get through the book this way…and if he can do it…so can I.

So I finally went to the store and bought a copy of the book. I didn’t know whether it was better to attempt to listen to episode 1 before I’d read the first section or after. Well, thankfully one of the initial things mentioned is how it helps a HUGE amount to read a 1951 letter J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to Milton Waldman (publisher) in which he basically outlines the entirety of the book. It’s a long letter, but this made me stop the podcast, and open the book (and lo and behold the first thing in it after the forward is that very letter). I read the letter, and then without help started the first bit called Ainulindulë. I concentrated hard to keep track of what was going on and interpret it best I could. Afterwards (this morning) I listened to the first episode of the podcast and 1hr and 30min later I was SO much wiser about what I had read. Some of the questions his students asked were the ones I had as well, and others I hadn’t even thought of. Olsen is VERY informed about the book and makes it easy to come to grips with what exactly Tolkien set out to do while also providing insight to the man himself.

This series of podcasts has taken a daunting read (that most of my friends tried and gave up on) and made of it a fun, informative, and ultimately fascinating book. I’m already excited to see how things go and I’m only just past the creation of the universe bit. I realized that Tolkien meant to make it hard. He didn’t mean for it to be easy to grasp. As with all Earth culture’s myths and legends, they are normally set down so early in history that they are complex, convoluted and difficult to grasp. With a little help and some work you can get it. I think that was intentional, and I can’t fault him for it.

So this post is to let you know that as I move forward with this project I will be chiming in only after each volume is consumed (AKA I won’t be talking about this again till after I finish THE SILMARILLION, and then after the next book in the histories and so on and so forth). You are welcome to attempt to read along with me as I go.

One thing I cannot stress enough is just how helpful Professor Tolkien’s (Corey Olsen) course and podcast are. If you want to try this book, you could do much worse than taking your time and making sure you get the most out of the volume.

Book Review: The Stories Of Ibis - Hiroshi Yamamoto

In a world where humans are a minority and androids have created their own civilization, a wandering storyteller meets the beautiful android Ibis. She tells him seven stories of human/android interaction in order to reveal the secret behind humanity's fall. The stories that Ibis speaks of are the "seven novels" about the events surrounding the announcements of the development of artificial intelligence (AI) in the 20th and 21st centuries. At a glance, these stories do not appear to have any sort of connection, but what is the true meaning behind them? What are Ibis's real intentions?

A while back I read and reviewed Daniel H. Wilson’s ROBOPOCALYPSE. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot in fact. I love the idea of a future earth that includes robots, androids, or simply some form of sentient / self-aware Artificial Intelligence (AI). It makes for compelling storytelling, and usually gives you a reason to root for the humans while still seeing the machines plight as servants of various descriptions.

In THE STORIES OF IBIS, Japanese author Hiroshi Yamamoto has written one of the most stunningly thought-provoking and honest novels in the above genre. Better than that he has written one of the finest novels I think I can recall reading. And what’s the best thing about it? It’s wholly unique. It approaches each story from a slightly different angle, and most certainly from angles you have not thought of. The result is an anthology of seemingly disparate fictional tales about humans interacting with AI, which actually end up related to one another, but not at all in the way you might think. The stories would each be amazing on their own(and I actually believe that five of the seven tales related to our narrator by Ibis were originally printed in other publications), but together they weave an intricate tapestry, and aligned with the last two stories (made specifically for this novel) and the “intermissions” which break up the stories and showcase the two protagonists as the stories are told, the result is nothing short of breathtaking.

I don’t want to dig too deeply into the actual plot of the various stories, but you should be aware that they are all totally relevant, clever, and fast paced. The novel is roughly 400 pages long, but it never feels long since the stories click along at such a streamlined speed. The first few tales are shortish (somewhere in the range of 20 to 30 pages), but as we get deeper in they get longer culminating in the last two tales the penultimate of which was pleasantly longer and deceptively emotional, not to mention profound. This is a book that will keep you sitting and thinking about its ideas, plot progressions and characters long after you close the book. It was so engrossing on that level that I was briefly quite tempted to start at page one again and read it through one more time, for fear I might have missed some moment of revelation or insight.

Both the human narrator (unnamed), and the android Ibis (who tells her stories to our narrator) only have seven “intermissions” (including the opening prologue) with which to endear themselves to the reader and surprisingly enough they quite pull that off. Whether that is because of the stories themselves and each character’s reactions to them, or simply because they were well drawn by Yamamoto in the first place I don’t know. All I know is I cared about both the Narrator and Ibis by the end, and that stands out to me.

I don’t really want to pick favourites, since the book and stories all work best as a unit and when compiled make the ending as poignant as it is because of that fact…but the 6th tale, THE DAY SHION CAME, left me completely astonished, and emotionally drained. It is probably the most affecting story in the book and may very well be one of the best short pieces of sci-fi fiction I’ve ever read. It is both completely “human” and totally “android” in its execution and very nearly reduced me to tears. And all that while being almost deceptively simple.

Here is a book that COULD very well have fallen into the trap of techno-babble or being too obtuse for its own good and it never does. Yamamoto never sacrifices his story in order to be overly clever in what he’s putting across. Whenever things are explained or notions are fielded it is done so in a way that makes it easy to understand. Various terms, plot points, and even characters are approached as “known” initially, but are explained quite soon after being introduced allowing your brain to relax while the work is done for you. Basically I never found myself stumbling blindly along attempting to sort out what was going on.

Yamamoto is another author who has created a fan in me with one book. I would place THE STORIES OF IBIS in my top FIVE (you read that right) science fiction books of all time. That might sound lofty, but I simply can’t tell you enough how this book affected me, my preconceived notions about AI, and mostly about humanity. There are revelations within these pages for the reader that will astound simply by virtue of being honest. How often do we look at ourselves in an honest light? We like to see ourselves a certain way and this book may have actually changed that for me. For that I think I might always be thankful to Yamamoto.

This is definitely one of the very BEST sci-fi novels dealing with earth’s future. It’s certainly the BEST of the humans interacting with AI that I’ve read. The prose (translated from the original Japanese perfectly by Takami Naeda) is fluid and poetic without being too flowery, the pace is fast and clean, and the story is a hauntingly beautiful look at the history of science and the possibilities of the future. Hiroshi Yamamoto would be in good company alongside some of Sci-Fi royalty like Asimov and Clarke, but he would be just as at home next to his contemporaries like Reynolds, Brin or Banks. Funnily enough it was as I was walking out of the bookstore (after a daily perusal) that out of the corner of my eye I saw the spine of this book with its sketch-like design on pure white with bright orange block letters for the title. It stood out to me and so I picked it up an read the back. I bought it mere mintues later. Strange how life does that for you some days.

Book Review: THE KING’S DAGGERS trilogy by Dave Duncan

It’s a bit of a misnomer to label these three books a trilogy. What they really are is a single story broken up and told in a serial format, similar to what Stephen King did in his GREEN MILE tales a while back.

SIR STALWART, THE CROOKED HOUSE and SILVERCLOAK all take place during the Monster War first told of in Duncan’s THE GILDED CHAIN in his Tales of the King’s Blades series.

King Ambrose’s Royal Guard is constructed entirely from young men who train at Ironhall, an academy of sorts for wayward boys who have the skills and reflexes necessary to become master swordsmen. These men are willingly and magically bonded to their charge for life after the King runs a sword through their heart and ensures their never ending loyalty.

But the rules of Ironhall are strict, inflexible and not easily circumvented even in service to the King. One such rule states that candidates for the Royal Guard must be bonded in order of seniority from their time of arrival at Ironhall. With the death toll of the Monster War chewing through the ranks of the Guard at a prodigious rate the demands on Ironhall to produce more Candidates is quickly sapping their resources.

When Stalwart is denied his opportunity to join the Royal Guard because of his age he is offered to chance to serve his King quietly behind the scenes. Sir Snake leads the Old Blades, a group of retired Guardsmen who have been released from their binding but continue to serve the King by choice. Snake offers Stalwart the opportunity to join the Old Blades as a spy, banking that his youthful appearance and lack of binding scar will allow him to succeed where other Blades have failed.

In SIR STALWART Stalwart must infiltrate a group of rogue sorcerers who have been trying to the kill the king with seemingly unstoppable savage chimera and other magical creations. Aided by Emerald, a sister of the White Order who can sniff out magic, the two travel across the breadth of Chivial in the hopes of finding the murderous den. When Emerald is captured on the journey it is up to Stalwart to keep them both alive long enough to be rescued.

Later in THE CROOKED HOUSE Lord Digby, one of the King’s oldest friends, is murdered in front of the entire royal court, just steps from the King. With the entire Royal Guard turning the capital upside down for dark sorcerers Stalwart is sent to backtrack Digby’s trail and see if he can discover anything that may have led to the Lord’s death. Along with Emerald and Candidate Badger, an old friend of Stalwart’s from Ironhall, to keep him company Stalwart stumbles upon a murderous conspiracy that could allow a disgraced noble to murder the King from halfway across the kingdom.

Finally, in SILVERCLOAK, Stalwart and the Old Blades must prevent the world’s greatest assassin from murdering the King inside the auspices of Ironhall itself. The only problem is no one knows what the assassin looks like or how he plans to kill the King. With time running short Stalwart and Emerald will need to have their wits about them and their swords sharpened if they are going to save the King inside an entire school of half-trained swordsmen.

Although ostensibly billed as a YA companion trilogy to the King’s Blades stories I challenge anyone to read the Daggers’ books and find any appreciable difference in tone or subject matter to Duncan’s adult offerings. The Daggers’ stories should be viewed as a companion piece to the larger, more interconnected Blades’ tales. While the Daggers’ books do have a perfectly serviceable plot all their own, for fans of Duncan’s expanded universe like myself its interesting to have these books fill in some of the character beats in the ‘central’ story and poke around a bit in areas of Chivial that are only briefly touched on in the main books. 

I could just cut and paste my standard praise from any of my other Duncan based reviews into the following paragraph, but I’ll be a proper reviewer here and any avoid self-plagiarization.  Duncan’s clean, direct prose always seems fresh and exciting to me after some of the dense and overly wordy authors I usually take on. It amazing how sometimes a stripped down, no nonsense approach can be that much more effective at drawing me into the story. It keeps the tale moving along at a nice clip and allows my imagination free reign because everyone and everything in the story hasn’t been described ad nauseum.

In other Duncan offerings my chief complaint can be that sometimes he goes too fast and I never really know what the protagonist is thinking. But this isn’t a problem in the Daggers’ books. Here Duncan nicely balances the need to KEEP THINGS GOING without ever forgetting that our hero types Stalwart and Emerald are kind of alone in everything they do and it’s nice to check in on what’s driving them.

If you’re already familiar with the Blades books then you’re going to love what Duncan is doing here. If you’re not, don’t worry, the Daggers’ books are completely readable and enjoyable as a standalone tale. You’ll never feel like you’re missing out on a larger story. Once again, another Dave Duncan book I highly recommend. Feel free to slap on your shocked faces.

Movie Musings: UNAUTHORIZED: THE HARVEY WEINSTEIN PROJECT

A mildly interesting film, but it never rattles your perception about who you think Harvey Weinstein is.

"Oh gosh, Harvey was a hardscrabble guy who rose up through the ranks to become a distributor of popular indie film and once he got mad and threw a phone out a window."

Uh. Yep. Checks out.

I want to know where the bodies were buried and who his enemies were. Where’s the blood in the water? Instead what I got people telling me that he recut a film once and it was better than the original cut. The biggest revelation UNAUTHORIZED blows the cover off of is that Harvey got in a fight with Michael Eisner, left the comforting arms of Disney and tripped into a pot of money.

Mind safely unblown.

This film deserves to be on shown on some sort of late night VH1 BEHIND THE MUSIC marathon and then forgotten about.

UNAUTHORIZED I dub thee uncontroversial. Harvey Scissorhands indeed.

Lists: Top Ten Greatest Films Of All Time (Two Lists, and Why)

Chris and I thought we'd run down what we each feel are our personal Top Ten Greatest Films Of All Time and share them with you. And then a sentence briefly outlining why we feel that way. What do you think? Do you agree with our lists? Do you have your own? Have at it in the comments section.


Chris's Top Ten

PULP FICTION (Quentin Tarantino) 1994 – "Created an entire generation of admirers and wannabe film directors, often imitated, never duplicated. "

GOODFELLAS (Martin Scorsese) 1990 – "The perfect Scorsese film, a man in complete control of his craft working in a genre that seems tailor made to his sensibilities."

CITIZEN KANE (Orson Welles) 1941 – "KANE may not have done it first, but it did it best. Stealing liberally from his contemporaries Welles made a film that took the best from a variety of sources and made a movie unlike any the world had ever seen before."

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (Frank Darabont) 1994 – "A great character ensemble up against some stiff competition that stands the test of time, 1994 was a high water mark for filmmaking."

RAGING BULL (Martin Scorcese)1980 – "A searing character piece. Great direction, brilliant acting, exceptional film."

ALIENS (James Cameron) 1986 – "More than just another generic action film, ALIENS carves out its own terrifying niche."

SEVEN (David Fincher) 1995 – "Gritty and grimy. Helped shape and change the look and feel of film in a most disturbing fashion."

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Stanley Kubrick) 1971 – "Powerful, disturbing, unforgettable."

SCHINDLER’S LIST (Steven Spielberg) 1993 – "A movie that affected me so strongly I’ve never had the strength to sit through it a second time. 20 years later Spielberg officially arrives."

12 ANGRY MEN (Sidney Lumet) 1957 – "My first exposure to a film that successfully manages to pull off the conceit of taking place in a single room."



Scott's Top Ten

ALIEN (Ridley Scott) 1979 – “This film is so good at what it does that it actually defies the genre it exists in, and rises to become something so much more.”

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (Frank Darabont) 1994 – “Nearly every line of dialogue and narration in the script is so powerful that it gives me chills to watch the film, every damned time.”

LOVE ACTUALLY (Richard Curtis) 2003 – “This is probably the greatest film about “love” in all its crazy incarnations, and never fails to remind me what’s important in life.”

THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan) 2008 – “To me this film exemplifies who the character of Batman is, and how that translates to the sacrifices heroes actually have to make.”

LITTLE WOMEN (Gillian Armstrong) 1994 – “This film is so well crafted and warm-hearted that it will fill you with a desire to live in Concord, Massachusetts circa 1860’s, next-door to the March house.”

PRINCESS MONONOKE (Hayao Miyazaki) 1997 – “Miyazaki paints the screen with fluid animation and quiet global philosophy as humans, beasts, and gods go to war.”

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (Peter Jackson) 2001 – “There is something so stunning about seeing fantasy on the big screen done with such reverence, detail and emotion; this is fantasy.”

AMADEUS (Milos Forman) 1984 – “If there is a more perfectly executed, visceral and compelling biopic out there, I don’t know what it is.”

OCEAN’S ELEVEN (Steven Soderbergh) 2001 – “As far as I am concerned this film is heist-perfection.”

GROOVE (Greg Harrison) 2000 – “This film is what it must be like to exist within the throbbing beats, cascading euphoria, and flashing lights of a rave... on a molecular level.”

Movie Musings: MARGIN CALL

I love movies that deal with the financial meltdown of 2008. A greedy, uncaring drone in a suit and tie can be scarier than any unseen monster lurking in the shadows.

So when MARGIN CALL parades a who's who of veteran character actors across the screen and has them stare worriedly into space while calmly yammering financial technobabble its crazy how gut wrenching the whole thing can be.

With such a low key measured delivery it would be incredibly easy to misstep and destroy the pacing of the movie, but everyone from the actors to the behind the camera talent has spot on instincts and the film  never feels like its dragging.

Watching actors chew the scenery is nice. Who doesn’t love a grand shouting match that plays to the audience in the back of the theatre. It’s a different thing altogether to muck about in the space between the beats and draw tension and drama out of the silence. That’s a hard thing for even the best of the best to do, and MARGIN CALL does it well.

Book Review: Shift - Kim Curran

When your average, 16-year old loser, Scott Tyler, meets the beautiful and mysterious Aubrey Jones, he learns he’s not so average after all. He’s a ‘Shifter’. And that means he has the power to undo any decision he’s ever made. At first, he thinks the power to shift is pretty cool. But as his world quickly starts to unravel around him he realises that each time he uses his power, it has consequences; terrible unforeseen consequences. Shifting is going to get him killed. In a world where everything can change with a thought, Scott has to decide where he stands.

I love it when debut authors succeed out of the gate and craft such great reads! It’s probably one of the most enjoyable things about reviewing books in fact. The feeling I get when I read a first time authors’ book and I’m enjoying it is always one of “Yes! Well, you did it. You can breathe now. This was awesome.”

I just finished freshly minted author Kim Curran’s debut Young Adult novel SHIFT. Some of you may know Amanda (formerly of the blog review site called Floor to Ceiling Books), and how she is now an editor for Angry Robot’s new YA Imprint Strange Chemistry. Well it was Amanda who found Kim and her novel SHIFT and decided we all just might like it. Well, I am here to attest that yes indeed, she chose well.

SHIFT first and foremost to me is about youth and choice (obviously), and what’s interesting here is that Kim has put her protagonist Scott (great name that…) Tyler directly into the fire. He barely gets a chance to hang out with his friend, be indoctrinated into the cool crowd, and have those first panging’s of youthful desire before the wheels come flying off. Within a few chapters Scott is educated about “choice” and just what it is he can do with his new Shifting powers. He’s understandably baffled, intrigued, and damned scared from the outset of this revelation. His initiation into the Shifter way of life is VIA Aubrey who works for an arm of the government that has managed Shifter’s for over 150 years called ARES. Through a series of events Scott quickly realizes that all is not as it seems, every choice he makes can lead to really bad things, and most especially there are now people who want him caught or dead.

Blogger's Note: I’m of course not giving away any more of the plot to you, you will need to read the book yourself when it comes out to find out what happens.

Kim’s prose is easy, and fast. It has a paced ebb and flow while still being realistic to the teenager vibe of speech and thought, which can be erratic at the best of times. So when it is called for Scott can reference popular culture like any teen would. Kim has also found the balance that IS the male teenage psyche. Basically, she’s intuitive to the fact that young men (if there is a girl around) will automatically be thinking about how jealous they are of the guy standing next to her, or how much they’d like to kiss her…while the villain is rankly breathing down their neck. Priorities of teenage boys might be a tad out of whack. Kim gets that, and it ended up on the page. That brought realism to the character that I found quite refreshing. On the whole, I never found ANY of the young cast of characters rang falsely, and never found a moment where I groaned in disbelief. They were fleshed out well (especially for a 300 page book), and they act exactly as you might expect them to. One of the things I noticed is how easily Kim could make me care about a newly introduced character past the halfway mark of the book. She would introduce someone new, and I would end up as emotionally invested in him or her as I did the main protagonists. I liked that quite a lot, and it speaks of her skill as a storyteller.

Clever. Sweet gods this book is clever. Within the first 50 pages or so Kim had already touched on Quantum Physics, the double slit experiment, and Schrödinger’s Cat. The integration of Shifting and how it works was pretty seamless and even the most baffled person when it comes to science will be able to get an easy handle on the system. Shifting is intelligently realized and offers up a myriad of potential for storylines. The fighting is especially interesting… since what would you do if you could anticipate and redo moves to top the other guy and brute power reserves is all that matters to win a fight? The science itself throughout is quite sound and researched, and it never gets to the “techno-babble” “info-dump” position a lot of novels find themselves in during the course of explaining. Shifting is complex, but it is also quite easy to get to grips with and that made it fun from the outset.

The world building is quite well executed and is done with a light brush, and I actually love when that happens. We get smatterings of information about the past and how Shifting came about and was regulated and by whom…but I could sense there were a great many things either were known and kept secret, or were yet to be discovered at all. Again, this opens Kim and readers up for a thick backstory down the line that will only fill out the world of SHIFT further, without the need to drown the reader in too many facts. We got enough this time to not overload the book, but there are still tantalizing mysteries dangling for future plumbing.

The pacing is rocket fast. I started it on the way to work yesterday, and when I got home last night I disappeared into the guest room, clicked on the light and read till I was finished it. There is no slowdown in the narrative whatsoever, and there is even a line midway through where Scott says something along the lines of “I won’t bore you with the montage”, and I laughed out loud. What a great line and speaks of an author who knows we didn’t need anything superfluous in the story.

So there it is folks. First time author Kim Curran has crafted a tale that is both realistic and fantastical. A compelling and clever premise that is about as fresh as it gets in a genre that consists of mostly vampires, werewolves, and apocalypses. Here we have a book that more often than not is about choice. Not just about choice as we know it from day to day, but also about the cascade effect and how even the tiniest choices made by one person can affect the world at large. Dealing with that can sometimes be a very raw undertaking and Kim doesn’t shy away from that.

SHIFT is a smart, page-turning thriller of a novel that challenges you to be brave, embrace science and knowledge, but most of all to make the right choices. The protagonists are fallible, yet still heroic and the villains are suitably nasty. The world is both bright with possibility and still dark with the machinations of evil that needs to be kept at bay. Filled with action and adventure, and a significant amount of emotion I really found myself unable to stop reading until I read the final page. SHIFT is the type of debut that Kim should be exceedingly proud of. It has already made me ask her (and she graciously answered) if there were to be more books in the SHIFT world on the way. She told me there indeed were, and that’s great news. I look forward to the next volume in the series with anticipation.

SHIFT will be out in stores in early September 2012.

Book Review: Vicious Circle - Mike Carey (Felix Castor #2)

Castor has reluctantly returned to exorcism after the case of the Bonnington Archive ghost convinced him that he really can do some good with his abilities ('good', of course, being a relative term when dealing with the undead). But his friend, Rafi, is still possessed; the succubus, Ajulutsikael (Juliet to her friends), still technically has a contract on him; and he's still - let's not beat around the bush - dirt poor. Doing some consulting for the local constabulary helps pay the bills, but Castor needs a big, private job to really fill the hole in his overdraft. That's what he needs. What he gets, good fortune and Castor not being on speaking terms, is a seemingly insignificant 'missing ghost' case that inexorably drags himself and his loved ones into the middle of a horrific plot to raise one of Hell's fiercest demons. And when Satanists, sacrifice farms, stolen spirits and possessed churches all appear on the same police report, the name of Felix Castor can't be too far behind ...



Felix Castor is in good company. At least in my head.

When it comes to urban/supernatural fantasy books, everyone knows that Harry Dresden is my go-to lead character. Butcher’s Dresden Files are some of my favourite comfort reads. Well, British author Mike Carey’s protagonist, Exorcist Felix Castor, would be welcome right beside Dresden…again, in my head.

I read the first of Carey’s Castor books a while back. Titled THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, you can read my review HERE. I enjoyed the read and found it a fair bit bleaker and spookier than your average urban fantasy, and then I noticed something special. After I finished it, I went hunting for the second book in the series. Sadly, book stores in Canada are notorious for not stocking even British author’s well (unless they are J.K. Rowling), which is a separate rant which I’ve mentioned often, and I could not easily find it.

Yes, I could have added it to any random Amazon.ca order, but I always forgot to do so when I was ordering books from the site…I really ought to write things down.

A few weeks back, my GF and I were going on a short weekend away to Boston, and maybe it was the recent watching of the brilliant BBC series LUTHER that made me want to read an urban fantasy next…but my brain finally clicked. I checked the Barnes & Noble website (this is the American book store chain, for those who don’t know) and found that they had a copy of the 2nd Castor book VICIOUS CIRCLE at a mall in Boston. So when we got there I made sure to pick it up.

Boy am I glad I did! Carey really does the 1st person POV well, and Castor’s second adventure/case/torment is a doozy. The cops use him for chasing down perps, his friend Rafi is still possessed by a nasty (possibly the nastiest) demon named Asmodeus and the Doctor’s where he is kept are threatening to throw him out, his apprentice is a soul sucking/eating succubus who he can’t stop desiring, there are people around London committing atrocious acts of violence the likes of which they never would normally do, and Castor’s zombie friend is on edge and looking to kill him. Did I miss anything? Hopefully not. And that’s just the first 50 pages or so. Funnily enough, Castor is approached by a couple who want him to find their lost/kidnapped daughter Abbie…and there is only one problem with that, she’s dead and they want him to find her ghost.

Seriously, this book is so fast paced you might get whiplash. Carey is very adept at keeping the story clicking along and he keeps the myriad of plot points in the air while they slowly coalesce and make more sense as things go forward. My instinct is to name the prose enjoyable and workmanlike, but I feel that last description is unfair. Since Carey seems to have an uncanny knack of finding interesting ways of working things and crafting sentences that are only disguised as workmanlike and would better belong in an English Lit class taught by Alan Moore or Warren Ellis.

Castor is hard not to like. He almost always makes the right choice, and you can definitely get on side with him for it…and when that “right” choice goes flying off the rails as the wrong one, you feel it right in your gut when the punch comes. That’s a great character in my humble opinion. That’s not to say the supporting cast aren’t great, with Pen (his pagan friend), Juliet (his gorgeous succubus apprentice) and Rafi (his demonically possessed friend) filling out the main cast frightfully well. I don’t want to be unfair though as there are some character’s that are only introduced in this story that are quite compelling as well. A rival exorcist of considerable power named Dennis Peace, a couple of Were-thugs who work for an enigmatic, ancient and excommunicated religious order, and even Castor’s priestly brother Matthew makes a few appearances.

I’m not going to tell you what happens. That would be silly, and besides which you will want to take this journey yourself. It is, in turns action-packed, mysterious, gruesome, emotional and quite heroic. It solves a few notions from the first book, and opens up a few more mysteries. It puts the reader on a more solid footing as to the world that’s been built by Carey with a much more in depth look at the London that Castor works in and how the society uses exorcists now like they would a private detective. It explains what that means for the humans who live in the city, the cops who work to keep it safe, and the nasties that seek to destroy it. Most of all, it fleshes out Felix Castor in a lot more detail, right down to his familial roots and issues, and his near fatherly instincts (another trait he shares with Dresden).

Should you read Mike Carey’s Felix Castor books? That depends. Do you like fantastic urban fantasy or supernatural books? Yes, of course you should read these books! They are fast, compelling reads that will keep you company on a long train ride, a warm summer night on the patio, or even curled up in your bed before you sleep. Carey has made a stalwart protagonist who is a joy to tag along with, a world that is both realistic and fantastical, a dastardly set of villains as well as a few grayer than gray types as well. In fact, I would wager that he has created a (if not THE) series he will be known for (since he is also known for the standalone LUCIFER graphic novel series based off the Lucifer character from Neil Gaiman’s SANDMAN) and he has made it stand out amongst the overwhelming masses of Urban fantasy out there.

Movie Musings: ICE STATION ZEBRA

Man, its weird to watch movie these days that have overtures or intermissions in them, such a throwback to old Hollywood filmmaking.

It’s dangerous to critique older movies by the standards of the day. Yes, classics will always be classics and are enjoyable in any era. Unfortunately, there are a whole raft of lesser films that were hits at the time but have translated poorly to modern audiences.

ICE STATION ZEBRA is one of those movies.

If you think over two hours replicating mind-numbingly accurate procedures and regulations aboard a nuclear submarine at the height of the Cold War makes for good watching then this is the film for you. The rest of us have to periodically shake ourselves awake or intentionally misplace the remote in fear that our willpower will be worn down enough that we’ll latch on to that fast forward button like a drowning man in search of a life preserver.

Instead of mining the rich Cold War backdrop for a little tension and drama we’re treated to an endless cast of rugged pretty boy soldier types who talk in hushed monotones about everything from sleeping arrangements to the possibility of World War III.

Much like the Cold War itself, ICE STATION ZEBRA talks a good game but backs down quickly in the face of a potential conflict. Conflict in this case being a code word for pacing, performance, story, conflict or excitement.

There’s lots of other ‘trapped in a sub with something dangerous’ movies out there that do it better and with more panache. Go find one of them instead.

Movie Musings: WARRIOR

MMA does nothing for me, but I suppose its become the go-to sporting genre for Hollywood when they need to see two men dealing out punishment to each other in an officially sanctioned environment.

(At least we'll always have RAGING BULL)

But damn if WARRIOR isn't a good film.

The movie does suffer from a mild case of the 'little bits'.

The climactic setup is a little bit too precious.

The emotional familial-angst is a little bit too extreme.

And the chess board has been laid out a little bit too perfectly, each story development or emotional character beat showing up at exactly the right time to help carry the story forward.

But if dabbling lightly in extremes is the worst any movie has to offer then you really can't complain. Strangely enough the film's pacing actually slows down when the simmering MMA tournament that's been bubbling in the background lurches onto center stage.

Turns out the dysfunctional family drama is far more interesting than the punchy-punchy that takes place inside the octagon. WARRIOR is an incredibly compelling film and a damn sight more interesting than a lot of the other high art pugilistic showdowns I've seen in recent years.

Also. Tom Hardy? I'm officially a believer now and I think his inclusion in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES can only build on the high standard of Bats-baddies by Ledger