Extraordinary Gentlemen

May 24, 2009 / saxonbullock2000 / 1 Comment

It really doesn’t pay to be an impatient Alan Moore fan these days. I mean, it’s been a very long time since the Great Beard has kept to a completely strict month-by-month schedule with his comics work (there was a brief window with his ABC work post-2000 where things were regular, but it was soon over) – but the delays have gradually gotten worse and worse. I can remember when the second series of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came out – and the first three issues were out on a monthly basis. Stunned was not the word. But then, of course, issue four took a while, issue five even longer, and issue six, well by the time we were on issue 6 we were definitely a year later. And of course, in certain respects it doesn’t really matter how long things take as long as they’re good – I just wish the delays wouldn’t keep getting longer. It was bad enough with The Black Dossier – which was delayed and delayed until a specific publication date was stated, and which was then delayed for another year thanks to in-house squabbles at DC – but things do seem to have gotten even worse with League volume 3. Announced back in 2007, I was amazed to find that not only would we be getting the Black Dossier at the end of the year, but 2008 would also see the fabled volume 3, published as a trilogy of self-contained (but interconnected) graphic novels from Top Shelf and Knockabout (with Moore having finally severed all links with DC) – a story that would take the world of the League from 1910 to the present day of 2008! And then, of course, we got to 2008, and the notice “A 2008 release!” on the Top Shelf website got shifted to “A 2009 release!” We inched gradually towards the release of the book – and even that managed to be delayed. The US got the book on time, but while some places in the UK got it, others didn’t. And now, the Top Shelf website has put up a page for volume 2 of Century – and it’s got the exciting tag of “To be released in 2010”! (The sound you can hear is of me bashing my head against the wall…)

And of course, if the first volume of Century had been a bitter disappointment, this would be even worse – but it’s really, really good. The Black Dossier came in for a reasonable amount of criticism, and some of it is justified – it does have way too many digressions, and it is very obviously a sourcebook with ideas above its station (it also doesn’t help that it was very obviously designed to be printed in the oversized Absolute format, but the Absolute edition ended up as such a rip-off (especially thanks to shoddy print quality) that the ordinary size format is still the best way to read it), but it does also expand the world of the League in a number of ways. However, Century volume 1 is a much more coherent piece of work, and while much darker, bleaker and more violent, it does feel like it continues the themes of volume 2, especially the occasionally disturbing examination of the nature of heroism. The characterisation is also a lot stronger, making much more of the main character’s immortal status than before, and while the references are in the Black Dossier realm of more obscure and less pulpy, the story is still highly effective and powerful. It also nearly gets away with being, essentially a musical – it’s a take-off on Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, and knowing a couple of the songs (in their original version) did help the enjoyment of the sequences where the narration (or the characters) are singing. Whatever rough edges there might be, it’s an effective tale with more humour, more brutality and hints that the story will (whenever we actually get the next instalment) be heading in some very interesting directions. And above everything else, there’s Kevin O’Neill’s work which keeps on getting better, creating a whole gallery of very English grotesques. I’m pretty sure that once the series is complete, Top Shelf will do an Absolute-sized set along the lines of the Lost Girls set. Can’t wait to see it in that size – I just get the worrying feeling that we’re going to have to wait a very, very long time…

Blush Response

May 24, 2009 / saxonbullock2000 / Leave a comment

The end is closer. I’m actually getting within sight of finishing the rewrites, and I’m basically in the end stages of ploughing through the book and doing what needs to be done. What’s been particularly scary is that I’ve made a couple of fairly major character ‘enhancements’ on this pass – basically beefing up background, smoothing over motivation and trying to get it so that the characterisation works – and it’s rather like flying blind through a rainstorm and hoping beyond hope that the runway is actually there. I know that the stuff I’m doing is making the book much, much better, though, which is something of a relief. And I’m also having faith in the book as it stands – I’m never going to get it perfect, it is what it is, and it’s the kind of thing that isn’t going to go down spectacularly well with everyone. But it’s all me, and the version that will be the new ‘2009’ draft is going to be significantly better than the last version that was out with publishers. I’ve done my best. Can’t really ask for more.

But wow, I am definitely taking a little bit of a break once this is done. This has been a terrifying amount of work – possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done, ever. And of course, if this does pay off, my reward will be to do it all again – and faster…

And you know what? I’m rather looking forward to the idea…

That Lucky Ole’ Sun

May 24, 2009 / saxonbullock2000 / Leave a comment

It’s probably the sunshine, but I’m feeling better. Having two consecutive good nights of sleep helps (even if last nights was somewhat interesting thanks to crazy dreams – the main one I remember being taking a pump-action shotgun to a whole crowd of bad guys all of whom were dressed as Heath Ledger’s Joker. Bottled up anger issues? Never!) has certainly helped as well. And the main thing has been the fact that… well, there’s a lot about my current life that I find difficult to get used to. I spend an awful lot of time on my own – and, to be honest, that’s mainly going to continue, as proofreading and writing novels are not ideal careers for meeting people. It especially doesn’t help that I am attempting to get over a major emotional hurdle, and sometimes time isn’t enough – it has occasionally felt, over the past few months, like I’m trapped in amber, like I can’t move on until something happens or I can progress out of what I’m still viewing as an ‘interim stage’. There’s a part of me that would be terribly happy for something like that to happen – if only because introspection can get so amazingly boring after a while. It’s very easy to find yourself going around and around the same subjects, reiterating the same conclusions. And I’m the kind of person who finds it very easy to think very badly of himself – or at least, who finds it easy to think that because I’ve gone from finding someone who wanted to marry me and stay with me for the rest of my life to being on my own in Manchester (not something I ever foresaw), that in some way I deserve it. That because I don’t have anyone in my life who cares for me in that way anymore, that I’m not meant to, and it’s very easy from there to feeling as if every aspect of my life alone is in some way reminding me of the fact that I don’t deserve to be with someone.

And my walk in the sunshine this afternoon basically brought me to the conclusion that thinking like that is understandable, but is also complete nonsense and isn’t going to get me anywhere. There are things I need to do to get myself out of my shell – small but important steps to try and link myself up with the world more and remind myself that I’m not alone. But above everything else, I need to remember that this didn’t happen as a judgement on me as a person. It didn’t happen because I did something wrong. It just happenned. And just because I don’t have anyone in my life who cares for me that way, it doesn’t mean I don’t deserve it. I need to be nice to myself, and I need to look after myself. The rest will come, with time.

I feel like I’m going to be alright. Amazing what a bit of sun can do, isn’t it?

Further Trek Talk

May 17, 2009 / saxonbullock2000 / 7 Comments

You know those times when you come out of a film having really enjoyed it, and end up giving a fairly detailed but largely positive run-down of the film to your friends – but when you hear someone else actually talking about what didn’t work and why, you find yourself thinking “You know, I don’t actually disagree with them…” Well, people like Abigail Nussbaum and Adam Roberts have been going into major detail on the new Star Trek film in a way that’s far more intelligent (and entertaining) than my general burblings, and they’ve also put into words some of the things that have been bothering me about the film. Because once I’d calmed down from the nostalgia sugar rush and let the good aspects of the film settle in my head, the more idiotic aspects have been a lot harder to ignore. There’s a monologue about 2/3rds of the way through that’s there to bolt together various disparate levels of plot, and it does it in a way which even with my “I am enjoying this film” hat on I found somewhat troubling and messy. It is the kind of film that basically moves so quickly that it hopes you don’t notice the problems until they’re long gone – and I have the worrying feeling that in trying to broaden Trek out, they’ve ended up shaving off just a bit too much of the original ethos. (And yes, after my mostly gushing previous post, this probably sounds like desperate backtracking. So sue me…). The one thing that all this reassessment does bring into focus (other than the fact that the genius of Spock was that he was a balance between humanity and logic, where the film marginalises the logical nature of the Vulcans in favour of can-do, all-American heroism) is the one aspect that really sat badly with me while I was watching the film – Chekov – and why it bothered me. The new version of Chekov is, to be honest, all about the funny accent – alright, Chekov was hardly blessed with the most rounded character, but it’s as if they looked at the “Nuclear Wessels” scene from Star Trek IV and said “That’s all we need!” He’s a comic character and nothing more – when, as Adam Roberts points out in his review, it was actually kind of a daring thing to have a Russian character in the original series, back in the Sixties when Russia was the enemy (and that the modern-day equivalent would be having someone on the Bridge from Afghanistan or Iraq). It’s the trouble with a nostalgia trip like this – the Trek movie is driven by tapping into the precise formula of what Trek was, but by sticking so closely to that formula they end up missing the point. It’s still an entertaining film – but it’s a very 2009 blockbuster, and anyone who actually says this is ‘top quality science fiction’ (a phrase I’ve seen thrown around a few times) really doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Trek Talk

May 7, 2009 / saxonbullock2000 / Leave a comment

Okay – the new Star Trek movie has been seen (It’s one of the few films I simply didn’t want to wait around for) – and there’ll be some non-spoilerific words, followed by some more in-depth stuff behind the cut.

The short version? They’ve done what seemed like an impossibility. They’ve actually made Star Trek matter.

The tidal wave of positive reviews the film has been getting is rather overwhelming, and it is best to approach the new Trek movie with expectations at a healthy level. Go in expecting a mind-blowing work of cinematic genius and you’re going to be disappointed – but what we do have is a lively, energetic and downright fun blockbuster that taps back into the dynamic that powered the original series and shows that it still works. And it also proves that the success of Trek was a combination of the upbeat, positive worldview, and the characters themselves – particularly the Brawn/Brain relationship between Kirk and Spock. After so many years of Trek being mainly defined by the Next Generation’s beige world of “Hey- something dramatic’s happenned! Let’s go to the Captain’s ready room and talk about it for ten minutes!”, it’s a gigantic relief to get a movie that understands what was so fun about the original series – that there may have been something terribly ridiculous about William Shatner tearing his shirt and snogging the women, but that underneath it all the character worked. And the film manages to do this with almost all the regular characters, to greater or lesser degrees, while making a film that’s fun and action-packed enough that you don’t have to be tapped into forty years of continuity in order to enjoy it.

It’s ended up a similar situation to The Wrath of Khan, where a filmmaker who wasn’t that familiar with the Trek universe is brought in to give it an adrenaline shot, and here it’s exactly what the whole Trek universe needed. While the whole idea of a prequel sounded alarm bells in my head, the fact that J.J. Abrams was helming it did give me enough confidence to think that it had a chance of being good – and the end result is a hell of a lot better than I initially expected, featuring the kind of strengths that Abrams is good at, particularly with the casting. I was actually a bit worried about Zachary Quinto as Spock – he’s only rarely completely blown me away in Heroes (although I think that’s just as much to do with that show’s over-dependence on the Sylar-as-unstoppable-bad-guy factor), and while the resemblence was obvious, Leonard Nimoy’s work as Spock is one of those performances that looks a lot easier than it actually is. And I’m happy to say that Quinto is really, really good – capturing exactly the right tone and making every single scene work. And then, of course, there’s Chris Pine, who arguably has just as major shoes to fill, and he carries it off even better than Quinto – Pine somehow manages to channel all of Kirk’s cocksure arrogance, swagger and confidence and even carries off the occasional moment of ridiculousness without ever feeling like he’s impersonating Shatner. He owns the role, and one of the best things I can say about the film is that it makes you want to see the next adventure of this crew right now, this instant. There are wildly different approaches in the rest of the cast – Karl Urban is as brilliantly close to Deforest Kelley as you could ever want, while Zoe Saldana as Uhura is very different to the original (although considering how thin Uhura’s character was, it’s no surprise…) and the only cast member I really had a problem with was Anton Yelchin as Chekov, whose Russian accent really just needed to get dialed back a couple of notches.

The scale works. The action (mostly) works. And, above everything else, the ethos they’ve applied to the approach to Trek works. There’s plenty of edge, and there’s even a few hints of Battlestar Galactica in the hand-held approach to the space battle sequences, but they’ve gone big, bold and positive and it works. They’ve created a world where the primary colours of the uniforms and having all the female starfleet members in the Sixties-style short skirts and go-go boots feels completely normal, and where the characters feel like living, breathing people and not just epithet-spouting stuffed shirts. In fact, there’s something decidedly New Who about this re-invention/reboot/remix – the way that this is updating a classic show in a way which will probably annoy the hell out of the purists, but which is – underneath it all – still the show it always was. Because yes, if you have a love of the original series or particularly the ‘Classic Crew’ movies (I have a serious fondness for Star Treks II-IV, and VI), there may be moments that don’t quite sit right. It’s certainly the fastest Trek movie ever, and arguably could have done with slowing down to give the story time to breathe (a flaw it shares with Abrams’ Mission Impossible III). It’s also worth remembering that this is written by the same men responsible for Transformers – and there are moments where the humour could have done with being a little less goofy, and where the storytelling could have been a lot clearer. But ultimately, none of these problems make a gigantic amount of difference because you care about the characters. For me, Star Trek isn’t at the top of my favourite Trek film list (some of which, admittedly, is coloured by fondness and nostalgia), but it’s riding extremely high. There may be moments of cheesiness and a handful of points that don’t quite work, but they’re over in a flash, and the overall experience is a big, bold and brassy pulp SF blockbuster that drags you along in its wake.

Rating: * * * *

And now, having avoided any major spoilers, I shall now add a few spoilerific thoughts…

‘I’m a doctor, not a physicist!’

Yes, that’s quite enough of that, thank you very much…

May 4, 2009 / saxonbullock2000 / Leave a comment

Okay – no more BlipFM stuff on here. It’s the kind of thing that works much better on Twitter anyhow – here it just ends up looking downright untidy. So, if there were any of those tracks that you liked and thought “I’d like to here more like that”, you can either follow me on Twitter or you can listen direct on BlipFM.com.

I’ve also had a very bad night’s sleep, and have spent most of today getting work done. My brain is now telling me to stop (it may also be waving flags to that effect), so I’m taking it exceptionally easy for the rest of the evening.

More details soon…