tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73606784838685382662024-03-15T18:12:18.654-07:00Pamphlets of DestinyLawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.comBlogger986125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-83411217524115633882024-03-12T11:06:00.000-07:002024-03-13T11:36:48.293-07:00Marvel Firsts: the 1960s <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFFMaHerw69cVXxDoErZ9gVnjx6TidSfLSdCu992zHtEHyqTjCpaHwNjst4uL75LUe3zOhhwMuUyJUB-Cu5RsGyDoTBTk9fCrdkeLTwdXJUxzX6b40fqq37npslI5J8IAL9LmUbJB2GxV-5t9fFhhxkJDSinLxRAxbLaGW5_UPJMog6QalArr39_SbLpNk/s3026/Lee%201969%20-%20Marvel%20Firsts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3026" data-original-width="1953" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFFMaHerw69cVXxDoErZ9gVnjx6TidSfLSdCu992zHtEHyqTjCpaHwNjst4uL75LUe3zOhhwMuUyJUB-Cu5RsGyDoTBTk9fCrdkeLTwdXJUxzX6b40fqq37npslI5J8IAL9LmUbJB2GxV-5t9fFhhxkJDSinLxRAxbLaGW5_UPJMog6QalArr39_SbLpNk/w414-h640/Lee%201969%20-%20Marvel%20Firsts.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & others<br /><i>Marvel Firsts: the 1960s </i>(2011)</b><br />This collects all those first issues or first appearances and is therefore <i>where it all began</i>, assuming we can agree on what <i>it</i> is. I've been engaged in an attempt to understand the evolution of caped adventures and this seemed a better gamble than collected editions of any single title, running as it does in chronological sequence from the 1961 debut of the <i>Fantastic Four</i> through to the first issue of the <i>Silver Surfer</i> in 1968, and with a lot of the stuff we've forgotten about in between.<br /><br />The Marvel revolution is generally characterised as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby combining existing comic book genres into a single continuity, then having everybody turn up in everyone else's books. The existing (and failing) genres which went into the mix included romance, horror, humour, superhero, and monster comics. The first issue of the <i>Fantastic Four</i> pushes most of those buttons, not least the cover featuring a giant and vaguely reptilian thing smashing its way up through the asphalt, gargantuan claws reaching out to ensnare the puny surface dwellers - duplicating the cover of pretty much every issue of <i>Tales to Astonish</i> prior to Hank Pym discovering he could talk to ants. Inside we get super-science, rocketry, the hot-rod loving teenager, wisecracks, and the Invisible Girl ticking all of the usual chick boxes in requiring the protection of the lads.<br /><br />Most surprising for me has been the realisation of just how shaky were the first stirrings of the Marvel universe, because Stan Lee telling me how the first issue of the <i>Fantastic Four</i> was <i>at least</i> on par with <i>War and Peace</i> to a monthly schedule apparently wormed its way into my subconscious. Unless <i>War and Peace</i> - which I've never read - is actually fairly ropey, in which case fair play.<br /><br /><i>Fantastic Four</i> #1 has all sorts of wonderfully screwy things going on, but it has the rhythm of hesitant first steps with Stan and Jack - but mainly Jack - making it up as they go along, jamming disparate elements together and hoping it will work. It doesn't feel confident and lurches along much like the strips of the thirties and forties, as does the first allegedly pulse-pounding issue of the <i>Avengers</i>, in case anyone was wondering. This isn't really a criticism given the likelihood of <i>anything</i> living up to Stan's hyperbole, but it's engaging for reasons besides those promised by the cover, or at least was to me. Further clues as to the balance of the Lee and Kirby partnership may be found by comparing Lee's typewritten synopsis for <i>Fantastic Four</i> #1 - also included here - with what was published, and it looks a lot like Jack was doing his best to give the thing a bit of a dynamic, a quality which isn't conspicuous in Lee's vague, even apologetic stage directions.<br /><br />Stranger still, the wild west comics running contemporaneous to the early superhero stuff are by far the best material in at least the first half of the collection, their obvious confidence presumably deriving from established traditional styles. However, as the years pass, we can see our caped pals catching up and cohering into something which seems to know what it's doing, and <i>Silver Surfer</i> #1 is legitimately a masterpiece of the form.<br /><br />This has been less exciting but more educational than I expected, which is nice.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><br /></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-71291621365051193632024-03-05T12:35:00.000-08:002024-03-06T11:55:08.127-08:00New Mutants Forever<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUse9JYZn95ncUIGOazh1hSHN1D02j7IF07n_n6znEyGXYmUk7uhDi-59hOEP5NWDHE0-_cOvGS4hSifPZyJpYWdrB-ki3NeHXBWFR-vozXjiKN8qDjPaiojEG6TMiq9x852ZHt8PIuzoZY6-MFCeCKpe4m37FxS4hfbjLa5OkXFbLOzyaNThAJDTt1fGW/s3036/Z%20Claremont%202011%20-%20New%20Mutants%20Forever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3036" data-original-width="1954" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUse9JYZn95ncUIGOazh1hSHN1D02j7IF07n_n6znEyGXYmUk7uhDi-59hOEP5NWDHE0-_cOvGS4hSifPZyJpYWdrB-ki3NeHXBWFR-vozXjiKN8qDjPaiojEG6TMiq9x852ZHt8PIuzoZY6-MFCeCKpe4m37FxS4hfbjLa5OkXFbLOzyaNThAJDTt1fGW/w412-h640/Z%20Claremont%202011%20-%20New%20Mutants%20Forever.jpg" width="412" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Chris Claremont, Al Rio & Bob McLeod<br /><i>New Mutants Forever</i> (2011)</b><br />Chris Claremont had already returned to the X-Men in 2009 with <i>X-Men Forever</i>, a title continuing the story from which he'd been unceremoniously unplugged back in 1991 when it was discovered that some readers disliked issues in which <i>the X-Men girls go shopping</i> and felt there weren't sufficient stabbings. Here he does the same with the <i>New Mutants</i>, although there are different circumstances to the end of his original run, notably that - so far as I understand it - he simply didn't have time to keep it going given everything else he was writing at the time, and handed the keys over to Louise Simonson who was at least on his side. I'm not sure this one really <i>needed</i> to happen by quite the same terms as <i>X-Men Forever</i>, but it's mostly fun with Claremont playing to his not inconsiderable strengths.<br /><br />I can see the logic of utilising the trusty crayon of Bob McLeod given his status as co-creator, but I have to admit he's never been one of my favourites; and Al Rio's art looks very much as though he attended the Bob McLeod school. There's nothing wrong with McLeod's art and, to paraphrase what somebody or other once said of Tony Hadley, <i>that's</i> what is wrong with his art. It's very clean and clear, and it gets the job done, but it gets the job done with a limited range of variant facial expressions and not much you could describe as dynamic. Still, the magic of Claremont is that he can worm even the most preposterous shite into your subconscious and have you swear you've been watching <i>Citizen Kane</i>, sidestepping the problem of clichés - of which one should probably expect a number given that <i>New Mutants</i> is one of those caped titles - by splashing them about regardless with just enough spin and distraction to get away with it.<br /><br />Here we have the New Mutants battling Red Skull and his Nazi pals in a version of Rome which has somehow survived the last twenty thousand years in isolation in the Amazon basin. Red Skull turns Cypher into a boggle-eyed version of himself who stands around in just his y-fronts agonising about this most ludicrous of transformations; and even the swastikas resemble something from the <i>Beano</i>; but not once does it inspire the question of why anyone bothered. It's no <i>Demon Bear Saga</i>, but <i>New Mutants</i> was a great book and this collection effortlessly reminds us why.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-27493356501047230012024-02-27T12:24:00.000-08:002024-02-28T13:15:15.735-08:00American Victim<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhei6s2mcTd0JjthuTGZ7TnUR3tce1YVWF0SWKiw7JtEBvNY5IT1gNEzaelBTk4DiAHW2CyIWJShyenCBf8qf4WuJ179Z68LW_FwjEnBPs978Gh9EtPijcuqbOEVxnXWlJMKDHAbB-6r6Jf6w73yQbsRy-_GXD_RX4CTkebMFJXuTK8-sk8y3cLocWCGxh5/s2700/McCarville%202023%20-%20American%20Victim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2700" data-original-width="1784" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhei6s2mcTd0JjthuTGZ7TnUR3tce1YVWF0SWKiw7JtEBvNY5IT1gNEzaelBTk4DiAHW2CyIWJShyenCBf8qf4WuJ179Z68LW_FwjEnBPs978Gh9EtPijcuqbOEVxnXWlJMKDHAbB-6r6Jf6w73yQbsRy-_GXD_RX4CTkebMFJXuTK8-sk8y3cLocWCGxh5/w422-h640/McCarville%202023%20-%20American%20Victim.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Meg McCarville <i>American Victim</i> (2023)</b><br />There was a bit of a commotion on social media when Amphetamine Sulphate published <i>Four Circles</i>, McCarville's previous volcanic eruption of righteous bile. I couldn't tell what had happened and felt disinclined to ask nosey questions, but the fallout seemed to be that Amphetamine Sulphate weren't going to be publishing this one which, as it so happens, provides substantial insight into the shit show which ultimately led to its publication by someone else, namely Ric Royer's <a href="https://modelcitybooks.com/" target="_blank">Model City Books</a>.<br /><br />By her own testimony, Meg McCarville is a woman with issues who tends to find herself in unfortunate situations. The unfortunate situation was, in this instance, finding herself stalked by a nutcase who, amongst other things, dibbed her in to the FBI for alleged acts of terrorism which were obviously nothing of the sort, and all because he cared. He's identified in <i>American Victim</i> as <i>Max Cady on Wheels</i>, which seems fair, and whilst many of us will have met people like him, this goes a lot further than some disgruntled twat making a few prank phone calls. In fact it's terrifying, and even more terrifying than the aggressive-aggressive acts of sabotage dispensed by our boy is the fact that he gets to keep on keeping on, because while American law enforcement agencies excel in certain areas, not least of these being the dispensation of traffic citations, they're mostly fucking useless unless you're being menaced by an African-American with one of those candy bars that looks a bit like a firearm. If law enforcement did the job it purports to do, <i>American Victim</i> would have been a five-page pamphlet.<br /><br />As ever, it's both a fucking tough read, and yet one which gets its hooks into you almost immediately because even at her absolute lowest ebb, Meg McCarville is very, very funny, wielding the kind of sarcasm which could have an eye out. It's Bukowksi with tits jammed on eleven, Lydia Lunch admitting she digs Kiss and rocking out, all directed by John Waters at his furthest remove from polite society and the closest I've come to writing with the face-punching intensity of an MOP album; and these aren't even necessarily its greatest strength, that being the words of truth spoken in dark, dark jest - truths that leave bruises.</span></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I've gone through phases of surrounding myself with junkies and nobodies and ex-cons, but never in my life had I felt like I <i>really</i> fell in with the worst crowd until I found myself surrounded by phony progressive anarcho-feminist cunts and dopey woke boys (who really just pounded their politics so they can pound some psycho feminist pussy) who got into more of an uproar about someone getting misgendered even though they changed their pronoun every other week.</span></blockquote><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Honestly, this is one of the most powerful extended rants I've read in a long time, and anyone whose gag response has started kicking off would do well to remember that Voltaire, Swift, Rabelais and all those other sarcastic fuckers of yesteryear likewise delivered their testimonials with lashings of piss, vinegar, and castor oil. If you really want to understand the modern world, it's all here.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-34714585990785203462024-02-20T12:54:00.000-08:002024-02-21T12:03:30.726-08:00The Vanishing Tower<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyXbWaYbD87LfFvrW4p5YlVpZrZMMkeY9EQlCtS6o_62FBNjANlz9CQiLZ5ajhbRMzEBeXJyjDWXKIP0x1iJniAi7OlFgsNgVx3rLaPX7LvUp_kVdhihBSaiRUxxAHwhLCrVmkebbGM-Z4v6EJco3chrz7tGAXqepbKwxjNlefpx1VGYNS3f1NHnw5IKZm/s2044/Moorcock%201976%20-%20The%20Vanishing%20Tower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2044" data-original-width="1243" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyXbWaYbD87LfFvrW4p5YlVpZrZMMkeY9EQlCtS6o_62FBNjANlz9CQiLZ5ajhbRMzEBeXJyjDWXKIP0x1iJniAi7OlFgsNgVx3rLaPX7LvUp_kVdhihBSaiRUxxAHwhLCrVmkebbGM-Z4v6EJco3chrz7tGAXqepbKwxjNlefpx1VGYNS3f1NHnw5IKZm/w390-h640/Moorcock%201976%20-%20The%20Vanishing%20Tower.jpg" width="390" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Michael Moorcock <i>The Vanishing Tower</i> (1970)</b><br />This is my fourth Elric book and I realise that I've been going at it all wrong. It isn't that I haven't enjoyed them, but I expected to enjoy them more than I have done. I'm not automatically well-disposed towards anything involving either spells, wizards or castles, so I need my occasional fantasy novel to do a bit more than the usual. Elric does a bit more than the usual, but nothing like so much as Moorcock's other novels tend to do. This would be fine in itself but for the scrappily episodic feel of short stories welded together, one quest after another, mystic day-saving gemstone after mystic day-saving gemstone…<br /><br />Well, it seems these novels actually <i>are</i> short stories welded together, but short stories of such length as to be further subdivided into portions by my customary reading habits - an hour when I wake up and another before I go to sleep, which usually works out at about fifty pages a day with most books. Anyway, being as these things are pretty breezy, I made the effort to read each of the three short stories into which this one divides in single hour-long sittings, and suddenly they were a whole lot more enjoyable. I guess the existence of all those droning fifteen volume sword and sorcery epics has fooled me into the belief that I need to treat this kind of thing as a <i>saga</i>, accordingly remembering all the unpronounceables with walk-on parts for when they turn up later to reveal they still have such and such a mystic dingus in their possession.<br /><br />It seems that reading each Elric episode in one go without worrying too much over minor points of continuity is the key, additionally meaning one is less likely to be distracted from the profoundly atmospheric weirdness; which is the main reason for reading these things.<br /><br />So, it seems it wasn't Michael Moorcock after all. It was me. I still say he's written better, but then even the fruits of his occasionally phoning it in tend to be way above the average.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-4267922953669441802024-02-13T13:47:00.000-08:002024-02-14T13:53:01.999-08:00Strange Adventures<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYXJg5MVXXcTcpKi_sRtWiSkItqjEYpFSpRyv3pCCcrPbyfZaxK8E5nnLZmrXi3xgI7AoXfFW7wgu-ss5_QdzU0gBd0SPWra1JX5wlvLjRzzy8lP-NctzWjYI9Xaz_DLZyz7TnDOVemLkQFDKMZmA312ZljpHcuMGr_f1XKihd7IOUrkFrXrDOykE-zu-l/s3110/King%202021%20-%20Strange%20Adventures.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3110" data-original-width="2038" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYXJg5MVXXcTcpKi_sRtWiSkItqjEYpFSpRyv3pCCcrPbyfZaxK8E5nnLZmrXi3xgI7AoXfFW7wgu-ss5_QdzU0gBd0SPWra1JX5wlvLjRzzy8lP-NctzWjYI9Xaz_DLZyz7TnDOVemLkQFDKMZmA312ZljpHcuMGr_f1XKihd7IOUrkFrXrDOykE-zu-l/w420-h640/King%202021%20-%20Strange%20Adventures.jpg" width="420" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tom King & Mitch Gerads <i>Strange Adventures</i> (2021)</b><br />Adam Strange is a regular guy who finds himself randomly and instantaneously beamed to the distant planet of Rann, there to fly around wearing a jetpack solving science-fiction crimes with just his wits and his trusty laser pistol. He was an old school character from before <i>pow!</i> the comic book grew up, one I first encountered in Alan Moore's version of <i>Swamp Thing</i> wherein it was revealed that the sexy naked ladies of Rann were literally queuing up for a go on Strange's mighty Earth penis. Whether or not <i>pow!</i> the comic book had grown up by this point is probably debatable, but issues were sold only to older boys and girls who had - you know - <i>done it</i>.<br /><br />I'm now at the stage where I'd probably pick up <i>The Adventures of Jeff Lynne and ELO</i> were it produced by Tom King and Mitch Gerads, so I found <i>Strange Adventures</i> irresistible. I know some Toms have been better than others. <i>Rorschach</i> wasn't quite what I'd hoped it would be and <i>Batman</i> could have been better, but this one is up there with his best.<br /><br />I remain mostly unconvinced that the comic book ever truly needed to <i>pow!</i> grow up, mainly because it usually translates into Red Tornado taking crack and then having a wank behind some bins; but <i>Strange Adventures</i> shows us how it's supposed to work. The art is gorgeous, suggesting bande dessinées rather than the usual manga-influenced tripe, and the telling is nothing if not cinematic, invariably leaving it up to the reader to work out what the hell is happening.<br /><br />What the hell is happening is that this version of Adam Strange is involved in a war. It wouldn't be anything new but for King writing with all the nuance necessary to describe actual conflict, doubtless drawing from his own experience in Iraq. The revelation of Strange having engaged in less than chivalrous acts during the heat of battle comes as no great surprise, but the supplementary revelation of the deed being very much what it looks like rather than a dream or fake news is genuinely shocking. Ordinarily we'd ask how he's going to get out of this one, and he doesn't; yet this isn't one of those jobs where we know that <i>pow!</i> the comic book has grown up because we can quite clearly see Superman killing a homeless person for chuckles. Rather, the startling message is that terrible things happen during war, and usually so terrible that no amount of squinting can ever draw forth some tidily moral lesson about good and evil, getting one's hands dirty, omelettes requiring broken eggs or whatever other bullshit we keep telling ourselves. So King's Adam Strange isn't a hero, or if he is, he's a hero who goes to war and fails to come out of it smelling of roses - the whole point being that no-one does.<br /><br /><i>Strange Adventures</i> resembles a comic book but reads like a novel, and a fairly substantial novel too.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-29865441904545628482024-02-06T12:50:00.000-08:002024-02-07T12:28:25.024-08:00Meanwhile in Dopamine City<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrN3YTN3ijjxbT8gjtVQuxzQ60BT12QuThbtXeAXseNMaQZX2rSNipZF8Ni7jJXii7edPESKkQneMOdxa5c1rCtM38K6617_85GFNdHu26HZIJam7VfSKXXsfg0fZvnj2e2iomMoERl-C1OglgZowJFY3ai2zV2OmCIYBctL5Mihk8mlh5nPZoqhyGN9A/s2329/Pierre%202020%20-%20Meanwhile%20in%20Dopamine%20City.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2329" data-original-width="1492" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrN3YTN3ijjxbT8gjtVQuxzQ60BT12QuThbtXeAXseNMaQZX2rSNipZF8Ni7jJXii7edPESKkQneMOdxa5c1rCtM38K6617_85GFNdHu26HZIJam7VfSKXXsfg0fZvnj2e2iomMoERl-C1OglgZowJFY3ai2zV2OmCIYBctL5Mihk8mlh5nPZoqhyGN9A/w410-h640/Pierre%202020%20-%20Meanwhile%20in%20Dopamine%20City.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>DBC Pierre <i>Meanwhile in Dopamine City </i>(2020)</b><br />Up until this year I had assumed that DBC Pierre had jacked it in following the thorough slagging which I seem to recall <i>Ludmilla's Broken English</i> had garnered. I looked online but could find nothing more recent. Then taking another look just a few months ago I discovered at least three novels I'd somehow missed, so not only is he back, but it turns out that he hasn't actually been away.<br /><br /><i>Meanwhile in Dopamine City</i> is nothing less than a dissection of why everything is shit. Some will tell you that the idea of everything being shit is an erroneous assessment, even suggesting that we've perhaps forgotten about rickets, cot death, and Adolf Hitler. The reason it's an erroneous assessment is usually because <i>you're old</i> and not <i>everyone</i> who likes manga is necessarily a kiddy fiddler, which is racist to say, and all sorts of other poorly defined reasons which twenty-something victims of product placement wearing cat ears will generally hide behind slogans, flags, hashtags, retweets, and strength in numbers because it's all about <i>how you feel</i>, and you just a hater. Get over it. You're like really <i>old</i> LOL.<br /><br />This is a story about a father who strives to separate his nine-year old daughter from her smartphone, and it could have gone the Richard Littlejohn route, except DBC Pierre is a master of nuance, with not a molecule out of place in his scathing testimony, no ambiguity, not even a gap by which to accommodate anything he didn't actually say - before anyone starts rolling their eyes over <i>cancel culture</i> or its alleged non-existence. This being the third of his novels that I've read, I can see the pattern and feel I understand the first two a little better. Pierre writes satire in the Swiftian sense, but his escalation of reality is so extreme as to border on the Bugs Bunny cartoons of the forties, with Will Self growing a vagina at the back of some rugby player's kneecap seeming almost sober by comparison. Yet, Pierre's prose is of such precision as to nail his narrative firmly to something we can only recognise as reality. If this one is almost science-fiction in its dabbling with cyberspace, social media, and quantum bollocks, it feels like the novel which William Gibson has been trying to write but never managed because he gets too hung up on designer labels and usually forgets to fucking say anything.</span></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lon sucked a blast of crisp air through his nose, rinsed it around as if to renew his brain as the world renewed around him. He didn't know if it was bad shit out and good stuff in - nobody knew if it was bad shit out and good stuff in any more. For Lon's money the Medinas hadn't been bad shit, Capital hadn't been a bad bank, waiting for the hair to arrive on your parts hadn't been a bad time to start talking teabagging, but now it was shit out, shit in, and nobody knew which was which any more, nobody seemed to care - it didn't matter if it was bad shit, there was no bad any more, there was no good, no scientific basis for either, it was all shit out, shit in.</span></blockquote><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">The bad shit is, in case you haven't looked out of the window lately, pretty much the voracious ascendance of what Guy Debord described as the Spectacle and the devaluation of reality and human experience by ideology, even amorphous corporate driven <i>almost</i> ideology. Pierre communicates the divide with a shocking switch of narrative technique, the first hundred or so pages of poetic second person prose flipping to disorientating first person accounts sharing each page with a sidebar, essentially splitting the narrative into a plurality of cause and effect. This takes some getting used to. I read each first person account then flipped back to catch up on the sidebars, which sort of works. The sidebars comprise the kind of sub-newsy shite the internet chucks at you at almost every click which, in this case, informs what's going on in the novel and is in turn informed by it.</span><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">78177407943098723-0203437: Donkeyhooty de la</span> Munchies announced he's going 'quad' and moving on to all fours for life. The move has been hailed by the wider Low-Responsibility Individuals community - better known as Loris - as <span style="color: #cccccc;">a major step towards its recognition as a thriving lifestyle sector. Though not originally a Lori himself, Donkeyhooty aligned with the movement after being forced to defend his right as a quadruped to relieve himself in public, if only in parks and on verges. A recent survey reported that Loris have overtaken Emos as the lifestyle of choice for disaffected under-thirties, though they still rank well below haulers.</span></span></blockquote><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">I've attempted to reproduce the author's de-emphasis by use of greyed-out text, which I assume attempts to invoke the attention span which is typically applied to such information. In contrast to the familiar human drama of the main text, the narrative unfolding through the sidebars jumps a shark every third or fourth page yet without diminishing the integrity of the whole, and anyone claiming otherwise - particularly anyone invoking hyperbole, overreaction or hysteria - might start by looking up either Richard Hernandez or Anthony Loffredo. Never in human history has there been a better time for the expression of self-loathing.<br /><br /><i>Meanwhile in Dopamine City</i> is not an easy book, and even though it works, and works well, the split narrative is too disorientating to facilitate anything you could describe as a comfortable ride, but it's undeniably and cathartically exhilarating as blast of random noise, like William Burroughs but with a much sharper focus; and I'm not sure I've read a more thorough, convincing, or <i>funnier</i> damnation of our times.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-58832478529877433772024-01-30T11:39:00.000-08:002024-01-31T11:11:44.023-08:00The Sheriff of Babylon<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJcyuKwZb7IUm6ZoGu1_kPOX_Qf-epAsWzZ2KtKXcvcfhbUk6v9TSdY-DSQ4gyaPRZf-rCyKBElkU_46DzI-zIq1oXMRyR7Z1T-PXR36Be9MbO7fpjmetp3d1JAIqCMYA1Vg5FNxUThJQzYxqculEFqlJQPSPs9hV3LCzrgfdZZ5ivhPJCAbbmFLkxPwW/s3042/King%202017%20-%20The%20Sheriff%20of%20Babylon%2002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3042" data-original-width="1947" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJcyuKwZb7IUm6ZoGu1_kPOX_Qf-epAsWzZ2KtKXcvcfhbUk6v9TSdY-DSQ4gyaPRZf-rCyKBElkU_46DzI-zIq1oXMRyR7Z1T-PXR36Be9MbO7fpjmetp3d1JAIqCMYA1Vg5FNxUThJQzYxqculEFqlJQPSPs9hV3LCzrgfdZZ5ivhPJCAbbmFLkxPwW/w410-h640/King%202017%20-%20The%20Sheriff%20of%20Babylon%2002.jpg" width="410" /></a></b></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />Tom King & Mitch Gerads <i>The Sheriff of Babylon</i> (2016)</b><br />Given that it has somehow taken me five years to get around to bagging and reading the second collection of this twelve-issue comic book, I've just re-read the whole thing from issue one onwards. In fact, I've re-read it twice in consecutive sittings because, much like real life, it's occasionally confusing and difficult to work out who is on which side; and because it seemed to warrant it.<br /><br />Tom King worked for the CIA and spent five months in Baghdad after the fall of Saddham Hussein. <i>The Sheriff of Babylon</i> isn't really autobiographical, but has the cadence of human existence doing what it can in terrible situations. This terrible situation was, of course, the war; and King's experience of the war, as informs this story, suggests that the principal casualty - which I suppose you might say we've been referring to as <i>truth</i> for the sake of argument - is the notion of there ever having been an us and them. War, the book seems to suggest, atomises combatants into a million disconnected individuals, each just trying to survive, with allegiances sworn in peacetime rendered meaningless by shitbags on both sides of the divide. The allegiances cautiously struck in this tale - Chris the US military contractor, Nassir who was Saddham's favourite cop, and Saffiya, whose entire family were executed by Saddham's favourite cop - could only have come about during wartime. The story attempts to solve the murder of a single individual in a country busily fighting itself, where the lives of single individuals mean nothing, and therefore mean everything. It's occasionally difficult to keep track of who probably shouldn't have done what because this isn't one of those Punisher stories about guns, grunting, and clearly defined moral codes; all of which is the great strength of this <strike>work</strike> fuck it - this <i>masterpiece</i>.<br /><br />The art is astonishing, distinctly filmic, and never overplays its hand. One might imagine that <i>The Sheriff of Babylon</i> would be better suited to film given that it seems to impersonate one in certain respects; but I'm not convinced. Some of what occurs is too awful, and the horror would overpower the narrative, turning it into something it never set out to be. Gerads beautiful yet harrowing art, on the other hand, removes the story from its own reality just enough to allow for its telling without the body count getting in the way.<br /><br />You remember all that stuff about <i>pow! the comic book grows up?</i> Well, this is what it looks like.</span><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-83674251197027011602024-01-23T11:52:00.000-08:002024-01-24T12:48:22.762-08:00Rocket Ship Galileo <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRpIzBhc_pQOifAC4H6qenA8hvGfJl_3JI8ZJll8SRdOTIhDzeH_KyFY2qfLsWCJJS4hpocdTCaSqNOEuPRG113l6oZpdUeLZnc7mqwvvyauIH1kaKnDxWUx5n79ERgBzQ5ONJUwyM9inlCNrjtJpSopSkvs_TzJhAy1MtdmCpeO2Z2Pr92gxB7F8MBPgW/s2068/Heinlein%201947%20-%20Rocket%20Ship%20Galileo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2068" data-original-width="1219" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRpIzBhc_pQOifAC4H6qenA8hvGfJl_3JI8ZJll8SRdOTIhDzeH_KyFY2qfLsWCJJS4hpocdTCaSqNOEuPRG113l6oZpdUeLZnc7mqwvvyauIH1kaKnDxWUx5n79ERgBzQ5ONJUwyM9inlCNrjtJpSopSkvs_TzJhAy1MtdmCpeO2Z2Pr92gxB7F8MBPgW/w378-h640/Heinlein%201947%20-%20Rocket%20Ship%20Galileo.jpg" width="378" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Robert Heinlein <i>Rocket Ship Galileo </i>(1947)</b><br />I loathed <i>Stranger in a Strange Land</i> with such force as to inspire the promise that I would never read another Heinlein, but Alec Nevala-Lee's history of <i>Astounding</i> has given me cause to lift this embargo, because I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed those I read before I came to the aforementioned four-hundred pages of egocentric shite. So here we are again.<br /><br /><i>Rocket Ship Galileo</i> may be among the squarest tales ever told - pipe-smoking scientist helps three rocket crazy young lads to build a spacecraft by which they fly to the moon, with all the science done right, equations and calculations described in detail, and no agricultural language or references to beastly habits. It's <i>almost</i> a variation on the lunar expeditions of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells as they would have been serialised for fifties America by the guy who wrote <i>Biggles</i>, but - as I now remember why the man had such a reputation - Heinlein not only makes it work, but it's positively gripping. He ticks every last box on the John W. Campbell checklist - five page lectures about sub-atomic particles, plot elements hung upon obscure features of trigonometry, lengthy discussions of structural integrity whilst our three smart young lads address everyone as <i>sir</i> and behave unlike teenagers have ever behaved in the real world - and yet <i>Rocket Ship Galileo</i> dazzles, page after page, somehow swanning around like a jaunty insurance salesman with pipe clenched firmly in its wry grin <i>without</i> a predictable sentence or narrative twist in sight.<br /><br />I still don't know how he came to write <i>Stranger</i>, and there's no way I'm touching anything written later, but I'm glad I got over the hump. I'm already looking forward to the other two I picked up at the same time as this one.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-20494199233785157922024-01-16T09:56:00.000-08:002024-01-17T08:37:11.170-08:00The Weird of the White Wolf<div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj129WAQT-zx4i-Pxz1hgMzNvribT1_9uHveR93LLNzhbqPfh90U9ETFhHjlLZQw9C3ZTlmAnkcegz_3svquqi7CeISdZg5ywp_YNs3dbYSrK-NEa8b1ieSC3j-jdwrL1xQZAuhm1FUcSQlU52G7gtRuKfF4yOq7xx_2ex17ow0fMS0utCq8we4S5Xsz_2H/s2050/Moorcock%201976%20-%20The%20Weird%20of%20the%20White%20Wolf.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2050" data-original-width="1248" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj129WAQT-zx4i-Pxz1hgMzNvribT1_9uHveR93LLNzhbqPfh90U9ETFhHjlLZQw9C3ZTlmAnkcegz_3svquqi7CeISdZg5ywp_YNs3dbYSrK-NEa8b1ieSC3j-jdwrL1xQZAuhm1FUcSQlU52G7gtRuKfF4yOq7xx_2ex17ow0fMS0utCq8we4S5Xsz_2H/w390-h640/Moorcock%201976%20-%20The%20Weird%20of%20the%20White%20Wolf.jpg" width="390" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><b>Michael Moorcock <i>The Weird of the White Wolf</i> (1977)</b><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">There were six books in this first cycle of the Elric saga. I'd read the first two; then tracked down the three I didn't have with plans to read them in order, one through to six, mainly because it's been a couple of years since I read <i>Elric of Melniboné</i> and <i>The Sailor on the Seas of Fate</i> and felt I should get reacquainted. The books are mostly slim, about one-hundred and fifty pages give or take - about as long as they need to be. So I re-read the first two then tackled this one, and realised that a little goes a long way where Elric is concerned. The first book is mostly wonderful. <i>Sailor</i> has its moments but is somewhat episodic with our boy moving from one scrape to another without it really feeling like it's adding up to anything in particular, and <i>The Weird of the White Wolf</i> is the same.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">This isn't to say that the saga ever begins to bore or tread water, because Moorcock always kept things lively, avoiding almost all of the clichés we've come to expect from sword and sorcery, writing as fiction should be written rather than just recycling the usual bollocks about persons who do aquesting go. So regardless of ghastly apparitions and soul-stealing swords, the Elric books have a distinctly punky edge which really keeps you on your toes; and the magic is that this spikey, almost post-modern quality somehow emphasises the mythic power of the tales - as distinct from being mechanically reclaimed Tolkien with <i>Star Wars</i> jokes bolted on*. Elric works like the real world, albeit under extraordinary circumstances, and not even mythology itself is beyond scrutiny.</span></span><br /></div><div><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><p style="text-align: justify;">Elric Smiled. 'Oh, it's nothing more than a folktale, probably, the story I told you. This Saxif D'Aan could be another person altogether—or an imposter, even, who has taken his name—or a sorcerer. Some sorcerers take the names of other sorcerers, for they think it gives them more power.'</p></span></blockquote><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Both <i>Sailor</i> and <i>White Wolf</i>, it could be argued, have a rhythm more closely resembling real life than those housebrick sagas of persons seeking specific mystic items - digressions occur and not everything adds up as it might in a novel written with reference to a wall laden with post-it notes. Of course, I now realise this is also due to a few of these novels comprising sequences of short stories woven together; but for all the many, many, many, many, many faults of <i>Lord of the Rings</i>, it does at least have momentum driven by a coherent goal somewhere near the end of the third book. That which drives Elric onwards is less obvious, at least here, meaning I probably didn't need to re-read the first two, and I'll probably wait before tackling the other three because they seem to work better in short, sharp doses.<br /><br />Beyond the above observations, Elric remains arguably one of the few things in the fantasy section which is worth reading. It's weird, scary, occasionally disturbing and the thematic opposite of all those cosy quests, bursting with peculiar ideas, like a sleeker, sharper, more chilling heir to Clark Ashton Smith. Each time I pick up a Moorcook I've never read, I notice just how much of the landscape of contemporary science-or-otherwise-fiction has come from him, and in forms which are never anything like so powerful or honest as the original.</span><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: small;">*: Referring here to Randy Henderson's <i><a href="https://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2019/07/bigfootloose-and-finn-fancy-free.html" target="_blank">Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free</a></i> which remains more or less the worst thing I've ever read, or at least tried to read. It still hurts three-and-a-half years later.</span></span></p></div>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-6096034954263304162024-01-09T13:31:00.000-08:002024-01-10T12:54:48.308-08:00The Importance of Being Earnest<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5L_BqaSxCNg4kx7l4ZHyHlfqCP8goYX-quY9F0i4NpknJl75hq2MJCyneNIYvJm9u_PLBVlC3cbQdLEkrCzhB9QloRhjrqISZ3LVbWjcfaaPD_wkDCL1Jcq8Jf7gs1mhvg_mt1ITpA0AFni8sXk0q-kw8yIa62gMMGZOR9j9IeNcoidCLqBbs9jpR9bt/s2011/Wilde%201895%20-%20The%20Importance%20of%20Being%20Earnest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2011" data-original-width="1215" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5L_BqaSxCNg4kx7l4ZHyHlfqCP8goYX-quY9F0i4NpknJl75hq2MJCyneNIYvJm9u_PLBVlC3cbQdLEkrCzhB9QloRhjrqISZ3LVbWjcfaaPD_wkDCL1Jcq8Jf7gs1mhvg_mt1ITpA0AFni8sXk0q-kw8yIa62gMMGZOR9j9IeNcoidCLqBbs9jpR9bt/w386-h640/Wilde%201895%20-%20The%20Importance%20of%20Being%20Earnest.jpg" width="386" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Oscar Wilde <i>The Importance of Being Earnest</i> (1895)</b><br />It was <i>The Spider's Web</i> by Philip Purser-Hallard, a Sherlock Holmes novel borrowing a few of Wilde's characters, which shamed me into acknowledging that I actually know bugger all about Oscar - despite it having been my nickname at work. The realisation unfortunately obliged me to acknowledge myself as equivalent to a fan of <i>The Confessions of Dorian Gray</i>, a series of seemingly pointless Big Finish audio things wherein Wilde's celebrated creation has spooky yet thought provoking adventures in time and space just like Doctor Who! Brilliant! They're reviewed on <i>Goodreads</i> despite not actually being books, with at least a few of those reviews focussing on what a sexy voice the guy playing Dorian apparently has, which seems to me like another clue as to whether or not said <i>Confessions</i> should be considered books, or are perhaps something else altogether - something which <i>isn't a fucking book</i>, you sad c***s.<br /><br />Anyway…<br /><br />It seemed like time I gave the lad a go, so to speak. I found <i>Earnest</i> initially impenetrable, if you'll pardon the expression, and concluded that the time simply wasn't right. Six months later, I come back to the thing and it clicks immediately. Plays were written to be performed and experienced in real time, and I've never found reading them entirely satisfactory, which is presumably why it took me a while to get around to this one; because, just like those Big Finish CDs or downloads or whatever the hell they are, <i>The Importance of Being Earnest</i> isn't really a book.<br /><br />Nevertheless, trying to read it as a book, I'm struck by both the absurdity of the characters and the powerfully artificial cadence of their discourse and the situations into which they launch themselves. It's hugely entertaining and, in one respect, arguably a precursor to <i>Hancock's Half Hour</i>, amongst many, many others which have made use of this sort of contrarian wit. However, <i>Earnest</i> is significant in striving to avoid realism, instead pursuing an aesthetic of the artificial, and of the ornate social construct as an end in itself as part of the decadent tendency then sweeping Europe; <i>and</i> foreshadowing the exaggeration and absurdity of Jarry's <i>Ubu Roi</i> as performed in Paris just one year later. It's all surface, which is entirely the point, namely that the medium <i>is</i> the message, or at least a demonstration thereof. It's serious about failing to take itself seriously, hence the gag barely concealed by the title.<br /><br />Above all, <i>The Importance of Being Earnest</i> is still very, very funny, with a voice so distinctive as to inspire me to a certain loathing for those attempting to duplicate the humour whilst inevitably getting it wrong, having reduced the wit to a mathematical formula - looking at you, Douglas Adams.<br /><br />I think I probably need to see this on a stage.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-9444104535508659522024-01-02T13:08:00.000-08:002024-01-03T12:25:12.593-08:00Astounding <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oxQGYlIj_rfMcwUcHtf_Ayot_I8yO7iIG0DlswYI1p51qQtiDrV7-0M0LJQaNR8MZp1hfNzV7sPDnJ4jBNPPIJinNt9K6ZPxYqvOysf5WoA87_w8BEYq8DPt_5UeNZF1TbcQ7uSEweIBUYzSw4z-baWPso9juZYLaLWA5wBbcG_iixpFuzUC0YoewoWv/s2382/Nevala-Lee%202018%20-%20Astounding.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2382" data-original-width="1562" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oxQGYlIj_rfMcwUcHtf_Ayot_I8yO7iIG0DlswYI1p51qQtiDrV7-0M0LJQaNR8MZp1hfNzV7sPDnJ4jBNPPIJinNt9K6ZPxYqvOysf5WoA87_w8BEYq8DPt_5UeNZF1TbcQ7uSEweIBUYzSw4z-baWPso9juZYLaLWA5wBbcG_iixpFuzUC0YoewoWv/w420-h640/Nevala-Lee%202018%20-%20Astounding.jpg" width="420" /></a></b></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />Alec Nevala-Lee <i>Astounding </i>(2018)</b><br />In addition to being a biography of John W. Campbell, Nevala-Lee's account also serves as a potted history of <i>Astounding</i> magazine <i>and</i> the birth of modern science-fiction - all three being inextricably knotted together. Obviously <i>Astounding</i> wasn't the only digest, but once Gernsback had left the table, it was the one with the widest influence which gave us the greatest authors of the form, notably Asimov, Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, A.E. van Vogt and others.<br /><br />As with Gernsback's <i>Amazing Stories</i>, Campbell's impetus was futurism and invention at least as much or arguably more so than it was literary. He was an ideas man more than a writer, and so as editor of <i>Astounding Stories of Super-Science</i>, he farmed his ideas out to those he trusted to do a better job, usually preferring to focus on columns and editorials covering technological advances and innovations of the day and what he hoped would come next. Science-fiction was still burning off the energy of the nineteenth century discovery of progress as something which might be observed within a single human lifespan and the idea that we might actively direct where it was headed. Evolutionary theory had inevitably inspired the notion of supermen, and Campbell and Hubbard in particular were keen to lead the way in this respect.<br /><br />The success of <i>Astounding</i> and of its greatest writers probably accounts for why science-fiction has become synonymous with film and television more so than with the written word, which is a shame in my view, but was most likely inevitable. More surprising is just how much of <i>Astounding</i> has extended itself into the present, notably the first science-fiction fan clubs of the thirties and forties foreshadowing the worst aspects of today's social media, and of course Hubbard's pseudo-religion which might arguably serve as a metaphor for much of the wider capitalist society it inhabits - which is depressing given that the Dianetics from which it was born didn't seem <i>entirely</i> without merit.<br /><br />Anyway, as you may be aware, Campbell seems to have been a fairly unpleasant character, and Nevala-Lee does an exceptional job of balancing the myth against the reality, unflinching in describing the man's worst qualities without presenting an impediment to appreciation of what he got right, even where it was for the wrong reasons. Honestly, no-one comes out of this saga smelling of roses, although I'm left considerably more sympathetic towards Robert Heinlein - providing I don't have to read <i>Stranger</i> ever again; but it's a story which really needs telling given the generally unreliable testimony of science-fiction enthusiasts, because it's worth remembering that this terrible man nevertheless had great ideas, and - while we're here - L. Ron Hubbard really knew his way around a typewriter, seeing as we've apparently forgotten that detail as well*.<br /><br /><i>Astounding</i> is surprisingly exciting, weirdly depressing, and yet fascinating; and it also explains why I've never yet fully enjoyed an issue of <i>Analog</i>, which was successor to <i>Astounding</i> and always felt as though there was something unpleasant lurking at its conservative little heart.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">*: Curiously it turns out that Hubbard never particularly cared for science-fiction, which possibly explains that ropey story about Xenu and reincarnated aliens dropping bombs into volcanoes. His favourite genre, so it turns out, involved pirates and the high seas. It's a shame no-one told Tom King before he sat down to write <i>Rorschach</i>.</span></p><p></p><p></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-33153952203575848262023-12-27T14:15:00.000-08:002023-12-27T14:15:21.476-08:00Rorschach <p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8vyNQjQ-cfjlmF7YOUVxYHAUcVhcizFZ2YnaEl-j9Q859XFRZKaTibUwxZlcKWZRna6nbyfP6gR-q-w_k9ygCNZEgZG8sPl4rPdN6j12Z7LqDl8ww911By2t_TtgGC8p7omTRQLrSAZ5Gy1rEaMh0bGxrxB2VLl8Ztab08wSIq3kJ5PP3nMWTGHskQv6/s3112/King%202021%20-%20Rorschach.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3112" data-original-width="2007" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8vyNQjQ-cfjlmF7YOUVxYHAUcVhcizFZ2YnaEl-j9Q859XFRZKaTibUwxZlcKWZRna6nbyfP6gR-q-w_k9ygCNZEgZG8sPl4rPdN6j12Z7LqDl8ww911By2t_TtgGC8p7omTRQLrSAZ5Gy1rEaMh0bGxrxB2VLl8Ztab08wSIq3kJ5PP3nMWTGHskQv6/w412-h640/King%202021%20-%20Rorschach.jpg" width="412" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tom King, Jorge Fornés & Dave Stewart <i>Rorschach </i>(2021)</b></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">I've mostly steered clear of all the <i>Watchmen</i> stuff which hasn't been drawn by Dave Gibbons. I somehow ended up with a copy of a <i>Comedian</i> comic book written by one of those young lads who writes fucking everything these days, and aside from the obligatory labyrinthine foreshadowing it was about as good as I expected it to be; the HBO TV series was mostly a decent effort, I guess, aside from recycling the story Alan Moore had already told; but this grabbed me, partially because it doesn't actually look like a <i>Watchmen</i> spin-off, and of course, it's Tom King.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">For those of you requiring spoilers at this juncture, grow up.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">This isn't the ginger nutcase from the original run, but rather a later individual or individuals inhabiting the same universe who assume the mantle, one of whom is hired to assassinate a presidential candidate. The comic book follows a detective who tries to work out what the fuck is going on. The trail of clues leads to conspiracy theorists who believe that a blank tape contains messages from the original Rorschach, and the guy currently behind the wibbly-wobbly mask seems to be Steve Ditko with the serial numbers filed off, creator of a comic book clearly based on Ditko's Objectivist hero, Mr. A - himself a forerunner to Alan Moore's remix of the character. So there's also a commentary on aspects of the comics industry and its cultural significance, with both Otto Binder and Frank Miller showing up as themselves, specifically as Rorshach conspiracy theorists. There's a lot to unpack, as the saying goes.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, the artwork is gorgeous and it's wonderfully moody, beautifully written - at least in terms of pace and dialogue - but also thematically dense and ponderous. Even if you were paying close attention, a second or third reread may be necessary for full appreciation, although this shouldn't count against <i>Rorschach</i> which ultimately rewards the effort.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: times;"></span><br /></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-78292220425931873012023-12-20T04:44:00.000-08:002023-12-20T04:44:33.524-08:00Day of the Giants<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZH_9ddP3vUD9uMzRHqGftRGWsz7cYA3A76WmcoOYl4KlFBTd_nDIUR6glSJEMg0oANKCO11n4JTy4VJ7NkgSEDeV8Q6z9_UjDSpauiEpzeOlsBUSueVw75YZU3u96SdUJyZQI7d3Dt2pNRT59QqUW0ljkOZEVzgT2miRC7my_S3vUxHh4c7J1nwW0CdB/s2025/del%20Rey%201959%20-%20Day%20of%20the%20Giants.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2025" data-original-width="1233" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZH_9ddP3vUD9uMzRHqGftRGWsz7cYA3A76WmcoOYl4KlFBTd_nDIUR6glSJEMg0oANKCO11n4JTy4VJ7NkgSEDeV8Q6z9_UjDSpauiEpzeOlsBUSueVw75YZU3u96SdUJyZQI7d3Dt2pNRT59QqUW0ljkOZEVzgT2miRC7my_S3vUxHh4c7J1nwW0CdB/w390-h640/del%20Rey%201959%20-%20Day%20of%20the%20Giants.jpg" width="390" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Lester Del Rey <i>Day of the Giants</i> (1959)</b><br />Firstly, the flying saucers shown destroying a city with rays of some description on the cover appear nowhere in the novel. Weirdly, I find this sort of inattention to detail on the part of a publisher often serves to indicate that something truly special is to be found behind the wildly misleading painting; and so it is here. I can't say anything I've read by Lester Del Rey ever truly blew my nuts off, but there was always, I felt, a lot of promise, enough so as to suggest there might be a genuine classic hidden somewhere in the back catalogue. It might be this one.<br /><br />Our story transports an average farmhand and his twin brother to Asgard, realm of the Norse Gods of legend. Ragnarok is approaching and so the Gods are recruiting, and the twin brother has the makings of a hero. Unfortunately our guy was caught up by accident, and being as Asgard doesn't take kindly to non-heroic types, he strives to make himself useful so as to avoid the wrath of his hosts. This he does by teaching them about gunpowder, how to make hand grenades, uranium-235, and other martial innovations which had never occurred to them, Asgard being a stubbornly traditional society. He also undertakes some pruning and restores Yggdrasil, the world tree, to full health; and his advanced weaponry aids in the defeat of the frost giants at the end.<br /><br />It probably doesn't sound like much, aside from predating Marvel's similarly urbane version of Asgard by a few years, and the story approximately distills <i>Lord of the Rings</i> down to a snappier 128 pages - unassuming rustic type travels far to battle terrible power and so on and so forth; but the telling seals the deal. Where the one about how the chess club loser defeats the thickies, so beloved of Asimov and others, is almost a genre in its own right, Del Rey writes something which <i>almost</i> feels like Simak in its good natured understatement - no lecturing, no speechifying, and Leif Svensen really <i>is</i> just a regular guy, as distinct from the former star of the Charles Atlas adverts created in revenge for some high school wedgie which <strike>Isaac</strike> the author can neither forgive nor forget. Asgardian magic is explained, or at least accounted for, without any stretching of points or ill-fitting lectures about protons, and most of the book is simply our man titting about in Asgard, making sense of things, and teaching dwarves about firearms. There's no hint of questing, nor of any attempt to get the reader's pulse racing, and it's funny without telling jokes. I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Loki as amiable and witty, but long-suffering given most of his peers being mainly about the mead and fighting; and by the time he nips back to Earth to bring back cartons of fags for Leif and his twin, I was sold. It's fantasy without the <i>hey nonny no</i>, or science-fiction which remembers that it also has to tell a story, which it does before delivering a lesson about conservatism, tradition, and the importance of taking chances; so it's a great story, well told, and it even has something to say. Wonderful.<br /><br />I always suspected he had one like this hidden away somewhere.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-7094186299774180012023-12-12T14:13:00.000-08:002023-12-13T08:46:17.283-08:00Adolf Hitler<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxcA-8SKR2Mvi2QgNV3fHScXJxiR2KKyYrk-5s4myl-utviLvS9l2n0rpBR1K5UvDXgAq5N24ABX9s7kY9U5_-FSIo6Gb3KdieYTuGcGudrIItm-pejPK1XdSnnfwR4F4-Fb-ouN8htra7m9rlT4l3h3mFTAbD2cCWd9pKj90OaSWQTvp1ZuYBn-vfJ2fe/s2762/Toland%201976%20-%20Adolf%20Hitler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2762" data-original-width="1765" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxcA-8SKR2Mvi2QgNV3fHScXJxiR2KKyYrk-5s4myl-utviLvS9l2n0rpBR1K5UvDXgAq5N24ABX9s7kY9U5_-FSIo6Gb3KdieYTuGcGudrIItm-pejPK1XdSnnfwR4F4-Fb-ouN8htra7m9rlT4l3h3mFTAbD2cCWd9pKj90OaSWQTvp1ZuYBn-vfJ2fe/w406-h640/Toland%201976%20-%20Adolf%20Hitler.jpg" width="406" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>John Toland <i>Adolf Hitler </i>(1976)</b><br />I've read this as research for something or other which will hopefully be in the bag by the time you read this, and which was itself indirectly inspired by <i>Jimmy Carr Destroys Art</i>, a sort of book burning game show hosted by the enduringly unpleasant Carr. The show was produced by Channel 4 who purchased one of Hitler's watercolours for £11,500 so that a studio audience could decide whether or not to have it destroyed, thus posing deeply philosophical questions about whether it's possible to separate the art from the legacy of its creator. I don't suppose anyone suspected that so thoughtful a presentation could ever be viewed with such controversy.<br /><br />Naturally the internet exploded in response, and I would regard most of the criticism I've seen as entirely justified, although it has since emerged that the painting which ended up shredded was almost certainly a fake. My personal view is that whether or not it is possible to differentiate the art from the artist doesn't really matter, but that book burning or equivalent is never a good look because it's better to understand evil, or that which we have come to perceive as evil, than to settle for screaming <i>this is evil</i> in the face of anyone who happens to ask; because <i>those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it</i>, as George Santayana wrote, although admittedly I actually thought <i>that</i> one was a Jim Jones original. The thing about destroying the evidence, particularly in the case of Adolf Hitler, is that it facilitates mystery and even mythology, neither of which are much use in preventing the re-occurrence of the same shit.<br /><br />Further to this, we seem to have a great many monsters these days, and whilst it's difficult to deny that Hitler became the very definition of monster, it limits the possibility of him ever having been just some bloke. This means that we've somewhat lost the ability to spot the emergence of monsters in our own time, because we can't accept that people very much like ourselves were complicit in the deaths of six-million or more Jews; and so those describing immigrants as cockroaches, for one example, are often overlooked as simply persons with strong opinions who just happen to love their country.<br /><br />Additionally, Hitler's monstrous qualities should be self-evident without having to have it spelled out for us in the name of viewing figures. Lazy fuckers attempting to score points by drawing our attention to monsters whilst screeching <i>don't you think this is terrible? Well, don't you? Don't you?</i> have really begun to bore me shitless. So, I said to myself, <i>let's discover Hitler</i>.<br /><br />Toland's biography seems to be viewed as the best of the bunch by someone on the internet, so that's why I picked it. The review I read emphasised Toland's attempts to maintain an impartial view, which sounded promising given that I'm reasonably familiar with the arguments against. The arguments against, as summarised and simplified by a million wearying science-fiction scenarios, are that he was a bit of a loser, a sad, sad man who couldn't paint, was chucked out of art college and spent his youth as a homeless for a while - the wrong sort of homeless, rather than the noble victim types we tend to prefer - and he made for a cowardly soldier during the first world war. Also he hated Jews despite probably being half-Jewish, only had one bollock, suffered from uncontrollable farting, couldn't get it up, and no-one liked him. Ha ha. What a loser!<br /><br />Unfortunately none of this turns out to be entirely true. Although he was repeatedly rejected by the art schools to which he applied and thus never actually had the chance to be chucked out, and he was mostly self taught, the notion that he had no artistic ability whatsoever is patently untrue - which could also be said of many of us. He was distinguished and even decorated for his soldiering during the first world war, and was popular amongst his comrades. His ballbag seems to have contained the traditional quota of bollocks so far as we are able to tell, and the story of his unidentified paternal grandfather being Jewish seems to have been a story told by his enemies, and as is probably obvious, he made quite a few of those.<br /><br />More curious still is the question of his antisemitism which, from what Toland describes, seems to have been poorly defined at best. He had Jewish friends in his youth, and was eternally grateful to the Jewish doctor who treated his mother's cancer, and his antisemitism seems to have been conditional, something on roughly the same level of my own grandmother's culturally characteristic regard of black people - gushingly favourable if a black person had been friendly to her in the supermarket, but otherwise synchronised to whatever she'd read in the <i>Sun</i> that week. I haven't read <i>Mein Kampf</i> and have no desire to do so, but it sounds very much like an expression of the early Nazi party's struggle to gain the popular vote - a convenient fulcrum by which to get bums on seats with a promise of saving the country from <i>those bad people over there</i>, specifically by associating the perceived threat of Communism with something a bit more tangible, namely funny foreigners. This isn't to diminish the awful influence of <i>Mein Kampf</i>, but it seems significant that Hitler himself came to regard his book as incoherent populist drivel which nevertheless got the job done. More startling still is that as the party graduated to being the only option on the ballot sheet, the awful treatment of Germany's Jewish population was never <i>quite</i> subject to full support, meaning the reduction of the historical narrative to racist Germany unanimous against former friends and neighbours isn't entirely accurate, and more closely resembles the sort of bullshit that - for example - the western Muslim community has had to endure in recent times. In other words, never mind the claim that <i>it couldn't happen here</i>, because it actually <i>is</i> happening, meaning we as a society need to be seriously fucking vigilant about what comes next.<br /><br />At least during the thirties, it seems the Reich was keen to downplay the antisemitic aspect of its program in pursuit of a more respectable image, one less likely to sour diplomatic relations with other countries, hence Hitler's disowning the thuggish brownshirt element around 1934 in furthering the support of the respectable middle and upper classes. The Kristallnacht of 1938 in which Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship were ransacked or destroyed seems to have been mainly a spontaneous uprising by the brownshirts, and one about which many of the higher-ups felt distinctly uncomfortable, and which Göring* in particular regarded as insane given the significant role of Jewish business within the larger German economy.<br /><br />So the antisemitism would seem to have been an expedient use of existing prejudices which spiralled out of control as the Nazis, and particularly Hitler, fell more and more in love with their own mythology. I state this not to diminish its significance, but rather to illustrate that the pattern is something we should immediately recognise rather than dismiss as something which can't happen again because we're much nicer these days.<br /><br />Toland suggests that had Hitler died in 1937, he probably would have been remembered mostly as a great statesman and orator, which doesn't seem such a stretch given that we've tended to overlook antisemitic or similar tendencies amongst other historical leaders simply because, for whatever reason, we haven't chosen to remember them as monsters.<br /><br />The strangest, most unexpected detail I take from this biography has been that Adolf Hitler was personable, funny, reasonably intelligent, self-effacing and likable providing you were on the right side of the argument. He was clearly a little odd and self-absorbed as a young man, which hardly makes him unique, but rendered him prone to mysticism and an intuitive faith in what he thought <i>should</i> be right to which he adhered regardless of objective reality. It's therefore not entirely surprising that he more or less completely lost it by the end, thus becoming the monster we remember.<br /><br />Toland's biography is nine-hundred pages, which is a long time to spend immersed in the most terrible period of human history, but it's mostly fascinating - excepting a few instances of inner circle politics and policy wibbling back and forth for more pages than seems quite necessary. Surprisingly, everyone comes out of it a little better than you might expect, which is also chilling because, as I say, these people were not exceptional and most of them seem unfortunately familiar. It is specifically this rendering of the Third Reich and its cast of colourful characters as approximately regular people which leaves this era seeming, if anything, more horrifying than has been made apparent by the contemporary denouncement of monsters; because it isn't Darth Vader or the Daleks. It's <i>us</i>, regardless of how righteous you may deem yourself to be. <i>We</i> did this.<br /><br />This must not happen again.<br /><br />Someone somewhere will read the above and find themselves unable to tell the difference between what I've written and an affirmation of Adolf Hitler being a great man who simply made poor choices, probably additionally pointing out that <i>actually</i> he was a monster; and so it will happen again.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;">*: I think it was Göring. It's difficult keeping track of them all.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-30513924427356000472023-12-05T14:14:00.000-08:002023-12-06T13:35:59.669-08:00Flight 714<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij8Zg-_h6Veat74I5uKnfF8Z-O-j2Md8LjNp1Ew-6YG_3DDZzR9n69KWZsN_vJNxiMY-PjTOU8o_nvJygdyj_NCccJwFZro4qUTMF-N3keXTtIwNrs7VaxF2Nte4rWAgYHsE5rDNhl7e3BJuZmi5b3-Zte512Wb2Efv494huox1EkcETw_GOjMtvwjxuXc/s3469/Herg%C3%A9%201968%20-%20Flight%20714.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3469" data-original-width="2518" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij8Zg-_h6Veat74I5uKnfF8Z-O-j2Md8LjNp1Ew-6YG_3DDZzR9n69KWZsN_vJNxiMY-PjTOU8o_nvJygdyj_NCccJwFZro4qUTMF-N3keXTtIwNrs7VaxF2Nte4rWAgYHsE5rDNhl7e3BJuZmi5b3-Zte512Wb2Efv494huox1EkcETw_GOjMtvwjxuXc/w464-h640/Herg%C3%A9%201968%20-%20Flight%20714.jpg" width="464" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Hergé <i>Flight 714</i> (1968)</b><br />Several people have told me I shouldn't be reading Tintin just as I shouldn't be reading the works of others <i>on the list</i>. Hergé was a collaborator and Nazi sympathiser, you see, except <i>as per fucking usual</i> he actually wasn't, just as it is with those other persons on the roll call of individuals denounced due to the contemporary equivalent of Rik from the <i>Young Ones</i> jumping up and down and screaming, <i>look at me, everybody, I found one</i>, because that's apparently all it takes. That said, I probably shouldn't mention that I picked this up as light relief from John Toland's nine-hundred page biography of Adolf Hitler on the grounds that it gets a bit depressing once you hit 1942.<br /><br />Apparently I just did. Never mind.<br /><br />I grew up on a farm in the middle of the rural English nowhere, and every two weeks or so we were subject to a visit by a mobile library. I was just about big enough to cope with the steps and would climb up into the rear of the truck, lined with shelves, and toddle off towards the back where they kept the children's books. The cover of this one really grabbed my attention, and so it served as my introduction to Tintin, an obsession which kept me going for the next couple of years. I came to prefer Asterix, but at the time I felt the cover of <i>Asterix in Spain</i> seemed smug and frivolous, whereas Tintin took itself just seriously enough to appeal to me as I struggled to make sense of the world. So this is possibly where it all started, whatever <i>it</i> may be.<br /><br />Hergé - not actually a Nazi sympathiser by any meaningful description unless you believe my opening paragraph makes <i>me </i>one - seemed to be on a mission to educate his audience, to send them to far flung places and cultures without patronising them, and to portray those cultures and encounters with realism and a degree of sympathy, formative efforts predating <i>The Blue Lotus</i> notwithstanding. Of course, Tintin wasn't <i>actually</i> journalism and took an occasionally speculative digression - sending the gang to the moon for one example, and <i>Flight 714</i> for another.<br /><br />If <i>Destination Moon</i> skates fairly close to the hard science-fiction of Arthur C. Clarke, this one gets even weirder in drawing on the theories, such as they are, of Robert Charroux who significantly influenced Erich von Däniken. So not only do we have the discovery of hidden subterranean temples constructed by ancient astronauts, but also telepathy, and a lift back to civilisation facilitated by flying saucer, albeit in hallucinatory terms.<br /><br />This was Hergé's penultimate Tintin adventure, assembled following failure to relaunch as an abstract artist, while significantly disgruntled by the success of Asterix, and himself somewhat bored of his own characters. This much is roughly apparent from <i>Flight 714</i> only barely having a story - and the title names the flight they <i>didn't</i> take because they ended up on this one - with nothing so complex as the intrigue and espionage of previous escapades; and the paranormal element feels a little as though Georges was simply trying to keep himself invested. Additionally, some of the background material, notably the then fairly trendy supersonic passenger jet, were drawn by assistants.<br /><br />Nevertheless, despite all that's stacked against it, <i>Flight 714</i> is a great book - just stranger than we'd come to expect. The slapstick is never far away, never overdone, and remains funny throughout; and the pacing is such that it never feels as though we're treading water, waiting for the next scene, even where the lack of obvious direction has become apparent; and of course the art is, as ever, outstanding.<br /><br />Even as the comeback album its author didn't really want to record, <i>Flight 714</i> stands with the best of them, and enough so as to have retained its charm half a century later. </span></span><br /></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-30843786044829683962023-11-29T07:42:00.000-08:002023-11-29T07:42:41.125-08:00The Man with a Thousand Names<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp_yniIjwR2lrIFA_A8_0MCqeCnChCpL1hrVbRqZ42d_S3bdLkSRRbwHQOQfzN4aLaq7lEiQoiT33rr_04Wzz5Zx0dMM_7kEuevanOFb_6J8YDfQaw8oFn5CWdzn0vAU6yL0WgN_kYrq1hKRoewCCqBQkmx60c4nGSqIEaFTxLy2evnRf031sHnsa6g0Iu/s2085/van%20Vogt%201974%20-%20The%20Man%20with%20a%20Thousand%20Names.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2085" data-original-width="1254" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp_yniIjwR2lrIFA_A8_0MCqeCnChCpL1hrVbRqZ42d_S3bdLkSRRbwHQOQfzN4aLaq7lEiQoiT33rr_04Wzz5Zx0dMM_7kEuevanOFb_6J8YDfQaw8oFn5CWdzn0vAU6yL0WgN_kYrq1hKRoewCCqBQkmx60c4nGSqIEaFTxLy2evnRf031sHnsa6g0Iu/w384-h640/van%20Vogt%201974%20-%20The%20Man%20with%20a%20Thousand%20Names.jpg" width="384" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A.E. van Vogt <i>The Man with a Thousand Names</i> (1974)</b><br />John Clute reckoned van Vogt's drive had gone by the seventies, and whilst it's probably true that his greatest work had been written a couple of decades earlier - greatest at least in terms of generating an atmosphere so weird as to smooth over instances where the narrative fails to join up - I'd say his success rate remained mostly undiminished. Sure there were a few duds, which was as true in the forties as in the later years. <i>The Man with a Thousand Names</i> kicks off in typically bewildering fashion, so I paid attention and held on tight, skipping back to re-read anything I wasn't too sure about; and for at least the first half it began to feel as though this might even be his greatest work after <i>The Violent Man</i>, possibly due to A.E.'s customarily foggy disregard for cause and effect being written with unusual clarity; meaning that providing one is resigned to the fact that not everything is going to add up, it sort of makes sense.<br /><br />Our main guy is the thoroughly obnoxious heir to a private fortune, an amoral playboy who is used to getting what he wants without having to care less about the consequences. This seemingly presents a problem for <i>Goodreads</i> types who expect <i>relatable</i> characters, but never mind. Our guy pilots a spaceship to Mittend, our nearest habitable planet, then instantaneously finds himself back on Earth inhabiting the body and life of Mark Broehm, a bartender he once wronged. This occurs a few more times, zapping his brain into the bodies of others he's screwed over, with no real explanation as to why it's happening, and it doesn't even seem to be karma catching up with our boy who remains a heel regardless, even committing rape at one point, suggesting - at least to me - that he's probably not supposed to be <i>relatable</i>. Eventually we learn that this is something to do with Mother, a sort of psychic gestalt representing the first wave of an invasion from another galaxy, by which point I was lost despite my best intentions.<br /><br />The narrative zips about at least as much as that of <i>Null-A</i> and presumably for similarly non-Aristotelian reasons, and is accordingly dreamlike, albeit a dream reported with the hard-boiled pragmatism of detective fiction; and the whole somehow reminds me of David Lindsay's <i>Voyage to Arcturus</i> in so much as that it feels heavily allegorical, even symbolic to the point of meaning eclipsing the demands of linear progress from one part of the story to another. I still don't know what it's about beyond that it's obviously about <i>something</i>, but as exercise for my brain, it felt good and was mostly gripping.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-76993517316141602832023-11-21T13:15:00.000-08:002023-11-22T13:47:55.020-08:00The Making of the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikr3PEt4sslMiftqdu_5YlchdjI_iB7qaJmwtgx9zMw_2Njnu2spkoHrd7rw0WStk6upQXe4wk54qsY1bNpYjP8X9H1RTx20ApfOe_aWFmE1VLoxiJd4lT_XQGedb-DDDK1RYH-4Vh4yYWwGIOOxkHij_qTQs90pJeHiU4W-aPbvIP7UyxrvkhL6XLNj5U/s2534/McIver%202005%20-%20The%20making%20of%20the%20Great%20Rock%20'n'%20Roll%20Swindle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2534" data-original-width="1608" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikr3PEt4sslMiftqdu_5YlchdjI_iB7qaJmwtgx9zMw_2Njnu2spkoHrd7rw0WStk6upQXe4wk54qsY1bNpYjP8X9H1RTx20ApfOe_aWFmE1VLoxiJd4lT_XQGedb-DDDK1RYH-4Vh4yYWwGIOOxkHij_qTQs90pJeHiU4W-aPbvIP7UyxrvkhL6XLNj5U/w406-h640/McIver%202005%20-%20The%20making%20of%20the%20Great%20Rock%20'n'%20Roll%20Swindle.jpg" width="406" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Joel McIver<br /><i>The Making of the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle</i> (2005)</b><br />Here's an oddity, one of a series of books examining classic movies - classic movies such as <i>Taxi Driver</i>, <i>Raging Bull</i>, <i>Scarface</i> and er… <i>The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle</i>.<br /><br />Me neither.<br /><br />I guess the general public must have been similarly mystified given that I picked this up cheap from a remaindered section somewhere in the general vicinity of its publication date. It's been sat on my bookshelves ever since, five different bookshelves given the number of times I've moved house since my presumed purchase - presumed because it's a vague impression rather than a definitive memory. I assume it's been there sandwiched between Lydon and Milligan all this time, somehow eluding even those sweeps deliberately intended to select volumes I never got around to reading. Similarly, I've seen <i>The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle</i> and don't remember much about that either. I rate the soundtrack album quite highly, and even Moorcock's bizarre pseudo-novelisation of the film is pretty great, but the movie itself…<br /><br />McIver's autopsy handily includes a scene by scene synopsis, thus allowing me to remember why I've failed to remember the thing, specifically that it was mostly existing footage cobbled together like a last minute homework assignment which cleverly admits to being crap in the hope we won't notice that it is, in actual fact, crap; plus it was McLaren's vision of the Pistols and therefore pretty much a complete waste of time.<br /><br />Nevertheless, in discussing a movie which wasn't anywhere near as amazing as I hoped it would be when I was fourteen, McIver pulls together all sorts of fascinating historical details which somehow failed to make it into other Pistols biographies, or were else so underplayed that I didn't notice. Sid, in particular, comes out of it quite well, and actual light is shed upon why he almost certainly wasn't responsible for killing his girlfriend, which is good to know; and crap as the film was, Julian Temple's justification is interesting. Even Russ Meyer comes out of it well enough to suggest his version might have been worth a look, had it been made.<br /><br />It's surprising that anyone should have found something new to say about punk rock in 2005 - or if not new, at least something obvious which hadn't been said before - but McIver pulled it off. I'm still not too bothered about watching the movie ever again, but I'm glad this thing found its way onto my shelves.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-14788634342099808612023-11-14T14:35:00.000-08:002023-11-15T14:09:23.381-08:00Star Trek Log One<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiGf9zCFslRhwssZsF2chBLxuBzPx640LCChMPWqagcxaO1534549TILx3fMWv1Xo3sYLNjoDDl3BfD5zfHRJ_Avgjuu9ZK1NJs6KowGv2StcjugEpzp9nEZwQDYXr0y6_-KQNGNTsavBxiXlDHvecyXIjIXoA1gd-QsHptvMtNBXErZtNh-zJP2OoLXS/s2054/Foster%201974%20-%20Star%20Trek%20Log%20One.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2054" data-original-width="1248" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiGf9zCFslRhwssZsF2chBLxuBzPx640LCChMPWqagcxaO1534549TILx3fMWv1Xo3sYLNjoDDl3BfD5zfHRJ_Avgjuu9ZK1NJs6KowGv2StcjugEpzp9nEZwQDYXr0y6_-KQNGNTsavBxiXlDHvecyXIjIXoA1gd-QsHptvMtNBXErZtNh-zJP2OoLXS/w388-h640/Foster%201974%20-%20Star%20Trek%20Log%20One.jpg" width="388" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Alan Dean Foster <i>Star Trek Log One</i> (1974)</b><br />While I've never been a massive unreserved fan of <i>Trek</i>, I've enjoyed some of it, and some of it I've enjoyed a lot. I watched the animated version at the time - around four-ish on a Saturday afternoon as I recall - but have never had any burning desire to revisit the thing beyond vague curiosity about the guy with the three arms who made the cut because they couldn't afford Walter Koenig. Naturally I had no idea anyone had novelised the series in those days before VHS, but they did and so my curiosity achieved the necessary critical mass because it's Alan Dean Foster - who can generally be relied upon to do a decent job in cases such as we have here.<br /><br />This one rather tidily adapts the first three episodes of the first series, the first of which is oddly familiar, so I guess I must have revisited that debut episode at some point fairly recently, unless they recycled the story for <i>Enterprise</i> or one of the other variations. On the subject of recycling, <i>Beyond the Farthest Star</i> has our cartoon Kirk and pals investigating an alien derelict of several million years vintage, formerly inhabited by massive aliens who were seemingly killed off by the thing which duly wakes up and tries to knacker the Enterprise. It's probably a coincidence that it so strongly foreshadows the half of Ridley Scott's <i>Alien</i> which didn't so strongly resemble A.E. van Vogt's <i>Voyage of the Space Beagle</i> that the father of the iconic Hovis advert ended up settling out of court.<br /><br />Yes, a coincidence. That'll be it. I'm sure of it.<br /><br />Still talking of recycling, a fair chunk of <i>One of Our Planets is Missing</i> later turned up in the 1979 movie, it could be argued.<br /><br />Anyway, <i>Log One</i> comprises three decent and generally engaging stories, all with the inevitably modular quality of <i>Trek</i> episodes, but which nevertheless manage to work some pleasing flashes of imagination into the formula. Alan Dean Foster has the reputation of being something of a hack, having written about a million of these things; but you can't really tell from this one which reads more like kin to the aforementioned <i>Voyage of the Space Beagle</i> - itself an obvious precursor to <i>Star Trek</i> - than words copied from a screen with linking material. Indeed, Foster's retelling crackles with character and jazzy asides and observations, possibly more so than most of what we saw on the telly. This isn't Terrance bleeding Dicks rearranging the usual phrases and expressions in a slightly different order to the last one.<br /><br />I'm probably not massively likely to start hunting down the other nine volumes, but neither am I averse to the idea. Being what amounts to apple-polishing boy scouts having wholesome adventures in space, <i>Star Trek</i> succeeds mainly when it does something weird or spontaneous, and Alan Dean Foster really brings out the best in the mythology*.</span><br /></span></p><p><br /><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">*: I refuse point fucking blank to refer to it, or indeed to anything as a <i>franchise</i>.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-20938857840825555282023-11-07T14:24:00.000-08:002023-11-08T12:56:23.743-08:00A William Burroughs Reader<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqsj8tFf5dk6xAdREqUSIPQSgxJahm_tHmcUiYIx-xCvGhV9XXctP5zKTgW7Bag-F15Wtp7HY0bU6wxYHqSK2WjA0P3ptX1JykxWGJ7IjtW79AOLxRJGZVglXg_hLL5b7-Y9nWzz1imOmEuklrQptsV6II-gyv8Wnt14AfKpmdZTtXptbe2Cpvk9PvV_c/s2292/Burroughs%20W.%201982%20-%20The%20William%20Burroughs%20Reader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2292" data-original-width="1501" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqsj8tFf5dk6xAdREqUSIPQSgxJahm_tHmcUiYIx-xCvGhV9XXctP5zKTgW7Bag-F15Wtp7HY0bU6wxYHqSK2WjA0P3ptX1JykxWGJ7IjtW79AOLxRJGZVglXg_hLL5b7-Y9nWzz1imOmEuklrQptsV6II-gyv8Wnt14AfKpmdZTtXptbe2Cpvk9PvV_c/w420-h640/Burroughs%20W.%201982%20-%20The%20William%20Burroughs%20Reader.jpg" width="420" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>William S. Burroughs & John Calder (editor)<br /><i>A William Burroughs Reader</i> (1982)</b><br />This was my first Burroughs, and actually the first I ever saw in a high street store, proving for me that the man existed in the real world beyond the limits of Throbbing Gristle fandom. The high street store - or more accurately <i>shop</i> - from which I purchased this book for £2.50 was Midland Educational in Stratford-upon-Avon. I know this because the receipt fell out from between the pages as I was reading on Friday the 11th of November, 2022, and I was interested to note that I'd bought the thing on Thursday the 11th of November, 1982. So I bought the book, read it, and then exactly forty years later to the <i>day</i>, I plucked it from the shelf more or less at random and decided to give it another look.<br /><br /><i>Weird</i>, as Burroughs himself would doubtless have said whilst pulling that boggle-eyed face which people do when they've just noticed something weird.<br /><br />Arguably weirder still, is that this sampler is quite a tough read, where the novels from which the various excerpts were lifted generally aren't; and given Billy's love of jamming random slabs of text together, you would think this might have been the bestest Burroughs book ever. The most surprising realisation I draw from this is that Burroughs' writing is less effective out of context, where you might think it wouldn't matter. One possible reason may be psychological in that for all their scrambled narrative, his novels tend to be quite breezy - never more than a couple of hundred pages with large type widely spaced. <i>A William Burroughs Reader</i> on the other hand crams everything in with type so small it could be an anarchist pamphlet from the eighties. It feels heavy, and it feels uphill, which works against what is communicated - or at least the means of its communication - by emphasising the disorientation. I suppose it could be argued that one is expected to dip into a sampler such as this rather than dutifully plough through the whole thing from cover to cover, but that's not how I read.<br /><br />As a greatest hits of sorts, I was expecting to glean an overview, some sort of perspective on the shape of Burrough's career; which emerges albeit in a vague sense, and although the selections communicate why one might like to read <i>The Naked Lunch</i>, <i>Cities of the Red Night</i>, and most of those which came between, this remains a surprisingly poor second to making the effort with the actual novels.<br /><br />It was nice to find a few chapters from <i>The Third Mind</i> included given that it's presently out of print, but otherwise I guess Burroughs is simply one of those authors who doesn't translate well into shorthand.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-7142616722080374582023-10-31T13:11:00.002-07:002023-11-01T14:24:28.823-07:00The Empire of Glass<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkLrSc-IbSwo25KQZ7jSysNqnvqxLhUdXx-JnNUQEna93qDT38Nzjw-6-THhyphenhyphen8YNTCqolzi_pIwjlQrNmfeHTJQPZNy7ASwh4UxLvMEeHpbw_amCcMvVeRX6L2bQ0BPlTUTTuKKoZWizIJj1EGBwup1C-dS4ou3Wde2lnxD4QK7mhjbnh835EJUUwAd8d/s2068/Lane%201995%20-%20The%20Empire%20of%20Glass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2068" data-original-width="1268" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkLrSc-IbSwo25KQZ7jSysNqnvqxLhUdXx-JnNUQEna93qDT38Nzjw-6-THhyphenhyphen8YNTCqolzi_pIwjlQrNmfeHTJQPZNy7ASwh4UxLvMEeHpbw_amCcMvVeRX6L2bQ0BPlTUTTuKKoZWizIJj1EGBwup1C-dS4ou3Wde2lnxD4QK7mhjbnh835EJUUwAd8d/w392-h640/Lane%201995%20-%20The%20Empire%20of%20Glass.jpg" width="392" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Andy Lane <i>The Empire of Glass</i> (1995)</b><br />Simply, I was in the mood for more Hartnell and had no memory of having read this - although obviously I did - thus allowing for the possibility of pleasure taken in trying to work out what the fuck is going on. Going back to old <i>Who</i> things which I thought were amazing all those years ago has bitten me on the ass more than once, but thankfully this turned out to be one of the good ones.<br /><br />By <i>one of the good ones</i> I mean it's a respectable science-fiction novel in its own right, albeit one which just happens to make use of characters and situations from a television show; and, as with Perry Rhodan, Doc Savage, Sexton Blake or any other star of the written serial, the author gets to play with an existing universe without feeling obliged to spend half the page count explaining it because if we're reading, we probably already know what we're dealing with.<br /><br />Of course, it all falls apart when you get a writer with nothing to say, no ambition beyond adding to the <i>ugh</i> - franchise or brand or property or whatever the well-dressed product-sponge-cunt about town is calling it this year; but happily, that isn't what we have here, and I'd say that <i>The Empire of Glass</i> dates from a lost golden age when quality still had the edge over quantity most of the time.<br /><br />Our man travels to Venice in the early sixteenth century, and we learn a lot about Venice because Lane does his research and additionally bothers to make it interesting, which is nice. The environment of our tale is solid and well grounded, evocatively described without any hint of box ticking, and so much so as to support an ambitiously ludicrous narrative juggling alien incursions, extraterrestrial espionage, Venetian politics, Galileo, William Shakespeare's career as a spy for the court of King James, and a flying island drawn indirectly from Jonathan Swift. There's one passage where Galileo's biography shows through with more fidelity than we really need…</span></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">As he watched, entranced, a small shape like a flattened egg that glinted like metal rose up rapidly from the far side of the island, moving upward as smoothly and inexorably as the ebony balls that he had dropped from the tower of Pisa to test Aristotle's theory had fallen.</span></p></blockquote><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">All the same, in the context of a novel which gets so much right, it amuses rather than annoys. Credibility is stretched to such a point as to border on the sort of thing Moorcock used to write, and yet everything holds, amounting to a substantially satisfying read of the kind I wish more science-fiction authors could achieve, not least a few of the better known guys, Alastair Reynolds and others.<br /><br />As with John Peel's rendition of <i>The Chase</i>, it's been nice - even oddly life affirming - to find myself reminded of <i>Who</i> as something weird and exciting and not entirely predictable.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-56328785917802385332023-10-25T13:37:00.002-07:002023-10-25T13:40:52.298-07:00The Chase <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzywL75_pW-Cig0-ajLGIxs402iETv1UyCok7_o-_SeXKZ1slTtlyoBb_JM8phIIDFZJ5O71BnJa51KFyHXnQXcZR5hXhzo0vbek3LLFJtgTUX6hNwRAlAtQpFaoupjXgoPCh4rp5OqMA8uupoC0AM8ncbyFElmMfkYlxdPfuWPbA_l34AUyOD9Ykwgr_/s2057/Peel%201989%20-%20The%20Chase.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2057" data-original-width="1252" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzywL75_pW-Cig0-ajLGIxs402iETv1UyCok7_o-_SeXKZ1slTtlyoBb_JM8phIIDFZJ5O71BnJa51KFyHXnQXcZR5hXhzo0vbek3LLFJtgTUX6hNwRAlAtQpFaoupjXgoPCh4rp5OqMA8uupoC0AM8ncbyFElmMfkYlxdPfuWPbA_l34AUyOD9Ykwgr_/w390-h640/Peel%201989%20-%20The%20Chase.jpg" width="390" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>John Peel <i>The Chase </i>(1989)</b><br />Here's another Target I bought for the sake of completism, sad fucker that I am, and fairly recently too. I hadn't read one in years and noticed that I had all but about fifteen of the things, so I hit <i>eBay</i> on the grounds that most of them were still affordable and it would give me a massive hard on to see them lined up in order on a shelf.<br /><br />Something like that anyway, and it's nice to have the option of re-reading them given that I no longer have the patience to watch it on telly. It even feels a bit weird watching the old ones which I once loved, although that's more to do with me and television in general than me and <i>Who</i>. At the risk of repeating myself, <i>Who</i> was once very special to me, and if I squint a bit - at least enough so as to occlude everything since about 2005, <i>particularly</i> the fans - I can still sense a bit of the magic.<br /><br />When I was a kid, it felt like something which got made almost <i>in spite</i> of the company responsible, something which bordered on horror - as it did in the early seventies - and a fairly extreme existential horror to anyone under the age of ten. The 1973 <i>Radio Times</i> special was mind blowing because it hadn't occurred to me that there might have been <i>Who</i> before I'd started watching, or that there had been monsters I'd never heard of.<br /><br />Anyway, I think <i>The Chase</i> may have been the first Hartnell I watched on VHS, simply because I'd taken to renting a VCR and I happened to see it in a sale. It probably wasn't a great place to start, but I thought it was wonderful regardless; and if I still frequented such places, virtual or otherwise, which rated <i>Who</i> stories in order of artistic merit, I'm sure I'd still be getting massively defensive over this particular dog's dinner. For those who spent their youth engaged in healthier pursuits, <i>The Chase</i> was apparently plotted by giving action figures to a couple of three-year olds, setting them out in the garden, then seeing what they came up with. So they start off in the sandpit, which all goes pear-shaped when someone gets their bollocks out; leading to brief experiments by the pond, or pretending the garden shed is haunted; ultimately ending up in the flower bed with a load of ping pong balls brought into play because of <i>reasons</i>. This at least saved Terry Nation the embarrassment of recycling the usual plot, I suppose.<br /><br />All the same, <i>The Chase</i> bulges with beautifully stupid ideas, even if they're strung together in a rhythm which suggests everyone's treading water until Peter Butterworth can get time off from whatever <i>Carry On</i> they were shooting back in June 1965. Nation's script did more than we saw on the screen, and Peel's adaptation makes use of this, filling in details for which neither time nor budget allowed first time around; and it's hardly Stephen Baxter, but considering the extended <i>Crackerjack</i> sketch which Peel attempts to pummel into something vaguely less ridiculous, it's not half bad either.<br /><br />The first part, as you may be aware, occurs on the planet Aridius, inadvertently presenting a harsh lesson in nominative determinism; but where the screen version was cut to the essentials of amusingly theatrical aliens and the notorious ballbag octopus, here we get something that could <i>almost</i> have been Richard Shaver thanks to just the slightest expansion of this first third of the story. After Aridius, it's mostly business as we probably expect, and not even Peel can make Morton C. Dill either funny or interesting but, you know, we're already off on a good foot, and I kept on reading, and nothing insulted my intelligence like some of the recent stuff, and mostly it reminded me of why I had once been so endlessly fascinated by <i>Who</i>.<br /><br />See! Sometimes I <i>do</i> have something nice to say about it.</span></span><br /></p><p><br /></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-27891003996189938882023-10-17T14:27:00.001-07:002023-10-18T14:13:56.628-07:00Trejo <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzYQdvvY7keDa_Po8wQ__LityfH2pUdMFRxlyXiz83snY-sdwBLry3-arsNuuIM5wirhkX5pWZfrR2N7cIIqovoiZek73-0Ng9rVphRrwnTksfYpWHMs0D7xVX2VDdfwrjY6hUsoAsdu72q7Xm9YCynTRPoGhYXu19ye4r2GvgdHa4COcqGPV-fmrSzk5Y/s2503/Trejo%202021%20-%20Trejo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2503" data-original-width="1611" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzYQdvvY7keDa_Po8wQ__LityfH2pUdMFRxlyXiz83snY-sdwBLry3-arsNuuIM5wirhkX5pWZfrR2N7cIIqovoiZek73-0Ng9rVphRrwnTksfYpWHMs0D7xVX2VDdfwrjY6hUsoAsdu72q7Xm9YCynTRPoGhYXu19ye4r2GvgdHa4COcqGPV-fmrSzk5Y/w412-h640/Trejo%202021%20-%20Trejo.jpg" width="412" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Danny Trejo & Donal Logue <i>Trejo </i>(2021)</b><br />I bought this autobiography for my wife's birthday with no particular plan to read it myself; but she insisted that I do so, and I like Danny Trejo, so I did and here we are. The two of us - Bess and myself, not me and Danny - saw the man speak at some <a href="https://englishmanintx.blogspot.com/2017/03/lunch-with-danny-trejo.html" target="_blank">vaguely charitable thing</a> to do with the opening of a rehab clinic a few years ago. He was very entertaining and I've been well-disposed towards him ever since, to the point of believing that people who <i>don't</i> like Danny Trejo probably have something wrong with them.<br /><br />I had some vague idea of the general shape of his existence, how he got where he is today, but not in this sort of detail. He was a bad ass, a career criminal, a violent nutcase, a substance abuser in and out of prison; and then he had a revelation about where his life was going, cleaned up, and has now spent the majority of his life dedicated to being a better person, and above all to helping others be better people. Never having struggled with addiction - apart from the fags, I suppose - I've occasionally found the language of recovery and its ruthless optimism a little headachey, but then it doesn't really matter what I think and if it works, as it certainly can do, then it's a beautiful thing; and by describing the context of his formerly troubled existence with such powerful clarity, Trejo really slams the message home without even a trace of preaching, or indeed anything surplus to requirements, resulting in a genuinely inspirational autobiography.<br /><br />The account of his criminal past is, honestly, about a thousand times more interesting than Genet, and framed in such a way as to involve the reader. You know exactly where he's coming from, or at least I did; and <i>sure</i>, it's a celebrity biography with two names on the front cover and at least one account of hanging out with De Niro, but it's really a great fucking book because Trejo is a great fucking guy, and he's very funny, and being a genuine tough guy, he has no need to keep telling us how tough he is.<br /><br />Edward James Olmos doesn't come out of it very well though, which is unfortunately amusing.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-7104748070927188322023-10-10T14:41:00.001-07:002023-10-11T14:24:58.851-07:00Collected Essays<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1WgUYO1S-IBB9I3JSTDIwMvTaCm4OWwGfHfyaV0SWRgfrkycpdHFIEMPokQtjEFdQeahb3rl18chMqxgac7nU84NYFwnNsH7zr2ooQduXTb9caVWyOMdt-pIz8fnt3Gs11RTlMMb2Tlo6tEthcMmqfwfu8iaPRAfHTP8-fVFMCpNysd2-Zh9EWC3KjUyI/s2090/Huxley%201959%20-%20Collected%20Essays.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2090" data-original-width="1260" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1WgUYO1S-IBB9I3JSTDIwMvTaCm4OWwGfHfyaV0SWRgfrkycpdHFIEMPokQtjEFdQeahb3rl18chMqxgac7nU84NYFwnNsH7zr2ooQduXTb9caVWyOMdt-pIz8fnt3Gs11RTlMMb2Tlo6tEthcMmqfwfu8iaPRAfHTP8-fVFMCpNysd2-Zh9EWC3KjUyI/w386-h640/Huxley%201959%20-%20Collected%20Essays.jpg" width="386" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Aldous Huxley <i>Collected Essays</i> (1956)</b><br />I've been well-disposed towards Huxley since I read <i>Brave New World</i>, then <i>Crome Yellow</i>, and more so since I discovered his association with D.H. Lawrence; and while the sheer volume of this collection (four-hundred pages, dense text, shitloads of classical references) meant it took me at least a year to gear up to reading it, I'm glad I made the effort. Huxley writes about more or less <i>everything ever</i> at exhaustive length and in painstaking detail, inevitably yielding a number of essays which went way over my head, being outside the scope of either my interests or my schooling; but for the most part he's perceptive and insightful even when navigating territory which is, for me, relatively unfamiliar. In this respect his essays remind me a little of the mighty Kenneth Clark, or Brian Sewell, or even Robert Hughes; and most of this stuff still applies today - perhaps now more than ever before.</span></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is vulgar, in literature, to make a display of emotions which you do not naturally have, but you think you ought to have, because all the best people do have them. It is also vulgar (and this is the more common case) to have emotions, but to express them so badly, with so many, too many protestings, that you seem to have no natural feelings, but to be merely fabricating emotions by a process of literary forgery. Sincerity in art, as I have pointed out elsewhere, is mainly a matter of talent.</span></p></blockquote><br /><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Written in 1931, this nevertheless neatly summarises much that is wrong with the stories we tell, social media and, by extension, western civilisation in 2022. While, focused on the work of Breuhgel for one example, Huxley's specific observations often seem to have a near universal prescience.</span></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In every age theory has caused men to like much that was bad and reject much that was good. The only prejudice that the ideal art critic should have is against the incompetent, the mentally dishonest and the futile. The number of ways in which good pictures can be painted is quite incalculable, depending only on the variability of the human mind. Every good painter invents a new way of painting. Is this man a competent painter? Has he something to say, is he genuine? These are the questions a critic must ask himself. Not, does he conform with my theory of imitation, or distortion, or moral purity, or significant form?</span></p></blockquote><br /><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">That one's from 1925, back in the days - one might suppose - when we still had the chance to learn the lessons which we are quite clearly still to take on board.</span></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The history of medical fashions, it may be remarked, is at least as grotesque as the history of fashion in women's hats—at least as grotesque and, since human lives are at stake, considerably more tragic.<br /></span></p></blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;">Elsewhere in the collection, Huxley covers more or less everything you could possibly want from him - art, music, literature, travel, politics, religion, society - without shorthand, summary or skimming for the sake of anyone failing to keep up, including me, meaning I never quite made it to the end of 1941's <i>Politics and Religion</i>. Much of what was written here fed into <i>Brave New World</i> by one means or another, and the collection also includes that <i>other</i> smash hit, <i>The Doors of Perception</i> from which the band took their name, and which is interesting but probably not so earth-shattering as its reputation might suggest. If you have the patience, Huxley's <i>Collected Essays</i> otherwise rewards the effort many times over.</span><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-26605094725643868962023-10-03T14:01:00.001-07:002023-10-04T13:37:18.321-07:00The Zaucer of Zilk<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTCKagzXegsW_m10lHtri_g6-ZGVbljQHmwAQPlR9Zw03-4Ib9HzzkzcPLw9moCXmGnbvYjT2A3lQe2rrOKmEnJZFAXTYwULoIPmE0XzyPvBqMerWD5tZQQIDDYgV8rLPtv5zEObygiqIH6c9HqNwY40uTYP4ovq5J4WNUprfNsSLoYA8px_cKCirsPUGt/s3059/McCarthy%202012%20-%20The%20Zaucer%20of%20Zilk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3059" data-original-width="1978" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTCKagzXegsW_m10lHtri_g6-ZGVbljQHmwAQPlR9Zw03-4Ib9HzzkzcPLw9moCXmGnbvYjT2A3lQe2rrOKmEnJZFAXTYwULoIPmE0XzyPvBqMerWD5tZQQIDDYgV8rLPtv5zEObygiqIH6c9HqNwY40uTYP4ovq5J4WNUprfNsSLoYA8px_cKCirsPUGt/w414-h640/McCarthy%202012%20-%20The%20Zaucer%20of%20Zilk.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Al Ewing & Brendan McCarthy <i>The Zaucer of Zilk</i> (2012)</b><br />This was one of those things I missed, having long given up on <i>2000AD</i> comic. I'd heard of it, but the title sounded like something you would expect to find in <i>2000AD</i> and thus failed to pique my curiosity; at least until I happened upon this reprint and realised it was by Brendan McCarthy - which changes everything, obviously.<br /><br />I still don't really know what to call this sort of thing, or even that it matters. <i>The Zaucer of Zilk</i> is Brendan McCarthy doing what he does best, and nothing else has really come close, certainly not <i>Hewligan's</i> fucking <i>Haircut</i> or - <i>ugh</i> - <i>Really & Truly</i>, or even <i>Rogan Gosh</i> for that matter. This, on the other hand, seems to exhibit kinship with <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>, Moorcock's <i>Dancers at the End of Time</i>, Jack Vance's <i>Dying Earth</i>, Windsor McCay, and thankfully none of the also-rans who would give their collective left one to be this strange but just don't fucking get it - looking at you, Tim, Neil, and all of your self-consciously kooky spawn - also anyone who ever mistook the Cure for a wild display of imagination.<br /><br /><i>The Zaucer of Zilk</i> tells a surprisingly traditional story using characters and settings which wouldn't seem out of place on a Nurse With Wound album, and to similarly disorientating effect but for the presence of a beating heart where one might, under other circumstances, expect to find the usual emotive button pushing. McCarthy has always been in a class of his own, but rarely has it been so obvious as it is here.</span><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7360678483868538266.post-58024686464400493522023-09-26T14:38:00.000-07:002023-09-28T13:29:40.931-07:00Nerves<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8yMYSJa3DNnFet1CHaC04tMosQkVvI6QawgCSZJaUC9gSZjKkrW1qUPlvqa5u1DbQfalUjrYlXl5qZsmwFOKB2oYQAWsZhCgS1seXoJc6xBDDkWY7px2JWbs4dVriF3W72AvRR4Ktb7Gv--yxUWwK3jbeRZOLNthIbmSBrTckvv7o_22YJhM1owMvf7ho/s2090/del%20Rey%201942%20-%20Nerves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2090" data-original-width="1233" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8yMYSJa3DNnFet1CHaC04tMosQkVvI6QawgCSZJaUC9gSZjKkrW1qUPlvqa5u1DbQfalUjrYlXl5qZsmwFOKB2oYQAWsZhCgS1seXoJc6xBDDkWY7px2JWbs4dVriF3W72AvRR4Ktb7Gv--yxUWwK3jbeRZOLNthIbmSBrTckvv7o_22YJhM1owMvf7ho/w378-h640/del%20Rey%201942%20-%20Nerves.jpg" width="378" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Lester Del Rey <i>Nerves </i>(1942)</b><br />This is the novelisation - updated and expanded in 1975 - of a shorter story first published in 1942, but Lester insists it's essentially the same thing so that's what I'm going with. With the passage of time having overtaken the science-fiction element, <i>Nerves</i> was left beached as, I suppose, a medical thriller - not really my sort of thing, but scooped up regardless for reasons described <a href="https://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2022/10/moon-of-mutiny.html" target="_blank">nearly a year ago</a>. It's set in a nuclear power plant, and the title refers to the tension which tends to mount when a nuclear power plant explodes, but also to the synaptic connections of Jorgensen, the man who knows how to stop the nuclear power plant exploding if only they can get him to wake up after the core went meltdown with himself inside.<br /><br />Having been written in 1942, <i>Nerves</i> imagines those nuclear power plants of the future in the same way that Gernsback imagined us eventually sucking baby food from feed tubes so as to dispense with the grinding hardship of chewing. The power plant of <i>Nerves</i> not only supplies power to a massive community of erm… <i>atomjacks</i> and their families, but also manufactures super-heavy stable isotopes for use in whatever sciencey stuff we'll be doing in the future; and these super-heavy isotopes found somewhere on the periodic table way past plutonium and the others are stable, as I say, so they aren't really radioactive; but even if they were it wouldn't matter because if you're exposed to radiation there are all sorts of treatments available and in certain cases you just have a bit of a rest and you're usually fine. I suppose I should just be happy that no-one develops mysterious super powers.<br /><br />Science-fiction has generally had a lousy track record in predictive terms, and <i>Nerves</i> is an example of science-fiction getting it <i>really</i> wrong. Science-fiction getting it <i>really</i> wrong can often be massively entertaining, but <i>Nerves</i> focusses on the tension, which doesn't work quite so well as it probably did in 1942, before even the immediate effects of exposure to radiation were fully understood, never mind what happens when one of the fucking things blows up. Furthermore, it attempts to weave tension from too large a cast of fairly generic characters, at least a couple of whom spend time talking about how they'll be able to pipe the waste into the local river and get rid of it that way - and these are good guys saving the day, not Mr. Burns and Smithers.<br /><br />I assume <i>Nerves</i> was pulled out and given a fresh coat of paint partially in response to just how much the public loved their disaster movies during the seventies, but given how faithful it seemingly remains to the magazine version of 1942, it seems a little like reprinting <i>First Men in the Moon</i> as a <i>Star Wars </i>cash-in.</span></span></p>Lawrence Burtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17090260063135283767noreply@blogger.com0