Bickering Gods - Reviewing the story choices of The Clash of the Titans

Love.

Love is a far more potent emotion; more virtuous, more universal, more identifiable, particularly for a hero us audience members wish to be, than revenge.


So it is not with the remake of Clash of the Titans. In which Perseus, Demi-God and son of Zeus, raised as a fisherman, finds himself in Argos to buy a new deckchair and sunshade set- no wait... finds himself in Argos and suddenly orphaned when Hades kills his family as collateral damage during the cull of some of Argos' soldiers.

The main story is elaborated with the overt tell: "Andromeda is more beautiful than Aphrodie and actually, you know what? We are the Gods" by Andromeda's mother, Cassiopeia, so that Hades appears again to wreak revenge against Cassiopeia and set the main story in motion - sacrifice Andromeda to save Argos. We've already had the Gods discussion on this issue. The duplication is a waste of screen time.

In the original it was enough for Cassiopeia to declare Andromeda as more beautiful than Andromeda. The petty jealousy of the Gods was enough to establish their want for revenge on Argos for the slight, but here in the new one the layering of reasons to exact destruction and damnation on the Argives.

That's issue 1. And it leads right on into Issue 2. The Gods are as human as humans in their bickering, scheming, bitterness, bitchiness and ego. But where is it? The only scheming going on is by Hades. The other Gods don't even get a look in. And Poseidon, who, being God of the sea, logically owns the Kraken, says but one line and is gone.

It's all arse about face with its Greek mythology. And that raises the question of why? Artistic license is a must in all forms of entertainment, but what is the point of changing a well established story, character or plot?

Take the remake for what it is, and you may be happy with the choices of plot. But then you may wish to learn the greek myth it is based on and having read that, wonder why the film makers would deviate from the Mythological Cannon. You could argue that it doesn't matter since it's just a story. But that's just it. I watched Clash of the Titans last night, the story of Perseus and Andromeda... except it wasn't the story of Perseus and Andromeda.

Which lands us on issue 3. The love story. What love story? Perseus falls for Andromeda and is driven to save her from the Kraken because of the purity of their love and in doing so he will prove himself a hero.

Not here. I should have guessed what was going on by way of the tiny screen time given to Annie. We learn enough to know she has better character than her mother, gives selflessly and is easy on the eyes. And that's it. Perseus doesn't love her in any way and isn't planning on getting with her come story end - oops, sorry, did I not say SPOILER WARNING?

Remember, this is not a love story but a revenge story. Everything about Andromeda is a side thought. Since Perseus has no love for her, since he doesn't fancy her at all, and is only on his quest to get back at Hades while throwing his toys out of the pram about wanting to do everything as a man not a Demi-God, Andromeda's fate is irrelevant.

Why should the audience really care that a beautiful woman is to be sacrificed to the Kraken? The hero doesn't and beautiful women in films die all the time, just watch the Kraken's tentacles lay waste to Argos. Lots of dead people there.

Hint to film makers everywhere: If your hero and damsel in distress share no chemistry (be it from the screen presence or dictated by the plot) then the audience doesn't care. They need to converse with each other, banter, get to know one another's character, otherwise their fates are irrelevant to each other and us.

Imagine Speed, and Keanu Reeves's Jack has absolutely nothing to say to Sandra Bullock's Annie. They spend the whole film with no banter, no flirting and only straight dialogue of go here, turn there, speed up, slow down. We get off the bus after he's rescued her... no kiss. No romance at the airport. Then, Dennis Hopper's Howard kidnaps Annie along with his money. Jack gives chase finds Annie a prisoner and thinks "Oh no, poor her". And that's it. Sure, we're all sad for Annie, being mixed up in all this and possibly about to blow up, but so what? Jack's got no relationship with her. The old woman who tried to jump off the bus and got blown up in the stairwell and went under the wheels was an awful shock but we didn't get to know her either. Collateral Damage and even Jack won't lose sleep over her, so why should he and we care any more about Annie.

Same thing with Argos and Andromeda. The plot is weakened by the choice of revenge movie over love.

Issue 4... this could go on all day. Grab yourself a sofa and a coffee. Issue 4. Adding lots of special effects, better fight scenes, and great cgi monsters does not a great movie make. Medusa, while more life like, had no attached-fear or tension. She dispatched her prey way too fast. Yes, she's a snake, and yes, perhaps in the original she is too slow, but even that wonderful movie Anaconda didn't have the giant snake whip itself all round the boat at one point and kill everyone at once. Where's the tension in that?

And what the hell is she doing being beautiful?

And, of course, Mr Tree-bark Djinn man with his blue eyes and blue heart. What the hell was that? He's not from greek myth. He doesn't even fit. It's like taking Indiana Jones and introducing aliens... no wait!

And the fact his only purpose was to go and blow up Medusa, sacrificing himself for little use, was just mind numbing. He could have saved everybody by letting them know he was going to do that in the first place. And since Medusa's lair is the place where all the soldiers get it, the scene feels like a moment to clean up the character list rather than progress the plot.

We can get rid of him, and him, and him, and him, and... then IO.

In place of the love story between P and A, we have the irrelevant IO. She's there in place of the three gifts from the Gods (sword, shield and hair-do), to help progress the plot, and let all us dullards know what Perseus is meant to do.

Perseus doesn't really fall for her either and yet at the end when she is resurrected they embrace, but why should we care?

There are so many reasons to be frustrated by this film's lack of attention to the realities of the human condition, but also to its logic. Take Pegasus for example.

Pegasus, winged horse, never ridden by a man. We meet it earlier in the story but it is scared off by the arrival of Calibos. Again Perseus hasn't trapped it, seduced it with his manly prowess or got to know it. So, why, at the 11th hour, with the moon about to eclipse the sun, and Argos about to be laid to waste by the Kraken, does Pegasus simply arrive at the right time and place, and Perseus jump aboard without needing to calm the beast?

Away they go, as if Pegasus has always been Perseus' steed. Add to that the two hunters who refused to go into the underworld, riding a scorpion across many days of trekking (and I mean, many), and getting back before Perseus (whose winged horse is meant to take but an hour or so).

Add to that the crapness of the 3D...

Clash of the Titans was not filmed in 3D. Read James Cameron's general warning. In Clash, it gives the viewer the 2D reel at the back and then all the closer objects and people as cut outs stuck on so that often you can see the flat reel behind the projected 3D object. Which, frankly, looks shit.

I've exhausted myself. :)

Oath Breaker - Wolf Brother 5

It's funny how the book world works. In movies, films are released on a Friday. Until recently, preview screenings were on a Thursday, but at least you knew where you stood. Films on DVD and Singles and Albums are always released on Mondays.

But books... it's as if the retailers don't care - so, I was able to buy Michelle Paver's Oath Breaker (book 5 in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series) on Tuesday instead of its official release date of Saturday 6th.

Crazy!

And, I've finished it. Another great stream of narrative, broken between the three leads, Torak, Renn and... no not Stimpy, but Wolf. There filters in another character's cracked up narrative for a brief moment to develop the plot and build tension but we stick rigidly to these three characters for everything.

And Paver makes sure to entwine us with the emotions of these characters, endearing them to us even when they're making the wrong choice, getting lost on the quest, or beating themselves up for their failings.

Sometimes there's no warning. Nothing at all.

Your skinboat is flying like a cormorant over the waves, your paddle sending silver capelin darting through the kelp, and everything's just right: the choppy Sea, the sun in your eyes, the cold wind at your back. Then a rock rears out of the water, bigger than a whale, and you're heading straight for it, you're going to smash...

Torak threw himself sideways and stabbed hard with his paddle. His skinboat lurched - nearly flipped over - and hissed past the rock with a finger to spare.

Streaming wet and coughing up seawater, he struggled to regain his balance.

'You all right?' shouted Bale, circling back.

'Didn't see the rock,' muttered Torak, feeling stupid.

Bale grinned. 'Couple of beginners in camp. You want to go and join them?'

So it begins, and while the last book started more thoughtfully, and this one with a spruce of action, we can already see that Paver is a master of maintaining her style and garnering reader interest.

And I've still learnt so little of these skills.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, Oath Breaker... out now. Read it. It's good stuff.

The Book Thief - Reviewing Elements

Those of you not part of the Litopia phenomenon, one of our latest brainwaves is to host a book group, so as to discuss varying elements, issues, styles and likes/dislikes). We've been reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief this month, and having a little discussion on it. I include my thoughts here also (not least to fulfill the criteria of my NAW course - I have been doing stuff really, teacher):

The Book Thief - Opening

I started the Book Thief long before the book club, and got to 100 pages before setting it down and having then to pass it onto another reader (damn library books and patron requests). Of course the reason I set it down were due to the book's lolloping narrative, something that I did not feel had become a problem until about page 50.

The opening in particular, I found very interesting and we immediately get a sense of Death, of our narrator, and the style in which we are going to be presented the narrative throughout the story - there will be no surprises later on with the introduction of bullet points, narrator asides, or the pre-chapter summing up. They're all present right there at the beginning.

It's like Zuzak has gathered his tool box together and set out what he wants to use on the first pages as a reminder to the style he will stick to, throughout.

However, what does change is the narrative style - later chapters flow with large swathes of description, whole paragraphs filled with what's happening. The opening chapters are very bitty.

It has to be difficult to set up Death as a narrator and present us with his foibles and indiosyncracies:

Quote:

First up is something white. Of the blinding kind. Some of you are most likely thinking that white is not really a colour and all of that tired sort of nonsense. Well I'm here to tell you that it is. White is without question a colour, and personally, I don't think you want to argue.

It raises the question: "What is Zuzak doing here?" since the story is supposed to be leading us toward a meeting with Liesel, but instead we're discussing the finer definitions of the colour white. It's unnecessary, and I wonder if Zuzak started off writing in the voice of Death to get a feel for his narration, and then chose to put all the woolly wanderings into the book simply because he'd done all the leg work of writing them!

By 50 pages in we've forgotten the discourse on colours, so why bother us? What purpose does it have?

Style

The style is an interesting one, as I mentioned in the previous thread:

Quote:

The opening in particular, I found very interesting and we immediately get a sense of Death, of our narrator, and the style in which we are going to be presented the narrative throughout the story - there will be no surprises later on with the introduction of bullet points, narrator asides, or the pre-chapter summing up. They're all present right there at the beginning.

Each part begins with a breakdown of the following chapters (like Pratchett's Going Postal) except that these aren't entirely the chapter headings. They're more thematic than that:

Mein Kampf (P.133): the way home - a broken woman - a struggler - a juggler - the attributes of summer - an aryan shopkeeper - a snorer - two tricksters - and revenge in the shape of mixed lollies

Some of these are chapter headings, others regard content. But the effect is to give us a sense of rhythm, a brief overview (of what to look forward to - if any of you really relished moving on - wow! a snorer! That'll be interesting!) and potentially, for Zuzak, a way for him to keep track of what happens when and where.

But what purpose do they really serve? Are they just a device for maintaining the style, or something more?

Do we remember them by the end of the chapter, or part? I'd say a definite no. Perhaps, even by page two of a chapter, I'd forgotten what the chapter was called.

Do we pay enough attention to warrant them? Are they cookies meant to keep us reading (in a similar way to Zuzak repeatedly foretelling someone's imminent, or not so, death) - would we not bother continuing without them?

I mean, it's a good -enough- story, but it seemed to lag - like a biography. We know it has to reach the otherside of the war (wouldn't we all be very angry if the book ended halfway through and we closed the last page thinking that for the characters who remained, the war was yet to end), and so, aside from the so-and-so is soon to die (so it goes), The Book Thief doesn't have a particular narrative drive - we just dip in and out!

The Word Shaker was about standing up against the Fascism - in a way it's like standing up the lies and bigotry and the loud-shoutiness of all man-made cults, dogmas and doctrines. Here are two characters prepared to stand against the stupidity of the sheep, because their truth is far stronger than even the loudest of Hitler's screaming rhetoric... but, but...

I understand the story's meaning, just not why the tree died at the end of it, and what that was supposed to mean

Story/Plot

Hitchcock's bomb (not his box, which is, obviously a discussion on McGuffins)...

Take page 505, finally we reach Zucker's death - and this has been foretold many-many pages before it occurs. This gives us a distinct lack of surprise when it does happen - we don't have any invested interest in this particular character, so is Zuzak turning a wasted opportunity on its head and giving us something to expect, to wait for (he does indeed do this a lot).

Hitchcock (as I believe Robert McKee states in his book Story) that if you had two people discussing a situation at a table, perhaps they're dining there, and after a time the table explodes, and they both die, then, short of the shock factor - oh my - and the confusion... what do we go away with?

Not a lot.

Now, what if we have two people at a table, let's say they're dining again, and chatting away, and Hitchcock lets us see that there is a bomb sitting under the table, right where the couple can't see it. And we can see that there is a countdown, and we, the audience, know that the couple don't know about the bomb, and don't know about the countdown, and we do the little maths and realise that they won't escape in time, and that no one is coming to pull them away, then we have a form of dramatic irony.

We are in a greater position of knowledge than the characters - which creates a sense of tension, and spurs us to remain glued to our seat, our fingers on the book, our eyes to the page.

The pay off is that we've seen it coming and long hoped for a reprise, for saviour or deus ex machina - and it hasn't come. In Rudy's case we have come to like Rudy, and join in his adventures (adventures that are in no way diminished by constant reminder of his foreboding death).

The fact is, if I'm cynical, Zuzak would have had no real means to keep his readers reading without this kind of cookie to entice the reader on. The narrative plods, is more biographical of accounts that action/adventure/thriller, and the problem a lot of us have had in sticking through with it is largely, I believe, down to a distinct lack of anything big or attention grabbing.

That's why foretelling Rudy's death and continually reminding us is a bit of a cheat.

Also, it could seem that Zuzak is arguing in some fashion against Shoah (there's no business like Shoah-business) getting all the limelight - "My German ancestors had it bad too, you know!" he seems to say. "We were stuck here, bound by the fervour of our zealots, without a word or opportunity of rising up against it all."

And that is probably the biggest factor in people not feeling fulfilled by the piece at all - it's like setting the original Star Wars trilogy entirely from Lando Calrissian's pov (oh, I've lost the Falcon, oh the Empire are being mean to my friend, and now proposing to leave an Imperial garrison! And now I've got to lose Bespin and go fight too... Sigh)

A far better book that touches upon this level of bigotry, but doubles-back to trully show and deal with the effects is Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. The protagonist has it largely easy, even when the Taliban get going - and then he flees Afghanistan altogether.

The key being that he still has a link to that place, has unbridled guilt, and must return to right a wrong, an in so doing endanger his life.

General Thoughts

A couple of thoughts on the Book Thief

# P.148 (A tell as a marker that leads us into a show):

Soon, her sedated condition transformed to harassment, and self-loathing. She began to rebuke herself.

'You said nothing.' Her head shook vigorously, amongst the hurried footsteps. 'Not a goodbye. Not a thank you. Not a that's the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. Nothing!' Certainly, she was a book thief, but that didn't mean she should have no manners at all. It didn't mean she couldn't be polite.

# P.157 (phraseology to match mood and subject):

'Johann Hermann,' she said. 'Who is that?'

The woman looked beside her, somewhere next to the girl's knees.

Liesel apologised. 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking such things...' She let the sentence die its own death.'

The woman's face did not alter, yet somehow she managed to speak. 'He is nothing now in this world,' she explained. 'He was my...'

# P.175 (as above):

The road was icy as it was, but Rudy put on the extra coat, barely able to contain a grin. It ran across his face like a skid.

# P.329 (Death's Diary - here we're sidelined in the story to join Death):

What's the point of this sojourn? To tell us more stuff that Liesel or anyone in Molching would otherwise know. Death allows Zuzak to frame the narrative in the wider story of Nazi Germany and all the evil that happened. It's a bit of a cheat, and like his little asides (the tells), it's a bit distracting, but it does have purpose.

Also, it's interesting how he leads back into the story (P.332), linking us in with the wider picture:

Unknowingly, she awaits a great many things that I alluded to just a minute ago, but she also waits for you.

She's carrying some snow down to a basement, of all places.

Handfuls of frosty water can make almost anyone smile, but it cannot make them forget.

Here she comes.

# P.333 - Backtracking / flashback:

We start in the present (of the story) developing Liesel's present situation and physicality, and then scoot backwards:

Opinions varied, but Rosa Hubermann claimed that the seeds were sown at Christmas the previous year. The twenty-fourth of December had been hungry and cold...

# P.437 - Juicy descriptions:

A wooden hand swiped at the splinters of his fringe, and he made several attempts to speak.

Understanding Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - No Spoilers

There are certain types of film - I believe - that can only be properly reviewed by the people who have previously enjoyed them. A successful franchise can only be appreciated by those that have championed their greatness.


Imagine listening to Christopher Tookey (from the Daily Mail) as your be-all and end-all critique on the latest Indy flick knowing that he's rated the original three poorly (on the grounds of childish excess and fast-paced but limited story). It's just not a fair review. The bases are already loaded... so don't do it.

You want to listen to me instead... though, I rated the Phantom Menace 5 stars (just like Empire Magazine did) when it first came out. I'm sorry people, please forgive me. I won't make the same mistake twice!

That is exactly why I'm having so much trouble reconciling myself with the latest Indy movie: I saw Temple of Doom first, aged 7 or 8. Mum and Dad had rented it in 84/85 and I chose to watch it on a Sunday morning instead of Gummi Bears. Raiders I watched first at my grandparents, and then Grail I saw with my Mum in the cinema, aged 10, back in 1989.

All three are adult-orientated action adventures, but rated PG to allow kids to enjoy them too, and of course that's where the magic is. Kids buy into a lot of stuff that adults find jarring or difficult to accept. But, the Indy series has prided itself on being action first and foremost, mcguffin to keep the ball rolling and ensuring that the fantastical doesn't arrive until the last reel:


In Raiders we have no manifestations of the Ark's true power until it's on the boat, searing the Nazi symbol from the crate and making the rat go crazy - by the time we reach the opening of the Ark, we expect something horrendous and ghostly to manifest.


In Temple of Doom, voodoo, possession and ripping of hearts before sacrifice come midway, but these are examples of earthly-based "magic" that has never been proven or disproved (heart rending aside, Derren Brown could prove voodoo magic through the power of suggestion, I bet). Besides, you never seen anything physically manifest. No devils or demons arrive on behalf of Kali or Shiva to wreak their vengeance. And though the Sankara stones glow and are too hot at the end for Mola Ram to hold, the suspended-disbelief has been earned.

Let's not go into the dining scene with the eyeball soup and monkey brains - Lucas and Spielberg were trying to play up the comedic assumptions of the west against the east. Knowing that it's tongue in cheek and watching just a few weeks ago (I'm purportedly an adult now) just shows it up to be seriously misjudged, and wryly amusing.


So, Grail, in which the quest remains legitimate until the final reel again - the Grail Knight is a grey surprise in an earth-toned film. For me he never did work properly (I mean, what would he really have done in there for 700 years?) Anyhoo, it's even more jarring by the fact that the three trials Indy faces to get to the Knight are physically realised traps and puzzles rather than ghostly effects. The Grail itself is a great idea

Lucas and Spielberg go to great lengths to bind these movies in realism, and then tweak the mythologies to provide a little freakishness, something different, and for the public to bite into, and to maintain their "high-concept idea"

For Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the goodwill of the audience is stretched right from the start - and I don't mean in the age of Indy, (it is jarring and we feel sorry for him being that old) we very quickly forget he's 60 and the adventure rolls on. You can't help but get caught up in it all, to laugh, to tense and to be moved by John Williams's score - it's all expertly constructed to maintain audience enjoyment and with Lucas and Spielberg the two people we should feel most comfortable with.

However, the "mumbo-jumbo", if you will, is there from the beginning, and though the story follows the template of the previous three with maintaining ground-based, earth-realm concerns, chases and peril, the film-makers sprinkle the "other-world" bits a lot-lot more. At least it feels that way. But, when the mcguffin is on screen almost as long as Indy, that's going to happen. And it's all there as a means of getting you used to the final reel in which, I'm sorry, you're going to be tested in your support of story, film-makers, and, as I said, goodwill.

However, I think I love this film!

I love Indiana Jones, what can I say?

That we're moved ahead 20 years, and it's the 50s with all that that encompasses: Elvis, Greasers, Reds, Atom bombs, nods to what's happened in between for "Colonel Jones" - sorry couldn't resist that (it's a wonderful little moment when we learn he's done a lot of work for the war effort), and also that in his job he's taken on the name "Henry Jones" as a nod to his deceased father.

The movie's opening salvo stutters through the first 5/10 minutes as we try to get up to speed with Indy's situation, push ourselves to accept he looks as old as my dad (and I don't want my dad to be in that kind of danger), and force ourselves to accept we start at Area 51 in the Nevada desert (yes, we are at the Ark's final resting place - ooh) and everything that that encompasses.

But it hits its stride almost immediately afterwards. And what a ride. You cannot be disappointed. Because the film ticks all the right boxes, makes all the right nods to the films past and is Indiana Jones (for crying out loud). You can't despite it's momentary failings (a horrible-horrible-horrible Tarzan swing through the trees for Mutt), the ants take it a bit far and the Vulcan mind-meld is... sorry, wrong film (!)

But, I think the film really speaks well for the time in which it's placed. It's not better than the others, but it "mostly" fits well in the Indy cannon. I can't say anymore than that because you need to form your own decisions about which way you swing when you realise the real intent of the film (I personally feel the film-makers have been a bit over self-indulgent, yet, I think I love the film). I'll have to see it again.

SORRY - SPOILER ALERT:

Okay, I have to get one proper spoiler in - though it happens within the first 15 minutes -

Be careful now, you'll have to highlight the text to read it:

When Indy escapes from the Russians he finds himself in the perfect world of the Atomic bomb testing site in Nevada valley. It is the most surreal, awkward and upsetting scenario, not-least for the fact that it's another jarring point against what Indy Jones films have been about (deserts, jungles and earth tones). Here we are in the staid and pressed formica world of mid-class America, except its a setup to see the results of the 200 kiloton bomb hanging over the city... and Indy's only got 1 minute to escape!

Now, that was nail-biting stuff - real horror (and I'm 29). They can make you squirm with delight even though you might be an adult.

Identifiable Goals

Writers should fear treading unwarily in the creation of their epic. I've recently slogged my way through the smallest of King's Dark Tower installments - The first, the Gunslinger - and I feel absolutely bereft of care for either the Gunslinger or his world.

Where did it all go wrong? King's series has a stalwart following of millions and it's written well - I've seen some choice skill uses that have helped to inform my writing - but its sprawl has a single purpose - to find the Dark Tower... oooh!

It's not clear why, and though the Gunslinger's world has turned to pap and there seems nothing else for him to go back to, I am left wondering what the point is (and let's face it, there's 7 titles in the novel series, and I started out by reading the interesting Gunslinger Born graphic novel - so, I cheated and Wiki'd the whole thing to find out how it turns out - shudder).

It's clear to me that while King has his reasons for putting the Gunslinger on his quest, it doesn't come across to the reader with any emotional weight - "I've just got to go there". It's all kind of Neo from the Matrix going to the Architect's room and realising the loop of things. Sigh! Do readers want that kind of ending? To go back to the beginning?

Oh, sorry, didn't I say Spoiler alert?

Anyhoo, there it is. A wasted journey - I'm sure it has its themes and messages, but where's the resolution, and apart from a very personal mission for the Gunslinger, where is the feeling of world-in-jeopardy, or other people at least (I'm talking again about the first book here). The third main character of the book is off'd without ceremony and plenty of foresight and no one cares - least of all the reader.

That King rewrote portions of the version I'm holding to make it work within his finished series proves the point: he was writing blind.

Needless to say, I didn't hang around to read the first chapter of the next book.

Mortal Engines

I have traveled vast distances in my search for the holes in my own writing logic, particularly YA novels such as Reeve's Mortal Engines which is a cracking bit of fiction - a high-concept idea welded onto a story of self-discovery:

In this post-apocalyptic world, after the Sixty Minute War destroyed North America, population centres have re-built themselves as traction cities and towns. They travel around the globe, the stronger destroying the weaker. The story is based on London’s attempt at global domination by destroying Shan Guo, the last remaining free state of the world. Valentine, a top archaeologist, is responsible for locating MEDUSA, a weapon so powerful that it can destroy whole cities. However, Tom Natsworthy, an apprentice historian; Katherine, Valentine’s own daughter; Bevis Pod, an apprentice engineer and Hester Shaw, a young disfigured girl, all strive to prevent London using MEDUSA.

- Heinemann Resources Sheet

Extract:

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

In happier times, London would never have bothered with such feeble prey. The great Traction City had once spent its days hunting far bigger towns than this, ranging north as far as the edge of the Ice Wastes and south to the shores of the Mediterranean. But lately prey of any kind had started to grow scarce, and some of the larger cities had begun to look hungrily at London. For ten years now it had been hiding from them, skulking in a damp, mountainous western district that the Guild of Historians said had once been the island of Britain. For ten years it had eaten nothing but tiny farming towns and static settlements in those wet hills. Now, at last, the Lord Mayor had decided that the time was right to take his city back over the land bridge into the Great Hunting Ground.

It was barely halfway across when the lookouts on the high watchtowers spied the mining town, gnawing at the salt flats twenty miles ahead. To the people of London it seemed like a sign from the gods, and even the Lord Mayor (who didn't believe in gods or signs) thought it was a good beginning to the journey east, and issued the order to give chase.

The mining town saw the danger and turned tail, but already the huge caterpillar tracks under London were starting to roll faster and faster. Soon the city was lumbering in hot pursuit, a moving mountain of metal that rose in seven tiers like the layers of a wedding cake, the lower levels wreathed in engine smoke, the villas of the rich gleaming white on the higher decks, and above it all the cross on top of St. Paul's Cathedral glinting gold, two thousand feet above the ruined earth.

Here we have an unforgettable opening, but Mortal Engines doesn't stop there. The reader is propelled immediately into the world of Tom Natsworthy, and before we know where we are, his world is thrust out of London and onto the packed-earth of out-country. Aside from its originality it doesn't once stop for a breather or a description of the wider world without relating it to the characters, where they are, how they're interacting. And it does it without an ounce of pretension - it's all in the style.

In the quoted passage above we have the description and then we're related what London has been up to recently and in that recap (a backstep rather than a flashback) we get more description of places. And then we're onto the feeling of the people of London, their interpretations of the situation and their hopes.

I must learn to condense more, move on from a single emotion and develop my story like Reeve. Reeve doesn't wallow in one emotion, he deals with it and moves on, always pushing the plot.

Character/Narrator POV and Interlaced Descriptions

Coming out of another dark spot of self doubt I've been reading much and wide - recently finished Scar Night by Alan Campbell (who worked on Grand Theft Auto). Brilliant book, had me gripped all the way.


After my last slap down I got angry with myself, my inability to write something pacy, coherent and interesting - then I reworked my opening chapter... again. But I'm still not happy, despite Solvejg giving his thumbs up (with caveats). I was worried that there was still no pace to it (though, I'm probably too close to it at the mo' to realise - a kind of word blindness). I felt that the reader just floated along with the description. And it just has no place right up there at the front. So... I needed a breather. I'm kind of wrong, despite needing to do some more work (always more work), but what could help?...

What's great about Scar Night is that it's begun to yield some secrets about the construct of chapters - and, at times, I've begun to make use of them in my writing (mostly subconsciously). Let's look at the opening:

Chains snarled the courtyard behind the derelict cannon foundry in Applecross: spears of chain radiating at every angle, secured into walls with rusted hooks and pins, and knitted together like a madwoman's puzzle. In the centre, Barraby's watchtower stood ensnared. Smoke unfurled from its ruined summit and blew west across the city under a million winter stars.

Huffing and gasping, Presbyter Scrimlock climbed through the chains. His lantern swung, knocked against links and welds and God knows what, threw shadows like lattices of cracks across the gleaming cobbles. When he looked up, he saw squares and triangles full of stars. His sandals slipped as though on melted glass. The chains, where he touched them, were wet. And when he finally reached the Spine Adept waiting by the watchtower door he saw why.

'Blood,' the Presbyter whispered, horrified. He rubbed feverishly at his cassock, but the gore would not shift.

The Spine Adept, skin stretched so tight over his muscles he seemed cadaverous, turned lifeless eyes on the priest. 'From the dead,' he explained. 'She ejects them from the tower. Will not suffer them there inside with her.' He tilted his head to one side.

Below the chains numerous Spine bodies lay in a shapeless mound, their leather armour glistening like venom.

'Ulcis have mercy,' Scrmlock said. 'How many has she killed?'

'Eleven.'

Scrimlock drew a breath. The night tasted dank and rusty, like the air in a dungeon. 'You're making it worse,' he complained. 'Can't you see that? You're feeding her fury.'

'We have injured her,' the Adept said. His expression remained unreadable, but he pressed a pale hand against the watchtower door brace, as if to reinforce it.

'What?' The Presbyter's heart leapt. 'You've injured her? That's... How could you possibly...'

'She heals quickly.' The Adept looked up. 'Now we must hurry.'

Scrimlock followed the man's gaze, and for a moment wondered what he was looking at. Then he spotted them: silhouettes against the glittering night, lean figures scaling the chains, moving quickly and silently to the watchtower's single window. More Spine than Scrimlock had ever seen together. There had to be fifty, sixty. How was it possible he'd failed to notice them before?

So begins the Deepgate Codex. A brilliant entry point into a series that is well founded on equal part description and action, with a pace that never lets up. It's not often that I finish a 500+ page book in a week, and when I (a slow-slow reader) do, the book must be good - Shirley?

Here we have the prologue entry, a 7 page section that precedes the main events by 2000 years (hmm... let's not get into a discussion on the finer points of prologues and whether they should be used or not - here it's employed specifically to introduce 2 main characters: the Angel Carnival, and the city of Deepgate. Being 2000 years before the main narrative, it sits better as a prologue).

Anyhoo, let's look at what we get...

• Paragraph 1 - The character of the city of chains is evoked in one punchy paragraph. Description to set the scene and locale.
• Paragraph 2 - A "real" character walks onto the scene and as they arrive, we have them interacting with the scenery, showing clothing but always making it act or react to the location. It never tells us what he's wearing. Instead we know he had a lantern because the lantern's swing knocks against the chains and throws light about, illuminating the scenery. He wears sandals, we learn, because the floor is slippery. And finally we arrive at a specific place (The watchtower door) and another character.
  
• Paragraph 3 - Brief dialogue and character reaction to... blood! We learn he's wearing a cassock because he rubs the blood onto it. Emotionally, we get "horrified" and the "gore would not shift"
  
• Para 4 - We meet the 2nd character, and have a quick bit description with dialogue - and here came a big epiphany...

The narrator, in Scar Night, is third person limited, but... the narrator, having chosen the first character to align with (Scrimlock), describes things from the chosen character's pov. So, when the narrator writes: "The Spine Adept, skin stretched so tight over his muscles he seemed cadaverous, turned lifeless eyes on the priest", it's not so much the narrator's observation but Scrimlock's.

And this is what I've not noticed prior to this book. That 3rd person pov is not an excuse to separate ourselves from what is going on; the emotion, the feeling of being there. Why didn't I see this before?

This explains why later in the book we get recaps of certain things we have already covered - because we've entered a new character and now they're observing it.

Scar Night - Official Website
Chapter 1 Extract - Pan Macmillan

The Memoirs of Ludlow Fitch

The anti-climactic ending to F.E. Higgins's The Black Book of Secrets does not detract from either the message of natural justice or stark setting of a victorian age... at least I thought it was victorian. Dark Dickensian influences were abound.

The narrative turns that utilised the full extent of Higgins's three-way setup (Ludlow's diary, the confessions and the 3rd person narrator). They were ways of presenting information to the reader without relying upon other convoluted or contrived methods that would either have required out of character (for the book) info dumps or multiple povs from a many number of characters.

The ending is muted somewhat by its very nature with crisis averted and the reader informed as to what has been concerning Ludlow with his nightmares - and it's not strong enough to carry the suggestion that he has been weighed upon heavily by his "sin". The frog was too obvious a setup (but then, I am an adult... aren't I?) and Joe's reveal was as expected.

And yet... and yet, I couldn't put it down! Higgins has great ability to streamline her scenes, dip in and out and along with ease.

This in particular is of great importance to me at the moment since I seem incapable of choosing when to start a scene, how long to wallow in it, and when to get out again before the reader's eyes roll back in their head. While Higgins spends many a paragraph in describing the characters I waste many of mine in relating past incidents I hope will inform the reader upon the character. I don't feel that either is of particular importance, but then, I've still to learn much about brevity.

So, Higgins... a good read, and the concept stays with you even if the story itself disperses.

Podwatch Review the Litopia Podcast

The first major review of LITOPIA AFTER DARK has appeared on Podwatch... and it's a HIT!

You could be forgiven for thinking a podcast hosted by literati would be stuffy and outdated, but that does not begin to describe those involved in Liopia. Rather, the show is accessible to any reader or writer with an interest in the area, and the discussions are interesting, entertaining and contemporary. When I speak passionately to someone about how great podcasts are, Litopia is precisely the sort of thing I would use as an example. The subject matter is too narrow for most TV or radio, but for their target audience this podcast will be a godsend.

Over the past 2 years, podcasting has gone from a handful of enthusiasts talking about technology, to a thriving community of content creators — both independant and mainstream.

There are now thousands of podcasts to choose from, which sounds great until you try to find a favourite. I believe it is the future of broadcasting, but there is a lot of dirt to dig through before finding a gem. This is where Podwatch comes in — every week I will do the hunting for you, and will provide comprehensive reviews on the best and worst of podcasting.

- Podwatch

As a regular panelist I'm so pleased with this development. It's a real sign that Peter Cox continues to be the defacto Word-pusher on the web. Certainly it is a brilliant outcome since Podwatch only reviews the top podcasts in their genre, and the Litopia podcast is being compared to shows that attract hundreds of thousands of listeners - The Best on the web.

9.5/10 Overall If you are a writer, or simply someone interested in literary culture, Liopia should be a permanent subscription in your podcatcher. Cox is likable and does a great job at covering all the news you will need to stay in the know.

You can read the full review here.

Or, you can listen to Podwatch's Tom's podcast on Litopia here.

Adapting History

As the adaptations of the adaptations of history go... The Other Boleyn comes across quite enjoyably. Though I'm certain our viewing last night was made far more giggly by the inclusion of the back row who seemed determined to laugh at every inappropriate bit of dialogue or act in the script. Although no one was laughing when Henry, having offed Catherine of Aragon (and worse, annulled the marriage through the exciting decision to take the English church in a very different direction from the... er... real church), charges into Anne's chambers and forces himself upon her from behind.

No one was laughing then. Least of all my historian friend mumbling beside me, "That never happened."

But of course, this isn't history. It's melodrama at the English courts, Tudenders for the 1500s. We can't expect the course of history to run as smoothly as it did in real history (not that it did at all).

I've previously spoken of my disdain for works such as Becoming Jane in which the writers and filmmakers made the rather dim decision to take Jane Austin's fiction as a jumping board for the fictionalisation of her life simply because they felt their was a market for it. My wife and I only managed to get 30 minutes in before stopping the film in disgust - why watch a wholly fake representation (no one really knows Jane Austin's true life story), when her books and their film and tv adaptations are so much better?

Anyhoo, Boleyns. Where this fictionalised history really starts to ramp up the falsities is long before I noticed, but that's behind the point, I grew bored of history at A-Level. But, everyone who's anyone knows that Henry was in a hunting accident that left him lame. Henry never stayed at the Boleyn's house to go hunting there, and it certainly wasn't while pursuing Anne, who refused to give up on pursuing a stag, that he had the accident.

Further in the annals of irregularity, Anne is tipped is the elder sister and thus top on the affections list, giving rise to conflict when Mary is chosen by Henry (after Anne's actions leave him lame), and yet Mary was the elder in reality. I guess the filmic people felt that the public wouldn't believe that the younger sister would ever have delusions of grandeur and be so ambitious.

Note that I said the filmic people. Philippa Gregory's novel, though ambitious in its own liberties with the facts or suppositions, isn't as blase as the film. Anne, for example comes back from the French court at the beginning, she isn't sent there midway through for her crimes. The girl who would be Elizabeth I was never taken away by Mary at the end to go live with her (as heir to the throne she'd stay in the royal creche).

And, to imply that Anne was the one who decided that Henry should annul the marriage to Catherine, AND split from the church, AND start up the Church of England, AND AND AND... is completely crazy!

He was led by his manhood and his need to secure a male heir, and Anne did become a serious power behind the throne, but she wouldn't have had such power before.

Internationally renowned novel critic Dr. James Higgins (who has a PhD in Historic Literature from the University of Australia) said of Gregory when he reviewed The Other Boleyn Girl:

"Philippa Gregory has created a mesmerising work of fiction, seamlessly intertwined with historical fact. While her list of sources may give some reason to believe her novel contains more fact than fiction, it is quite clear to me that Gregory has gained a knowledge of the basic storyline, as well the culture and customs of the Tudor Court, and embellished and dramatised it even more (if that is possible). She hints that she does indeed believe that Anne Boleyn was innocent, but changed her story in order to create a more shocking and scandalous situation. At the end of The Other Boleyn Girl one cannot help but feel sorry for Anne Boleyn, and one gets the feeling that Gregory feels the same way, as she attests to in a later book (The Boleyn Inheritance)."

- Wikipedia

So, even Philippa made up some stuff, but that, my historian friend could stomach. I think she wanted (even after the film) to like it more than she had, but she admitted that she loves the book and if anyone wanted to borrow it they'd have to prise it out of her cold dead hands. So, even historians love fictionalised accounts.

Given the rise in the misery memoirs... several of which are now being outed as mostly fake, should we be surprised that history is constantly given a shake up? Does it make it any better when we are already told it is ficiton? Certainly in the bookshop you can't mistake Philippa Gregory as a fiction novelist... but this is harder for the mass audience to assume in a film (even the Elizabeth films weren't entirely accurate). We are told the the truth is in the detail. Does it matter that this is constantly being smudged?

Cloverfield & No Country For Old Men

It's not often that I do a double-whammy at the cinema, but yesterday I took the hit and kind of got the order wrong, choosing the fast-paced Cloverfield before the slow-burning and understated No Country.

Best to do them t'other way round, I think now. So, last first: No Country was good. Slower than the book. But still very good. Worthy, indeed, of anyone who likes a character movie that doesn't explain overtly the decisions a character makes.

Cloverfield on the other hand, is Blair Witch meets War of the Worlds meets Godzilla. It's a B-movie, a popcorn movie, rarely any sense that anyone knows what's going on, but absolutely brilliant. It's scary, it's dizzy-handycam work and you can't help being sucked in.

Anyhoo, was hoping to get Juno in too, and write a lot more here, but seeing as it's holiday time in exactly one hour, I've got to get ready.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Published in 1987, Watchmen was hailed as peerless, groundbreaking and a masterwork. It has sat in the recesses of my mind as cipher to something I could never even contemplate. I'd never read it, never even seen it and yet, somehow, that image of the smiley yellow face, soiled by the blood stain was ingrained on me.

It is only now as I read Alan Moore's amazing piece of work in its entirety that I begin to see what a wonderful creation it is. It has so many themes and ideas, works on so many levels, and weaves intricately between the characters and the plots, sifting through back stories of these multi-faceted, psychologically complex adventurers that I am amazed that it was conceived in a time so backward as 1987.

How could I not have read this earlier? As a child? As a teen? As a writer? This stuff is dynamite.

From Wikipedia:
Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternative history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union (the Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight). It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings, and who - with one notable exception - lack anything recognizable as super powers. Watchmen's deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism, multi-layered dialogue, and metafiction, has influenced both comics and film.

Since it is due out next year in movie format (a scenario the writer, Alan Moore, detests the thought of - neither V for Vendetta or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen faired particularly well) I had to get my hands on it, and I insist that you do too.

Not least for the following reasons:

From XKCD:

• Watchmen isn't a world of moral absolutes. None of the characters are Superman or Spidey. Their lives don't revolve around the notion of wholly good logic and what must be done to save people. The Watchmen are driven to protect their own ideology of what is good, or patriotic, or best for the planet, or best for themselves.
• They angtsy, driven by human desires and character flaws that we've only seen in the likes of poor dark Batman (you'll have to forgive me as I'm only a pseudo-comicbook geek)
• These aren't superheroes. They wear costumes, but aside from Ozymandias and Dr Manhattan, they operate on technology and strength alone. They're vigilanties, not superheroes.
• Sub stories cross over one another, linking disparate scenes and or dialogue with each other to match or symbolise what is happening in another scene.

The themes run very deep throughout the entire plot. It raises the question about men with causes (women too... obviously) - people who have given their entire lives over to a certain issue or situation, for example, fighting against racism or homophobia, antiwar, save the rainforests. What happens to these people when their cause is gone or removed from them. When they no longer have to fight that which they have elected to fight?

While by the end of the story we have the overarching theme of "Who Watches the Watchmen", particularly in its attempts to show the characters going to whatever odds to preserve peace, throughout we are struck by the sadness of losing one's place in the world, and being misunderstood because of it.


It is also interesting to think of how very special this piece of work is and how lucky we are that Moore has so brilliantly devised his plot, especially considering what it has given us as off shoots (just as George Lucas gave us so much when he created Star Wars). However, there is a flipside... there are so many novels and comic strips, and movies, and songs, that are so derivative of that standard formula that Watchmen has eschewed. These derivatives, created after the likes of Watchmen and Star Wars still leak out into the ether as if wonderous and complex creations such as Watchmen never existed and never raised new questions about character and plot creation and moral issues.

I am set in my mind now to write a young adult novel that is as morally ambiguous as Watchmen, that isn't oh-so Harry Potter in its appeal, and that changes allegiances between books from one side to the other... because life is complicated and it isn't all cut and dried. And most importantly, people lie to protect themselves and their ideologies. So few of us our good, moral people. We always let slip, don't we, just to make our own lives easier.

I think it's time we had a YA novel that reflected that.

Here's hoping I can pull it off.

I Am Legend - Adapting A Story

I Am Legend is in its fourth incarnation, following the book, by Richard Matheson, the Vincent Price film The Last Man, and Charlton Heston's The Omega Man. A story that is half character-play on the loneliness and psychological effects of being without human contact for three years and half horror-actioner, which, for the most part, works on both counts.

I'm not going to discuss the film as a review, because you can get those all over the place on the net. You don't need me for that. What interests me is the adaptation aspect of going from a book to a film. I gave a brief rundown of the book back in June, and you can read that here - again it's not a review as such, and I was also strict with myself not to give the ending away - just in case the new film ended on the same note.

Sadly it does not, and I will have to break the Spoiler code in order to discuss it - but I will advise you when I'm about to do that. So, what am I trying to do here? I'm trying to highlight areas of failure between adaptations.

Let me first say that I am usually of an open mind with book to film adaptations - Lord of the Rings I accepted with no concern about the little changes, the minutiae omitions and the jiggling of the timeline between The Two Towers and Return of the King. Harry Potter too would have been far too long with everything left in. LA Confidential excelled in taking a different course, Equilibrium's failings were elsewhere (and following the book would have made for a weak film anyway), The Golden Compass had lost nothing in its screen translation... so, why is it that, despite having already intended to write about the adaptation of I Am Legend, I'm disappointed by the options the filmmakers chose?

General Troublespots

I can accept much of what the film is because it is essentially about the isolation, and while this makes for slow moments that probably won't lend themselves well to repeat viewing it does draw you in to Robert Neville's inner world. However, in typical Hollywood fashion, explanations are glossed over with shortcuts or ignored. For example, in the book Nevilleis immune because, he suspects, he was bitten by a bat when holidaying in Panama. The film gives no explanation of why Neville (of all people) is immune, and just so happens to be a Colonel and the Scientist attempting to stop the virus.

Secondly, Neville falls into a trap that throws the last half of the film into its tense-filled action sequences (which I'm all for). The nature of the trap however is questionable. The trap is designed exactly the way Neville has been setting his traps (he captures the dead/vampires/mutants / infected so as to test his serum on them) and is far too elaborate for the infected to concoct, yet Neville (having lost his marbles for little apparent reason, and no, I didn't buy it) gets himself caught in the trap and wakes as the sun goes down with the Alpha Male infected and infected dogs bearing down on him - it seemed to present the infected as having prepared everything, and yet this couldn't be true (since the only other things they do is attack, climb, destroy, headbut and eat). The flipside is that we hadn't had enough evidence of Neville's mini-psychosis. He just wouldn't have put himself in that position and we needed more examples of him losing his marbles (more than just wanting to chat to the lady in the shop).

There is a big argument in favour of the infected having set the trap - the Alpha Male appears to have a beef with Neville (1. When Neville takes the female infected, the Alpha Male risks the UV light. 2. The Alpha Male is at the trap, clearly intent upon getting Neville - he at least has higher brain functions. 3. In the denouement he pushes past all the others and is the one to headbut the partition, trying to get at Neville). In the book Neville's old neighbour seems to portray the more self-aware infected and this is potentially a throwback to that, though in the case of the film it is poorly pulled off, since those discussing this point cannot agree on a solution. There is insufficient evidence for either camp to be right, and this is the fault of the filmmakers.

Psychological Evacuations

A big part of the book is the psychology of the vampires, that the virus as a biological agent that alters the victims physically and psychologically. There is no reason for them to fear mirrors or crosses and yet they do. They are allergic to a compound in garlic and their skin is too fragile to withstand UV light. All fair enough. Neville is very interested in trying to understand why they fear mirrors and crosses, since neither can harm them in anyway - a throwback to an indoctrinated belief by the infected that they really are vampires.

This is a wasted opportunity in the film where it prefers to deal instead with the God debate (which is actually shoe-horned in at the last minute). The book is about psychology to its very core: Neville dealing day-to-day with his isolation and the loss of civilisation; the two kinds of infected and their psychological fears; and, the book's outcome which is a brilliant twist on the notion of being a legend - more on this later.

Unfortunately the film eschews the investigations of psychology by labeling the infected thusly (instead of vampires). As such it places the badguys in the typical Hollywood positions of the brainless goons whose only purpose is for in-scene tensions and action sequences (the Alpha Male aside).

The Ending (Spoilers)

So, here we are. I can cope with much of what went on with the film. I don't mind that Neville was a colonel and not a normal guy, that his family died in a helicopter crash and not infected, that its present day, not the 50s, that his day to day business and what he endures at night is completely different, he has a dog from the start, even that he isn't infiltrated by another woman (of questionable origins). It's fine - films and novels work differently and have to rely on their own toolkits to keep audience interest.

What didn't work was...

1. God versus Science

I suppose I have to give the film credit for trying to argue this case. The book is clearly pro-science as the cause and solution. Neville in the film argues for science but when Anna arrives they argue over there being a higher purpose. Given that this is shoe-horned in only once Anna is introduced in the last third we are given a very different story idea from that with which we started.

2. Symbolism

Once we reach the end we have an overt bout of symbolism shoved down our throats. Sam, the dog, watches a butterfly, Marley, Neville's child, makes a butterfly with her hands and Anna has a butterfly tattoo, and upon seeing the tattoo (having previously disregarded Anna's assertion that God has a purpose) remembers what Marley had said and realises God is telling him to act - sheesh! Symbolism in films is meant to be subtle so that those of us who want greater depth to our stories can look for them and discuss what they mean. They're not meant to be used in a way that says: "Look audience, the clues were here all along, this is a story about God's path... yippee!"

It's as cheap as the ending of The Reckoning (don't even get me started). And of course, the first thing we hear when Anna reaches her final destination, is a church bell - oh, wondrous saviour - this seems to be an attempt to appease the Catholic League as a complete reversal to The Golden Compass, by actually saying we must all believe in God.

What we have, as many people have noticed, is 28 Days Later by way of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. An interesting but wholly flawed concept.

3. Altered States

This, we realise, is meant to draw us away from the original ending (of the book, and possibly of the movie). As a side note there was some hoo-har about the original ending of the film, in that test audiences didn't like it and/or Will Smith gave away the ending during a press conference in Tokyo.

There has been a definite change, since the following image from the trailer, is not in the final film (hmmm)...4. The Title's Meaning

I didn't give away the ending did I? Well here we go... In the film Neville gives Anna a vial with the cure and sacrifices himself. She can then travel north (as she was originally going to do), taking the cure with her - the cure being Neville's Legend. Though, really this is just his legacy.

In order to understand just how disappointing this is for those of us who read the book and buy into the original intent of the story, you too need to know the original ending.

5. I Am Legend

In the book there are two types of infected - 1) the dead who are pretty much as they are in the film, mostly psychotic monsters, 2) the living who have the same symptoms (aversion to sunlight and garlic but who still have their own mental faculties).

The fact that there are two kinds is key. In the book Neville goes from building to building locating infected and killing them. They are induced into deep sleeps during the day as a way of keeping away from the light and to Neville, not knowing that there are two kinds of infected, both types look the same. Of course, towards the end we discover that he has been killing both kinds.

The living infected are trying to start a new civilisation. They have become mutated or evolved (if you will) and must put up with what they've got. And they would be able to move on (they too kill the dead infected), but for the fact that the monster, Neville, is killing them. They are in fear for their lives because Neville will come for them and wipe them out.

As such, they set about trying to trap him in order to kill him, and this is why he is Legend. And since the book is all about perceived psychological scenarios and beliefs (isolation / doing good / fear of benign objects such as crosses) and the fact that Neville's actions have made him (as the minority) the monster (the Grendel character). He is a Legend among the living infected.

6. Concept of the Adaptations

Of the other two adaptations, neither chose to use the title I Am Legend, despite Vincent Price's The Last Man Alive being far closer to the original concept. This is ever more interesting when considering that the latest film cops out on the ending, chooses a different theme and subverts the meaning of the title with a weak and saccharine view that seems to work for everyone but those who read the book. I guess they fell in love with the title! But how wrong can an audience's expectations get? With the original two movie adaptations the omition of the original title gives them license to go where they please with the story... with the latest, they're giving a nod to the original text (as they do with much of the concept, character, and idea) but they're relying upon the "coolness" of the title without being gutsy enough to remain faithful to the concept.

Again, the quick and easy answer is that it doesn't matter. It's a title and writers / directors have free license to make a film any which way they please. So, why do I feel it needs to be said to all writers to be true to your audience? Because, as I argued in the latest Litopia Podcast (Is Story Dead?) that an audience does not need to know what will happen at the end before they get there (as Alex Kavallierou stated) but that they need to have a sense of the ending - comedy / tragedy. There are conventions that must be followed.

Akiva Goldsman (prolific Hollywood writer - A Beautiful Mind; I, Robot; The Client) - actually his scripts are standard fare (top-Hollywood grosers certainly, but nothing special) - has been quoted as acknowledging that fans of the book will be annoyed by what happens in the film.

"Fundamentally I think that there's an obligation to attempt to be true in spirit to the source. And you have to make a determination about what the source is…"

- Firstshowing.net

Interestingly, another writer made this comment:

Do you know how weird it is to see Will Smith on the cover of a book called "I Am Legend" as the hero of the story only to open up the book and read that the guy is an alcoholic smoker of English-German descent with blond hair, a scraggly beard and blue eyes? It throws you for a second and makes it hard to read at first because you have to push everything you have seen in Warner Bros.' attempts to market this film out of your mind.

It is an interesting concept about misleading an audience, and it harks back to the remake of The Italian Job, which wasn't a remake at all - it used names, locations and the mini chase, but replaced absolutely everything else. It comes down to a marketing ploy - the filmmakers aren't making the original because they think they're going their own - better - way, but they are piggybacking off the success of the originals by way of saying to all the fans: "You loved that, you'll love this, and we'll lie by implication because we won't admit until after you've seen it that it's going to end differently."

And while I must say that the latest film version of I Am Legend is good in its own right, we're all missing out on the potential for a much better version (the book version) because the writers think (and have failed) they can do better.

Sigh! Lesson to be learned: follow the original or use a different name.

Sharing Reviews on Sea Room

As with the other week's shared review session of Sarah Water's The Night Watch, this week, in our last book group session for the NAW (National Academy of Writing) Reading into Writing module, we brought in our reviews of the last text - Adam Nicolson's Sea Room. We all kept in mind the points covered by our tutors (check the link above for hints on writing a balanced and fair review), and here is mine:

Nicolson’s love for the Shiant Islands is clear from the outset of Sea Room’s narrative. He is as keen and determined to relate the kingdom of the islands and his experiences as it appears he was to have his own boat built so as to sail there alone. So passionate is he about this very personal world that the book is brimming with deeply engaging anecdotes and colourful descriptions, stretching back through time to give the reader as much of a panoramic view as they might get stood at the head of the na h-Eileanan Mora.

Visceral images are plucked from the features of the land and the inhabitants as if, at times, Nicolson were writing a literary novel intent on unearthing the great mystery of the Shiants. But he’s not, and here the reader needs to be on guard. Sea Room is ostensibly a meshing of travel and history-cum-biography. The poetry of his writing manages time and again to fish ever more words from the briny depths to describe the land, the sea and all that is in between, while never once giving the reader a sense of repetition. The profundity with which historical, ornithological and archaeological facts are investigated and excavated are both staggering and exhausting.

Sea Room is at its best when related to Nicolson’s life, his observations, and his endeavours to reach and live on the islands. The building of Freyja, the dangers of the Sound of Shiant and the Blue Men, and the arrival at the Shiants themselves are all standout moments, expertly interspersed among discussions of ownership and introductions to bird migrations. Alas these are all to be found in the first half of the book. What were originally Sea Room’s strengths get caught in a riptide that thrusts the reader out among the swelling information so that the book and the islands begin to feel ever more cramped. At the half-way mark Sea Room drowns readers (who only have a casual interest) in heavily-excavated archaeological evidence and endless discussions on the presence, or lack thereof, of seabirds.

Nicolson revives reader interest towards the last third of the book, again picking up his warming writing once more. However, one gets the sense that the book’s intent lies as much in wanting to disperse Nicolson’s detractors – who would have him removed as owner and the land given over to the RSPB – as it does in presenting a grand understanding of island life.

It's a very differnt review from my last one, opting rather than using the author's own words against himself (as I did with Sarah Waters) but covering more of the subject matter. I made a clear attempt to use metaphors that relate to the text to give a singular feel to the whole thing and in this case my view is more balanced than the last (I suppose it helps that I liked it more).

The Golden Compass - Northern Lights - Review

So, I went to see The Golden Compass on Sunday night, and I wasn't looking forward to it... why? Because all the critics had bemoaned the thinning of its content. The theological discussions were gone, the anti-christian sentiment had been eradicated. There was little left but a quest movie. Pah!

Why would I want to see something so skinny? Well, let's get this straight - it's not anti-christian, it's anti-controlling-power, and the magisterium is still in it, and there is enough references there for people to know what it all means. As for the theological. So what? It's been cut back! Who cares, it's still there, it's still obvious, and as with all other book to film renditions, the subtext can easily be read by the intelligent simply by picking up the book - that's the wonder of books, they're there to fill in the gaps in the movies.

I was thoroughly impressed, and though I bow to the omnipotence of Lord of the Rings, there is no way that Golden Compass doesn't sit alongside the quest movies of Star Wars and Harry Potter. They're all geared towards family viewing, they're all light on theology, they've got good vs bad... in fact this is a far better film than Harry Potter. There's so much more to it, not least Dakota Blue Richards's acting ability. Aside from some of the silly ways in which the script writer has attempted to insert Lyra's common pronunciations (as in from talking normally to the odd cockney moment) she is perfect.

The daemons work wonderfully on the screen and the polar bears look great. I would have preferred the full ending, but I understand why this has been put back to the second film... if there is ever to be one.

Unfortunately the American public haven't bothered to go see it, and I fear this amazing story is going to fall at the first hurdle. It's a shame, because it is such a brilliant story.

Sharing Reviews on The Night Watch

On Wednesday in our last Reading into Writing seminar, we shared our initial reviews about Sarah Waters's The Night Watch, as an exercise to show that there are an infinite number of ways to review something, and to give us immediate feedback on what we have done, so as to advise on avoiding certain pitfalls. Especially in our case, where we only had 400 words in which to construct our reviews, word-use is essential and meaning is everything.

And, as the eight of us proved, there are so many ways in which to write a review, from the reviewer who discusses how the book affected them, to the reviewer interested in the timeliness of the work; reviewing the contents and the meaning; reviewing the structure and conceit, reviewing a personal response; a review shaped by the characterisation. Of course there's always the hatchet job. These can all be used in a much longer evaluation, but we didn't have that luxury.

My review of Sarah Waters's The Night Watch
- this version unedited (after in class comments)

“… people in the 1940s had become heartily sick of bomb stories…”[1] says Sarah Waters of her lesbians in the blitz showcase The Night Watch, touching upon the very problem that 1) she came up against in her writing, and 2) ultimately dispirits the reader.

Award-winning author of Tipping the Velvet and Affinity, Waters has cultivated a niche for intelligent, homosexually-charged fiction and escaped what might be considered a limiting genre: period lesbianism. This makes The Night Watch all the more conspicuous in its failure to capture the romping nature of her previous work. Not because she is mining the same sexual framework but because she has backed herself into a corner with her approach.

“It was the period which followed the war which really interested me, that bleak, shabby, exhausted time of social change and moral readjustment.”[1] says Waters; a feeling that, on the page, translates too well. The reader feels the ebb of hopelessness – let it not be said that Waters cannot elicit emotion with her fiction – in the plodding pace and tone, but ultimately feels detached. The characters are lost in every sense – physically, psychologically, spiritually – tripping over a morose reverie that makes the reader pray for the 1950s. It is interesting, therefore, when Waters realises that the story is going nowhere and starts part two three years earlier.

This is where the story falls apart. The book, constructed and published in reverse order, does, through Waters’s skill alone, execute nice revelations and reader epiphanies. But these aren’t enough to carry the book. Its nature, lacking any tension outside of the microcosm of any one scene, drags the reader to the final page and leaves them grasping at where the plot went with a bitter and unsatisfying taste of hindsight.

Not least is the hindsight more obvious than with the character of Kay, who, through the blurb, website descriptions, and the book’s opening, is presented as the main protagonist in this ensemble cast. It is her actions around which much of the plot revolves and she who the reader suffers the most sympathy for when all is said and done. But, for the majority of the first third she is little more than a phantom, and is forgotten about.

“Fundamentally a novel about disappointment and loss and betrayal.”[2] says Waters, who perfectly conveys the motivations and decisions of her characters, but who should have, rather than rehash the direction of the book when she herself lost interest, started from scratch

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[1] http://www.sarahwaters.com/ints.htm - Guardian Article, Sarah Waters – January 2006

[2] http://www.afterellen.com/Print/2006/4/waters.html - AfterEllen.com, Malinda Lo – April 6, 2006.

I think, if any of them were hatchet jobs, mine came closest. But at least the class like that mine was an immanent critique and I was praised by the tutors for taking the interesting slant of using Sarah Waters's own quotes and using them against her.

Points of note

Our tutors had the following to say on not only reviews themselves, but on the transcripts of our discussions on the books we had covered previously:

The sheer variety of responses on Moodle has been an eye-opener that has made me re-evaluate the books, and I hope some of that can be captured in your reviews. Antithetical. Expanding ideas, but achieving some kind of unity as a piece of writing. There’s a drive to unify a response, when actually the dispersed remarks on Moodle are more interesting – the melding of the two is the difficulty. All too often a review can be a conduit for the self-importance of the reviewer. The challenge is to say what we really think without being pompous. There is no one way, no template. There is a sense of a horizon of expectation, but should one give in to it?

Of the reviewer or the book the book should be the most important.

Arrogance comes often from insecurity. We can resist it without failing to be an ‘authority’. It’s a difficult trick to pull off, but we have to try. The US tradition of deconstruction – find a fissure, an impasse, and look at how a text unravels, and the position of the critic too is undermined – and yet, at the same time deconstructionists reach neat conclusions! One needs to find a humility to be true but authoritative.

What to avoid in a review

• Ensure the writing doesn't drive the reviewer's thought - don't get caught up in flowery prose, or your own literary flow; avoid pure value judgements and puffery.
  
• Don't make wild references - the reader needs to feel intelligent, and they won't if they don't understand metaphors / allusions / comparisons. Always ask if the reader will understand. This also strikes to avoiding distracting the reader from imagining the book itself.
• The review requires at least one encapsulating paragraph to make the reviewers standpoint clear.
• Try to stay focused, don't start ponderously, and don't go off on a tangent to fulfill some personal need / interest.
• A good review will give a sense of the novel without giving away important moments or the ending.
• Word use is important. A growing list, such as "Rounded" and "Nice" are more commonly thought of as cliché. The TLS publish lists of words and phrases that are out of fashion.
• Second to Word clichés, is Journalistic clichés.
  
• Avoid the hatchet job, there is always a middle ground, where negative attitudes can be express without disrespect.
• Some reviewers carry themselves as much a part of the review and are read specifically for their voice - regardless of what they are reviewing and yet not at the expense of the work - and if you can turn a nice phrase and develop a distinctive voice then reviewing might be ideal.